Gary Please Check my format

CSGnet Archive CSG1995
1

I'm fairly new to the net and have enjoyed very much following the daily
digests. My name is Chris Kitzke, I am 28, from the University of Notre Dame
and a Management Consultant. The address used here is on my dad's computer.
If I can, I plan on subscribing through America Online at my house, in order not
to confuse who is talking.

Fairly new with the Internet and E-Mail, but learning quickly. Trying to
compose this offline and then send it properly. My apologies if it does not
work. Will not say too much else since I don't know if it will work; however, I
will ask some questions that might prompt some discussion of how people new
to PCT can best learn it.

How do you explain people who tell you they do not know what they "want"? Is
it possible they really do not know? Perhaps their real want is to not tell you
.
To me, this is an important question because PCT assumes there are wants, at
least at lower levels in the hierarchy.

Seems that if you get two control systems (people who 'understand' PCT)
together, they could get stuck in and endless cycle of asking the other what
they want. This is a problem to me, because if PCT cannot help society in a
practical way, no matter how incomplete their brute understanding of PCT is,
then why learn it at all.

I have a hard time buying the suggestion that animals have exactly the same
control system as people. Somehow it must be different in complexity or
design. I do not believe in the evolutionary theory for human existence; yet at
the same time I don't believe (perceive) that PCT does not fit.

That is all for now. Hope this gets through.

Thanks,

Chris

2

<[Bill Leach 950222.22:50 EST(EDT)]

Message: 67860 on Tue, 21 Feb 1995 14:35:03 -0500 (EST)

Author : "KENNETH J. KITZKE" <71042.2733@COMPUSERVE.COM> (Chris)

How do you explain people who tell you they do not know what they
"want"? Is it possible they really do not know? Perhaps their real
want is to not tell you

Certainly, certainly and first last:

It is perfectly possible for someone to "not know what they want". It is
certainly possible for a person to "not conscious" of a reference signal
(indeed, it is highly likely that there are many reference signal that
are "consciously unknown").

This is an exceedingly difficult area to discuss. In the first place,
when someone "tells you" what they want they are not describing the
actual references but rather are (if they indeed even intend to be
truthful) describing their perception of what they want.

In the second place, there is always the potential for conflict, that is
goals (or wants) that are of a lower priority and are inconsistant with
other goals or wants. Thus, the expression of a desire for something may
indeed even be genuine but impossible as long as the higher goal still
exists.

And if that were not enough, there will in most cases be references for
the person's perception of "how you feel about them" that will influence
both what they say and how they phrase their expression.

Then just to make everything nice and vague, there is always the problem
with actual understanding of the meanings of terms and expressions
between any people in conversation.

-bill

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Subject: Gary Please Check my format