Collective Human Endeavor

I'd like to move outside the sphere of individual behavior and talk a little
bit about collective human endeavor, a.k.a. cooperative, collaborative efforts.

According to PCT, I act to control my perceptions. If, in my role as a
"worker," I am to produce worthwhile results on the job, doing so is a
function of the extent to which the perceptions that I try to control are
consistent with the requirements or expectations of someone else, say my
manager or supervisor.

As the saluting example in earlier discussion reveals, I cannot control for
satisfying someone else's notion of an acceptable salute, only my own. If
this is the case, how am I as a worker to produce acceptable on the job
results? How is that my manager and I arrive at what, for all practical
purposes, are shared perceptions of expected results? Or is that outside
the purview of PCT?
Regards,

Fred Nickols
nickols@worldnet.att.net

[From Rick Marken (971011.1200)]

Fred Nickols (971011)--

I'd like to move outside the sphere of individual behavior and
talk a little bit about collective human endeavor, a.k.a.
cooperative, collaborative efforts... how am I as a worker
to produce acceptable on the job results? How is that my
manager and I arrive at what, for all practical purposes, are
shared perceptions of expected results? Or is that outside
the purview of PCT?

Nope, it's right in the purview of PCT. I think the best place
to start is Powers' "CT Psychology and social organizations"
in LCS II, p 91. Then you might try to tackle "Degrees of
freedom in social interations" in LCS I, p 221. A nice
presentation of models of cooperation and other collective
behaviors can be found in:

McClelland, Kent. On cooperatively controlled perceptions and social
order". Available from the author, Dept. of Sociology, Grinnell College,
Grinnell IOWA 50112 USA.

and

McClelland, Kent. (1996). The Collective control of perceptions: Toward
a person-centered sociology. Revised version of a paper presented at the
1996 Annual Meeting of the Control Systems Group,
Flagstaff, Arizona.

And, of course, there if Bill Powers "Gatherings" or "Crowd"
program that simulates the collective control of perception.
A description of this program can be found in:

McPhail, Clark., Powers, William T., & Tucker, Charles W. (1992).
Simulating individual and collective action In temporary
gatherings. Social Science Computer Review, 10(1), 1-28.

If your taste runs to actual scientific tests of models of
collective behavior then I recommend the work of W. Thomas
Bourbon, such as his paper in the _American Behavioral Scientist_
issue on purposeful behavior (Sage Publications,Sept/Oct 1990);
Tom's paper starts on p. 95.

Just because we've been ignored doesn't mean we haven't been
working;-)

Best

Rick

···

--

Richard S. Marken Phone or Fax: 310 474-0313
Life Learning Associates e-mail: rmarken@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~rmarken/

[From Ken Kitzke (971012.1200)]

Hello Fred,

<According to PCT, I act to control my perceptions. If, in my role as a
"worker," I am to produce worthwhile results on the job, doing so is a
function of the extent to which the perceptions that I try to control are
consistent with the requirements or expectations of someone else, say my
manager or supervisor.>

Boy, you sure have that one right! That is why PCT has been so helpful to
me in our consulting on how to manage people for continuous performance
improvement.

I had some observations of how this can be brought about. When I learned
PCT, it helped me understand why certain company-wide initiatives failed
while others thrived.

Bill Powers literally changed my life and work as many who have learned PCT
have found. It explains all behavior of living creatures for the first
time since they were created.

Employees in companies act (behave) sometimes as individuals and sometimes
as a group or team. When part of a group, the individual must often set
aside their personal desires to achieve the goal of the group. If not,
they should leave the group to minimize the disturbances to their
individualism for the good of themselves and the group.

<If this is the case, how am I as a worker to produce acceptable on the job
results? How is that my manager and I arrive at what, for all practical
purposes, are shared perceptions of expected results?>

We call it and define that shared perception for the results of work the
valid requirements for quality. It works great!

<Or is that outside the purview of PCT?>

No behavior is outside the pruview of PCT as I understand it.

