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[From Rick Marken (2005.12.13.1710)]
Marc Abrams (2005.12.13.0435) –
What purpose to you believe I have in mind for this antagonism toward
you?
Antagonism is probably the wrong word because it implies
intentionality. I don’t think your purpose is to be antagonistic. I
think you have purposes that lead you to act in a way that produces the
appearance of antagonism as a side effect.
Sorry Rick, it is your interpretation of my actions that lead you to believe whatever it is you believe I am or I am not doing.
I’m trying to find out if I have anything to do with it. So your attempt to lay this all on me is a tad defensive, but expected.
Whatt do you believe I am attempting to accomplish by being this way?
That’s the $64,000 dollar question. I have several hypotheses. One is
that you want us (Bill and me in particular) to “buy” certain things,
like SD, developments in neuro-cognition and so on.
First, it would be helpful if you showed me some examples of what you are attempting to claim that I ‘do’. I believe I have said just the opposite of what you are claiming on many occasions.
I am not going to go back through the archives trying to find posts I need to ‘defend’ myself against strawman attacks such as this.
You can accuse me of anything you wish. I am asking you to provide the material that provided you with this idea.
Another is that you
want to get PCT more broadly accepted and that you have some definite
ideas about how to get that to happen in which many of us (Bill and me
in particular) have shown no interest.
So? I’m not sure what this has to do with me being ‘antagonistic’?
Why does the above cause a problem for you? I have no problem with it. I have also said on many occasions, that what you and Bill are attempting is not what I am attempting to do so I could care less where you or Bill want PCT to be.
Why would that make me 'antagonistic? I can’t do anything about the way you and Bill go about your business. I can try, but I know you are not interested. But the question is why are you angry for me trying to get you to see something from a different angle?
Why do you see this differently then you and Bill pushing your agenda?
I would like to see a central hub of discussion on perceptual control, no matter what the perspective, but I guess CSGnet is specifically set up to deal with PCT and one man’s view.
No problem, just say that then rather than trying to maintain the sophistry that CSGnet is some kind of ‘scientific’ forum for the exchange of ideas on perceptual control.
What CSGnet is in fact is a soapbox where the ‘sell’ is PCT and PCT exclusively. What is PCT? Well that depends on what the big Kahoona believes it is at any given point in time. Again, I stress that this too is not a crime or a big deal, but this is not science so don’t pretend to be something you are not.
Can you provide me with some illustrations of what you are talking
about?
I’d have to go through the archives, but I’m not that interested. The
easiest thing, I think, would be for you to just tell me what you are
trying to accomplish here.
No Rick, Oh, I agree you won’t go through the archives because you have no interest. That is certainly true but that lack of interest has more to do with your inability to actually find anything to back up your claims then anything else because I don’t think you would find anything resembling what you claim to be the case.
I’ll tell you what I think though. I think you have little regard for the ideas of others and I feel very sorry for you because you seem unable to reflect on your actions and see how you unintentionally continue to shot yourself in the foot.
Are you interested in resolving this, or are you simply interested in
going about chasing strawmen?
I’d be happy to try to resolve this but I’m not optimistic about it.
No, I don’t believe this is the case. The first thing anyone has to do in order to resolve a dispute with another is to be able to admit at least to themselves what part they played in it and what they may have been responsible for. But you will do neither because you do not have the courage or stomach for it. This is unfortunate but again not unexpected.
I don’t need to tell you what my ‘purpose’ is because I have already told you numerous times. You choose for whatever reasons to believe what you do. You then come back on and ask me to restate things you have already tossed aside as BS and dismissed out of hand. Believe what you will. I have little desire or incentive to try and convince you otherwise.
But you have no idea how lucky you are with me because I at least care enough to spend the time trying to explain to you what some of the issues are. Most folks would simply have disappeared or told you to go fly a kite.
I have no desire to play this silly game. I called you a phioney and you remain a phoney. Sure, I could go on and call you all sorts of names that would accurately describe you but I won’t waste my time because you are not worth it.
I now fully understand that this list is yours and Bill’s and that I have been is an unwelcome intrusion because I look to go in directions you and Bill are not comfortable with and don’t want to go in.
