controlling people

CSGnet Archive CSG2018
21

[Rick Marken 2018-05-19_16:22:37]

···

[From Rupert Young (2018.05.18 23.59)]

RY: Sure. Though you are stating something as false that I wasn't

implying in my point.

RM: I thought your statement implied that you could only make someone do what they want to do. But I pointed out that when you make someone draw some pattern with their finger, such as a figure 8, in the rubber band demo you are, indeed, making them do something that they don’t want to do. But perhaps it would have been better to have said that you are making them do something that they don’t care whether they do or not. I can see that when you say you can’t make someone do what they don’t want to do you mean you can’t make them produce a result that deviates from their reference for that result; you can’t make someone produce an error for themselves. And if that’s what you mean then I agree that you can’t make a person do what they don’t want to do. Maybe instead of my saying that you can make someone do what they don’t want to do I should have said that you can make them do what they neither want (have a reference for) nor don’t want (have a reference against) to do; that is, you can make them produce results that are irrelevant to them – results that are irrelevant side effects of their controlling.Â

RY: To clarify, you
can’t make someone do what (only) you want but you
can make them do what they want,

      RM: This is demonstrably false...I got

you to do what I wanted you to do even though you didn’t want
to do it; indeed, you didn’t even know you were doing it.Â

RM: I see you went to the wedding today. If you see the Queen ask her if she remembers meeting me;-)

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

22

[From Rupert Young (2018.05.20 18.30)]

(Rick Marken 2018-05-19_16:22:37]

I have a very simple mind and like to try to express things in

simple and succinct way, for my own understanding; which also may be
of use to explaining to others. Of course this means they are open
to interpretation at different levels. But in this case I meant you
can’t control someone’s behaviour unless they have some goal which
they are controlling. In your example was their goal of finger
following. There probably are many more additional subtleties
involved, to which you allude.

Indeed! Though I think my personal invitation must have got lost in

the post so I wasn’t able to attend the castle, or ask her madge
about your audience with her. So I had to mingle with the hoi polloi
like a real person. But it was a beautiful day, with a thousands of
people and a great friendly, festival atmosphere, and it was
wonderful to see the masses live their lives vicariously through a
ruling elite of which they had not a hope in hell of ever being a
member. However, I was, bizarrely, able to express my disdain of the
monarchy live on TV, by not being ‘visibly excited’, when I was
unwittingly, and unwillingly, interviewed on Sky News!
https://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/962118/Royal-Wedding-Kay-Burley-LIVE-fans-awkward-Sky-News-update-latest

Royalty really is an anachronism which we should replace, as have

many other countries, from whom we should learn. Perhaps we should
be looking to republics such as yourselves. I am sure there is much
we could learn from your own Republican party and your Presidential
system. Err, on the other hand, Long Live the Queen!

Though do you know the *real* reason behind the wedding?

Meghan is an out spoken person and politically savvy. As an American
citizen she can run in a Presidential election. So, in 2020 running
against Ivanka Trump will be Meghan, with Harry as the FGOTUS.
Americans love the Royal family (apparently) so this pairing cannot
avoid to be anything other than a winning ticket. Everyone is going
to be crazy about restoring the monarchy to our long-lost colony. As
the sun has set on the British Empire and we have pretty much shot
ourselves in our head with the Brexit vote to flush our close ties
with our nearest neighbour, the European Union, down the toilet,
this wedding is a final, desperate ploy to restore some former glory
with a stealth re-unification with our North American territory!

Regards,

Rupert
···

[From Rupert Young (2018.05.18 23.59)]

            RY: Sure. Though you are stating something as

false that I wasn’t implying in my point.

      RM: I thought your statement implied that you could only make

someone do what they want to do. But I pointed out that when
you make someone draw some pattern with their finger, such as
a figure 8, in the rubber band demo you are, indeed, making
them do something that they don’t want to do. But perhaps it
would have been better to have said that you are making them
do something that they don’t care whether they do or not. I
can see that when you say you can’t make someone do what they
don’t want to do you mean you can’t make them produce a result
that deviates from their reference for that result; you can’t
make someone produce an error for themselves. And if that’s
what you mean then I agree that you can’t make a person do
what they don’t want to do. Maybe instead of my saying that
you can make someone do what they don’t want to do I
should have said that you can make them do what they neither
want (have a reference for) nor don’t want (have a reference
against) to do; that is, you can make them produce results
that are irrelevant to them – results that are irrelevant
side effects of their controlling.

