[Martin Taylor 2019.03.27.11.00]
[Eva de Hullu 2019-03-27_12:56:41 UTC]
Eva, this is fantastic, at least as I understand what you say. For
me, you are showing PCT from a viewpoint different from the one I am
accustomed to using. What you say doesn’t alter PCT for me. Rather
it allows me a coloured stereo view where before I had a flat grey
photo-like view of the same thing. The sequence of your messages in
this thread have been like bringing the view through “the second
lens” slowly into focus, so that the third dimension suddenly
springs out. That doesn’t mean that the two views yet exactly fit
together, but I think that is likely to happen, slowly.
Last things first...
We're allowed to use introspection to generate hypotheses in
the PCT framework, right? I enjoy a bit of introspection to test
ideas in my own mind and generate and test hypotheses. It’s not
said that these hypotheses shouldn’t be tested further, but if I
can’t handle them in imagination, they won’t stand much chance
elsewhere.
So far as I understand it, that was Bill Powers's method, at least
in the invention of the levels of the control hierarchy, and I
suspect elsewhere. I think all truly inventive people must use
introspection of some form. Following Powers, we might call it an
instance of “control in imagination”. At some point, though, the
results of introspection have to be tested, whether than happens
within seconds or within millennia.
In my interpolations below, I find that some of my comments on
earlier passages preview comments you make a bit later. This
encourages me to think I am following your thought in the main,
though perhaps there are a couple of spots where we may not be
seeing the same thing.
A few overall thoughts (that might stray a little from
the original question):
I think there's a difference between the experience of
beauty as an abscence of conflict, and the sense of awe or
overwhelming experience.
I don't know if you like classical music, but I will use it as an
example. For me, some of Mozart’s music is pretty, but not
beautiful. The pretty music just goes where one expects, perfect as
background for the aristocratic dinner parties for which it was
composed. No surprises, no diversion from ongoing conversation. Some
of Mozart’s concert music (most of the later works) are beautiful,
perhaps because they do go places you would not expect. Even of
those, only perhaps two or three of his over 600 K-numbered works
are awe-inspiring (beyond being awed by his technical mastery). Much
of Beethoven’s late music, however, does give me a “sense of awe or
overwhelming experience”.
Beauty: experiencing no conflict
Could it be that beauty is related to the sense of calm
(or happiness) you feel when there’s no conflict?
Is surprise associated with conflict? Is calm associated with
happiness? Taking my “first lens” component of the stereo view of
PCT, I introspect that calm is associated with the emotional feeling
of contentment, not happiness. It’s also a state in which fewer than
normal of our controlled perceptions are outside their reference
bounds. Above, I proposed that beauty requires surprise, but I would
not say surprise is related to conflict.
On the other hand, surprise might be related to a perceptual
equivalent of conflict, in that the outputs of level N-1 perceptual
functions bring two (or more) incompatible level N perceptions both
to exist at once, as if, for example, you saw the same surface as
intensely red and intensely blue at the same time. You do see such
colour discrepancies in the iridescence of a butterfly wing, for
example, and I, for one, find those iridescent surfaces to be
beautiful. Mona Lisa is said to be beautiful because of the
evanescent nature of her smile, which is there and is not there.
This is different for everyone because our control
systems are differently and are conflicted for different
reasons. For some people, beauty is a clean, white living
room. For others, it’s a messy rural living room. One
controls (among others) the perception of cleanliness, the
other the perception of aliveness.Â
I watched the speech of Gillibrand that Martin mentioned.
What I think that strikes as beautiful, is the perception of
someone who is in control. In control of the tone of her
voice, her appearance, her message, the reactions of the
public.
She certainly was very much in control, but so, I think, have been
many others, Trump included when he is at one of his rallies of the
faithful. Most politicians do seem to be in control when they speak,
but few speak beautifully. I can think of John Kennedy and Barack
Obama among US politicians over my lifetime of interest in politics,
and for them only on a few special occasions. My impression for many
professional orators has been that their control was that of a
puppet, artificial, whereas I thought Gillibrand’s felt artless and
natural, just as Mozart’s technical skill allowed his music to seem
natural and artless – and beautiful rather than pretty. Some have
called this “the art that conceals art”.
I could compare this to watching any speaker at a
conference: the ones most enjoyable are the ones in control
of their message and presentation. I would also say that
humans (as social animals) have ways to perceive conflict
(or enduring error) in other humans, and so these
perceptions could disturb our own controlled variables and
lead to the experience of conflict.
Yes.
Beauty: gaining control
The second sort of experience of happiness in a beautiful
surrounding, the one that I described in natural
experiences, goes further. It is the beauty that divides art
from just pretty things: art always has a dark side, it must
also hurt.