But this all would have been much easier on all of us if you were honest about the reasons you do not want to go in any other direction than the one you are going in, if you want to call this a ‘direction’.
It is because you can’t go in any other direction. You are bound and tied to a single idea that is unworkable as it stands and for 35 years you have not been able to figure a way out of the box you have created and the cement you have poured into this monolith you now call PCT. But as you admitted just the other day this foundational belief is all misplaced and should be foresaken.
Oops, too late pal. You folks need an abortion now.
It is unfortunate you don’t take Martin Taylor’s ideas seriously. You snicker behind his back, as you have done with me, but he provides hope for PCT. His ideas may or may not be on target, and I personally have no taste for the way he deals with me, but the man has ideas worth considering and you are blind to this. Again, very unfortunate, but that is life.
I find your dismissiveness of my ideas and the ideas of anyone who
does not fit into your framework of thinking insulting and
self-defeating.
I think this is why we’re going to have trouble resolving this. You
think I have been dismissive of your ideas and those of others. I think
I have simply been critical of them,
How can you be ‘critical’ of things you know nothing about and don’t understand? You don’t spend the time, and more importantly you don’t think it is worth you while for you to spend the time in order to find out.
But there is a reason for all this and again this falls on your lap. It is you that believes that any other ideas presented here are something to be vigorously attacked rather than examined. I mean, why bother trying to spend the time understanding someone else when all you want is for them to understand you. After all this is your theory and list, right? What difference does it make what anyone else thinks, or what ideas they may have?
You and Bill have continually espoused the notion that one must ‘wipe’ their mind clean in order to be able to ‘accept’ the notions of PCT. What a load of crap. Just another very convenient reason not to worry about understanding the ideas of others.
No Rick, your posts of the last several days have been more of your sophistry. In a few days all will be forgotten and life will resume. Your words care empty, meaningless and for me worthless.
and willing to be shown that my criticisms are wrong.
No, this has not been the case. When I have done so, you have been non responsive or worse, you have then been dismissive and nasty.
Maybe the way to work towards a resolution is for
you to present an idea and show me what you would consider to be a
reply that is not dismissive.
How about starting by answering the questions I posed instead of being a smart-ass with your consulting fees? But please don’t bother at this point. It is what you don’t do that is the problem and for that I am tired of repeating myself, but for a small fee paid in advance I would be happy to help you and repeat myself.
You feel put upon by me when I attempt to get some discussion going
about matters that are important to me.
I don’t feel put upon by you at all, Marc. What I feel is more like
disappointment that you can’t seem to use your obvious energy and
enthusiasm in a way that I consider to be intellectually honest and
constructive.
And why pray tell should I do what you want me to do? Again you contradict yourself by saying later in this post that you are not attempting to control my behavior. Nonsense, except it pisses you off that I won’t be allowed too. I’m not one of your sheeple. Get over it.
By ‘constructive’ I assume you mean not say a negative word about PCT and follow the Shepard. Well, I have no desire for either.
Are you blind to the unilateral controlling of others you are
attempting? And this is not an accusation, this is a plea for some
reflection.
My reflection leads me to conclude that I am certainly unilaterally
controlling with whom and on what topics I collaborate. But I don’t
believe I am controlling others since I am not trying to get them to
act in a particular way. I tend to collaborate with people who are
already acting in a way that I would like them to act.
Yes, very well said, even though I’m not sure you yourself fully understand and comprehend what you have said.
Your first sentence talks to the defensiveness you have about topics that create ‘error’ as you see it and y our last two sentences here reveal all. You are blind to how your controlling efforts interfere with the ability others have in controlling for their needs. The last sentence tells us you cannot cooperate honestly with anyone other than with the folks who share your ideas. All others may be ‘tolerated’ but given little respect and must be ‘attacked’ and ‘defeated’ lest they destabilize your ability to control.
So yes Rick, I agree that this is an apt description of how you deal with others. Has it gotten you what you wanted? To borrow a phrase from Mr. Ed Ford.
