[Bruce Nevin 20170315.1825 ET)]
Rick Marken (2017.03.01.2230)
observers who do not see the actor’s true intention consistently misidentify some unintended side effect of carrying out that intention as the actor’s true intention.
Since we know this, perhaps we can recognize that it is the cause of much of the contention that can be observed on CSGnet, and enquire more carefully into what the purpose might be of what someone has written.
That would be a good use of PCT.
/Bruce Nevin
Down…
From: Bruce Nevin [mailto:bnhpct@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 15, 2017 11:26 PM
To: Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet)
Subject: controlling for misattribution of side effects
[Bruce Nevin 20170315.1825 ET)]
Rick Marken (2017.03.01.2230)
observers who do not see the actor’s true intention consistently misidentify some unintended side effect of carrying out that intention as the actor’s true intention.
Since we know this, perhaps we can recognize that it is the cause of much of the contention that can be observed on CSGnet, and enquire more carefully into what the purpose might be of what someone has written.
That would be a good use of PCT.
HB : I agree. And from observed content on CSGnet we can see quite clearyl that Rick is not writing about PCT but RCT.
Boris
/Bruce Nevin
[From Rick Marken (2017.03.16.1110)]
Bruce Nevin (20170315.1825 ET)–
Rick Marken (2017.03.01.2230)
observers who do not see the actor’s true intention consistently misidentify some unintended side effect of carrying out that intention as the actor’s true intention.
BN: Since we know this, perhaps we can recognize that it is the cause of much of the contention that can be observed on CSGnet, and enquire more carefully into what the purpose might be of what someone has written.
BN: That would be a good use of PCT.
RM: I agree. Why don’t we start with an explanation of why you think, based on PCT, that misidentifying some unintended side effect of a person’s true intention is the cause of much of the contention on CSGNet?Â
BestÂ
Rick
–
Richard S. MarkenÂ
"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.â?
                --Antoine de Saint-Exupery
[From Bruce Nevin (20170316.1241 ET)]
Rick Marken (2017.03.16.1110)
Rick, I think you made a proper generalization from experimental evidence when you said
observers who do not see the actor’s true intention consistently misidentify some unintended side effect of carrying out that intention as the actor’s true intention.
Why do you think it does not apply to disagreements on CSGnet?
You might see the application of your PCT generalization to CSGnet discourse more clearly if you substitute “alternative meaning of an ambiguous expression” for “unintended side effect”. The alternative meaning is an unintended side effect of expressing the intended meaning.Â
PCT has some conceptual minefields that almost demand equivocation (shifting between alternative meanings) in order to write about PCT without awkwardly convoluted language. I pointed recently to ambiguity between “perception” the neural signal p, “perception” the experience, where the latter is ‘projected’ as though in the environment but the former decidedly is not, and where that projection correlates with Qi, an observer’s quantification (yet another perceptual construct) of the observer’s experience of a perception of what the subject is perceiving and controlling.Â
Person B’s message in reply to a prior message from person A may constitute tests of perceptions that A was controlling, if (by whatever ambiguous expressions are in those messages)Â they are both intending the same meanings. If not, it can quickly become muddled. Brief and to the point might be good practice, and in reply to a long and complex post taking it a bit at a time, perhaps occasionally interspersed with a revision of the long post setting a new baseline for discussion.
On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 2:06 PM, Richard Marken rsmarken@gmail.com wrote:
[From Rick Marken (2017.03.16.1110)]
Bruce Nevin (20170315.1825 ET)–
Rick Marken (2017.03.01.2230)
observers who do not see the actor’s true intention consistently misidentify some unintended side effect of carrying out that intention as the actor’s true intention.
BN: Since we know this, perhaps we can recognize that it is the cause of much of the contention that can be observed on CSGnet, and enquire more carefully into what the purpose might be of what someone has written.
BN: That would be a good use of PCT.
RM: I agree. Why don’t we start with an explanation of why you think, based on PCT, that misidentifying some unintended side effect of a person’s true intention is the cause of much of the contention on CSGNet?Â
BestÂ
Rick
Richard S. MarkenÂ
"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
                --Antoine de Saint-Exupery
–
[From Rick Marken (2017.03.17.1245)]
[From Bruce Nevin (20170316.1241 ET)]
BN:Â Rick, I think you made a proper generalization from experimental evidence when you said
observers who do not see the actor’s true intention consistently misidentify some unintended side effect of carrying out that intention as the actor’s true intention.
BN: Why do you think it does not apply to disagreements on CSGnet?
RM: Because I was thinking of these disagreements as conflicts, where the problem results from efforts to keep the same perceptual variable in two different states. So, for example, the variable in contention might be “the meaning of Qi”, where one party wants to keep that variable in the state “a variable in the environment that is perceived as p” and the other wants to keep it in the state “an observer’s perception that corresponds to the perceptual variable controlled by the system under observation”.Â
BN: You might see the application of your PCT generalization to CSGnet discourse more clearly if you substitute “alternative meaning of an ambiguous expression” for “unintended side effect”. The alternative meaning is an unintended side effect of expressing the intended meaning.Â
RM: Yes, that’s a possibility. It implies that the parties to the disagreement are actually controlling for the same meaning – that they actually agree – and that the disagreement exists only because the parties are perceiving the unintended meaning of each others’ ambiguous statements as the intended one. Thus, the disagreement would disappear if one (or both) sides of the disagreement were able to disambiguate the others’ statements to see that both sides are actually talking about the same thing.Â
BN: PCT has some conceptual minefields that almost demand equivocation (shifting between alternative meanings) in order to write about PCT without awkwardly convoluted language. I pointed recently to ambiguity between “perception” the neural signal p, “perception” the experience, where the latter is ‘projected’ as though in the environment but the former decidedly is not, and where that projection correlates with Qi, an observer’s quantification (yet another perceptual construct) of the observer’s experience of a perception of what the subject is perceiving and controlling.Â
RM: Yes, and I read that as a very nice disambiguation of my position. It seems to me to be a nice way of stating what I have been saying all along: that Qi is the observer’s perception that corresponds to the perception, p, that is controlled by the control system under observation. So if your theory is right, then your post should go a long way toward reconciling the disagreement over the relationship between Qi and p. My guess, however, is that it will not. That’s because I think this disagreement persists because the parties to the disagreement are really controlling for different meanings of Qi and the relationship between Qi and p. In the discussions of this topic the parties to the disagreement have stated their positions every which way from Sunday so it seems to me that there has been ample opportunity to resolve the disagreement via disambiguation. And it hasn;t been resolved.Â
RM: So I don’t see any evidence that the persistence of the Qi vs p (and probably most other) disagreements on CSGNet have much to do with the ambiguity of language. I see these disagreements as conflicts of the kind that often come up in science – like that between those who thought the sun goes around the earth and those who thought the earth goes around the sun. Sometimes people are just controlling for different ideas about how things work, and this is particularly true for sciences – like the science of purpose represented by PCT – that represent a significant paradigm shift. And I think the only way to resolve these conflicts is through empirical test, which is what I am trying to do with the new demo I just posted (http://www.mindreadings.com/ControlDemo/Instruct.html). I don’t think that demo represents an experimentum crucis but I hope it can be developed into a form that will aid understanding of the relationship between Qi and p – an understanding of which I believe is crucial for those interested in  “Doing Research on Purpose”.Â
BestÂ
Rick
Â
Person B’s message in reply to a prior message from person A may constitute tests of perceptions that A was controlling, if (by whatever ambiguous expressions are in those messages)Â they are both intending the same meanings. If not, it can quickly become muddled. Brief and to the point might be good practice, and in reply to a long and complex post taking it a bit at a time, perhaps occasionally interspersed with a revision of the long post setting a new baseline for discussion.
