From Tom Bourbon [931217.1348]
[From Chuck Tucker 931217]
I have been trying to recall where I had read a statement about
"mere perception" that was quite relevant to many of the posts
on CSG-L about PCT and Control Theory. The quote I was thingking
of comes from the first page of Chapter 6 (sorry, my copy has no
page number of Tom Peters and Nancy Austin's (1985) A PASSION FOR
EXCELLENCE. NY: Random House and reads:
. . . [After the lead in, there is:]
However, in five of the six it was noted that
persistently the approach was: "We're OK. It's ONLY a
perception problem." . . .
A "mere" perception problem. The real problem is that
PERCEPTION IS ALL THERE IS. There is no reality as such.
There is only perceived reality, the way each of us
chooses to perceive a communication, the value of a
service, the value of a particular product feature, the
quality of a product. The real IS what we perceive.
As the First Commandment of the formal, written
Customer Philosophy at a successful forest-products
retailer says: Feelings ARE facts." .......
An interesting example, Chuck. And I support the use to which you put it
when you urge us to use our daily activites as "laboratories" where we can
test our ideas about PCT and other kinds of CT. Still, there is something
that seems pretty "mainstream" and "traditional" about the way Peters and
Austin use the word "perception." It looks as though by "perception" they
mean "a way of looking at experience" -- a way of "interpreting" or
"feeling about" experience. I get that impression when they speak of
perception as "the way each of us chooses to perceive . . . the value of a
service, the value of a particular product feature, the quality of a
product." It looks as though they identify perception with the assignment
of *interpretations* such as relative degrees of value and quality; I'll bet
they don't go so far as to include as "just perceptions" or "mere
perceptions" the services, products, and features of products to which they
say people ascribe value and quality.
Of course, you only posted a brief passage from their book, but if that
passage is any clue I'll bet they accept a sensed or experienced world that
is pretty much shared by everyone, with problems arising over
"perceptions" of those experiences -- perceptions in the form of assigned
interpretations and meanings. That construal of perception is often what
people have in mind when they say something like, "it's only a perception,"
or "it's just a matter of different perceptions." Do you have any
impression of how far they carry their idea that it is ALL perception? Am I
jumping too quickly to the idea that they are mainstream on this point?
···
===============================
[From Rick Marken (931217.1100)]
Cliff Joslyn (931217 10:12) to Martin Taylor --
Cliff to Martin:
could you please lay out in
mathematical detail the simplest occurence of negative feedback in
natural systems?
Perhaps a private reply would be in order.
Rick:
I want to see it too. So I vote for putting it on the net.
Let me make it two votes for "on the net." Cliff requested a mathematical
presentation; Rick, a graphical one. Martin, I would like to see either, or
both. *Perhaps* such a presentation would help clear up a bit of the
confusion evident in the recent discussion about negative feedback, purpose
and control. (I did say "perhaps.")
Until later,
Tom
requested