From Greg & Pat Williams (920923)
Bill Powers (920923.0900)
In reply to Pat
We agree that you're controlling your own perceptions, on purpose. We
disagree that your kids are acting differently because of your
controlling for nutritional value of the food.
OK, now we understand your point that, from the KIDS' standpoint, they are
acting the same regardless of Pat. It's only from PAT'S standpoint that they
are acting differently because of her controlling. We would have understood
immediately had you said that the kids would control the same (their)
perceptions with or without Pat's controlling for "healthy" (her definition)
food. But don't you think it is just a bit strange for Pat to think that the
kids are acting IDENTICALLY whether they are eating rice or popsicles? It DOES
look different! But now that we know what you REALLY mean by "the same
actions," we still have a slight problem. With Pat controlling for seeing them
eat "healthy" (to her) food, the kids are controlling for (some) DIFFERENT
lower-level perceptions than if she wasn't controlling thusly. Aren't they?
Surely the same lower-level controlled perceptions aren't involved when the
kids eat what is set in front of them, rather than going to the store to buy
food. Some of OUR controlled perceptions SEEM different when we eat at a
restaurant than when we eat at home. But maybe we're just fooling ourselves.
Still, we don't even HAVE salad spoons at home....
What they're getting is different because of that, but what they're
controlling for isn't.
Yep. Analogous to somebody subjected to disturbances so he/she writes his/her
name in the rubber-banding demo, right?
Their actions would remain the same no matter what you served them, if they
ate it.
So the actions of the rubber-bander would remain the same whether he/she was
signing his/her name, or John Hancock's, or writing nonsense syllables?
Certainly, in all cases, the controlled perception of keeping the knot over
the dot is the same. But it sure looks like different hand motions when the
person writes a "JUC" instead of an "FUC" -- and in some places, we bet some
onlookers might begin to be shocked by what they think of as the writer's
actions in the latter case, but not the former. Well, they need to be better
educated, don't they? Presumably they would be equally shocked or unshocked by
seeing "JUC" OR "FUC" if they only realized that, from the WRITER'S point of
view, there is NO difference in the actions producing "JUC" or "FUC." But if
the letter "K" is then appended by the writer (still rubber-banding in
interaction with a "disturber") to the latter nonsense syllable, somebody
still might be in hot water. If the incensed onlookers are sufficiently
educated, of course, they will not bother with the disturber, but immediately
will denounce the writer, since the disturber obviously had no influence on
the functioning of the writer's control system, including its actions. Right?
What we're trying to sort out here is not whether you're doing the right
thing by your kids but who is influencing and controlling what.
Agreed.
You would be frustrated if your kids didn't eat what you served, but
the eating is still up to them, not you, even when they eat it. You
can't operate their arms and mouths and swallowing muscles. You may be
gratified at seeing that good food disappear irrevocably into their
mouths, but you can't influence that process or control it: matters
have passed outside the sphere of your influence at that point. Your
influence has reached its limit when you put the food down in front of
them.
Agreed.
What I'm talking about is much simpler than the arguments we're going
through. It has nothing to do with your feelings about what the kids
are eating, your reasons for giving them the food you give them, or
what the kids would do if you behaved differently. It has to do with
who is in charge of which perceptions and which means of controlling
them.
Agreed.
The kids are controlling their own perceptions. You are controlling yours. As
a result, there are certain interactions between you and the kids --
disturbances, or if you like, influences. These interactions come about
because when you do what's necessary to control your own perceptions, your
actions disturb the kids' worlds, and they adjust their actions to prevent
those disturbances from having any significant effect on the variables THEY
are controlling, if they physically can.
Now wait a minute. What's this "they adjust their actions" business? Didn't
you just say above that their actions were the same with or without a
disturbance? Now we're confused. You mean the disturber in the rubber-banding
experiment above (with "FUC") is responsible, even in some small degree, for
that final "K"? Really? Even though the writer was controlling that knot
equally well when writing "FUC" or "JUC" (just as the kids were controlling
equally well for eating tasty food with or without Pat's disturbance)? But the
writer DID it!! He/she WROTE OUT THE OFFENDING STRING OF LETTERS!!! The
disturber didn't even have chalk in hand!!!! Please explain.
I get the impression, possibly unjustified, that you and Greg are
looking for something more than that.
Nope, say both Pat and Greg. The purposive influencer doesn't want to change
others' wants, only their actions to control those wants.
You don't want to see this interaction as just "disturbances," or as just
neutral "influences," but as a way in which one organism can have an
intentional effect on the interior life of another organism.
