Alien Eating Habits in Jeopardy Enough

CSGnet Archive CSG2004
1

[Bruce Nevin (04.17.04 12:12 EDT)]
Science requires collecting and analyzing data.
Who is collecting and analyzing the data from this remarkable long-term
demonstration of positive feedback (runaway) processes in social
interactions?
Ironic that what is popularly termed “negative feedback” almost
always results in a positive feedback loop of interactions.
Bill Williams, if I understand correctly (and I hope I’m not blowing your
cover) you decided to adopt the way in which you perceived yourself being
treated here by others as the established social norm for you to follow
in this forum. Is it time to move from this demonstration to the
reductio ad absurdam argument that it so patently supports? Or are
you having too much fun?

An analysis of relations among control systems not just in terms of
conflict (contesting the state of the same variable) but in terms of
feedback loops between them might bring a new level of maturity to PCT,
and might take CSGnet up a level. (It’s hard to stay embroiled in what
you’re talking about.)

Rick, maybe you could work this up in a spreadsheet simulation.

Positive feedback within a single control system ends control and can be
prevented by changing the sign of a variable (e.g. subtracting rather
than adding in the comparator). Positive feedback in interactions of two
control systems does not end control by either of them, though it does
dominate and redirect or disrupt their interaction, and remediating or
averting it is a bit more complicated (e.g. if you are going to change
the sign of a variable, in which system do you make the change?).

There’s lots of data here, all nicely recorded in the CSGnet archive. But
who’s minding the store?

    /Bruce

Nevin

2

From[Bill Williams 17 March 2004 1:45 PM CST]

[Bruce Nevin (04.17.04 12:12 EDT)]

Science requires collecting and analyzing data.

Who is collecting and analyzing the data from this remarkable

long-term demonstration of positive feedback (runaway) processes

in social interactions?

Ironic that what is popularly termed "negative feedback" almost

always results in a positive feedback loop of interactions.

Bill Williams, if I understand correctly (and I hope I'm not

blowing your cover) you decided to adopt the way in which you

perceived yourself being treated here >by others as the

established social norm for you to follow in this forum. Is

it time to move from this demonstration to the reduction ad

absurd am argument that it >so patently supports? Or are you

having too much fun?

Bruce, I don't think there is much chance that you are blowing

my cover. And, I know you wouldn't risk blowing my cover if

there was any chance that you were going to ruin my fun. So,

I think we can go ahead and discuss the _real_ issues involved

in the open without any danger of being found out. All that I

am doing is applying control theory-- now this unfortunately has

become something of a lost art. But, old fashioned as it is it

can be quite effective in its own way.

It started when I noticed that Bill Powers was saying things

about me, which were not true and that I didn't like-- such as

you and all the credential zed experts are only engaged in

creating a smoke screen for an economic system that is exploiting

everyone else. this is, simplify, an absolute crock of shit.

And, it hurt the first time Bill Powers said it. So, I thought

about it. Bill Powers was attacking me in a way that I came to

understand had nothing at all to do with the reality or who I

am, or what I have managed to accomplish in studying economics.

Bill Powers had simply created a separate reality for himself,

and in that reality Williams is an immoral, disgusting servant

to a predator corporate power elite. (Why the Marxists here at

UMKC haven't found me out puzzles me.)

So, I gave the problem some thought. Currently, as far as I am

aware, I am the only credentialized expert with a Ph.D. employed

in a graduate degree granting program worldwide that recognizes

the potential that control theory has the potential of providing

the basis for constructing an alternative to orthodox economics.

Not just an alternative, but an analytical heterodox theoretical

alternative. Conceptually the emergence of such a theoretical

alternative will create a drastic change in the conception

of the economy-- a change that is comparable to the ones introduced

by Bentham or Marx. There is, however, a small problem-- the

conceptual change is sufficiently drastic that it is likely to

rejected as too bizarre to be taken seriously. Anyone who is at

all acquainted with Bill Powers' experience should recognize

the nature of the problem that is involved. A part of the problem

involves a defect in the European conception of time and causation.

And, it is this defect which has been behind my suggesting from

time to time that he really ought to expand upon the all too

brief comments that he made concerning these questions in the

appendix to _B:CP_. Bill Powers for what reasons doesn't seem

to be inclined to exert himself in this direction so I am

preparing to do it myself-- I'm now reading Kant's first critique

on pure reason, and looking a Euler, and Descartes' attempt at

a theory of physics. For the last three weeks here we've been

conducting a seminar that has been devoted, in part, to these

issues. Sturgeon seems to understand a good bit of why the issue

is important, and he's provided some support at some crucial

points where other people tried to shout me down. But, he is

mostly occupied with running the Econonics department and three

or four research groups. But, some of the people who don't

quite get it are reading stuff, like Dewey's 1938 chapter 22 in

his _Logic_ on "Sequence and Causation." And, Dewey's 1896

paper, "The Reflex Arc." So, at least they are thinking about

the issues involved, and I find it interesting to talk to them

as they struggle with the issues. And, I've picked up an

intellectual ally in a Chinese mathematician who seems to

understand the issues very well-- he prefers working with the

information theoretic side of the question. But, he has great

difficulty explaining what he is doing to anyone else, except

for me. And, I have been doing some collaborative work with

a guy who is considered the leading heterodox economist in

Great Britain, he has a book out-- it was supposed to be

1 April, but production and shipping seems to have slipped.

What I anticipate Hodgson to say in his new book is that the

those who regarded themselves as the intellectual heirs of

Thorstein Veblen made a very serious error when they attempted

to make use of behaviourism as a psychological model to replace

orthodoxy's principle of maximization.

So, I am beginning to create an intellectual network that

whether or not, everyone agrees with me, they are doing work

that will, I hope provide, a supportive intellectual climate

in which a demonstration of the use of control theory as an

alternative to orthodoxy's maximization based analysis will

be perceived as creditable.

