Different Worlds

CSGnet Archive CSG1998
41

[From Bruce Gregory (980423.1557 EDT)]

Bill Powers (980423.0800 MDT)]

This is
the proof of Rick's earlier claim that conflict can occur only when the
different systems are experiencing the _same_ perceptual world
(if the real
mathematicians here will permit me to use the word "proof").

I wonder whether the converse also holds -- that the occurrence of
conflicts between people could be a factor in a proof that an objective
world exists independently of our perceptions of it. That, of course, is a
critical question when we argue about whether one theory is as good as
another, or more right than another in some demonstrable way.

Boy I now realize that I understand nothing about PCT. You and Rick are
right. If different individuals can experience the same perceptual world I
have _no_ idea what you are talking about. Once you grant this, I see no
reason to question that the existence of conflict demonstrates that there
must be an objective world. Unless of course God arranges for us share the
same perceptual world. Perhaps Leibnizean monads are involved. PCT
vindicates Leibniz. Wonderful! Whatever you are now smoking is KILLER SHIT!

Buzzed Off

42

[From Bill Powers (980423.1402 MDT)]

Bruce Nevin (980423.1152 EDT) --

Also I didn't realize that you limit the term "conflict" to cases that are
not resolved for an extended period while reorganization works.

The "extended period of time" simply follows from the fact that
reorganization is slow, because of the random aspect of its operation. It
could, by chance, work instantly, but that's not very likely. It can also
make things worse. A systematic control system, on the other hand, starts
to work very quickly when an error appears and normally makes things
better; I estimate that the delay time for a system-concept control system
is under one second. Of course the time required to correct the error is
probably far longer than that.

I was
supposing that reorganization might not always take a long time. Different
means for controlling the perceptual input may be close at hand, as it
were, involving just a few changes of connections or weights in the output
function or the perceptual input function. You seem to be saying that if it
does not take a relatively long time then the means for reducing error must
already have been available, and therefore it was not a conflict.

I would judge more on the basis of whether the resolution is accomplished
by some familiar process which is always used for that kind of conflict
(count to 10, prioritize, assign relative values, etc..). When
reorganization is occurring, you get random trial and error, not any
systematic method. There's no guarantee that the first try will solve the
problem; it is just as likely to make it worse, and perhaps most likely.

I suppose
that if there is no conflict (and no overwhelming environmental
disturbance) we should expect control to resume in some small multiple of
the usual lag time for the highest level of control that is involved.

Yes, and the method of resolution would be some systematic process, not
trial and error.

Between that relatively small interval and the kinds of protracted conflict
that you seem to have in mind I think there must be a wide range of
conflict and learning.

Sure.

There may also be some misunderstanding reflected in your notion of
"passively observed phenomena (passive meaning that we can observe it but
can't affect it)." The perceptions observed in meditation are perceptions
that we can effect; we choose not to.

OK, _don't_ is better than _can't_. Passive observation is perceiving
without acting to affect the perception. Is that better?

The kernel of truth is that resolving [conflicts] is good for us. And not

just by

resolving the conflict and re-enabling some degree of control.

This depends on whether in resolving a conflict we become better at
resolving conflicts.

I am not talking about improvement in the process of reorganizing or of
resolving conflicts. I am talking about when new capacities are
developed--learning.

That is the result of reorganization. Without reorganization, nothing in
the hierarchy can act any differently; no new capacities can arise.

I can see that my proposal concerning the worth of conflict per se is
conflicting with some agenda of yours. I would guess that you decided some
time ago (prior to PCT) that conflict is good for us, and don't want to
conclude otherwise. That's OK with me, but doesn't leave much to discuss on
this subject.

This is confusing cause and effect. It is not the double bind or conflict
in general that is the root of creativity: creativity results from the
built-in organization that is capable of resolving that and other
conflicts, by means of generating new organizations.

You left out that little word "at". "Conflict is at the root of
creativity," not "conflict is the root of creativity."

OK, so conflict is down there AT the root of creativity, but has nothing to
do with it. I think that conflict is just one of several types of problems
that reorganization helps us to solve. But you don't want to hear that, so
I won't say it.

Best,

Bill P.

43

[From Bill Powers (980423.1422 MDT)]

Bruce Gregory (980423.1355 EDT)--

Presumably you and a flu virus have very different perceptual functions. As
you define conflict, you apparently cannot be in conflict with the virus.

I'd agree with that.

How exactly would you define your interaction?

What the flu virus does is disturb the operation of some of our biochemical
control systems. Generally our immune systems resist that disturbance by
destroying the virus, after a while. As far as I know, the action of the
immune system does not produce a redoubling of the disturbance from the flu
virus, nor do the flu virus and the immune system control the same
perceptual variables, but in different states. If they do, I don't know
what those variables would be.

