[From Rick Marken (950925.0940)]
Dick Robertson (950924.2020CDT) --
Beautiful post, Dick!
I think the following comment from you is especially important and well worth
repeating:
anyone who claims to know what the right opinion is IS the authority, if
you accord him that credence. However, in science the source of right
opinion is experimental demonstration. Anyone who does the experiment can
find out whether the theory's predictions are confirmed. No-one is
dependent upon having to accept some one else's word for the right opinion.
Alleluja, alleluja.
David Wolsk (950924.2245) --
Welcome to CSG-L David.
One of my particular interests is in anxiety/stress and a recasting into PCT
terms. I'll go into some detail as I'm looking for critiques.
I'll try to be gentle;-)
On the train. I sat with no anxiety while in my car, the uncertainty created
immediate anxiety. In thinking over this comparison, I assumed that the
difference was my need to act on the visual input in the car.
Yes. In the train you are not controlling your perceived motion (the
engineer is, hopefully); in the car, you are. When (in the car) you found
that your actions had no effect on your perception of movement, you felt
anxiety. The anxiety resulted from the fact that you had no control over a
perception (of motion) that you were controlling.
my revelation: anxiety is an automatic reaction whenever input is
insufficient to support our ongoing decision processes.
This is quite different than the PCT perspective. In PCT, input doesn't really
"support ongoing decision processes": input is controlled. In PCT, anxiety is
a side-effect of loss of control.
A PCT explanation of your anxiety would be in terms of loss of control of
a perception of motion. In PCT, anxiety is an un-reducable error signal
(which is eqivalent to an uncontrollable perception -- one that you cannot
bring to its goal state). In the car movement example, you experienced loss
of control of perceived movement of the car. This loss of control resulted
from the fact that there was no feedback connection between your output
(stepping on brake) and your perception (of movement). Ordinarily, your
perceived movement in a car can be controlled by pressing on the brake or
gas. But the movement you felt when the car next to you moved was illusory --
it could not be affected by stepping on the brake.
So you wanted to perceive no movement of the car, you were perceiving
yourself moving backward, you tried to bring this perception to the reference
state (no movement) in the usual way (by pressing on the brake) and there was
no change in the perception of movement; the error signal driving the output
(pressing the brake) remained large. This physiological consequences of
this large error signal (muscle contractions, for example) result in the
experience of anxiety.
In closing, let me just mention that I've been working with others on
conflict resolution approaches as applied internationally for early 3rd
party interventions in ethnic conflicts within countries ... arriving early
before the shooting starts.
Super. I think PCT could REALLY help here -- if people are willing to learn
it.
Best
Rick