Military Hardware to Mental Health: Perceptual Control Theory with Warren Mansell, PhD
No Way Out
PCT in Robotics and AI Research
Warren reviews PCT-based robotic controllers and their parsimony compared to black-box AI approaches.
What if everything you thought you knew about human behavior was backward? Imagine discovering that we don't actually control our behavior at all—instead, our behavior is merely the observable side effect of our brains controlling what we perceive.
Professor Warren Mansell, a clinical psychologist and expert in Perceptual Control Theory (PCT), takes us on a mind-expanding journey through this revolutionary framework developed by physicist William Powers. Drawing from control systems engineering, Powers recognized that living organisms operate fundamentally differently than most psychological theories suggest—we're not stimulus-response machines or prediction engines, but sophisticated control systems organizing our behavior to make our perceptions match our desired states.
The implications are profound. Psychological conflicts arise when different control systems within us fight over the same variable—like wanting to both remember and forget a traumatic memory. Consciousness itself emerges as a spotlight moving through our hierarchical control systems, helping resolve these conflicts through reorganization. This explains why activities that temporarily downregulate our habitual control patterns—from deep conversations to meditation to psychedelics—can lead to transformative insights.
For leaders and organizations, PCT offers a powerful lens for understanding human dynamics. By recognizing that people are controlling
John R. Boyd's Conceptual Spiral was originally titled No Way Out. In his own words:
“There is no way out unless we can eliminate the features just cited. Since we don’t know how to do this, we must continue the whirl of reorientation…”
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John Boyd’s Conceptual Spiral was originally titled “No Way Out.” In his words:
“There is no way out unless we can eliminate the features just cited. Since we don’t know how to do this, we must continue the whirl of reorientation…”
Download a complete transcript of Conceptual Spiral for free by clicking here.
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