[From Fred Nickols (2018.04.07.0953 ET)]
Where do emotions fit in to PCT? What, if anything, does PCT have to say about Emotional Intelligence?
Regards,
Fred Nickols
Managing Partner
“Assistance at a Distance”
[From Fred Nickols (2018.04.07.0953 ET)]
Where do emotions fit in to PCT? What, if anything, does PCT have to say about Emotional Intelligence?
Regards,
Fred Nickols
Managing Partner
“Assistance at a Distance”
[From Fred Nickols (2018.04.07.0953 ET)]
Where do emotions fit in to PCT? What, if
anything, does PCT have to say about Emotional Intelligence?
[From Fred Nickols (2018.04.07.1325 ET)]
Thanks, Martin. I’ve already read Chapter 17 and found it very helpful and illuminating regarding emotions. But what about the focus of EQ; namely, managing emotions. It occurs to me, for example, that stepping back or counting to 10 as some say, could be followed by looking at (a) the action that is being blocked (which, according to Bill, is the trigger for emotions) and (b) the reference signal those actions are meant to attain/protect. Perhaps “going up a level” has a role to play, too. I think PCT has something to add to EQ.
Fred Nickols
From: Martin Taylor mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net
Sent: Saturday, April 7, 2018 12:58 PM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: Emotions and PCT
[Martin Taylor 2018.04.07.12.15]
[From Fred Nickols (2018.04.07.0953 ET)]
Where do emotions fit in to PCT? What, if anything, does PCT have to say about Emotional Intelligence?
I think a good place to start might be in the chapter (17 of B:CP second edition) that Bill tried to include in B:CP first edition, especially the part following the bottom of page 258 in the second edition:
"Not too sharply, I am afraid, but most tantalizingly, a picture begins to form of a second hierarchy of control that splits off from the behavioral control systems at about order two or three; this other branch is concerned with the sensing and control of quantities derived from sensors and from chemical messengers throughout the body. … the effect is to produce patterns of feeling states that arise as the biochemical balances in the body change in response to the commands.
[And just before the start of this quote] “The whole system is utterly fascinating, a multileveled system that begins in the brain and continues down – who knows how far? Perhaps the first-order systems in the biochemical chain are inside the cells themselves, throughout the body.”
I might add to the end of the second passage “as well as outside the body cells in the microbiome, the assemblage of micro-organisms that outnumber our cells by an order of magnitude and that produce and use a flood of chemicals in which our cells are bathed.”
I don’t know whether Bill knew about or had thought about the microbiome, but in the last few years much research has shown how it may greatly influence our well-being in many ways, up to the level of mental disorders such as autism and, I seem to remember, schizophrenia. Such biochemicals could, for example, globally change the gains of control loops and the interconnection strengths among them, whether the biochemicals are hormones released to the bloodstream in the operations of synapses or the waste products of bacterial communities.
I think there is much PCT research to be done in this area, but my suspicion is that in this, as in so much else, Bill had a correct fundamental insight, even if it was too much for his editor to accept in 1973.
Returning to Fred’s actual question, “What, if anything, does PCT have to say about Emotional Intelligence?”, one might ask “What, if anything, does PCT have to say about Intelligence?”. The answer is not much, because Intelligence is defined in so may different ways. In the at least six decades long history of Artificial Intelligence, intelligence has typically been defined this way: “Intelligence is what humans can do mentally that animals and machines cannot do.” That niche has been getting smaller and smaller, the more we learn how to make machines do what we thought they could not, and the more we observe birds and other animals inventing tools for making difficult tasks easy and solving puzzles in what we would call “clever” ways. If we keep defining intelligence in the exclusionary sense of what animals and machines can’t do, there will be little left for the uniqueness of human intelligence. So we probably need to define intelligence in some more abstract way that allows animals and machines to have it before asking what PCT has to say about it.
If defining “intelligence” is so flexible, how would one define “Emotional Intelligence”? Is it a component of the “Intelligence” that machines and animals cannot have? Or do dogs have it in their apparently solicitous behaviours toward their owners? Do crows have it when they warn their friends about the approach of humans previously experienced to be unfriendly, but not about those who have not behaved badly toward them in the past? Just what is “Emotional Intelligence”? Maybe when we agree on that, we might be able to see whether PCT could have anything to say about it.
Martin
[From Fred
Nickols (2018.04.07.1325 ET)]
Thanks,
Martin. I’ve already read Chapter 17 and found it very
helpful and illuminating regarding emotions. But what about
the focus of EQ; namely, managing emotions. It occurs to
me, for example, that stepping back or counting to 10 as
some say, could be followed by looking at (a) the action
that is being blocked (which, according to Bill, is the
trigger for emotions) and (b) the reference signal those
actions are meant to attain/protect. Perhaps “going up a
level” has a role to play, too. I think PCT has something
to add to EQ.
