meanings of words

[Jim Dundon 06.05.07.0800edt]

I woke up this morning thinking of your original impetus to PCT. You said it was your "realization that people don't control the meanings of words, they control perceptions."

Does not that entire sentence control the meaning of the words embodied in it.

Does not PCT depend on what you said people don't do?

If people are not PCTing [controling for meanings of words] what is?

Aren't meanings of words perceptions at the higher levels?

You and I continue to use words with a measure of faith. How can we talk without both a measure of uncertanty and a measure of faith. Isn't that what we call hope?

If meanings of words change, who changes them?
Don't we.

Is it not a controlled variable?

Can't we have faith and hope in our ability to change the meaning?
Who says I can't control for changes in meaning?
Isn't that what we call adjusting?
Isn't that part of what the reorganizing system does?
Why did you assign it to the reorganizing system?
Let me do it.

I wanna do it.

Pleeeeease. Pretty please.

best

Jim D

[Martin Taylor 2007.05.06.10.12]

[Jim Dundon 06.05.07.0800edt]

I woke up this morning thinking of your original impetus to PCT. You said it was your "realization that people don't control the meanings of words, they control perceptions."

Does not that entire sentence control the meaning of the words embodied in it.

What does "meaning" mean to you?

That's not a frivolous question. It embodies the PCT mantra "all behaviour is the control of perception" as applied to communication: "All communication is the control of the perception of the other partner".

In this way of looking at communication, the "meaning" of a communicative element (be it word, phrase, or dissertation) to the originator is the effect that the element is intended to have on the originator's perception of the recipient of the element. Its "meaning" to the recipient is in the recipient's imagination; it is the effect on the recipient that the recipient imagines the originator to have intended. In other words, for the recipient, meaning is the recipient's perception of the originator's reference values for the controlled perceptions involved in emitting the element.

That's very abstract. Think of an example: What is the "meaning" of: "Please would you open the window"?

You might think that the meaning is that I want a window to be opened. If that is so, why would I write it in an e-mail message intended to be read by people far from any window I can see? Obviously, in writing it, I don't intend the meaning to be that you (reader) go to the nearest window and open it. What, then is the "meaning" of the quote -- to you? And what do you imagine the meaning of it was to me when I wrote it?

Thinking about these questions leads to my initial comment: What does "meaning" mean to you?

Once you have thought about that, and come to some conclusion that satisfies you, you can think about the non-PCT nature of the sentence: "Does not that entire sentence control the meaning of the words embodied in it."

If you believe any part of PCT, the answer clearly is "No, the sentence does not control the meaning of the words in it". Sentences don't control, or control for, anything. People control; all living things control. Sentences do not. People emit sentences as actions -- outputs of perceptual control loops -- that affect their OWN perceptions, those perceptions usually but not always being of other people.

All the words in a sentence form part of the environment of all the other words in that sentence -- and of all other communications, in the same way that sidewalks and pavements form part of the environment for the control of one's perceptions in walking or driving a car. A series of concrete paving stones beside a wide strip of ashphalt has a different "meaning" than a similar series of paving stones with a wide area of grass on each side, or if they are raised by 1m, and have a 300m drp-off on one side.

So it is with words. Their "meanings" to both the writer and the reader are affected by their context, just as the meaning of the concrete paving slabs is affected by their context. In neither case does the context "control" the meaning.

There is a real difference between the meaning for the originator of a communication and for the recipient: the originator can alter what is said or written in order to bring his or her perception of the recipient nearer its reference value (in e-mail, the feedback loop has a long latency, compared with face-to-face communication, but the principle is the same). The recipient cannot alter what the originator said, but must incoporate it into a facet of his or her perception of the originator. It's passively received, and is not part of any of the recipient's control loops, though it may well disturb some.

If the recipient is controlling for a perception that the originator is satisfied that the message got across as intended, then the recipient can act in some way to control a perception of the originator's level of satisfaction. Perhaps (in face to face communication) the recipient does open the window without saying anything. If the originator says "Thanks", then the recipient has brought that controlled perception of the originator's satisfaction near its reference level -- which, to me, means that the recipient has discovered at least part of the "meaning" of "Please would you open the window".