I don’t think so. You complain often enough and loud enough about the lack of acceptance of PCT. Who is going to carry the PCT flag when you and Bill are gone, Bryan Thalhammer? One billion Chinese?
You need to look in the mirror and see how you are contributing to all this, but again you won’t or you will do so superficially because again, I don’t believe you have the stomach or courage for it.
In fact Rick I am spending this time and writing this because I really don’t believe you are a bad person. I just don’t think you have any idea about how self destructive your actions are and you don’t seem to care.
But I believe even this comes from a sense you have that you feel your assumptions about others are ‘right’ and you have no need for any testing of those assumptions when you make them because you think these assumptions are obvious to others, but they are not.
I would like to think that CSGnet could be a community that fosters
and encourages cooperation among folks interested in perceptual
control instead of the cat-fights and territorial disputes about who
‘owns’ which theory, and who is ‘right’.
I don’t think you can avoid what you call “cat-fights” (I’d call them
debates) in any scientific discussion, though I think the level of
discussion can be elevated considerably if it is based on actual
working models and experimental observations.
It is interesting that you addressed one part of my desires but not the other. First, I am not opposed to disagreements. That after all is the basis for all discussion. I simply believe they could be conducted more profitably for all involved. You have no idea what I have in mind yet you already believe nothing can be done because you believe this to be so. How open are you to new ideas? Not very. Even your insistence on ‘models’. Rick, models provide no basis, and let me repeat this, no basis to believe that what ever is being modeled is in fact valid or truthful.
Mathematical modeling, whatever the form, is a logic tool, nothing else. It cannot reveal anything you don’t already know, and it cannot tellyou that what you know has any place in the real world.
It is your imagination and observations that make a model worthwhile. So although a model might be a wonderful tool for checking ones logic, it is useless for discovery of new things. Mathematics provides us with the tools to look at and rearrange things to see if we missed anything that might have been implicitly known and can be made explicit.
The only way to new discovery and a path to ‘truth’ is through a constant and never ending cycle of testing and observation.
So presenting your models is one avenue it is not the only one, and for me probably the less important path. As a theoretician it might be your only path, but I am not a theoretician nor do I want to be one.
For me a model without data is meaningless. Your ‘demos’ show me nothing about what I might expect out of a human controller. There are many ways to look at perceptual control and from many levels of abstraction.
I would like to see CSGnet become the hub of all activity for perceptual control research but I see this is an impossibility as long as you and Bill are involved with CSGnet. I have no problem with that.
If not CSGnet than another site will take this up some time in the future, but it will happen.
But even then things can
get testy when you are dealing with ideas that are a disturbance to
existing beliefs. The “cat-fights” over evolutionary theory, for
example, continue to this day.
Again, you misunderstand my position.
Why aren’t we discussing the pro’s and con’s of Glasser’s ideas, or
those of Ed Ford, Tom Bourbon, Martin Taylor, and many others?
I think we’ve already run through most of these at least once since
CSGNet started in 1990 or so. But it seems to me that everyone is
pretty much free to discuss the pros and cons of anyone’s ideas. Go for
it.
No thanks. I’d prefer to cooperate with others who are already acting as I would like them to be, or at least be willing to find out how I wanted them to act, why I wanted them to do so and figure out how it might benefit all.
I have ‘gone-for-it’ and got back zero. I guess my ideas are not worthwhile and my question worthless?
But I know better, and since there does not seem to be anyone on CSGnet who has the desire or knowledge to answer my questions I guess I will hang around and see who drops by CSGnet.
One never knows.
I don’t know whether my ideas are any good, nor do I know whether
those anyone else holds are as well.
Do you want to know?
Your in no position to tell me one way or the other. You are grossly ignorant of basic facts that I assume you will first begin to learn when you start reading that cognition text.
I know my ideas have holes, I don’t need you or anyone else to point them out to me, what I think might help is if someone actually had a better idea instead and had the reasons why it was a better idea rather than simply say, “look it up in B:CP on page xxx”
Sorry pal, that is not a ‘reason’ to believe in anything
Are you ready to walk the walk?
What walk?
When you figure it out get back to me.
Regards,
Marc