Now, when I contrast this context which I am a work constructing

in econonmics with the situation on the CSGnet, the contrast is

certainly not in favour of CSGnet, or Bill Powers. ( Rick is really

a minor player in this scheme. Fun to play with, but still a

minor player. Just check out the contributions which his allies

make to the science of PCT. ) The basic problem is that Bill

Powers knows so little about the economy and econmics and so much

of what he does "know" is the result of a paranoid world view that

he hasn't despite considerable effort on his part been able to

under stand the Keynesian system. ( In contrast to Bill Powers'

genuine effort to understand, I don't see that Rick has done

much beyond a data mining with the end in view of supporting a

crankish pre-Keynesian conception of the econmy. ) I suppose

that it is obvious that there is a lot of effort here that

seems like it serves no purpose what-so-ever.

I, however, don't see it this way. I've gained quite a lot as

a result of the squabbles on the CSGnet. Take for instance a

seminar this last Friday. One of the participants tried to

extract from us an agreement that we all shared a common basic

reality. I said that I didn't agree that "We shared" any such

thing. The guy went on to argue "But you have to recognized... "

To which I said, "For starters, I don't have to do what you

say." He threatened that if we didn't agree with him, there

wasn't anything to discuss, and he said if that was the case

he was going to walk out. And, I said, "The door is over there."

I really have learned a lot about how to engage in an eristic

dispute. Going into these sorts of encounters with an attitude

that is spring loaded in the pissed off position is something

that is of an enormous advantage.

Now, Bruce is entirely right in his speculation, in regard to

how I came to adopt the policy that I have. However, in the

process, I gave the issues involved some thought. And, thinking,

at least as I go about it, is something more than a simplistic

instrumentalism where the exercise starts with an unexamined,

uncriticized goal and works forward and backward looking for a

path by which to reach this unexamined, uncriticized, unreflective

goal. In a hostile environment this sort of simplistic approach

isn't going to be of much if any use.

Now, Rick has charged that I am lacking in any scruples. Whether

this is true or not, I think it should be evident that I may have

done some planning. And, while in respect to some details, not

everything planned worked out, at least judging from what people

say, what I planned, has come about. Now obviously this is an

achievement which I couldn't bring about by myself. I needed

the cooperation of Bill Powers, Rick Marken, Bryan, the two

Davids, and many others. After all it has been a community

project that has tested doctrines abut control theory. As,

Bruce Nevin says, the record of this on the CSGnet is a

fascinating document.

Now Bruce asks if I have had enough fun with this? He says,

Is it time to move from this demonstration to the reductio ad

absurdam argument that it so patently supports?

I guess the question is, or at least might be, to whom has the

moral of the demonstration become "so patently" obvious.

I thought a while back that Bill Powers had genuinely caught on.

But, then he went back to his paranoid accusations that the

economics profession is, everylast one of them, a servant of a

predatory ruling corporate elite. And, Rick was happy to

re-start beavering a way at his data mining in support of

Bill Powers' dad's crack-pot scheme. As far as I am concerned

this is one more chapter in the "Running Naked in the Forest"

fable. And, Bill is back to being disguised with me for

maintaining that he is a lunatic. (Just my opinion, and also

Sturgeon's (as best I can judge), and a bunch of sometimes

on-lookers here.)

So, anyway you ask, am I ready to give this up? You say,

Or are you having too much fun?

Actually, I would like to win a war in a larger world than the

micro-cosmism of the CSGnet. There really is a fight going on

over whether the heterodox traditions in economics are going to

survive. It really is an iffy business. I'm not sure precisely

what search words to use, but "Notre Dame economics department,"

ought to get you discussions about the heterodox program that

was lets say castrated--their Ph.D granting portion of the

program was destroyed. These people were never really friends

of mine but they were still useful folks to have around, and

they were turning out new Ph.D's who attempted to think about

the economy in reflective critical ways. The program at Cambridge

University UK was once a center of critical economic thought.

that program was destroyed. This really isn't a time to be doing

stuff out of Jack Horner complex-you remember the boy who stuck

his thumb into a pie and pulled out a plum? It really does

appear to me to be floridly obscene when people are more

concerned with whether they are going to dictate what happens,

than that some crucial stuff gets done. But, if some old guy

insists upon engaging in a Ghost Dance with his dad, what can

I do? If narcissism and other sorts of foolishness is the rule

I can have fun at doing my skit characterature of an Oxbridge

intellectual fop.

I healthy control theory group could I believe make a genuine

contribution to the creation of an alternative to orthodox

economic theory. I say "could." But, Bill Powers is too pig

headed to think beyond his own paranoid misconception of the

world and his exclusive role as its saviour. So, for the time

being, your question,

Or are you having too much fun?

It isn't up to me, not entirely.

Bill Williams

···

________________________________

From: Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet) on behalf of Bruce Nevin
Sent: Sat 4/17/2004 11:12 AM
To: CSGNET@listserv.uiuc.edu
Subject: Alien Eating Habits in Jeopardy Enough

[Bruce Nevin (04.17.04 12:12 EDT)]

Science requires collecting and analyzing data.

Who is collecting and analyzing the data from this remarkable long-term demonstration of positive feedback (runaway) processes in social interactions?

Ironic that what is popularly termed "negative feedback" almost always results in a positive feedback loop of interactions.

Bill Williams, if I understand correctly (and I hope I'm not blowing your cover) you decided to adopt the way in which you perceived yourself being treated here by others as the established social norm for you to follow in this forum. Is it time to move from this demonstration to the reductio ad absurdam argument that it so patently supports? Or are you having too much fun?

An analysis of relations among control systems not just in terms of conflict (contesting the state of the same variable) but in terms of feedback loops between them might bring a new level of maturity to PCT, and might take CSGnet up a level. (It's hard to stay embroiled in what you're talking about.)

Rick, maybe you could work this up in a spreadsheet simulation.

