[From Rick Marken (991101.1330)]
Kenny Kitzke (991101.1030EST) --
I perceive it is Rick who promulgates these discussions on
the CSGNet more than any other person. He knows that I and a
few others are game to pick up on his disturbances. And, so
it goes.
I am "promulgating" discussions of religion; but I'm doing so
because I am genuinely interested in how religion fits into
our understanding of humans as input controllers. Religious
perceptions are very important to most people; I would like to
know what that's about. I'm not discussing religion simply to
disturb perceptions that you (and others) are controlling. Indeed,
I know that your own religious beliefs probably make it impossible
for you to deal with religion as a natural behavioral phenomenon.
So I'm actually more interested in hearing about religion from
people who are not already committed to a particular religious
belief system.
Me:
For example, PCT shows that, under normal circumstances, it is
impossible to repeat a result by repeating the action that
produced these result; that is, there is no _absolute_ (same
all the time) "right" way (right action one can take) to do
anything (to produce a particular result)."
Kenny Kitzke (991101.1200EST) --
Now, we notice the little hedge slipped in to try and make the
statement meaningful: "under normal circumstances."
You're right. I should have said "Under _all_ circumstances!"
I think that much human misery is also caused by people who
believe they have a right to take whatever actions that are
necessary to achieve what they want and its no ones business
but their own.
Yes. These are people who are convinced that _they_ know
what's _absolutely_ right. They have no skepticism. They have
no doubt. They have no humility. They have no interest in
testing their ideas scientifically (through modeling and
experimental observation).
These are people who do understand the nature of control
and use it liberally to satisfy their own self interests
without regard to the intended disturbances and unintended
side effects on others.
I don't think these people really understand the nature of
control. They certainly don't understand that the people who
they are trying to control are control systems themselves. If
they did understand this, they would know that there is no
way, in the long run, to control other people because some
survivor will always come back to try to bite them. Perhaps
the God of the old testament did understand this since he was
always telling the Israelites to destroy people "utterly". So
God did seem to know that the only way to control groups of
people was to kill everyone: men, women and children. I guess
this is one of the great lessons of the Bible.
Me:
[humans are] systems that, at _all_ levels of organization,
must _vary_ their actions _as necessary_ to produce intended
results.
Kenny:
You have correctly described the fallen nature of human beings.
The alternative is of interest to me.
So a non-fallen person would be able to produce an intended
result using the same actions each time? Assuming that the
world cooperated with this non-fallen person, this would mean
that a non-fallen person is an S-R device. It also means that
we could use our tracking tasks to detect non-fallen people.
When a fallen person (everyone I've tested so far) does the
tracking task, the cursor stays on target only when the person's
actions (mouse movements) vary to mirror the disturbance; when
a non-fallen person does it, the cursor will stay on target
even when the person's actions are constant.
Best
Rick
···
--
Richard S. Marken Phone or Fax: 310 474-0313
Life Learning Associates mailto: rmarken@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~rmarken
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