# Conflictive control

**URL:** <http://discourse.iapct.org/t/conflictive-control/2815>\
**Category:** CSG1996\
**Created:** [October 3, 1996, 1:58pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/conflictive-control/2815 "1996-10-03T13:58:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Bill\_Powers1](http://discourse.iapct.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Bill\_Powers1](http://discourse.iapct.org/u/Bill_Powers1)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 1996, 1:58pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/conflictive-control/2815/1 "1996-10-03T13:58:03Z")

</div>

[From Bill Powers (961003.0715 MDT)]

Avery Andrews 961003 --

> I'm still not to happy with Kent's treatment of `conflictive control',  
> for various reasons.

Kent isn't \_advocating\_ conflictive control, he's merely describing it as a  
phenomenon of real social behavior. Consider the adversary system in trials,  
or competition in business (for money) or academia (for prestige) or sports  
(for ascendency) or politics (for advantage). Even when people try to  
cooperate, their goals and their perceptions are always somewhat different,  
and there is always pushing and pulling against each other in spite of the  
fact that they are supposed to be aligning their efforts and aims.

> 2) If Cindy and Avery are conflictively controlling, say, the position  
> of a table, they are doomed to stand there forever tugging at it.

They may not stand there forever tugging at a table, but I'll wager that  
they are standing there tugging in opposite directions at other controlled  
variables, and have done so for some time, and will continue to do so for  
some time. There's an effective reference level that is different from both  
of the actual reference levels, and the result, while not exactly what  
either one alone would prefer, is not totally unacceptable to either one.  
And the variable does get controlled: if an outsider said "Cindy is  
perfectly right, and her way should prevail," Cindy would relax and Avery  
would gear up for action, and the variable would stay where it is: minimum  
total error, although not minimum error in each person. What is it? Socks  
dropped where Avery took them off? Hairspray on the bathroom mirror? Who  
gets the car on Thursdays? Whose friends come to dinner? How much they talk  
together versus working at something separately? Lots of problems like these  
never get settled; they just come to some equilibrium condition. But it's  
not exactly passive equilibrium, because any deviation will cause one side  
to relax and the other to try harder, and the effective control can be  
pretty tight.

Your suggestions about physical linkages among perceptions, and of  
strategies for minimizing conflict, are OK with me. But it's hard to work  
out such things in a whole society, with hundreds or thousands or millions  
of people at the same time. I think what happens is that you seek out people  
with whom you have the least conflict and the most success at resolving  
conflicts, and limit your interactions mainly to that small group. The  
groups avoid conflict with other groups mainly by not having much contact  
with them. When they do come into conflict, look to the Middle East for an  
example of the result.

The biggest insight I got out of Kent's paper was that there is really  
nobody in charge of a society, nobody to complain to about it. Each person  
has reasons for behaving in certain ways, and when you add up all those  
reasons and all those behaviors, you get the resultant, which is the current  
form of the society. The only way to change a society is to promulgate ideas  
that change a large number of reference signals or ways of perceiving in a  
specific way; then the resultant will shift and the society as a whole will  
start defending a different set of virtual reference levels.

Best,

Bill P.

---

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**Author:** ![Bruce\_Gregory9](http://discourse.iapct.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/43a26b/32.png) [@Bruce\_Gregory9](http://discourse.iapct.org/u/Bruce_Gregory9)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 1996, 3:41pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/conflictive-control/2815/2 "1996-10-03T15:41:03Z")

</div>

[From Bruce Gregory (961003.1045 EDT)]

(Bill Powers 961003.0715 MDT)

> \> Avery Andrews 961003 --

> \>2) If Cindy and Avery are conflictively controlling, say, the position  
> \>of a table, they are doomed to stand there forever tugging at it.
> 
> They may not stand there forever tugging at a table, but I'll wager that  
> they are standing there tugging in opposite directions at other controlled  
> variables, and have done so for some time, and will continue to do so for  
> some time. There's an effective reference level that is different from both  
> of the actual reference levels, and the result, while not exactly what  
> either one alone would prefer, is not totally unacceptable to either one.  
> And the variable does get controlled: if an outsider said "Cindy is  
> perfectly right, and her way should prevail," Cindy would relax and Avery  
> would gear up for action, and the variable would stay where it is: minimum  
> total error, although not minimum error in each person. What is it? Socks  
> dropped where Avery took them off? Hairspray on the bathroom mirror? Who  
> gets the car on Thursdays? Whose friends come to dinner? How much they talk  
> together versus working at something separately? Lots of problems like these  
> never get settled; they just come to some equilibrium condition. But it's  
> not exactly passive equilibrium, because any deviation will cause one side  
> to relax and the other to try harder, and the effective control can be  
> pretty tight.

