No. My response demonstrates my application of the PCT model of
conflict to what looks to me like a pretty obvious example of a
conflict. The conflict is an observation. It takes the form of a
verbal disagreement.
No, Rick. A conflict only exists when the two parties want the same
perceptual variable in two different states. You can't observe a
conflict, you can only infer a conflict until you carry out the Test.
I was using the term "conflict" to refer to the nature of the observed interaction between between Bill and Marc. Much of that interaction seemed to involve verbal pushing and pushing back. I'll use excerpts from Bill's last interchange with Marc as an example:
···
============================
Push:
They have found the brain secreting all the hormones you would associate
exclusively with the endocrine system.
Push back:
At this level of detail I begin to lose interest -- we're too far from
being able to settle any of those questions.
Push:
Bill, the neural signals that exist in the brain exist in the spinal cord as
well
Push back:
Of course, did you think I didn't know that? Look at the diagram of the
spinal control systems on page 91 of B:CP.
Push:
Bill, you are calling something a perception that _NO ONE_ else
anywhere does. Why?
Push back:
Let's put it the other way. Why has nobody else tumbled to the FACT that
perceptions are neural signals?...
Push:
Why not simply call it the way the biological, physiological, and
neuroscientific community call it?
Push back:
Because that community doesn't know diddly about how systems work...
Push:
This _is not_ a minor issue, nor is it a nit. How can you hope to
communicate your ideas to others when you are not talking the same language?
Push back:
Do you want me to go back to calling all actions "responses," and all
inputs "stimuli?"...
Push:
You lull people into a false sense of security in having them think that
they really know what perceptions mean in the PCT model.
Push back:
Many people bring preconceptions to PCT and manage to interpret everything
they hear and read to fit those preconceptions...
Push:
We may not have it nailed yet, but we have some pretty strong ideas about
how this does in fact work.
Push back:
You're mistaken about that...
Push:
I must be able to understand _what_ a perception actually is. Not what PCT
defines a perception as, but what 99.99% of the rest of humanity describes
it as.
Push back:
99.9% of humanity describes perceptions as the world that is out there.
They don't even know they're perceiving.
Push:
Now, Bill from time to time has said to lay aside his structure and
organization, but when he has done so, he has not replaced it with any
alternative.
Push back:
I have never said that. I have said that we can lay aside the _particular
definitions_ of levels of control that I have proposed, but not that we
can lay aside the idea that levels exist and are hierarchically related.
Push:
Thats what I meant and still say you did not come up with any alternative
solutions to your 11 levels until I mentioned the split hierarchy in LCS II
and the emotion chapter
Push back:
Hey, wait a minute. Who do you think wrote that chapter, and when?...
Push
The brain basically takes afferent
receptors convers them to perceptions and produces motor output so we may
survive in a changing environment. I just don't see how the hierarchy as
it is presently constructed can do this.
Push back:
Then you still haven't understood how a negative feedback control system
works...
Push:
If your simply saying that brain function is hierarchical in
nature, that's a lot older than your theory.
Push back:
Not the kind of hierarchy I propose... Come on.
Push:
I have never spoken of the "five senses."
Push back:
Yes you have. ..
Push push back back:
I can't help what you choose to read into my words that I didn't say..
Push:
Sorry Bill, this has shown _not_ to be true. High frequecny sounds entering
can be low freqeuncy by the time they terminate in the primary sensory
cortex.
Push back:
High frequency sounds are not reproduced blip for blip in the nervous
system... and don't bother quoting people who look for patterns in the blips.
I think they are wrong, for reasons I needn't bore you with.
Push:
However, I am proposing that the sensations we explicitly
associate with emotions are those that arise from receptors inside the
body..
Push back:
I agree with you here _except_ please don't call them 'somatic sensors'...
Push push back back:
Loosen up. "Somatic" just means "having to do with the body."...
Push:
All reflexive actions are of course controlled
Push back:
I claim that there are no purely S-R reactions. NONE AT ALL.
Push:
I don't think a functional mapping needs to be isomorphic to a physical one.
I respectfully disagree here.
Push back:
How could one control system use any other control system's comparator?
This is what I call a conflict. It is the observed verbal pushing, pushing back and pushing back against pushing back that is evident in this interaction. I suppose you could call it a disagreement or a dialog to distinguish it from more physically violent conflicts like the ones going on in the middle east. What is most easily observed in this disagreement (as in all conflicts) is the opposing output. In the case of the dialog above, the opposing outputs are the statements made by each party in opposition to the statements made by the other. In the middle east it's the suicide bombings that are done in opposition to the settlement building and house bull dozing. What is hard to see is the controlled variable that is in contention. In the dialog above, the controlled variable is the intellectual concept in dispute. In the middle east, the controlled variable its the perception of sovereignty over a particular geographical area.
But you know that, don't you?
What I _think_ I know is that you need to do the Test, not do determine that there _is_ a conflict -- you can observe a conflict, as in the case above, by looking at the opposing outputs -- but to determine the variable that is actually in contention. But I think the conflict itself is a Test to determine the variable under control. Each party is actively producing disturbances to this variable. So an observer can get a pretty good idea of the nature of the controlled variable that is at the basis of the conflict by watching to see which outputs by either party result in compensatory outputs by the other party. The observer must develop hypotheses about what variable is under control by both parties, just as in the usual Test for the Controlled Variable, and change these hypotheses as necessary, as the disturbances (outputs) applied by the parties to the conflict do and don't lead to compensatory actions (outputs) by the other party.
You can observe what you _think_ is a
conflict, but the literary theory example shows that even when the
participants think there is a conflict, there may, in fact, be none. At
least from a PCT perspective.
I'm willing to believe that this is possible -- a fake fight, for example, looks like a conflict (not to the participants but to the observers) but isn't -- but I don't see how the literary example shows this. Maybe I didn't read the article carefully enough. Could you please explain this.
Best regards
Rick
----
Richard S. Marken
marken@mindreadings.com
Home 310 474-0313
Cell 310 729-1400