Control of self-perception (was Re: our roots)

[Martin Taylor 2017.07.29.08.36]

Bruce and Dag, thank you for pointing resurrecting this issue of

Closed Loop. Re-reading Dick Robertson’s contribution (pages 25-39)
reminded me of his (and Goldstein and others) article in the PCT
issue of IJHCS (1999, 50, 571-580). The point of the experiment was
to test whether “self” was a controlled perception, by contradicting
what people said about themselves. For example, someone might say “I
am a happy person”, which might be contradicted by the experimenter
saying “No you are not”, to which the subject might say “I am so!”.
The third experiment showed fairly convincingly that something
related to that kind of statement was controlled, but I ask myself
whether this “something” actually was a self-perception.

One might guess that what the subjects said about themselves was

what they wanted other people to perceive about them. Maybe it was
how they perceived themselves, but whether it was or not, they
reported a perception of “the way the world is”. Was that perception
the same as its reference value? Did the person who said “I am a
happy person” control for being happy? That is something the
experiment could not show. What it could show is that the person
controlled for the experimenter to perceive that it was the case.

I don't think this has come up on CSGnet, at least I don't remember

it, but it seems to me that there are likely to be two distinct
self-perceptions, which I label “introself” and “exoself”. Their
distinctness is very clear in quite a few politicians, who try to
come across as quite different from the way they perceive themselves
to be. The baby-kissing family man may be a child-hating
philanderer, but controls for the public to perceive something quite
different.

It seems to me that Robertson's study may show control of exoself

perception, but it may also or instead show control of something
quite different, the relationship between exoself perception and
introself perception. To see this, imagine someone who perceives
himself to be a thief, but wishes others to perceive himself as
honest. If the self-description in the experiment was “I am an
honest person” and the experimenter said “No, you re a thief”, the
person would probably say “No, I am honest”, despite the description
agreeing with his introself perception. Is the person controlling a
self-perception of some level of honesty? Is the person controlling
a perceived relationship between exoself and introself perceptions?
Who can tell? Not the experimenter in this experiment.

In this example, the person would be controlling for the introself

“thief” and the exoself “honest” to have different values, control
of a relationship between them. Oliver Cromwell is said to have told
his portraitist “Show me as I am, warts and all.” He was controlling
a relationship between introself and exoself to be equal, or said he
was, which is itself an aspect of an exoself perceptual control of
“transparency”, in contemporary political jargon.

Most politicians seem to control, with varying degrees of success,

to be seen as “authentic” or “transparent”. Other things being
equal, the politician who is most successful in this is the one most
likely to succeed, even if the exoself that includes the property
“authentic” is also repellent in other ways. If voters do not
perceive the politician to be “authentic” – “what you see is what
you get”–, the politician’s introself is an unknown. The popular
phrase is “Better the devil you know than the one you don’t”, and
the one you don’t loses, at least until actions that “speak louder
than words” allow the winner’s lack of correspondence between intro-
and exo-self perceptions to be perceived by voters in the next
election.

Anyway, thanks again to Bruce and Dag.

Martin
···

[From Dag Forssell (2017.07.29.0650 London time)]

  Look what I found:



  [
    http://www.pctresources.com/Journals/Files/Closed_Loop/](http://www.pctresources.com/Journals/Files/Closed_Loop/)



  The "print" version is two-up, suitable for printing on 8.5 x

11 letter size, or A4 paper.

  The "read" version is single page, suitable for reading with

zoom set to Page Width or such.

  Best, Dag



  At 02:57 AM 7/29/2017, you wrote:
    [Bruce Nevin

(2017.07.28.21:41
ET)]

    Friends,



    Rereading Closed Loop 4.1 after 26 years I have the sense that

it has
great worth today for people on CSGnet who are not familiar with
it, and
maybe even for those who, like me, haven’t looked at it for a
long time.
I’ve attached a scan of the table of contents so you can see
what’s in
it. The scan of the whole is too large to send as an attachment
(77MB),
but you can download it fromÂ

http://zelligharris.org/Closed.Loop.4.1.pdf

    You can view it on line if your browser supports rotating a PDF

image (or
if you can turn your screen sideways). Each page of the 8.5x11
image has
two pages of the 5.25x8.5 publication. If you download it, you
can rotate
it with the View menu in Adobe Reader.

    Due to paper sticking, the 'page' with pages 28 and 29 got

skipped, but I
noticed in time and scanned it on the end of the PDF.

/Bruce

    Content-Type: application/pdf;

name=“Closed.Loop.4.1.ToC.pdf”

    Content-Disposition: attachment;

filename=“Closed.Loop.4.1.ToC.pdf”

    X-Attachment-Id: f_j5omrng80

[Bruce Nevin (2017.07.29.10:44 ET)]

The ‘exoself’ is related to the phenomenon called ‘self-consciousness’. Self-consciousness involves one’s perceptions of how others perceive one. Such perceptions are largely imagined, but include input perceptions of one’s own actions and often include input from perceptions of other’s actions. Self-consciousness results in awkwardness because control of these ‘self-as-others-see-me’ perceptions is a distraction. The means of attention (orienting perceptual inputs to environmental sources of input) and the means of effecting control (behavioral outputs) are limited resources. Controlling two perceptions of the same order at once often results in less good control of either.