Â
/B
–
Richard S. MarkenÂ
"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
                --Antoine de Saint-Exupery
On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 2:06 PM, Richard Marken rsmarken@gmail.com wrote:
[From Rick Marken (2017.03.16.1110)]
Bruce Nevin (20170315.1825 ET)–
Rick Marken (2017.03.01.2230)
observers who do not see the actor’s true intention consistently misidentify some unintended side effect of carrying out that intention as the actor’s true intention.
BN: Since we know this, perhaps we can recognize that it is the cause of much of the contention that can be observed on CSGnet, and enquire more carefully into what the purpose might be of what someone has written.
BN: That would be a good use of PCT.
RM: I agree. Why don’t we start with an explanation of why you think, based on PCT, that misidentifying some unintended side effect of a person’s true intention is the cause of much of the contention on CSGNet?Â
BestÂ
Rick
Richard S. MarkenÂ
"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
                --Antoine de Saint-Exupery
–
[From Bruce Nevin (20170317.1830 ET)]
I said “Since we know this [i.e. that ‘observers who do not see the actor’s true intention consistently misidentify some unintended side effect of carrying out that intention as the actor’s true intention’], perhaps we can recognize that it is the cause of much of the contention that can be observed on CSGnet, and enquire more carefully into what the purpose might be of what someone has written.”
I didn’t propose that this is “the cause of all of the contention”. I agree that there can be substantive disagreements. Wouldn’t it be foolish of me to suppose that there weren’t!Â
The appearance of disagreement can often be reduced by more carefully testing if one’s opinion of what the other intends is indeed actually what the other intends, and by testing if what the other has understood (perhaps too quickly) is indeed actually what you intended them to understand. This is of course the TCV in intimate practice. More than once in my years at Cisco a passionate argument between two engineers would be brought to a halt by the joking observation that they were in “violent agreement”.
Substantive disagreements of course lead to discussions, and these discussions are not exempt. The useful parts of such discussions can get obscured in a clutter of unintended alternative meanings and, just as sneaky, unnoticed equivocation (as between perception the signal and perception the experience). These can give rise to conflicts that are not substantive. So the useful parts of discussions that follow from substantive disagreements can be obscured and even sidetracked or thwarted by parts that are not useful.
The useful parts are useful insofar as they identify to each party more and more clearly just what the polarity of the conflict is. Then, as in MoL, when both poles of the conflict are perceived at the same time, in commensurate terms, a perhaps unexpectable resolution may emerge. Of course, it could be as you expect and wish: the other person saying “Oh, I see my mistake now.” But it could be a perspective that comprehends each pole in an unexpected unity. That, to my mind, is the gold standard of fruitful scientific discussion. The idealism/realism discussion may be an example. Of course one side may be mistaken, but obvious errors tend to get flushed out of the bushes pretty well, and when both parties are extremely intelligent and demonstrably well grounded in PCT it’s worth looking for alternatives to simple rejection.
On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 3:47 PM, Richard Marken rsmarken@gmail.com wrote:
[From Rick Marken (2017.03.17.1245)]
[From Bruce Nevin (20170316.1241 ET)]
BN:Â Rick, I think you made a proper generalization from experimental evidence when you said
observers who do not see the actor’s true intention consistently misidentify some unintended side effect of carrying out that intention as the actor’s true intention.
BN: Why do you think it does not apply to disagreements on CSGnet?