If you manage to "go up a level" and to control for having a  
satisfying and rewarding relationship, many of the lower level  
potential sources of conflict vanish. It took me a long time to  
realize this, but it \_was\_ worth the effort.

Bruce

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bill\_Benzon](http://discourse.iapct.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/54ee81/32.png) [@Bill\_Benzon](http://discourse.iapct.org/u/Bill_Benzon)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 1996, 8:44pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/conflictive-control/2815/3 "1996-10-03T20:44:01Z")

</div>

BP said:

> The biggest insight I got out of Kent's paper was that there is really  
> nobody in charge of a society, nobody to complain to about it. Each person  
> has reasons for behaving in certain ways, and when you add up all those  
> reasons and all those behaviors, you get the resultant, which is the current  
> form of the society. The only way to change a society is to promulgate ideas  
> that change a large number of reference signals or ways of perceiving in a  
> specific way; then the resultant will shift and the society as a whole will  
> start defending a different set of virtual reference levels.

I'll buy that. Getting a handle on the dynamics of those virtual actors is  
a tough one.

Changing society is sort of like trying to convince academic psychologists  
that people have purposes and that one can talk about those purposes in a  
perfectly non-mystical way.

> **···**
>
> \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*  
> William L. Benzon 518.272.4733  
> 161 2nd Street bbenzon@global2000.net  
> Troy, NY 12180 [Account Suspended](http://www.newsavanna.com/wlb/)  
> USA  
> \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*  
> What color would you be if you didn't know what you was?  
> That's what color I am.  
> \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Avery\_Andrews1](http://discourse.iapct.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/b3f665/32.png) [@Avery\_Andrews1](http://discourse.iapct.org/u/Avery_Andrews1)\
**Post date:** [October 4, 1996, 5:08pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/conflictive-control/2815/4 "1996-10-04T17:08:53Z")

</div>

> > I'm still not to happy with Kent's treatment of `conflictive control',  
> > for various reasons.
> 
> Kent isn't \_advocating\_ conflictive control, he's merely describing it as a  
> phenomenon of real social behavior. Consider the adversary system in trials,  
> ...

And so I thought he was. I'm just very sceptical about its prevalence, as  
a mode of control. Consider football games, for example (your favorite  
code, whatever that may be). If the players weren't mostly controlling  
for the same things (not getting caught breaking the rules, the ball staying  
within bounds, etc.) the game would be unplayable. The main locus of  
conflict is the location of the ball w.r.t. the goals, and the graph  
of this variable does not looked much like an instance of control.

Conflict is clearly a feature of human societies, and figuring how it  
is managed and contained is important, and PCT hopefully has a lot to  
offer here, but I don't see conflictive control, as I understood (or  
maybe mis-understood) Kent as describing it to be a major factor.  
I'd suggest `strategic thinking' as a much more important factor.  
Occupying armies are often able to maintain a semblance of order in the  
territories they occupy because the locals don't want even worse  
things to happen to them (if you shoot the soldier on the streetcorner,  
15 houses in the village get blown up, or 50 hostages get executed).  
The occupying armies might at some level want to exterminate the  
inhabitants, or just drive them out in some random direction, but they  
don't, because they are afraid of loosing the support of some powerful  
backer, or making a new enemy that they don't need.

So lo-level conflicts are avoided while people maneuver around looking for  
some way to deliver a penalty-free king hit. The story of Odysseus and  
the Cyclops provides nice examples. Od. initially wanted to just stab  
the Cyclops in the liver, but didn't because then they'd be trapped in  
the cave, so he comes up with the wine & stake plan, feigns amiability and  
then does his thing.

> Socks  
> dropped where Avery took them off? Hairspray on the bathroom mirror? Who  
> gets the car on Thursdays? Whose friends come to dinner? How much they talk  
> together versus working at something separately? Lots of problems like these  
> never get settled; they just come to some equilibrium condition. But it's  
> not exactly passive equilibrium, because any deviation will cause one side  
> to relax and the other to try harder, and the effective control can be  
> pretty tight.

This looks to me like attractor basins, which are supposed to be somewhat  
different from genune control. But I certainly don't want to be dogmatic  
about this.

