[From Bill Powers (941227.0730 MST)]
Lars Christian Smith (941224.0940 CET) --
In organizations or societies the hierarchies should be
easily observable, if you are looking for them in the right way. They
are not hidden away inside individuals.
I agree that there are social hierarchies, mainly hierarchies of power,
maintained primarily through coercion. These are not, however,
hierarchies of control systems in the HPCT sense.
Consider the following relationships between a higher-level (H) control
system (or systems) and a lower-level (L) system (or systems) in HPCT.
1. L is incapable of setting or varying its own goals. All of its goals
are determined by the outputs of H.
2. For H to set the goals of L, no intermediary process is required: H
outputs a signal and it instantly becomes the goal for L's perceptions.
3. H perceives a world that is a function of copies of the perceptual
signals in L, or signals related in the same way to the external world
(even if not controlled). That is, if H perceives in categories, its
perceptions are drawn from controlled or uncontrolled perceptions at the
relationship, event, transition, configuration, sensation, or intensity
levels. However, the perceptions at level H represent ONLY the functions
that H is equipped to perceive. H can't perceive in terms of any of the
lower levels: that is, a category-controlling system can't perceive
relationships, events, etc.
4. In the same way, a control system of a given level can't perceive in
terms of higher-level perceptual functions: a relationship-controlling
system perceives nothing of categories or any higher level of
perception.
Now consider the same points with a whole human being constituting one
element of a social hierarchy.
1. All human beings set their own goals; there is no mechanism by which
any external agency can directly determine the goals of an individual.
2. For an external agency to affect the goals of an individual, there
are only two mechanisms: disturbing controlled variables at a higher
level in such a way as to require a shift in goals at a lower level if
the higher-level perception is to be maintained under control; and
proposing, through communication, that the individual consider
voluntarily altering a goal (this covers all forms of transactions,
bargains, and social contracts).
3,4. All human beings can perceive and control the world at all the
levels at which any other human being perceives and controls. If one
person at a high level in a social hierarchy can perceive and control in
system concepts, so can any other person at a lower social level. If a
person lower in the social hierarchy can perceive and control in terms
of configurations, so can a person at any higher level.
Social hierarchies are established through physical interactions among
individual autonomous control systems. One person enlists the aid of
another so that both are better able to achieve their individual goals.
Or one person gains control of physical resources to the extent that
others are unable to achieve their goals without complying with the
demands of the one controlling the resources. Or one person who is
especially skillful at controlling a socially-useful aspect of the
environment agrees to specialize in that mode of control, while others
specialize in other modes, each agreeing to supply what others need in
some respect in return for having each one's needs met in other
respects. There are many possible interactions, but none of them
involves the kind of relationships between higher and lower levels that
are found inside an individual's hierarchy of control.
HPCT is not a model of a social system or a social hierarchy.
To see the impracticality of a social hierarchy organized as individuals
are organized, it is only necessary to apply the PCT model literally.
Suppose we have one person who is the perceptual function. This person
receives information about the environment, translates it into the state
of some abstract variable, and passes the value of the abstract variable
to another person. The perceptual-function person does not know whether
this information is good or bad, or what its preferred state is, or what
action might affect it.
The person playing the comparator receives information about the state
of the abstract variable and information about the desired or reference
state of that variable. This person computes the difference in magnitude
and direction, and passes the result to another person. The comparator-
person does not know what the information it receives means in terms of
the outside world, and does not know what use is made of the report on
the discrepancy.
The person playing the output function converts the amount and direction
of error signal into a corresponding amount and direction of action.
This person never knows what the result of the action is, or why the
action is called for, or whether the action produces the intended
result.
If this picture reminds you of the way certain social organizations have
been set up, it surely reminds you of a very sick social organization. A
whole person can't play the part of a component of a machine, not
without suffering conflicts with all the unused and unwanted parts of
that person's organization.
The same holds true if a person is asked to play the role of one level
in a hierarchical system. Managers inevitably become concerned with how
workers are carrying out their jobs; workers inevitably have opinions
about management practices and often try to put them into action. A
social hierarchy set up along the lines of an individual hierarchy
depends on each person behaving in ways appropriate to just one level,
but no person can do that, nor would the system work if people actually
behaved that way. The social protocols and tables of organization which
those at the top try to superimpose on the actual organization are
largely myths, which can be maintained only by the continual threat of
coercion. Just consider the subject of "work rules." One of the
armaments at a worker's disposal is "working to rule," meaning behaving
exactly as prescribed by higher management. Doing so exposes the
deficiencies in the rules which would destroy the system if people at
the lower levels didn't make the necessary high-level changes in the
rules actually used as daily circumstances require. Look at what working
to rule does to air traffic control.
The working man's wife curtseying to the Queen knows that the Queen
needs to be curtseyed to in order to BE the Queen.
ยทยทยท
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Best,
Bill P.