An accomplished pianist can play two melody lines concurrently (even five in some of J.S. Bach’s work), but for anyone else this is very difficult. An accomplished politician or actor has developed skill at fluently controlling perceptions of self-as-others-see-me.

However, it has been claimed (I forget by whom) that a reason that we distrust actors and politicians is because they have under conscious control (their perceptions of) actions that in most of us result from control without awareness, and this results in differences of demeanor that seem not genuine. We may not be able to ‘put our finger on it’ but and emotional unease (from the amygdala?) arises from perceptions that in themselves do not quite rise to awareness. The supposition of the claim was that they do not arise to awareness precisely because it is socially important for these ‘tells’ to be controlled without awareness as a basis for trust. I don’t remember anything more specifically; it does seem to me worth considering. What makes a person seem two-faced?

···

On Sat, Jul 29, 2017 at 9:29 AM, Martin Taylor mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net wrote:

[Martin Taylor 2017.07.29.08.36]

Bruce and Dag, thank you for pointing resurrecting this issue of

Closed Loop. Re-reading Dick Robertson’s contribution (pages 25-39)
reminded me of his (and Goldstein and others) article in the PCT
issue of IJHCS (1999, 50, 571-580). The point of the experiment was
to test whether “self” was a controlled perception, by contradicting
what people said about themselves. For example, someone might say “I
am a happy person”, which might be contradicted by the experimenter
saying “No you are not”, to which the subject might say “I am so!”.
The third experiment showed fairly convincingly that something
related to that kind of statement was controlled, but I ask myself
whether this “something” actually was a self-perception.

One might guess that what the subjects said about themselves was

what they wanted other people to perceive about them. Maybe it was
how they perceived themselves, but whether it was or not, they
reported a perception of “the way the world is”. Was that perception
the same as its reference value? Did the person who said “I am a
happy person” control for being happy? That is something the
experiment could not show. What it could show is that the person
controlled for the experimenter to perceive that it was the case.

I don't think this has come up on CSGnet, at least I don't remember

it, but it seems to me that there are likely to be two distinct
self-perceptions, which I label “introself” and “exoself”. Their
distinctness is very clear in quite a few politicians, who try to
come across as quite different from the way they perceive themselves
to be. The baby-kissing family man may be a child-hating
philanderer, but controls for the public to perceive something quite
different.

It seems to me that Robertson's study may show control of exoself

perception, but it may also or instead show control of something
quite different, the relationship between exoself perception and
introself perception. To see this, imagine someone who perceives
himself to be a thief, but wishes others to perceive himself as
honest. If the self-description in the experiment was “I am an
honest person” and the experimenter said “No, you re a thief”, the
person would probably say “No, I am honest”, despite the description
agreeing with his introself perception. Is the person controlling a
self-perception of some level of honesty? Is the person controlling
a perceived relationship between exoself and introself perceptions?
Who can tell? Not the experimenter in this experiment.

In this example, the person would be controlling for the introself

“thief” and the exoself “honest” to have different values, control
of a relationship between them. Oliver Cromwell is said to have told
his portraitist “Show me as I am, warts and all.” He was controlling
a relationship between introself and exoself to be equal, or said he
was, which is itself an aspect of an exoself perceptual control of
“transparency”, in contemporary political jargon.

Most politicians seem to control, with varying degrees of success,

to be seen as “authentic” or “transparent”. Other things being
equal, the politician who is most successful in this is the one most
likely to succeed, even if the exoself that includes the property
“authentic” is also repellent in other ways. If voters do not
perceive the politician to be “authentic” – “what you see is what
you get”–, the politician’s introself is an unknown. The popular
phrase is “Better the devil you know than the one you don’t”, and
the one you don’t loses, at least until actions that “speak louder
than words” allow the winner’s lack of correspondence between intro-
and exo-self perceptions to be perceived by voters in the next
election.

Anyway, thanks again to Bruce and Dag.



Martin

[From Dag Forssell (2017.07.29.0650 London time)]

  Look what I found:



  [
    http://www.pctresources.com/Journals/Files/Closed_Loop/](http://www.pctresources.com/Journals/Files/Closed_Loop/)



  The "print" version is two-up, suitable for printing on 8.5 x

11 letter size, or A4 paper.

  The "read" version is single page, suitable for reading with

zoom set to Page Width or such.

  Best, Dag



  At 02:57 AM 7/29/2017, you wrote:
    [Bruce Nevin

(2017.07.28.21:41
ET)]

    Friends,



    Rereading Closed Loop 4.1 after 26 years I have the sense that

it has
great worth today for people on CSGnet who are not familiar with
it, and
maybe even for those who, like me, haven’t looked at it for a
long time.
I’ve attached a scan of the table of contents so you can see
what’s in
it. The scan of the whole is too large to send as an attachment
(77MB),
but you can download it fromÂ

http://zelligharris.org/Closed.Loop.4.1.pdf

    You can view it on line if your browser supports rotating a PDF

image (or
if you can turn your screen sideways). Each page of the 8.5x11
image has
two pages of the 5.25x8.5 publication. If you download it, you
can rotate
it with the View menu in Adobe Reader.

