[From Rick Marken (970428.1100)]
Bruce Abbott (970428.1035 EST) --
Would you like me to start taking up CSGnet bandwidth reposting other
people's just-posted messages, too?
Why not? If they are as good as the one's I re-posted I think it would be
worth it. There is so much chaff posted to CSGNet I think it's not a bad
idea to occasionally re-post the best wheat in case people missed it.
Appartntly "emmis" (not to be confused with "emes") means boring people by
endlessly quoting other people's just-posted posts whose message you happen
to agree with, thus forcing everyone to read them at least twice.
That's a way of looking at it. My experience with you is that "boredom" is
one of your ways of dealing with disturbances to your perception of the
merits of conventional methodology. You found my re-posts of Bill's
discussion of the behavioral illusion boring; you found my "Dancer..." paper
on PCT methodology boring. I presume that you found my "Behavioral llusion"
Java demo a real yawner, too. When you are bored I know I'm on the right
track;-)
This one [of my posts] didn't even carry a comment.
Sorry. My brother was over and he accidentally posted it while playing
around with my computer. I should have sent him off to Ed Ford's
responsible thinking program a long time ago;-)
Hans Blom (970428g) --
My only hope is that you will see the light, some time soon now ;-).
I saw the light some time ago. That's why we formed CSGNet; so that those of
us who understood the basic facts of control could develop a science of
organisms as perceptual control systems. Unfortunately, we have spent most of
of our time showing why theories like yours cannot explain even the simplest
examples of the controlling done by living organisms. Bill Powers was
demonstrating (via models and data) and explaining the failure of MCT type
models of control before he even published B:CP. I knew what was wrong with
such models by the early '80s. So it's not likely that I'm going to "see the
light" of MCT any more.
I'm getting pretty tired of constantly sparring with people who think that
PCT is nothing new, that MCT is more advanced than PCT, that PCT is
consistent with information theory or reinforcement theory or whatever, that
there is all kinds of conventional data that PCT must account for if it's to
be taken seriously, etc etc. I thought CSGNet would get us away from most of
that crap. We already knew that most people who discover PCT see it as 1)
"nothing but ... (you name it)" or 2) something other than what it is or 3)
not as up to date as...(again you name it) or 4) way too radical or 5) wrong.
I thought CSGNet would be a meeting place for those of us who were ready to
start developing PCT science or were ready to learn how to do so. Instead, we
get people trying to "teach us" why what we are saying about behavior and PCT
is wrong; the same thing we got when we tried to publish our papers. Frankly,
I'm tired of listening to this stuff. All I want to do now is PCT. I want to
know what kinds of variables people (and other organisms -- or plants)
control and I want to see some nice ways of demonstrating that these
variables are under control.
If you like MCT, Hans, then go off and work on it. But I'm not interested
in it. If you want to keep posting your "words of wisdom" about model-based
control, feel free. But I can assure you that I will "see the light" only
when you start talking about the variables that organisms control and
the methods we can use to determine what these variables are.
Fred Nickols (970427) --
I have been invited to address the corporate university of a
major high-tech company. What they want to know is how might my
model of the autonomous performer be applied in their work. Their
work, if I guess correctly, focuses on how to manage/influence/
shape/guide other people's behavior in pursuit of results/effects/
outcomes sought and/or valued by influential members of the
company/organization/institution of which they are members
Well, if your model were PCT you might be inclined to suggest that, if they
want to avoid interpersonal conflict (which reduces productivity) they
change the focus of their work from "how to manage...other people's
behavior in pursuit of results...valued by influential members of the
company..." to "how to coordinate... the behavior of _everyone_ in the
company (including themselves) in pursuit of results...valued by all".
I have not yet constructed an example that explains job/task
performance in PCT terms...Does anyone else have some ready
examples I can beg, borrow, or steal?
Examples of PCT explanations of job/task performance are not hard to find;
since people are always controlling their perceptions, everything they do
is an example of "performance in PCT terms". Any job involves control of a
hierarchy of _many_ perceptions. A truck driver controls all the low level
perceptions involved in making sure that the truck is ready to roll
(perception of gas level, oil level, door position, etc), the perceptions
involved in driving the truck (perception of speed, relationship to other
vehicles and road, etc), etc. All these perceptions are controlled as a
means of controlling higher level perceptions (like the perception of the
load being delivered, getting paid, being a good truck driver, helping the
company, etc).
Of course, these are just guesses (based on my experience driving a delivery
truck when I was a kid) about some of the perceptions a truck driver might be
controlling. To know what a person was _really_ doing when performing a
particular "job/task" you would have to do a rather detailed set of
tests to determine what perceptual variables the person is controlling. But
that's what a "job/ task" is according to PCT; an observed side- effect of
the worker's control of a hierarchy of _many_ perceptual variables.
Best
Rick