RM: Because I was thinking of these disagreements as conflicts, where the problem results from efforts to keep the same perceptual variable in two different states. So, for example, the variable in contention might be “the meaning of Qi”, where one party wants to keep that variable in the state “a variable in the environment that is perceived as p” and the other wants to keep it in the state “an observer’s perception that corresponds to the perceptual variable controlled by the system under observation”.Â
BN: You might see the application of your PCT generalization to CSGnet discourse more clearly if you substitute “alternative meaning of an ambiguous expression” for “unintended side effect”. The alternative meaning is an unintended side effect of expressing the intended meaning.Â
RM: Yes, that’s a possibility. It implies that the parties to the disagreement are actually controlling for the same meaning – that they actually agree – and that the disagreement exists only because the parties are perceiving the unintended meaning of each others’ ambiguous statements as the intended one. Thus, the disagreement would disappear if one (or both) sides of the disagreement were able to disambiguate the others’ statements to see that both sides are actually talking about the same thing.Â
BN: PCT has some conceptual minefields that almost demand equivocation (shifting between alternative meanings) in order to write about PCT without awkwardly convoluted language. I pointed recently to ambiguity between “perception” the neural signal p, “perception” the experience, where the latter is ‘projected’ as though in the environment but the former decidedly is not, and where that projection correlates with Qi, an observer’s quantification (yet another perceptual construct) of the observer’s experience of a perception of what the subject is perceiving and controlling.Â
RM: Yes, and I read that as a very nice disambiguation of my position. It seems to me to be a nice way of stating what I have been saying all along: that Qi is the observer’s perception that corresponds to the perception, p, that is controlled by the control system under observation. So if your theory is right, then your post should go a long way toward reconciling the disagreement over the relationship between Qi and p. My guess, however, is that it will not. That’s because I think this disagreement persists because the parties to the disagreement are really controlling for different meanings of Qi and the relationship between Qi and p. In the discussions of this topic the parties to the disagreement have stated their positions every which way from Sunday so it seems to me that there has been ample opportunity to resolve the disagreement via disambiguation. And it hasn;t been resolved.Â
RM: So I don’t see any evidence that the persistence of the Qi vs p (and probably most other) disagreements on CSGNet have much to do with the ambiguity of language. I see these disagreements as conflicts of the kind that often come up in science – like that between those who thought the sun goes around the earth and those who thought the earth goes around the sun. Sometimes people are just controlling for different ideas about how things work, and this is particularly true for sciences – like the science of purpose represented by PCT – that represent a significant paradigm shift. And I think the only way to resolve these conflicts is through empirical test, which is what I am trying to do with the new demo I just posted (http://www.mindreadings.com/ControlDemo/Instruct.html). I don’t think that demo represents an experimentum crucis but I hope it can be developed into a form that will aid understanding of the relationship between Qi and p – an understanding of which I believe is crucial for those interested in  “Doing Research on Purpose”.Â
BestÂ
Rick
Â
Person B’s message in reply to a prior message from person A may constitute tests of perceptions that A was controlling, if (by whatever ambiguous expressions are in those messages)Â they are both intending the same meanings. If not, it can quickly become muddled. Brief and to the point might be good practice, and in reply to a long and complex post taking it a bit at a time, perhaps occasionally interspersed with a revision of the long post setting a new baseline for discussion.
Â
/B
–
Richard S. MarkenÂ
"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
                --Antoine de Saint-Exupery
On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 2:06 PM, Richard Marken rsmarken@gmail.com wrote:
[From Rick Marken (2017.03.16.1110)]
Bruce Nevin (20170315.1825 ET)–
Rick Marken (2017.03.01.2230)
observers who do not see the actor’s true intention consistently misidentify some unintended side effect of carrying out that intention as the actor’s true intention.
BN: Since we know this, perhaps we can recognize that it is the cause of much of the contention that can be observed on CSGnet, and enquire more carefully into what the purpose might be of what someone has written.
BN: That would be a good use of PCT.
RM: I agree. Why don’t we start with an explanation of why you think, based on PCT, that misidentifying some unintended side effect of a person’s true intention is the cause of much of the contention on CSGNet?Â
BestÂ
Rick
Richard S. MarkenÂ
"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
                --Antoine de Saint-Exupery
–
Hey guys, anyone seen the excitement building about PCT among this group of 12,000 followers of Scott Alexander?
https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/06/book-review-behavior-the-control-of-perception/
On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 3:47 PM, Richard Marken rsmarken@gmail.com wrote:
[From Rick Marken (2017.03.17.1245)]
[From Bruce Nevin (20170316.1241 ET)]
BN:Â Rick, I think you made a proper generalization from experimental evidence when you said
observers who do not see the actor’s true intention consistently misidentify some unintended side effect of carrying out that intention as the actor’s true intention.
BN: Why do you think it does not apply to disagreements on CSGnet?
RM: Because I was thinking of these disagreements as conflicts, where the problem results from efforts to keep the same perceptual variable in two different states. So, for example, the variable in contention might be “the meaning of Qi”, where one party wants to keep that variable in the state “a variable in the environment that is perceived as p” and the other wants to keep it in the state “an observer’s perception that corresponds to the perceptual variable controlled by the system under observation”.Â
BN: You might see the application of your PCT generalization to CSGnet discourse more clearly if you substitute “alternative meaning of an ambiguous expression” for “unintended side effect”. The alternative meaning is an unintended side effect of expressing the intended meaning.Â
RM: Yes, that’s a possibility. It implies that the parties to the disagreement are actually controlling for the same meaning – that they actually agree – and that the disagreement exists only because the parties are perceiving the unintended meaning of each others’ ambiguous statements as the intended one. Thus, the disagreement would disappear if one (or both) sides of the disagreement were able to disambiguate the others’ statements to see that both sides are actually talking about the same thing.Â
BN: PCT has some conceptual minefields that almost demand equivocation (shifting between alternative meanings) in order to write about PCT without awkwardly convoluted language. I pointed recently to ambiguity between “perception” the neural signal p, “perception” the experience, where the latter is ‘projected’ as though in the environment but the former decidedly is not, and where that projection correlates with Qi, an observer’s quantification (yet another perceptual construct) of the observer’s experience of a perception of what the subject is perceiving and controlling.Â
RM: Yes, and I read that as a very nice disambiguation of my position. It seems to me to be a nice way of stating what I have been saying all along: that Qi is the observer’s perception that corresponds to the perception, p, that is controlled by the control system under observation. So if your theory is right, then your post should go a long way toward reconciling the disagreement over the relationship between Qi and p. My guess, however, is that it will not. That’s because I think this disagreement persists because the parties to the disagreement are really controlling for different meanings of Qi and the relationship between Qi and p. In the discussions of this topic the parties to the disagreement have stated their positions every which way from Sunday so it seems to me that there has been ample opportunity to resolve the disagreement via disambiguation. And it hasn;t been resolved.Â
RM: So I don’t see any evidence that the persistence of the Qi vs p (and probably most other) disagreements on CSGNet have much to do with the ambiguity of language. I see these disagreements as conflicts of the kind that often come up in science – like that between those who thought the sun goes around the earth and those who thought the earth goes around the sun. Sometimes people are just controlling for different ideas about how things work, and this is particularly true for sciences – like the science of purpose represented by PCT – that represent a significant paradigm shift. And I think the only way to resolve these conflicts is through empirical test, which is what I am trying to do with the new demo I just posted (http://www.mindreadings.com/ControlDemo/Instruct.html). I don’t think that demo represents an experimentum crucis but I hope it can be developed into a form that will aid understanding of the relationship between Qi and p – an understanding of which I believe is crucial for those interested in  “Doing Research on Purpose”.Â
BestÂ
Rick
Â
Person B’s message in reply to a prior message from person A may constitute tests of perceptions that A was controlling, if (by whatever ambiguous expressions are in those messages)Â they are both intending the same meanings. If not, it can quickly become muddled. Brief and to the point might be good practice, and in reply to a long and complex post taking it a bit at a time, perhaps occasionally interspersed with a revision of the long post setting a new baseline for discussion.