RY: To clarify, you can’t
make someone do what (only) you want
but you can make them do what they
want,

                    RM: This is demonstrably false...I got you to do

what I wanted you to do even though you didn’t
want to do it; indeed, you didn’t even know you
were doing it.Â

      RM: I see you went to the wedding

today. If you see the Queen ask her if she remembers meeting
me;-)

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
            Â
–Antoine de Saint-Exupery

23

(Eetu 2018-05-22 2)

Thx Fred

“Willing� thus means same as “must�. I think we do what we must only when we want to do that instead of some still worse alternative. I want rather save my life than my money and I want rather obey the boss than lose my job.

As for your last example I agree warmly that by common sense you controlled the warmth of the food. But note that it tasted warm. In the last resort you controlled your perceptions. With out that you could not have controlled the temperature in any sense.
The temperature became controlled - in the common sense - because you controlled your perception - in the PCT sense. You could have warmed the food according to manual of the microwave but that would have been only influence without the control on perception.

Eetu
(Lähetetty kännykästä / Sent from mobile)

···

Fred Nickols csgnet@lists.illinois.edu kirjoitti 22.5.2018 kello 14.40:

[From Fred Nickols (2018.05.22.0732 ET)]

Interesting question, Eetu. I think the difference ties to purpose. When you “want� to do something, that something serves a purpose of yours. When you are merely “willing� to do something someone else
wants, the purpose originates with them, not you. Think about how many people are doing things at work not because they really want to but because they are willing to do what others ask of them. Or suppose a robber points a gun at you and demands your money.
You don’t “want� to give him your money but I’ll wager you would be quite “willing� to surrender your money.

Frankly, I suspect that if PCT professionals proclaimed that we can’t make someone else do what we want, they would be greeted with hoots of derision. Ditto for the claim that we can’t/don’t control anything
except our perceptions. It flies in the face of common sense. I just now zapped some leftovers in the microwave. They tasted plenty warm to me. Did I “control� the temperature of those zapped leftovers? I suppose someone can provide me with a seemingly
elegant PCT-based explanation of why I didn’t’ and can’t and I would nod and say silently to myself, “Suit yourself� and continue believe I controlled the temperature of those leftovers, even if I had to use a microwave to do it.

Fred Nickols

From: Eetu Pikkarainen (eetu.pikkarainen@oulu.fi via csgnet Mailing List) csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2018 7:15 AM
To: ‘csgnet@lists.illinois.edu’ csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: RE: FW: Re: controlling people

[Eetu Pikkarainen 2018-05-22_11:13:44 UTC]

Fred, What is the difference between �wanting� and “willing�? Especially fro PCT poit of view)

Eetu

From: “Fred Nickols” csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Sent: 22. toukokuuta 2018 14:08
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: RE: FW: Re: controlling people

[From Fred Nickols (2018.05.22.0704 ET)]

If someone were to ask me, “Can you make other people do what you want?� I would say, “Yes.� If the other person were to ask, “Even if they don’t want to do it?� I would again reply,
“Yes.� And I would add, “They don’t have to want to do it, they just have to be willing to do it.�

Fred Nickols

From: Rupert Young (rupert@perceptualrobots.com via csgnet Mailing List) csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2018 6:38 AM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: FW: Re: controlling people

[From Rupert Young (2018.05.22 11.35)]

(Richard Pfau (2018.05.18 2:44 pm EDT)]

You can’t make someone do what (only) you want, but you can often influence them to do what both you and they want.

You may notice two changes. (1) One is to use the words “often influence” rather than “make them” in the phrase “you can make them do what they want” – since they
may want to do something, but you can’t make them do that thing if they have other more important references that would effectively prevent them from doing what both you and they want to do. For example, both you and they may want to get married, but they
may have a more important reference such as an obligation to honor their father and mother’s strong objections to doing so. Or, thinking of environmental constraints/disturbances, they may not be able to do it if they are locked up in a high security prison.
That is, you may often be able to influence them to do something, but you can’t always make them do it, even if they want to do it.

Well, it may come down to preferences for certain words. But if you know what variables someone is controlling for, and they have high gain, and you can disturb those variables (you know what “buttons to push”), you can have a high degree of control over them.
So, in this case I prefer wording that has a stronger sense than “influence”.

Regards,
Rupert