Good questions about bad intentions

[From Rick Marken (940516.1900)]

Tom Bourbon (940516.1629)--

Well, I can see that the net's got me again. But this is a good topic,
and it's worth trying to work it out because this is, basically, what
I'm trying to write about.

I don't very much respect their [Nazis] choice of reference signals, though,

I certainly hope it's clear that I don't respect the setting of their
reference signals either; in fact, it saturates my "badness" detector neuron.
Heck, I think it's already pretty horrible when a parent yells at a kid
who's trying to be helpful. Nazi's are really off the map.

I feel about the holocaust (morally) the way I feel about the bible; if
seeing or reading those things is what it takes to convince a person to
set their "values" references in a range that I consider reasonable then,
by all means, please see and read them.

But for me the ugly side effects of what the Nazis did
do not equate with the ugly side effects of what happened in the Sistine
Chapel.

Nor for me -- not even close. But the point was that, in terms of
UNDERSTANDING behavior, just focusing on the side effects, no matter
how horrible, does not help one understand WHAT is going one; how it
works and why. The Nazi's created horrible side effects (murders) by carrying
out what I (like you) think was an ugly intention (getting rid of the jews);
Michaelangelo created modestly unpleasant side effects while carrying out a
sublime intention. In both cases, one would miss the basic phenomenon --
intentional behavior -- by focusing on the side effects.

By the way, the fact that we consider the side effects (or the intentions, to
the extent that we notice them) pleasant or unpleasant is evidence of one
aspect of our own controlling -- the comparison of perception to reference.
Perception is just what it is; it is not inherently good or bad. The fact that
perceptions vary in the degree to which we like them is evidence of the
comparison aspect of control; we must be experiencing the error signal or
some consequence thereof.

Me:

we have the power to stop the horrors of conflict.

Tom:

Oops. You lost me. _We _ (or anyone else) "have" the "power?" There is
"power" to be "had" and when it is applied it will lead to the end of
conflict?

Knowledge of PCT will not stop conflict; nor, unfortunately, will it
stop any of the atrocities you describe. But such knowledge would also
not have stopped horrors caused by the LA quake. Shit happens -- natural
and man made -- and an individual's knowledge of PCT won't help him or
her survive the unintentional attack of an earthquake or the intentional
attack of a mugger or a Nazi.

The power I was thinking of was of two kinds. First is collective power.
If PCT were taken for granted in the same way as Newtonian physics than
people would take for granted that they can achieve their systems level
goals (a nice, peaceful society, for example) only via policies consistent
with an understanding of people as control systems. This means that cries
for punitive or disciplinary approaches to dealing with human problems (the
natural response of a control system -- but the one that leads to conflict)
would be ignored in favor of policies that give indiviual's control of their
own lives. People would understand that they (individually) are better off
when everyone is better off --so policies that led, for example, to more
equitable wealth distribution would be preferred to "competition" based
policies, not for political reasons but for scientific reasons -- assuming
that a peacful society was each person's higher level goal.

I don't expect this to work on an individual level, though. For example, I
would NOT expect a person who is getting mugged in my perfect little PCT
utopia to try to deal with the problem by getting the mugger to "go up a
level". I expect them to react as a normal control system -- which may
involve a "punitive" solution like a karate chop to the throat (if you can do
it). I expect to see the PCT solutions at the social level -- where they
can take into account the nature of people in a peaceful and thoughtful way --
not while a disturbance is acting on an intrinsic perceptual variable. I
do not imagine that man-made shit will stop happening in my PCT Utopia; but
I do expect it to be damn rare; a hell of a lot rarer than it is now. I
would expect the average error level on the globe to go down substantially.
There will still be the occasional mass murderer and rapist -- but there will
still be the occasional tornado and earthquake too.

There is another sense in which I think we have the power to make things
better by knowing PCT and that is at an individual level. The power is not
to control another individual -- but to control one's own controlling by
becoming conscious at the control levels that are selecting goals that are
making inter or intrapersonal interactions difficult. This is the power that
Zen and other self-awareness systems give to a person; it is the power that
comes from being able to know thyself.

The Nazi problem would not have happened in a world full of people that
understood control theory; people would have seen the fallicy immediately
in Hitler's proposals and would have ignored him and turned to leaders with
more sensable suggestions -- ones consistent with their understanding of
themselves and others as control systems. But if a Nazi grabbed a gun and
said "kill that jew or I'll kill you" there is nothing PCT can do to solve
that problem for you. But then, if you're in a boat on a lake and a
thunderstorm comes up and there's lightning striking all around you and
you can't swim, there's not much PCT can do for you there, either.

Shit will always happen. But the shit that happens from large scale,
misguided efforts to solve problems by controlling other people don't need to
happen. We have the power to solve that problem; but it's the power of
understanding; NOT the power of controlling.

Best

Rick

From Tom Bourbon [940517.0815]

[From Rick Marken (940516.1900)]

I don't very much respect their [Nazis] choice of reference signals, though,

I certainly hope it's clear that I don't respect the setting of their
reference signals either; in fact, it saturates my "badness" detector neuron.
Heck, I think it's already pretty horrible when a parent yells at a kid
who's trying to be helpful. Nazi's are really off the map.

Hey, it was perfectly clear to me as soon as I read your post. I was hoping
that my reply to your Schindler post would bring that level into the
discussion -- glad to see it did. There clearly *are* differences of opinion
about -- different reference perceptions and gains for -- the ugliness of
what people sometimes do to other oeople.

But for me the ugly side effects of what the Nazis did
do not equate with the ugly side effects of what happened in the Sistine
Chapel.