Â
/B
–
Richard S. MarkenÂ
"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
                --Antoine de Saint-Exupery
On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 2:06 PM, Richard Marken rsmarken@gmail.com wrote:
[From Rick Marken (2017.03.16.1110)]
Bruce Nevin (20170315.1825 ET)–
Rick Marken (2017.03.01.2230)
observers who do not see the actor’s true intention consistently misidentify some unintended side effect of carrying out that intention as the actor’s true intention.
BN: Since we know this, perhaps we can recognize that it is the cause of much of the contention that can be observed on CSGnet, and enquire more carefully into what the purpose might be of what someone has written.
BN: That would be a good use of PCT.
RM: I agree. Why don’t we start with an explanation of why you think, based on PCT, that misidentifying some unintended side effect of a person’s true intention is the cause of much of the contention on CSGNet?Â
BestÂ
Rick
Richard S. MarkenÂ
"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
                --Antoine de Saint-Exupery
–
Yes retweeted a link. Been meaning to post a reply linking to pct websites and particularly demos. That was what was missing from the blog I think. Out with kids now so can’t but will later.
On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 3:47 PM, Richard Marken
rsmarken@gmail.com wrote:
[From Rick Marken (2017.03.17.1245)]
[From Bruce Nevin (20170316.1241 ET)]
BN: Rick, I think you made a proper generalization from experimental evidence when you said
observers who do not see the actor’s true intention consistently misidentify some unintended side effect of carrying out that intention as the actor’s true intention.
BN: Why do you think it does not apply to disagreements on CSGnet?
RM: Because I was thinking of these disagreements as conflicts, where the problem results from efforts to keep the same perceptual variable in two different states. So, for example, the variable in contention might be “the meaning of Qi”, where one party
wants to keep that variable in the state “a variable in the environment that is perceived as p” and the other wants to keep it in the state “an observer’s perception that corresponds to the perceptual variable controlled by the system under observation”.
BN: You might see the application of your PCT generalization to CSGnet discourse more clearly if you substitute “alternative meaning of an ambiguous expression” for “unintended side effect”. The alternative meaning is an unintended side effect of expressing
the intended meaning.
RM: Yes, that’s a possibility. It implies that the parties to the disagreement are actually controlling for the same meaning – that they actually agree – and that the disagreement exists only because the parties are perceiving the unintended meaning
of each others’ ambiguous statements as the intended one. Thus, the disagreement would disappear if one (or both) sides of the disagreement were able to disambiguate the others’ statements to see that both sides are actually talking about the same thing.
BN: PCT has some conceptual minefields that almost demand equivocation (shifting between alternative meanings) in order to write about PCT without awkwardly convoluted language. I pointed recently to ambiguity between “perception” the neural signal p,
“perception” the experience, where the latter is ‘projected’ as though in the environment but the former decidedly is not, and where that projection correlates with Qi, an observer’s quantification (yet another perceptual construct) of the observer’s experience
of a perception of what the subject is perceiving and controlling.
RM: Yes, and I read that as a very nice disambiguation of my position. It seems to me to be a nice way of stating what I have been saying all along: that Qi is the observer’s perception that corresponds to the perception, p, that is controlled by the control
system under observation. So if your theory is right, then your post should go a long way toward reconciling the disagreement over the relationship between Qi and p. My guess, however, is that it will not. That’s because I think this disagreement persists
because the parties to the disagreement are really controlling for different meanings of Qi and the relationship between Qi and p. In the discussions of this topic the parties to the disagreement have stated their positions every which way from Sunday so
it seems to me that there has been ample opportunity to resolve the disagreement via disambiguation. And it hasn;t been resolved.
RM: So I don’t see any evidence that the persistence of the Qi vs p (and probably most other) disagreements on CSGNet have much to do with the ambiguity of language. I see these disagreements as conflicts of the kind that often come up in science – like
that between those who thought the sun goes around the earth and those who thought the earth goes around the sun. Sometimes people are just controlling for different ideas about how things work, and this is particularly true for sciences – like the science
of purpose represented by PCT – that represent a significant paradigm shift. And I think the only way to resolve these conflicts is through empirical test, which is what I am trying to do with the new demo I just posted (http://www.mindreadings.com/ControlDemo/Instruct.html
).
I don’t think that demo represents an experimentum crucis but I hope it can be developed into a form that will aid understanding of the relationship between Qi and p – an understanding of which I believe is crucial for those interested in “Doing Research
on Purpose”.
Best
Rick
Person B’s message in reply to a prior message from person A may constitute tests of perceptions that A was controlling, if (by whatever ambiguous expressions are in those messages) they are both intending the same meanings. If not, it can quickly become
muddled. Brief and to the point might be good practice, and in reply to a long and complex post taking it a bit at a time, perhaps occasionally interspersed with a revision of the long post setting a new baseline for discussion.
/B
–
Richard S. Marken
"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.â?
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 2:06 PM, Richard Marken
rsmarken@gmail.com wrote:
[From Rick Marken (2017.03.16.1110)]
Bruce Nevin (20170315.1825 ET)–
Rick Marken (2017.03.01.2230)
observers who do not see the actor’s true intention consistently misidentify some unintended side effect of carrying out that intention as the actor’s true intention.
BN: Since we know this, perhaps we can recognize that it is the cause of much of the contention that can be observed on CSGnet, and enquire more carefully into what the purpose might be of what someone has written.
BN: That would be a good use of PCT.
