[From Bill Powers (980410.0206 MST)]
Bruce Gregory 9980409.1022 EDT)--
The way I use the word, all scientific explanations are models. They key
question is, do they allow you to make predictions that can be compared with
experience? Some scientific models are qualitative, some are quantitative.
I agree that all scientific _explanations_ are models, as I think of
science. But is this what is generally accepted as scientific explanation
in psychology? It seems to me that a great deal of psychology consists of
observing phenomena and then predicting that under the same conditions they
will occur again. This approach doesn't offer any scientific explanations,
does it?
Forget models and non-models. Everybody uses models, even nonscientists.
The models non-scientists use are unconscious in the sense that
nonscientists have no idea when they are using models and cannot tell you
what the model predicts will happen, as distinct from what they may believe
will happen.
This is the problem, it seems. People do use models -- conceptions of
underlying organization -- but since few of them are taught modeling
explicitly, they don't know the difference between experience-based
predictions and model-based predictions. On the basis of experience one can
predict the phases of the moon with great accuracy -- while using a
completely wrong model to explain them. Experience-based prediction does
not produce any _understanding_ of phenomena, as I think of understanding.
No, they clearly have a thought, "The phases of the moon are caused by the
earth's shadow." You discover that this only a thought when you ask them to
explain how we can see the moon and the sun in the sky at the same time.
What do you mean, "only a thought?" Aren't models thoughts? I'd say it's a
model that hasn't been tested in all possible ways. Your question is a test
that will show a flaw in the model, but it requires some understanding of
geometry and optics to be seen as a fatal test. Remember the girl in one of
your videos who thought light could travel around corners. Your question
wouldn't have fazed her.
Or
how the earth is able to cast a shadow in the direction of the sun. They are
puzzled, but otherwise unmoved. These facts can comfortably co-exist with
their thought about the earth's shadow.
This is because of a lack of other basic concepts of how things work. Have
you asked people what produces shadows? Unless they understand that,
there's no problem with the earth "casting a shadow" toward the sun or in
any other direction. That very phrase shows that much older models are
still built into language and understanding. We still say "look at", which
is a holdover from centuries ago when it was thought that the eyes created
looking-rays traveling toward the objects seen. Shadows were literally
"cast" -- thrown out by objects to land on surfaces and "darken" them.
"Anticrespuscular rays" were rays of darkness cast by the sun at dawn or
dusk (shadows of distant clouds).
But how can you translate the real explanation into terms of that
model, when that model is fundamentally wrong?
I try to avoid terms like "real explanation". I don't find them helpful in
communicating.
I do. Some explanations are as real as they can be, meaning that nobody
capable of observation and logic can doubt them. Every test that anybody
could think of has been passed; we really have no choice but to accept the
explanation. A car runs out of gas and stops. You explain that it stopped
because it ran out of gas. Someone who doesn't understand cars or who
hasn't looked into the tank can offer all sorts of competing explanations
for why it stopped running, but you are right and the other person is
wrong. There is simply no point in referring to remote possibilities (maybe
a UFO stopped the engine just as the last gas was used), unless you're
willing to do further tests to see if they apply. Most of the time you
don't need to bother. Some explanations are right and some are just plain
wrong. You don't need to be a scientist to discover this.
We tend to talk about "the scientist's explanation." It
avoids making people feel uncomfortable that they have the "wrong"
explanation. Beating people up with the "right explanation" is a form of
domination, and we know what PCT tells us about domination, don't we?
This is basically propaganda designed to make ignorance seem just as useful
as knowledge. It is usually offered by the ignorant, so I'm surprised that
you propose it. A person who goes around offering frivolous explanations
based on sketchy acquaintance with a subject or none at all ought to feel
uncomfortable -- how else will this person learn the difference between
carefully-tested knowledge and the opinions of a dilettante? If there's no
felt error, why try to correct it? If a person really doesn't understand
something, is it a good idea for that person to avoid acknowledging that
fact? "Poor baby, of course you understand physics, don't feel bad because
you never studied it." There are some problems people _need_ to feel bad
about if anything is ever to be done about them.