> Your suggestions about physical linkages among perceptions, and of  
> strategies for minimizing conflict, are OK with me. But it's hard to work  
> out such things in a whole society, with hundreds or thousands or millions  
> of people at the same time.

Yes, for practical work there have got to be simplifications; my understanding  
is a lot of the mathematical work in physics is figuring out simplifications  
that won't degrade the accuracy of the answers to an unacceptable degree.  
But I still think it's important to understand the underlying nature of  
whatever it is that's being simplified. One useful simplification is that  
it seems to be true that there is a lot of perceptual circuitry that  
converts low-level perceptions with complex and shifting patterns of  
linkage into high-level perceptions that are a lot more stable, such  
as the location of a ball in perceived `room-space', which is invariant  
as you walk around the room. It also seems to be the case that the  
linkages between such high level perceptions in different people  
(Cindy's idea about where the ball is vs. mine) are very simple; if I  
remember my multivariable calculus correctly, each persons perception of  
where the ball is will be a point in a three-dimensional manifold (the  
actual representation might involve any number of coordinates, but linkages  
will reduce the dfs to three), so that my perceptions of where the  
ball is (in room-space) will mappable in a well-behaved manner onto Cindy's,  
and vice versa, so we can talk about these two perceptions as being  
`the same'.

> I think what happens is that you seek out people  
> with whom you have the least conflict and the most success at resolving  
> conflicts, and limit your interactions mainly to that small group. The  
> groups avoid conflict with other groups mainly by not having much contact  
> with them. When they do come into conflict, look to the Middle East for an  
> example of the result.

Sure, but no matter how small and homogeneous the society, there is going  
to be some degree of conflict, and even big, multi-ethnic societies  
such as the US or Australia can maintain harmony on a very wide range  
of references (such as those associated with moving big hunks of metal  
around towns and highways). And even members of the same family moving  
around in the same house are going to have all sorts of low-level conflicts,  
if they don't have specific mechanisms for sorting them out. So my  
hunch is that sorting out the conflict resolution mechanisms is the  
big priority; I'd guess that most of the time this process works so well  
that people don't even notice that it's happening, or even notice the  
incipient conflict, such as the discrepancies in initial reference level  
for table position in the table-moving example.

For Cindy and I, one of the magic moments of childhood is when the toddler  
learns the meaning of the word `later'; then the conflict between the  
child's desire for ice-cream or whatever and the parent's desire to finish  
the current cup of coffee or whatever can be resolved (the belief that the  
ice-cream will be forthcoming lets the child abandon the reference  
for tasting the stuff RIGHT NOW!!!).

> The biggest insight I got out of Kent's paper was that there is really  
> nobody in charge of a society, nobody to complain to about it. Each person  
> has reasons for behaving in certain ways, and when you add up all those  
> ...

Definitely, my points are matters of detail rather than fundamental principle.

Avery.Andrews@anu.edu.au

---

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**Author:** ![\_Martin\_Taylor](http://discourse.iapct.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/_/a9adbd/32.png) [@\_Martin\_Taylor](http://discourse.iapct.org/u/_Martin_Taylor)\
**Post date:** [October 9, 1996, 5:46pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/conflictive-control/2815/5 "1996-10-09T17:46:30Z")

</div>

[Martin Taylor 961008 13:35]

> Avery Andrews Fri, 4 Oct 1996 12:08:53

> > Lots of problems like these  
> > never get settled; they just come to some equilibrium condition. But it's  
> > not exactly passive equilibrium, because any deviation will cause one side  
> > to relax and the other to try harder, and the effective control can be  
> > pretty tight.
> 
> This looks to me like attractor basins, which are supposed to be somewhat  
> different from genune control. But I certainly don't want to be dogmatic  
> about this.

What one control system does is control. What two do, interacting in the  
same world, is not, though what each of them does is indeed control. The  
interactions among control system has a dynamic that almost surely involves  
attractor basins. There are different ways in which the control systems  
can reach stable situations (not if they are linear, but in general there  
are). Each such way is an "orbit" leading to the attractor of the relevant  
basin.

There's no conflict between saying that individuals control and that the  
structure of the interrelations among individuals is a dynamic with attractors.