But it might be only part of the meaning. Depending on context, other parts might include things that could be, but are not put into words, such as "I can't be bothered to get up out of my chair, but I don't mind bothering you, because you are less worthy than I." Or: "I'm paying you to do my bidding, but I'm being nice to you by saying 'Please'".

Aren't meanings of words perceptions at the higher levels?

If what I said above has any meaning for you, then the answer is "Yes": for readers, they are perceptions of some reference levels of perceptions controlled by writers; for writers they are acts in support of control of perceptions of some facets of readers. Definitely perceptions at levels higher than visual or acoustic.

You and I continue to use words with a measure of faith. How can we talk without both a measure of uncertanty and a measure of faith. Isn't that what we call hope?

Hope is well applied to what might be called "fire and forget" actions that the actor hopes will have the desired effect on a variable not directly controllable. To a large extent, "hope" is well applied to the effects of individual words and phrases that are part of a larger communicative unit. The feedback loop will be completed at the level of the larger unit and not at the level of the word, in most cases. One expects the xbvirlf to be interpreted without disturbances that generate individual feedback. That's "trust" and "faith". One really just "hopes" that the xbvirlf will have the desired effect (i.e. be interpreted as intended).

However, sometimes hope proves unjustified. The recipient (reader) provides feedback at the word level: "What do you mean by 'xbvirlf'?" Perhaps if xbvirlf is received once, it might be perceived as an accident, but when it is received twice, the recipient is likely to perceive it as having been intended by the originator: "Why did you say that nonsense?" I did use it twice, and I was deliberate both times. I was controlling (in imagination) my perception of you, the reader trying to perceive my intentions.

I think (my imaginary perception of you tells me) that if I had used "xbvirlf" only once, you would have taken its "meaning" as being the same as if I had written something like "words" or "small elements of communication", and passed on. By using it twice, I think its meaning may have changed to something like "Now I want you to think about what I am trying to get across at a more abstract level". Each instance was context for the "meaning" of each other instance.

If meanings of words change, who changes them?
Don't we.

Yes. See all of the above.

Is it not a controlled variable?

By the originator, yes. By the recipient, it's a perception, perhaps a disturbance, if it influences some perception the recipient is controlling.

Can't we have faith and hope in our ability to change the meaning?

Yes.

Who says I can't control for changes in meaning?

You can, under some conditions, but it really depends on what perceptions you are controlling when you change the meaning of a word as an originator. As a recipient, you may have to try different possible meanings in creating a perception of the originator's intent. See "xbvirlf" above.

Isn't that what we call adjusting?

Perhaps.

Isn't that part of what the reorganizing system does?

I wouldn't say so.

Why did you assign it to the reorganizing system?

Since you ask that of Bill P., I can't answer. I would just say that for myself, I wouldn't.

Let me do it.

I wanna do it.

Pleeeeease. Pretty please.

Do what? You are permitted to do anything that will help you control your perceptions. If your actions disturb perceptions I am controlling, I may act to counter your actions, but I could not "let" or "forbid" you to act other than by providing environmental constraints that provide or fail to provide the possibility of your actions, and in any case I have no power to influence those environmental constraints.

If you want to use words in ways that you have reason to believe will not affect me as you wish me to be affected, then you are not controlling your perception of me very well -- you will fail to communicate.

So, if "Let me do it" refers to using words as Humpty-Dumpty would (they mean what I tell them to mean, no more and no less), that's fine. You can talk to yourself as originator and recipient, and nobody else will be any the wiser.

Sorry for the rant. I have no time to edit it, but your message did disturb perceptions I control, to an extent that the error exceeded my tolerance limits. I have hope (though not necessarily faith) that my unedited screed may have some of the effect I desire.

I'm away for 5 weeks starting Friday, and have two incomplete reports to complete before then. Accordingly I may well not respond to further messages in this thread, at least not for a month and a half.

