posts

Many people have some sense of what control is about, but very few understand clearly how control works and even fewer (including control engineers) understand clearly what a control systems controls: Not “output” or “action” but perception of whatever is being controlled; that which action accomplishes. When you stop to think about it, you realize that a control system knows nothing about output or actions; it “knows” only what it senses. The distinction may seem trivial, but the consequences are profound. Bill Powers puts it all in context. […]

An introduction to Perceptual Control Theory, contrasting it with basic ideas in contemporary science of psychology. […]

An effective introductory summary of what PCT is all about, by Bill Powers […]

Elements of the control loop have been labeled slightly different by different people at different times and for different purposes, whether for a very plain explanation or for more mathematical treatment of the physical functions.  […]

Control is a process of acting on the world we perceive to make it the way we want it to be, and to keep it that way. Examples of control: standing upright; walking; steering a car; scrambling eggs; scratching an itch; knitting socks; singing a tune. Extruding a pseudopod to absorb a nanospeck of food (all organisms control, not only human beings). The smallest organisms control by biochemical means, bigger ones by means of a nervous system. […]

Dag Forssell This script and the accompanying video are designed to introduce and demonstrate the basic concept of PCT. The article Perceptual Control: Management Insight for Problem Solving, in the book: Management and Leadership: Insight […]

Perceptual Control Theory (PCT), a scientific theory developed by William T. Powers (1973) posits that behavior is the control of perception. […]

8 October 2022, we’ll have our 32st annual IAPCT conference, online. […]

In 2020 and 2021, Warren Mansell and Eva de Hullu organized an online MOL training to make the method and theory accessible for international participants. The training was hosted on a google site domain. The […]

Online conference, October 2021 […]

Thursday & Friday, 8-9 0ctober 2020 (UT) […]

Hugh G. Petrie “I think that this book will be ‘compulsory reading’ in graduate schools of education around the country, and that it will arouse a vigorous and healthy controversy by shaking people out of […]

Hugh G. Petrie “For most of his career, Hugh was way ahead of his time. His papers in this volume still are. The role of the evolutionary process of blind variation and selective retention in […]

Phil Runkel The spring semester is nearly half completed. I am using your book in two classes. My experience this year is identical to that last year., when I wrote to you, “As time passes […]

Timothy A. Carey “This new book is a great addition to the educational literature. It introduces educators to the most important and revolutionary new development in psychology in decades, PCT. And it does this in […]

Dag Forssell “When i first learned of PCT about seven years ago, I read everything I could get my hands on and your articles, for me, most clearly explained PCT. Somehow, your unique use of […]

Timothy A. Carey “I’ve just finished the Method of Levels, and I’m astonished, delighted, and inspired. I was a psychotherapist for many years, using a variety of approaches (predominantly Gestalt Therapy, several versions of family […]

“I started reading your book to see whatever you have to say about systems. Then I really got fascinated by your book and read it from start to finish. Very impressive! And a feast of recognition where you say that integrating PCT into your thinking does not come overnight but takes years. Your knowledge of the psychological literature is enormous and the way you linked PCT thinking with that literature (or discussed it against the background of that literature) was very instructive to me.” —Frans X. Plooij, Director, International Research-institute on Infant Studies (IRIS), The Netherlandshen I really got fascinated by your book and read it from start to finish. Very impressive! And a feast of recognition where you say that integrating PCT into your thinking does not come overnight but takes years. Your knowledge of the psychological literature is enormous and the way you linked PCT thinking with that literature (or discussed it against the background of that literature) was very instructive to me.” —Frans X. Plooij, Director, International Research-institute on Infant Studies (IRIS), The Netherlands […]

Discovering new perspectives. Method of Levels (MOL) in Spanish. […]

Allison Powers established a Facebook page, WTPowersArchives, about Bill Powers’ personal archives at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Review and indexing of the materials is underway. Archivist: Kevin Leonard. […]

Martin Taylor, a long-time contributor to CSGnet considers his Layered Protocol Theory to be a subset of PCT. Here are some of his musings: http://www.mmtaylor.net/PCT/ […]