[Martin Taylor 2008.01.23.17.14]
[From Dick Robertson, 2008.01.23.1011CST]
[Martin Taylor 2008.01.22.14.52]
Martin,
What an elegant post. I predict it won't do any good, however.
Best,
Dick R.
Thanks very much, Dick. Who can tell whether it will do any good, though. It rather depends on what controlled perceptions it may have disturbed, doesn't it? I don't have a good handle on that.
Martin
[From Kenny Kitzke(2008.01.23)]
<Bill Powers (2008.01.22.0958 EST)>
<Kenny, this comment puzzles me because HPCT definitely accounts for setting and changing reference conditions at all levels except the top one, system concepts in my way of accounting. And those reference conditions can change, if only slowly, through reorganization (and perhaps volitionally in an experimental way). So what you say in the above two paragraphs doesn’t seem to be true for most of the hierarchy.>
Bill, my point is precisely about how the references for the top level are established. Let’s grant for the sake of discussion that your concept of 11 Levels and a “Systems” characterization of the top level are correct. But, let’s not kid anyone, both of these representations are your conjecture. They are not established based upon any experimental evidence.
Would you agree that if reference perceptions do exist at Level 11, they are NOT set or changed in the same way as the reference perceptions at the ten lower levels?
Would you agree that these Level 11 reference perceptions are the most important ones regarding a human’s contentment with their life? Do they not establish the desired reference perceptions that one’s behavior must satisfy so as not to experience error within their life?
If so, then are not one’s Level 11 reference perceptions vital to how satisfied a person would be with their life? If so, then to have an understanding of how these perceptions are established and changed just about the most significant application of HPCT to one’s purpose and satisfaction with their life?
If your theory of human behavior provides no answer or wisdom about how a person can and does establish and change these vital Level 11 reference perceptions, then I see it as having limited value to PEOPLE in changing their behavior and finding contentment in their lives. Jim claimed Rick is sure that a person does not control their reference perceptions. If they don’t, who or what does?
This point suggests to me why other theories of psychology who portend to have such answers (even if they are incorrect) get broad attention among theorists and practitioners while HPCT has garnered the attention of only a few hundred people.
If all HPCT can or has eloquently dealt with is how humans keep a car in a lane, or how they catch fly balls, I think the demand for this knowledge is quite small. People seem to have learned how to do both pretty well with no knowledge of psychology at all, much less needing the exhausting theory that is provided by HPCT.
When we look at human experience (the entire nature of human beings; not just their “control of perceptions”), we see much devastation in the satisfaction with life. We see war, crime, divorce, suicide, etc. Psychology has not made a dent in the depravity of human beings. Will HPCT? How?
I would be happy to respond to your lengthy post about my theories. But, I am not the one writing books or promoting a web site for PEOPLE to learn about the wonders of HPCT. I think you and Rick and Dick (among others) are the proponents who must answer the questions about your published theories and postulations. If you all have answers that have escaped me, I want to learn what they are. Then we can consider why I currently find your understandings contrary to what I experience in my own life.
Jim may have been naive about HPCT in asking the questions concerning whether PEOPLE control their reference perceptions. But, he did not get any compelling answers in my opinion. His personal accusations were outlandish. I have found HPCT helpful to understand better such psychological phenomena as motivation, conflict resolution and my current pursuit of its application to leadership in human organizations. I praise you and others and thank you for this advancement in understanding the behavior of PEOPLE. I would like it to advance further, whether on not my proposals have a role in that advancement.
Kenny
Would you agree that if
reference perceptions do exist at Level 11, they are NOT set or changed
in the same way as the reference perceptions at the ten lower
levels?
Would you agree that these Level
11 reference perceptions are the most important ones regarding a human’s
contentment with their life? Do they not establish the desired
reference perceptions that one’s behavior must satisfy so as not to
experience error within their life?
If so, then are not one’s Level
11 reference perceptions vital to how satisfied a person would be with
their life? If so, then to have an understanding of how these
perceptions are established and changed just about the most significant
application of HPCT to one’s purpose and satisfaction with their
life?
If your theory of human behavior
provides no answer or wisdom about how a person can and does establish
and change these vital Level 11 reference perceptions, then I see it as
having limited value to PEOPLE in changing their behavior and finding
contentment in their lives. Jim claimed Rick is sure that a person
does not control their reference perceptions. If they don’t, who or
what does?
This point suggests to me why
other theories of psychology who portend to have such answers (even if
they are incorrect) get broad attention among theorists and practitioners
while HPCT has garnered the attention of only a few hundred
people.
If all HPCT can or has
eloquently dealt with is how humans keep a car in a lane, or how they
catch fly balls, I think the demand for this knowledge is quite
small.
[From Bill Powers (2008.01.23.1912 MST)]
Kenny Kitzke(2008.01.23)
–
Yes, and I keep saying so every time you or anyone else asks about it. My
words don’t seem very memorable. I have proposed some ways in which the
highest-level reference conditions might be established. Maybe you can
think of some more. It’s pretty clear that people do not easily change
their system concepts, although over enough time this can happen.
But we all experience error in our lives, and have to experience error in
order to produce any action at all. I trust you mean “very large,
persistent errors that are not limited in the normal way by our
actions.”
Sure, but we don’t know how to solve everyone’s problems at this level,
and none of the things that have been offered as solutions by various
schools of thought have made things much better. I see the highest level
as being very unfinished, but we’re learning how to redirect
reorganization so at least it gives us a chance of resolving conflicts at
this level. I don’t see how stressing the significance of this highest
level helps us do any better with managing it.
Actually, nothing outside of us does. We have to do it ourselves. If a
person wants to make up fairy tales to patch up a mismanaged life, I
suppose anyone has the right to do that, but that sort of solution is
repugant to me and I want nothing to do with it. The fact is that we’re
not very good, as a human race, at handling system concepts, and they are
very hard to change once they’ve become established. That tells me that
they are fairly new, in evolutionary terms, and that if any
still-higher-level organization exists, it is quite rudimentary. The
human race is not finished with evolution.
I don’t see what the popularity of the theory has to do with its
correctness. Actually, the most popular ideas are the ones that offer to
cure humanity’s problems right away by supernatural or magical means, and
let people live forever in eternal bliss. Their correctness is
irrelevant; what matters is that they promise to deliver what people want
delivered. That’s what people will pay to hear; they don’t want to be
told that they have to solve their problems themselves, or reorganize
their ideas in some fundamental way. They want a quick, magical,
effortless fix.
\
You may be right, but I don’t care about the “demand” for the
theory. If that bothered me, I would junk PCT and think up a theory that
really appealed to people. Stimulus-response theory would be a good
candidate – your behavior is caused by the way the environment impinges
on your nervous system, so nobody can blame you for screwing up your own
life. Or I could join the Scientologists, who follow Saint L. Ron Hubbard
in seeking superhuman powers and influences, and happily blame all human
aberrations on things other people did to them (or their incarnations 70
million years ago). People want certainty, so I’d give them certainty by
the bucketful. I’d teach them magic mantras that will cure their problems
just by being said over and over. I’d think up bad-smelling concoctions
that ward off things that might happen, and point out that since they
didn’t happen, the concoction must have worked.
There are thousands of ways to tell people what they long to hear, and to
do it in ways that demand faith, not proof. Since people have the
capacity to imagine things at many levels, including the lowest level
where what is imagined appears to be absolutely real, it’s easy to get
them to provide the “evidence” for themselves. If all I wanted
was riches and fame, I’m smart enough to get them in the same way lots of
con men, charlatans, and cynics have got them in the past. But that’s not
the concept of myself that I seek. I would rather know the truth about a
few things than have all the answers that I could make up just to satisfy
people’s longings – even at great profit to myself, it wouldn’t be worth
what I was giving up.
People seem to have learned
how to do both pretty well with no knowledge of psychology at all, much
less needing the exhausting theory that is provided by
HPCT.
When we look at human experience
(the entire nature of human beings; not just their “control of
perceptions”), we see much devastation in the satisfaction with
life. We see war, crime, divorce, suicide, etc. Psychology
has not made a dent in the depravity of human beings. Will
HPCT? How?
Well, I emphatically disagree with that term “people” unless
you mean “a few people here and there.” And I disagree that
“people” have done “pretty well” without a good
theory. I haven’t noticed that religion has made a lot of people any
better than nonreligious people, or any happier, or any nicer to each
other, or any more ethical, or any more compassionate. About the only
thing that makes them feel better is being told they are forgiven again
for the same sins they keep committing every week. Commonly its effect
seems to be to give some people the impression that they’re superior to
other people, more favored, more likely to have eternal life and
happiness, and certainly more deserving of those things – it’s been
astonishing to me to hear the way Christians are crowing about all the
heathens who are going to be “left behind.” Why don’t decent
Christians stand up and condemn such self-serving egotism, such gloating
over the misfortune of others?
By leading to methods of therapy and self-improvement that foster
consistency and effectiveness at the higher levels. I have been working
on this, with a handful of others, for some 55 years now, with some
glimmerings of success showing up over the last five or ten years.
Religion has had millions of adherants with thousands of years to work on
these problems (2000 or so for the Christian religion) with no noticeable
effect. I think I’m doing better than religions have done, so far, even
if it’s not very much.
Anyway, what makes you think that the things you mention don’t involve
“control of perception?” What else is there to
control?
I would be happy to respond to your
lengthy post about my theories. But, I am not the one writing books
or promoting a web site for PEOPLE to learn about the wonders of
HPCT. I think you and Rick and Dick (among others) are the
proponents who must answer the questions about your published theories
and postulations. If you all have answers that have escaped me, I
want to learn what they are. Then we can consider why I currently
find your understandings contrary to what I experience in my own
life.