Martin

I woke up this morning thinking
of your original impetus to PCT. You said it was your
“realization that people don’t control the meanings of words, they
control perceptions.”
[From Bill Powers (2007.06.05.0830 MDT)]

Jim Dundon 06.05.07.0800edt –

Jim, it sounds to me as if your questions concern simple points that an
understanding of the model would clear up.

The class “perceptions” is a lot larger than the class
“words.” Most perceptions are not words.

Does not that
entire sentence control the meaning of the words embodied in
it.

Of course. We can control the perceptions of the type we call words. We
do it whenever we talk or write, or imagine words. But words are just a
special class of perceptions that we use as a way of pointing to other
perceptions. Many perceptions have no names at all – for example, the
particular relationship you can see between two leaves on a tree.
Consider the word “loud”. What perception is indicated by that
word? If you simply put words aside, it’s easy to experience loudness
directly, without calling it anything. You can use a knob or button on a
TV set or a radio to control that perception, making it greater or
smaller, without talking about it or naming it. And notice that when you
turn the knob, the amount of the perception changes, but the word doesn’t
change. The word is just a label attached to a perception. If you control
the word “loudness” to make it
“loudness” or
“LOUDNESS” you’ve changed the word, but you
haven’t changed the amount of sound you hear coming out of the radio or
TV.

Aren’t meanings of
words perceptions at the higher levels?

Yes, some are. Some are at the same level as words (for example, the
meaning of “word”) and some meanings are at lower levels (for
example, the meaning of “red”). Most words, however, are
associated with categories rather than specific perceptions. When we say
“dog” we mean a rather large set of configurations ranging from
a chihuahua to an Irish wolf-hound. Any configuration in that set is
called “a dog.”

You and I continue
to use words with a measure of faith. How can we talk without both
a measure of uncertanty and a measure of faith. Isn’t that what we
call hope?

I guess faith and hope are words that supposedly mean good things, but
what do they mean? To me, faith means believing something in spite of the
evidence to the contrary, and hope means pretending that some
low-probability outcome will very likely happen. I don’t have much use
for either one. You must be talking about something else. I can’t tell
from your words.

If meanings of
words change, who changes them?

Don’t we.

Yes. It’s hard to do, though, because the connection between a word and
its normal meaning gets to be automatic with a small amount of practice,
and I don’t think anyone knows how the connection is established.
If I tell you that three periods in a row in a sentence is called an
“ellipsis”, when I say “ellipsis.” you will soon
visualize … After that it’s pretty hard to forget that connection,
though I suppose you can do it with time.

Is it not a
controlled variable?

Yes, but it’s very hard to control, and controlling it is a very slow
process. Well, I can think of some exceptions to that (ellipsis) for
example when the “words” are algebraic symbols. We use the
symbol Y to stand for some particular physical variable while working on
one problem, and later use it to stand for a different variable in a
different problem. But most of the words of common language seem to get
connected to one perception or set of perceptions and then stay
connected. Context, of course, does help in changing the meanings when
appropriate. When hearing words, “the bells are pealing” and
“my skin is peeling” give two different meanings to the same
(-sounding) word.

Can’t we have faith
and hope in our ability to change the meaning?

That doesn’t affect our ability to change meanings. It just changes our
feelings of faith and hope about it, which is OK if that’s all you
want.

Who says I can’t
control for changes in meaning?

You have my permission, go right
ahead. But if you play around with that too much you won’t be able to
read what I write.
Isn’t that what we call
adjusting?

Call it anything you like. Call it Henry.

Isn’t that part of
what the reorganizing system does?

Why did you assign it to the reorganizing system?

Let me do it.

I wanna do it.

Pleeeeease. Pretty please.

You can leap high buildings and catch speeding bullets if just wanting to
is enough. Give it a try and see what happens. Try stamping on the ground
and holding your breath until you turn blue. Maybe that will
work.

Best,

Bill P.

[Jim Dundon 06.05.07.1159edt]

[From Bill Powers (2007.06.05.0830 MDT)]

Jim Dundon 06.05.07.0800edt --

Jim, it sounds to me as if your questions concern simple points that
an understanding of the model would clear up.