RM: I agree. Why don’t we start with an explanation of why you think, based on PCT, that misidentifying some unintended side effect of a person’s true intention is the cause of much of the contention on CSGNet?
Best
Rick
Richard S. Marken
"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.â?
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
–
Fab - 160 messages on that blog and 12,000 followers!
On Sat, Mar 18, 2017 at 11:32 AM, Huddy, Vyv v.huddy@ucl.ac.uk wrote:
Yes retweeted a link. Been meaning to post a reply linking to pct websites and particularly demos. That was what was missing from the blog I think. Out with kids now so can’t but will later.Â
On 18 Mar 2017, at 11:16, Warren Mansell wmansell@gmail.com wrote:
Hey guys, anyone seen the excitement building about PCT among this group of 12,000 followers of Scott Alexander?
https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/06/book-review-behavior-the-control-of-perception/
On Friday, March 17, 2017, Bruce Nevin bnhpct@gmail.com wrote:
[From Bruce Nevin (20170317.1830 ET)]
I said “Since we know this [i.e. that ’ observers who do not see the actor’s true intention consistently misidentify some unintended side effect of carrying out that intention as the actor’s true intention’]
, perhaps we can recognize that it is the cause of much of the contention that can be observed on CSGnet, and enquire more carefully into what the purpose might
be of what someone has written.”
I didn’t propose that this is “the cause of all of the contention”. I agree that there can be substantive disagreements. Wouldn’t it be foolish of me to suppose that there weren’t!Â
The appearance of disagreement can often be reduced by more carefully testing if one’s opinion of what the other intends is indeed actually what the other intends, and by testing if what the other has understood (perhaps
too quickly) is indeed actually what you intended them to understand. This is of course the TCV in intimate practice. More than once in my years at Cisco a passionate argument between two engineers would be brought to a halt by the joking observation that
they were in “violent agreement”.
Substantive disagreements of course lead to discussions, and these discussions are not exempt. The useful parts of such discussions can get obscured in a clutter ofÂ
unintended
alternative meanings and, just as sneaky,
 unnoticed equivocation (as between perception the signal and perception the experience). These can give
rise to conflicts that are not substantive. So the useful parts of discussions that follow from substantive disagreements can be obscured and even sidetracked or thwarted by parts that are not useful.
The useful parts are useful insofar as they identify to each party more and more clearly just what the polarity of the conflict is. Then, as in
 MoL, when both poles of the conflict are
perceived at the same time, in commensurate terms, a perhaps unexpectable resolution may emerge. Of course, it could be as you expect and wish: the other person saying “Oh, I see my mistake now.” But it could beÂ
a perspective
that comprehends each pole in an unexpected unity. That, to my mind, is the gold standard of fruitful scientific discussion. The idealism/realism discussion may be an example. Of course one side may be mistaken, but obvious errors tend to get flushed out of
the bushes pretty well, and when both parties are extremely intelligent and demonstrably well grounded in PCT it’s worth looking for alternatives to simple rejection.
/Bruce Nevin
–
Dr Warren MansellReader in Clinical Psychology
School of Health Sciences
2nd Floor Zochonis Building
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
Manchester M13 9PL
Email: warren.mansell@manchester.ac.uk
Â
Tel: +44 (0) 161 275 8589
Â
Website: [
http://www.psych-sci.manchester.ac.uk/staff/131406](Warren Mansell — Research Explorer The University of Manchester)
ÂAdvanced notice of a new transdiagnostic therapy manual, authored by Carey, Mansell & Tai -
Principles-Based Counselling and Psychotherapy: A Method of Levels Approach
Available Now
Check www.pctweb.org for further information on Perceptual Control Theory
–
On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 3:47 PM, Richard Marken
rsmarken@gmail.com wrote:
[From Rick Marken (2017.03.17.1245)]
[From Bruce Nevin (20170316.1241 ET)]
BN:Â Rick, I think you made a proper generalization from experimental evidence when you said
observers who do not see the actor’s true intention consistently misidentify some unintended side effect of carrying out that intention as the actor’s true intention.
BN: Why do you think it does not apply to disagreements on CSGnet?
RM: Because I was thinking of these disagreements as conflicts, where the problem results from efforts to keep the same perceptual variable in two different states. So, for example, the variable in contention might be “the meaning of Qi”, where one party
wants to keep that variable in the state “a variable in the environment that is perceived as p” and the other wants to keep it in the state “an observer’s perception that corresponds to the perceptual variable controlled by the system under observation”.Â
BN: You might see the application of your PCT generalization to CSGnet discourse more clearly if you substitute “alternative meaning of an ambiguous expression” for “unintended side effect”. The alternative meaning is an unintended side effect of expressing
the intended meaning.Â
RM: Yes, that’s a possibility. It implies that the parties to the disagreement are actually controlling for the same meaning – that they actually agree – and that the disagreement exists only because the parties are perceiving the unintended meaning
of each others’ ambiguous statements as the intended one. Thus, the disagreement would disappear if one (or both) sides of the disagreement were able to disambiguate the others’ statements to see that both sides are actually talking about the same thing.Â
BN: PCT has some conceptual minefields that almost demand equivocation (shifting between alternative meanings) in order to write about PCT without awkwardly convoluted language. I pointed recently to ambiguity between “perception” the neural signal p,
“perception” the experience, where the latter is ‘projected’ as though in the environment but the former decidedly is not, and where that projection correlates with Qi, an observer’s quantification (yet another perceptual construct) of the observer’s experience
of a perception of what the subject is perceiving and controlling.Â
RM: Yes, and I read that as a very nice disambiguation of my position. It seems to me to be a nice way of stating what I have been saying all along: that Qi is the observer’s perception that corresponds to the perception, p, that is controlled by the control
system under observation. So if your theory is right, then your post should go a long way toward reconciling the disagreement over the relationship between Qi and p. My guess, however, is that it will not. That’s because I think this disagreement persists
because the parties to the disagreement are really controlling for different meanings of Qi and the relationship between Qi and p. In the discussions of this topic the parties to the disagreement have stated their positions every which way from Sunday so
it seems to me that there has been ample opportunity to resolve the disagreement via disambiguation. And it hasn;t been resolved.Â
RM: So I don’t see any evidence that the persistence of the Qi vs p (and probably most other) disagreements on CSGNet have much to do with the ambiguity of language. I see these disagreements as conflicts of the kind that often come up in science – like
that between those who thought the sun goes around the earth and those who thought the earth goes around the sun. Sometimes people are just controlling for different ideas about how things work, and this is particularly true for sciences – like the science
of purpose represented by PCT – that represent a significant paradigm shift. And I think the only way to resolve these conflicts is through empirical test, which is what I am trying to do with the new demo I just posted (http://www.mindreadings.com/ControlDemo/Instruct.html
).Â
I don’t think that demo represents an experimentum crucis but I hope it can be developed into a form that will aid understanding of the relationship between Qi and p – an understanding of which I believe is crucial for those interested in  “Doing Research
on Purpose”.Â
BestÂ
Rick
Â
Person B’s message in reply to a prior message from person A may constitute tests of perceptions that A was controlling, if (by whatever ambiguous expressions are in those messages)Â they are both intending the same meanings. If not, it can quickly become
muddled. Brief and to the point might be good practice, and in reply to a long and complex post taking it a bit at a time, perhaps occasionally interspersed with a revision of the long post setting a new baseline for discussion.
