Monkeys of the world unite!

Richard_Marken2 · September 20, 2003, 4:40pm

[From Rick Marken (2003.09.20.0940)]

Researchers at the Yerkes laboratory report that monkeys will protest
getting unequal rewards for equal work. Monkeys who see their
colleagues get highly desired grapes for work that produced only a
piece of cucumber for themselves will stop working (pressing for
tokens) for cucumbers. The researchers see this as evidence of the
monkey's ability to detect "fairness", which would mean that the
monkeys can perceive and control the world in terms of _principles_.
This would mean that the monkeys are at about the same level of
perceptual development as most four year old children, who can can
perceive this principle, and at a higher level of perceptual
development than the president of the US, who can't.

But I think the researchers are evaluating these results in terms of
their own perceptual capabilities. They see the monkey's behavior as
control at the principle level because _they_ can perceive this
behavior in terms of principles. But the monkeys could be controlling
at a somewhat lower -- but still surprisingly sophisticated -- level.
They could, for example, just be controlling for a _relationship_
between actions and results. They want to produce the relationship
produced by their colleagues but can't so they start reorganizing. It
would be interesting to know what the monkeys do after they see their
colleagues getting grapes instead of cucumbers. I would guess that
their activity level increases considerably, which would be a sign of a
higher rate of reorganization.

Maybe we could suggest tests for these researchers to do to determine
what these monkeys are actually controlling for. Any ideas?

Best

Rick

···

---

Richard S. Marken
marken@mindreadings
Home 310 474-0313
Cell 310 729-1400

bnhpct · September 21, 2003, 1:47am

[From Bruce Nevin (2003.09.20.2147 EDT)]

Rick Marken (2003.09.20.0940)–

[…] But the monkeys could be
controlling

at a somewhat lower – but still surprisingly sophisticated –
level.

They could, for example, just be controlling for a relationship

between actions and results. They want to produce the relationship

produced by their colleagues but can’t so they start reorganizing.
It

would be interesting to know what the monkeys do after they see
their

colleagues getting grapes instead of cucumbers. I would guess
that

their activity level increases considerably, which would be a sign of
a

higher rate of reorganization.

Many researchers think that humans control, at a hypothesized Principle
level, perceptions such as ‘fairness’. But the humans could be
controlling at a somewhat lower (but still surprisingly sophisticated)
level. They could, for example, just be controlling for a
relationship between actions and results. They perceive their own
actions (behavioral outputs) and those of their neighbors. The perceive
that some desired consequence follows after their neighbor’s action, but
does not follow after their own, like action. They perceive their
neighbor controlling that contingency relationship in order to obtain the
desired outcome, and they try to do likewise. When they are unable to
produce the relationship (and therefore the desired outcome) as their
neighbor does, they are unable to, so (according to the present
hypothesis) they start reorganizing.

After they see their neighbor getting the desired outcome, their activity
level increases considerably. This is consistent with a higher rate of
reorganization.

The researchers claim that the humans are only frustrated and angry at
the unfairness of this differential treatment, and that this is a normal
“righteous indignation” response of humans when they are unable
to control this ‘fairness’ perception. It seems likely that this is an
instance of verbal illusions. The researchers are suffering from the
commonplace confusion, “if there is a word for it, it must
exist.” The vocabulary items “fair” and “unfair”
exist in their shared language, and have been used by parents, teachers,
and peers all their lives to label the perceptible effects of
reorganization when certain kinds of perceptions involving social
relationships cannot be controlled, so they hypostatize (reify) these
words as supposed Principle perceptions.

Maybe we could suggest tests for these researchers to do to
determine

what these humans are actually controlling for. Any ideas?

    /Bruce

Nevin

···

At 09:40 AM 9/20/2003 -0700, Rick Marken wrote:

Richard_Marken2 · September 21, 2003, 4:46pm

[From Rick Marken (2003.09.21.0945)]

Bruce Nevin (2003.09.20.2147 EDT)--

The researchers claim that the humans are only frustrated and angry at the unfairness of this differential treatment,

The researchers did the study with _monkeys_. But the NPR reporter who described the research did repeat the study with his kids (who sounded adorably human), and got the same result.

and that this is a normal "righteous indignation" response of humans when they are unable to control this 'fairness' perception.

I don't know whether or not the researchers thought that the monkeys' (or the kids') refusal to do the same work for unequal pay was normal. What they did seem to conclude was that this refusal was an indication that the monkeys (and the kids) could _perceive_ what was going on in terms of a principle: fairness.

It seems likely that this is an instance of verbal illusions. The researchers are suffering from the commonplace confusion, "if there is a word for it, it must exist."

It depends on what you mean by "exist". Surely if there is a word _for_ it,that "it" must exist as a perception. Otherwise the word is not a word _for_ anything at all. There was words for nothing at all (as in scat singing). But "fairness" doesn't seem to be one of them. At least, for me, "fairness" points to a perception. And it seems to point to the same perception in the other English speakers with whom I converse since they all act as though they know exactly what I'm talking about (though they don't always agree on what they see as "fair" or "unfair").

The vocabulary items "fair" and "unfair" exist in their shared
language, and have been used by parents, teachers, and
peers all their lives to label the perceptible effects of reorganization
when certain kinds of perceptions involving social relationships
cannot be controlled

Then fairness _does_ refer to a perception, right. And it seems to refer to the same perception for you as it does for me. There's no illusion there. For me, like you, "fairness" points to a certain aspects of human relationships. You describe those aspects as "the effects of reorganization". I'd describe them as inequalities in the treatment of people (or monkeys) by other people (or monkeys).

so they hypostatize (reify) these words as supposed Principle perceptions.

I don't see how a word can be "reified as a principle perception". Principle perceptions are actual perceptions of principles. I can perceive fairness, honesty, control of the center (in chess), etc. Reification (as I understand it) would be assuming that were really concrete entities out there that corresponded to the perceptions pointed at by the words "fairness", "honesty" or "control of the center".

Words are perceptions that point to other perceptions. "Blue" points to a particular sensation perception (the state of a perceptual variable that includes "yellow" and "green"); "fly ball" points to a particular event perception (the state of a perceptual variable that includes "line drive" and "bunt") ; and "unfair" points to a particular principle perception (the lower end of of a perceptual continuum that is topped by "fair").

The question I had was whether the monkey experiment demonstrates that monkeys can perceive (and control) the principle perception pointed at by the word "fairness" or whether the same behavior would be seen if the monkeys were controlling some other, lower level perception. How would one test this?

Best regards

Rick

···

---
Richard S. Marken
marken@mindreadings
Home 310 474-0313
Cell 310 729-1400

Richard_Marken2 · September 23, 2003, 1:41pm

[From Rick Marken (2003.09.23.0940)]

Kenny Kitzke (2003.09.23)--

<Rick Marken (2003.09.20.0940)>

<This would mean that the monkeys are at about the same level of
perceptual development as most four year old children, who can can
perceive this principle, and at a higher level of perceptual
development than the president of the US, who can't.>

Another inane and unscientific political remark by Marken. It never ends.
Political and theological slams on a supposedly scientific forum. Ugh.

I ran it by Linda, my arbiter of good taste, before posting and she liked it a lot
and said I should post it. So it's her fault;-) She agrees that, given the
disastrous things this president is doing to our country and the world, it
behooves all of us to do what we can to publicize this guy's horrible record
before he turns this place into his own fevered vision of apocalypse.

<They could, for example, just be controlling for a _relationship_
between actions and results. They want to produce the relationship
produced by their colleagues but can't so they start reorganizing.>

Yes, that is one example it could be. I suppose it could be any number of
things the monkeys are controlling for; like the taste in their own mouth of
grapes versus cucumbers they can get for their "earned" tokens?

