[from Mary Powers 9502.23]
I've been feeling uncomfortable about a few things that have
recently appeared on the net. Maybe it would be best to simply
ignore them, but silence here usually indicates acceptance.
1. Dag Forssell reprinting Bill's intro to Stations of the Mind:
O.K overall, but Glasser's later work shows that the paragraph
"Glasser has been scrupulously careful..." was (sadly) over-
optimistic. The "differences between his concepts and mine" turn
out to be very important indeed. As Bill said to me a minute ago,
"I thought he knew more than he did." Reproducing this intro may
give the false impression that Glasser's books are a good
introduction to PCT.
2. Susan Schweers on astrology, etc.:
I like a lot of what you have to say (about perception and
control), but I'll be damned if I agree with how you arrive at
it. You have probably reached the same conclusion about PCT.
As I understand it, astrology in the old days DID assume a
physical relationship between the planets and earthly events.
Astrology had to change its tune about that, not because the
"physical world became of primary importance to people", but
rather because of a developing understanding of the physical
universe (such as the vanishingly small influence the planets
could possibly have, given the determination of their actual
distance, inverse square laws, etc.). The physics of astrology
was invalidated; it had to be rationalized as being concerned
with a "non-physical" universe. Which I suppose explains how the
planet Pluto can now be said to represent management and
manipulation, two concepts which surely existed prior to 1930,
although the knowledge that the planet Pluto existed did not.
But you are coming up with some good stuff from somewhere: "my
point is always to help them understand the validity of their own
perception of the world...and then point out how others have very
different but also valid belief and motivational structures" and
"an overcontrolling other is someone who is more or less
continuously feeling their fundamental control threatened".
My hunch is that you have a very sound feel for how people work,
which you express through such media as astrology or the Tarot,
but that you could get the same results by other means while
others using your preferred means would come up with different
results - that what you do is essentially idiosyncratic, and thus
while at least in some cases beneficial and effective, is not
science. Could you expect any two astrologers, reading the same
horoscope, to pick the same variables to manipulate, manipulate
them the same way, and come up with the same conclusions?
3. Chris Kitzke (950221) on animals not having the same control
system as people:
PCT offers a model of organization with fundamental units of
control loops, with input, comparator, and output functions, and
reference, error, and perceptual signals, arranged in a
hierarchy. We see this as having explanatory power when applied
to all living systems - cats, insects, bacteria; inside complex
organisms - enzyme systems, cellular metabolism, etc.; plants as
well as animals. The complexity varies widely; the design is the
same. As for whether all this (including humans) evolved from a
molecule that happened to be arranged so as to resist
disturbances (i.e., control) or whether some organisms (human)
have a special arrangement...well, it's probably best not to
discuss the specific content of belief here - although we do
discuss the phenomenon of believing.
4. Marc Abrams (950223):
What is the "new paradigm" that the people on the Learning
Organization List support?
It seems to me that if a new world view is developing, the least
it requires is that where the expertise of the various proponents
interesects, there should be some agreement. Powers drew
inspiration from Ashby and Weiner, but disgrees with them in a
number of fundamental ways. Von Bertalanffy didn't have a clue
about how a control system works. Varela has been dismissive and
condescending about PCT, and Maturana pretty reluctant to see any
connection between his work and Powers'.
There's a big difference between talking about a world view -
excuse me, worldview - and developing a model that aims to
explain how one goes about having a worldview, whether of a
clockwork world, or a self-organizing-system world, or a god-
created world, or any other kind that comes to mind. This is why
the group of people interested in control theory didn't cut much
ice at cybernetics meetings - we were so technical and material,
and they were so full of the warm philosophical fuzzies ("you're
taling about control? Eeuuww, eecchhh!). ...Why we packed up and
went off on our own to continue being (ta-daaa!) The Control
Systems Group.
Mary P.