Â
/B
–
Richard S. MarkenÂ
"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
                --Antoine de Saint-Exupery
On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 2:06 PM, Richard Marken
rsmarken@gmail.com wrote:
[From Rick Marken (2017.03.16.1110)]
Bruce Nevin (20170315.1825 ET)–
Rick Marken (2017.03.01.2230)
observers who do not see the actor’s true intention consistently misidentify some unintended side effect of carrying out that intention as the actor’s true intention.
BN: Since we know this, perhaps we can recognize that it is the cause of much of the contention that can be observed on CSGnet, and enquire more carefully into what the purpose might be of what someone has written.
BN: That would be a good use of PCT.
RM: I agree. Why don’t we start with an explanation of why you think, based on PCT, that misidentifying some unintended side effect of a person’s true intention is the cause of much of the contention on CSGNet?Â
BestÂ
Rick
Richard S. MarkenÂ
"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
                --Antoine de Saint-Exupery
–
Dr Warren Mansell
Reader in Clinical Psychology
School of Health Sciences
2nd Floor Zochonis Building
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
Manchester M13 9PL
Email: warren.mansell@manchester.ac.uk
Â
Tel: +44 (0) 161 275 8589
Â
Website: http://www.psych-sci.manchester.ac.uk/staff/131406
Â
Advanced notice of a new transdiagnostic therapy manual, authored by Carey, Mansell & Tai - Principles-Based Counselling and Psychotherapy: A Method of Levels Approach
Available Now
Check www.pctweb.org for further information on Perceptual Control Theory
[From Fred Nickols (2017.03.18.0825 ET)]
I hadn’t seen it but I went there and read it. Glad to see PCT stirring up such interest. I’ll post a link to it in the Book Reviews section of my site. Noticed that you, Warren, and Richard Kennaway, both posted.
Fred Nickols
From: Warren Mansell [mailto:wmansell@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, March 18, 2017 7:16 AM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: controlling for misattribution of side effects
Hey guys, anyone seen the excitement building about PCT among this group of 12,000 followers of Scott Alexander?
https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/06/book-review-behavior-the-control-of-perception/
On Friday, March 17, 2017, Bruce Nevin bnhpct@gmail.com wrote:
[From Bruce Nevin (20170317.1830 ET)]
I said “Since we know this [i.e. that ‘observers who do not see the actor’s true intention consistently misidentify some unintended side effect of carrying out that intention as the actor’s true intention’], perhaps we can recognize that it is the cause of much of the contention that can be observed on CSGnet, and enquire more carefully into what the purpose might be of what someone has written.”
I didn’t propose that this is “the cause of all of the contention”. I agree that there can be substantive disagreements. Wouldn’t it be foolish of me to suppose that there weren’t!
The appearance of disagreement can often be reduced by more carefully testing if one’s opinion of what the other intends is indeed actually what the other intends, and by testing if what the other has understood (perhaps too quickly) is indeed actually what you intended them to understand. This is of course the TCV in intimate practice. More than once in my years at Cisco a passionate argument between two engineers would be brought to a halt by the joking observation that they were in “violent agreement”.
Substantive disagreements of course lead to discussions, and these discussions are not exempt. The useful parts of such discussions can get obscured in a clutter of unintended alternative meanings and, just as sneaky, unnoticed equivocation (as between perception the signal and perception the experience). These can give rise to conflicts that are not substantive. So the useful parts of discussions that follow from substantive disagreements can be obscured and even sidetracked or thwarted by parts that are not useful.
The useful parts are useful insofar as they identify to each party more and more clearly just what the polarity of the conflict is. Then, as in MoL, when both poles of the conflict are perceived at the same time, in commensurate terms, a perhaps unexpectable resolution may emerge. Of course, it could be as you expect and wish: the other person saying “Oh, I see my mistake now.” But it could be a perspective that comprehends each pole in an unexpected unity. That, to my mind, is the gold standard of fruitful scientific discussion. The idealism/realism discussion may be an example. Of course one side may be mistaken, but obvious errors tend to get flushed out of the bushes pretty well, and when both parties are extremely intelligent and demonstrably well grounded in PCT it’s worth looking for alternatives to simple rejection.
/Bruce Nevin
On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 3:47 PM, Richard Marken rsmarken@gmail.com wrote:
[From Rick Marken (2017.03.17.1245)]
[From Bruce Nevin (20170316.1241 ET)]
BN: Rick, I think you made a proper generalization from experimental evidence when you said
observers who do not see the actor’s true intention consistently misidentify some unintended side effect of carrying out that intention as the actor’s true intention.
BN: Why do you think it does not apply to disagreements on CSGnet?
RM: Because I was thinking of these disagreements as conflicts, where the problem results from efforts to keep the same perceptual variable in two different states. So, for example, the variable in contention might be “the meaning of Qi”, where one party wants to keep that variable in the state “a variable in the environment that is perceived as p” and the other wants to keep it in the state “an observer’s perception that corresponds to the perceptual variable controlled by the system under observation”.