Hope this helps and encourages you.

Kenny

[From Bill Powers (971012.1558 MDT)]

I'd like to move outside the sphere of individual behavior and talk a little
bit about collective human endeavor, a.k.a. cooperative, collaborative

efforts.

According to PCT, I act to control my perceptions. If, in my role as a
"worker," I am to produce worthwhile results on the job, doing so is a
function of the extent to which the perceptions that I try to control are
consistent with the requirements or expectations of someone else, say my
manager or supervisor.

As the saluting example in earlier discussion reveals, I cannot control for
satisfying someone else's notion of an acceptable salute, only my own. If
this is the case, how am I as a worker to produce acceptable on the job
results? How is that my manager and I arrive at what, for all practical
purposes, are shared perceptions of expected results? Or is that outside
the purview of PCT?

The one thing you have to remember about PCT is that it is a theory of how
people work, one at a time. How they interact is a product of how they each
work.

When you think about human interactions, you are thinking about them inside
your own head, with your own perceptions and your own understanding. That's
all you will ever know about people or about yourself. That's all anybody
will ever know. There are no shared perceptions, there are no shared
expectations, there are no shared goals. There are only _your_ perceptions,
_your_ expectations, _your_ goals. Other people exist only as you perceive
and imagine them to be, so this is true of society, too. Whatever you say
about the world that is not a report of your own direct experience can come
only from your own imagination.

This is the point that keeps eluding us when we try to talk about social
systems. Each one of us experiences a social system from one particular
point of view, the one each of us occupies. There are no exceptions; there
is nobody who can perceive what the social system "really is." No matter
what you say about other people, it is you saying it, and the content of
the thought is of your own making. If you want to change any part of the
social system -- say, to improve it -- then all you can do is try to
persuade others to agree with you. And they will either agree with you or
not agree with you.

If you want to understand a social interaction, you have to try to imagine
how each person in it works, and to imagine yourself in the position of
that person. You have to remember that for each person, all knowledge is
subjective and all aspirations are personal. The way people interact comes
out of the way they perceive others and what they want to perceive
happening to others and to themselves. For any one person, the rest of the
world is largely unknown, and can be dealt with only in terms of appearances.

If you try to keep these points in mind, many of your questions about
people interacting with other people will answer themselves.

Best,

Bill P.

[From Fred Nickols (971013.1335 ET)]

Bill Powers (971012.1558 MDT)...

   in response to an earlier, undated posting of mine (sorry 'bout that)

Bill:

The one thing you have to remember about PCT is that it is a theory of how
people work, one at a time. How they interact is a product of how they each
work.

Agreed, although this prompts another question. It seems to me that when
people are interacting, the set of controlled perceptions we ordinarily call
"ego" is much more front and center than when we are sitting alone in our
studies, hard at work on a point paper for senior management. All of which
suggests to me a swirling, seething sea of shifting reference signals being
invoked and released, moving up and down in importance; which, in turn,
suggests a very, very busy hierarchical control system.

Bill:

When you think about human interactions, you are thinking about them inside
your own head, with your own perceptions and your own understanding. That's
all you will ever know about people or about yourself. That's all anybody
will ever know. There are no shared perceptions, there are no shared
expectations, there are no shared goals. There are only _your_ perceptions,
_your_ expectations, _your_ goals. Other people exist only as you perceive
and imagine them to be, so this is true of society, too. Whatever you say
about the world that is not a report of your own direct experience can come
only from your own imagination.

I understand the point you're making above (I think) and I agree with most
of it (I think), but I'm not so sure I buy your assertion that there are no
shared goals. You and I are both old enough to recall WWII, Korea, and Viet
Nam. I think lots of people shared the goal of whipping the Nazis in WWII.
I think less consensus occurred during Korea, and much less in Viet Nam. I
agree that what we each might picture in response to "whip the Nazis" is
likely to be very different but I suspect it has to contain enough
similarity that we can in fact cooperate and collaborate in achieving it.
Otherwise, it would seem to me that collective human endeavor is all chance
and serendipity. That is a point to which I'll not agree.