Positive feedback within a single control system ends control and can be prevented by changing the sign of a variable (e.g. subtracting rather than adding in the comparator). Positive feedback in interactions of two control systems does not end control by either of them, though it does dominate and redirect or disrupt their interaction, and remediating or averting it is a bit more complicated (e.g. if you are going to change the sign of a variable, in which system do you make the change?).

There's lots of data here, all nicely recorded in the CSGnet archive. But who's minding the store?

        /Bruce Nevin

3

[Bruce Nevin (04.17.04 22:32 EDT)]

From[Bill Williams 17 March 2004 1:45 PM CST]

>[Bruce Nevin (04.17.04 12:12 EDT)]

I think we can go ahead and discuss the _real_ issues involved
in the open without any danger of being found out.

No one here has the appropriate input functions?

All that I
am doing is applying control theory-- now this unfortunately has
become something of a lost art. But, old fashioned as it is it
can be quite effective in its own way.

I really have learned a lot about how to engage in an eristic
dispute. Going into these sorts of encounters with an attitude
that is spring loaded in the pissed off position is something
that is of an enormous advantage.

eristic
< eristikos "fond of wrangling" < erizein "to wrangle" < eris "strife" :
characterized by disputatious and often subtle and specious reasoning.

Chomsky has done well with it.

(Contrast irenic, a term that you have used previously.)

Now, Bruce is entirely right in his speculation, in regard to
how I came to adopt the policy that I have.

OK. I think that this tit for tat adoption for oneself of what one
perceives as the other's policy usually results in positive feedback and a
breakdown of communication. I have observed that if I spoke to a certain
family member in the way that she sometimes speaks to me, she would be
deeply offended and angry. I have tried it occasionally. She does not
recognize that it is only the same coming back (usually the very same
phrases). The result is an escalation of hostility and defensiveness --
positive feedback, runaway until communication ceases. Other examples are
available.

The reason is that what you term a "policy" is asymmetrical, that is, to be
stable, or at least to persist, the participants must be in complementary
roles. Your intent is to mirror the manner of conduct in that role, but the
effect, given the degree of self awareness that prevails, is as a challenge
for the role rather than as a reflection of conduct in the role. If you
attempt to make it symmetrical, what you are really doing in contest is
insisting that the other person now adopt the complementary role. If they
are unwilling (or unskilled) to do this, then you are in direct conflict as
to who will be in the role that you are asserting for yourself. Discourse
then shifts to competence, worthiness, membership, humanity -- that is, to
claims that the other lacks each of these in turn.

However, in the
process, I gave the issues involved some thought. And, thinking,
at least as I go about it, is something more than a simplistic
instrumentalism where the exercise starts with an unexamined,
uncriticized goal and works forward and backward looking for a
path by which to reach this unexamined, uncriticized, unreflective
goal.

This is well put. Controlling a foregone conclusion by verbal and logical
means is otherwise known as rationalization. Others have observed that not
everyone "goes about it" this way.

"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely
rearranging their prejudices."
                 -- William James

"Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think."
      -- Niels Bohr

"No, no, you're not thinking, you're just being logical."
      -- Niels Bohr

"A lot of what we call "reasoning" is purposive -- that is, we know what
conclusion we want and we automatically find the premises and the reasoning
that will lead to it. This can feel like conscious deduction, but it's
really another form of rationalizing."
   -- William T. Powers [Bill Powers (990923.0250 MDT)]

In a hostile environment this sort of simplistic approach
isn't going to be of much if any use.

Oscar Wilde and I think also Voltaire advised us to cultivate good enemies.
Voltaire certainly said "I have never made but one prayer to God, a very
short one: O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it." But
scientists must be their own "enemy", and a failure to be skeptical of
one's own fondest foregone conclusions deprives on of credibility, or
should do. For example

"My idea of applying the Test is to try all the alternatives you can think of,
and accept a definition of the CV only when you have diligently but
unsuccessfully tried to rule it out and it is the only one left.
The Test is not a matter of going through a certain ritual. It must be
applied with some understanding of what you're trying to do, which is
to find out what, if anything, is being controlled."
-- Bill Powers (980729.1014 MDT)

[...] what I planned has come about. Now obviously this is an
achievement which I couldn't bring about by myself. I needed
the cooperation of Bill Powers, Rick Marken, Bryan, the two
Davids, and many others. After all it has been a community
project that has tested doctrines abut control theory.

Can you characterize this variable and the state(s) of it that you have
successfully controlled?

Now Bruce asks [...]
> Is it time to move from this demonstration to the reductio ad
> absurdam argument that it so patently supports?

I guess the question is, or at least might be, to whom has the
moral of the demonstration become "so patently" obvious.

The absurdity is patent or obvious; the argument that it supports needs to
be explicitly stated. What does this prove? Demonstrating that one person
or another does or does not "get it" or fails to catch on to what you are
doing is beside the point -- part of the absurdity, in fact. Please indulge
me in being a bit hard-nosed here, a constructive "enemy" if you will,
maybe by a kind of contagion from the committee reading my daughter's
honors thesis: Complete the syllogism, please.

It isn't up to me, not entirely.

The "it" here is another matter, yes?

         /Bruce Nevin

···

At 05:17 PM 4/17/2004 -0500, Williams, William D. wrote:

4

[Bruce Nevin (04.17.04 23:03 EDT)]

Bill Williams 17 March 2004 1:45 PM CST --

···

At 05:17 PM 4/17/2004 -0500, Williams, William D. wrote:

I am the only credentialized expert with a Ph.D. employed
in a graduate degree granting program worldwide that recognizes
the potential that control theory has the potential of providing
the basis for constructing an alternative to orthodox economics.
[...] A part of the problem involves a defect in the European conception
of time and causation
[...] I'm now reading Kant's first critique
on pure reason, and looking a Euler, and Descartes' attempt at
a theory of physics.
[...] some of the people who don't
quite get it are reading stuff, like Dewey's 1938 chapter 22 in
his _Logic_ on "Sequence and Causation." And, Dewey's 1896
paper, "The Reflex Arc." So, at least they are thinking about
the issues involved, and I find it interesting to talk to them
as they struggle with the issues.
[...] I am beginning to create an intellectual network that
[...] will, I hope, provide a supportive intellectual climate
in which a demonstration of the use of control theory as an
alternative to orthodoxy's maximization-based analysis will
be perceived as creditable.