Why "hurt"?
For example, paintings by Anselm Kiefer are dark and
gloomy. His themes concern war and guilt, and the paintings
don’t contain much color. But when you see such a painting
(they are enormous), you are are confronted with this pain,
and through staying there, at that moment, fully aware, you
experience beauty. It’s like an MOL experience.
That's an "aha" moment for me, about MoL. It's the "Mona Lisa"
moment I mentioned above. It would not require hurt, but the ability
to see multiple possibilities without having to decide among them?
That’s where you see beauty?
We're allowed to use introspection to generate hypotheses
in the PCT framework, right? I enjoy a bit of introspection
to test ideas in my own mind and generate and test
hypotheses. It’s not said that these hypotheses shouldn’t be
tested further, but if I can’t handle them in imagination,
they won’t stand much chance elsewhere.
Please let's hear more of your introspections! They seem to be
evoking new directions of thinking that show promise of leading to
useful places, in the way placer gold in a stream suggests the
existence of a lode worth seeking somewhere in “them thar hills”.
Martin
···
Eva
On Tue, Mar 26, 2019 at 10:12 > PM Martin Taylor <mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net> wrote:
[Martin Taylor 2019.03.26.16.37]
[Eva de Hullu 2019-03-26_15:46:48 UTC]
Martin,
I'm a bit conflicted about stepping into a 'trap'
set up to get conversations going on this
mailinglist involving people lurking in the dark.
I’d rather just join discussions on topics that
interest me or others without being wary of other
motives. But anyway, let’s see where this goes.
I'm sorry you saw my message as a trap. I thought from your
response that it was a subject that interested you. I was
controlling at least two perceptions, one being to
understand better what you wanted to say and relate it to
the way I (fail to) understand either beauty or happiness,
the other being to try to get CSGnet lurkers who lurk
because they haven’t been interested in the topics discussed
to say something on a new topic that might interest them.
Anyway, your response helped a lot with the first one, since
I now have a much better understanding of your earlier
response – and I think I have a bit more clarity about the
original question, too.
On Mon, Mar 25, 2019 > > > at 5:09 PM Martin Taylor <csgnet@lists.illinois.edu > > > > wrote:
[Martin Taylor
2019.03.25.11.23]
[Eva de Hullu
2019-03-20_14:47:29 UTC]
So the question is: how can we explain
from a PCT perspective why people
experience this sense of happiness when
they find themselves in natural scenery?
Nobody has followed up your suggestions, so to
keep the ball rolling a little, let me ask a
couple of questions, preceded by a comment. The
comment is that the article makes a point of
saying that it is not “natural scenery” but the
aesthetic quality of the local scenery, whether
rural or urban, that seems most to be associated
with happiness, but this association is in a
population-based study, not within individuals. So
my first question is…
1. Do you personally feel happier when viewing
beautiful things and scenes than when viewing ugly
ones, all else being equal, so far as you are
aware?
Ah, I probably misinterpreted the article,
reading quickly. My points were about the quality of
the scenery bing not purely natural, but
overwhelming anyway.Â
To answer your question: yes - and no. It depends
on the context, and my interpretation of the
context. This is another sign that beauty is not a
part of the stimulus, but in the eye of the
beholder. For example, if I’m in a very beautiful
palace, I could be unhappy if I knew this palace was
build with money that was taken from the poor.
Usually, natural scenery is less conflicted than the
human-build structures. But all else being equal, I
think I agree that in general, I feel happier in
beautiful scenery than in ugly scenery (or the other
way around: ugly scenery brings me in conflict
(“this shouldn’t be here”) and thus makes me
unhappy).Â
That' a point that I had never considered. When I introspect
(which reputable psychologists were allowed to do until
about 100 years ago), I believe that I also am affected by
how and why a built structure came to be.
My other questions are about how you see the
application of PCT, assuming that the effect is
real,at least for enough people to affect the
association statistics.
My thought is that it's not the case
that we have an innate reference for the
best scenery, but that the sense of
happiness comes from taking a step towards
control. First, as you find yourself
looking at the vast landscape, you may
experience a loss of control.
I take this as a premise, but is that your
personal experience? I will continue, treating it
as a premise.
My premise is that happiness is associated with
gaining control. My personal experience is that when
I experience a gain of control, I feel happy. When
someone understands what I’m saying (controlled
variable = being understood), I feel happy.
So do I. If I may extrapolate, would you say that in general
you feel happier when your control of some perception is
improving and less happy when you feel you are losing
control of something you were able to control quite well?