You’re looking for answers, but you seem to be implying that it’s OK to
leave the work of finding them up to others. I’m not working to answer
your questions; I’m working to answer mine. I don’t think my
understandings are contrary to your experiences; I think my explanations
are contrary to your explanations of the very same kinds of experiences
that you and I and everyone else has. I doubt that you have experienced
anything different from what I have experienced. You just believe in
different explanations of those experiences.
As long as this discussion stays at the level of generalities we will
never find any grounds for settling – or giving up on – our
differences. Just what experiences are you talking about?
Best,
Bill P.
(jim Dundon 01/24/08.1337est)
[Martin Taylor 2008.01.22.14.52]
(Jim Dundon 01.22.08.1314est)
Jim, with the best will in the world, sometimes I can make neither head nor tail of what you write. This message of yours contains a host of examples.
[From Rick Marken (2008.01.21.1230)]
As I said, prediction and control are not the same thing.
They are inextriably bound. We control parameters in order to ultimately perceive a prediction.
If a weather forecaster says "Tomorrow will be sunny", how is that controlling the weather?
I talked about when we control parameters, not when we don't, And when do, we do it to predict results. Sometimes we make predictions without controling parameters, as in the case you cited. but you really had to carelessly and elegantly overlook the facts to make that comment
24/08
If I control my perception of my posture with a reference value of standing straight, what prediction am I making?
The prediction that you will be standing straight the next second. Good grief man!
Stop pulling my leg with this stuff. I am not gullible enough to believe you really meant those comments. They certainly are not worthy a clear thinker such as yourself.
... The first thing you learn when you study control theory is
what control _is_. Control is acting to bring a perception to a
pre-specified state and to maintain it in that state, protected from
disturbance. Prediction is just describing what will be perceived in
the future; it does not involve making that predicted perception
happen.
You're crazy. You just said control is "acting to bring about (make happen) a pre-specfied state" followed by control "does not involve making the predicted perception happen" Like in maintainig a standing position?? Only another crazy person would call that blatant contradiction elegant. I know I'm not a trained scientist but give me a break. Stop insulting what little intellegence i do have. Do you ever read the stuff you right?
All of your computer simulations are involved in making your predictions happen.
Huh??? Say what???
Computer simulations show the consequences of making certain assumptions and setting certain parameters. What predictions is the modeller "making happen"? If a simulation model with certain assumptions and parameter values happens to produce patterns very like what happens when you ask a subject in an experiment to do something, how does the model make the subject do it?
Your comment sounds very parallel to a hypothetical comment that would say a mathematician solving an equation is "making the result happen". There is a sense in which it would be true, but it's not a sense most people would associate with "making happen." The equations imply the solution, just as the model structure and parameters inply the behaviour of the model. If you are able to predict how the simulation will behave because you can solve its equations, good on you, but just how is that "making your predictions happen?" If the model behaves very much as a subject later behaves, what is making what happen?
In science, we predict results but we don't control them.
Controlling the result of a scientific experiment -- making what is
predicted actually happen -- would be an example of scientific fraud.You can't be serious!
Why not. He is absolutely right. It would be fraud if it were done consciously.
Especially in psychology, there's a problem called "the experimenter effect" that's been known for a long time, and against which effective experimental design is required: that the experimenter has a prediction of how it will turn out (or worse, a desire to see it turn out a particular way), and unconsciously (not deliberately) does things that make it turn out that way. It's why we have "double-blind" studies. Failing to ensure that the experimenter cannot control the result is a sign of a failed experiment -- one in which nothing is learned, because for all you know, the result might have been the experimenter's doing.
I know its just poor english not poor thinking, but "making what is predicted actually happen"
would be a success. Lying about what happened would be fraudulant.Oh, I am so glad you aren't a scientist. You would be working for a big drug company and making a lot of money telling Congress and your advertising department how wonderfully your drug performed in the experiments that you controlled so as to give the result your bosses wanted, rather than ones that tried to find out how well the drug works in practice.
OK, Now what? can you extend this to say whether or not a particular
person will come to work tomorrow, kill tomorrow, love tomorrow, be
tomorrow?In practice, no, because, in order to predict control behavior in
natural situations you have to know many things that are themselves
only poorly predictable.More to the point, PCT tells you only that if you know some perception a person is controlling, as well as the reference value for that perception, and the gain and time-course of the feedback loop, then by disturbing the controlled perception you can induce ("predict" if you do it as a thought experiment beforehand) certain actions.
I can control a friend in the room with me, under some circumstances. For example, if I am sitting down and they are near the window, I can say "Would you mind opening the window" and more often than not they will do it. I can predict this will happen, and I can control my perception of their action, though not always successfully.
Why is this, according to PCT? I assume that the friend is controlling a perception that I am comfortable, and I assume that they are not controlling a perception that requires the window to be closed (because that would induce a conflict in my friend). I act (speak) so that they perceive me to be uncomfortable in a certain way, causing their controlled perception of me being comfortable to deviate from its reference value. They bring their perception of my comfort level back to its reference by opening the window. If my assumptions are correct, so will be my prediction that they will open the window. And I will have controlled my perception of my friend's actions.
There will be occasions, though, when my friend will not open the window. One of the conditions under which PCT suggests this will happen is if the friend perceives that the perception I am controlling is not to perceive the window to be open, but rather to perceive that I can control my friend. Many people have reference values to perceive themselves as acting under their own "free will". If they perceive themselves to be being controlled by others, this causes an error, and they will be likely to act otherwise than what they perceive the controller to want. So, maybe my friend will not open the window if my request is perceived as being due not to a wish to have the window open, but to a wish to control my friend's actions.
PCT says you can only predict someone's actions if you know all the parameters and all of the controlled perceptions, as well as all the relevant disturbances and fluctuations in the feedback path such as something getting stuck -- which includes whether a person's attention might be distracted at a given moment. PCT says that most social interaction does consist of controlling other people's actions (I'll get disagreement on this claim, I suspect, but it's true in the sense that getting my friend to open the window is controlling her actions).
When you are working for someone, or submit to military discipline, then you are likely to have a reference to allow yourself to have your actions controlled by certain other people, but this isn't the usual case. As I said above, most people like to perceive themselves as acting of their own volition. The friend who opens the window does so of her own volition because she wants to perceive me to be pleased. That in no way changes the fact that I control her actions in opening the window -- it is what enables me to exert that control.
It sounds like you are saying if everyone relates in this way with my
apparatus we can predict performance. So the prediction depends on
everyones cooperation in relating that way.What it says is that we assume that when someone agrees to act in the experiment, they also set reference values for various controlled perceptions involved with doing what they are asked to do. That's what is meant by "cooperation" in PCT.
That is a relational frame.
This needs explanation. It might make sense.
That entire frame is a refernce signal Bill has established.
Huh??? This makes no sense. I think you are using words from PCT in a way unrelated to their meanings in PCT. But I don't know, since I can't interpret it in context of anything else in this thread.
I don't see what you are trying to say.
But you do. Your following statement describes the relational frame
All scientific prediction
requires that we know the state of many variables that the prediction
model says are involved in the behavior to be predicted. You can
correctly predict the time it will take a ball to roll down a plane
only if you know the state of variables such as the inclination of the
plane, the frictional resistance of the surface of the plane and ball,
weather conditions, etc. If you've ever been in a physics or chemistry
lab you know that you only get the predicted results if all relevant
variables "cooperate" (are carefully contrived) to be in the "right"
states.How did they get that way?
The experimenter set them up, or else measured them. I don't see what Rick's statemen has to do with anything I would associate with a "relational frame". Clearly, if the inclined plane is at a very shallow angle, the ball will roll down it more slowly than if it is almost vertical. If in a chemistry experiment you add ammonia instead of hydrochloric acid, you won't get the predicted results. All Rick is saying is that you have to know that kind of thing before you can predict how fast the ball will roll, or what will happen in the chemistry experiment.
Likewise in PCT prediction, if you don't have a pretty good guess as to what the subject might be controlling, you won't predict very well how events may disturb his controlled perceptions, and still less will you be able to predict the person's action to correct errors in the controlled perceptions. Because a person agreed to be in the experiment, the experimenter assumes a lot about what perceptions the subject is controlling, and therefore can make quite a few predictions about the effects of disturbances the experimenter will deliberately introduce to perceptions assumed to be controlled.
Bill has often ridiculed the use of statistics in quantum theory. he "didn.t
like it!" Here he uses statistics to support his theory.I think this is a non-sequiter. In PCT we question the need for
statistics in psychology because we have found that behavior is a lot
less variable -- and a lot more lawful --What laws are you talking about?
Laws of Nature. Consistency.
If this is true, then you are admitting to the model influencing the behavior and that would belie what Bill has required of his theory.
Nonsense. At least, it's nonsense if what you mean is what the plain English of this seems to mean.
Namely that it be true at all times and in all places. That would include times and places where control theory is not known,
Yep. And it includes life forms incapable of "knowing" anything about PCT, such as flowers, insects, and bacteria.
and be independant of the level of lawfulness.
What on earth does this mean?
That would also be scientifically stated.
What would?
PCT conversations always seem to be contradictory in this way. I am still waiting to hear whether PCT is about all behavior as some of you say some of the time or all behavior as some of you say some of the time..
Is it about X or X?
My answer is that it is about all behaviour of all living things, all the time. Is that what you meant to ask? That is actually its domain of reference.
All behavior would include insanity, murder, infanticide, genocide, suicide, shizophrenia, catatonic schiziphrenia.
Yep. Also tree growth, rutting behaviour of male moose, bacterial movement, ant suicides in protecting the nest ...
In my relatively uneducated opinion, It is not very scientific after decades of dialogue to be unsure and unclear about what you mean .
So what DO you mean? I know language can never make it precise, but your language seems singularly impenetrable. It may be sure, but it's definitely not clear.
