defending PCT

[bnhpct]

[From Bruce Nevin (980721.2148 EDT)]

A challenge for experts in communication: If you are controlling a
perception with a reference level of zero, your monitoring of the
environment for disturbances seems somehow much less specific than when you
control for some positive value. Example: stereotyped schoolteacher
monitoring the classroom for a disruption. Example: PCT researcher
monitoring email for misunderstandings or misconstruals of PCT. This is
somewhat similar to Maslow's observation that if the only tool you have is
a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If you're wearing shoes, the whole
earth is covered with shoe leather.

So here's the challenge. Assuming that it is important to defend the
boundaries of the science, as it were-- to correct misconceptions, to help
people over predictable hurdles, to wean experts away from seeing PCT as
"just a different way of saying" what they are expert in, and to prevent
another Glasser from promoting his own previously set ideas and calling it
PCT-- assuming that this sort of thing is important, how can we do it
better? Controlling perceived misconstrual at zero locks PCT experts into a
draining and perhaps destructive policing role. Are other methods better?
Socratic method?

Of course, there's no guarantee everyone on the border patrol would be
willing to give up that role even after they learned better methods. But it
became clear to me at the conference that we should try to find
alternatives. What do you think?

  BN

[R_Marken]

[From Rick Marken (980721.2245)]

Bruce Nevin (980721.2148 EDT)]

If you are controlling a perception with a reference level of
zero, your monitoring of the environment for disturbances seems
somehow much less specific than when you control for some
positive value.

When you are controlling a perception you are not monitoring
for disturbances (whether by "disturbance" you mean a variable
that influences the state of a controlled perception or variations
in a controlled perception away from its reference state). You are
monitoring the state of the controlled perception and continuously
acting to keep it in the reference state.

Example: stereotyped schoolteacher monitoring the classroom for
a disruption.

The school teacher is controlling noise level in class. The
reference is near zero. A disruption is any variable that would tend
to move this perception from the reference state. The school teacher
is not monitoring for disruption (though it may look this way);
the school teacher is monitoring noise level and doing whatever
she can to keep that perception at the reference.

Example: PCT researcher monitoring email for misunderstandings
or misconstruals of PCT.

The PCT researcher is controlling "PCT accuracy"; the reference is
"very accurate". A misunderstanding is any variable that would tend
to move this perception from the reference state. The PCT researcher
is not monitoring for misunderstanding (though it may look this
way); the PCT researcher is monitoring PCT accuracy and doing
whatever she can to keep that perception at the reference.

So here's the challenge. Assuming that it is important to defend
the boundaries of the science, as it were-- to correct
misconceptions

It is only important to the person doing the "defending". I would
say "Assuming it is important to a person to control for a
particular view of science -- that is, assuming that the person
is a high gain controller of that perception of science..."

to help people over predictable hurdles, to wean experts away
from seeing PCT as "just a different way of saying" what they
are expert in, and to prevent another Glasser from promoting
his own previously set ideas and calling it PCT-- assuming that
this sort of thing is important, how can we do it better?

This is a great question (and obviously one I feel very close
to personally;-))

The first thing to consider here is what you mean by "better"?
My guess is that you mean "How can one defend PCT -- control for
PCT accuracy -- without alienating, hurting or otherwise
offending the "disturbances" to PCT (the people who are making
inaccurate statements about PCT)"?

Given this definition of better, my answer to your question is
"we can defend PCT better by defending it worse"! This is what
I learned at the meeting (actually, I've known it all along; I
just find it hard to do). The fact of the matter is that the
only way to control for PCT accuracy without bruising the
"disturbances" (people) is by "lightening up" on the gain of
the PCT accuracy control loop. Doing this won't ensure that
people learn PCT (and become non-disturbances); but it's a more
civil way of dealing with people; and high gain control of PCT
accuracy doesn't accomplish anything anyway.

Controlling perceived misconstrual at zero locks PCT experts
into a draining and perhaps destructive policing role.

This suggests that it's the reference for perceived misconstrual
that is causing the problem. But even if one changed one's reference
for misconstrual from zero to some much higher value, there would
still be problems if the gain of the control loop were high; in
that case the system would respond aggressively to any disturbance
that causes a deviation from the now high value reference for
misconstrual.

No, I think the answer to your excellent question about how to
control for PCT accuracy better is by controlling for it worse
(lowering the PCT accuracy loop gain).

Of course, there's no guarantee everyone on the border patrol
would be willing to give up that role even after they learned
better methods.

Well, I'll still be riding border patrol but I'll try to make it
a lot easier for immigrants to sneak the milder misconceptions
about PCT into PCTland;-)

Best

Rick

···

---
Richard S. Marken Phone or Fax: 310 474-0313
Life Learning Associates e-mail: rmarken@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~rmarken/

[Bruce_Gregory]

[From Bruce Gregory (980722.1000 EDT)]

Rick Marken (980721.2245)

The first thing to consider here is what you mean by "better"?
My guess is that you mean "How can one defend PCT -- control for
PCT accuracy -- without alienating, hurting or otherwise
offending the "disturbances" to PCT (the people who are making
inaccurate statements about PCT)"?