OK. How would you _test_ this? You have hypothesized a controlled variable; now
what do you do to determine that this is, indeed, the variable under control.
Actually, if the researchers did the study properly they would already have ruled
out "taste of grapes" as the controlled variable. Presumably, they saw that the
monkeys would cash the chips for cucumbers before seeing that the other monkeys
got grapes for the chips. If they didn't observe this the results would be a lot
less interesting.

But, is your speculation about the monkeys reorganizing in this experiment any
more scientific or proven than the researchers speculation that these primates
are exhibiting an "ancestral trait that may prevail among primates" in being
aware of inequality or injustice?

No. Of course not. It's not the speculation that is "scientific" or not. Science
comes in when you _test_ the speculation. I was asking for suggestions about how
to _test_ speculations about what the monkeys are controlling for.

Rick, if monkeys, or humans, get incensed (angry) when not able to get what they
want (grapes and not cukes) by their actions, is this always a sign that
reorganization is taking place?

"Angry" is an interpretation of what is observed. I would have to have a far
better description of what the monkeys do in order to know whether or not they
might be reorganizing. Reorganization shows up as a high frequency of different
actions that don't produce any consistent consequence. A child throwing a
"tantrum" is, I think, an extreme example of reorganization.

Or, is such error just a reason for behavior?

Anger and error are not quite the same thing. Anger is a word that describes
behavior; error is a component of a theory of behavior.

And is it proven that the angrier one becomes the greater the rate of
reorganization?

There is nothing to prove. Anger is an informal description of behavior;
reorganization is a theoretical explanation of change in behavior.

Don't we have PCT experiments with animals, and humans, that demonstrate that
behavior/action increases with greater perceived error?

We have one experiment that shows a higher rate of responding (presumably
reflecting reorganization) when a person learns to do a task in a new way. That's
the Robertson-Glines experiment. I don't have the reference off hand.

I thought we reorganize only when there is no conceivable behavior left that can
reduce the error at the highest level of our perception; that we begin to
reorganize (which is not behavior at all)?

No. Reorganization is presumably going on always. The _rate_ of reorganization
(the rate of change over time in control system parameters) varies as a function
of the quality of control exerted by _any_ control system in the hierarchy; the
better the control exerted by a control system, the slower the rate of
reorganization; the poorer the control, the higher the rate of reorganization.

<Maybe we could suggest tests for these researchers to do to determine
what these monkeys are actually controlling for. Any ideas?>

Yes, give some monkeys a tax reduction on their token earnings and see if their
jealousy and anger subsides while the other monkeys stick with their cukes or
grapes.

There was no tax taken in the original study. I think you're just making an
unscientific political remark, which is certainly fine with me.

These human-like ancestors of yours might develop more human-like tendencies.
They might work harder for more tokens, and along with keeping more of their
take-home tokens, become able to afford ice cream now instead of grapes. They
may become happy entrepreneurial capitalists, even registered Republicans!

Or they may realize that the taxes are used to support the maintenance of vital
infrastructure -- highways, schools, police, sewers, hospitals, libraries, parks,
etc. -- which are essential to the group. They will see that income is not an
incentive but a controlled variable and that giving more income per unit work (by
reducing taxes) is likely to _decrease_ the amount of effort people put into
getting the income (except for those in the lowest income bracket, who will appear
to respond to the increased income as though it were an incentive because the
increased effort now actually _does_ get income closer to the reference). If they
did this the monkeys would actually be doing better than people, proving what I
had always suspected --- that people are a step backward in evolution;-)

One wonders whether politicians (or the masses) even look at data. In 1993, when
Clinton eked out the tax increase by 1 vote, the deficit (which was well into the
red in 1992) started moving toward zero and continued to decrease through the
"high tax" 90s. We actually moved into surplus in about 1999. At the same time,
all other aspects of the economy improved, far better than they had in the "low
tax" 80s. Then Bush came in, passed the tax cuts and the deficit curve
_instantly_ started heading south (shortly after the election). And the rest of
the economic picture has been pretty ugly as well. (This was exactly what I had
predicted, by the way, based on my closed loop model of the economy). Despite this
clear evidence that the Bush tax cuts have been either useless or, more likely,
destructive, the Republicans continue to tout tax cuts as a good thing,
economically. Ignoring reality in favor of ideology is a sign, I believe, of
insanity; we are being led by crazy people. That's why it behooves those of us who
see that the emperor has no clothes to speak up, for the sake of our country and
the world.

Best

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Senior Behavioral Scientist
The RAND Corporation
PO Box 2138
1700 Main Street
Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138
Tel: 310-393-0411 x7971
Fax: 310-451-7018
E-mail: rmarken@rand.org

Kenneth_Kitzke_Value · September 23, 2003, 2:31pm

[From Kenny Kitzke (2003.09.23)]

I perceive these researchers are acting more like monkeys than their subjects.

Another inane and unscientific political remark by Marken. It never ends. Political and theological slams on a supposedly scientific forum. Ugh.

This is so much better. A PCT based scientific comment questioning the conclusion of the observing “researchers.” Hooray.

Another gem from PCT science.

Yes, that is one example it could be. I suppose it could be any number of things the monkeys are controlling for; like the taste in their own mouth of grapes versus cucumbers they can get for their “earned” tokens?

But, is your speculation about the monkeys reorganizing in this experiment any more scientific or proven than the researchers speculation that these primates are exhibiting an “ancestral trait that may prevail among primates” in being aware of inequality or injustice?

What the monkeys do after receiving unequal rewards (or different rewards than they desire) for the same task is known and observable. The researches say the unfairly treated monkey becomes jealous!! That seems to be at the “systems” level. Holy cow, these monkeys are very much like humans! Humans must have evolved from these monkeys!

The monkeys, out of their jealousy, would then often become incensed. So I guess their observable behavior would change given this emotional state according to normal psychological researchers.

Rick, if monkeys, or humans, get incensed (angry) when not able to get what they want (grapes and not cukes) by their actions, is this always a sign that reorganization is taking place? Or, is such error just a reason for behavior?

And is it proven that the angrier one becomes the greater the rate of reorganization? Don’t we have PCT experiments with animals, and humans, that demonstrate that behavior/action increases with greater perceived error? I thought we reorganize only when there is no conceivable behavior left that can reduce the error at the highest level of our perception; that we begin to reorganize (which is not behavior at all)?

<Maybe we could suggest tests for these researchers to do to determine
what these monkeys are actually controlling for. Any ideas?

Best

Yes, give some monkeys a tax reduction on their token earnings and see if their jealousy and anger subsides while the other monkeys stick with their cukes or grapes. These human-like ancestors of yours might develop more human-like tendencies. They might work harder for more tokens, and along with keeping more of their take-home tokens, become able to afford ice cream now instead of grapes. They may become happy entrepreneurial capitalists, even registered Republicans!

Kenneth_Kitzke_Value · September 24, 2003, 12:15am

[From Kenny Kitzke (2003.09.03.1900EDT)]

That was Adam’s excuse about Eve’s taste too.

Oh, I don’t mind your expressing such political views to your heart’s content (even though they are a minority view). Shout it from the roof top, write letters, march in demonstrations, help old ladies go to the polls and vote against DubU. But, why do you have to express your views, and include a cheap shot besides, on a PCT forum?

The comments about the researchers experiments and conclusions that monkeys must be aware of inequality and unfairness are relevant to a PCT understanding of the behavior of living things. And, your questioning their conclusions are right on.

The political digs and cheap shot about the intelligence of our President are inappropriate here IMHO, and probably anywhere, at least by civilized and intelligent humans. Monkeys may disagree. 8=))

<OK. How would you test this? You have hypothesized a controlled variable; now what do you do to determine that this is, indeed, the variable under control.>

I might inject the grapes with cucumber juice and then observe whether the monkeys still seem jealous and incensed that the other monkeys are getting grapes. Would that do it?

<Actually, if the researchers did the study properly they would already have ruled out “taste of grapes” as the controlled variable.>

Well, Rick, call them up and teach them the proper ways. And, make sure they understand what controlled variables are too. You brought the study up, not me.