The attractors are the social conventions (and language) that evolves when  
these particular control systems interact. When new control systems are  
born into a group that has established certain attractors, the attractors  
may change in detail, but only rarely will they change drastically, and  
then (usually) only for a relatively small subgroup of strongly interacting  
control systems. Translated into everyday langauge: social conventions  
drift, but only rarely do revolutions happen, and when they do, they usually  
emanate from a prior revolution in a small cohesive subgroup.

Martin

---

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**Author:** ![Bill\_Powers1](http://discourse.iapct.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Bill\_Powers1](http://discourse.iapct.org/u/Bill_Powers1)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 1996, 3:59pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/conflictive-control/2815/6 "1996-10-18T15:59:52Z")

</div>

[From Bill Powers (961018.0745 MDT)]

Avery Andrews 961018 --

> Something that puzzles me is why my musings on `conflictive control'  
> have given rise to what to me seems to be a rather pointless argument  
> about attractors, rather than about whether `conflictive control' is  
> really as prevalent as I understood Kent's paper to be saying it was.

Good point. The basic thing we're doing there is discussing PCT and human  
behavior, and here we have some people doing it by wanting the discussion to  
be about attractors while others want it to be about conflictive control.  
Naturally there's some insistence by the various parties to the discussion  
that the discussion stay on one track or the other, but somehow, despite  
this tugging in different directions, the conversation goes on.

Sounds like conflictive control to me. Or do you think that the best thing  
to do would be for those who want to talk about each subject to start their  
own discussion groups, so we wouldn't have this conflict? Reaction here [].

Conflictive control is how people manage to stay together to carry on some  
project despite their differences about how it ought to be carried out and  
exactly what its goals are. That's not \_all\_ it is, but that's one  
application of the idea. Any outsider who tried to convince us that the PCT  
project really should be abandoned would meet with massive resistance just  
as if a single big control system with a single goal were acting, yet that  
doesn't prevent the people within it from having conflicts with others who  
are doing "the same thing." Sometimes it's amusing, isn't it, how an  
outsider will complain about the "party line" and the "religious faith" that  
is being proclaimed by the "high priests" inside the PCT "cult," while some  
of the insiders consider others to be stubborn opponents. I'm reminded of  
what happens on the Democratic and Republican sides of the Congressional  
Houses in Washington when a newcomer says "Ok, folks, time to talk about  
campaign finance reform." Or at a University Budget Committee meeting when  
some pipsqueak stands up and proposes that some serious money be allotted to  
PCT research.

I've always wondered about a bird phenomenon. A large flock of birds will be  
peacefully pecking away in a harvested grain field, when somewhere a single  
bird, then two, then four, then forty, then all 2000 of them will become  
airborn, fly in a huge group around in a big circle, and then settle back  
down into the field. It looks as if some huge organism had suddenly decided  
to peel itself off the ground, go for a short flight, and then land again to  
go on feeding. Obviously each bird is an independent collection of  
hierarchically related control systems, yet we get this concerted action as  
if under the control of a single higher-level entity.

One possible story is that there is conflictive control going on. All the  
birds have a goal of searching through the grain field to find bits of grain  
and eat them, but all of them also have the goal of maintaining proximity to  
other birds without actually bumping into them. If one bird, temporarily  
replete or finding no more grain nearby or startled by some imaginary  
predator, starts to take off , another bird nearby, trying to keep eating  
AND stay close to the center of gravity of the other neighboring birds,  
finds itself halfway between the two goals, airborne, which of course leads  
surrounding birds to try to maintain both goals, and before you know it all  
the birds are airborne and flying away (you have to be moving to fly). Of  
course that takes ALL the birds away from the grain field, and EACH of them  
that is still hungry tries to turn back without losing proximity to the  
other birds. The bird who started it all still wants to stay with the others  
and follows its neighbors back to the ground.

And how about the mavericks who stay on the ground munching away all during  
this pointless exercise? They were hungrier than they were lonesome. One  
piece of grain on the ground, they say to themselves, is worth two birds in  
the air. Neither people nor birds are all the same.

Best,

Bill P.