The world is so much larger than you
could fathom. In the mountains, at sea, in
the sky: a single human being has no
meaning there. But then, in staying in
this situation, you could look at the
universe and experience yourself as part
of this universe.
2. Is this what you mean by regaining control? If
so, control of what perception?
In this example, let's say the controlled
variable is the perception of safety. In a vast
landscape, you can’t hide, and you lose control of
the perception of safety.Â
Regaining control doesn't have to happen of the
same variable, right? I could gain control on a
higher level than my personal safety, for example,
the perception to be a part of the world.Â
Good points. Translating loosely, it's the total ability to
control that matters to you. You can let go of controlling
some perception if it allows you to control another, perhaps
at a higher level, that your could not do while controlling
the one of which you let go.
Â
You know what astronauts call the
overview effect - when they look at Earth
disappearing into the distance, they
experience a sense of connectedness with
the planet like never before. From a PCT
perspective, this sounds like going up a
level.
I'm not clear what you mean here. Do you mean that
you have an uncontrolled perception of an
emotional state that is the same as you experience
when you “go up a level” in an MoL session? If so,
is that perception a perception of “happiness”?
Going up a level seems obvious in MOL but perhaps
not from the more theoretical perspective. My
awareness shifts to a higher level. So from the
level with the perception of loss of control, I
shift my awareness to myself being a part of the
universe. I still think it’s rather difficult to
understand how exactly this happens, if anyone has
some clear idea, please join the discussion.
And Martin, I don't understand your question
here. What does an uncontrolled perception of an
emotional state look like? It’s feeling in a way you
don’t want to feel, right? I don’t see how that fits
in.
No, it's not a feeling you don't want. It's a feeling that
happens without you directly controlling for that feeling to
happen. It’s feeling happy not because you decided “I want
to feel happy” and then did something that moved your
happiness perception up a level, because a side effect of
controlling something else was that you felt happy. Let’s
take an example from my experience a year ago in the
Canadian Rockies. We were driving slowly along a country
road, and ahead of us on the other side of the road two or
three cars were parked. I slowed even more to see why, and
saw a mother bear and three tiny cubs hardly bigger than
cats foraging beside the road on our side. I felt happy just
seeing them. That was an uncontrolled perception of an
emotional state.
Perhaps these questions lead to bigger questions,
that deserve more attention on their own. What is
the function of emotions and awareness in PCT, and
how do they link to reorganization?
I do so agree!!
You look at the universe, and look at
yourself looking at that universe.Â
Once you go up a level, conflicts below
that level can disappear.
3. Conflicts between what and what perceptions you
have been trying to control, and what higher-level
perception can you now control in a way that
avoids the conflict?
Let's first take an easy example and then make it
more complicated. I asked myself if, in order to
experience an increase in control after a loss of
control, this should be of the same perception (the
same controlled variable). I think not.
Imagine I'm running through the forest, and then
stumble over a treetrunk. While falling, I
experience a loss of control (of the perception of
staying upright, and continuing running). When I
find myself flat on the ground, I notice a rare and
interesting species of beetle just before me. This
makes me happy (I obviously control for encountering
insects, because they (again) mean to me that I’m
part of a larger world; other people would probably
react differently), and after looking at the beetle
for a while, I’ll continue my run happily.Â
So looking at the current situation: the conflict
first was between wanting to be safe, and finding
myself in an unsafe place (with nowhere to hide).
The increase in control was not on that level, but
on another level (higher?), of another perception:
feeling connected to the world.Â
Lovely example.
Â
From the perspective of the universe,
what does it matter what I’ll be wearing
today?
Comment: From the viewpoint of a small part of the
Universe (your husband) it may indeed matter.
But still this would only matter to me if I
controlled for my perception of my husband’s
perception. From the perspective of the universe,
even that would not matter.
True.
-----------------------
I suppose I might add a general comment (sorry,
Rick).
I think both "happiness" and "aesthetic quality"
on a scale from beautiful to ugly are not very
well defined. Both are in the class of “I know it
when I see it” abstractions, along with
pornography and literary merit. Certainly
different individuals may find the same scene or
object or event anywhere on the aesthetic quality
scale. This makes it very difficult to provide a
consistent PCT analysis of any precision. The
statistical problem was addressed by Bill P., and
I think by Phil Runkel, a long time ago. It would
be quite possible for the within-individual
regression to have a negative slope while the
across-individual regression has a positive slope.
For them both to have the same slope is more
likely, but because the opposite can be true,
population associations should usually be taken
with a grain of salt when you are interested in
what happens in most individuals.
