[From Dag Forssell (921018-1)] Greg Williams (921018)
To netters: Has anyone other than Bill and I really read all the way to
here? If you have, do you think it worth reading?
Your correspondence has been so voluminous and hard to grasp in detail,
that I cannot say I have "really" read it. I have perused it and have
enjoyed it. You have both provided lots of food for thought. I think Greg
has provided us all a very valuable service by bringing up the subject
of influence and being doggedly persistent. The CSG group is indeed free
of intellectual snobbery, and this is a major strength. Another group I
can think of has a guru who proclaims the truth from on high and does not
allow himself to be questioned or challenged.
It seems to me that Greg is expressing a lot of "real world" concerns in
this latest post. PCT practicioners have to deal with these.
Leadership and management is control by definition. But people cannot be
controlled from the outside. How do you resolve this obvious management
paradox? With threats of violence, of course. But if you are enlightened?
You give people information and time to allow them to align their wants
with yours. Even Bill Powers as computer expert at the newspaper did not
spend all day on PCT, as he might have wanted to. Bill wanted the
computers at the paper to function.
···
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The other day, Bill remarked that dogs seem capable of this... As I
understood the A vs. B algebra (I did not try very hard), the issue was
anticipating the want structure of the other individual. I think a loose
interpretation is that dogs too can live by the golden rule. What sets
PCTers apart is the recognition of the diamond rule.
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Fire! swimming and pain have been brought up as causing reorganization.
I fail to see that either has a direct bearing on critical variables
(except perhaps holding your breath causing an excess of CO2 in your
lungs, which gives a large error signal to the autonomous breathing
control system). Here is a chart from my presentation, where I try to
distinguish between critical variables and what people talk about.
STRUCTURE OF CHOSEN WANTS
GENETIC ---> INDIVIDUAL ---> SELECTED
REQUIREMENTS "HUMAN NEEDS" "WANTS
examples: examples: examples:
Food (various nutrients) Belonging Perform task
Water Love Specific food
Oxygen Sex Specific drink
Temperature "Self-worth" Rest
Salinity "Esteem" Transportation
Calcium (in blood) Safety, survival Possessions
Control (within cells) Control, power Status
Various hormones Learning, fun Relationships
We have some genetic These requirements We select wants in
requirements to live we interpret by order to satisfy our
and thrive. defining individual genetic and individual
"human needs" "human needs" as we
understand them
On the subject of feelings, my concept is that when we have an error
signal, we generate both logic signals, such as for muscle action AND
hormone signals, such as adrenalin for "release of energy." Of course it
is not quite that simple. Norman Cousins suggested that our brain
secretes thousands of hormones.
In my teaching, I suggest that your information content (what you already
know) determines (influences?) how you perceive something. Your
information content also determines what you choose to want in relation
to what you perceive. Your information content finally determines your
range of choices of what to do with that error signal. (The three are
integrated, of course - that is the point of behavior of perception).
Whether fire!, drowning or torture is perceived, how you perceive it,
what you want in relation to it and what you do about the error signal,
if any, depends. If you release massive amounts of adrenalin or whatever,
that may upset your critical variables and you reorganize. If you don't,
you don't.
Greg and Bill: Your discussion on manipulation and influence is indeed
worth reading. It has provided some of the meatiest and most worthwhile
clarifications of PCT in a long time and has stimulated some carefully
developed definitions, which many of us will study and work with for a
long time.
Better the mines exploding in earnest debate than questions being
ignored.
Swedish poetic rewrite of Icelandic saga: Gunnar has been feuding for a
long time with other independent farmers. He is cornered, under attack
in his farmhouse which is now on fire. He is in the attic, his wife with
him. The string breaks as he pulls it to shoot an arrow. He turns to his
wife and asks her to cut some of her long hair and twist him a new
string. She refuses, noting that her relatives are attacking. Obviously,
they are both about to fry. Says he laconically: "Better listen to the
string that broke than never pull on your bow." Idiomatic translation:
"Better to have loved and lost than never loved at all."
_____________________________________________________________
Rick's charts: Is this treatment of the environment an improvement?
________________________________________________________________
FIGURE 1: A BASIC CONTROL SYSTEM
r
>
______v_____
> >
o-->| comparator |---o
p | |____________| | e
_____|_____ _____v_____
> > > > Control
> sensor | | amplifier | System
=============|___________|========|___________|=================
^ | Environment
_____|_____ _____v_____
> controlled> > amplified |
> input | | output |
> variable | | variable |
> i |<-------| p |
>___________| |___________|
^
_____|_____
> disturb- |
> ance |
> d |
>___________|
> = down ^ = up o--> = connection and
v arrow | arrow | side arrow
_________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
FIGURE 2: A THREE LEVEL HIERARCHY OF CONTROL SYSTEMS
Only the left half of figure 2 shown here. The right half extends the picture
to the full four "stacks" of interconnected, interrelated control systems.
r r
> >
Level 3 ______v_____ _____v______
> > > >
o-->| comparator |---o o-->| comparator |---o
p | |____________| | e p | |____________| | e
_____|_____ _____v_____ _____|_____ _____v_____
> > > > > > > >
> sensor | | amplifier | | sensor | | amplifier |
>___________| |___________| |___________| |___________|
^ | ^ |
> > > >
o------------------- | --------------o------------------- | --------
> > > >
> o---------o-------------- | --------o----------o---------
> > r | | r
Level 2 | ______v_____ | _____v______
> > > > > >
o-->| comparator |---o o-->| comparator |---o
p | |____________| | e p | |____________| | e
_____|_____ _____v_____ _____|_____ _____v_____
> > > > > > > >
> sensor | | amplifier | | sensor | | amplifier |
>___________| |___________| |___________| |___________|
^ | ^ |
> > > >
o------------------- | --------------o------------------- | --------
> > > >
> o---------o-------------- | --------o----------o---------
> > r | | r
Level 1 | ______v_____ | _____v______
> > > > > >
o-->| comparator |---o o-->| comparator |---o
p | |____________| | e p | |____________| | e
_____|_____ _____v_____ _____|_____ _____v_____
> > > > > > > >
> sensor | | amplifier | | sensor | | amplifier |
===|___________|========|___________|===|___________|========|___________|===
^ | ^ |
_____|_____ _____v_____ _____|_____ _____v_____
> controlled> > amplified | | controlled| | amplified |
> input | | output | | input | | output |
> variable | | variable | | variable | | variable |
> i |<-------| p | | i |<-------| p |
>___________| |___________| |___________| |___________|
^ ^
_____|_____ _____|_____
> disturb- | | disturb- |
> ance | | ance |
> d | | d |
>___________| |___________|
Legend: ^ |
> ---- | ---
o------o---> |
> > v
Connections, arrows Crossing paths,
up & sideways arrow down
_____________________________________________________________________________
Best to all, Dag