Spit it out. "All" behavior or behavior "modified by incorporation of PCT."?
What does "incorporation of PCT" mean? And how would it "modify" behaviour?
I do find that my understanding of the quirks of other people's behaviour (and my own) seems to be clearer from having some understanding of PCT, and perhaps I treat people more tolerantly for that reason. But somehow I don't think this is the kind of "modification" you mean.
Make up your minds whether you want to sell as one or the other or both!!
One or other WHAT???
And be consistant
I think what you want is for PCT to be omnipresent.
Oh, it is, it is! That's unavoidable. But only in living things. Luckily.
I think. Words are what we use to try to
communicate ideas. But I think the best way to understand a theory is
to see how the quantitative relationships actually work. I see this
best in computer programs; people who are better at math can see it in
equations. But words will always be necessary to describe what the
programs and/or math show.I would suggest that the math is prescribed by the theory and will limit, bind, within the frame of the terminology and methods, the results. In this case PCT. I see it as a creation/discovery maintained by your commitment to your creation.
Finally we come to a paragraph that I think I understand. It's a much argued point in philosophy, with which I happen to agree. It really is a weak version of the Whorfian hypothesis. The strong version is unsustainable, but the weak version may well be true -- what we perceive is much influenced by how we talk about it (maths is talk), as well as vice-versa.
Your post makes it clear that you are strongly opposed to PCT.
You are mistaken.
I am opposed to your assumption that it is the only reality.
Has anyone suggested PCT is the "only reality"? I don't think anyone has suggested that PCT could have predicted the surplus neutrinos that were observed over a particular few seconds in 1987 because of the decay of nickel(?) created in the supernova explosion. They were a reality, too, and their timing proved that if neutrinos had any mass, it is incredibly small (of course, now we understand that neutrinos do have mass, and that mass is incredibly small).
I will continue to attempt to make myself clear by being more direct.
That would be most welcome.
I have attempted to point out weaknesses in PCT
Again, that would be most welcome, but it MUST be based on a deep understanding of the hierarchy of PCT flavours, from basic PCT to generally accepted PCT, to speculative PCT. If you can find weakness in basic PCT, you will have done a service to all of the physical sciences. If you find a weakness in speculative PCT, you may help to strengthen it. So please, please, do analyze and point out weaknesses in all flavours of PCT. In doing so, though, it would be nice if you referred to a version of PCT that its practitioners would recognize.
Please do it right. There's nothing a science needs more than cogent criticism.
I am not opposed to PCT . I am not even opposed to your presenting it as a behavior modifier.
Who has ever done that? And if someone did, why should it matter? Psychiatrists have long looked for effective behaviour modifiers. I'm not sure whether MOL counts as a behaviour modifier, but it does represent PCT in a psychiatric environment, and if it works to make people feel better and to interact better with the world, surely that's a good thing, isn't it?
I AM opposed to your denying that you are presenting a behavior modifier and saying that it is pure science when in fact it is an exhortation to responsible behavior, something done by many others not in the guise of science.
As I mentioned above in connection with myself, it is indeed possible that an understanding of the science of PCT may induce someone to act more responsibly than they otherwise would. But that's not a problem, any more than it is a problem that a knowledge of thermodynamics helps engineers build more efficient engines than they otherwise might. It doesn't make thermodynamics or PCT any the less pure science.
What is your issue, here? Is part of your definition of science that it should not apply in the everyday world?
Martin
[From Dick Robertson,2008.01.24.1000CST]
I believe my case is made.
Best,
Dick R.
----- Original Message -----
From: jim dundon jannim@COMCAST.NET
Date: Thursday, January 24, 2008 12:48 am
Subject: Re: most difficult obstacle for me with PCT
To: CSGNET@LISTSERV.UIUC.EDU
(jim Dundon 01/24/08.1337est)
[Martin Taylor 2008.01.22.14.52]
(Jim Dundon 01.22.08.1314est)
Jim, with the best will in the world, sometimes I can make
neither head
nor tail of what you write. This message of yours contains a
host of
examples.[From Rick Marken (2008.01.21.1230)]
As I said, prediction and control are not the same thing.
They are inextriably bound. We control parameters in order to
ultimately
perceive a prediction.If a weather forecaster says “Tomorrow will be sunny”, how is
that
controlling the weather?I talked about when we control parameters, not when we
don’t, And when do,
we do it to predict results. Sometimes we make predictions
without
controling parameters, as in the case you cited. but you really
had to
carelessly and elegantly overlook the facts to make that comment
24/08If I control my perception of my posture with a reference
value of
standing straight, what prediction am I making?The prediction that you will be standing straight the next
second. Good
grief man!Stop pulling my leg with this stuff. I am not gullible enough to
believe you
really meant those comments. They certainly are not worthy
a clear thinker
such as yourself.… The first thing you learn when you study control theory is
what control is. Control is acting to bring a perception to a
pre-specified state and to maintain it in that state,
protected from
disturbance. Prediction is just describing what will be
perceived in
the future; it does not involve making that predicted perception
happen.You’re crazy. You just said control is “acting to bring
about (make happen)
a pre-specfied state” followed by control “does not
involve making the
predicted perception happen” Like in maintainig a standing
position?? Only
another crazy person would call that blatant contradiction
elegant. I know
I’m not a trained scientist but give me a break. Stop insulting
what little
intellegence i do have. Do you ever read the stuff
you right?All of your computer simulations are involved in making your
predictions
happen.Huh??? Say what???
Computer simulations show the consequences of making certain
assumptions
and setting certain parameters. What predictions is the
modeller “making
happen”? If a simulation model with certain assumptions and
parameter
values happens to produce patterns very like what happens when
you ask a
subject in an experiment to do something, how does the model
make the
subject do it?Your comment sounds very parallel to a hypothetical comment
that would say
a mathematician solving an equation is “making the result
happen”. There
is a sense in which it would be true, but it’s not a sense
most people
would associate with “making happen.” The equations imply the
solution,
just as the model structure and parameters inply the behaviour
of the
model. If you are able to predict how the simulation will
behave because
you can solve its equations, good on you, but just how is that
“making
your predictions happen?” If the model behaves very much as a
subject
later behaves, what is making what happen?In science, we predict results but we don’t control them.
Controlling the result of a scientific experiment – making
what is
predicted actually happen – would be an example of
scientific fraud.You can’t be serious!
Why not. He is absolutely right. It would be fraud if it
were done
consciously.Especially in psychology, there’s a problem called “the
experimenter
effect” that’s been known for a long time, and against which
effective
experimental design is required: that the experimenter has a
prediction of
how it will turn out (or worse, a desire to see it turn out a
particular
way), and unconsciously (not deliberately) does things that
make it turn
out that way. It’s why we have “double-blind” studies. Failing
to ensure
that the experimenter cannot control the result is a sign of a
failed
experiment – one in which nothing is learned, because for all
you know,
the result might have been the experimenter’s doing.I know its just poor english not poor thinking, but “making
what is
predicted actually happen”
would be a success. Lying about what happened would be
fraudulant.>
Oh, I am so glad you aren’t a scientist. You would be working
for a big
drug company and making a lot of money telling Congress and
your
advertising department how wonderfully your drug performed in
the
experiments that you controlled so as to give the result your
bosses
wanted, rather than ones that tried to find out how well the
drug works in
practice.OK, Now what? can you extend this to say whether
or not a particular
person will come to work tomorrow, kill tomorrow, love
tomorrow, be
tomorrow?In practice, no, because, in order to predict control
behavior in
natural situations you have to know many things that are themselves
only poorly predictable.More to the point, PCT tells you only that if you know some
perception a
person is controlling, as well as the reference value for that
perception,
and the gain and time-course of the feedback loop, then by
disturbing the
controlled perception you can induce (“predict” if you do it
as a thought
experiment beforehand) certain actions.I can control a friend in the room with me, under some
circumstances. For
example, if I am sitting down and they are near the window, I
can say
“Would you mind opening the window” and more often than not
they will do
it. I can predict this will happen, and I can control my
perception of
their action, though not always successfully.Why is this, according to PCT? I assume that the friend is
controlling a
perception that I am comfortable, and I assume that they are
not
controlling a perception that requires the window to be closed
(because
that would induce a conflict in my friend). I act (speak) so
that they
perceive me to be uncomfortable in a certain way, causing
their controlled
perception of me being comfortable to deviate from its
reference value.
They bring their perception of my comfort level back to its
reference by
opening the window. If my assumptions are correct, so will be
my
prediction that they will open the window. And I will have
controlled my
perception of my friend’s actions.There will be occasions, though, when my friend will not open
the window.
One of the conditions under which PCT suggests this will
happen is if the
friend perceives that the perception I am controlling is not
to perceive
the window to be open, but rather to perceive that I can
control my
friend. Many people have reference values to perceive
themselves as acting
under their own “free will”. If they perceive themselves to be
being
controlled by others, this causes an error, and they will be
likely to act
otherwise than what they perceive the controller to want. So,
maybe my
friend will not open the window if my request is perceived as
being due
not to a wish to have the window open, but to a wish to
control my
friend’s actions.PCT says you can only predict someone’s actions if you know
all the
parameters and all of the controlled perceptions, as well as
all the
relevant disturbances and fluctuations in the feedback path
such as
something getting stuck – which includes whether a person’s
attention
might be distracted at a given moment. PCT says that most
social
interaction does consist of controlling other people’s actions
(I’ll get
disagreement on this claim, I suspect, but it’s true in the
sense that
getting my friend to open the window is controlling her actions).When you are working for someone, or submit to military
discipline, then
you are likely to have a reference to allow yourself to have
your actions
controlled by certain other people, but this isn’t the usual
case. As I
said above, most people like to perceive themselves as acting
of their own
volition. The friend who opens the window does so of her own
volition
because she wants to perceive me to be pleased. That in no way
changes the
fact that I control her actions in opening the window – it is
what
enables me to exert that control.It sounds like you are saying if everyone relates in this
way with my
apparatus we can predict performance. So the
prediction depends on
everyones cooperation in relating that way.What it says is that we assume that when someone agrees to act
in the
experiment, they also set reference values for various
controlled
perceptions involved with doing what they are asked to do.