A a personal, within-individual, example, I
watched Kirsten Gillibrand’s self-introduction as
a Presidential candidate outside the Trump
International Hotel. I found her oratory beautiful
and I felt happier while hearing it and for some
time thereafter. It probably didn’t hurt that I
agreed with its content and the direction of her
appeal to moral qualities rather than money, so
that’s a confounding influence. But would someone
who disagreed with her content have found the
Kennedy-esque cadences of her speech and her
appeal to moral principles over money to be
beautiful? (I’m obviously assuming that the effect
mentioned in the article that started this was not
restricted to scenery).
In the other direction, I have heard quite a few
of the new Presidential Candidates, and have
agreed with their content without thinking that
their oratory was beautiful. Those speeches have
not made me conscious of being happier for hearing
them. For me, the correlation apparently was
between the beauty of the oratory and my happiness
feeling, not so much between the political content
and my happiness. Similarly in the target article,
the population association was between the beauty
of the scenery rather than its content, and
“Happiness”.
Â
From a PCT perspective, beauty is a part of the
individuals perception, right? Beauty is defined
differently across cultures and across individuals,
and it is thus much more likely to be a quality of
the individual’s control hierarchy than a quality of
the outside world (the stimulus or disturbance).
Yes, indeed. But we have a word or it. Is it possible to say
what that word means if, say, you had two paintings, one of
which you found beautiful while the other was ugly, and the
person next to you thought the reverse? Both of you would
apparently have a common concept of beauty and ugliness, but
apply them to quite different things. I suspect that this
“beauty is in the eye of the beholder” issue is one of the
“noise” effects that limit the associations found in the
target article. This philosophical question is often posed
as “How can I know whether you perceive Red as I do”.
In my view, some aspects of the speech you
heard, must have increased your sense of control.
For example, the appeal to morality gave you a sense
that there is hope in American politics, that you
didn’t have with the other speeches?
I think what say would apply to the content, but my first
feeling of both beauty and happiness came before it was too
clear how the speech was to be focussed, It was about the
rhythms and cadences of the “music” of the speech, which in
my mind evoked John F. Kennedy. I suppose the historical
reference could easily have had the opposite effect, since
it would remind me of the loss of control or lack of control
we have when things change in politics unexpectedly.
Certainly what you describe did come, but it came later.
Thanks for such an illuminating reply to what you perceived
as a challenge.
Martin
Eva
Martin
Eva
On Wed, > > > > > Mar 20, 2019 at 12:38 PM Eetu Pikkarainen > > > > > <csgnet@lists.illinois.edu > > > > > > wrote:
[Eetu
Pikkarainen 2019-03-20_11:03:29
UTC]
Â
Thanks Martin for
interesting and important question
and Warren for great wealth of
material to thought!
Â
I have a simple idea.
Biosemiotician Kalevi Kull has
written that it is the ability to
move which connects animals to the
location. Instead of that plants
reside where they happen to land.
Thus we have a deep inherited
potential and need to control the
quality of the surroundings where
we live. Evolutionary psychology
has shown that we generally prefer
certain kind of scenery which for
example reminds for the savanna
environments of our forefathers id
Africa. Still we seldom have a
possibility to remain in the best
possible scenery but our other
controlled perceptions and
stabilized environments require
otherwise. So there seems to be a
low level internal conflict
existing in our hierarchies all
the time when make our living in
cities. It could be quite similar
as the low level inflammation in
our bodies caused by unhealthy
food and ways of living. When we
get sometimes to a beautiful
environment we first simply enjoy
it because we are all the time
controlling (low level) for it and
secondly the stress state caused
by the low level conflict resolves
for a while.
Â
Â
Eetu
Â
From:
Warren Mansell <csgnet@lists.illinois.edu >
Sent: Wednesday, March
20, 2019 8:26 AM
To: mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net ;
mmt@mmtaylor.net
Cc: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: Happiness
and scenery
Â
Hi
Martin, this finding is well
known, there are books about it -
The Nature Fix is excellent - and
we have a network too www.NatureMind.net.
Â
In
terms of PCT, I’ve had many
thoughts that are coming
together…here are my notes and
ramblings, open source!
Â
 NatureMind
domains
Â
Nature
provides a wider and deeper
‘palette’ of layered
perceptions that typically
outcompete artificial
environments in the following
ways:
Â
The
need it serves is exploration,
connection & creation
which is the intrinsic need of
an infant during attachment
experiences. It is thus that
drives our social evolution.
