[From Bill Powers (930818.1440 MDT)]
Hal Pepinsky et. al. (930818) --
We're starting to get into overlapping posts, so I'll just
comment on two points for now.
Bill or anyone in the PCT group, tell me if I've got this
summary of Bill's theory wrong: We do what we do because of
what we see. (I use "see" here the way the Swahili use "ona"--
for seeing with the eyes, for sensing with the ears, nose,
tongue, fingers or from the heart, for perceiving.) We see what
we want to see.
This is just a slight language problem. As Rick Marken pointed
out, this is not a theory about hallucinating. What we experience
through the senses is a version of some sort of reality,
constructed but not arbitrarily. Once we have perceptions of the
world, we can act on the world to alter the states of those
perceptions. (In fact, as Martin Taylor will no doubt remark, we
learn how to perceive the world in the process of finding out how
we can affect it). Control of perception does not mean acting to
make one kind of perception turn into a different kind. It means
acting to alter a perception from one state to another: from less
to more, or from less to none. This is done by acting on the
outside world, not by solipsistically creating sensory
information. Of course we have many control systems with
different perceptual functions; while the perceptual functions
each report the world in only one way, higher systems can switch
from using one lower-level system to another. So there can be
alternative ways of perceiving and controlling the same external
situation. But each way is learned through interaction with the
world, under circumstances where it is one of many valid ways.
The other slight problem can be dealt with by a slight rewording:
just say "We do what we do because of the difference between what
we see and what we want to see." What we want to see is, perhaps,
derived from memory or imagination; it is a pseudo-perception
serving as a target state against which we compare the actual
state of a perception of the same kind. Suppose I have seen your
face and demeanor when you are sad, indifferent, angry, and
happy. I prefer to see you happy, but I see you looking angry. So
I will try to think of something to say or do that might change
what I'm perceiving from anger to happiness in you, as I judge it
from your expressions and demeanor. Maybe this will work and
maybe it won't; it depends as much on you as on my actions. If it
works, I will still want to see you happy, but because I am now
in fact seeing you as happy there will be nothing further to do.
The perception matches the reference signal; zero error; no
action.
Of course I am using you to control my perceptions, which means
that if I persist in wanting to see you happy, I will pretty much
have to give up my present occupation, move in with you, and
devote my time to warding off anything that might seem to make
you unhappy. Control of others always carries a price.
The other point:
...Bill, and Gary and Rick, are you confronting what strikes me
as a fundamental conflict between PCT as Bill describes it and
PCT as Gary and Rick would apply it?
We agree pretty well on the basic theory, but there are always
differences in how people internalize a theory. I think Rick is
describing his current organization in terms of PCT. There really
isn't any "right" way to be organized; each person has to work
out a way that seems self-consistent, satisfying, safe, or
whatever the higher-level goals are. That way will probably
change from time to time as better ideas come up. What I call,
after Hugh Gibbons, "respect for the will of others" isn't a
moral code; it's a recognition of the fact that the only will
involved in my own behavior is my own, and presumably the same is
true of everyone else. It doesn't bother me if others work out
their applications of PCT differently in their lives from the way
I work them out in my own life. I can always argue with them. PCT
isn't a religion.
ยทยทยท
---------------------------------------------------------------
Best,
Bill P.