That’s what is
meant by “cooperation” in PCT.That is a relational frame.
This needs explanation. It might make sense.
That entire frame is a refernce signal Bill has established.
Huh??? This makes no sense. I think you are using words
from PCT in a way
unrelated to their meanings in PCT. But I don’t know, since I
can’t
interpret it in context of anything else in this thread.I don’t see what you are trying to say.
But you do. Your following statement describes the
relational frameAll scientific prediction
requires that we know the state of many variables that the
model says are involved in the behavior to be
predicted. You can
correctly predict the time it will take a ball to roll down a plane
only if you know the state of variables such as the
inclination of the
plane, the frictional resistance of the surface of the plane
and ball,
weather conditions, etc. If you’ve ever been in a physics or
lab you know that you only get the predicted results
if all relevant
variables “cooperate” (are carefully contrived) to be in the
“right”>>>states.How did they get that way?
The experimenter set them up, or else measured them. I don’t
see what
Rick’s statemen has to do with anything I would associate with
a
“relational frame”. Clearly, if the inclined plane is at a
very shallow
angle, the ball will roll down it more slowly than if it is
almost
vertical. If in a chemistry experiment you add ammonia instead
of
hydrochloric acid, you won’t get the predicted results. All
Rick is saying
is that you have to know that kind of thing before you can
predict how
fast the ball will roll, or what will happen in the chemistry
experiment.>
Likewise in PCT prediction, if you don’t have a pretty good
guess as to
what the subject might be controlling, you won’t predict very
well how
events may disturb his controlled perceptions, and still less
will you be
able to predict the person’s action to correct errors in the
controlled
perceptions. Because a person agreed to be in the experiment,
the
experimenter assumes a lot about what perceptions the subject
is
controlling, and therefore can make quite a few predictions
about the
effects of disturbances the experimenter will deliberately
introduce to
perceptions assumed to be controlled.Bill has often ridiculed the use of statistics in quantum
theory. he
“didn.t
like it!” Here he uses statistics to support his theory.I think this is a non-sequiter. In PCT we question the need for
statistics in psychology because we have found that behavior
is a lot
less variable – and a lot more lawful –What laws are you talking about?
Laws of Nature. Consistency.
If this is true, then you are admitting to the model
influencing the
behavior and that would belie what Bill has required of his theory.Nonsense. At least, it’s nonsense if what you mean is what the
plain
English of this seems to mean.Namely that it be true at all times and in all
places. That would
include times and places where control theory is not known,Yep. And it includes life forms incapable of “knowing”
anything about PCT,
such as flowers, insects, and bacteria.and be independant of the level of lawfulness.
What on earth does this mean?
That would also be scientifically stated.
What would?
PCT conversations always seem to be contradictory in this
way. I am still
waiting to hear whether PCT is about all behavior as some of
you say some
of the time or all behavior as some of you say some of the time…Is it about X or X?
My answer is that it is about all behaviour of all living
things, all the
time. Is that what you meant to ask? That is actually its
domain of
reference.All behavior would include insanity, murder,
infanticide, genocide,
suicide, shizophrenia, catatonic schiziphrenia.Yep. Also tree growth, rutting behaviour of male moose,
bacterial
movement, ant suicides in protecting the nest …In my relatively uneducated opinion, It is not very scientific
after
decades of dialogue to be unsure and unclear about what you
mean .So what DO you mean? I know language can never make it
precise, but your
language seems singularly impenetrable. It may be sure, but
it’s
definitely not clear.Spit it out. “All” behavior or behavior “modified by
incorporation of
PCT.”?What does “incorporation of PCT” mean? And how would it
“modify”
behaviour?I do find that my understanding of the quirks of other
people’s behaviour
(and my own) seems to be clearer from having some
understanding of PCT,
and perhaps I treat people more tolerantly for that reason.
But somehow I
don’t think this is the kind of “modification” you mean.Make up your minds whether you want to sell as one or the
other or both!!One or other WHAT???
And be consistant
I think what you want is for PCT to be omnipresent.
Oh, it is, it is! That’s unavoidable. But only in living
things. Luckily.I think. Words are what we use to try to
communicate ideas. But I think the best way to understand a
theory is
to see how the quantitative relationships actually work. I
see this
best in computer programs; people who are better at math can
see it in
equations. But words will always be necessary to describe
what the
programs and/or math show.I would suggest that the math is prescribed by the theory and
will limit,
bind, within the frame of the terminology and methods, the
results. In
this case PCT. I see it as a creation/discovery
maintained by your
commitment to your creation.Finally we come to a paragraph that I think I understand. It’s
a much
argued point in philosophy, with which I happen to agree. It
really is a
weak version of the Whorfian hypothesis. The strong version is
unsustainable, but the weak version may well be true – what
we perceive
is much influenced by how we talk about it (maths is talk), as
well as
vice-versa.Your post makes it clear that you are strongly opposed to PCT.
You are mistaken.
I am opposed to your assumption that it is the only reality.
Has anyone suggested PCT is the “only reality”? I don’t think
anyone has
suggested that PCT could have predicted the surplus neutrinos
that were
observed over a particular few seconds in 1987 because of the
decay of
nickel(?) created in the supernova explosion. They were a
reality, too,
and their timing proved that if neutrinos had any mass, it is
incredibly
small (of course, now we understand that neutrinos do have
mass, and that
mass is incredibly small).I will continue to attempt to make myself clear by
being more direct.That would be most welcome.
I have attempted to point out weaknesses in PCT
Again, that would be most welcome, but it MUST be based on a
deep
understanding of the hierarchy of PCT flavours, from basic PCT
to
generally accepted PCT, to speculative PCT. If you can find
weakness in
basic PCT, you will have done a service to all of the physical
sciences.
If you find a weakness in speculative PCT, you may help to
strengthen it.
So please, please, do analyze and point out weaknesses in all
flavours of
PCT. In doing so, though, it would be nice if you referred to
a version of
PCT that its practitioners would recognize.Please do it right. There’s nothing a science needs more than
cogent
criticism.I am not opposed to PCT . I am not even opposed to
your presenting it as
a behavior modifier.Who has ever done that? And if someone did, why should it
matter?
Psychiatrists have long looked for effective behaviour
modifiers. I’m not
sure whether MOL counts as a behaviour modifier, but it does
represent PCT
in a psychiatric environment, and if it works to make people
feel better
and to interact better with the world, surely that’s a good
thing, isn’t
it?I AM opposed to your denying that you are
presenting a behavior
modifier and saying that it is pure science when in fact it
is an
exhortation to responsible behavior, something done by many
others not in
the guise of science.As I mentioned above in connection with myself, it is indeed
possible that
an understanding of the science of PCT may induce someone to
act more
responsibly than they otherwise would. But that’s not a
problem, any more
than it is a problem that a knowledge of thermodynamics helps
engineers
build more efficient engines than they otherwise might. It
doesn’t make
thermodynamics or PCT any the less pure science.What is your issue, here? Is part of your definition of
science that it
should not apply in the everyday world?Martin
[From Rick Marken (2008.01.24.0810)]
Dick Robertson (2008.01.24.1000CST) --
I believe my case is made.
What case is that? That "Jim Dundon" is actually an alias for "Marc Abrams"?
Best
Rick
--
Richard S. Marken PhD
rsmarken@gmail.com
-[From Dick Robertson,2008.01.24.1040CST)
[From Bill Powers (2008.01.23.1912 MST)]
Kenny Kitzke(2008.01.23–
Would you agree that if
reference perceptions do exist at Level 11, they are NOT set or changed
in the same way as the reference perceptions at the ten lower
levels?
Yes, and I keep saying so every time you or anyone else asks about it. My
words don’t seem very memorable. I have proposed some ways in which the
highest-level reference conditions might be established. Maybe you can
think of some more. It’s pretty clear that people do not easily change
their system concepts, although over enough time this can happen.
Yes,one of my suggestions (not highly supported maybe) is that above the11th level there is a ferment of gradual reorganization, such as wepresumably had as each higher level in the developing hierarchy wasorganizing. I don’t recall offhand how much theorizing went into thequestion of when a given level was organized, such that it couldcommand the levels below–from which it supposedly came.
Therehas been some quasi-evidence (if that’s not inconsistent–I can’t thinkof the word for self-contradictory right now) I’ve seen in groups thatmeet regularly, where members sometimes would say things like, “I don’tfeel like myself today,” or where someone would say to another (whomthey’d known for a long time) “You know, you’ve changed. You used to bemore ______ but lately you’ve become______.” The other part of thequasi evidence would be found where a person would seem to beexperimenting with his Principles. Haven’t you ever seen that? I thinkI have. And if so, you have to ask yourself, "Where are the commandscoming from that would reset Principle level reference signals.
Asyou say, Bill, you have proposed various other possible explanations.It might be useful to review them here, so we can see how far along thethinking might be.
Would you agree that these Level
11 reference perceptions are the most important ones regarding a human’s
contentment with their life? Do they not establish the desired
reference perceptions that one’s behavior must satisfy so as not to
experience error within their life?
Thatprompts a thought that maybe the workings of the Intrinsic System actfirst upon the highest levels (Like Prinicple ) to find “solutions” tointrinsic error before widespread reorganization is triggered. (Off thetop of my head; maybe useless).