    Due to paper sticking, the 'page' with pages 28 and 29 got

skipped, but I
noticed in time and scanned it on the end of the PDF.

/Bruce

    Content-Type: application/pdf;

name=“Closed.Loop.4.1.ToC.pdf”

    Content-Disposition: attachment;

filename=“Closed.Loop.4.1.ToC.pdf”

    X-Attachment-Id: f_j5omrng80

[Martin Taylor 2017.07.29.11.37]

[Bruce Nevin (2017.07.29.10:44 ET)]

The 'exoself' is related to the phenomenon called 'self-consciousness'. Self-consciousness involves one's perceptions of how others perceive one.

Clearly so, but the word "conscious" in "self-conscious" is bothersome. Although there have been lots of suggestions on CSGnet and elsewhere about how "consciousness" appears in PCT, most of them are related to some kind of failure of control that requires some change in controlling, whether it be switching to an emerging issue, such as when hearing a doorbell leads to controlling perceptions relating to the door state that were not being actively controlled, or in MoL, where reorganization to reduce conflict is facilitated by being conscious of a higher level controlled perception. When reorganization has worked well, very little is ordinarily conscious. For many people, I would expect that most exoself perceptual control is not conscious.

As John grows from an infant to adulthood, he reorganizes to control his perceptions in an environment that includes many other controllers, human and non-human. Much of that control requires the actions of others, and those actions depend on how others perceive John. If others have a perception of John's self that influences how they control all sorts of perceptions against disturbances caused by John's actions, it is likely that John will reorganize so that perceptions by others of his self will influence them to control in ways they perceive to be what John wants. That's a more sophisticated version of "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" because it works over long periods. Someone usually perceived as "helpful" is more likely to be helped when need arises than is someone usually perceived as unhelpful, for example.

Such perceptions are largely imagined, but include input perceptions of one's own actions and often include input from perceptions of other's actions. Self-consciousness results in awkwardness because control of these 'self-as-others-see-me' perceptions is a distraction.

That's an assertion. Let's examine it a little. Firstly, since it is "conscious" it suggests some control is not functioning well, but need that be control of the exoself perception? I might be selfconscious if I arrived dressed in jeans and T-shirt at a formal party that I had thought informal. Why? Possibly because I control for being seen as "elegant" and I would not be seen that way by those in formal wear. Furthermore, even if I changed clothes quickly, the others would have seen me. Or maybe I would control for others having a perception of my perception of "the state of the world", by saying "I was told this was to be very informal. I will go and change now." The latter would probably greatly reduce error in my exoself perception.

Maybe I don't control any exoself perception component in this situation, but self-consciousness arises from introself perceptual failure: "My memory is going. I don't remember anyone saying this was to be formal. Or was someone trying to make me the butt of a joke by not telling me? Am I so gullible?"

Is any of that a "distraction"? If so, a distraction from what?

The means of attention (orienting perceptual inputs to environmental sources of input) and the means of effecting control (behavioral outputs) are limited resources. Controlling two perceptions of the same order at once often results in less good control of either.

Not in a well reorganized system in which control is unconscious, at least so long as it works. Most of us can "walk and chew gum" at the same time. It is when it results in less good control of either that most ideas of "consciousness in PCT" would expect some kind of consciousness and maybe reorganization. The idea that we can consciously control only one thing at a time does not apply to the hierarchy as a whole (a counter-assertion).

An accomplished pianist can play two melody lines concurrently (even five in some of J.S. Bach's work), but for anyone else this is very difficult. An accomplished politician or actor has developed skill at fluently controlling perceptions of self-as-others-see-me.

I propose that we all have developed those skills (not of pianism:-). What the actor and politician have developed is the ability to use different sets of reference values on different occasions, for different audiences. For example, yesterday I was talking to a couple who had hosted Lester Pearson (a highly regarded Prime Minister of Canada) on many occasions at their resort, and had become friends with him. One comment they made was that when you got to know him he was just a regular nice person, not the most important person in the country. When acting as Prime Minister, one requirement is to appear competent and in charge of the situation, no matter whether one actually feels competent or in charge.

However, it has been claimed (I forget by whom) that a reason that we distrust actors and politicians is because they have under conscious control (their perceptions of) actions that in most of us result from control without awareness, and this results in differences of demeanor that seem not genuine.

I can only guess, but I would guess that the issue is their ability to "wear several hats", not always as one truly accustomed to a hat would do. Thinking of literal hats, how phony does it look for a politician in a business suit to put on a feathered headdress, or an Eastern "dude" to wear a Stetson to a rodeo?

We may not be able to 'put our finger on it' but and emotional unease (from the amygdala?) arises from perceptions that in themselves do not quite rise to awareness. The supposition of the claim was that they do not arise to awareness precisely because it is socially important for these 'tells' to be controlled without awareness as a basis for trust.

Yes.

I don't remember anything more specifically; it does seem to me worth considering. What makes a person seem two-faced?

I would note the analogy to imperfect camouflage.

Martin