That's because, as I said, Richard completely handwaved the PCT explanation, in the same way as an evolution supporter would likely end up handwaving ideas like "inclusive genetic fitness".

No, not like an evolution supporter, because an evolution supporter could identify what exactly IGF refers to in a way that is not a trivial restatement of the problem of "Why would a mother give up her life for her two children?"

A scientific-sounding answer would be, "because that improves her IGF", and you're correct this would be a handwave.

A really scientific answer would "because that improves her IGF, which is roughly the fraction of the next generation's genes that are hers, which would account for why the gene pool is dominated by the genes of people who made such a tradeoff".

Richard does not have such a moving-parts model that breaks down the concepts of "having a mate" and "recognition of having a mate" and "action that moves me toward having a mate". They're irreducible black boxes, at least as far as he's aware. That's not a theory. If he had a theory, he should have and would have focused more on expanding one of these concepts than on making sure the problem was fully restated with with different terms.

To model mate searching in PCT, you would need to include several continuous variables ...

in other words, give an answer different from RIchard. Hint: if the very same model can be "interpreted" to imply different explanations, it's not a good model nor a theory.

That would require you to give an example and show where it parts with PCT, which is a pretty simple task.

I did that, in precisely the comment you linked to as saying I didn't. Specifically, I pointed out that the exact set of definitions for e.g. "thinking hard" that wouldn't work in reality, precisely match the ones that PCT predicts would not work, and vice versa for the definitions that would not work.

No, you asserted it, with no reference to the specific aspects of PCT that rule against the "non-phenomena".

Surely my query warranted more of an answer than, "yep, everything's okay over here" even if you went through the effort to transform it to, "yep, what I've seen work, it sure is expected to work by PCT, and what I know doesn't work, yep, it sure is claimed by PCT not to work!" (Edit: removed some snarkiness)

Also you consider it to be a good thing when a theory requires you to separately solve the very problem it attacks, in order to use it.

You quoted me out of context; the rest of the comment goes on to explain that what I find useful is that PCT tells us what things to look for in order to solve the problem.

The context makes you look worse! Here it is:

Yes, and that's precisely what's useful. That is, it identifies that to solve anyone's problems, you need only identify the reference values, and find a way to reorganize the control system to either set new reference values or have another behavior that changes the outside world to cause the new reference to be reached.

So basically, "all" you have to do is find the reference values and appropriately modify them ... but specifying the reference values itself contains the exact same insights you'd need to solve the problem anyway! (it's "AI-complete" in compsci/AI jargon) So the "human as controller" model doesn't simplify the problem, it just says "here, go solve the problem, somehow, and when you do, without the help of this model, you'll see that one of the six trillion neat things you can do is specify them in controls format".