Without nurture it becomes
need for power and control
over othersÂ
Â
Can’t
explain without
-
intrinsic reference points
-
child development
-
modes of mind
Â
Otherwise
theories for child and adult
different
Â
Â
Basic
behaviours at root are search,
find, investigate, utilise,
recombine…(woods versus toy
shop) - exploited.Â
Â
That’s
why successful people have
these profound nature
experiences.Â
Â
That’s
why ‘mystery’ images are more
interestingÂ
Â
Predict
that play is less ‘imaginary’
within nature as not
necessaryÂ
Â
Feedback
functions constrain perception
and therefore constrain
control. Nature provides a
wide feedback function for
perceptual control at multiple
multiple levels a mapping into
more, important CVsÂ
For
each one, why is nature
better?
Â
BREADTH
- Control of attention &
observation across natural
landscapesÂ
Â
MALLEABILITY-
Control of objects -
intensity, shape,
relationships, meaning -
sticks stones and mud
kitchens Â
Â
SIMPLE
AGENTS Â - Perception of
other agents; care;
compassion with animalsÂ
Â
Maintaining
self world concept identity
confidenceÂ
Â
Development
of Narrative of one’s life
and family and communityÂ
Â
Perception
of World existential awe awe
bigger than self
 spirituallyÂ
Â
Each
level has a complex emotion
associated with its
perception (e.g. freedom,
mastery, awe, connectedness)
and helps go to that
experience when needed in
everyday life when
experiencing a life
challenge through
remembering and
metaphorically utilising
that nature memoryÂ
Â
Safe
risks and managing conflict
Â
Scientific
methodÂ
Â
Other
theories:
Attentional
resource theory - less
distractions from deeper
thought?
Engages
the best bits of default
network - better understood
as reorganisationÂ
Emotional
attunement to natural
beautyÂ
Emotion
regulation miles ruchardson
Biophilia
- rework as preferred
unconscious perceptions - if
your life goals and sense of
control depend on it you can
overcome genetic fear of
snakes so conversely can
‘overcome’ genetic need for
nature NB anorexiaÂ
Roger
ulrich Miyazaki -
Parasympathetic- [me =
reflective]
Immune
system - Qing Li - tree
smellsÂ
Escape
from arbitrary consumerismÂ
Â
“Inhibition
uses up cognitive fuel�
P45
“I feel I have time and I
feel I have space�
Many
possessions in contemporary
life
Bottom
up
Nasal
Smells activate approach
behaviourÂ
Noise
pollution Lancet 2005
Heart
rate variability measurementsÂ
Music
affinity and birdsong
Â
Fractal
imagery - Richard Taylor
Alpha
brain waves - wakefully
relaxed (? Passive
observation?); same as music;
parahippocampus. But why?
Could it be the same as
functional branching of
control hierarchies in the
brain?!
Eye
tracking
Search
trajectories are fractal!
‘Resonance’Â
Need
to add biotensegrity
Resolve
conflict by passively
observing own imagination
mode?
Â
Â
Â
Â
On 20 Mar 2019, at 03:44, Martin > > > > > > Taylor (mmt-csg@mmtaylor.net > > > > > > via csgnet Mailing List) <csgnet@lists.illinois.edu > > > > > > > wrote:
[Martin Taylor 2019.03.19.
23.34]
For those interested in a PCT
approach to emotion I offer a
phenomenon from yesterday’s
Scientific Reports weekly digest
in the “Earth and Environmental
Sciences” section. The full text
is at
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-40854-6?WT.ec_id=SREP-20190318&sap-outbound-id=B6896327AF0EDF9BDB9458D9505F5700B4B9C719 .
Does anyone have a good
supportable PCT explanation for
this phenomenon? Here’s the
abstract…
----------
Happiness is Greater in More
Scenic Locations
·        Chanuki
Illushka Seresinhe,
·        Tobias
Preis,
·        George
MacKerron &
·        Helen
Susannah MoatÂ
Reports*** ,
volume****Â 9** ,
Article number: 4498 (2019)
Does
spending time in beautiful
settings boost people’s
happiness? The answer to this
question has long remained
elusive due to a paucity of
large-scale data on
environmental aesthetics and
individual happiness. Here, we
draw on two novel datasets:
first, individual happiness
data from the smartphone app,
Mappiness , and second,
crowdsourced ratings of the
“scenicness� of photographs
taken across England from the
online game Scenic-Or-Not .
We find that individuals are
happier in more scenic
locations, even when we
account for a range of factors
such as the activity the
individual was engaged in at
the time, weather conditions
and the income of local
inhabitants. Crucially, this
relationship holds not only in
natural environments, but in
built-up areas too, even after
controlling for the presence
of green space. Our results
provide evidence that the
aesthetics of the environments
that policymakers choose to
build or demolish may have
consequences for our everyday
wellbeing.
Martin
Â