From Greg Williams (921018)
Bill Powers (921017.0900)
You can see that I would wonder why you consider it necessary for a
learned system to change a critical reference signal.
Yes, I can see. What makes most sense to me now, in light of your critique,
is to hypothesize that the error criteria (to start reorganization) for some
or all innate critical reference signals can be altered by learned systems.
That would explain the patriot steadfastly refusing to tell state secrets
under torture, I think; the patriot's learned "honor" (or whatever) system
increases the error criterion for pain sufficiently that reorganization is not
triggered up to the point of death. But maybe you think "not experiencing
pain" is NOT an innate critical reference signal? In that case, I suppose I'd
have to postulate that learned systems can alter the connections between
perceptions such as "pain" and the innate critical reference systems which
those perceptions (or higher-level combinations of them) reach. In this
hypothesis, some feedback loops of innate critical reference signals could be
disabled, in effect, by a learned system "breaking" the loop (i.e., in a
torture situation, the "honor" system "turns off" the link between pain and
some critical variables; of course, in other situations, the link is not
"turned off").
Perhaps you should list what you count as innate critical variables, and then
say which of these you think are triggering reorganization (if they do) in
(1) the recent "learning a new phone number" example, (2) the "Fire!" example,
and (3) my "tortured patriot" example.
I suspect -- on the basis of observations, rather than on modeling
considerations (though efficiency considerations also might be invoked in this
respect) -- that non-trial-and-error processes are important in at least SOME
kinds of learning/reorganization (for example, in "being taught to swim").
"Overriding" of innate critical variables is just one way in which this can
occur, but it isn't the only way (I claim). That's why I say "overriding" is a
side-issue in what I consider to be our main argument about the extent to
which the outcomes of a person's learnings/reorganizations depend on the
person's environment (living/nonliving). I certainly could be wrong about the
need for some acquired-in-a-lifetime systems to be capable of "overriding"
innate critical variables; but if I am, there can still be environmental
effects on the outcome of reorganization.
What you consider "genuine data" depends on the model you already
believe in.
Certainly. I was trying to point out the dangers in using data on E. coli
behavior, and NOT using data on human social interactions, when attempting to
build and test models of human social interactions. How can we test our
models of reorganization with PEOPLE, rather than with bacteria?
If, on the other hand, you think that all changes are internally
motivated and accomplished, you will see the very same actions in the
outside world as having a different meaning in relation to the
organism. You will see the "facilitator" as doing nothing more than
applying disturbances and rearranging the environment, without any
special effect on the organism.
I agree. The "If... [then]" is correct, I think. And I think it accurately
describes the postulates and implications of your ideology. (It does NOT
describe the postulates and implications of PCT, in my view.) Now, consider
who cares about the truth of this statement. "Nothing more," eh? The
"facilitator" (if he/she abides by the rules for success in the endeavor, as I
have been attempting to ascertain using principles of PCT -- which basically
means that he/she must make a sufficiently correct model of certain reference
signals of the other organism) can in fact by "doing nothing more than
applying disturbances and rearranging the environment" have the effect of
controlling some of his/her perceptions dependent on actions of the other
organism, which otherwise would not be controlled. "Without any special effect
on the organism" is a big "so what" clause for people who want to control
perceptions which depend on the actions of other organisms, and for people who
are subjected to disturbances by, and/or whose environments are rearranged by,
people who want to control perceptions which depend on their (the
facilitatees') actions. I claim that those people include virtually everyone
(absolute hermits, if any exist, participate in no social interactions).
You always try to make the point that unless A can make B want what A wants B
to want, the interaction is "unimportant" to B. Do you really think that many
people care about this sort of "unimportance"? I look around and see that, by
and large, people are trying to control perceptions (of their own) which
depend on others' ACTIONS, and usually don't care much about others' WANTS.
The boss doesn't care what the employee spends his/her paycheck on, as long as
the employee performs actions in the boss's conceptual class "doing the job as
I think it should be done." You seem to believe that Skinner's conception of
"control" of another organism's behavior is an anomaly. I think it is the
rule, rather than the exception. I understand that Skinner got the theory
wrong -- and I think PCT is right -- but he was investigating a phenomenon of
tremendous significance in everyday life: control of one's perceptions which
depend on others' actions. He made the error of calling it "controlling"
others. It is a common error. One CANNOT PCT-control others, one can PCT-
control only (some of) one's own perceptions, and nothing else in the world,
including "others." In some recent posts, even you have (verbally) lapsed into
the same error, suggesting that "controlling to see another act in way x" =
"controlling the other's actions." Regardless, I maintain that human concern
with control of perceptions which depend on others' actions is nearly
universal; to date, you are the ONLY person I've heard say that it is
unimportant to the others on whose actions the controlled perceptions depend.
