# Archive, sociologists, Bill P(long)

**URL:** http://discourse.iapct.org/t/archive-sociologists-bill-p-long/1239
**Category:** CSG1995
**Created:** [March 25, 1995, 11:45pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/archive-sociologists-bill-p-long/1239 "1995-03-25T23:45:58Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![Dennis\_McCracken](http://discourse.iapct.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Dennis\_McCracken](http://discourse.iapct.org/u/Dennis_McCracken)
#### Post date: [March 25, 1995, 11:45pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/archive-sociologists-bill-p-long/1239/1 "1995-03-25T23:45:58Z")

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[From Dennis McCracken 9503123 1230PST]

(Dag Forssell (9503123 2130)

> Are you talking about the entire archive or the disks I posted  
> about?

I was referring to the update list. How can I get the 810 KB file.? I am  
mainly interested in specific files. How did they get packaged by subject ?  
Are old archives available in similar prepackaged files as well as  
chronologically?

> (Did you already get the disk w/ 640 KB)?

No, Do I send you $10 or $20 for the two disks?

> If you are interested in the entire archive, why don't you tell us about

your equipment, software.  
Don't have enough hardisk space for the whole thing and haven't got tape  
storage yet. Is there a Windows search program available if I do get a  
tape backup? I have a 14.4KBS hookup to a PPP gateway and use Netscape for  
WWW.

I have used the archives and was right in the middle of a search on  
"reality" patterns in 1993 when the archive dropped the old posts. I would  
like to access the whole thing eventually. Any possibility of finding a WAIS  
server for the entire file?

(Kent McClelland 950323)  
(Paul Stokes 950321)

You probably don't have my first post describing my interests in PCT but  
briefly I'm a clinician in a large HMO, (degrees in social work and  
psychology). My REAL interest is in community development using the internet  
as a globally oriented information conduit tailoring delivery of information  
to local interests and needs.  
Currently I am designing my own WWW home page to demonstrate these ideas and  
link up with those similarly interested.

Theoretical view point has been influenced by " social construction of  
reality" a la Berger and Luckman and lately Keneth Gergen, the  
narrative/constructionist school in psychotherapy. My aim is to transfer  
useful ideas from these perspectives to practical applications in  
psychotherapy, health education, community development, etc. I am also  
interested in popular media as time-slice statements about the "state of the  
culture" and as sources of perceptual control variables and construction of  
"self". ( Incidently, we (clinicians) are noting an increase in incidence  
of "multiple personalities" as well as a notion that for many people,  
"selves" are not as coherent as they once may have been). I have a strong  
interest in comparative religion and theological perspectives as sources of  
high level perceptual control variables and the related thorny problems of  
dialogue between differing religious perspectives including atheism, scientism.

As we move toward a planetary society/culture I am concerned that we find  
ways of understanding how to live with one another in a pluralistic  
conceptual universe. ( especially when, as Ed Ford well describes, its  
difficult enough to manage it in the same house hold or neighborhood!)

Connected with this is an idea of politics as social cybernetics: aggregates  
of individual perceptual control systems cooperating (and competing with  
other aggregates) in the management of resources ( This idea goes back to  
Peter Corning, as far as I know-- correct me if I am wrong).

I seem to recall Bill Powers saying we don't have to wait to validate every  
level of the HPCT hierarchy experimentally to use the basic concept (  
behavior controls perception) to sort out our thinking about higher order  
control mechanisms. I don't think we can afford to wait that long. Like Ed  
Ford, as a clinician I have been concerned with working from and on the top  
levels.

Paul,  
Do you have any insights to contribute in this area ("getting along" or  
"politics"), especially since Irish folks seemed to have made recent  
progress in this area. Do you have some ideas from a PCT /sociology point  
of view about what has changed.

Kent,  
I have have read the 1992 version of your paper on PCT and Social Theory  
and I would like you to send me a preprint of the '94 paper in Sociological  
Perspectives.

In viewing the 93 PCT conference video, reference was made to your paper  
presented in Wales and a diagram you made of a conceptual mapping of  
sociological projects " for the next 20 years" that could usefully be  
explored using the PCT frame of reference. Is there anything on paper like  
this? Are reprints available of the talk then or revisions thereof?

Bill Powers (950323.0830)]  
Thanks for permission to cite your posts.

Regards,  
Dennis

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> Dennis McCracken,MSW,PhD  
> 2038 Joyce Ln.  
> Suisun City, CA, 94585  
> dennis@community.net "Reality is always in Beta"