As to the interaction between me and the flu virus, there is hardly any
that I know of. I have no conscious experience of a flu virus, and can't
imagine any conscious perceptions that I would have in common with the
virus. I would let you ask my immune system, but I don't know how to do
that. I don't know much more about it than I do about the flu virus.

Best,

Bill P.

44

[From Fred Nickols (980423.1625 EDT)] --

Bruce Gregory (980422.1713 EDT)]

Bill Powers (980422.1344 MDT)

If a variable stays in the state you prefer without any action being
needed, you never experience any error and in fact you don't even need to
learn what to do in case there is an error. I think we accept the world
that we experience, quite quickly, as the world we expect to experience,
meaning that we make our perception of it into a reference level for it.

Bruce:

Yes. I've been thinking this for a while. It's nice to learn that it is not
a heresy!

A question...

Would the making of an expectation into a reference condition qualify as a
partial definition of "learning"?

Regards,

Fred Nickols
The Distance Consulting Company
nickols@worldnet.att.net
http://home.att.net/~nickols/distance.htm

        "The Internet offers the best graduate-level education
         to be found anywhere."

45

[From Bruce Gregory (980423.1645 EDT)]

Bill Powers (980423.1422 MDT)

What the flu virus does is disturb the operation of some of our
biochemical
control systems. Generally our immune systems resist that disturbance by
destroying the virus, after a while. As far as I know, the action of the
immune system does not produce a redoubling of the disturbance
from the flu
virus, nor do the flu virus and the immune system control the same
perceptual variables, but in different states. If they do, I don't know
what those variables would be.

I think I've finally got it. In PCT conflict is _defined_ to be "controlling
the same perceptual variables, but in different states." From this it
follows that conflict between us can only arise if we are controlling the
same perceptual variables. Since conflict does arise we _must_ control the
same perceptual variables (no matter how absurd this may be). The Loyalists
and the Republicans in Northern Ireland can only be in conflict _if_ they
control the same perceptual variables. Otherwise, they can kill each other,
but they are _not_ in conflict as far as PCT is concerned. Doesn't it strike
you that this definition of conflict might restrict somewhat the scope of
PCT? Or am I nit picking?

Best Offer

46

[From Bruce Gregory (980423.1652 EDT)]

Fred Nickols (980423.1625 EDT)

Would the making of an expectation into a reference condition qualify as a
partial definition of "learning"?

I think it is the beginning of learning. The next step is figuring out how
to make what you perceive match this new reference condition. Sometimes this
is easy. Sometimes it takes reorganization.

Bruce

47

[From Bruce Nevin (980423. EDT)]

Bill Powers (980423.1402 MDT) --

I can see that my proposal concerning the worth of conflict per se is
conflicting with some agenda of yours. I would guess that you decided some
time ago (prior to PCT) that conflict is good for us, and don't want to
conclude otherwise. That's OK with me, but doesn't leave much to discuss on
this subject.

Not so, as far as I am aware. This came up in discussion of a meditation
practice of "following the breath". My agenda, if you will, was
understanding more clearly what is going on there. And it came up in
connection with Rick's statement that for two organisms to conflict they
must be controlling different values of the same perception. My only point
there was that while this is true for internal conflict, for interpersonal
conflict the perceptions they are controlling could be quite different,
with the conflict occurring in some part of the environment that neither is
controlling. He agreed, with the suggestion that the more distant the two
perceptions were from one another (in some sense TBD) the less likely was
conflict to occur. Possibly true, depends on properties of the environment
that are not studied in PCT and might well vary. Then I remembered
Bateson's stuff about learning, and learning-about-learning and it seemed
worth mentioning. The rest comes from resisting what I perceive as
misunderstanding and misrepresentation of what I have said, and that kind
of defensiveness is probably fruitless. Anyway, you should be free to work
on models and extending the theory, not debates about who said what and
what we meant but only.

I'll be out of touch tomorrow, getting a new disk and OS in my little
notebook so I can look at the network management applications I'm writing
help systems for.

  Bruce

48

[From Rick Marken (980423.1600)]

Bruce Gregory (980423.1557 EDT)--

Once you grant this, I see no reason to question that the existence
of conflict demonstrates that there must be an objective world.

Do you think that there might _not_ be an objective world?

Best

Rick

···

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

49

[From Bruce Gregory (9804241640 EDT)]

Bill Powers (980424.0926 MDT)

Bruce Gregory (980424.0503 EDT)--

>I am still baffled as to how thousands of people can want the same
>perception to be in any state. I thought a perception was a
neural signal. I
>thought Bill made this very clear. I was obviously very wrong.