---

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**Author:** ![Avery\_Andrews1](http://discourse.iapct.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/b3f665/32.png) [@Avery\_Andrews1](http://discourse.iapct.org/u/Avery_Andrews1)\
**Post date:** [October 20, 1996, 2:49pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/conflictive-control/2815/7 "1996-10-20T14:49:11Z")

</div>

[Avery Andrews 961020]  
(Bill Powers (961018.0745 MDT))

> Avery Andrews 961018 --
> 
> \>Something that puzzles me is why my musings on `conflictive control'  
> \>have given rise to what to me seems to be a rather pointless argument  
> \>about attractors, rather than about whether `conflictive control' is  
> \>really as prevalent as I understood Kent's paper to be saying it was.
> 
> Good point. The basic thing we're doing there is discussing PCT and human  
> behavior, and here we have some people doing it by wanting the discussion to  
> be about attractors while others want it to be about conflictive control.  
> Naturally there's some insistence by the various parties to the discussion  
> that the discussion stay on one track or the other, but somehow, despite  
> this tugging in different directions, the conversation goes on.
> 
> Sounds like conflictive control to me. Or do you think that the best thing  
> to do would be for those who want to talk about each subject to start their  
> own discussion groups, so we wouldn't have this conflict? Reaction here [].

It doesn't sound like what I understood `conflictive control' to mean  
when I read Kent's paper, so maybe I better read it again. The  
conversation goes on and remains related to PCT because that's what  
pretty much everybody is controlling for, in spite of conflicts on  
other matters. Control in the presence of conflict certaintly exists,  
but that's not what I understood `conflictive control' to actually mean.

Avery.Andrews@anu.edu.au

---

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**Author:** ![Bill\_Powers1](http://discourse.iapct.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Bill\_Powers1](http://discourse.iapct.org/u/Bill_Powers1)\
**Post date:** [October 20, 1996, 6:23pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/conflictive-control/2815/8 "1996-10-20T18:23:59Z")

</div>

[From Bill Powers (961020.1130 MDT)]

Avery Andrews 961020 --

> The  
> conversation goes on and remains related to PCT because that's what  
> pretty much everybody is controlling for, in spite of conflicts on  
> other matters. Control in the presence of conflict certaintly exists,  
> but that's not what I understood `conflictive control' to actually mean.

The conflict is over what specific conversations amount to "being related to  
PCT." We agree that we'd like to do something entertaining tonight. So  
what's it going to be, go to a chamber music recital or a wrestling match?  
To talk about PCT should we talk about conflictive control or attractors?

Think about "what we talk about" as the input variables one level down from  
the "discussing PCT" control system. You want those variables in one state,  
somebody else wants them in another state. You're willing to say that either  
way we're "more or less" talking about PCT, but there's a conflict at the  
lower level. Even so, if someone else came along and said "Let's talk about  
this great recipe I found for thigh cream," that person would experience  
immediate opposition from everyone, just as if there were a single control  
system operating.

It's probably easier to imagine conflictive control if you think of 2000  
control systems instead of 2. Two people can work out a conflict through  
discussion, but 2000 people controlling 2000 related variables can't. In any  
aggregation of people there are multiple disturbances, with everyone trying  
to maintain control while having to resist disturbances -- small ones,  
maybe, but many of them -- from other people's control actions. I once  
proposed a "theorem" which says that it's easier for an individual to  
control in a large group than a small one, because the disturbances will  
tend to cancel better in a large group. At equilibrium (after Martin  
Taylor's process of interactive reorganization has come to a steady state)  
all parties will be experiencing some average nonzero error, and there will  
be an average nonzero degree of conflict in the system. When the number of  
people approaches the number of degrees of freedom in the environment (at  
the various levels at which people control), the degree of conflict rises,  
probably very steeply. But the whole aggregate can still act like a virtual  
control system with respect to any one variable. As it moves closer to the  
reference levels of some people, it moves farther from the reference levels  
of others. Those who see a bigger error push back harder, and those that see  
less error relax. The net effect is to maintain that variable very strongly  
at its virtual reference level. And an outside disturbance that pushes very  
hard on the variable will elicit a lot of small but coordinated pushes back,  
as if a single very strong control system were acting.

There isn't any \_advantage\_ of conflictive control over non-conflictive  
control (a question you once raised). But the reality of social life is that  
there's no way to zero out every possible conflict, and the more people who  
try to interact, the harder it gets to avoid conflict. Even just walking  
along in a crowd, you have to deviate from the shortest path to your  
destination to avoid bumping into others. You don't deviate any farther than  
you have to and you expect others to avoid bumping into you, too, but  
basically you're always experiencing a higher level of steering error than  
you would if the other people were't there. If you're walking on the  
promenade of a cruise ship, and the ship tips to one side, however, you'll  
see the whole crowd acting as if in concert to oppose this disturbance, no  
matter in what direction each person is walking. Virtual control of the mean  
position of all the people.

Best,

Bill P.