Point Of View

A Connected School is based upon a rigorous scientific theory which seeks to explain the underlying principles which apply to all organisms -- from single cell organisms to very complex ones such as animals and human beings. Life is viewed as a natural process governed by laws which can be understood just in the same way as the physical sciences have enabled us to understand nonliving processes. While this understanding in no way contradicts the idea of a Supreme Being, it does seem to exclude such "isms" as vitalism, which views organisms as consisting of matter animated by some kind of vital spirit.

Much of the research currently being done in the life sciences has focused on what has come to be known as "best practices." In this approach, the results of subjecting organisms to certain specific stimuli under controlled environmental conditions are evaluated using statistics. When there is a high correlation, it is assumed that the stimulus is the cause of the result. This stimulus-response explanation is challenged by Perceptual Control Theory as unsatisfactory and misleading. It fails to take into account what is a central observation in PCT: namely, that all living things seem to have innate purposes. Rather than assuming that organisms are entirely the product of their environment and that it is environmental factors which account for their actions, PCT attempts, by building models, to understand and articulate the fundamental principles which apply to all organisms. These principles lead us to a radically different explanation of behavior. Rather than being controlled by their environment, organisms are constantly seeking to control their environment in order to maintain internal purposes, which in PCT are called references, or reference perceptions.

PCT is in its early stages of development as a comprehensive, integrated theory of life. It is, in many ways, the first serious attempt to apply to the life sciences some of the more advanced and rigorous methods used to study the physical universe during the past four centuries.