Nor for me -- not even close. But the point was that, in terms of
UNDERSTANDING behavior, just focusing on the side effects, no matter
how horrible, does not help one understand WHAT is going one; how it
works and why. The Nazi's created horrible side effects (murders) by carrying
out what I (like you) think was an ugly intention (getting rid of the jews);
Michaelangelo created modestly unpleasant side effects while carrying out a
sublime intention. In both cases, one would miss the basic phenomenon --
intentional behavior -- by focusing on the side effects.

I know that's what you think -- I just love to hear you say it. :wink:
Again, I was hoping to drao out the fact that there are some pretty
high levels involved when it comes to perfceptions of violence, and some
"aesthetics of ugliness, along with the excellent point you were
emphasizing about how easy it is to focus on the actions, which often, if
not always, are sideffects, and miss the basic phenomenon of control. The
examples I cited included what I think are some pretty clear reference
perceptions held by the perpetrators -- at some level they have intentions
to harm or kill other people, most likely along with many other intentions
-- and the actions that are unintended in these cases are more a matter of
how many times they shoot the victim, or how many times they kick and stomp
them, or how many acts of forceful penetration occur.

By the way, the fact that we consider the side effects (or the intentions, to
the extent that we notice them) pleasant or unpleasant is evidence of one
aspect of our own controlling -- the comparison of perception to reference.
Perception is just what it is; it is not inherently good or bad. The fact that
perceptions vary in the degree to which we like them is evidence of the
comparison aspect of control; we must be experiencing the error signal or
some consequence thereof.

For sure.

Me:

we have the power to stop the horrors of conflict.

Tom:

Oops. You lost me. _We _ (or anyone else) "have" the "power?" There is
"power" to be "had" and when it is applied it will lead to the end of
conflict?

Knowledge of PCT will not stop conflict; nor, unfortunately, will it
stop any of the atrocities you describe. But such knowledge would also
not have stopped horrors caused by the LA quake. Shit happens -- natural
and man made -- and an individual's knowledge of PCT won't help him or
her survive the unintentional attack of an earthquake or the intentional
attack of a mugger or a Nazi.

We were saying the same thing in different ways. It often looks as though
some people who latch onto PCT believe that if everyone else understood it,
the world would automatically be a better place. That's PCT as a
*religion*, not as science. Nothing in PCT the science implies anything
about the kinds of societies there would be were all people to learn PCT.
That's not PCT science.

The power I was thinking of was of two kinds. First is collective power.
If PCT were taken for granted in the same way as Newtonian physics than
people would take for granted that they can achieve their systems level
goals (a nice, peaceful society, for example) only via policies consistent
with an understanding of people as control systems. This means that cries
for punitive or disciplinary approaches to dealing with human problems (the
natural response of a control system -- but the one that leads to conflict)
would be ignored in favor of policies that give indiviual's control of their
own lives. People would understand that they (individually) are better off
when everyone is better off --so policies that led, for example, to more
equitable wealth distribution would be preferred to "competition" based
policies, not for political reasons but for scientific reasons -- assuming
that a peacful society was each person's higher level goal.

Agreed, but that final assumption is a big one -- the one that has screwed
up nearly all utopian, egalitarian and collectivist movements that people
have tried to put together. The idea that, were everyone to hold the same
body of factual knowledge, they would adopt the same aesthetic and
humanitarian goals seems to have had a pretty rough go during human history.
If everyone knew PCT, some would use it as a way to go for better control
over others -- the search for a more subtle way to disturb the perceptions
of otehrs would be underway. That's a pretty safe bet.

I don't expect this to work on an individual level, though. For example, I
would NOT expect a person who is getting mugged in my perfect little PCT
utopia to try to deal with the problem by getting the mugger to "go up a
level".

That could be pretty hard to do, with the muzzle of a gun in your mouth, or
the stolen air-pump tennis shoes of six gang members slamming into your body
for an hour or so.

. . .

There is another sense in which I think we have the power to make things
better by knowing PCT and that is at an individual level. The power is not
to control another individual -- but to control one's own controlling by
becoming conscious at the control levels that are selecting goals that are
making inter or intrapersonal interactions difficult. This is the power that
Zen and other self-awareness systems give to a person; it is the power that
comes from being able to know thyself.

Than which nothing more can be said.

The Nazi problem would not have happened in a world full of people that
understood control theory; people would have seen the fallicy immediately
in Hitler's proposals and would have ignored him and turned to leaders with
more sensable suggestions -- ones consistent with their understanding of
themselves and others as control systems.

The world looked pretty much "out of control" to many people who followed
Hitler, and he seemed to offer them a way to resums control. I'm not so
sure that they woould have necessarily acted otherwise had more of them
known PCT. IT seems at least possible to me that some people would havew
decided that come control systems are better than others, and so on.

But if a Nazi grabbed a gun and
said "kill that jew or I'll kill you" there is nothing PCT can do to solve
that problem for you. But then, if you're in a boat on a lake and a
thunderstorm comes up and there's lightning striking all around you and
you can't swim, there's not much PCT can do for you there, either.

I'm with you on this. I'm just reserving my judgment on the question of
the *degree* to which universal knowledge of PCT would change the social
order of things.

Shit will always happen. But the shit that happens from large scale,
misguided efforts to solve problems by controlling other people don't need to
happen.

Unless you are a person who wants them to happen. There are enough of us
trampling around on this ball that even in your PCT utopia, we won't all
hold the same higher-level intentions, no matter how much our PCT-enriched
environments have in common.

We have the power to solve that problem; but it's the power of
understanding; NOT the power of controlling.

For sure. And that's what we are all about.

Later,

Tom