Fred Nickols
From: Martin Taylor
mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net
Sent: Saturday, April 7, 2018 12:58 PM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: Emotions and PCT
[Martin Taylor 2018.04.07.12.15]
[From Fred
Nickols (2018.04.07.0953 ET)]
Where do
emotions fit in to PCT? What, if anything, does PCT have to
say about Emotional Intelligence?
I
think a good place to start might be in the chapter (17 of
B:CP second edition) that Bill tried to include in B:CP first
edition, especially the part following the bottom of page 258
in the second edition:
---------
"Not too sharply, I am afraid, but most tantalizingly, a
picture begins to form of a second hierarchy of control that
splits off from the behavioral control systems at about order
two or three; this other branch is concerned with the sensing
and control of quantities derived from sensors and from
chemical messengers throughout the body. … the effect is to
produce patterns of feeling states that arise as the
biochemical balances in the body change in response to the
commands.
[And just before the start of this quote] "The whole system is
utterly fascinating, a multileveled system that begins in the
brain and continues down – who knows how far? Perhaps the
first-order systems in the biochemical chain are inside the
cells themselves, throughout the body."
---------
I might add to the end of the second passage "as well as
outside the body cells in the microbiome, the assemblage of
micro-organisms that outnumber our cells by an order of
magnitude and that produce and use a flood of chemicals in
which our cells are bathed."
I don't know whether Bill knew about or had thought about the
microbiome, but in the last few years much research has shown
how it may greatly influence our well-being in many ways, up
to the level of mental disorders such as autism and, I seem to
remember, schizophrenia. Such biochemicals could, for example,
globally change the gains of control loops and the
interconnection strengths among them, whether the biochemicals
are hormones released to the bloodstream in the operations of
synapses or the waste products of bacterial communities.
I think there is much PCT research to be done in this area,
but my suspicion is that in this, as in so much else, Bill had
a correct fundamental insight, even if it was too much for his
editor to accept in 1973.
---------
Returning to Fred's actual question, "What, if anything, does
PCT have to say about Emotional Intelligence?", one might ask
“What, if anything, does PCT have to say about Intelligence?”.
The answer is not much, because Intelligence is defined in so
may different ways. In the at least six decades long history
of Artificial Intelligence, intelligence has typically been
defined this way: “Intelligence is what humans can do mentally
that animals and machines cannot do.” That niche has been
getting smaller and smaller, the more we learn how to make
machines do what we thought they could not, and the more we
observe birds and other animals inventing tools for making
difficult tasks easy and solving puzzles in what we would call
“clever” ways. If we keep defining intelligence in the
exclusionary sense of what animals and machines can’t do,
there will be little left for the uniqueness of human
intelligence. So we probably need to define intelligence in
some more abstract way that allows animals and machines to
have it before asking what PCT has to say about it.
If defining "intelligence" is so flexible, how would one
define “Emotional Intelligence”? Is it a component of the
“Intelligence” that machines and animals cannot have? Or do
dogs have it in their apparently solicitous behaviours toward
their owners? Do crows have it when they warn their friends
about the approach of humans previously experienced to be
unfriendly, but not about those who have not behaved badly
toward them in the past? Just what is “Emotional
Intelligence”? Maybe when we agree on that, we might be able
to see whether PCT could have anything to say about it.
Martin
[From Fred Nickols (2018.04.07.1552 ET)]
Thanks, Martin. This is helpful.
Fred Nickols
From: Martin Taylor mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net
Sent: Saturday, April 7, 2018 2:07 PM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: Emotions and PCT
[Martin Taylor 2017.04.07.13.34]
[From Fred Nickols (2018.04.07.1325 ET)]
Thanks, Martin. I’ve already read Chapter 17 and found it very helpful and illuminating regarding emotions. But what about the focus of EQ; namely, managing emotions. It occurs to me, for example, that stepping back or counting to 10 as some say, could be followed by looking at (a) the action that is being blocked (which, according to Bill, is the trigger for emotions) and (b) the reference signal those actions are meant to attain/protect. Perhaps “going up a level” has a role to play, too. I think PCT has something to add to EQ.
Fred Nickols
I don’t have any well formed ideas here, but I can make some suggestions that might turn out to be wildly wrong. But in my way of thinking, that’s not all bad. Bill might have disapproved, because he seemed to object to speculation and wanted to progress one provable step at a time. But as Chapter 17 shows, he was not averse to speculating on his own account.
Here’s one suggestion: emotion need not be associated with error in biochemical control systems, as Bill suggests. Emotions are perceptions, and perceptions are functions of states. Contentment or aesthetic pleasure is as much an emotion as is anger or frustration. So I would suppose that emotional perceptions are some function of the values of biochemical concentrations at different places in the system, particularly in the neighbourhood of synapses (which might link emotions to reorganization).