BN: You might see the application of your PCT generalization to CSGnet discourse more clearly if you substitute “alternative meaning of an ambiguous expression” for “unintended side effect”. The alternative meaning is an unintended side effect of expressing the intended meaning.
RM: Yes, that’s a possibility. It implies that the parties to the disagreement are actually controlling for the same meaning – that they actually agree – and that the disagreement exists only because the parties are perceiving the unintended meaning of each others’ ambiguous statements as the intended one. Thus, the disagreement would disappear if one (or both) sides of the disagreement were able to disambiguate the others’ statements to see that both sides are actually talking about the same thing.
BN: PCT has some conceptual minefields that almost demand equivocation (shifting between alternative meanings) in order to write about PCT without awkwardly convoluted language. I pointed recently to ambiguity between “perception” the neural signal p, “perception” the experience, where the latter is ‘projected’ as though in the environment but the former decidedly is not, and where that projection correlates with Qi, an observer’s quantification (yet another perceptual construct) of the observer’s experience of a perception of what the subject is perceiving and controlling.
RM: Yes, and I read that as a very nice disambiguation of my position. It seems to me to be a nice way of stating what I have been saying all along: that Qi is the observer’s perception that corresponds to the perception, p, that is controlled by the control system under observation. So if your theory is right, then your post should go a long way toward reconciling the disagreement over the relationship between Qi and p. My guess, however, is that it will not. That’s because I think this disagreement persists because the parties to the disagreement are really controlling for different meanings of Qi and the relationship between Qi and p. In the discussions of this topic the parties to the disagreement have stated their positions every which way from Sunday so it seems to me that there has been ample opportunity to resolve the disagreement via disambiguation. And it hasn;t been resolved.
RM: So I don’t see any evidence that the persistence of the Qi vs p (and probably most other) disagreements on CSGNet have much to do with the ambiguity of language. I see these disagreements as conflicts of the kind that often come up in science – like that between those who thought the sun goes around the earth and those who thought the earth goes around the sun. Sometimes people are just controlling for different ideas about how things work, and this is particularly true for sciences – like the science of purpose represented by PCT – that represent a significant paradigm shift. And I think the only way to resolve these conflicts is through empirical test, which is what I am trying to do with the new demo I just posted (http://www.mindreadings.com/ControlDemo/Instruct.html). I don’t think that demo represents an experimentum crucis but I hope it can be developed into a form that will aid understanding of the relationship between Qi and p – an understanding of which I believe is crucial for those interested in “Doing Research on Purpose”.
Best
Rick
Person B’s message in reply to a prior message from person A may constitute tests of perceptions that A was controlling, if (by whatever ambiguous expressions are in those messages) they are both intending the same meanings. If not, it can quickly become muddled. Brief and to the point might be good practice, and in reply to a long and complex post taking it a bit at a time, perhaps occasionally interspersed with a revision of the long post setting a new baseline for discussion.
/B
On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 2:06 PM, Richard Marken rsmarken@gmail.com wrote:
[From Rick Marken (2017.03.16.1110)]
Bruce Nevin (20170315.1825 ET)–
Rick Marken (2017.03.01.2230)
observers who do not see the actor’s true intention consistently misidentify some unintended side effect of carrying out that intention as the actor’s true intention.
BN: Since we know this, perhaps we can recognize that it is the cause of much of the contention that can be observed on CSGnet, and enquire more carefully into what the purpose might be of what someone has written.
BN: That would be a good use of PCT.
RM: I agree. Why don’t we start with an explanation of why you think, based on PCT, that misidentifying some unintended side effect of a person’s true intention is the cause of much of the contention on CSGNet?
Best
Rick
–
Richard S. Marken
"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
–Antoine de Saint-Exupery
–
Richard S. Marken
"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
–Antoine de Saint-Exupery
–
Dr Warren Mansell
Reader in Clinical Psychology
School of Health Sciences
2nd Floor Zochonis Building
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
Manchester M13 9PL
Email: warren.mansell@manchester.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 161 275 8589
Website: http://www.psych-sci.manchester.ac.uk/staff/131406
Advanced notice of a new transdiagnostic therapy manual, authored by Carey, Mansell & Tai - Principles-Based Counselling and Psychotherapy: A Method of Levels Approach
Available Now
Check www.pctweb.org for further information on Perceptual Control Theory
He comments that Powers didn’t (in 1973) know about the basal ganglia in connection with level 3 ‘position’ control (start of II and right after the nice quote of Bill talking about different levels of tremors). If someone is adding to the comments, they might do well to point to
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272369123_How_Basal_Ganglia_Outputs_Generate_BehaviorÂ
and Basal Ganglia Outputs Map Instantaneous Position Coordinates during Behavior
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4323537/
On Sat, Mar 18, 2017 at 7:16 AM, Warren Mansell wmansell@gmail.com wrote:
Hey guys, anyone seen the excitement building about PCT among this group of 12,000 followers of Scott Alexander?
https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/06/book-review-behavior-the-control-of-perception/
On Friday, March 17, 2017, Bruce Nevin bnhpct@gmail.com wrote:
[From Bruce Nevin (20170317.1830 ET)]
I said “Since we know this [i.e. that ‘observers who do not see the actor’s true intention consistently misidentify some unintended side effect of carrying out that intention as the actor’s true intention’], perhaps we can recognize that it is the cause of much of the contention that can be observed on CSGnet, and enquire more carefully into what the purpose might be of what someone has written.”
I didn’t propose that this is “the cause of all of the contention”. I agree that there can be substantive disagreements. Wouldn’t it be foolish of me to suppose that there weren’t!Â
The appearance of disagreement can often be reduced by more carefully testing if one’s opinion of what the other intends is indeed actually what the other intends, and by testing if what the other has understood (perhaps too quickly) is indeed actually what you intended them to understand. This is of course the TCV in intimate practice. More than once in my years at Cisco a passionate argument between two engineers would be brought to a halt by the joking observation that they were in “violent agreement”.