This is the point that keeps eluding us when we try to talk about social
systems. Each one of us experiences a social system from one particular
point of view, the one each of us occupies. There are no exceptions; there
is nobody who can perceive what the social system "really is." No matter
what you say about other people, it is you saying it, and the content of
the thought is of your own making. If you want to change any part of the
social system -- say, to improve it -- then all you can do is try to
persuade others to agree with you. And they will either agree with you or
not agree with you.

Agreed, again. Which leads me to rephrase my question:

        What does it mean, in PCT terms, to say that we agree?

If you want to understand a social interaction, you have to try to imagine
how each person in it works, and to imagine yourself in the position of
that person. You have to remember that for each person, all knowledge is
subjective and all aspirations are personal. The way people interact comes
out of the way they perceive others and what they want to perceive
happening to others and to themselves. For any one person, the rest of the
world is largely unknown, and can be dealt with only in terms of appearances.

That works well most of the time. Indeed, I've even found that projecting
often works well, too. It's amazing how much people are alike. :slight_smile:

If you try to keep these points in mind, many of your questions about
people interacting with other people will answer themselves.

I certainly hope so.
Regards,

Fred Nickols
The Distance Consulting Company
nickols@worldnet.att.net

[From Rick Marken (971013.1345)]

Fred Nickols (971013.1335 ET) to Bill Powers (971012.1558 MDT) --

I'm not so sure I buy your assertion that there are no shared
goals...I agree that what we each might picture in response to
"whip the Nazis" is likely to be very different but I suspect
it has to contain enough similarity that we can in fact cooperate
and collaborate in achieving it. Otherwise, it would seem to me
that collective human endeavor is all chance and serendipity.

I think Bill's point was that people can only have their own
goals; they cannot literally "share" them with anyone else.
In PCT, a goal is the reference specification for the state of a
particular controlled perceptual variables. In order to share goals,
two people would have to have exactly the same perception of the
state of the world to be controlled. For example, they would have
to perceive "status of Nazis" in exactly the same way, which is an
impossibility just given the fact that no two people can perceive
_anything_ from exactly the same perspective.

Also, in order to share goals, people would have to have exactly the
same reference specifications for the state of the perceptual variable
being controlled; that is, they would have to mean exactly the
same thing by "whip the Nazis", which defines a reference state for
the perception of "status of Nazis". To some people "whip the Nazis"
might be a perception like "all Nazis dead" while to others it might
be a perception like "all Nazis out of government positions".

Althougyh people cannot share goals, they can, apparently, control
for perceptions so that it _appears_ that they are collectively
working toward a shared goal. This happens all the time. People
control for building a new shopping center or electing a president
or promoting PCT Each person involved in contributing to the
collectively produced result is surely controlling different
perceptual variables relative to different references; but the
result is often one that everyone agrees is what they wanted (but
not always; look at the disagreements over whether we are all
involved in "promoting PCT").

The appreance of shared goals may happen when people have exactly
the same goals. But it seems to me that it is most unlikely any
two people will ever have exactly the same goals. I think the
appearance of shared goals often happens as a side effect of the
fact that people are controlling for variables that are nothing
like the commonly produced result; this is what happens when the
individuals in the CROWD demo, none of whom has the goal of forming
a circle around a "guru", end up forming such a circle. It also
happens when individuals have the goal of cooperating to produce
the "same" result, as in Tom Bourbon's studies of cooperation; in
that case two individuals do try to have the same goals; they are
not "shared" but they are very similar goals; we know this because,
if the goals were not similar, there would be conflict.

All kinds of interesting collective behavior "falls out" of the
interaction of independent, autonomous control systems that can try
to _communicate_ their goals to each other but cannot share these
goals. This is basically the topic of Kent McClelland's latest
paper on "control theory sociology". If Kent is listening maybe
he could post the reference for you.

