[From Bruce Gregory (960724.0955 EDT)]
(Fred Nickols 960723)
It seems to me that PCT is wholly inconsistent with a
commonly-held view that feedback is information from other
people, as in "Let me give you some feedback."
In PCT, feedback links actions to perceptions of the value of
the variable being controlled. In this sense, it seems to me
that verbal feedback provides a measure of the effects on a
variable one might have been trying to change (a perception
similar to a reading of a thermometer in a thermostat). So
while the word "feedback" is being used in two senses in PCT and
everyday language, the two uses are coupled and consistent.
I'll be interested to see what the experts say, too.
Bruce
I "lurk" a lot, to use a well-understood term, but that's because I see the
exchanges as highly technical, requiring depth and intimacy. But it's worth
it; I'm learning. And, in a private exchange Mr. Powers was kind enough to
take time out to confirm a view I hold. Thus emboldened, I am led to pose
the following question. If the answer is plain for all to see, I apologize
for being dense.
It seems to me that PCT is wholly inconsistent with a commonly-held view that
feedback is information from other people, as in "Let me give you some
feedbak."
To illustrate, let me use a brief incident from my Navy days. A colleague, a
fellow organization development (OD) consultant, called me aside during a
break in a seminar to advise me that my behavior was troubling him and that
he wanted to give me a little feedback. I replied that I was delighted he
was sharing that with me and allowed that I had been trying to antagonize him
for weeks but had no idea how successful I had been until he shared his
"feedback" with me.
My colleague's view of "feedback" is the conventional, widely-shared view.
My response indicates a view that I believe is consistent with PCT. What
say the rest
of you?
Fred Nickols
nickols@aol.com
[Martin Taylor 960725 14:10]
Nickols@AOL.COM Tue, 23 Jul 1996 18:11:56 -0400
It seems to me that PCT is wholly inconsistent with a commonly-held view that
feedback is information from other people, as in "Let me give you some
feedbak."
My take on this is a little different from that expressed by others who have
responded to this question.
When one controls a perception, one acts on the world, and some of the
effects of that action affect the perception in question. That's "feedback".
Some of the effects propagate elsewhere through the world, and don't
immediately or in any obvious way affect the controlled perception. Of
those, some actually reflect back later and in ways that might not be
obviously connected to the control action, but nevertheless affect the
controlled perception. Are they part of "feedback" or are they just
to be incorporated with other disturbances?
When someone says "Allow me to give you some feedback," they normally do
so because one effect of your action has been to disturb a controlled
perception of theirs. That effect may have been a pure side-effect of your
own perceptual control, but nevertheless their "giving" you feedback is
part of the environmental feedback path between your action and your
controlled perception. If that is so, they are indeed providing feedback
in the PCT sense, even though they do so as "autonomous control systems"
controlling their own perceptions.
Your environmental feedback paths often go through other people, and your
actions may have long-delayed effects that you cannot distinguish from
disturbances "from afar" (or from Afar?-). Does this make them any the
less true feedback? Does the fact that the effects of your actions on
your perceptions are the actions of control systems that you have disturbed
mean that those effects have to be "disturbances" rather than "feedback?"
In the immortal words of Ted Nelson: "Everything is deeply intertwingled."
Martin