But Kenny, I hope you’re readingthis. I can’t quite tell where you’re coming from in your recent postsabout what PCT fails to do. Whoever said that the explanation of theoperation of living control systems would solve the problems of humandysfunction, misery, etc.? True, various PCT-ers have suggested thatwhen an understanding of behavior as the control of perception is morewidely grasped that people would more readily and more effectivelybargain for their objectives, realizing how to convert zero-sum gamesto non-zero sum games (a la the lessons of the rubber band game) suchas Ed Ford has pioneered in education of especially hard to reachchildren. But the political, philosophical, and economic work mustcontinue to work on these problems of society. Hopefully better with anunderstanding of how behavior really works, but not expecting PCT (asan area of what neuro-anatomy and neuro-physiology
currently is thought to cover) to supply the answers to human happiness.
I’m sure you know all this. Where has your current critique of PCT stemmed from?
Best,
Dick R.
---- Original Message -----
From: Bill Powers powers_w@FRONTIER.NET
Date: Wednesday, January 23, 2008 9:43 pm
Subject: Re: most difficult obstacle for me with PCT
To: CSGNET@LISTSERV.UIUC.EDU
[From Bill Powers (2008.01.23.1912 MST)]
Kenny Kitzke(2008.01.23)
Would you agree that if
reference perceptions do exist at Level 11, they are NOT set or changed
in the same way as the reference perceptions at the ten lower
levels?
Yes, and I keep saying so every time you or anyone else asks about it. My
words don’t seem very memorable. I have proposed some ways in which the
highest-level reference conditions might be established. Maybe you can
think of some more. It’s pretty clear that people do not easily change
their system concepts, although over enough time this can happen.Would you agree that these Level
11 reference perceptions are the most important ones regarding a human’s
contentment with their life? Do they not establish the desired
reference perceptions that one’s behavior must satisfy so as not to
experience error within their life?
But we all experience error in our lives, and have to experience error in
order to produce any action at all. I trust you mean “very large,
persistent errors that are not limited in the normal way by our
actions.”If so, then are not one’s Level
11 reference perceptions vital to how satisfied a person would be with
their life? If so, then to have an understanding of how these
perceptions are established and changed just about the most significant
application of HPCT to one’s purpose and satisfaction with their
life?
Sure, but we don’t know how to solve everyone’s problems at this level,
and none of the things that have been offered as solutions by various
schools of thought have made things much better. I see the highest level
as being very unfinished, but we’re learning how to redirect
reorganization so at least it gives us a chance of resolving conflicts at
this level. I don’t see how stressing the significance of this highest
level helps us do any better with managing it.If your theory of human behavior
provides no answer or wisdom about how a person can and does establish
and change these vital Level 11 reference perceptions, then I see it as
having limited value to PEOPLE in changing their behavior and finding
contentment in their lives. Jim claimed Rick is sure that a person
does not control their reference perceptions. If they don’t, who or
what does?
Actually, nothing outside of us does. We have to do it ourselves. If a
person wants to make up fairy tales to patch up a mismanaged life, I
suppose anyone has the right to do that, but that sort of solution is
repugant to me and I want nothing to do with it. The fact is that we’re
not very good, as a human race, at handling system concepts, and they are
very hard to change once they’ve become established. That tells me that
they are fairly new, in evolutionary terms, and that if any
still-higher-level organization exists, it is quite rudimentary. The
human race is not finished with evolution.This point suggests to me why
other theories of psychology who portend to have such answers (even if
they are incorrect) get broad attention among theorists and practitioners
while HPCT has garnered the attention of only a few hundred
people.
I don’t see what the popularity of the theory has to do with its
correctness. Actually, the most popular ideas are the ones that offer to
cure humanity’s problems right away by supernatural or magical means, and
let people live forever in eternal bliss. Their correctness is
irrelevant; what matters is that they promise to deliver what people want
delivered. That’s what people will pay to hear; they don’t want to be
told that they have to solve their problems themselves, or reorganize
their ideas in some fundamental way. They want a quick, magical,
effortless fix.\
If all HPCT can or has
eloquently dealt with is how humans keep a car in a lane, or how they
catch fly balls, I think the demand for this knowledge is quite
small.
You may be right, but I don’t care about the “demand” for the
theory. If that bothered me, I would junk PCT and think up a theory that
really appealed to people. Stimulus-response theory would be a good
candidate – your behavior is caused by the way the environment impinges
on your nervous system, so nobody can blame you for screwing up your own
life. Or I could join the Scientologists, who follow Saint L. Ron Hubbard
in seeking superhuman powers and influences, and happily blame all human
aberrations on things other people did to them (or their incarnations 70
million years ago). People want certainty, so I’d give them certainty by
the bucketful. I’d teach them magic mantras that will cure their problems
just by being said over and over. I’d think up bad-smelling concoctions
that ward off things that might happen, and point out that since they
didn’t happen, the concoction must have worked.There are thousands of ways to tell people what they long to hear, and to
do it in ways that demand faith, not proof. Since people have the
capacity to imagine things at many levels, including the lowest level
where what is imagined appears to be absolutely real, it’s easy to get
them to provide the “evidence” for themselves. If all I wanted
was riches and fame, I’m smart enough to get them in the same way lots of
con men, charlatans, and cynics have got them in the past. But that’s not
the concept of myself that I seek. I would rather know the truth about a
few things than have all the answers that I could make up just to satisfy
people’s longings – even at great profit to myself, it wouldn’t be worth
what I was giving up.People seem to have learned
how to do both pretty well with no knowledge of psychology at all, much
less needing the exhausting theory that is provided by
HPCT.
Well, I emphatically disagree with that term “people” unless
you mean “a few people here and there.” And I disagree that
“people” have done “pretty well” without a good
theory. I haven’t noticed that religion has made a lot of people any
better than nonreligious people, or any happier, or any nicer to each
other, or any more ethical, or any more compassionate. About the only
thing that makes them feel better is being told they are forgiven again
for the same sins they keep committing every week. Commonly its effect
seems to be to give some people the impression that they’re superior to
other people, more favored, more likely to have eternal life and
happiness, and certainly more deserving of those things – it’s been
astonishing to me to hear the way Christians are crowing about all the
heathens who are going to be “left behind.” Why don’t decent
Christians stand up and condemn such self-serving egotism, such gloating
over the misfortune of others?When we look at human experience
(the entire nature of human beings; not just their “control of
perceptions”), we see much devastation in the satisfaction with
life. We see war, crime, divorce, suicide, etc. Psychology
has not made a dent in the depravity of human beings. Will
HPCT? How?
By leading to methods of therapy and self-improvement that foster
consistency and effectiveness at the higher levels. I have been working
on this, with a handful of others, for some 55 years now, with some
glimmerings of success showing up over the last five or ten years.
Religion has had millions of adherants with thousands of years to work on
these problems (2000 or so for the Christian religion) with no noticeable
effect. I think I’m doing better than religions have done, so far, even
if it’s not very much.Anyway, what makes you think that the things you mention don’t involve
“control of perception?” What else is there to
control?I would be happy to respond to your
lengthy post about my theories. But, I am not the one writing books
or promoting a web site for PEOPLE to learn about the wonders of
HPCT. I think you and Rick and Dick (among others) are the
proponents who must answer the questions about your published theories
and postulations. If you all have answers that have escaped me, I
want to learn what they are. Then we can consider why I currently
find your understandings contrary to what I experience in my own
life.
You’re looking for answers, but you seem to be implying that it’s OK to
leave the work of finding them up to others. I’m not working to answer
your questions; I’m working to answer mine. I don’t think my
understandings are contrary to your experiences; I think my explanations
are contrary to your explanations of the very same kinds of experiences
that you and I and everyone else has. I doubt that you have experienced
anything different from what I have experienced. You just believe in
different explanations of those experiences.As long as this discussion stays at the level of generalities we will
never find any grounds for settling – or giving up on – our
differences. Just what experiences are you talking about?Best,
Bill P.
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.9/1237 - Release Date:
1/22/2008 11:04 AM
[From Dick Robertson, 2008.01.24.1041CST]
Good Call, Rick
----- Original Message -----
From: Richard Marken rsmarken@GMAIL.COM
Date: Thursday, January 24, 2008 10:07 am
Subject: Re: most difficult obstacle for me with PCT
To: CSGNET@LISTSERV.UIUC.EDU
[From Rick Marken (2008.01.24.0810)]
Dick Robertson (2008.01.24.1000CST) –
I believe my case is made.
What case is that? That “Jim Dundon” is actually an alias for
“Marc Abrams”?Best
Rick
Best,
Dick R.
[Martin Taylor 2008.01.24.13.40]
[From Dick Robertson, 2008.01.24.1041CST]
Good Call, Rick
From: Richard Marken <rsmarken@GMAIL.COM>
Date: Thursday, January 24, 2008 10:07 am
Subject: Re: most difficult obstacle for me with PCT
To: CSGNET@LISTSERV.UIUC.EDU[From Rick Marken (2008.01.24.0810)]
> Dick Robertson (2008.01.24.1000CST) --
>
> I believe my case is made.What case is that? That "Jim Dundon" is actually an alias for
> "Marc Abrams"?
On the assumption that Rick wasn't just making a joke, I'll enter a vote against the two being the same person. The styles seem different, and Marc usually has a period of intelligible discussion of a problem before lauching into personal aspersions. Where they are similar is just in the unassailable belief that they are correct, and only wilful blindness on the part of the rest of us can prevent us from understanding that.
Personally, I had, and I retain, a belief that marc did have something worthwhile in his mind, but had great difficulty in expounding it in a way that others could understand, and that inability frustrated him. Perhaps he didn't have it in his own mind clearly enough, or pehaps (like, I think, Gordon Pask) he had an internal conflict between letting people know his ideas and not letting people know for fear that the ideas might be misappropriated.