We have “dissociated” or “free-floating” emotions like chronic depression or the mania of bipolar disorder, as opposed to depression related to a state of the external environment or the excitement of a mental or physical chase. The biochemical states may be the same, but when they are associated with describable external states, they cease being “disorders” and become “rational responses to environmental stimuli”. But they may well all be the product of closely related processes. When the environmental states produce error and the biochemical states produce, say, the excitement of the chase, success in the chase corrects the error and changes the effective references down the biochemical side of the control structure to produce an emotional state we might call “happiness”, which is associated with the reduction of error in the neural part of the loop. “Happiness” is often associated with solving difficult problems, of which the chase is an exemplar.
Does that give us a hint about “managing emotions”? I don’t know. One thing is that the perceptions of emotions I imagine above are all conscious, which is not the same as a perception in the hierarchy. Problems and their solutions are associated with consciousness, and clearly we can consciously decide to do something and ask the already reorganized hierarchy to do it. The usual on-screen tracking studies are examples, at least with a subject who is not highly practiced in the task.
So we might ask whether when in an emotional state that we don’t want, we might ask ourselves whether there is an external environmental reason for feeling that way, or whether it is a purely internal error that needs correction (that is “planning in imagination”). Whether we can do anything about it depends on whether our reorganization and the current environment provide us with the means to change the amount of error. Perhaps, as you suggest, waiting for a transient effect to dissipate, perhaps through biochemical processes, might be sufficient. Since the nervous system works faster than the biochemical loops as a rule, waiting might be a generic way of avoiding introducing error into a system by too rapid action to fix a problem that might fix itself.
If there does not seem to be an environmental reason for feeling an emotion we don’t want to feel, and the error does not seem to be dissipating by waiting, then we might ask whether some action on internal variables by way of diet, exercise, or as a last resort, drugs, might work.
It’s all speculation, but at the moment it makes sense to me, if perhaps to nobody else.
Martin
From: Martin Taylor mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net
Sent: Saturday, April 7, 2018 12:58 PM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: Emotions and PCT
[Martin Taylor 2018.04.07.12.15]
[From Fred Nickols (2018.04.07.0953 ET)]
Where do emotions fit in to PCT? What, if anything, does PCT have to say about Emotional Intelligence?
I think a good place to start might be in the chapter (17 of B:CP second edition) that Bill tried to include in B:CP first edition, especially the part following the bottom of page 258 in the second edition:
"Not too sharply, I am afraid, but most tantalizingly, a picture begins to form of a second hierarchy of control that splits off from the behavioral control systems at about order two or three; this other branch is concerned with the sensing and control of quantities derived from sensors and from chemical messengers throughout the body. … the effect is to produce patterns of feeling states that arise as the biochemical balances in the body change in response to the commands.
[And just before the start of this quote] “The whole system is utterly fascinating, a multileveled system that begins in the brain and continues down – who knows how far? Perhaps the first-order systems in the biochemical chain are inside the cells themselves, throughout the body.”
I might add to the end of the second passage “as well as outside the body cells in the microbiome, the assemblage of micro-organisms that outnumber our cells by an order of magnitude and that produce and use a flood of chemicals in which our cells are bathed.”
I don’t know whether Bill knew about or had thought about the microbiome, but in the last few years much research has shown how it may greatly influence our well-being in many ways, up to the level of mental disorders such as autism and, I seem to remember, schizophrenia. Such biochemicals could, for example, globally change the gains of control loops and the interconnection strengths among them, whether the biochemicals are hormones released to the bloodstream in the operations of synapses or the waste products of bacterial communities.
I think there is much PCT research to be done in this area, but my suspicion is that in this, as in so much else, Bill had a correct fundamental insight, even if it was too much for his editor to accept in 1973.
Returning to Fred’s actual question, “What, if anything, does PCT have to say about Emotional Intelligence?”, one might ask “What, if anything, does PCT have to say about Intelligence?”. The answer is not much, because Intelligence is defined in so may different ways. In the at least six decades long history of Artificial Intelligence, intelligence has typically been defined this way: “Intelligence is what humans can do mentally that animals and machines cannot do.” That niche has been getting smaller and smaller, the more we learn how to make machines do what we thought they could not, and the more we observe birds and other animals inventing tools for making difficult tasks easy and solving puzzles in what we would call “clever” ways. If we keep defining intelligence in the exclusionary sense of what animals and machines can’t do, there will be little left for the uniqueness of human intelligence. So we probably need to define intelligence in some more abstract way that allows animals and machines to have it before asking what PCT has to say about it.
If defining “intelligence” is so flexible, how would one define “Emotional Intelligence”? Is it a component of the “Intelligence” that machines and animals cannot have? Or do dogs have it in their apparently solicitous behaviours toward their owners? Do crows have it when they warn their friends about the approach of humans previously experienced to be unfriendly, but not about those who have not behaved badly toward them in the past? Just what is “Emotional Intelligence”? Maybe when we agree on that, we might be able to see whether PCT could have anything to say about it.
Martin