I didn't mean to ignore this. I meant to add that this is impressive and
laudable and I wish you the best breaks, constructive enemies, and good
success with it.

         /Bruce Nevin

5

From[Bill Williams 17 March 2004 1O:20 PM CST]

[Bruce Nevin (04.17.04 22:32 EDT)]

You ask of me,

No one here has the appropriate input functions?

I didn't say "No one here has the appropriate input functions." While you and I may not always agree we usually communicate. But, Bryan for instance, at least says, that he has slammed the door in his own face, and Bill Powers and Rick Marken have saidin the recent past that they severed their input functions. But, then there is Martin who certainly caught on to my playing the role of an Oxbridge fop. I thought for a short time that Bill Powers had caught on. His post, "As the loop Tightens" it seemed to me at least indicated that he had caught on. You've dug out some nice quoations of Bill Powers that indicate that at least abstractly he has in the past understood-- that he in some senses ought to have the right input functions. But, Bill really does seem caught up in some terrific inner struggles.

But, supposing that foks do catch on. Then there is the issue of "If they catch on, can they take a joke?"

I especially like your example of a family member upon whom you've tried "the test."

OK. I think that this tit for tat adoption for oneself of what one
perceives as the other's policy usually results in positive feedback and a
breakdown of communication. I have observed that if I spoke to a certain
family member in the way that she sometimes speaks to me, she would be
deeply offended and angry. I have tried it occasionally. She does not
recognize that it is only the same coming back (usually the very same
phrases). The result is an escalation of hostility and defensiveness --
positive feedback, runaway until communication ceases. Other examples are
available.

I have myself been amazed at how very rapidly such "hostility" can as you say runaway.
The speed with which what you describe can take place is amazing. Sometimes maybe
ten seconds and they are ready to come over the table at you.

On the other hand in Axelrod's book on the evolution of cooperation, he cites examples
of troops in world war I that, declared local ceasefires-- or cooperated with each other
by aiming so as not to hit each other-- also on the basis, or so it was argued, of a tit-for-tat
schema.

If we only had Chomsky he'd show us how to really do it. But, then Voltaire was no slouch either.

There has recently been a fair amount of talk about professionalism. However, when I watched the CSGnet audience at Boston , Bill Powers included, applaude Rick Marken's (no I still won't call it a model) talk on economics-- the one that Powers eventually described in terms of "... a giant leap in the wrong direction."
Watching that audience mindlessly applauding nonsense eventually resulted in my thinking setting off down a divergent path. And, the conclusion that I eventually reached was that what was going on within the CSG community was not what was being advertised. Having reached that conclusion, and conducting a series of tests, nothing that I have seen indicates that the CSG community, Bill Powers included, genunely understands control theory. Now, of course, I recognize that a "community doesn't understand, but I will leave it to you to translate this into a PCT correct expression.

Some people in the community do, but there isn't sufficient influence being exercised by those who do seem to understand control theory to generate what could be accurately called a control theory informed process within the CSGnet community as it is constituted now.

The only way that I can see that things are going to change on the CSGnet is for people to learn control theory. Martin and I discussed some months ago what was likely to happen. Martin and I don't by-the-way agree about what to do, Martin as I've pointed out likes irenic solutions. If the people involved are sane, I think irenic solutions are to be preferred. I could have easily been defeated if people who opposed me on the CSGnet applied control theory with some consistency-- but these people haven't yet exhibited a consistent capacity to do so.

Enjoyed your post very much-- I wish I could have been a fly on the wall when you
applied the test to your relative,

Bill Williams

You've included a great quote from Voltaire.

From[Bill Williams 17 March 2004 1:45 PM CST]

>[Bruce Nevin (04.17.04 12:12 EDT)]

I think we can go ahead and discuss the _real_ issues involved
in the open without any danger of being found out.

No one here has the appropriate input functions?

All that I
am doing is applying control theory-- now this unfortunately has
become something of a lost art. But, old fashioned as it is it
can be quite effective in its own way.

I really have learned a lot about how to engage in an eristic
dispute. Going into these sorts of encounters with an attitude
that is spring loaded in the pissed off position is something
that is of an enormous advantage.

eristic
< eristikos "fond of wrangling" < erizein "to wrangle" < eris "strife" :
characterized by disputatious and often subtle and specious reasoning.

Chomsky has done well with it.

(Contrast irenic, a term that you have used previously.)

Now, Bruce is entirely right in his speculation, in regard to
how I came to adopt the policy that I have.

OK. I think that this tit for tat adoption for oneself of what one
perceives as the other's policy usually results in positive feedback and a
breakdown of communication. I have observed that if I spoke to a certain
family member in the way that she sometimes speaks to me, she would be
deeply offended and angry. I have tried it occasionally. She does not
recognize that it is only the same coming back (usually the very same
phrases). The result is an escalation of hostility and defensiveness --
positive feedback, runaway until communication ceases. Other examples are
available.

The reason is that what you term a "policy" is asymmetrical, that is, to be
stable, or at least to persist, the participants must be in complementary
roles. Your intent is to mirror the manner of conduct in that role, but the
effect, given the degree of self awareness that prevails, is as a challenge
for the role rather than as a reflection of conduct in the role. If you
attempt to make it symmetrical, what you are really doing in contest is
insisting that the other person now adopt the complementary role. If they
are unwilling (or unskilled) to do this, then you are in direct conflict as
to who will be in the role that you are asserting for yourself. Discourse
then shifts to competence, worthiness, membership, humanity -- that is, to
claims that the other lacks each of these in turn.

