Agent Plus Environment

Meandering along a street in Georgetown recently, I looked out at the throngs of people, walking in pairs and groups and singly, ethnicities as varied as their unseen motivations in walking out that day. I saw them, and felt apart; not disconnected or of some different species, an outsider looking in, but in the way of feeling that I was more self-aware at that moment. A single cell in a much larger organism, looking out and seeing the workings of all other cells. It was a knowing that I could see us all, self-organizing sacks of meat composed of so many tiny molecules, marvelously complicated and simple at the same time.

Hierarchies of behavior, heuristics for selecting actions, emotions and motivations influencing them all. Somehow self-aware, conscious of being, conscious of our consciousness. And I, in that moment, more conscious than the rest, looking at the curve of the road, the brick buildings squeezed up beside white-painted shops and little restaurants, the cars and trucks speeding by, and the people, all blissfully ignorant of everything at my level of awareness.

It was a feeling of awe. If I were a religious being, perhaps I would say I felt the hand of a god, touching me then, showing me the vast oneness of the universe. But I am not, and so I interpreted the feeling otherwise: not a part of any great unity, no; merely one agent existing in a world and conscious of that existence. Marveling at that existence — that any clump of matter could build a society, could conquer the land and sea and air, could walk briskly down a cement sidewalk thinking or not thinking of the weird complexities of the animal brain that made any of these accomplishments possible. That we could organize ourselves such that societies are possible, and so are streets, and restaurants, and cars.

Sometimes it strikes me like that: The realization that all we are, all we ever are, are clumps of molecules bumping around. We have motivations, emotions; we have what feels like intentionality and we speak to each other, creating stories and lies and truths. But we are not special. We have no meaning. The most marvelous thing of all is that we have no more meaning than the simple biologically-inspired, behavior-based robots I created for my thesis. Agents, existing in and interacting with a world. Fascinating, brilliant agents.

Moments like these, wondering at how any of us can exist and marveling at how we do and are conscious of it, I know I picked the right thing to study. That I can be here, writing about the meanings we create and believe, is stupefying and wonderful.

Rock on

Are you familiar with perceptual control theory? If you aren’t, the basic idea is this: People are not rocks. As Philip Runkel puts it,

“Living creatures behave very differently from lifeless things. Unlike a rock, a human does not just sit until something bumps it.”
– Philip Runkel, “Casting Nets and Testing Specimens,” pg 75

The idea is, organisms and agents and people get a bunch of different sensory inputs. They have some internal standards for what they want that set of sensory inputs to be like — some desired state of the world. The difference between how they want the world to be and what the world is actually like drives what they do — what we see as behavior.

The reason this is appealing to me? Perceptual control theory (PCT) says we’re not just input-output machines. Behavior is goal-directed and purposeful.

It’s a useful theory if you want to figure out why people are doing what they do and how to avoid or mediate conflict. Everyone has internal standards that they’re trying to control. As Runkel says,

“[M]ost of us very often act as if we expect other people to behave like rocks. And when we act toward other people as if they were rocks or blankets or typewriters or teacups, we make unending trouble for ourselves. It is true that people do have some features in common with rocks and typewriters. There are, however, important differences between living and nonliving things that most of us overlook time and time again, and to our sorrow.”
– Philip Runkel, “People as Living Things; The Psychology of Perceptual Control,” pg 14

If you want to learn more, I’ve found you a nice list of articles, an informative Less Wrong post a friend linked me to, a comprehensive website, and Google.

And yes, talking about PCT really just was my excuse to share those lovely quotes from Runkel.

Habits are hard to break

Right now, I have no blue bin in which to pile my cardboard, glass bottles, and tin cans. Checkout clerks look puzzled when I say, “I brought my own bags.” My apartment complex advertises its own convenient trash compactor.

It wasn’t until I was faced with a lack of “Be Green!” signs and a deficiency of bins for recyclables inseparably paired with every trash can in sight that I realized just how ingrained in me this behavior is. Yes, that’s right, I am trained to recycle.

I’m okay with that. I like recycling. It leads me to wonder, though, what other behaviors I’ve picked up without consciously deciding to do so–I’m sure there are plenty of them. Which won’t I notice until some outside event disrupts my pattern of behavior? Which habits are good habits; which exist as conventions simply because nobody has bothered to change them?

Regardless, I’ll take my five-cent discount for each reusable shopping bag, thanks.