To fail to understand why others don't understand you is not an uncommon phenomenon, though most of us have more restraint in impugning the motives of people who seem wilfully not to understand what we are getting at. We tend to try longer and harder to explain ourselves and then to withdraw from the argument if it seems to be getting nowhere.
On CSGnet, we understand the theory behind conflict escalation.
Martin
----- Original Message -----
From Jim Wuwert 2008.01.24.1420EST
On CSGnet, we understand the theory behind conflict escalation.
Martin
Martin,
In regards to the above statement:
Respectfully, I might agree that many of you understand it in your minds, but some of the folks on here have a difficult time implementing it in practice. The two are very different.
In your journey to be right, you may lose sight of what you are really discussing-how to resolve a conflict. Instead of resolving it, you may just be pushing people away-with no real resolution. I perceive this statement above to be arrogant and condescending.
My perception of this discussion thread is it allows people who are new to PCT to discuss the ideas. If I am wrong, please let me know. If those that are advanced cannot accept the “new folks” realizing that they may need some nuturing in the theory, then maybe there should be an “advanced” thread and a “beginner” thread. It may help cut down on the back and forth silly arguments and help people develop in learning about PCT. Just a thought!
All e-mail correspondence to and from this address
is subject to the North Carolina Public Records Law,
which may result in monitoring and disclosure to
third parties, including law enforcement.
AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY/AFFIRMATIVE ACTION EMPLOYER
Re: most difficult obstacle for me with
PCT
(Martin Taylor 2008.01.24.14.46]
From Jim Wuwert 2008.01.24.1420EST
On CSGnet, we understand the theory behind conflict escalation.
Martin
I perceive this statement above to
be arrogant and condescending.
Sorry about that. It was not intended in that way. I have a
problem sometimes in predicting how my writing will be
perceived.
I do try to use a “tutorial” mode when it seems to be
what is wanted, to help people who seem to be breaking into PCT. The
problems seem to arise not with those people, but when someone comes
along who “knows” PCT and what is wrong with it, but whose
knowledge of PCT differs from that of most participants on CSGnet. The
problem becomes one of communication, because the difficulties usually
are that some words or concepts are understood differently. When those
misunderstandings are removed, either the new person has found that
the difficulty with PCT doesn’t exist, or the science of PCT has been
advanced by the demonstration of an unresolved issue that had not been
previously noted.
Communication becomes MUCH more difficult when those who have a
common understanding of PCT and of the terminology of PCT are told
they must be crazy, dishonest, or are mocking the new person – the
new person who has a different way of using the terms, or who has a
different conception of what is meant by “control.” I’m in
the middle of trying to compose a useful response to jim dundon on how
we differ in our conceptions of the meanings of “prediction”
and of “control”, which I hope will not come across as
“arrogant and condescending”.
Did you find my earlier intervention [Martin Taylor
2008.01.22.14.52] in the dialogue between Rick and jim dundon, which
Dick Robertson called “elegant”, to be “arrogant and
condescending”. Did it justify jim callimg me
“crazy”?
My perception of this discussion thread
is it allows people who are new to PCT to discuss the ideas. If I am
wrong, please let me know. If those that are advanced cannot
accept the “new folks” realizing that they may need some
nuturing in the theory, then maybe there should be an “advanced”
thread and a “beginner” thread. It may help cut down on the
back and forth silly arguments and help people develop in learning
about PCT. Just a thought!
I suppose it might be possible to put a [beginner] [inermediate]
[advanced] item in the subject line of a new thread, but otherwise I
don’t see how you would implement this excellent suggestion. In a
forum or bulletin board, you might easily separate different
sub-forums into “beginner questions and answers”,
“tutorials”, “advanced discussion”, “specific
model tests” and so forth. In an e-mail list, the only tool you
have is the subject line. All these different kinds of threads are
interspersed in space and time, as you read them.
We did try to set up a forum like that for PCT (at
http://www.ECACS.net), but only a small handful of people ever
contributed. It seems that the free-flowing e-mail discussion list is
preferred.
Martin
[Martin Taylor 2008.01.24.12.52]
(jim Dundon 01/24/08.1337est)
I don't think it is usual on this mailing list, though it may be on others with which you may be famailiar, to assume that when someone disagrees with you they are one of: insane, dishonest, or making a joke at your expense.
It might help come to some mutual understanding if you were to assume that none of those are reasonable assumptions. There are other possibilities, one or other of which usually turn out to be correct. Here are a few:
1. Some term is used in different ways by the people who seem to be in disagreement.
2. The assumptions that underly the analysis of the problem differ between the parties.
3. The assumptions are inadequately specified to allow a unique analysis, and the parties have correctly used their analyses to reach different conclusions.
4. One of the parties (or both) has performed a flawed analysis using the same assumptions and logical methods.
None of these possibilities demand that either party is insane, badly intentioned, or mocking.
Now let's consider the question immediately at hand, which I cast as the distinction between prediction and control. I believe that Jim uses both terms in ways that differ from my (and I think Rick's) understanding of them.
[Martin Taylor 2008.01.22.14.52]
(Jim Dundon 01.22.08.1314est)
Jim, with the best will in the world, sometimes I can make neither head nor tail of what you write. This message of yours contains a host of examples.
[From Rick Marken (2008.01.21.1230)]
As I said, prediction and control are not the same thing.
They are inextriably bound. We control parameters in order to ultimately perceive a prediction.
If a weather forecaster says "Tomorrow will be sunny", how is that controlling the weather?
I talked about when we control parameters, not when we don't, And when do, we do it to predict results.
I did understand you to say that you were talking about when we control parameters. My point was to give an example of prediction when there is no connection with control, to show at least that the range of use of the word "prediction" extends outside the domain of control.
Sometimes we make predictions without controling parameters, as in the case you cited. but you really had to carelessly and elegantly overlook the facts to make that comment
Can you be sure of "carelessly"?
24/08
If I control my perception of my posture with a reference value of standing straight, what prediction am I making?
The prediction that you will be standing straight the next second. Good grief man!
Stop pulling my leg with this stuff. I am not gullible enough to believe you really meant those comments.
They certainly are not worthy a clear thinker such as yourself.
I assume you didn't read the expnsions and explanations that followed. I hope I am wrong, and that you did read the rest of my message. Contrary to my usual practice, I'm leaving it in this message in case you didn't.
However, let's go with the flow, and deal with the distinctions I see between "prediction" and "control". Even if you don't use the words the way I do (and I think most people on this list do), perhaps if you can see the way I do use them, you might be able to get a better handle on talking about PCT in a way that would allow others on the list to communicate with you in a way that all parties could understand. It is, after all, a technical mailing list, in which technical terms are used. Perhaps unfortunately, some of the technical terms use words that occur in everyday speech, but use them more precisely than everyday usage. "Perception" is a prime example, but it's not of interest right now.
"Prediction" is literally "saying beforehand". "Control" is acting to make thing happen. There's a distinction between saying something will happen and making it do so. It seems that this is a distinction with which you disagree. As I understand you, to make something happen is to say it will happen.
It seems quite reasonable to say "I predict that if I make the door open, it will be open", but I think most people would think you a bit weird if you went around making that kind of prediction. For example, I might predict that if I go downstairs I will be downstairs. It would be true, but uninformative. One usually "predicts" things about which the person you are talking with might be doubtful.
Now, what about "control". Control starts with wanting some state to exist. Using the preceding example, I might want the door to be open. Perhaps it is already open, in which case, my control is exerted by not acting to change that state. (Parenthetically, quite often on CSGnet soemone will claim that control ceases when the perception matches the reference, but this is wrong. The feedback loop still exists, and the ongoing (non-)action is just what is needed to keep the perception near its reference value. I hope that issue doesn't get in the way of the present discussion).
As I said, control starts with wanting some perceived state to match a reference value, such as that the door be open. But the state in question could be much more complex or abstract, such as wanting to perceive that one's own argument is accepted as being more correct than is the argument of an opponent. Whatever the perception being controlled, if its state does not match its reference value, then a control system will emit output that is likely to have an influence on the perception.
Notice that I did not say "that is predicted to have an influence on the perception" or even "that will have an influence on the perception." I suspect that it is exactly here that we have a communication problem instantiated by
I talked about when we control parameters, not when we don't, And when do, we do it to predict results.
or
... The first thing you learn when you study control theory is
what control _is_. Control is acting to bring a perception to a
pre-specified state and to maintain it in that state, protected from
disturbance. Prediction is just describing what will be perceived in
the future; it does not involve making that predicted perception
happen.You're crazy. You just said control is "acting to bring about (make happen) a pre-specfied state" followed by control "does not involve making the predicted perception happen" Like in maintainig a standing position?? Only another crazy person would call that blatant contradiction elegant. I know I'm not a trained scientist but give me a break. Stop insulting what little intellegence i do have. Do you ever read the stuff you right?
I'm not going to insult your "little intelligence" if I suggest you re-read the paragraph on which you appear to be commenting, am I? If so, I apologise.
I wil assume you have re-read it, and that you have not changed the way you would respond.
Of course, I cannot assure you that I'm not crazy, because that probably isn't something I would know. What I do know is that when I read the paragraph in question, it makes a very clear distinction between predicting and controlling. To you it doesn't, and it's up to both of us (or to me, if you don't want to participate) to figure out where the problem lies.
So, let's consider your response (I'll omit the "You're crazy" bit, which doesn't really help me understand the problem).
You misquote: The paragraph says "Control is acting to bring a perception to a
pre-specified state and to maintain it in that state, protected from
disturbance." Note that word "Control" at the head of the sentence.
Then, to contrast it against "control", the paragraph goes on: "Prediction is just describing what will be perceived in the future; it does not involve making that predicted perception happen." Note that word "Prediction" at the head of the sentence.
