The paper discussed in that interaction can be found here without a paywall.
As stated then (the conversation can be taken up from about here if not earlier), I think it’s quite likely that simple control circuits can be found in facets of motor response; but Powers, Marken and Eby had been talking about control theory in cognitive domains (like akrasia) as if they could isolate simple circuits there, and my search for any kind of evidence turned up only this sort of embarrassing tripe.
And really, the math here is important— it’s not a matter of disagreeing with interpretation, it’s the plain fact that a generic model with 4 free parameters can be tweaked to precisely fit 4 data points, and it’s clear from the paper that this is what Marken did. You simply need more data points than free parameters in order to generate any evidence in favor of a model; the fact that he never mentioned this, and instead crowed about the impressive fit of his model to the data, indicate either gross ignorance of how mathematical models work, or outright intent to mislead (coupled with an utterly incompetent peer review process.)
The gauntlet remains thrown, if anyone wants to point to an experimental study which demonstrates a discernible control circuit in a cognitive task (apart from tasks, like tracking a dot, which have an obvious motor component— in these, I do expect control circuits to be a good model for certain behavior). I would be surprised, but it would suffice to give credence to the theory in my eyes.
The paper discussed in that interaction can be found here without a paywall.
As stated then (the conversation can be taken up from about here if not earlier), I think it’s quite likely that simple control circuits can be found in facets of motor response; but Powers, Marken and Eby had been talking about control theory in cognitive domains (like akrasia) as if they could isolate simple circuits there, and my search for any kind of evidence turned up only this sort of embarrassing tripe.
And really, the math here is important— it’s not a matter of disagreeing with interpretation, it’s the plain fact that a generic model with 4 free parameters can be tweaked to precisely fit 4 data points, and it’s clear from the paper that this is what Marken did. You simply need more data points than free parameters in order to generate any evidence in favor of a model; the fact that he never mentioned this, and instead crowed about the impressive fit of his model to the data, indicate either gross ignorance of how mathematical models work, or outright intent to mislead (coupled with an utterly incompetent peer review process.)
The gauntlet remains thrown, if anyone wants to point to an experimental study which demonstrates a discernible control circuit in a cognitive task (apart from tasks, like tracking a dot, which have an obvious motor component— in these, I do expect control circuits to be a good model for certain behavior). I would be surprised, but it would suffice to give credence to the theory in my eyes.