Given this definition of better, my answer to your question is
"we can defend PCT better by defending it worse"! This is what
I learned at the meeting (actually, I've known it all along; I
just find it hard to do).

If you replaced "PCT" by "Newtonian physics" you would see the weakness of
your new-found understanding.

The fact of the matter is that the
only way to control for PCT accuracy without bruising the
"disturbances" (people) is by "lightening up" on the gain of
the PCT accuracy control loop. Doing this won't ensure that
people learn PCT (and become non-disturbances); but it's a more
civil way of dealing with people; and high gain control of PCT
accuracy doesn't accomplish anything anyway.

It appears we now have a choice: Rick the bull-headed or Rick the
patronizing. How about Rick the sympathetic but firm? If we can vote, I'll
vote for him.

No, I think the answer to your excellent question about how to
control for PCT accuracy better is by controlling for it worse
(lowering the PCT accuracy loop gain).

To make life simpler I hereby confess that I know nothing about PCT. I hope
you'll call me task if I every use the term again. I do know something about
applying the logic of negative feedback systems to the understanding of
behavior. To avoid using so cumbersome a term, I'll call it TOTE. From now
on I will confine my comments to TOTE. If that is inappropriate for CSGnet,
please let me know.

Bruce Gregory

[Chris_Cherpas]

Bruce Nevin (980722.1123 EDT) --

...the appearance of focussing on correct use
of words and phrases lends itself to the perception that CSG bona fides are
a matter of ideological correctness.
...An alternative is Testing and helping people get clear
about the intentions behind the words. When the understanding is clear, the
words follow.

Another alternative is axiomatization. Let's say Rick goes to the
Ontolingua
website, runs the tour, and decides to try representing, in Ontolingua,
the terms
whose interpretations appear to be in conflict when cast in less formal
CSG
discourse. If constructing a formal ontology of PCT terms subsequently
becomes
a shared CSG effort, then one obvious higher-level intention is: keep
improving
CSG's ontology of PCT. Improvement can be seen in changes that
maintain internal
coherence and allow extensibility to new cases or arguments. The
ontology
is not therefore an end in itself, but may aid in administration.

Logical, if not ideological, correctness?

Best regards,
cc

[Isabelle_Chicoine]

From Remi Cote (980722.1344)

Question to Rick Marken:

According to you and what you describe in S-R vs Control demo, there is
no correlation
between the S value and R value.

If I may take one illustration for this: There is no relation between
the amount of money
you have in a bank and the quantity/quality of work you do. That is a
cruel fact of life.
To keep $3000 (ref value) in a bank, I have to work a lot. So you are
right... There is
no correlation between S and R (amount of money stay between $2800 and
$3200 and the
quantity/quality of work varies a lot depending of factor such as
employment, amount
of work backlog, eat in restorant or eat lunch, etc...).

Is it a good example, did I finally grab something about PCT?

Sincerely candid

Remi

[bnhpct]

[From Bruce Nevin (980722.1123 EDT)]

Rick Marken (980721.2245) --

Thank you for the excellent illustration of the point.

Bruce Nevin (980721.2148 EDT)]

If you are controlling a perception with a reference level of
zero, your monitoring of the environment for disturbances
seems somehow much less specific than when you control for
some positive value.

When you are controlling a perception you are not monitoring
for disturbances (whether by "disturbance" you mean a variable
that influences the state of a controlled perception or
variations in a controlled perception away from its reference
state). You are monitoring the state of the controlled
perception and continuously acting to keep it in the
reference state.

Here is an example of where I got the notion of monitoring the environment
for disturbances:

Bill Powers (980623.1111 MDT)]

[...] A lot of
people are at the hockey rink, performing zero triple axels. Al,
who is monitoring for anyone producing a nonzero amount of
triple axels, experiences no error and takes no action. He is
not controlling for anyone in particular not performing triple >axels, so

he doesn't care if John Belushi is not performing them

on his ice, or if the Pope isn't, or if anyone in particular
isn't. There are zero axels being performed and that is what
Al wants. He is always controlling for seeing zero axels.

Another phrase Bill used here is "controlling for." "Monitoring for
disturbances" is the flip side of "controlling for a perception."
Correction accepted, I agree that you do not normally perceive disturbances
as such. The point is, your attention is a finite resource. When you are
monitoring for anyone producing a nonzero amount of something that you can
perceive, be it triple axels or ways of talking about PCT that don't sound
right to you, your attention is not available for other matters that might
be more productive. It could be anybody. For any one individual, it could
be any of a large variety of actions that disturb the controlled
perceptions. Setting aside triple axels, the possible disturbances to "this
person correctly understands PCT" may even be infinite.