However, in the
process, I gave the issues involved some thought. And, thinking,
at least as I go about it, is something more than a simplistic
instrumentalism where the exercise starts with an unexamined,
uncriticized goal and works forward and backward looking for a
path by which to reach this unexamined, uncriticized, unreflective
goal.

This is well put. Controlling a foregone conclusion by verbal and logical
means is otherwise known as rationalization. Others have observed that not
everyone "goes about it" this way.

"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely
rearranging their prejudices."
                 -- William James

"Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think."
      -- Niels Bohr

"No, no, you're not thinking, you're just being logical."
      -- Niels Bohr

"A lot of what we call "reasoning" is purposive -- that is, we know what
conclusion we want and we automatically find the premises and the reasoning
that will lead to it. This can feel like conscious deduction, but it's
really another form of rationalizing."
   -- William T. Powers [Bill Powers (990923.0250 MDT)]

In a hostile environment this sort of simplistic approach
isn't going to be of much if any use.

Oscar Wilde and I think also Voltaire advised us to cultivate good enemies.
Voltaire certainly said "I have never made but one prayer to God, a very
short one: O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it." But
scientists must be their own "enemy", and a failure to be skeptical of
one's own fondest foregone conclusions deprives on of credibility, or
should do. For example

"My idea of applying the Test is to try all the alternatives you can think of,
and accept a definition of the CV only when you have diligently but
unsuccessfully tried to rule it out and it is the only one left.
The Test is not a matter of going through a certain ritual. It must be
applied with some understanding of what you're trying to do, which is
to find out what, if anything, is being controlled."
-- Bill Powers (980729.1014 MDT)

[...] what I planned has come about. Now obviously this is an
achievement which I couldn't bring about by myself. I needed
the cooperation of Bill Powers, Rick Marken, Bryan, the two
Davids, and many others. After all it has been a community
project that has tested doctrines abut control theory.

Can you characterize this variable and the state(s) of it that you have
successfully controlled?

Now Bruce asks [...]
> Is it time to move from this demonstration to the reductio ad
> absurdam argument that it so patently supports?

I guess the question is, or at least might be, to whom has the
moral of the demonstration become "so patently" obvious.

The absurdity is patent or obvious; the argument that it supports needs to
be explicitly stated. What does this prove? Demonstrating that one person
or another does or does not "get it" or fails to catch on to what you are
doing is beside the point -- part of the absurdity, in fact. Please indulge
me in being a bit hard-nosed here, a constructive "enemy" if you will,
maybe by a kind of contagion from the committee reading my daughter's
honors thesis: Complete the syllogism, please.

It isn't up to me, not entirely.

The "it" here is another matter, yes?

         /Bruce Nevin

···

At 05:17 PM 4/17/2004 -0500, Williams, William D. wrote:

6

From[Bill Williams 17 March 2004 11:00 PM CST]

[Bruce Nevin (04.17.04 23:03 EDT)]

Bill Williams 17 March 2004 1:45 PM CST --

···

At 05:17 PM 4/17/2004 -0500, Williams, William D. wrote:

I am the only credentialized expert with a Ph.D. employed
in a graduate degree granting program worldwide that recognizes
the potential that control theory has the potential of providing
the basis for constructing an alternative to orthodox economics.
[...] A part of the problem involves a defect in the European conception
of time and causation
[...] I'm now reading Kant's first critique
on pure reason, and looking a Euler, and Descartes' attempt at
a theory of physics.
[...] some of the people who don't
quite get it are reading stuff, like Dewey's 1938 chapter 22 in
his _Logic_ on "Sequence and Causation." And, Dewey's 1896
paper, "The Reflex Arc." So, at least they are thinking about
the issues involved, and I find it interesting to talk to them
as they struggle with the issues.
[...] I am beginning to create an intellectual network that
[...] will, I hope, provide a supportive intellectual climate
in which a demonstration of the use of control theory as an
alternative to orthodoxy's maximization-based analysis will
be perceived as creditable.

I didn't mean to ignore this. I meant to add that this is impressive and
laudable and I wish you the best breaks, constructive enemies, and good
success with it.

I wasn't feelling ignored at all. You at least really do get it.

And, as while the "it" needs some work, as Rick would say it. Getting it really does make a difference.

Bill Williams

7

[Bruce Nevin (04.18.04 15:03 EDT)]

Bill Williams 17 March 2004 1O:20 PM CST –

I especially like your example of a family
member upon whom you’ve tried “the test.”

Bill Williams 18 March 2004 2:00 AM CST –

Bruce described his

own experiments with mirroring, and the results. As Bruce described
it,

his relative could not tolerate being mirrored. That is brought face
to

face with her own behavior she couldn’t stand who she
was.

Actually, it wasn’t the Test for controlled variables. My motives were in
the less noble zone of exasperation. Nor was she aware of seeing her own
behavior mirrored. She didn’t like it, and she countered it with moves to
control (what I surmise is) her perception of our relative merit and
esteem. So to say she “couldn’t stand who she was,” although a
pop psych truism, misses the point that her behavior (which I was
mirroring) was only the variable means by which she was controlling those
perceptions. Recall here what I said about asymmetrically complementary
roles.

I think you have to get beyond the behavior that offended you, behind the
veil, as it were, to the perceptions that the behavior was controlling.
Simply mirroring the behavior (as means of controlling entirely different
perceptions of your own) is not going to have the communicative effect
that you say you intend.

the conclusion that I eventually reached was
that what was going on within the CSG community was not what was being
advertised. Having reached that conclusion, and conducting a series of
tests, nothing that I have seen indicates that [anyone in] the CSG
community, Bill Powers included, genuinely understands control theory.

You’re overstating the case. No one that I know of claims or
“advertises” that application of PCT to social interactions has
advanced beyond a very primitive stage.

There have been several proposals to reduce conflict here.

