PCT is the first thing I’ve encountered that seems like it can make real headway in understanding the brain. Many thanks to PJ, Kaj and the others who’ve written about it here.
I notice that all of the writings about controllers I’ve seen so far assume that the only operations controllers can perform on each other are to set a target, push up and push down. However, there are two more natural operations with important consequences: damping and injecting noise. Conversely, a controller need not measure only the current value of other controllers, but can also measure their rate of change in the short term and their domain and instability in the long term.
Stress seems like it might be represented by the global rate of change and oscillation in a large group of controllers. That would explain why conflicts between controllers induce stress, and why reorganizations that eliminate the conflict can reduce it. Focus meditation is probably best explained as globally damping a large set of normally-oscillating controllers at once, which would explain why it’s calming.
Injecting noise into controllers allows them to find new equilibria, where they’ll settle when the noise goes away. This seems like a likely purpose for REM sleep. The very-high activity levels recorded during REM using EEG and similar methods suggest that’s exactly what it’s doing. This would predict that getting more REM sleep would decrease stress, as the new equilibria would have fewer conflicts, and that is indeed the case.
If fMRI studies can confirm that the brain activity it measures corresponds to oscillating controllers, then combined with meditations thar dampen and excite particular regions, this could be a powerful crowbar for exposing more of the mind.
PCT is the first thing I’ve encountered that seems like it can make real headway in understanding the brain. Many thanks to PJ, Kaj and the others who’ve written about it here.
I notice that all of the writings about controllers I’ve seen so far assume that the only operations controllers can perform on each other are to set a target, push up and push down. However, there are two more natural operations with important consequences: damping and injecting noise. Conversely, a controller need not measure only the current value of other controllers, but can also measure their rate of change in the short term and their domain and instability in the long term.
Stress seems like it might be represented by the global rate of change and oscillation in a large group of controllers. That would explain why conflicts between controllers induce stress, and why reorganizations that eliminate the conflict can reduce it. Focus meditation is probably best explained as globally damping a large set of normally-oscillating controllers at once, which would explain why it’s calming.
Injecting noise into controllers allows them to find new equilibria, where they’ll settle when the noise goes away. This seems like a likely purpose for REM sleep. The very-high activity levels recorded during REM using EEG and similar methods suggest that’s exactly what it’s doing. This would predict that getting more REM sleep would decrease stress, as the new equilibria would have fewer conflicts, and that is indeed the case.
If fMRI studies can confirm that the brain activity it measures corresponds to oscillating controllers, then combined with meditations thar dampen and excite particular regions, this could be a powerful crowbar for exposing more of the mind.