Higher Levels of Perception

CSGnet Archive CSG1999
1

[From Kenny Kitzke (991007.1100EDT)]

For Dick Robertson:

Dick, I deleted your message and wishes concerning tennis so I can't reply to
it specifically.

What I am wondering is whether you intend to reply and give any answer to the
other issues I raised in response to your original post to me? Several are
restated below:

1. <<B. and C. might look quite similar, but I believe I have worked out
that they are
somewhat different elsewhere - to my satisfaction, maybe nobody else's.>

And, so shall I and I guess everyone who studies human behavior and human
nature. Its all PCT! Why not share with us what satisfied your perceptions?>

2. <When you explain how the existence of a "reorganization system" that must
be random and unintelligent is testable, and what it actually is in a human
being rather than in a computer model, I will feel much better about
discussing it.>

Do you have an explanation or a reference to one?

3. I made two observations from my own life hoping you would explain how
they occurred according to the model of human behavior and nature that you
call HPCT and value so highly. I'll repeat them:

a. Can you picture me as a serve and volley player? Use your imagination
for this rather strange system concept. I did. It was purposeful, not
random though.

[For those who have not seen my body, know that I am terribly overweight,
have diabetes and have played tennis as a base liner for 30 years. With the
advent of diabetes, I can't play more than about 8 games without getting so
weak as to be disoriented and subject to injury. I won only one match all
year compared to my normal 6-9 and would be moved down to a lower level of
competition if I could continue at all.

I was experiencing sustained error at high gain perceiving that my
competitive 30 year tennis career was at an end. Then I imagined learning a
serve and volley method of play which would make the points shorter and
perhaps allow me to keep playing at my current division level. It worked.
Was it a random or slow process of changing my reference to something totally
new? I don't think so.]

b. <Going through a mid-life crisis produced some rather large changes for me
quite quickly. I don't believe they were random. They originated out of my
spirit and the need to see myself differently.>

Do you have any explanation for how such dramatic life-changing new
references can be developed without a random results process?

I'd really like to hear some opinions from you as a HPCT advocate while Bill
works on advanced models.

Kenny

2

[From Dick Robertson,991008.0643CDT]

Kenneth Kitzke Value Creation Systems wrote:

[From Kenny Kitzke (991007.1100EDT)]

For Dick Robertson:

Dick, I deleted your message and wishes concerning tennis so I can't reply to
it specifically.

What I am wondering is whether you intend to reply and give any answer to the
other issues I raised in response to your original post to me? Several are
restated below:

To tell the truth, Ken, I had not intended to reply to most of what you had said
on the net, because your understanding of random processes in relation to
reorganization proved so different from my understandning that I doubted being
able to accomplish anything useful hear. I did think we might get further the
next time we could discuss it in person. But, since you ask I'll try to comment
on what I can.

1. <<B. and C. might look quite similar, but I believe I have worked out
that they are
somewhat different elsewhere - to my satisfaction, maybe nobody else's.>

And, so shall I and I guess everyone who studies human behavior and human
nature. Its all PCT! Why not share with us what satisfied your perceptions?>

2. <When you explain how the existence of a "reorganization system" that must
be random and unintelligent is testable, and what it actually is in a human
being rather than in a computer model, I will feel much better about
discussing it.>

I didn't say the "existence of a reorganization system is random" I can't even
imagine what that statement might mean. What I want to say is that I find Bill's
hypothesis persuasive--that under certain circumstances of intrinsic error random
neural impulses injected into the brain produce movements/actions that the
organism has not previously been able to perform intentionally. (I speculated in
IMP that the ascending reticular formation in the brain might be such a source
since it had already been identified as an amplifier by neuroanatomists) Bill
continued: when any particular randomly incited movement would be followed by
reduction of intrinsic error the circuitry involved would then be retained. I. e.
the brain circuitry would be "reorganized" to that extent/or in behavioral terms
the individual would have "learned something new/become able to perform something
intentionally that he previously had only accidentally and occasionaly performed
if at all.

Your example of coming up with a new and more successful (for you) way to play
tennis might fit my conception of what Bill meant by reorganization. I say,
"might" because maybe it was already in your repertoire but you weren't in the
habit of playing that way. If it were really _new_ repertoire, then I would see
it as an example of reorganization in the way that I think of it. As for the
cavil that you didn't stand on your head or shout magically rituals , etc to
achieve that result, sure, reorganization isn't well enough described yet to
identify how it works in limited ways. I do seem to recall that Bill did a model
sometime back in which he used a random signal generator to get reorganizations to
occur in a system (I forget what it was controlling) under circumstances where it
was starting to go into error. And of course, Rick's ecoli demo shows how a
desirable result can be brought about by a random action (not any old random
action--there can be many that don't work, but are then quickly followed by
another and another until a successful one occurs).

The fact that Rick's demo applies to a bacterium doesn't rule it out as a way of
understanding how reorganization occurs in any organism. That is not the point,
for me. The point is, how can you do something _intentionally_ that you have
never before been able to do? Rick's demo shows a possible answer to that
question.

Do you have an explanation or a reference to one?

3. I made two observations from my own life hoping you would explain how
they occurred according to the model of human behavior and nature that you
call HPCT and value so highly. I'll repeat them:

a. Can you picture me as a serve and volley player? Use your imagination
for this rather strange system concept. I did. It was purposeful, not
random though.

See the above, but I don't necessarily expect you to say "Oh, I see what you mean
now."

[ I don't believe they were random. They originated out of my
spirit and the need to see myself differently.>

Yes, that _for me_ would be your way of putting words to your inner experience of
the intrinsic error that led to "trying something new" --which would be my way of
thinking about your experience of the functioning of your reorganization system.

Do you have any explanation for how such dramatic life-changing new
references can be developed without a random results process?

No, I don't.. I fully intend to hit an ace serve every time I smack the ball, but
so far it only happens very occasionally--randomly, I would say.

Peace. Best, Dick R.