<“Angry” is an interpretation of what is observed. I would have to have a far better description of what the monkeys do in order to know whether or not they might be reorganizing.>

Fine, but then why do you suggest that they are reorganizing? Here are your words from your original post: “They want to produce the relationship produced by their colleagues but can’t so they start reorganizing.” Interesting but based on mere specualtion. You have no data nor apparently any details of what the researchers did and did not do. If it is important to you to show the world they are wrong, get the facts and tell them, then tell the world.

I do not think you can conclude that. Tantrums can be a way of controlling perceptions to get what you want (for many children, what they want instead of a kick in the pants.) The “reorganization system” may not be doing a thing in tantrums. At least that is what I thought I learned from B:CP.

<No. Reorganization is presumably going on always. The rate of reorganization (the rate of change over time in control system parameters) varies as a function of the quality of control exerted by any control system in the hierarchy; the better the control exerted by a control system, the slower the rate of reorganization; the poorer the control, the higher the rate of reorganization.>

Well, since you can’t seem to act and control anything that DubU does, I guess you are reorganizing at warp speed.

Wrong again, Rick. I was just trying to have some fun disturbing you. I could not care less about politics.

Save your political and economic agenda for someone else. I am not interested. I highly doubt that you will be able to save the world. Oh, OTOH, you might want to explain in a private post how DubU has gotten Calie fornia in such a political and economic ditch. It couldn’t be that monkey elected as your Governer that is not too well informed?

Also, Patsy and I will be out in Santa Barbara from Oct.10-18. It would be wonderful if we could get together for a dinner. Then I can check out whether Linda really appraises your “good taste” and, if so, from where she gets her criteria. I am serious about this.

Also, isn’t that where President Reagan has his ranch? I do hope to see him while I am there. I do fear he might not remember me. But, I have some good stories to tell him anyway. If you can use your political influence to get me an appointment, I would be most grateful. I am not serious about this.

Kenny

bnhpct · September 24, 2003, 1:34am

[From Bruce Nevin (2003.09.23.2133 EDT)]
Sorry, Rick. I had no idea I was going to set you up for a diatribe. I
thought after I sent that post that I should have stuck to a simpler and
less provocative reply, something like …
I agree with your questioning whether monkeys have
a Principle-level perception of ‘fairness’.
Maybe the monkeys are perceiving relative status and potential for an
alliance. (That one is my peer, perhaps an ally. NO! She is favored over
me. We are no longer peers, she cannot be my ally.)
The same line of questioning applies equally to humans. How might we
prove that humans talking of ‘fairness’ are not actually only controlling
perceptions at lower levels. The observation that humans apply the word
‘fairness’ to what they are doing (and see others doing) is not the Test.
Much less the observation that they speak of these doings in a way that
English speakers translate as ‘fairness’. Such words might be no
more than a token of generalization, like phlogiston, or the dormitive
ingredient common to opiates and boring lectures. A generalization is a
perception, true, but generalizing is not the same as perceiving.
Now, elaborating on that brief message that I might have sent (and
now wish I had) …
Maybe Principles only exist because people talk about one another and
attempt to legislate how one another ought to behave, or to justify their
feelings and action. Perhaps some Principles, or all, amount to no more
than parallelism of words and syntax (the most superficial and seductive
of logics), and what we have called a Principle level is made possible by
language and culture, and is itself social and not biological (or,
specifically, neurological) in its nature.
Likewise (both more obviously and a fortiori), System
Concepts.

Now hold on, before you shoot back at that, read on for a bit.

Don’t we do the same as the monkeys here? We see that we get the same as
the other guy. Life is good. Then we see that we get something less than
the other guy. Hey! I’m just as good as him! What am I? Chopped banana
peel? How come he got a raise and I didn’t?

I don’t know about you, but I’m not convinced that the guy who was passed
over for a raise or promotion is controlling a Principle of
fairness.

Now, words and whatever it is that they may be ‘for’.

Rick Marken (2003.09.21.0945)–

It depends on what you mean by
“exist”. Surely if there is a word for it,that
“it” must exist as a perception. Otherwise the word is not a
word for anything at all.

Saying “there is a word for it” does indeed presuppose that
there must be an ‘it’ for the word to be ‘for’. Presuppositions are
sneaky. Our unthinking acceptance of this presupposition could easily be
mistaken, and in fact there are many words for which the only referent is
imaginary.

Imaginary. There’s the rub. Sure, an imagined perception is a perception.
But there’s a creative aspect of imagination that goes beyond the copying
of existing reference perceptions to the perceptual input. Creative
imagination constructs new perceptions. Given a word (in suitable context
of other words), we imagine a referent that we would not otherwise have
imagined. It hardly follows that there was an ‘it’ to which the word
referred.

But oh, that rub keeps rubbing. If I imagine that such a referent exists,
and speak of it with careless conviction, you are very likely to accept
the presupposition that it exists. Indeed, to understand what I am
saying, you must. So people who exchange talk with one another wind up
with the same imagined perceptions – the same as far as anybody can
tell, since they use the same words for them in the same ways. So we
imagine that people are controlling a perception of fairness, and apply
that word righteously to our own indignation without ever testing to find
out what the controlled variables really are.

    /Bruce

Nevin

···

At 09:46 AM 9/21/2003 -0700, Rick Marken wrote:

Richard_Marken2 · September 24, 2003, 2:30pm

[From Rick Marken (2003.09.24.1030)]

Kenny Kitzke (2003.09.03.1900EDT)--

<Rick Marken (2003.09.23.0940)>

<I ran it by Linda, my arbiter of good taste, before posting and she liked it a
lot and said I should post it. So it's her fault;-)

> That was Adam's excuse about Eve's taste too.

Yes, that's how the fairy tale goes. But in my case I brought the apple to Eve. I
tempted her, not vice versa.

Oh, I don't mind your expressing such political views to your heart's content
...But, why do you have to express your views, and include a cheap shot besides,
on a PCT forum?

I always try to talk about politics in the context of PCT. However, it was a
cheap shot to imply the Bush is stupid. He's not real bright but he's certainly
not stupid. But that's what makes a free country free; we get to say those
things. Maybe I say it just to keep testing to make sure that we are still free.

The political digs and cheap shot about the intelligence of our President are
inappropriate here IMHO, and probably anywhere, at least by civilized and
intelligent humans. Monkeys may disagree. 8=))

I wonder why conservatives didn't feel that way when our President was Bill
Clinton, a quality person and leader. Now conservatives are appalled that people
would say moderately nasty things (not nearly as nasty as the things said about
Clinton) about a President whose policies have been disastrous, who lies regularly
about public rather than private affairs and who has no obvious leadership
abilities (lying about imminent threats doesn't count as leadership; as a
columnist -- I can't remember who - astutely pointed out recently, lying is a
means of control, not of leadership).

<OK. How would you _test_ this? You have hypothesized a controlled variable; now
what do you do to determine that this is, indeed, the variable under control.>

I might inject the grapes with cucumber juice and then observe whether the
monkeys still seem jealous and incensed that the other monkeys are getting
grapes. Would that do it?

That would be one test, I suppose. But the monkeys who see the other monkeys
getting grapes can't tell that the grapes now taste like cucumbers. I don't expect
that you would see much difference in the behavior of the observing monkeys, even
if they are controlling for grape taste.

Here are your words from your original post: "They want to produce the
relationship produced by their colleagues but can't so they start
reorganizing." Interesting but based on mere specualtion.

Of course. It _is_ speculation, it's not _based on_ speculation. I speculate and
then, if I have the time, I test. That's called science.

<Reorganization shows up as a high frequency of different actions that don't
produce any consistent consequence. A child throwing a "tantrum" is, I think, an
extreme example of reorganization.>

I do not think you can conclude that. Tantrums can be a way of controlling
perceptions to get what you want (for many children, what they want instead of a
kick in the pants.) The "reorganization system" may not be doing a thing in
tantrums.