  • The ECACS forum, which has been established for “exploring
    complex adaptive control systems”, sanctions vituperation and
    personal attack only in a designated “roughhouse room”. One
    member has been ejected because he refused that limitation.
  • Bryan has set up a Yahoo group in which he suggests that sanctions
    will be instituted as its governors over time see fit.
  • There being no means to evict people from CSGnet, Rick has proposed
    to remove himself from CSGnet and CSG. Bill Powers has simply maintained
    silence since the 15th, when he announced a new email address. Earlier
    that same day, in a reply to Michelle, he said:
    Bill Powers (2004.04.15.0749 MST)–

Picking on Rick for his flaws is simply mean
and petty. If the criticism is correct, then it’s like kicking a
cripple’s legs out from under him. If it’s incorrect, it’s just nastiness
and sadism for the enjoyment of it, or an attempt to puff oneself up by
demeaning someone else.

It’s evident now that this is not a correct identification of the CV. But
I don’t think Bill has at all attempted to “try all the alternatives
you can think of and accept a definition of the CV only when you have
diligently but unsuccessfully tried to rule it out and it is the only one
left” (Bill Powers 980729.1014 MDT). Rather than the Test, I think
(based on my own experience) that the process goes roughly like this: the
words of the email exchange are associated with remembered situations,
autonomic responses arise in the body that are experienced as emotional
changes and states, and these are in turn associated with a
categorization of familiar social situations, which then is expressed in
words as a characterization of what has transpired. “That
again”, we say, standing on the bank of a river that actually is
never the same.

But that’s a digression. The proposals for reform all would institute
externally imposed constraints on participation. But no matter that we
evict disrupters, or that the offended withdraw, there will recurrently
be other disruptions again and again so long as participants wear their
disruptability all unconsciously on their sleeves. We must instead
cultivate the maturity and wit to reframe discourse so as to “go up
a level”. For this we need the conceptual and analytical tools to
apply PCT to social interactions. And it is this that I (04.17.04 12:12
EDT) have proposed: “An analysis of relations among control systems
not just in terms of conflict (contesting the state of the same variable)
but in terms of feedback loops between them might bring a new level of
maturity to PCT, and might take CSGnet up a level. (It’s hard to stay
embroiled in what you’re talking about.)”

If we can use PCT to understand human interaction, it will have proven
its worth; if we can’t, we will continue being unable to make its worth
visible to others. And eventually we simply won’t continue. Which is what
Rick is intimating by saying that he’s going to take his baseball
simulation and go home.

The only way that I can see that things are
going to change on the CSGnet is for people to learn control theory.
[…] I could have easily been defeated if people who opposed me on the
CSGnet applied control theory with some consistency – but these people
haven’t yet exhibited a consistent capacity to do so.

I’ve elided your references to people’s sanity. Sanity is not an easy
thing to demonstrate. One thing that might help restore people’s
confidence in your own would be to state your reductio ad absurdam
argument explicitly. Is it only a demonstration that the best of PCTers
have no skill at applying PCT to our interactions? We knew that. Surely
there is something more? I do not believe Bill Powers’ guess at your CVs
is correct. So tell us. What are you controlling? What does your
reductio ad absurdam argument prove?

    /Bruce

Nevin

···

At 10:44 PM 4/17/2004 -0500, Williams, William D. wrote:
At 01:33 AM 4/18/2004 -0500, Bill Williams wrote:

8

[Bruce Nevin (04.18.04 15:03 EDT)]

Bill Williams 17 March 2004 1O:20 PM CST –

I especially like your example of a family member upon whom you've tried "the test."

Bill Williams 18 March 2004 2:00 AM CST –

Bruce described his
own experiments with mirroring, and the results. As Bruce described it,
his relative could not tolerate being mirrored. That is brought face to
face with her own behavior she couldn’t stand who she was.

Actually, it wasn’t the Test for controlled variables. My motives were in the less noble zone of exasperation.

Shame on you for exploiting the very finest products of PCT research for malicious purposes.

Nor was she aware of seeing her own behavior mirrored. She didn’t like it, and she countered it with moves to control (what I surmise is) her perception of our relative merit and esteem. So to say she “couldn’t stand who she was,” although a pop psych truism, misses the point

I’ve been accussed of missing the point before. So, your obsersvation may be redundant.

that her behavior (which I was mirroring) was only the variable means by which she was controlling those perceptions. Recall here what I said about asymmetrically complementary roles.

Sure, if a person refuses to assume a submissive role then the interaction shifts into a competition for dominance.

I think you have to get beyond the behavior that offended you, behind the veil, as it were, to the perceptions that the behavior was controlling.

I don’t see that there is any such need myself. If someone attempts to impose upon me an absurd belief-- I don’t see that I need to know why they are attempting to impose an

absurd belief. If I know that the belief is absurd, and I recognize that there is an attempt being made to impose it on me-- isn’t that enough? I don’t see that I neccesarily have any interest in why they are mistaken. This is why I have had so little interest in Bill’s dad’s economics. It was immeadiately obvious that what was being claimed wasn’t true.

Simply mirroring the behavior (as means of controlling entirely different perceptions of your own) is not going to have the communicative effect that you say you intend.

Oh, but I think it has. . But, perhaps you are defining the issue of communication too narrowly. Suppose I am attempting to communicate not so much to those on CSGnet whom I am mirroring, among other things, but to a lurking audience. In terms of this lurking audience, do you think that the exercise in mirroring might be informative? And, I certainly thought that Bill Powers at one point actually did catch on. Bill Powers claims that by arguing as I have I have been losing creditablity. This is not my conclusion.

the conclusion that I eventually reached was that what was going on within the CSG community was not what was being advertised. Having reached that conclusion, and conducting a series of tests, nothing that I have seen indicates that [anyone in] the CSG community, Bill Powers included, genuinely understands control theory.

You’re overstating the case.

I am not so sure about this. Y ours is the first post in reaction to the situation which I have had a part in creating that poses questions in a way that I view as productive in the sense of getting at what has been going on. And, notice that I phrased the statement in terms of “control theory” not “PCT.” Take a look at the hopeful statements being made at the first of the year. Is there any indication there of what was in prospect?