Best

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken Phone or Fax: 310 474-0313
Life Learning Associates e-mail: rmarken@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~rmarken

[From Bill Powers (971014.0649 MDT)]

Fred Nickols (971013.1335 ET)--

I understand the point you're making above (I think) and I agree with most
of it (I think), but I'm not so sure I buy your assertion that there are no
shared goals.

Just think about how you would find out whether you share a goal with
somebody else. Here you sit, in your own head, and over there you see
another person doing things that have results you can perceive. Does that
person share your goals? I'm not asking whether, in some objective sense,
there is a similarity in his goals and yours. I'm asking how you could
identify his goals, and even more important, I'm trying to say that you
would have to do a lot of work to identify them to your own satisfaction.
You'd have to watch the person, and discuss the goals. A lot of words would
flow back and forth, but what would NOT flow back and forth would be the
goals.

I think the nearest we can come to sharing goals or perceptions is to share
words that are supposed to describe them. But that doesn't really get us
very close. When I hear a word, what comes to mind are the meanings _I_
assign to them, the links to the experiences _I_ have had. Those are the
only meanings I can know. You and I have an interest in something we refer
to with the initials PCT. But do I know what those initials mean to you? Do
you know what they mean to me? Millions and millions of words have passed
across this email net, yet we're still talking, trying to "share" this
idea. It's really very hard to share anything, much less actual perceptions
and reference signals. Each of us has to work out an understanding that's
satisfactory to each of us, but most of that understanding can't be put
into words. There are lots of "PCTs" out there. The wonder is that we can
seem to reach agreement about any of them!

You and I are both old enough to recall WWII, Korea, and Viet

Nam. I think lots of people shared the goal of whipping the Nazis in WWII.
I think less consensus occurred during Korea, and much less in Viet Nam. I
agree that what we each might picture in response to "whip the Nazis" is
likely to be very different but I suspect it has to contain enough
similarity that we can in fact cooperate and collaborate in achieving it.
Otherwise, it would seem to me that collective human endeavor is all chance
and serendipity. That is a point to which I'll not agree.

No, not chance and serendipity. We work very hard to understand each other
and to do things together. All I'm saying is that we succeed at this far
less often than we assume we do. The fact that it takes so much effort
should be telling us something: there's nothing simple or obvious about
human interactions. Heck, I remember that when "America" finally went to
war against Hitler's Germany, there were plenty of Americans who thought we
were on the wrong side. We use the word "we" much too casually. I remember
with great embarrassment singing out at the top of my lungs "We're gonna
have to zap the dirty little Jap," as I "shared" a goal that really went
against all my principles. It's really a very good thing, survival-wise,
that we _can't_ actually share each other's thoughts and understandings.

       What does it mean, in PCT terms, to say that we agree?

Ah, that is indeed the question. Just work it out. You say, "I think we
should whip the Nazis." I say "So do I." Does that mean we agree? Rick
Marken has said what I want to say: of course not. It may mean that we get
on the same troop ship and head toward the same war, but what we see as
happening and what we want to happen could still be completely different.
Only your closest relatives and friends could have even a glimmer of a
notion of what you perceive and want -- and even they can be surprised by
you, and have no idea of what lies at the core of your existence. Agreement
is better than disagreement, but it's really far harder to find out what
you agree about than what you disagree about. I really liked Jimi Hendrix,
and so did my son, but what we liked were not the same things.

That works well most of the time. Indeed, I've even found that projecting
often works well, too. It's amazing how much people are alike. :slight_smile:

Of course I have to agree, or else I couldn't promote PCT as a model of
human nature. But people are like in _general_ ways, as in having two legs
and two eyes. Where they go on their legs and what they see with their eyes
are not so similar. I think we have to guard against thinking that people
are really very similar in their organization; that could be just a sign
that we're not noticing the differences.

Best,

Bill P.