Reorganization is a way of controlling perceptions. So the fact that tantrums can
be a way of controlling perceptions does not mean that they are not a sign that
reorganization is occurring.

I could not care less about politics.

Obviously you do care about politics very much or what I say about it on CSGNet
would not be a disturbance that you counter (by saying that I shouldn't talk about
politics on CSGNet) I think what you do want is to be _seen_ as someone who is not
interested in politics.

<Or they may realize that the taxes are used to support the maintenance of vital
infrastructure -- highways, schools, police, sewers, hospitals, libraries,
parks, etc. -- which are essential to the group. They will see...>

Save your political and economic agenda for someone else. I am not interested.

So you say. But why say it? Unless, of course, you are controlling for a political
agenda to which my remarks are a disturbance. If you really weren't interested
then you wouldn't have to tell me.

I highly doubt that you will be able to save the world.

We're all doin' what we can.

Oh, OTOH, you might want to explain in a private post how DubU has gotten Calie
fornia in such a political and economic ditch.

Bush didn't do it alone. But he certainly hasn't helped much.

It couldn't be that monkey elected as your Governer that is not too well
informed?

I think Gray Davis has done the best he could in a rough situation. Perhaps
others could have done better. But he has certainly been a decent, capable
governor. The recall is merely a political coup attempt. I doubt that it will
succeed. But if it does, we might have a rather interesting new governor: a
shallow body builder with social values that are comfortably compatible with my
own (pro abortion and gun control, for example).

Also, Patsy and I will be out in Santa Barbara from Oct.10-18. It would be
wonderful if we could get together for a dinner. Then I can check out whether
Linda really appraises your "good taste" and, if so, from where she gets her
criteria. I am serious about this.

I do love Santa Barbara; it's where Linda and I met. Call and maybe we can make it
up there. But we're awfully busy these days.

Best regards

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Senior Behavioral Scientist
The RAND Corporation
PO Box 2138
1700 Main Street
Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138
Tel: 310-393-0411 x7971
Fax: 310-451-7018
E-mail: rmarken@rand.org

Fred_Nickols2 · September 24, 2003, 4:05pm

Rick Marken (2003.09.21.0945)]

Bruce Nevin (2003.09.20.2147 EDT)--

The researchers claim that the humans are only frustrated and angry at
the unfairness of this differential treatment,

The researchers did the study with _monkeys_. But the NPR reporter who
described the research did repeat the study with his kids (who sounded
adorably human), and got the same result.

and that this is a normal "righteous indignation" response of humans when
they are unable to control this 'fairness' perception.

I don't know whether or not the researchers thought that the monkeys' (or
the kids') refusal to do the same work for unequal pay was normal. What
they did seem to conclude was that this refusal was an indication that the
monkeys (and the kids) could _perceive_ what was going on in terms of a
principle: fairness.

I'm not joining in this thread but it does prompt a question.

Were you to ask me if "fairness" qualified as a "principle," I would
probably agree. I would also assert that "fairness" qualifies as a
"concept." As a concept, "fairness" would consist of (1) a definition, (2)
examples and (3) non-examples. Mastery of the concept would include the
ability to state the definition and correctly classify examples and
non-examples. From this perspective, the monkeys and the kids would all
seem to be reacting to the principle of fairness based on their ability to
detect or determine that what they are perceiving is a non-example. It
further seems to me that this presents no problem unless their expectations
(reference signal?) are such that they are expecting situations consistent
with the concept or principle. Anyway, here's my question:

Where in the PCT hierarchy do "concepts" fit? Given that they involve the
ability to discriminate (i.e., detect differences), I'm inclined to think
that they don't fit at any particular level but somehow relate to all
levels. Or, is it the case that the concept of concepts is unnecessary in PCT?

Regards,

Fred Nickols
nickols@safe-t.net

Richard_Marken2 · September 24, 2003, 5:27pm

[From Rick Marken (2003.09.23.1330)]

Bruce Nevin (2003.09.23.2133 EDT)
The observation that humans apply the word ‘fairness’
to what they are doing (and see others doing) is not the Test.

Right. But the fact that I can perceive different degrees of fairness
is proof to me that at least one human can perceive fairness. I also know
that I often try to control for this perception. But it would be very difficult
to test to determine whether another organism were controlling for fairness.

Much less the observation that
they speak of these doings in a way that English speakers translate as
‘fairness’.
I think this is evidence that others besides myself perceive what I call
“fairness”. The fact that I am able to communicate with others about this
with no difficulty suggests to me that we are using the word “fairness”
to refer to something very close to the same perceptual variable.
Maybe Principles only exist because people talk about
one another and attempt to legislate how one another ought to behave, or
to justify their feelings and action.
I think the PCT view on this would be that principles, like fairness, only
exist because there are brains capable of constructing such perceptions.
I agree that some principles, like “control of the center” in chess, are
perceived only because people have invented games (sets of rules) like
chess. But I think we can perceive principles – like “control of the center”
or “do unto others” – even when people have not legislated how people
ought to behave. My guess is that people could perceive the Golden Rule
principal even if they didn’t talk about one another and even if they had
created no legislation.
Perhaps some Principles, or all, amount to no more
than parallelism of words and syntax (the most superficial and seductive
of logics), and what we have called a Principle level is made possible
by language and culture, and is itself social and not biological (or, specifically,
neurological) in its nature.
How would we even know that we are talking about principles unless we have
the ability to perceive principles? It seems to me that our ability to
perceive in terms of principles must be prerequisite to our ability to
talk about these principles. I think principles are neurological
to the extent that perception is a neurological process.
Now hold on, before you shoot back at that, read
on for a bit.
Oops.
Don’t we do the same as the monkeys here? We see
that we get the same as the other guy. Life is good. Then we see that we
get something less than the other guy. Hey! I’m just as good as him! What
am I? Chopped banana peel? How come he got a raise and I didn’t?
Of course. That’s why the research got all the press attention. It looks
like monkeys perceive and control for “fairness”, just as people do. I
suspect that the monkeys are controlling for something else – like getting
grapes – and that the experimenters are seeing this behavior, through
their own perceptual functions, as protesting perceived unfairness.
I don’t know about you, but I’m not convinced that
the guy who was passed over for a raise or promotion is controlling a Principle
of fairness.
Some may be. Some may not. That is something that has to tested. But I
know for sure that I have controlled for fairness. I can think of one case
of this when my kids were little. By age 4 both were able perceive fairness
quite well. If I divided some desired treat so that one got even slightly
more than the other there would be a protest from the one who felt shortchanged.
“No fair” cried Ari if Lise got a bit more sandwich. “No fair” cried Lise
if Ari got a bit more milkshake. Their clever mother taught them
an excellent approach to controlling for fairness: let one kid divide and
the other chose first. The kids immediately saw that this rule allowed
them to control for fairness and they adopted it enthusiastically (they
use it to this day when they’re both at home). So now when the kids want
to split a desired treat, one will cut it in two and the other gets to
pick first which of the two sides he/she gets. And the result is always
a perception of fairness that matches both of their references for fairness.
Now, words and whatever it is that they may be ‘for’.
It looks like this sentence is missing a predicate.
Best

Rick

···

–

Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.

Senior Behavioral Scientist

The RAND Corporation

PO Box 2138

1700 Main Street

Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138

Tel: 310-393-0411 x7971

Fax: 310-451-7018

E-mail: rmarken@rand.org

Richard_Marken2 · September 25, 2003, 4:00pm

[From Rick Marken (2003.09.25.1200)]

Bruce Nevin (2003.09.25.1414 EDT)–
Rick Marken (2003.09.23.1330)–

[…] the fact that I can perceive different
degrees of fairness is proof to me that at least one human can perceive
fairness. I also know that I often try to control for this perception.
I know that you call it fairness. And I realize that because you have a
word for it you are convinced that there is a Principle perception to which
it refers.
It’s not because I have a word for it that I think there is a principle
perception to which “fairness” refers. It is because I can perceive
the principle (of fairness) that I am convinced there is a principle
I can perceive. The existence of the word has nothing to do with it. In
fact, we have to be able to perceive things before we can name them. If
no one could perceive fairness, the word would never have been invented.
Why invent words to refer to things you cannot perceive or conceive? There’s
nothing to talk about in that case.
But introspection self-reporting is not the Test.
I didn’t say it was. The Test is for determining what perceptions people
are controlling. I’m just saying that I can perceive fairness so I know
it exists.
For our own CVs most of all the Test is necessary.
The test is necessary for an observer to know what perceptions another
agent is actually controlling. You certainly don’t need to test to
determine what you yourself are controlling. You’re just controlling it!
It is simply too commonplace for people to say one
thing and do another – that is, to say that they control what they’re
supposed to control while in fact controlling different variables or at
different values.
I can see that this might matter when people are learning to control. The
teacher might say “control the ambiance of the room” and I say " I am"
when it might be clear to the teacher that I’m not. If learning hinges
on control of ambiance – and I want to learn – I have to learn
which of my perceptions corresponds to what the teacher calls “ambiance”.
The fact that I am able to communicate
with others about this with no difficulty suggests to me that we are using
the word “fairness” to refer to something very close to the same perceptual
variable.

Please consider carefully this fact: Congenitally blind children
competently communicate with others (sighted or not) using words like
green,
and even words like look and color. I will send you Gleitman’s
paper about what is behind this and similar facts, if you like.

Obviously, blind kids understand that words refer to perceptions even if
those words refer to perceptions that they themselves don’t have.

Then we can talk about the rest of this post.
Great. I actually don’t understand what point you are trying to make. I
think you might be trying to say that the perception of fairness doesn’t
exist even though the word does. But that can’t be it, can it? So I guess
I don’t really know why we disagree. Can you see that we disagree? Does
“disagreement” correspond to something you can perceive?
Best

Rick

···

–

Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.

Senior Behavioral Scientist

The RAND Corporation

PO Box 2138

1700 Main Street

Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138

Tel: 310-393-0411 x7971

Fax: 310-451-7018

E-mail: rmarken@rand.org

bnhpct · September 25, 2003, 6:14pm

[From Bruce Nevin (2003.09.25.1414 EDT)]

Rick Marken (2003.09.23.1330)–

[…] the fact that I can perceive different
degrees of fairness is proof to me that at least one human can perceive
fairness. I also know that I often try to control for this perception.

I know that you call it fairness. And I realize that because you have a
word for it you are convinced that there is a Principle perception to
which it refers. But introspection self-reporting is not the Test. For
our own CVs most of all the Test is necessary. It is simply too
commonplace for people to say one thing and do another – that is, to say
that they control what they’re supposed to control while in fact
controlling different variables or at different values.

The fact that I am able to communicate
with others about this with no difficulty suggests to me that we are
using the word “fairness” to refer to something very close to
the same perceptual variable.

Please consider carefully this fact: Congenitally blind children
competently communicate with others (sighted or not) using words like
green, and even words like look and color. I will
send you Gleitman’s paper about what is behind this and similar facts, if
you like.

Then we can talk about the rest of this post.

    /Bruce

Nevin

···

At 01:27 PM 9/24/2003 -0400, Richard Marken wrote:

bnhpct · September 26, 2003, 2:44am

[From Bruce Nevin (2003.09.25.2244 EDT)]

Please read this through at least once before typing any responses.

Rick Marken (2003.09.25.1200)–

It’s not because I have a word for it that I
think there is a principle perception to which “fairness”
refers. It is because I can perceive the principle (of fairness)
that I am convinced there is a principle I can perceive. The
existence of the word has nothing to do with it. In fact, we have to be
able to perceive things before we can name them. If no one could perceive
fairness, the word would never have been invented. Why invent words to
refer to things you cannot perceive or conceive? There’s nothing to talk
about in that case.

Nobody invented the word. Its pronunciation and its meaning are emergent
products of their usage by many individuals in many circumstances,
evolving over time differently in each community of usage. Words, and
their likelihoods of combination with one another, are a domain of
perception that has only a loose coupling to the perceptions that we
think of as the world to which we believe the words refer.

What evidence do you have for a single perception, corresponding to the
word ‘fairness’, other than the use of the word?

Please consider
carefully this fact: Congenitally blind children competently communicate
with others (sighted or not) using words like green, and even
words like look and color. I will send you Gleitman’s paper
about what is behind this and similar facts, if you
like.
Obviously, blind kids understand that words refer to
perceptions even if those words refer to perceptions that they themselves
don’t have.

Please consider this a bit harder. As far as their use of these words is
concerned, if you just listened to them talking, you would have no doubt
that these kids (and the adults that they grow up to be) have the
perceptions that we associate with words like green, look,
and color. They don’t just understand that these words have
referents. They use them in completely appropriate combinations with
other words. (I’m obviously not talking about tests of visual perception
like “pick up the green color chip”.)
So one point here is that you don’t need the perceptions to have the
words and their meanings and to use them with facility and accuracy. That
point is one side of the ‘loose coupling’.
The other side of the ‘loose coupling’ is that what a single word ‘refers
to’ is typically not a single perception. It’s not even a stable category
of perceptions. The relationship between word and object is rather like
Guthrie’s ‘lens’, depicting the divergent possible ‘responses’ that all
result in the same outcome.
Within certain major dependency classes, which are relatively stable,
acceptability, or likelihood, of particular word combinations is a graded
property, with some more marginal, or limited to certain kinds of
contexts (yellow talks [e.g. in an esthetic discussion of painting]; the
earth sleeps [under a mantle of snow]; the teacup bit her ear [perhaps in
a dream or fairytale]), and these controlled perceptions of what is
sayable vary somewhat from one person to another, from one community to
another and certainly, as noted, from one context to another.
We cannot attribute perceptions of the acceptability or likelihood of a
particular word combination simply to properties of the perceived world
to which the word combination refers, though there is, as I said, a loose
coupling. There are too many instances where a given combination is
expectable because of its customary usage, and, more pervasively, there
is metaphor, and various other forms of analogic extension from a
well-established domain to a new one.
On a different tack, we know that historically language was not ever
invented by someone first categorially parcelling up the universe
of perception and then coining words to correspond. And we know that our
ancestors’ ways of conceiving of the world and parcelling it up
categorially are not the same as ours today (though perhaps this bears
emphasizing, since it is so common an error anachronistically to presume
that people of the 16th or 14th or 2nd century, or earlier, or even the
19th, perceived the world as we do today, as though they were no more
than ourselves in funny clothes, as in some B movie). Instead, our
language of today developed continuously from theirs, with no breaks, no
time out for invention of a whole new language, and fossils of archaic
thought are ligamented into the living bone and sinew of our speech
today. Bleached out, to be sure, like the word tack above,
stripped of its breath of salty navigation, reduced to a mere signpost of
argumentation. Did somebody invent that? What exactly is
its referent here? Or should we look rather for the referent of the
entire phrase on a different tack? And what about signpost?
Or parcelling up?

But introspection
self-reporting is not the Test.
I didn’t say it was. The Test
is for determining what perceptions people are controlling. I’m just
saying that I can perceive fairness so I know it exists.

To a rather complicated set of perceptions, or rather to a generalization
over an innumerable variety of these, you apply the word fairness.
“One individual gets more than the other. Except when one of them
deserves more. Then it’s when one gets more than she deserves, um …
compared to the other. Yeah, right, the same situation might be judged
fair by one and unfair by the other. OK, these situations vary. But what
they all have in common is the unfairness of it. You know what I
mean!” Right.

For our own CVs
most of all the Test is necessary.
The test is necessary for
an observer to know what perceptions another agent is actually
controlling. You certainly don’t need to test to determine what you
yourself are controlling. You’re just controlling it!

You don’t need the Test to determine that you’re controlling. But
you do need it to verify what you’re controlling. As anywhere in
science, it’s just too easy to fool yourself. And in fact people fool
themselves about their CVs all the time. The most common word for it is
probably rationalization.

It is simply too
commonplace for people to say one thing and do another – that is, to say
that they control what they’re supposed to control while in fact
controlling different variables or at different values.
I can
see that this might matter when people are learning to control. The
teacher might say “control the ambiance of the room” and I say
" I am" when it might be clear to the teacher that I’m
not. If learning hinges on control of ambiance – and I want to
learn – I have to learn which of my perceptions corresponds to
what the teacher calls “ambiance”.

The fact that
I am able to communicate with others about this with no difficulty
suggests to me that we are using the word “fairness” to refer
to something very close to the same perceptual
variable.

But in fact people argue about what’s fair all the time, don’t they.

Then we can talk
about the rest of this post.
Great. I actually don’t
understand what point you are trying to make. I think you might be trying
to say that the perception of fairness doesn’t exist even though the word
does. But that can’t be it, can it?

It could be. You don’t know. And that’s the point. The only
evidence you have for it is the word, and some anecdotal evidence that in
this particular situation or that two people agreed “That’s
fair” about something. So here are some possible specifications of a
perception of fairness:

You say “that’s fair”, referring to some particular
situation, or exchange, or relationship, or retort, etc. etc.
You and some other person both say, and agree, “that’s
fair”, referring to some particular situation, etc.

3a-m. Referring to some particular situation, etc., you predict that you
and any person in your {family, community, ethnic group, age group,
country … in the world} reliably will agree “that’s
fair”.

4a-n. Referring to any situation characterized by perceptions {i-k}, and
only to situations characterizable in that way, you predict that you and
any person in your {family, community, ethnic group, age group, country
… in the world} reliably will agree “that’s fair”.

Which do you mean?

So I guess I don’t really know why we
disagree. Can you see that we disagree? Does “disagreement”
correspond to something you can perceive?

You haven’t disagreed with me yet. You can’t until you understand what
I’m saying.

    /Bruce

Nevin

···

At 12:00 PM 9/25/2003 -0400, Richard Marken wrote:

Richard_Marken2 · September 26, 2003, 2:12pm

[From Rick Marken (2003.09.26.1010)]

Bruce Nevin (2003.09.25.2244 EDT)
Please read this through at least once before typing any responses.

OK. I read it through twice. I still don’t know if I get your overall point
but I disagree with several things you say so I’ll just speak to them.

Nobody invented the word.
How do you know? Someone always has to be the first to use a particular
sound to refer to a particular perception, don’t they?
Words, and their likelihoods of combination with
one another, are a domain of perception that has only a loose coupling
to the perceptions that we think of as the world to which we believe the
words refer.
The words I use are not coupled to perceptions; I use words to evoke in
others experiences and understandings that are (I presume) similar to my
own.
What evidence do you have for a single perception,
corresponding to the word ‘fairness’, other than the use of the word?
The evidence is the perception (of fairness, in this case). The
word has nothing to do with it. When I see Bush saying that there should
be no tax on dividends I see unfairness, whether I say the word (or think
it) or not. Although it’s great poetry, I believe John’s claim that
“In the beginning was the word” is dead wrong. In the beginning was perception.

Obviously, blind kids understand that words
refer to perceptions even if those words refer to perceptions that they
themselves don’t have.
Please consider this a bit harder.
I’m considering as hard as I can.
As far as their use of these words is concerned,
if you just listened to them talking, you would have no doubt that these
kids (and the adults that they grow up to be) have the perceptions
that we associate with words like green, look, and color.
They don’t just understand that these words have referents.
I can’ seem to consider this is true, no matter how hard I consider. Indeed,
the harder I consider, the falser it gets.
They use them in completely appropriate combinations
with other words.
What does appropriate mean? If they don’t know that these words have referents
then they would be as likely to say “The grass is green” as “The idea is
green”. If they use color words correctly in terms of both semantics and
grammar then they understand that these words point to particular perceptions.
So one point here is that you don’t need the perceptions
to have the words and their meanings and to use them with facility and
accuracy. That point is one side of the ‘loose coupling’.
I completely disagree with this point. You don’t just need the perceptions
to have the meanings; the perceptions are the meanings. You can
construct grammatical sequences of words without knowing the perceptions
to which the words refer but you certainly can’t construct meaningful sequences
of words without know the perceptions to which the words refer. Here’s
an example. Consider a language with three words: A, B and C. The rules
for constructing sentences in the language are S → A + B, S → A+C,
S → B, S → C. So there are four grammatical utterances in this language:
AB, AC, B, C. The remaining utterances, an infinite number, are ungrammatical;
for example, A, AA, BB, BCA. Can you tell which of the grammatical utterances
are meaningful? Of course not. That would be the situation of the
blind person, too, if the words had no meaning for them.
On a different tack, we know that historically language
was not ever
invented
Then how did it start? Someone way back when had to invent some sound to
correspond to a perception. Many people probably contributed to the very
first vocabulary of “ugs” and “ahs” but each one was an inventor before
the each word caught on.
by someone first categorially parcelling up the universe
of perception and then coining words to correspond.
I think many people contributed to the invention of the sounds that a community
uses to refer to different aspects of their experience. The point is that
someone, long ago, had to say something like “ferd” when pointing at a
horse and eventually everyone agreed to call it “ferd”. Others may have
said “syts” and “deght” when pointing to their horse but most people used
“ferd” so “ferd” it became, until it morphed gradually, over 1,000,000
years or so, into “horse”.
And we know that our ancestors’ ways of conceiving
of the world and parcelling it up categorially are not the same as ours
today (though perhaps this bears emphasizing, since it is so common an
error anachronistically to presume that people of the 16th or 14th or 2nd
century, or earlier, or even the 19th, perceived the world as we do today,
as though they were no more than ourselves in funny clothes, as in some
B movie).
Now we really have a fundamental disagreement if you are saying that our
ancestors perceived the world differently than we do. If this is what you
are saying, what is your evidence? I believe that our ancestors perceived
exactly as we do, in terms of the same classes of perceptual variables.
They the same nervous system (and, hence, perceptual) architectures as
we do today. They might have used some words slightly differently than
we do now; they may have referred to a hippo as a horse, for example. But
I’m sure that their perception of a hippo was as different from their perception
of a horse as my perception of a hippo is from my perception of a horse.
I didn’t say it was. The Test is for determining
what perceptions people are controlling. I’m just saying that I can perceive
fairness so I know it exists.

To a rather complicated set of perceptions, or rather to a generalization
over an innumerable variety of these, you apply the word fairness.

The complicated set of lower level perceptions is experienced by me as
a perception of some degree of fairness. It’s just like my perception of
a horse (or hippo); a complicated set of lower level perceptions (or intensity,
color, configuration, transition, relationship and so on) is a perception
of a horse (or hippo).

The test is necessary for an observer to know
what perceptions another agent is actually controlling. You certainly
don’t need to test to determine what you yourself are controlling. You’re
just controlling it!

You don’t need the Test to determine that you’re controlling.
But you do need it to verify what you’re controlling.

Why? When I’m catching a fly ball I am completely unaware of what I am
controlling. If I thought about it (before I did the research on fly ball
catching) I would have thought I was controlling my location relative to
the predicted landing site of the ball. This, of course, is not what
I am actually controlling. But even when I thought that that was
what I was controlling I was still pretty good at catching balls (so I
could certainly control without knowing what I was controlling).

As anywhere in science, it’s just too easy to fool
yourself. And in fact people fool themselves about their CVs all the time.
The most common word for it is probably rationalization.
Rationalization is another kind of controlling. You control for perceiving
yourself as acting in terms of principles of rationality. I suppose
it is a way of “fooling oneself”. But it seems to me that this comes up
only in a special situation; when one is in conflict. That is a situation
where it may help to know what (at a higher level) are one’s goals (the
ones creating the conflict). In most everyday behavior it doesn’t seem
to me that one has to know what one is actually controlling. It doesn’t
help to know, anyway. As in the baseball catching example, whether I know
I’m controlling vertical optical velocity or not doesn’t seem to matter
as long as I can catch the ball.
But in fact people argue about what’s fair all the
time, don’t they.
The fact that people do argue about this seems to me to be clear evidence
that they can perceive “fairness” as a perceptual variable. The differences
between people in terms of what they call “fair” and “unfair” may reflect
differences between people in terms of how they construct the perception
of fairness but it could also reflect differences in where their reference
for fairness happens to be. The people I’ve know who have been active
in unions, say, seem to perceive fairness in the same way I do; they just
seem to have a much higher reference for fairness than I do.
So here are some possible specifications of a perception
of fairness:

You say “that’s fair”, referring to some particular situation, or
exchange, or relationship, or retort, etc. etc.

You and some other person both say, and agree, “that’s fair”, referring
to some particular situation, etc.

3a-m. Referring to some particular situation, etc., you predict that
you and any person in your {family, community, ethnic group, age group,
country … in the world} reliably will agree “that’s fair”.

4a-n. Referring to any situation characterized by perceptions {i-k},
and only to situations characterizable in that way, you predict that you
and any person in your {family, community, ethnic group, age group, country
… in the world} reliably will agree “that’s fair”.

Which do you mean?

All of them, in some way or another. In (1) I think you are describing
the situation where the fairness of what I perceive matches my reference
for fairness. In (2), you are talking about a situation where fairness,
as perceived by each party, matches their reference for fairness.
In (3) you are talking about my guesses about other’s perceptions and goals
regarding the fairness of a situation. Let’s take “executive compensation”
as an example. I see executive compensation levels are ridiculously unfair
and I think I could pretty accurately guess who would and who would not
agree with me. But I would know that, when I talked about “fairness”
in that situation, we were all talking about the same perception: the proportionality
of reward with respect to merit. I think (4) is not very different from
(3).

You haven’t disagreed with me yet. You can’t until
you understand what I’m saying.
I disagree with what I think I have understood of what you say. But at
least you’ve answered my question: you can perceive disagreement because
you know when it’s not happening.
Best regards

Rick

···

–

Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.

Senior Behavioral Scientist

The RAND Corporation

PO Box 2138

1700 Main Street

Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138

Tel: 310-393-0411 x7971

Fax: 310-451-7018

E-mail: rmarken@rand.org

Bill_Powers · September 26, 2003, 7:14pm

[||From Bill Powers (2003.09.26.1310 MDT)]

Bruce Nevin (2003.09.25.2244 EDT)--

So one point here is that you don't need the perceptions to have the words
and their meanings and to use them with facility and accuracy. That point
is one side of the 'loose coupling'.

If you said what you meant, here, you have brought up something completely
new that is not a word and is not a perception: a meaning. Please expand on
this, and remember that I am going to be looking for clarification about
how you can know of something that is not a perception (real-time or imagined).

Best,

Bill P.

bnhpct · September 27, 2003, 2:49am

Bruce Nevin (2003.09.26.2249 EDT)

From Bill Powers (2003.09.26.1310 MDT)–

Bruce Nevin (2003.09.25.2244 EDT)–

So one point here is that you don’t need the
perceptions to have the words

and their meanings and to use them with facility and accuracy. That
point

is one side of the ‘loose coupling’.

If you said what you meant, here, you have brought up something
completely

new that is not a word and is not a perception: a meaning.

By the time I hedge every possible alternative interpretation what I’m
saying becomes so unwieldy and turgid no one could possibly understand
it.
You don’t need the specific perceptions in order to use the words
fluently and appropriately. (The blind people in fact can’t have
perceptions of the kind that for you are associated with green,
color, look, etc.) As Rick correctly points out, you can’t
use the words fluently and appropriately unless you have their meanings.
Yes, meanings are also in the realm of perception. But they are not
identical with those perceptions that we take to be the referents of
words.
This should be obvious for another reason: a referent of a word is a
singular perception; its meaning encompasses any possible referent of the
word.
The blind people learn the meanings of vision words entirely from the
ways in which these words are combinable with other words, in their
conversations with sighted people. They couldn’t learn all word
meanings in this way. There has to be some grounding of word meanings in
nonverbal perceptions. Example referents of concrete nouns can be learned
ostensively, then their meaning-ranges are learned from their linguistic
context. The meaning of a new noun can be learned contextually before any
referent is experienced. The learning of the meanings of operator words
over these nouns (adjectives, prepositions, relational nouns,
intransitive and transitive verbs of the simpler sort that only allow
concrete nouns in their argument) depends as much on context as on
example referents. The meanings of higher-order operator words
(adjectives like true, verbs like doubt, indeed, adjectives
like fair) can hardly be learned ostensively, in part because even
if a referent can be singled out it can hardly be sufficiently an
exemplar. Realizing this, it actually is not a surprise that the blind
people learn the meanings of words for which they have no perceptual
referents. That itself, however, may be a surprise.

    /Bruce

Nevin

···

At 01:14 PM 9/26/2003 -0600, Bill Powers wrote:

Richard_Marken2 · September 27, 2003, 5:33pm

[From Rick Marken (2003.09.27.1030)]

Bruce Nevin (2003.09.26.2249 EDT)

You don't need the specific perceptions in order to use the words fluently and appropriately. (The blind people in fact can't have perceptions of the kind that for you are associated with green, color, look, etc.) As Rick correctly points out, you can't use the words fluently and appropriately unless you have their meanings. Yes, meanings are also in the realm of perception. But they are not identical with those perceptions that we take to be the referents of words.

That was my point. The meaning of "green" for a blind person is not the same as the meaning of "green" for a sighted person. But the meaning of "green" in both cases is a _perception_. Obviously, the perception associated with "green" for a blind person cannot be the same as the perception associated with "green" for a sighted person. The perception associated with "green" for a blind person must be a perception that the blind person can have, like the feeling of coolness of grass underfoot. This is really not very mysterious. I understand what people mean by "bat vision" even though I can't perceive the world in terms of ultrasonic echolocation. The meaning of "bat vision" to me is defined in terms of perceptions I can have -- visual and auditory perceptions. I'm sure that, if bats could talk, I could come to understand, in terms of my own perceptions, what they mean when they talk about things in their world of echolocation, which I cannot perceive, just as well as congenitally blind people can understand, in terms of their perceptions, what I mean when I talk about things in my world of sight, which they cannot perceive.

The blind people learn the meanings of vision words entirely from the ways in which these words are combinable with other words, in their conversations with sighted people.

This is not clear. It sounds like you are saying that blind people can learn the meaning of vision words entirely from the way these words are combined with other words. I think I showed that a literal interpretation of this claim is false. There is no way to tell what a word in my mini-grammar means from the way it is combined with other words. You didn't know what the word C meant in that grammar, did you? Of course not. It's not the combination of words per se that gives meaning but the perceptions evoked by the words from which the meanings (perceptions) associated with component words can be inferred.

They couldn't learn all word meanings in this way.

Actually, you couldn't learn _any_ word meanings in this way, a fact that I demonstrated with my mini-grammar.

There has to be some grounding of word meanings in nonverbal perceptions.

What are word meanings other than perceptions that are not the words themselves?

Example referents of concrete nouns can be learned ostensively, then their meaning-ranges are learned from their linguistic context. The meaning of a new noun can be learned contextually before any referent is experienced. The learning of the meanings of operator words over these nouns (adjectives, prepositions, relational nouns, intransitive and transitive verbs of the simpler sort that only allow concrete nouns in their argument) depends as much on context as on example referents. The meanings of higher-order operator words (adjectives like true, verbs like doubt, indeed, adjectives like fair) can hardly be learned ostensively, in part because even if a referent can be singled out it can hardly be sufficiently an exemplar. Realizing this, it actually is not a surprise that the blind people learn the meanings of words for which they have no perceptual referents. That itself, however, may be a surprise.

This is fairly close to my view. It could be made closer by substituting the phrase "a perception that can be associated with" for the phrase "the meaning of" whereever it occurs. Of course, the second to the last sentence would have to be revised: It is not a surprise that blind people learn the meanings of words for which they cannot have the same perceptual associations as sighted people because all they need is _some_ perceptual association with a word (like the feeling of the coolness of grass as perception associated with "green" ) in order to give the word meaning.

Surely this is what Gleitman learned from her study of blind people, isn't it?

Best

Rick

···

----
Richard S. Marken
marken@mindreadings
Home 310 474-0313
Cell 310 729-1400

Richard_Marken2 · September 30, 2003, 1:07pm

[From Rick Marken (2003.09.30.0900)]

Kenny Kitzke (2003.09.30)–
<Rick Marken (2003.09.24.1030)>
<I always try to talk about politics in the
context of PCT. However, it was a
cheap shot to imply the Bush is stupid. He’s not real bright but
he’s certainly
not stupid. But that’s what makes a free country free; we
get to say those
things. Maybe I say it just to keep testing to make sure that we
are still free.>
So, my view is when we do something we are free to do, but it is disturbing
to others (because they communicate that to us), it might be wise, or kind,
or considerate, or respectful to see if we can contain our free actions
so as not to offend.

I happen to think that it’s a good thing to disturb people with harmful
intentions. Bush’s intentions are clearly harmful, even if not intentionally
so. Shortly after Bush took over, his intentions (policies) have
produced an instant increase in the deficit, poverty, unemployment and
international enmity. If you look at a plot of the deficit, poverty and
unemployment over time what you see is an increase in these variables during
Reagan and Bush I, until about 1993, about a year after Clinton comes in.
Then there is a slow decline in all the deficit, poverty and unemployment
throughout Clinton’s presidency (the deficit actually going into surplus)
and then a precipitous inflection in all three variable shortly after Bush
II comes in, when all start increasing again. Indeed, in three years, the
deficit, poverty and unemployment are back up to or above the levels
they were at before Clinton. In three years Bush’s policies have undone
8 years of progress. Bush is also a liar. He lied about who benefits from
his tax cuts (by talking about the average cut in a very skewed distribution
of cuts) and he lied about the reason for going to war (which I consider
impeachable), among other things. People who like Bush may be disturbed
by reading these things. But that’s what free speech is for. Perhaps it
will be a big enough disturbance that it will put the Bush supporters in
a position where they have to reorganize.

I did express to you that your stupid (by your own
admission above) political comments about Bush added nothing to your post
about “fairness.”
I didn’t say my comments were stupid. I said that my implication that Bush
was stupid was a cheap shot. But so what? Now that I think of it, it’s
actually better to think that the guy is stupid than that he is smart.
If he’s smart then he must know what he’s doing. If he is smart he is able
to look at the data and see what the actual results of his policies are.
If these are the results he wants – higher deficit, more poverty, higher
unemployment --then he is not a well-intentioned person (from my point
of view). So I really think it’s best to consider Bush a well-intentioned,
but kinda thick fellow. The smart (and not too well-intentioned) people,
I think, are his handlers: Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld and Rice.
So, I only asked that you restrain yourself from
political and theological side comments and stick to the main purpose of
this CSGNet and focus on HPCT theory and its application to living.
It doesn’t seem to be working very well. Maybe you should try something
new.
I don’t think anyone else picked up and responded
to your snide political remarks.
I think people either enjoyed them or just deleted them.
This might be additional evidence that putting that
slam in was not worthwhile to this group
What about Bill’s slam on the “Clean Air Act” in an earlier post. We all
slam disturbances to our sense of decency once in a while because, after
all, we’re control systems. Of course, the slam’s themselves may
be a disturbance to the sense of decency of others. But that’s what you
get with living control systems. I’d rather give (and take) a few slams
than live in a place that doesn’t tolerate slams – like Nazi Germany,
for example.
And, though I may wish you would not have and would
not in the future, I certainly only ask that you not do what you are obviously
free to do.
Let’s hope that you and your friends just keep asking and don’t start telling.
By the way, you never answered my question about Clinton. How come you
were not protesting the nasty things people were saying about Clinton when
he was president?

Best

Rick

···

–

Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.

Senior Behavioral Scientist

The RAND Corporation

PO Box 2138

1700 Main Street

Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138

Tel: 310-393-0411 x7971

Fax: 310-451-7018

E-mail: rmarken@rand.org

Kenneth_Kitzke_Value · September 30, 2003, 2:00pm

[From Kenny Kitzke (2003.09.30)]

<Rick Marken (2003.09.24.1030)>

I apologize for being so tardy in responding. Other parts of my life needed some control more.

We are free to do a lot of things in the USA that others in the world are not allowed to do. And, blessed we are to have such freedom, something our nation’s forefathers were willing to die for in order to have and to preserve such liberty. But, everything we are free to do is not necessarily wise to do. It is not necessarily beneficial to us. And, it is surely not necessarily beneficial to others.

So, my view is when we do something we are free to do, but it is disturbing to others (because they communicate that to us), it might be wise, or kind, or considerate, or respectful to see if we can contain our free actions so as not to offend. I have communicated that I really valued your comments about the monkey experiments which the researchers may have wrongly concluded (not understanding HPCT) showed the monkeys are aware of “fairness.” And, your original post generated a lot of interesting discussion and has produced tangential echoes also of value, concerning things that help us understand the theroy of behavior as the control of perception.

I did express to you that your stupid (by your own admission above) political comments about Bush added nothing to your post about “fairness.” So, I only asked that you restrain yourself from political and theological side comments and stick to the main purpose of this CSGNet and focus on HPCT theory and its application to living. I don’t think anyone else picked up and responded to your snide political remarks. This might be additional evidence that putting that slam in was not worthwhile to this group (whether you agree or disagree or largely just don’t care too much about how stupid our President and his policies might appear to us). For sure, Bush will pass on in four years or less and your problem will come to an end, whether or not you express your political beliefs here.

Lastly, I would hope that you could find another way to test whether you have the freedom to speak about your political perceptions in this country other than testing it here. It seems you passed the test here. And, though I may wish you would not have and would not in the future, I certainly only ask that you not do what you are obviously free to do.

Hoping to stay your friend, and perhaps see you and your lovely wife and Getty Center tour guide Linda, in Santa Barbara,

Kenny

Richard_Marken2 · September 30, 2003, 3:18pm

[From Rick Marken (2003.09.30.1120)]

Bill Powers (2003.09.30.0931 MDT)--

So what would happen to our CSGnet, supposedly devoted to the discussion
and study of PCT, if political or religious zealots joined the conversation
and were determined that their views should prevail? Obviously, if the
zealots insisted, those who believe that everyone has a rigbt to be heard
on CSGnet could do little about it. Closing the list and using monitors to
determine what gets published would be a final victory for those who want
only their own views to be heard -- if they got to choose the monitors.

I don't know any good solution to this version, or any version, of the
"tragedy of the commons." But perhaps discussing it will produce some ideas.

I think there will be no tragedy of the commons on CSGNet because there is no
highly desired commons (the sine qua non for Hardin's tragedy): no lush green
pastures in which all cows want to graze. This is a pasture for a particular kind
of cow. It might look good to political and religious zealot cows at first but
they quickly find that it's not to their taste. The same is true for cows with all
kinds of other agendas. It usually doesn't take long before these cows get bored
and leave.

There's usually only two or three cows grazing in the lush pastures of CSGNet at
any particular time, anyway. The occasional visit from a cow with an agenda just
adds a little extra spice, I think.

Best regards

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Senior Behavioral Scientist
The RAND Corporation
PO Box 2138
1700 Main Street
Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138
Tel: 310-393-0411 x7971
Fax: 310-451-7018
E-mail: rmarken@rand.org