I think you mean 'incorporation'. But standing under it is not bad either. Carefull, that's a metaphor. If I understand Martin's post, you an expert at PCTing. . Am I getting there?

I woke up this morning thinking of your original impetus to
PCT. You said it was your "realization that people don't control
the meanings of words, they control perceptions."

The class "perceptions" is a lot larger than the class "words." Most
perceptions are not words.

You made the comparison/distinction. It appears to me that your use of words in the second part belies the statement in the first part. So it has bothered me a lot.

Therefore based on some of what you say below might not a more accurate, more scientific, more complete and honest statement be:

With the exception of the meanings of the words in "people control perceptions", and all terminolgy internal to the system "PCT' people do not control the meanings of words.

This would be a more complete recognition of what is happenning.

I would consider that honest.

In which case I would ask you to prove that, and if you then embarked on your proof having enabled yourself to do that by establishing clear meanings, you will have in effect proven your first staement to be a lie therefore contraditing /erasing/deleting yourself. I don't want that to happen. I want to keep you around. I like you. Sorry about that.

How do you know that people control perceptions is true?

I am suggesting you know it is true because you agree with yourself and others to control the meanings of the words, a thing you said cannot be done.

That is how each of us knows something is true. We make it true. To true something is to touch it, to trust it, to faith it, to word it into existence.

Science is by agreement, with oneself and others, on terming.

That is a planned action, something else you said people cannot do.

Did you not 'plan' to develope a theory of behavior which is true at all times and in all places?

If it was not a plan it must have been SR

I certainly make plans. At larger time scales I may plan to go to work today. If I agree with you that people cannot plan actions it requires that I work in a very short time frame. It requires that I become completely stimulus response. "people cannot plan their action" sounds similar to the Pauline doctrine of "do not say brethren that we will do such and such rather say god willing we will do such and such"

Would it not be more scientific to say "people cannot plan all the components of a planned action? Or they cannot plan at all time scales.

What is purposefull behavior if not planned action, hope?

When you ask someone to prove somethng don't you really mean "prove it to me?".

For all the science/rigor that scientists engage in, everything they hope others believe is still "suggested" indicating the need for cooperation in establishing the truth. And things do become true that way, that is the nature of truth, agreement in terming, with oneself and sometimes others. Richard Feynman describes the process as a " bunch of guys getting together in a room and deciding what it will be".

That is why I look at things people say as truths, Sometimes they are satisfying truths sometimes not, sometimes they can be improved on, sometimes not. But they are always truths. If I disagree with someone about something it is only over whether or not I want to make his truth my truth not over its truth.

···

___________________________________________________

Does not that entire sentence control the meaning of the words embodied in it.

Of course.

But it is opposite what you said

We can control the perceptions of the type we call words.
We do it whenever we talk or write, or imagine words. But words are
just a special class of perceptions that we use as a way of pointing
to other perceptions. Many perceptions have no names at all -- for
example, the particular relationship you can see between two leaves
on a tree.

You just gave it a name

Consider the word "loud". What perception is indicated by

that word? If you simply put words aside, it's easy to experience
loudness directly, without calling it anything.

But I could not know "it's easy to experience loudness directly, without calling it anything" without words. I must control their meaning, experiencing naming, [a thing you said cannot be done]. and arrange those words or allow the arranging to take place subconciously to allow a new experiencing naming.

You can use a knob or
button on a TV set or a radio to control that perception, making it
greater or smaller, without talking about it or naming it. And notice
that when you turn the knob, the amount of the perception changes,
but the word doesn't change. The word is just a label attached to a
perception. If you control the word "loudness" to make it "loudness"
or "LOUDNESS" you've changed the word,

I think it was the size of the letters indicating the word.

but you haven't changed the
amount of sound you hear coming out of the radio or TV.

Of course

Aren't meanings of words perceptions at the higher levels?

Yes, some are. Some are at the same level as words (for example, the
meaning of "word") and some meanings are at lower levels (for
example, the meaning of "red"). Most words, however, are associated
with categories rather than specific perceptions. When we say "dog"
we mean a rather large set of configurations ranging from a chihuahua
to an Irish wolf-hound. Any configuration in that set is called "a dog."