Wrong. An intentional effect on the EXTERIOR life of another organism. We are
claiming that PCT explains the nature and limits of interactions wherein one
party has an intentional effect on his/her perceptions by influencing (if you
like, disturbing) some controlled perceptions. Now, before you object that one
CAN'T disturb another's controlled perceptions, because (assuming good
control) the other will CORRECT for the disturbance, we'll rephrase the last
part of the previous sentence and let YOU fill in the technical language which
YOU approve of: "... by doing something analogous to what one participant does
in two-person rubber-banding when the other person writes his/her name." The
intention of the first party is to see certain results of actions of the
second party, NOT to change the second person's "interior life."
In other words, you want to think you're doing some good for your kids, not
just going through the motions and having the kids' control systems counteract
everything you do.
No, Pat wants to SEE what she wants to see. Her motivations are beside the
point, other than the fact that she does WANT to see something in particular,
which depends on the kids' acting in a certain way.
This has got to be a sensitive issue; you go to great trouble to do the right
thing for your kids, even to the time-consuming labor of schooling them at
home. And here comes Bill Powers saying that all you're doing is disturbing
them, and that all they're doing is making sure your disturbances have no
effect on them. Makes it all look pretty futile, doesn't it?
No. With the exception of the underqualified "having no effect" and "looking
pretty futile" parts, we have no problems with this statement. And, supposing
you mean "no effect on what they are controlling for," we have no problems
with that, except for LOW-LEVEL perceptual variables. And, supposing you mean
"pretty futile to attempt to affect what the kids are controlling for," we
have no problems with that, either. Quite simply put, Pat affects the kids'
actions in a non-futile way -- she gets what she wants, analogously to the way
the first party in rubber-banding gets what he/she wants (seeing the second
party sign his/her name). Tell us what you call that sort of interaction,
please. The "rubber-banding interaction" seems a bit opaque to us.
... I think that because children demand instruction, we can give it to them.
We can't do the reorganizing for them; if they don't do it, it won't get
done.
No argument there.
We can't control how this reorganizing will come out.
Maybe we can influence how it comes out. That's an argument yet to get
started.
But we can make sure that the environment contains everything we know about
that might be useful to them, and that what we tell them about is as near to
true as we can approach. We can invite their attention to things,
relationships, problems that they might not come across by themselves. We can
look for difficulties they are having, and demonstrate how another person
would deal with them. We can make sure that when they're ready to perceive in
a new way, there are things to perceive at the new level that will be
generally useful to perceive -- although of course we can't say just how they
will end up perceiving the situations we perceive.
Sounds like purposive influencing to us.
ยทยทยท
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[in reply to Greg]
The nature of the action is already determined by the organization
of the control system, which takes into account the environmental
link through which action affects perception.
Take another look at the generic PCT diagram. The action is
determined conjointly by BOTH the reference signal AND the
disturbance, via subtraction, one from the other, at the
comparator.
Take another look at the statement. The NATURE of the action means
what KIND of action has to be produced, not how much of it. The KIND
of action is not determined either by the reference signal or by the
disturbance. It's determined by the physical links that exist between
the system's output and the controlled variable, by the perceptual
function defining that controlled variable, and by the effector design
of the control system. The reference signal and the disturbance
determine, conjointly (if that means anything) only HOW MUCH action
will occur, and IN WHAT DIRECTION. They do not determine WHICH KIND of
action will occur.
I stand corrected. HOW MUCH action, and IN WHAT DIRECTION, is determined by
the reference signal and the disturbance. HOW MUCH action, and IN WHAT
DIRECTION, of the influencee is what is crucial for the purposive influencer
to see what he/she wants to see -- that's why the purposive influencer
influences the influencee's environment in PARTICULAR ways. WHICH KIND of
action is crucial, too, and because that is determined by the physical links,
perceptual function, and effector design (as you say above), the influencee
attempts to MODEL (by using some form of The Test) the influencee's
controlling.
The organism determines WHICH controlled variables it will be
controlling at a given time. You can then pick any of them to disturb.
When you do, the organism will vary its action on that controlled
variable, cancelling your disturbance. It is, of course, already
varying its actions on ALL the controlled variables, or is ready to do
so, at all times, if they're under active control. You're not
determining which variables will in fact be under control or which
actions they will use. That's been decided already.
Agreed, except that the next to last sentence needs additional qualification.