No one that I know of claims or “advertises” that application of PCT to social interactions has advanced beyond a very primitive stage.

I might be mistaken but, I do not recall Rick ever having described PCT as being “very primitive.” And, maybe here “You’re overstating the case.” As you know I am

not especially critical of the presentation of control theory in B:CP. Even what you describe as a theoretical description of behavior that is at "a very primtive stage can go a long way in econmics when the orthodox folk still rely on Jermy Bentham “Economic Man” and the principle of maximization.

There have been several proposals to reduce conflict here.

  • The ECACS forum, which has been established for "exploring complex adaptive control systems", sanctions vituperation and personal attack only in a designated "roughhouse room". One member has been ejected because he refused that limitation.

  • Bryan has set up a Yahoo group in which he suggests that sanctions will be instituted as its governors over time see fit.

  • There being no means to evict people from CSGnet, Rick has proposed to remove himself from CSGnet and CSG. Bill Powers has simply maintained silence since the 15th, when he announced a new email address. Earlier that same day, in a reply to Michelle, he said:
    Bill Powers (2004.04.15.0749 MST)–
Picking on Rick for his flaws is simply mean and petty. If the criticism is correct, then it's like kicking a cripple's legs out from under him. If it's incorrect, it's just nastiness and sadism for the enjoyment of it, or an attempt to puff oneself up by demeaning someone else.

It's evident now that this is not a correct identification of the CV.

Thank you for saying so.

But I don't think Bill has at all attempted to "try all the alternatives you can think of and accept a definition of the CV only when you have diligently but unsuccessfully tried to rule it out and it is the only one left" (Bill Powers 980729.1014 MDT).

You seem to have been engaged in some research.

Rather than the Test, I think (based on my own experience) that the process goes roughly like this: the words of the email exchange are associated with remembered situations, autonomic responses arise in the body that are experienced as emotional changes and states, and these are in turn associated with a categorization of familiar social situations, which then is expressed in words as a characterization of what has transpired. "That again", we say, standing on the bank of a river that actually is never the same.

Maybe the river is actually changing.  However, I experience what I have concluded is a stable delusional state.  Bill Powers has adopted a parnoid view of economic society and the economics profession. 

But that's a digression. The proposals for reform all would institute externally imposed constraints on participation.

No external constraint is going to make any dent at all upon my reference level which is to oppose the expression of economic ideas that are delusional.

But no matter that we evict disrupters, or that the offended withdraw, there will recurrently be other disruptions again and again so long as participants wear their disruptability all unconsciously on their sleeves.

But, on the contrary, I don't conceal that      I've choosen to consciously bais my references to a hair trigger.

We must instead cultivate the maturity and wit to reframe discourse so as to "go up a level".

If you are sane, this may work.  If you are a parnoid, then by definition "maturity and wit" are absent.

For this we need the conceptual and analytical tools to apply PCT to social interactions.

Conceptual tools may be useful.  However, a paranoid state is not one in which it is possible to draw correct conclusions based upon evidence.

And it is this that I (04.17.04 12:12 EDT) have proposed: "An analysis of relations among control systems not just in terms of conflict (contesting the state of the same variable) but in terms of feedback loops between them might bring a new level of maturity to PCT, and might take CSGnet up a level. (It's hard to stay embroiled in what you're talking about.)"

I don't think that this analysis is applicable to a parnoid state.

If we can use PCT to understand human interaction, it will have proven its worth; if we can't, we will continue being unable to make its worth visible to others.

I have observed that each of the programs or associations that have attempted to adopt and apply control theory have also retained something of an authoritarian

element that is contrary to my understandings of the implications of control theory.  Actually, I am of the opinion that Bill Powers and the CSG association have

retained the least authoritarianism of all the associations or programs.  I think that it is unlikely that I would have come into conflict with Bill Powers had it not

been for the accident that my field is economics.  And, I managed to avoid having the conflict emerge for perhaps a decade.  But, eventually Powers was rather

insistent that economics become the topic, and then he attack my competence because of ideas he got from his crack pot dad.  When and as long as my

competence is a question I am not standing down.

And eventually we simply won’t continue.

My guess would be that "we" will continue.  However, we will continue in various groups rather than in one conflict ridden group.

Which is what Rick is intimating by saying that he's going to take his baseball simulation and go home.

The sooner the better.  I see no prospect at all of harmonious relationships involving Rick.

The only way that I can see that things are going to change on the CSGnet is for people to learn control theory. [...] I could have easily been defeated if people who opposed me on the CSGnet applied control theory with some consistency -- but these people haven't yet exhibited a consistent capacity to do so.

I’ve elided your references to people’s sanity.

You are free to do so. However, I would argue that this is indeed the issue.

Sanity is not an easy thing to demonstrate.

I am not so sure about this. If you say to a clinical specialist, “I like to run naked in the forest. Do you think I am crazy?” He could ask you, "When you run naked in the forest do you run into the trees or around them? So, I think sanity can be assessed. One way is by testing. Are people aware of what they are doing? Do they recognize the consequences to which there action is taking them? Sanity it seems to me can be addressed as a pragmatic issue. I dont think that we should shrink from making such assessment.

One thing that might help restore people’s confidence in your own

Before we continue, it is my impression that people, some people at any rate are more confident in me as a result of my recent participation on the net. So, I reject the

implicit premise that seems to preface the argument that follows. But, I of course , welcome the oportunity you provide to express, and possibly clarify my position.

would be to state your reductio ad absurdam argument explicitly. Is it only a demonstration that the best of PCTers have no skill at applying PCT to our interactions? We knew that.

Checking the CSGnet archives I can see that you have posted arguements that come close to this conclusion. But, your statement here seems to me to express this idea more frankly than it has ever been expressed in the past.

First I think the way you say this amounts to a framing of the question you ask. When you say, “PCTers have no skill at applying PCT to our interactions” this way of describing what has been happening on CSGnet ( And, this obviously happened whether or not I was on the CSGnet) is almost a piece of understated satire. The effect of my fables I think has been due to their breaking through a reluctance to in a sense “know what we know.”