You and I continue to use words with a measure of faith. How can we
talk without both a measure of uncertanty and a measure of
faith. Isn't that what we call hope?

I guess faith and hope are words that supposedly mean good things,
but what do they mean? To me, faith means believing something in
spite of the evidence to the contrary,

Yes, if you give it that meaning, and that is why you don't have much for use it. I guess from a PCT perspective it is a principals levels thing. Where in PCT does change in meaning take place, for understanding as you asked me to do, for incorporation?

What is the signal that says incorporate, understand, change meaning of word.

People faith [verb intended] It is something people do. Want me to prove it? I just did, to my satisfaction. I can't prove it to you, only you can do that, by agreement with you. When you said "People control perceptions", you did not voice "let us find something out about the world", but I see that as an unspoken content of your actions, and to me that constitutes faith and hope.

When you made that statement "people don't control the meanings of words, they control perceptions" do you notice there was no question about control? You took on faith that that was a given, and after that you proved it because you believed it. If you had not believed it you could not have proven it.

Your proof was the product of altenately believing/doubting/calculating-believing/doubting/calculating

You might just as well have started with prediction, People predict/control, same thing, as the song goes "you can't have one without the other" also concurrently is motor action, together they constitute faith. If you had started with

What is the motivation

and hope means pretending that
some low-probability outcome will very likely happen.

Yes. If you say so. But if you were to allow that it means that a high probability affords more hope, that would be true, and you would increase your degree of freedom.

Maybe you realize by now that the probability of the world accepting PCT was very slim 30 years ago. The probability today is higher because of all the work you and freinds have done.

When you made the speech at the CSG conference exhorting your freinds to work hard at promoting PCT that suggests a lot of hope and faith in your freinds.

So why the big tough guy show about how little use you have for them?

I don't have
much use for either one.

Except as they afford you an opportunity to reject them. If we apply PCT at what level does that reference value originate?

You must be talking about something else. I
can't tell from your words.

If meanings of words change, who changes them?
Don't we.

Yes. It's hard to do, though, because the connection between a word
and its normal meaning gets to be automatic with a small amount of
practice, and I don't think anyone knows how the connection is
established. If I tell you that three periods in a row in a sentence
is called an "ellipsis", when I say "ellipsis." you will soon
visualize ... After that it's pretty hard to forget that connection,
though I suppose you can do it with time.

Is it not a controlled variable?

Yes, but it's very hard to control, and controlling it is a very slow
process.

I think you mean controling for a variation in meaning is a slow process.
Is this reorganization?

Well, I can think of some exceptions to that (ellipsis) for

example when the "words" are algebraic symbols. We use the symbol Y
to stand for some particular physical variable while working on one
problem, and later use it to stand for a different variable in a
different problem. But most of the words of common language seem to
get connected to one perception or set of perceptions and then stay
connected. Context, of course, does help in changing the meanings
when appropriate. When hearing words, "the bells are pealing" and "my
skin is peeling" give two different meanings to the same (-sounding) word.

Can't we have faith and hope in our ability to change the meaning?

That doesn't affect our ability to change meanings.

As I indicated above, my truthfull use of the words does, your truthfull use does not.

Zero faith would probably prevent it altogether, I would be depressed, sad. Allowing a measure of faith would open possibilities, hope would provide time.

our feelings of faith and hope about it, which is OK if that's all you want.

Who says I can't control for changes in meaning?

You have my permission, go right ahead. But if you play around with
that too much you won't be able to read what I write.

Yes: so people do control meanings, and the first part of your original statement describing the basis for PCT is not very scientifically clear.

I rest my case. Thanks for helping me prove it.

Isn't that what we call adjusting?

Call it anything you like. Call it Henry.

Isn't that part of what the reorganizing system does?
Why did you assign it to the reorganizing system?
Let me do it.

I wanna do it.

Pleeeeease. Pretty please.

You can leap high buildings and catch speeding bullets if just
wanting to is enough. Give it a try and see what happens. Try
stamping on the ground and holding your breath until you turn blue.
Maybe that will work.