Sometimes I think you hint that the world would be a much better place if only
people stopped trying to get other people to want what they want them to want.
Maybe so. A step toward achieving this goal might be to point out that wanting
another to want what you want him/her to want generally results in conflict,
escalation, and violence (unless the would-be controller gives up), and that
there are (sometimes, with limits as prescribed by PCT) ways to get what you
want WITHOUT resulting in conflict.
The reinforcer is no longer seen as having any special effect on the
organism, other than the effects that any sensory input has.
If an organism acted identically in the presence of reinforcers and
nonreinforcers, there would be no way to distinguish them. But there IS a way
to distinguish them (at least in principle): the Test for the Controlled
Variable. Investigator Skinhead determines that two rats in his lab DON'T have
the same Controlled Variable -- call it "satisfying hunger" -- since Alfy
gobbles food each day at 3 PM and Bety sniffs at the food and just sits there.
Skinhead gets the crazy notion that maybe there is something different about
the rats' environments. He checks all the automatic feeding mechanisms for
morning and evening chowtimes -- nothing amiss. But then he discovers that a
grad student has taken pity on "poor" Bety and has been sneaking in at 2 PM
each day and giving Bety as much food as it will eat. So Skinhead publishes a
paper (in SCIENCE, of course) allowing as how the environmental history of a
rat can alter what counts as a reinforcer in the here-and-now. He gets his
Nobel Prize in Physiology/ Medicine. So far, so good. But then Skinhead gets
another crazy notion: an organism's environment is IN TOTAL CONTROL of that
organism, so "getting the reins" of an organism's environment can allow one to
CONTROL the organism in unlimited ways. Unfortunately for Skinhead, PCTers
come along and show that environmental history is NOT "in control." The Nobel
Prize is not retracted, because the #1 PCTer claims that the environment,
living or not, can have "NO IMPORTANT INFLUENCE" on organisms; as crazy as
Skinhead's notion of TOTAL environmental control seems, the notion of NO
environmental influence seems crazier. Of course, this isn't EXACTLY what the
#1 PCTer means, but when he explains what he REALLY means, the Prize committee
simply shrugs and says, "OK." About 30 years later, a "whole new approach"
(say the instigators) to psychology is adopted far and wide, based (if the
truth were known) on the ideas of the #1 PCTer, for which he is given
absolutely no credit; some call this "ironic," since, after all, the #1 PCTer
still maintains that he could have had "no important influence" on the new
psychologists even as he periodically attempts to show that they got their
"most important" ideas from him.
So I can say
that I present an organism with a certain environmental situation. I
cannot say, without aid of a theory, that doing this amounted to
"facilitation" or "teaching" or any of those abstract terms that carry
within them a theory of causality, that imply an arrow reaching from
the outside world into the organism and changing something inside the
organism.
I have been attempting for some weeks to couch my claims in, not theory-
neutral terms, but PCT terms, with the exception of trying to correlate PCT-
derived definitions with folk and/or sociological terms. I have been trying to
consider the data NOT in a vacuum, but from the standpoint of PCT -- sans
ideology.
All descriptions that imply an effect inside an organism
controlled by an external agency are based on the S-R concept of
behavior and the causal model that supports it.
I do not claim that "an effect inside an organism" can be "controlled by an
external agency," except by the employment of overwhelming physical threat
(and maybe by threat thereof). I do claim that under certain (PCT-defined)
conditions, one person can control his/her perceptions which depend on others'
actions. I further claim that explaining the nature and limits of such control
is of great significance to many people. I further suspect that explaining the
nature and limits of being able to make someone else "arbitrarily" do what you
want them to do is of less significance to many people.
All data concerning such effects, however genuine, can also be interpreted a
different way under control theory.
I've been taking PCT as a given, and I've been attempting to interpret the
data using PCT, certainly NOT using S-R theory... or organismismic ideology...
or radical environmentalismic ideology.
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A "deceptive dog" story, told to Pat yesterday: Two dogs (same breed and size)
in a household were given a treat of leftover meat (one hunk). One of the dogs
roared away to the door and began barking like crazy. (The dogs do that when
anyone appears at the door.) The second dog followed, barking. Immediately,
the first dog ran back to the meat and chowed down. The second dog remained,
barking, at the door, long enough for the first dog to get all of the meat.
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To netters: Has anyone other than Bill and I really read all the way to here?
If you have, do you think it worth reading? Please let me know at your
earliest convenience. If I receive no positive replies, I think I'll post no
more in this well-trod field, except maybe a "Warning! Live Mines!" sign.
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Back to housebuilding!
Greg