[From: Oded Maler 921012]
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* [From Bill Powers (921009.0800)]
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* Control theory fits the world as it is, and people the way they are.
* But an understanding of control theory leads to assigning causality
* differently, and as a result will change the way people do things and
* the reasons for which they do them.
Humans (and surely animals) managed to achieve their goals in the
physical world long before Newton. They could interactact with
gravity and other forces (and as you would say, reorganize and let
their pereceptions meet their references) without having a theory
for those complex phenomena. Of course, after having the theory
they could build tools for influencing the world to a much greater
extent.
Now moving to interactions with the living and later the mindfull
world: Some people (shepards, politicians, dictators, salesmen, teachers)
may succeed in causing individuals and crowds to do certain things
because the complex control loop of the influencer is such that
it somehow fits some invariant properties of those who are influenced,
in the same way that the sensory-motor control loops fits the
physical world. It need not be done conciously, nor with a theory
of how people are organized. It is "knowing to" and not "knowing
why". You may claim that having a theory like PCT will enable more
complex interactions in the same way that physical sciences led us
to progress from walking to flying.
--Oded