[From Rick Marken (950904.1200)]
Marc Abrams (950395) --
Sorry,I don't believe that this is an accurate description of
competition. I do believe it is an accurate description of conflict.
I'm not sure I understand the difference between what you call "competition"
and what you call "conflict".
A conflict is simply a situation where two control systems want the
same perception in two different states. If both control systems are
strong, the actions of the systems will quickly escalate; the conflict will
appear violent. If both systems are weak, the actions of the systems will
escalate very slowly; it will be like there is no conflict at all. If one
system is much stronger than the other, the stronger will quickly overwhelm
the weaker system and, again, there will appear to be no conflict. I believe
that all of these situations can be described as "competition" between control
systems; competition for where the perception should be. Perhaps you use the
word "competition" to describe the latter two situations.
Conflict is not necessarily all out war. You and I, for example, are
currently in a conflict about our perception of the meaning of the word
"competiion". I think "competition" is equivalent to "conflict" and you
don't; we have different references for our perception of the meaning
of "competition". When you say "I don't believe that this is an accurate
description of competition" you are acting to correct a disturbance to
your perception of "competition" that was created by whatever I said in
my previous post. My current reply -- what I am saying right now -- is a
correction to the disturbance to my perception of "competition" by
what you said above -- and it will probably be a disturbance to your
perception of the meaning of "competition".
Instead of escalation Rick, what if someone were to stop and ask a
question to clarify a position. What if the advocacy without inquiry
stopped on both sides. Would you still consider that conflict or
competition?
Asking for clarification of your (or my) position will not necessarily
resolve this conflict. It might if we discover that we are, indeed, talking
about two different things. But I think that it is just as likely that asking
for clarification of one's position will itself be a disturbance that
contributes to escalation of the conflict
It seems to me that the only way to resolve this (or any) conflict is 1) for
one person to start seeing things the other person's way (for example,
I would see that "competition" and "conflict" are different) or 2) for
one of us to stop controlling our perception of the word "competition".
Rather than each of us trying to convince the other that our reference
for the meaning of "competition" is the right one, I suggest that we try
to understand the phenomena referred to by the words "competition"
and "conflict". Several people on the net (Tom Bourbon and Kent
McClelland, for example) have done studies of what I call "conflict".
Kent has done some wonderful studies of what happens when two control
system models try to control the same perception. Tom has placed real
people in situations where interpersonal conflict is possible and modelled
the conflict using PCT.
They can show us, in other words, how conflict between control
systems works. You could, then, show us how competition between
control systems works. We could all stop controlling for the meaning
of the terms "competition" and "conflict" and start controlling for
understanding what happens when control systems interact.
Me:
we believe that the PCT model -- to the extent that it is correct --
REALLY characterizes the nature of living systems ...
Hans Blom (950904b) --
That may be a problem, then. How can it be that PCTers, exclusively,
have direct access to reality? Is PCT a religion?
I meant it in the same sense that Galileo thought the planets REALLY
move around the sun. PCT says that people really do control their own
perceptual experience. This might not be really true -- or it may not be
true in detail (just as the Copernican view was not really true in detail;
the planets move in elipses; perhaps people control models rather than
perceptions of "reality") but it is currently the best approximation we
have.
I also meant it as a reference to how behaviorists (like Skinner) deal
with their own theory of people. Since behaviorists are people, too, one
would imagine that behaviorists would assume that their theory applies to
themselves as well as to everyone else. Skinner did pay pay lip service to
the idea that he was controlled by reinforcments as much as anyone -- indeed,
he would often say that he did such and such because he had been reinforced
for doing it in the past -- but he didn't seem to believe that he was
really controlled by reinforcmmnts. How could he believe that and, at the
same time, talk about WANTING people to behave a particular way. His theory
made what he, and everyone else, wanted irrelevant. Yet he persistanly
told people not only what to want but to go out and get what they want; he
told people do do what his theory said they could not possibly do: control.
This is what I mean by not taking a theory seriously.
Best
Rick