I really like the world you live in. I'll have to visit it some time.
The door's open.
>I know from experience that they are unable
>to make this translation for themselves.
Unable? I dispute that. "Unwilling" is more like it.
People who have different beliefs than we do often show up as "unwilling".
You might want to adopt the Catholic Church's term "invincibly ignorant".
Lots of us fit into that category when it comes to one belief or another.
So what? It's up to us to get over it. What's so sacred about beliefs? A
belief is a fact you cling to for reasons having nothing to do with its
truth. Is that a good thing to have around? The Third Patriarch would say
it isn't. So do I.
If you had learned PCT from the very start of your life, you would never
attribute your behavior to the woman's appearance. All you're saying is
that you grew up with a particular model of human behavior, and still find
it the most natural way to describe your experiences and observations.
That's true of all of us, probably; we are in a transition period in which
PCT is not yet what seems "natural," and S-R theory still permeates every
interpretation.
Well it will be a great day when it arrives. In the meantime, you will
forgive me for not holding my breath.
So while you go on breathing, are you going to promote the status quo or
the status we would like to see? What are you waiting for -- the Pope to
admit that the Earth goes around the Sun?
But you can _correlately_ [correctly, I meant] relate it to PCT only by
saying "... but that
very convincing appearance that your behavior is being called forth is
incorrect; if you want to understand how people really work you
have to put
it completely out of your mind. That is not how people work, and
the sooner
you abandon that idea the quicker you will understand how they do
work." Of
course you try to be tactful and break the news gently, but this is the
message you have to get across if you don't want to turn out yet another
person who thinks he or she understands PCT when in fact she or he is
clueless.
I agree. I never said otherwise.
Well, it sure seems to me that you're saying otherwise. You don't want to
tell people they have a wrong concept because you don't want to hurt
people's feelings (as if you caused them). You don't want to come on as a
Science Nazi, or something. Have you really made up your mind WHAT your
aims are, here?
Whenever we commit ourselves to an explanation, to a model, the world shows
up as a manifestation of that model. The world is _really_ made up of atoms
until you invent the idea of electrons and nucleons. The latter are really
the way the world is made up until you invent the idea of leptons and
quarks.
That's not what we're talking about. "Really" means "really and correctly
observed." The "real" or "correct" explanation is the one that works every
time, all the time. "Real" is what you have to accept after all objections
have been met -- when you can't twist and dodge and avoid the truth any
longer. That's as real or true as anything ever gets. The truth may well
change, but that's a different matter. What we're talking about here is the
fact that some ideas are much, much harder to disprove than others. The
question is whether we are going to prefer the hard-to-disprove facts over
the rest.
No, one description is clearly not as good as any other description. Part of
science involves the testing of the predictions of models and the
replacement of less adequate by more adequate models. This process separates
science from most other human enterprises where less adequate models are
never discarded.
I still believe our misunderstanding is rooted in a failure to sharply
delineate models from what the models are designed to explain. "Whatever you
attend to, calls you forth" is not a model.
Yes it is. It embodies a direction of effect, from the thing to which you
attend to whatever action is called forth. In PCT, the opposite direction
of effect is deduced and proven to be correct: it is the behavior, the
action, that varies as a means of keeping the perception in a particular
state. "Calling forth" is simply a wrong image. If people find this image
easy to grasp, it's because they already have the wrong idea about how
behavior works and you are simply vindicating their mistaken belief.
It is not an explanation of
anything. It is a way of describing the way we experience the world. PCT is
a model. PCT answers the question, "How is it whatever you attend to calls
you forth?"
And what PCT shows is that this appearance is a lie. You are describing an
illusion, like saying "The crossbar of the T, although equal in length to
the stem, looks shorter than the stem." It is a correct description of an
incorrect impression.
If you don't want to admit that some ideas are correct and others are
wrong, you're going to be working under a horrible handicap.
Best,
Bill P.