It should read: "You're not determining which variables will in fact be under
control or which POTENTIAL action, given a particular disturbance, they will
use." What HASN'T been decided already, solely by the organism, is WHICH
action of the POTENTIAL actions will be used. The disturbance influences WHICH
action is in fact used to retain control. And this influence is what the
purposive influencer is being purposive about.
The only way to make sure of applying a known disturbance is to isolate the
control system from all those other influences.
There is a vast range of "degree of isolation" -- from Skinner boxes to
chaotic parties -- where, the empirical evidence indicates, the "rubber-
banding interaction" is deemed successful by the first party (that is, he/she
sees what he/she wants to see, which depends on certain actions being
performed by the second party).
There's no difference in the action used to counteract an
accidental influence or an intentional influence.
Correct. But that is beside the point. Purposive influence matters
to the influencer ALWAYS.
Agree. Control system control their own perceptions. Are you making some new
point here? Why the "but?"
No, an OLD point: the purposive influencer is controlling for his/her
perception, which depends on the influencee's action, and the accidental
influencer is not so controlling.
Are you saying that a psychologist has a point of view that is not
that of an organism?
No. I'm saying that many non-PCT psychologists, as you have noted several
times, take the point of view of the experimenter (an organism, to be sure!)
rather than their experimental organisms (i.e., rats).
-----
If proving this conclusion has been your goal from the start, you must have
had other reasons for believing it is the correct goal, reasons that go
beyond, predate, or supersede PCT.
Well, to a degree, I suppose. I mean that if you want to model organisms
mechanically (that is, lawfully), using differential equations, then I WAS
taught that ALL terms in the equations DO have influences on the trajectories
of the equations' variables. But basically my goal came from seeing (I think)
what PCT-science says, and then seeing contradictions between that and the
apparent ideology of some PCTers.
This would, of course, explain why you don't develop an irrefutable argument
based only on PCT principles: there are other principles involved.
I HAVE been trying to develop such an argument, based on PCT principles and
empirical evidence that purposive influence is common and often successful and
persistent over time and characterized as sometimes "good" and sometimes "bad"
by the influencees. My ideology comes in when I say I think the ideology of
radical organismism is detrimental to greater acceptance of PCT by non-PCTers.
Seeing as how you've worked some constructive criticism of me into your post,
I'll reciprocate. My major difficulty with your end of the argument is that
you simply don't answer many of my explicit questions, I suppose because
paying attention to them wouldn't suit your own purposes. I have tried to be
careful to answer virtually all of your explicit questions. It would be nice
if you started to do the same. (I have a fair backlog I'd still like answered,
too.)
-----
Whatever the people do, they will do it with a particular
organization of control systems, and exercising those control
systems or bumping them up against each other is not going to
change anything.
Look around. Peoples' lives are changed in both trivial and
profound ways (as judged by the influencees themselves) everyday,
all over the globe, by acts of purposive influence. Ask THEM
whether "anything" has changed.
If they say anything has changed, they are ignorant of history. What
you speak of is not change; it's just coping.
That's a big "just," isn't it? I thought "coping" (that is, attempting to
control one's perceptions) meant EVERYTHING to you (or at least all else
besides "coping" was trivial). The kind of change I meant is to be found in
the enriched or shattered lives of those who have been purposively influenced
by others, some for better and some for worse -- in THEIR OWN opinions.
What you present as "purposive influence" is simply control of others.
You may say it isn't, but you still insist that purposive influence is
intended to have some effect other than just disturbing what others
are controlling for.
Guided reorganization aside (which we have yet to discuss in detail, and I
WON'T prejudge the outcome of THAT aspect of the argument!), I claim that
purposive influence is intended (by the influencer) to have ONE effect, namely
enabling the influencer to control some of his/her perceptions which depend on
some of the influencee's actions. The influencer controls by disturbing what
the influencee is controlling for (or however you want to name the "rubber-
banding interaction" discussed above), without force or threat of force, and
without trying to intentionally change what the influencee is controlling for.
Is that "control of others"? Is it, whether "control of others" or not, always
"bad" in some sense? If so, in what sense? Why isn't teaching somebody to do
something a kind of purposive influence? Why isn't Ed Ford's counselling a
kind of purposive influence? Why isn't your arguing a kind of purposive
influence? Do you think PCT can say ANYTHING about interactions among people
other than that they are (a) nonexistent, (b) virtually impossible, (c)
trivial, (d) unimportant, and/or (e) always bad? Should sociologists look
elsewhere for explanations of the nature and limits of such interactions, as
Chuck Tucker suggests? I'd appreciate some answers.
Greg & Pat