If people show evidence of conflict, then there must be some common
physical variable (or function of variables) that they want to be in
different states. From this we deduce that they must all contain
perceptual
signals that are closely dependent on this variable, so if we can identify
the variable we can say that they are all controlling a perception of the
same thing: that is, among their perceptual signals there must be signals
corresponding to the external variable we have identified.

This is _a_ mechanism of conflict. It appears to me to be an analogy based
on the model of a mechanism demonstrated to occur in a single hierarchical
control system. Its extrapolation to the behavior of large populations of
complex hierarchical systems seems speculative at best.
Why is it the only possible mechanism of conflict? By definition? Or am I
again missing something fundamental?

We have to remember that we never see other people's perceptual signals;
the only perceptual signals we can observe directly are our own. To talk
about another person's perception is only shorthand for asserting that
theoretically there must be, in the other person, a perceptual signal
corresponding to something I perceive in the common environment. The terms
"perception", "reference signal,", "comparator", and so on are elements of
a model, not observable entities. The way we explain conflict
theoretically
is to say that the conflicting people all have perceptions
corresponding to
some common observable variable in that part of our experience
that we call
"the environment," and that they are trying to maintain that variable in
different states at the same time because they are trying to bring the
perceptual signals corresponding to the state of the variable to different
magnitudes.

I understand (I think). How could we test this model? As you state it, it
seems immune to being disproved in the sense that if we fail to find an
appropriate variable what we are looking at simply cannot be conflict.

I believe that most people who understand the PCT model would have come up
with an explanation similar to this. Why didn't you?

Again, I simply must not be smart enough.

Best Offer

50

[From Bill Powers (980424.0926 MDT)]

Bruce Gregory (980424.0503 EDT)--

I am still baffled as to how thousands of people can want the same
perception to be in any state. I thought a perception was a neural signal. I
thought Bill made this very clear. I was obviously very wrong.

If people show evidence of conflict, then there must be some common
physical variable (or function of variables) that they want to be in
different states. From this we deduce that they must all contain perceptual
signals that are closely dependent on this variable, so if we can identify
the variable we can say that they are all controlling a perception of the
same thing: that is, among their perceptual signals there must be signals
corresponding to the external variable we have identified.

We have to remember that we never see other people's perceptual signals;
the only perceptual signals we can observe directly are our own. To talk
about another person's perception is only shorthand for asserting that
theoretically there must be, in the other person, a perceptual signal
corresponding to something I perceive in the common environment. The terms
"perception", "reference signal,", "comparator", and so on are elements of
a model, not observable entities. The way we explain conflict theoretically
is to say that the conflicting people all have perceptions corresponding to
some common observable variable in that part of our experience that we call
"the environment," and that they are trying to maintain that variable in
different states at the same time because they are trying to bring the
perceptual signals corresponding to the state of the variable to different
magnitudes.

I believe that most people who understand the PCT model would have come up
with an explanation similar to this. Why didn't you?

Best,

Bill P.

51

[From Bill Powers (980424.1648 MDT)]

Bruce Gregory (9804241640 EDT)--

If people show evidence of conflict, then there must be some common
physical variable (or function of variables) that they want to be in
different states. From this we deduce that they must all contain
perceptual
signals that are closely dependent on this variable, so if we can identify
the variable we can say that they are all controlling a perception of the
same thing: that is, among their perceptual signals there must be signals
corresponding to the external variable we have identified.

This is _a_ mechanism of conflict. It appears to me to be an analogy based
on the model of a mechanism demonstrated to occur in a single hierarchical
control system. Its extrapolation to the behavior of large populations of
complex hierarchical systems seems speculative at best.

If you have an alternative mechanism that accounts for what we observe,
trot it out. At the moment, the mechanism I am proposing is the only one
that will explain what we observe. Perhaps it doesn't explain all of it,
but we'll worry about that when we encounter a case where it doesn't work.

And are you still equating "conflict" to "violence?" If you reflect on the
model, I think you will see that these are not equivalent ideas.

Best,

Bill P.

52

[From Bruce Gregory (980424.2108. EDT)]

Bill Powers (980424.1648 MDT)]

And are you still equating "conflict" to "violence?" If you reflect on the
model, I think you will see that these are not equivalent ideas.

If I interpret what has been said correctly, conflict is defined to result
when two control systems prefer the same perceptual variable to be in
different states. My objection is that the common usage of the world
conflict seems to be invariably interpreted as an example of the technical
term with no effort to demonstrate that this is the case. It reminds me of
evolutionary biologists who explain every characteristic as an example of
adaptation, inventing whatever facts they need to buttress the argument. If
you accept Bruce Nevin's elaboration of the situation in Northern Ireland
(and I do) the "troubles" are not necessarily an example of "conflict." Do
you agree?

Best Offer