Your answer to "how can we do it better" is "give up." I don't think this
is a useful answer. One answer to conflict is always to give up one of the
things that you care about. There is no reason to suppose that you arrived
at this conclusion by going up a level to why you care about it. There is
no reason to suppose that you will be able to follow through on your your
verbal commitment to give it up, and every reason to suppose that you
won't. It is much easier to give up control of not offending people who
make inaccurate statements about PCT. You care about PCT much more than you
care about the feelings of this individual or that. And in my opinion you
should. But there need not be a conflict.

You are presently controlling a perception of "not alienating, hurting or
otherwise offending the [...] people who are making inaccurate statements
about PCT". While it lasts, this conflicts with your control of "people
making accurate statements about PCT". It might be worth your looking more
closely at how these come into conflict. Perhaps there are means of doing
the latter that do not alienate, hurt, offend, insult, and so on. I
suggested Socratic questioning. I have suggested referring people to their
direct experience of models and demos. My request was for other
suggestions. Alternative means might resolve the conflict in at least some
situations. (The victim of insult etc. also has an active role. It causes
as much trouble to take offense as to give it. After you've decided to play
nice, they can still turn around and give you 20 lashes with a pair of
twisted knickers tied with a TOTE belt. It takes a while for the
repercussions of past conduct to quieten.)

But I am not convinced that this is a necessary or complete or even correct
characterization of the conflict. Can you go up a level to what is behind
the desire to correct people's misstatements?

Putting myself behind that motivation, I perhaps I want the other person to
have the same sort of "aha!" revelation that I had so many years ago. But
this is just my imagining of what it might be like to be Rick Marken doing
this, and probably has no relevance. I just offer it as a f'rinstance of
how divergent and unexpected things might possibly be when you go up a
level or two with this.

That question is the most important in this post: Can you go up a level to
what is behind the desire to correct people's misstatements?

Leaving that, but not abandoning it -- I think it is an extremely
worthwhile project -- here is an entirely different tack. Part of the
problem may be simply jumping to conclusions as to the intentions of the
other person, based upon their use of words. Some Testing to determine what
they intend might be useful. But the appearance of focussing on correct use
of words and phrases lends itself to the perception that CSG bona fides are
a matter of ideological correctness. Off that edge of the map there be
dragons with names like Glasser. In your image they form themselves. If the
image you present is one of correcting the words they use, that is what
they do to others. An alternative is Testing and helping people get clear
about the intentions behind the words. When the understanding is clear, the
words follow. When you are confident that a person's understanding is
clear, you won't waste time nitpicking. "Is this what you mean by that?"
might be enough of a Test for you, reminder for them.

  Bruce Nevin

[bnhpct]

[From Bruce Nevin (980728.1303 EDT)]

Rick Marken (980723.2050)--

Bruce Nevin (980723.0726 EDT) --

But when you say

>That conflict results from the fact that those other people
> and me are controlling the same perceptual variable (nature

of PCT) relative to somewhat different references.

You are begging the question

What question am I begging? I thought I was just describing a
conflict.

Sorry, I thought it was clear that I was talking about the two lines that
came right after the word "question," namely:

Part of the problem may be simply jumping to conclusions as to
the intentions of the other person

I can see that this was not clear. Does it make more sense now?

Here's a restatement. You said that the conflict is between two references
for the perceptual variable "nature of PCT". I replied that you are
ignoring a different possibility, namely, that you are just jumping to the
conclusion that the other person does not understand the nature of PCT,
when in fact they are not. In the immediate case, Rick Marken (980721.2245)
"Re: Defending PCT," you lectured me at some length about how we don't
control or "monitor" disturbances.

In other words, if the only tool you have is a hammer called "correcting
misunderstandings of PCT" then everything anybody says appears to have
nails called "misconceptions of PCT." I've been on the net since I think
1991, and I don't think I *ever* had or was corrected for the misconception
that we control disturbances. But if it looks like a nail, hit it.

Is this a kind of miscommunication that recurs frequently? How might we
change it?

Suppose your toolbox included ways of reframing misstatements in correct
PCT terms, in the form of an agreement with amplification, or a question
"is this what you mean?" For example, "It sounds like what you're trying to
say is <PCT restatement>. That's true, and have you considered how demo x
shows ...?" It might turn out that they're just still clumsy with the
technical language of the science. If they really do have a misconception,
they'll disagree with your restatement, using their own words. Looping
might be helpful then, reframing their disagreement in correct PCT terms.
Their answers will pinpoint their stumbling blocks, in the process handing
you the words and examples that make most sense to them for helping them
out of their difficulty, all the time without constructing an adversarial
relationship.

I offer that as one possibility for your consideration. Are there others?
Here's the challenge again. I assume that it is important to defend the
boundaries of the science, as it were--to correct misconceptions, to help
people over predictable hurdles, to wean experts away from seeing PCT as
"just a different way of saying" what they are expert in, and to prevent
another Glasser from promoting his own previously set ideas and calling it
PCT. How can we do it better?

I'm going to drop out for at least the month of August to focus on my
dissertation. I'll check back in later.

  Bruce Nevin