Now consider what you say: "You just said control is "acting to bring about (make happen) a pre-specfied state" followed by control "does not involve making the predicted perception happen". You substituted "control" for "prediction" in the second half of your sentence, thereby creating for yourself the "blatant contradiction" about which you complain.
Back to the main thread.
I just said: "Whatever the perception being controlled, if its state does not match its reference value, then a control system will emit output that is likely to have an influence on the perception."
Here we run into the question of reorganization. There are two question:
(1) Why is it likely that the output will have an influence on the perception, and
(2) does the control system need to "predict" that this will be the case before acting?
The answer to the first question (in conventional PCT) is that if the actions of a control system do not influence the perception, or influence it in the direction of increasing the error, then it will change its actions until they do influence the perception in the direction of reducing the error. That change of actions is, in part, the domain of "reorganization". It's a trial and error thing that on CSGnet is often called the "e-coli" approach to optimization. At very low levels such as muscle tensions, the actions are on the real world, and the laws of nature are, we think, pretty well fixed over the span of many lifetimes, as are things like Newton's gravitational constant. Accordingly, the "e-coli" reorganization can be done over an evolutionary time scale so that each individual does not have to learn by itself how to tense or relax a muscle.
It is clear that the consequences of sending a reference signal to the muscle control system are pretty predictable. Does that mean they are "predicted"? In my use of the term, I would say "no" for the person who is doing the muscle tensing during, say, a walking step, but "yes" for a physiologist telling a class what will happen if he applies a voltage to a frog's leg on a lab table. Am I right to think you would say "yes" in both instances?
One of the aphorisms sometimes used in PCT discussions is "Many means to the same end". Suppose you are controlling a perception of the door's state, with a reference value of "open". You pull on the door handle. Are you predicting that pulling on the door handle will lead to the "open' state for the door? Maybe, but maybe not. The door doesn't move. Now you turn the door handle and pull. Are you predicting that the door will now be open? The door doesn't move. You notice there is a "key" in a "lock". You turn the key and then pull the door handle. Are you predcting that the door will be open? The door doesn't move. You notice that the door frame overlaps the door, and you push the door. Are you predicting that the door will be open? The door doesn't move. You remember that you turned the key, so you turn it back again, and push the door. Are you predicting that the door will be open? You turn the handle and push the door. It opens. Were you then and only then predicting that the action would result in the door being open? Are were you predicting all along, for every action: "If I perform this action, the door will be open"?
My own answer to this is that I would not have been predicting, but that I would have been hoping that each of these actions, all created by the output from the system controlling the perception of the door state, would reduce the error in my perception of the door state. I would have tried many different things, all of which had at some past time been successful in getting the door open. But in the end, it might have happened that none of my actions succeeded in opening the door. What then? If it was important that the door be open, as the only way to bring a higher-level perception to its reference value, I might try things I never tried before, at random or with consideration of actions I might have seen other people take. But I might not. I might try different ways of affecting the higher-level perception (which might be to perceive myself as being out of the room), such as going out of the window.
The point of all this rigmarole is simply to try to ask how you would interpret "prediction" in this kind of scenario. If you say that all of the times, you would be predicting that the action would reslt in eliminating the error in the "door state" perception, then we know that we use the word "prediction" differently, and that this is the source of the difficulty at the point where I joined this thread.
The example might, perhaps, also contribute to the question with which you started the thread, about the HPCT hierarchy leading to robot-like behaviour. But that's not for this message. I dealt with it a little in the earlier message, in the context that you can control another person, provided that what they do when you are controlling them is of their own free will -- which sounds like a contradiction, but isn't, if you read the earlier message.
Does this help us get any closer to understanding one another?
Since you didn't comment on the rest of my earlier message, I leave it appended.
Martin
All of your computer simulations are involved in making your predictions happen.
Huh??? Say what???
Computer simulations show the consequences of making certain assumptions and setting certain parameters. What predictions is the modeller "making happen"? If a simulation model with certain assumptions and parameter values happens to produce patterns very like what happens when you ask a subject in an experiment to do something, how does the model make the subject do it?
Your comment sounds very parallel to a hypothetical comment that would say a mathematician solving an equation is "making the result happen". There is a sense in which it would be true, but it's not a sense most people would associate with "making happen." The equations imply the solution, just as the model structure and parameters inply the behaviour of the model. If you are able to predict how the simulation will behave because you can solve its equations, good on you, but just how is that "making your predictions happen?" If the model behaves very much as a subject later behaves, what is making what happen?
In science, we predict results but we don't control them.
Controlling the result of a scientific experiment -- making what is
predicted actually happen -- would be an example of scientific fraud.You can't be serious!
Why not. He is absolutely right. It would be fraud if it were done consciously.
Especially in psychology, there's a problem called "the experimenter effect" that's been known for a long time, and against which effective experimental design is required: that the experimenter has a prediction of how it will turn out (or worse, a desire to see it turn out a particular way), and unconsciously (not deliberately) does things that make it turn out that way. It's why we have "double-blind" studies. Failing to ensure that the experimenter cannot control the result is a sign of a failed experiment -- one in which nothing is learned, because for all you know, the result might have been the experimenter's doing.
I know its just poor english not poor thinking, but "making what is predicted actually happen"
would be a success. Lying about what happened would be fraudulant.Oh, I am so glad you aren't a scientist. You would be working for a big drug company and making a lot of money telling Congress and your advertising department how wonderfully your drug performed in the experiments that you controlled so as to give the result your bosses wanted, rather than ones that tried to find out how well the drug works in practice.
OK, Now what? can you extend this to say whether or not a particular
person will come to work tomorrow, kill tomorrow, love tomorrow, be
tomorrow?In practice, no, because, in order to predict control behavior in
natural situations you have to know many things that are themselves
only poorly predictable.More to the point, PCT tells you only that if you know some perception a person is controlling, as well as the reference value for that perception, and the gain and time-course of the feedback loop, then by disturbing the controlled perception you can induce ("predict" if you do it as a thought experiment beforehand) certain actions.
I can control a friend in the room with me, under some circumstances. For example, if I am sitting down and they are near the window, I can say "Would you mind opening the window" and more often than not they will do it. I can predict this will happen, and I can control my perception of their action, though not always successfully.
Why is this, according to PCT? I assume that the friend is controlling a perception that I am comfortable, and I assume that they are not controlling a perception that requires the window to be closed (because that would induce a conflict in my friend). I act (speak) so that they perceive me to be uncomfortable in a certain way, causing their controlled perception of me being comfortable to deviate from its reference value. They bring their perception of my comfort level back to its reference by opening the window. If my assumptions are correct, so will be my prediction that they will open the window. And I will have controlled my perception of my friend's actions.
There will be occasions, though, when my friend will not open the window. One of the conditions under which PCT suggests this will happen is if the friend perceives that the perception I am controlling is not to perceive the window to be open, but rather to perceive that I can control my friend. Many people have reference values to perceive themselves as acting under their own "free will". If they perceive themselves to be being controlled by others, this causes an error, and they will be likely to act otherwise than what they perceive the controller to want. So, maybe my friend will not open the window if my request is perceived as being due not to a wish to have the window open, but to a wish to control my friend's actions.
PCT says you can only predict someone's actions if you know all the parameters and all of the controlled perceptions, as well as all the relevant disturbances and fluctuations in the feedback path such as something getting stuck -- which includes whether a person's attention might be distracted at a given moment. PCT says that most social interaction does consist of controlling other people's actions (I'll get disagreement on this claim, I suspect, but it's true in the sense that getting my friend to open the window is controlling her actions).
When you are working for someone, or submit to military discipline, then you are likely to have a reference to allow yourself to have your actions controlled by certain other people, but this isn't the usual case. As I said above, most people like to perceive themselves as acting of their own volition. The friend who opens the window does so of her own volition because she wants to perceive me to be pleased. That in no way changes the fact that I control her actions in opening the window -- it is what enables me to exert that control.
It sounds like you are saying if everyone relates in this way with my
apparatus we can predict performance. So the prediction depends on
everyones cooperation in relating that way.What it says is that we assume that when someone agrees to act in the experiment, they also set reference values for various controlled perceptions involved with doing what they are asked to do. That's what is meant by "cooperation" in PCT.
That is a relational frame.
This needs explanation. It might make sense.
That entire frame is a refernce signal Bill has established.
Huh??? This makes no sense. I think you are using words from PCT in a way unrelated to their meanings in PCT. But I don't know, since I can't interpret it in context of anything else in this thread.
I don't see what you are trying to say.
But you do. Your following statement describes the relational frame
All scientific prediction
requires that we know the state of many variables that the prediction
model says are involved in the behavior to be predicted. You can
correctly predict the time it will take a ball to roll down a plane
only if you know the state of variables such as the inclination of the
plane, the frictional resistance of the surface of the plane and ball,
weather conditions, etc. If you've ever been in a physics or chemistry
lab you know that you only get the predicted results if all relevant
variables "cooperate" (are carefully contrived) to be in the "right"
states.How did they get that way?
The experimenter set them up, or else measured them. I don't see what Rick's statemen has to do with anything I would associate with a "relational frame". Clearly, if the inclined plane is at a very shallow angle, the ball will roll down it more slowly than if it is almost vertical. If in a chemistry experiment you add ammonia instead of hydrochloric acid, you won't get the predicted results. All Rick is saying is that you have to know that kind of thing before you can predict how fast the ball will roll, or what will happen in the chemistry experiment.
Likewise in PCT prediction, if you don't have a pretty good guess as to what the subject might be controlling, you won't predict very well how events may disturb his controlled perceptions, and still less will you be able to predict the person's action to correct errors in the controlled perceptions. Because a person agreed to be in the experiment, the experimenter assumes a lot about what perceptions the subject is controlling, and therefore can make quite a few predictions about the effects of disturbances the experimenter will deliberately introduce to perceptions assumed to be controlled.
