[From Bruce Kodish 980822.08:45 PDT]
To Bill Powers with comments for Dick Robertson:
Re your comments below:
<<
[From Bill Powers (980822.0244 MDT)]
Bruce Kodish 980821.21:00 PT--
>In a message dated 98-08-21 19:41:49 EDT, Tim Cary wrote:
>
><<
> I heard a catchy phrase once from a course I did (NLP I think) ... "If you
> always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always
> got"
> >>
>
>Hi Tim,
>
>Just to confuse things ( 8-> ), from a PCT point of view (at least the way I
>understand it) that doesn't seem accurate.
Very nice catch, Bruce K. Goes to show you how we let words push us around.
Of course if you translate "do" into "control for" it comes out a little
different, doesn't it?
Best,
Bill P.
>>
Hi Bill,
With that translation the quote doesn't appear inconsistent with PCT.
Although it's common parlance to talk as if the words have meanings, i.e.,
"push us around" [I talk that way myself sometimes], it seems useful to
remember that how I interpret a sequence of words like Tim's quote more
accurately qualifies as a perception that I control for.
As you point out here, it might under some circumstances serve me better to
control for another 'word-meaning' perception. With the interpretation that
you suggest, I have some new options for controlling differently,i.e., in my
conversations with Tim. So in that sense the quote applies to our discussion
about the quote. Flexibility in controlling for different 'meanings' seems
useful.
Interesting to hear of your history at Northwestern with Irving [not Oliver]
J. Lee. Unless you took a g-s course there with a cousin of his. 8->. I
envy you. The Institute of General Semantics made a tape of a series of
lectures that he gave on t.v. in , I believe, 1952. Seeing that, I felt
greatly impressed with his mastery as a communicator/teacher. He
unfortunately died young in the late 50's of cancer.
Hayakawa, certainly knew how to tap dance didn't he? His relation to
Korzybski's work has some rough analogy to Glasser in relation to you. Not to
disparage Hayakawa too much! [Actually, I have found some useful things in
Glasser's writings. They did lead me to you after all. However, Glasser ,
IMO doesn't control much for rigor and his speculations, IMO, often get stated
with more assurance than they deserve.] Hayakawa's writing, in its own right,
seems a great deal more rigorous than Glasser's.
Unfortunately, Hayakawa distorted some significant aspects of Korzybski's
work.
His "ladder of abstraction'" doesn't really get to the hierachical nature of
the abstracting (perceiving) process or the circular relation of it to
behavior (action) which Korzybski emphasized often. Korzybski though didn't
have very much of an understanding of the mechanism involved. That's what you
have developed much further.
In relation to this, Dick Robertson wrote a few things that I would like to
comment on:
Thanks for your kind words about IMP. I have read Hyakawa, and I think
I even took a course from him. I thought there was quite a bit of value
in General Semantics during my graduate school years, but once I got
into PCT I haven't continued any further with it. I also have had some
Alexander work with a friend who was simultaneously training in
Bioenergetics. I then went through Bioenergetic training and use it
sometimes in my practice. I adds a lot to my understanding of us humans
as a body, first of all. For a while I tried to relate it with PCT, but
in the end I decided they were orthogonal, sort of like physicists need
two ways to think about light. In the end you might find that GEN Sem
continues valuable for you but that you can't "combine" it with
PCT--except maybe as a way of understanding a class of variables that we
control.>>
Dick, the exception that you note here [I take that you're referring to
language, symbol using, i.e, the higher hierachical levels of control which
Korzybski particularly focused on], definitely has great interest to me as an
area of study in relation to PCT. I personally make an assumption of the
unity of nature (ourselves included). Korzybski's work, distorted by
Hayakawa, was focused on the unification of the sciences and establishing a
foundation for, as he put it, "a science of man". PCT obviously has
implications for this. If some of Korzybski's claims appear at odds with PCT,
I will not feel happy about leaving inconsistencies lie. I will want to
examine and revise what I can, based on applying a scientific attitude in the
best way I can.
Sometimes as you note, viewpoints or theories [like PCT and Bioenergetics]
seem orthogonal and we deal with it. I personally think that Reich and Lowen
'had their fingers' on some very significant phenomena and techniques. I also
think that until someone finds a way of connecting their work to the body of
accepted science, they will remain on the fringe, however useful some of
their stuff may be. What if PCT does have some useful connection to
Bioenergetics that could help Bioenergitics become more rigorous as a theory?
Having seen enough of the CSG archive material, I feel loath to join the
chorus of those who in discovering PCT then decide they need to tell you guys
that I or my favorite thinker, theory etc. had already been there. As I
said, Korzybski was moving towards but didn't grasp with any exactness the
mechanism of hierachical control by negative feedback. If you feel that I
ever try to fit the round peg of PCT in the square hole of something else
where it doesn't fit, then by all means say something. My primary intention
here is to learn PCT from the experts.
Enough,
Bruce Kodish