OK, you say “We knew that.” Perhaps some people recognized this and even said so explicitly. Were the consequences of this “knowing” acted upon? Has there been a split in which a recognition of what has been happening has evern from time to time been acknowledged explicitly in writen form, but the effects have been as a practical matter ignored.

Surely there is something more?

But, of course. But, there is a step by step situational logic to this. Reasoning, and reasoning together can be an efficient means of inquiry among reasonable people who have goals that might possibly be pursued in association. You might recall, that perhaps two years ago I made an explicit request that CSGnet people consider why it was that such unpleasant things sometimes happen on the CSGnet. My request was rejected by Bill Powers. OK. Bill Powers made a choice to ignore a significant error. The disorder on the CSGnet is nothiing new, except that by my exercise in mirroring and other stragtegems I have excited it to a more extreme condition than previously. So, I would say, of course there is somthing more. And, the something more is I think to inquire. But, many people on the net are not interested and even explicitly reject inquiry. They already have the answers they believe are the correct answers.

Partly I think Martin Taylor may have a point that email and its current limitations may inhibit serious technical dissussions in a forum like the CSGnet.

There is also, a complex of inter-related difficulties to do with the nature of econmic theory. People here who have looked at the econmics threads have said, “Well, can you really blaime them for thinking that the job description for an economist is keeping the public from finding out what is going on?” They aren’t inclined to excuse the grossly mistaken assertions they see on the thread, but they recognize why people outside the profession have a genuine complaint. But, the whole proffesion isn’t dishonest.

I do not believe Bill Powers’ guess at your CVs is correct.

I am, of course, pleased that you do not agree with what Bill Powers has said. But, I’ve know Bill Powers for quite a while now. And what Bill Powers says when he gets angry isn’t neccesarily precisely the same thing as what he actually thinks. At least this is my impresison. So, I don’t neccesarily take what Bill Powers says about me with any seriousness.

So tell us. What are you controlling?

It isn’t that difficult to explain. I’m an economist. For various reasons I like figuring out solutions to problems in economic theory. I’ve come to the conclusion that control theory provides the means to carry out a revolution in economic theory-- and this is exciting. It also excites other people-- they’d like to stomp this stuff out before it spreads. These are people that will go out of their way to make things difficult for you. And, I have had people come over the table at me. I am serious considering buying a ball peen hammer to put in my brief case. This guy is big. I’m probably faster than he is, but if he can make contact it is all over. And, I really do have a Chinese mathematician who is working at a very similiar project-- only he is appraoching issues from an information theoretic standpoint. He says that I am the first as he describes me, “senior level” faculty to have taken an interest in what

he is doing.

I have a sense that the question of a control theory based ecnomics is appraoching a critical mass. This may be a delusion, on my part but other people are beginning to take the possiblity seriously enough to do some work in order to make a better judgment about the possiblities involved. But, there are some difficulties invovled. As a German visiting Fulbright fellow here saw it, the effort required to make a control theory econmics viable is so extreme that it is just suicidal to attempt it. Take a look at the Bruun dissertation-- about a hundred pages of code-- and she has a very inadaquate agent at the foundation of her model. Consider the difficulties Powers has had.

All the stuff that is gong on makes it interesting. But, at the bottom of it, I’ve got Bill Powers who the guru of PCT engaged in this ghost dance with his dad. And, Keynes got mixed into this in the role of the Great Satan. This isn’t helpful . And, as a result Bill Powers, at least says that the whole economics profession is devoted to creating smoke screens so that no one can understand what is going on in the economy. What do you suppose my colleages here think of this? Well, I wrote the “Running Naked in the Forest” fable as a way of expressing how people within the profession see Bill Powers’ and Rick’s editorializing on the econmics proffesion. Bill Powers favorate word lately has been “slander.” Well, Bill has been engaged in a reckless rant for what seems like ages. What Powers has been saying is frankly paranoid. Reading the biography of Ezra Pound really does illuminate the situation. Bill Powers exercised very poor judgment when he introduced his dad’s reflections on the economy into CSG, and CSGnet. It has nothing neccesarily to do with anything except that Bill Powers’ dad was Bill Powers’ dad. The entire basis of this unfortuante episode was sheerly accidental. So, I feel an intellectual obligation to knock this crankish nonsense in the dirt. You may notice that when these firestorms start, they start with Bill Powers making an unfortunate comment about an economist, me , or Keynes, or just the whole dam profession. And, I inturn, comment. Now, admittedly lately my explainations have been taking the form of “Shut-up he explained.”

Now, your description of this process as mirroring , while perhaps helpful in some respects, is not, I think , entirely accurate. Keynes isn’t the figure that Powers describes. Keynes’ chapter on User Cost is not an excuse for larger capital deductions. Bill Powers description of Keynes is mistaken, and my description is correrct. That is the reality of the situation. Bill Powers’ postion is the product of a paranoid world view, and this needs pointing out.

What does your reductio ad absurdam argument prove?

I think the question should be rephrased in terms of “To whom” has my argument proved anything? For one thing there a number of people lurking who are pleased to see Bill Powers, Rick Marken and an unfortunate aspect of CSG community affairs shatter when it rammed the wrong rock. As, I keep telling Bill Powers you don’t have to pick a fight with me but he keeps on doing so. I thought there for a while Bill Powers had learned, but then he did it again. If nothing else, it proves that the credentialized experts in economics can be, as Bill Powers said, “difficult to deal with.”

It simply isn’t true that the entire economics profession is devoted to creating smoke to keep people from understanding the way the economy works-- this is insane. There really isn’t any other word for it. And, I am not going to shrink from saying so. Irrationalism ought to be exposed. It is an intellectual obligation.

Bill Williams

···

At 10:44 PM 4/17/2004 -0500, Williams, William D. wrote:
At 01:33 AM 4/18/2004 -0500, Bill Williams wrote: