From Greg Williams (931023)
Tom, I got the figures within hours of posting that I hadn't. That
arrow from the computer screen to the subject's eye is really cute --
how come I never see an arrow with my own computer? I guess that in
Texas, the external world must LITERALLY impinge upon one's sensors.
:->
Rick Marken (931022.1230)
I was met (understandably) by
defensiveness and avoidance. This may be because I was particularly
lousy at presenting PCT; but I think Tom B. and Bill P. can describe
similar experiences.
Perhaps we should all take lessons from Martin Taylor (see below).
So I have lost interest in trying to teach PCT to people who have
no interest in learning it.
My first impulse is to say, "But that's a prescription for quelling
the PCT revolution." No, on second thought, given your track record in
this area, maybe the best thing is to send OTHER ambassadors out into
the wide world.
If the results of your reseach with Tom will somehow help us reduce
the resistance in the psychological community to PCT then GREAT. That
would be wonderful beyond imagination. And I will help in any way
I can.
Thank you.
There is only a couple of things I won't do -- I won't lie
and say that a model is PCT when it is not; I will not say that
research has revealed controlled variables when it has not.
Good for you.
If the
results of your research with Tom shows how we can present the PCT
model and the approach to research implied by it honestly and
completely but in a way that induces no resistance (from either
party -- us or them) then halleluja.
Thanks again.
Love and peace
Trying to head in that direction, at least.
Bill Powers (931022.1000 MDT)
Rick, you'd better notice how hard Greg is pulling your leg, lest
you have to move to a house on the side of a hill in order to
walk upright.
I wasn't pulling his leg, I was giving him enough rope...
The Devil's Dictionary contains statements that people have made.
It doesn't contain what they were thinking when they made those
statements. We have to try to find out what they really meant;
unless we do that, all our arguments will be dismissed as being
aimed at straw men. It's hard to pin an opponent down to an
explicit statement that can be confronted, because the opponent
will suspect a trick right away and may not choose to play. But
that is what we have to try to do. If we start with statements in
the literature that seem explicit, and ask the authors if our
interpretation is correct, then at least we will end up with
statements which both sides agree represent a real position and
not just an interpretation adopted for purposes of winning an
argument.
Well said.
I disagree with Greg on one point. It is true that here and there
certain individuals have seen the same organization we see under
PCT. So it is wrong to say that "they" don't get it, lumping the
ones who don't get it at all with those who we would say are
close to getting it, or have already got it. In truth the people
who are close do not present any problem, and furthermore their
influence in their own fields is obviously minute: otherwise the
mainstream attitudes toward PCT would be very different.
Maybe, maybe not. If a big part of (our perception of) the mainstream
attitudes are due to misunderstandings of what either or both sides
are claiming, then HFers who are "close" to PCT could be in the
mainstream within HF, yet HFers could still have a "bad" attitude
toward alien-appearing PCT ideas. Or HFers could think that PCT was
just more of the same ideas they already accepted, just expressed in
an unnecessary way.
Maybe we
should be actively recruiting those who have understood, by
themselves, that behavior is a process of controlling perceptions
and all that that implies. They might be overjoyed to find that
others are in the same boat.
This is part of what the work which Tom and I plan might help to
accomplish, by first identifying those "who [appear to] have
understood" and then exploring how their present interpretations of
that understanding relate to PCT ideas and terminology.
However, I would guess that they are
just as much in the minority as we are. It is not unfair to say
that "they" -- meaning the great majority of contributors to
fields like Human Factors and Motor Control -- accept a view of
human organization basically contradictory to that of PCT.
On this point, I would prefer to let the evidence (not yet gathered)
speak.
Otherwise the contents of the pertinent journals would look quite
different.
Maybe, maybe not. (See above.)
On the other hand, to write a useful article about PCT and its
relation to other fields, we have to pin down those
contradictions in a way that even the opponents would agree is a
fair statement of the positions. And to know that they would
agree we have to reach explicit agreement with them, publishable
agreement. If they won't talk, then we have to be able to find
clear citations of their words that are as unambiguous as
possible -- a poor second choice but usable if we have to.
Of course.
There isn't much point in just generalizing about the awfulness
of it all. Let's get back to crisp citations that quote the
offending ideas, and focus on making clear the difference between
PCT and those ideas.
If you had said "quote the offending AND the PCT-like ideas, and focus
on making clear the differences AND the similarities between PCT ideas
and those ideas," I would have replied, "Hallelujah!" I agree that
genuine differences should be examined. But so should genuine
similarities, to provide a basis for building bridges.
We don't even have to point out which
interpretation is better: if we do this right, the choice will be
clear to an impartial reader. We shouldn't even think about
persuading readers who have already chosen a side and have taken
up the defense of it. They intend not to be persuaded, and as
they have full control over their own selections of facts and
reasoning, they will achieve their intention. All we have to
worry about is not imitating them.
And to focus solely on the differences would be imitating them.
Tom Bourbon [931022.1523]
Rick who?
The dude with the long rope.
I think we (you and I) are well matched for this study. We probably have
similar expectations about what we will see in the HF literature, but
somewhat different hypotheses about the significance of differences and
similarities we might find in that literature, compared to PCT. Assuming
we receive replies from the HF community, our questionnaire should help us
assess our different hypotheses.
Truly the method of multiple (well, two?) working hypotheses. Right
on!
Ditto again. Martin has already contributed an excellent suggestion,
described below.
...
Along that line, Martin Taylor described a test he conducted with a
colleague who is a HF person. He asked the person to draw, on a
conventional HF diagram of a person as a control system, the boundary
between environment and person. When the HF person was finished, Martin
drew the boundary as we conceive it in PCT and observed the person's
reactions. The boundary-drawing and -judging exercise seems a good
candidate for inclusion in our study.
I agree.
Rick Marken (931022.1500)
I would love to hear a description of the HF person's reactions,
Martin. Did they think your boundaries were reasonable? What did
they say? Were they bewildered, satisfied, annoyed, converted?
What a great idea.
Martin Taylor 931022 19:30
Annoyance? None.
There might have been plenty of annoyance if Rick had been doing this,
rather than Martin. Just a hypothesis, folks. Based solely on personal
observations. :-)) Testable, of course, but I hope it won't be. :-))))
As ever,
Greg