[Martin Taylor 2019.08.28.15.39]
[Rick Marken 2019-08-28_09:56:42]
[Martin Taylor 2019.08.27.17.00]
MT: Alice has a reference to perceive Bob as
having the purpose of opening the window she
wants open.
RM: That's possible, but I think that in most
cases people like Alice would be perfectly happy
if Bob opened the window by accident.
MT: Sure. But what does that have to do with it?
RM: Just noting that there is a difference between
controlling for a person having the purpose of doing
something and controlling for having the person * do
something*.
Not quite as self-evident as it appears on the surface, as Bill's
rubber-band demo demonstrates (see below).
"*All (purposeful) behaviour is the control of perception* ",
No?
When you want someone to control a perception of, for example,
perceiving a window to be open as a means of perceiving it to be
open, you know how well you are succeeding by observing whether they
act to open the window. If that was already their purpose, there is
zero error in your control loop, but the fact there is no error at
the moment does not mean you are not controlling for them to have
that purpose. If the window opens because of someone else’s agency,
you are still controlling to perceive it to be open, but since that
error is now zero, you are no longer acting to control the other
person’s perception.
It sounded to me that you and Bruce were saying that
when you control for perceiving a person doing something you
are always controlling for perceiving them having the
purpose of doing it.
So when I control for perceiving myself to be riding my bicycle, I
am always controlling for perceiving myself to be riding my bicycle?
I don’t think so:-).
I was just pointing out that this is not the case.
True. It is not the case. But I doubt anybody would ever think it
was, so why mention the fact?
RM: ... I just think that in most cases people control
for the activity and don’t really care whether it is (or
appears to be) carried out purposefully.
Yes, but remember, we are assume that there exists a perceptual
control hierarchy in which each level provides the means whereby the
next higher level controls its perceptions. One of the means of
changing some perceptions of the environment is to control someone
else’s intention so that they act make the desired change. That you
control for perceiving something does not preclude you from
controlling some other perception as a method of controlling the
original perception. I
f you go up to a bank teller intending to withdraw $50, and as you
walk up, the teller gives you $50 before you ask, you no longer need
to control the perception of gaining $50, so you no longer act to
control the teller’s intention. But that is unlikely to happen, so,
to get your $50, you try to control the tellers intentions so that
they include withdrawing $50 from your account and giving you the
cash.
RM: ...Bill Powers' demo where the subject write "hello"
as a side effect of keeping a cursor on target is a good
example of a situation where the desired behavior (the
written word “hello”) is not produced on purpose but
observers usually think it is. Bill wrote the demo to show
that you can control people’s behavior (get them to write
“hello”) by disturbing a variable they are controlling. In
this case, the behavior that is controlled (“hello”) is
definitely not produced on purpose – that is, it is not a
controlled result – but it is still controlled.
Yes, indeed. There are lots of ways you can arrange for someone to
do what you want as a side-effect of intending to do someone else,
but you are likely to be most effective if you control for what that
“something else” intention might be. Bill controlled for the subject
to intend to keep the cursor on target. If his control was
successful, then because of the way he arranged the physical
environment, the result will be the behaviour (writing “hello”) that
Bill wanted to see. Why did he want to see that? Because he wanted
to show that what looks intentional to an observer who has no
influence on what happens in that part of the environment may not in
fact be intentional. It’s Bill’s act, as a means to fulfil Bill’s
intention.
We can describe a similar effect for the Alice-Bob Open Window
situation.
Alice:"* Bob, I see Dave out there. Could you call him for me,
please* ?" Bob opens the window and calls to Dave. By
hypothesis, Alice didn’t care at all about Bob calling Dave, except
as a means to get the window open, but she did control his intention
to call. For Dave, the opening of the window was a side-effect,
while for Alice it was the intended effect, achieved by controlling
Dave’s intention to call Dave.
Martin