Substantive disagreements of course lead to discussions, and these discussions are not exempt. The useful parts of such discussions can get obscured in a clutter of unintended alternative meanings and, just as sneaky, unnoticed equivocation (as between perception the signal and perception the experience). These can give rise to conflicts that are not substantive. So the useful parts of discussions that follow from substantive disagreements can be obscured and even sidetracked or thwarted by parts that are not useful.
The useful parts are useful insofar as they identify to each party more and more clearly just what the polarity of the conflict is. Then, as in MoL, when both poles of the conflict are perceived at the same time, in commensurate terms, a perhaps unexpectable resolution may emerge. Of course, it could be as you expect and wish: the other person saying “Oh, I see my mistake now.” But it could be a perspective that comprehends each pole in an unexpected unity. That, to my mind, is the gold standard of fruitful scientific discussion. The idealism/realism discussion may be an example. Of course one side may be mistaken, but obvious errors tend to get flushed out of the bushes pretty well, and when both parties are extremely intelligent and demonstrably well grounded in PCT it’s worth looking for alternatives to simple rejection.
/Bruce Nevin
–
Dr Warren Mansell
Reader in Clinical Psychology
School of Health Sciences
2nd Floor Zochonis Building
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
Manchester M13 9PL
Email: warren.mansell@manchester.ac.uk
Â
Tel: +44 (0) 161 275 8589
Â
Website: http://www.psych-sci.manchester.ac.uk/staff/131406
Â
Advanced notice of a new transdiagnostic therapy manual, authored by Carey, Mansell & Tai - Principles-Based Counselling and Psychotherapy: A Method of Levels Approach
Available Now
Check www.pctweb.org for further information on Perceptual Control Theory
On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 3:47 PM, Richard Marken rsmarken@gmail.com wrote:
[From Rick Marken (2017.03.17.1245)]
[From Bruce Nevin (20170316.1241 ET)]
BN:Â Rick, I think you made a proper generalization from experimental evidence when you said
observers who do not see the actor’s true intention consistently misidentify some unintended side effect of carrying out that intention as the actor’s true intention.
BN: Why do you think it does not apply to disagreements on CSGnet?
RM: Because I was thinking of these disagreements as conflicts, where the problem results from efforts to keep the same perceptual variable in two different states. So, for example, the variable in contention might be “the meaning of Qi”, where one party wants to keep that variable in the state “a variable in the environment that is perceived as p” and the other wants to keep it in the state “an observer’s perception that corresponds to the perceptual variable controlled by the system under observation”.Â
BN: You might see the application of your PCT generalization to CSGnet discourse more clearly if you substitute “alternative meaning of an ambiguous expression” for “unintended side effect”. The alternative meaning is an unintended side effect of expressing the intended meaning.Â
RM: Yes, that’s a possibility. It implies that the parties to the disagreement are actually controlling for the same meaning – that they actually agree – and that the disagreement exists only because the parties are perceiving the unintended meaning of each others’ ambiguous statements as the intended one. Thus, the disagreement would disappear if one (or both) sides of the disagreement were able to disambiguate the others’ statements to see that both sides are actually talking about the same thing.Â
BN: PCT has some conceptual minefields that almost demand equivocation (shifting between alternative meanings) in order to write about PCT without awkwardly convoluted language. I pointed recently to ambiguity between “perception” the neural signal p, “perception” the experience, where the latter is ‘projected’ as though in the environment but the former decidedly is not, and where that projection correlates with Qi, an observer’s quantification (yet another perceptual construct) of the observer’s experience of a perception of what the subject is perceiving and controlling.Â
RM: Yes, and I read that as a very nice disambiguation of my position. It seems to me to be a nice way of stating what I have been saying all along: that Qi is the observer’s perception that corresponds to the perception, p, that is controlled by the control system under observation. So if your theory is right, then your post should go a long way toward reconciling the disagreement over the relationship between Qi and p. My guess, however, is that it will not. That’s because I think this disagreement persists because the parties to the disagreement are really controlling for different meanings of Qi and the relationship between Qi and p. In the discussions of this topic the parties to the disagreement have stated their positions every which way from Sunday so it seems to me that there has been ample opportunity to resolve the disagreement via disambiguation. And it hasn;t been resolved.Â
RM: So I don’t see any evidence that the persistence of the Qi vs p (and probably most other) disagreements on CSGNet have much to do with the ambiguity of language. I see these disagreements as conflicts of the kind that often come up in science – like that between those who thought the sun goes around the earth and those who thought the earth goes around the sun. Sometimes people are just controlling for different ideas about how things work, and this is particularly true for sciences – like the science of purpose represented by PCT – that represent a significant paradigm shift. And I think the only way to resolve these conflicts is through empirical test, which is what I am trying to do with the new demo I just posted (http://www.mindreadings.com/ControlDemo/Instruct.html). I don’t think that demo represents an experimentum crucis but I hope it can be developed into a form that will aid understanding of the relationship between Qi and p – an understanding of which I believe is crucial for those interested in  “Doing Research on Purpose”.Â
BestÂ
Rick
Â
Person B’s message in reply to a prior message from person A may constitute tests of perceptions that A was controlling, if (by whatever ambiguous expressions are in those messages)Â they are both intending the same meanings. If not, it can quickly become muddled. Brief and to the point might be good practice, and in reply to a long and complex post taking it a bit at a time, perhaps occasionally interspersed with a revision of the long post setting a new baseline for discussion.
Â
/B
–
Richard S. MarkenÂ
"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
                --Antoine de Saint-Exupery
On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 2:06 PM, Richard Marken rsmarken@gmail.com wrote:
[From Rick Marken (2017.03.16.1110)]
Bruce Nevin (20170315.1825 ET)–
Rick Marken (2017.03.01.2230)
observers who do not see the actor’s true intention consistently misidentify some unintended side effect of carrying out that intention as the actor’s true intention.
BN: Since we know this, perhaps we can recognize that it is the cause of much of the contention that can be observed on CSGnet, and enquire more carefully into what the purpose might be of what someone has written.
BN: That would be a good use of PCT.
RM: I agree. Why don’t we start with an explanation of why you think, based on PCT, that misidentifying some unintended side effect of a person’s true intention is the cause of much of the contention on CSGNet?Â
BestÂ
Rick
Richard S. MarkenÂ
"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
                --Antoine de Saint-Exupery
–