Best,

Bill P.

[Martin Taylor 2007.06.07.00.01]

[Jim Dundon 06.05.07.1159edt]

[From Bill Powers (2007.06.05.0830 MDT)]

Jim Dundon 06.05.07.0800edt --

Jim, it sounds to me as if your questions concern simple points that
an understanding of the model would clear up.

I think you mean 'incorporation'. But standing under it is not bad either. Carefull, that's a metaphor. If I understand Martin's post, you an expert at PCTing. . Am I getting there?

I woke up this morning thinking of your original impetus to
PCT. You said it was your "realization that people don't control
the meanings of words, they control perceptions."

The class "perceptions" is a lot larger than the class "words." Most
perceptions are not words.

You made the comparison/distinction. It appears to me that your use of words in the second part belies the statement in the first part. So it has bothered me a lot.

Therefore based on some of what you say below might not a more accurate, more scientific, more complete and honest statement be:

With the exception of the meanings of the words in "people control perceptions", and all terminolgy internal to the system "PCT' people do not control the meanings of words.

This would be a more complete recognition of what is happenning.

I would consider that honest.

Jim,

Using the thoughts in my posting, which you claim to have read, I understand you to be controlling some aspect of the meaning of words -- you want to create some kind of effect on your readers. That effect is the reference value of a perception you are controlling for. To achieve that effect, you transmit strings of words. The meaning, to you, of what you write, is the perception you want to have of the effect on your readers. You control that perception by your choice of words.

Now, when I read what you write, the effect is one of bewilderment. Very little of it makes sense within any context I understand. So, your meaning is not, I assume, the meaning I get from your words. (Unless, of course, bewilderment is the effect you want to achieve).

Likewise, I think that the meaning to you of my long, unedited rant, is not the meaning I intended when I wrote it. If it had been, I doubt you could have written what you wrote both above and below, to Bill -- at least not if you indent the conversation to be cooperative. You use the word "honest", which to me does connote soemthing about be cooperative and trying to get the other party to understand what you are trying to get across.

Bill was indeed being honest, and quite exact in writing:

The class "perceptions" is a lot larger than the class "words." Most
perceptions are not words.

My failure to understand you starts with your comment on that statement. How does Bill's "use of words" as a medium of communication to you "belie" the obvious fact that one can perceive words, as well as a lot of things that are not words?

I believe I understood what you said, but I don't understand why you said it. However, when we continue with your comemntary, I simply don't understand what you are trying to say, so the words have little or no meaning other than bewilderment.

How do you know that people control perceptions is true?

One of the beauties of Science is that one NEVER knows that a statement is true. If you have been following CSGnet for a while, you will know that periodically the topic resurfaces as to what about "real reality" is ever knowable.

Leaving aside the kind of absolutism that requires one to know that statement X is true, we can talk a bit about why it is consistent with the general body of Science that people (and all other living things) MUST control perceptions. You can look through the CSGnet archives for my discussions on that, or see the Editorial in the PCT Special Issue of the International Journal of Human Computer Studies. I won't go into it again, except to point out that it simply follows directly from the Second law of Thermodynamics.

I am suggesting you know it is true because you agree with yourself and others to control the meanings of the words, a thing you said cannot be done.

That is how each of us knows something is true. We make it true. To true something is to touch it, to trust it, to faith it, to word it into existence.

Science is by agreement, with oneself and others, on terming.

That is a planned action, something else you said people cannot do.

Maybe I missed something, but I don't remember Bill saying people can't plan. What is a reference sequence if it isn't a plan?

Anyway, I can't really comment on the rest of your message, without knowing a little more about what is the meaning you are controlling for in your use of words.

And I won't be likely to make much more comment because I'm leaving tomorrow for 5 weeks.

From this point on, I'm afraid bewilderment gives way to bemusement. The words remind me of abstract poetry, nice sounds but so significance that I can discover. What little meaning comes through to me sounds sometimes like solipsism, and sometimes like an extreme version of Whorfianism, the one being irrefutable, the other being long since discredited (at least among psycholinguists).

Sorry.

Martin