Bill has often ridiculed the use of statistics in quantum theory. he "didn.t
like it!" Here he uses statistics to support his theory.I think this is a non-sequiter. In PCT we question the need for
statistics in psychology because we have found that behavior is a lot
less variable -- and a lot more lawful --What laws are you talking about?
Laws of Nature. Consistency.
If this is true, then you are admitting to the model influencing the behavior and that would belie what Bill has required of his theory.
Nonsense. At least, it's nonsense if what you mean is what the plain English of this seems to mean.
Namely that it be true at all times and in all places. That would include times and places where control theory is not known,
Yep. And it includes life forms incapable of "knowing" anything about PCT, such as flowers, insects, and bacteria.
and be independant of the level of lawfulness.
What on earth does this mean?
That would also be scientifically stated.
What would?
PCT conversations always seem to be contradictory in this way. I am still waiting to hear whether PCT is about all behavior as some of you say some of the time or all behavior as some of you say some of the time..
Is it about X or X?
My answer is that it is about all behaviour of all living things, all the time. Is that what you meant to ask? That is actually its domain of reference.
All behavior would include insanity, murder, infanticide, genocide, suicide, shizophrenia, catatonic schiziphrenia.
Yep. Also tree growth, rutting behaviour of male moose, bacterial movement, ant suicides in protecting the nest ...
In my relatively uneducated opinion, It is not very scientific after decades of dialogue to be unsure and unclear about what you mean .
So what DO you mean? I know language can never make it precise, but your language seems singularly impenetrable. It may be sure, but it's definitely not clear.
Spit it out. "All" behavior or behavior "modified by incorporation of PCT."?
What does "incorporation of PCT" mean? And how would it "modify" behaviour?
I do find that my understanding of the quirks of other people's behaviour (and my own) seems to be clearer from having some understanding of PCT, and perhaps I treat people more tolerantly for that reason. But somehow I don't think this is the kind of "modification" you mean.
Make up your minds whether you want to sell as one or the other or both!!
One or other WHAT???
And be consistant
I think what you want is for PCT to be omnipresent.
Oh, it is, it is! That's unavoidable. But only in living things. Luckily.
I think. Words are what we use to try to
communicate ideas. But I think the best way to understand a theory is
to see how the quantitative relationships actually work. I see this
best in computer programs; people who are better at math can see it in
equations. But words will always be necessary to describe what the
programs and/or math show.I would suggest that the math is prescribed by the theory and will limit, bind, within the frame of the terminology and methods, the results. In this case PCT. I see it as a creation/discovery maintained by your commitment to your creation.
Finally we come to a paragraph that I think I understand. It's a much argued point in philosophy, with which I happen to agree. It really is a weak version of the Whorfian hypothesis. The strong version is unsustainable, but the weak version may well be true -- what we perceive is much influenced by how we talk about it (maths is talk), as well as vice-versa.
Your post makes it clear that you are strongly opposed to PCT.
You are mistaken.
I am opposed to your assumption that it is the only reality.
Has anyone suggested PCT is the "only reality"? I don't think anyone has suggested that PCT could have predicted the surplus neutrinos that were observed over a particular few seconds in 1987 because of the decay of nickel(?) created in the supernova explosion. They were a reality, too, and their timing proved that if neutrinos had any mass, it is incredibly small (of course, now we understand that neutrinos do have mass, and that mass is incredibly small).
I will continue to attempt to make myself clear by being more direct.
That would be most welcome.
I have attempted to point out weaknesses in PCT
Again, that would be most welcome, but it MUST be based on a deep understanding of the hierarchy of PCT flavours, from basic PCT to generally accepted PCT, to speculative PCT. If you can find weakness in basic PCT, you will have done a service to all of the physical sciences. If you find a weakness in speculative PCT, you may help to strengthen it. So please, please, do analyze and point out weaknesses in all flavours of PCT. In doing so, though, it would be nice if you referred to a version of PCT that its practitioners would recognize.
Please do it right. There's nothing a science needs more than cogent criticism.
I am not opposed to PCT . I am not even opposed to your presenting it as a behavior modifier.
Who has ever done that? And if someone did, why should it matter? Psychiatrists have long looked for effective behaviour modifiers. I'm not sure whether MOL counts as a behaviour modifier, but it does represent PCT in a psychiatric environment, and if it works to make people feel better and to interact better with the world, surely that's a good thing, isn't it?
I AM opposed to your denying that you are presenting a behavior modifier and saying that it is pure science when in fact it is an exhortation to responsible behavior, something done by many others not in the guise of science.
As I mentioned above in connection with myself, it is indeed possible that an understanding of the science of PCT may induce someone to act more responsibly than they otherwise would. But that's not a problem, any more than it is a problem that a knowledge of thermodynamics helps engineers build more efficient engines than they otherwise might. It doesn't make thermodynamics or PCT any the less pure science.
What is your issue, here? Is part of your definition of science that it should not apply in the everyday world?
Martin
[From Dick Robertson, 2008.01.24.1750CST]
[Martin Taylor 2008.01.24.13.40]
[From Dick Robertson, 2008.01.24.1041CST]
Good Call, Rick
Dick Robertson (2008.01.24.1000CST) –
I believe my case is made.
What case is that? That “Jim Dundon” is actually an
alias for “Marc Abrams”?On the assumption that Rick wasn’t just making a joke, I’ll
enter a vote against the two being the same person. The styles seem
different, and Marc usually has a period of intelligible discussion
of a problem before lauching into personal aspersions.
Martin,
I didn’t think Rick was attempting to be completely precise. I think you are correct when it gets down to specifics, but the net result is similar. I mean the net result of a potential new member learning and contributing to the increase of knowledge.
When a newcomer is greeted with the kind of meticulous explanations of the theory that Bill, and you and Rick so regularly provide and still keeps coming from some seemingly unworldly place I begin to consider that we should look at the proffered information as “tests of the controlled variable.” When the information leads to no changes in behavior, we should consider that some other variable is the real one under control. As to what that is in this case, has been made, I think, eminently clear.
Best,
Dick R.
From Jim Wuwert 2008.1.25.1020EST
Martin,
I cannot recall the whole of the previous conversation with you and Rick and Jim. Nothing in there jumped out to me as being condescending. I think the relationships in this forum become very complex with the words we use. The same word may mean two different things to two different people. I think you mentioned that below. I also acknowledge that one cannot hear tone of voice and emotion in the written word. That interferes with the communication that is taking place here. I am not sure what the scientific term would be for that here.
It seems that as much as some on here defend PCT-yet they criticize others for not bringing up what they consider “valid” points. If you are new to the theory, you may not speak the language. But, can someone with a different language still apply PCT, but in their native tongue (i.e. politics, business, sociology, psychology)? It would seem we may need to find the things we have in common versus differences without the person giving up who he/she is. If we want to “convert” everyone to one language, then we have accomplished nothing except to make a village of people that look like us. How boring would that be…
To: CSGNET@LISTSERV.UIUC.EDU
From: Martin Taylor mmt-csg@MMTAYLOR.NET
Sent by: “Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet)” CSGNET@LISTSERV.UIUC.EDU
Date: 01/24/2008 03:14PM
Subject: Re: most difficult obstacle for me with PCT(Martin Taylor 2008.01.24.14.46]
From Jim Wuwert 2008.01.24.1420EST
On CSGnet, we understand the theory behind conflict escalation.
Martin
I perceive this statement above to be arrogant and condescending.
Sorry about that. It was not intended in that way. I have a problem sometimes in predicting how my writing will be perceived.
I do try to use a “tutorial” mode when it seems to be what is wanted, to help people who seem to be breaking into PCT. The problems seem to arise not with those people, but when someone comes along who “knows” PCT and what is wrong with it, but whose knowledge of PCT differs from that of most participants on CSGnet. The problem becomes one of communication, because the difficulties usually are that some words or concepts are understood differently. When those misunderstandings are removed, either the new person has found that the difficulty with PCT doesn’t exist, or the science of PCT has been advanced by the demonstration of an unresolved issue that had not been previously noted.
Communication becomes MUCH more difficult when those who have a common understanding of PCT and of the terminology of PCT are told they must be crazy, dishonest, or are mocking the new person – the new person who has a different way of using the terms, or who has a different conception of what is meant by “control.” I’m in the middle of trying to compose a useful response to jim dundon on how we differ in our conceptions of the meanings of “prediction” and of “control”, which I hope will not come across as “arrogant and condescending”.
Did you find my earlier intervention [Martin Taylor 2008.01.22.14.52] in the dialogue between Rick and jim dundon, which Dick Robertson called “elegant”, to be “arrogant and condescending”. Did it justify jim callimg me “crazy”?
My perception of this discussion thread is it allows people who are new to PCT to discuss the ideas. If I am wrong, please let me know. If those that are advanced cannot accept the “new folks” realizing that they may need some nuturing in the theory, then maybe there should be an “advanced” thread and a “beginner” thread. It may help cut down on the back and forth silly arguments and help people develop in learning about PCT. Just a thought!
I suppose it might be possible to put a [beginner] [inermediate] [advanced] item in the subject line of a new thread, but otherwise I don’t see how you would implement this excellent suggestion. In a forum or bulletin board, you might easily separate different sub-forums into “beginner questions and answers”, “tutorials”, “advanced discussion”, “specific model tests” and so forth. In an e-mail list, the only tool you have is the subject line. All these different kinds of threads are interspersed in space and time, as you read them.
We did try to set up a forum like that for PCT (at http://www.ECACS.net), but only a small handful of people ever contributed. It seems that the free-flowing e-mail discussion list is preferred.
Martin
All e-mail correspondence to and from this address
is subject to the North Carolina Public Records Law,
which may result in monitoring and disclosure to
third parties, including law enforcement.
AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY/AFFIRMATIVE ACTION EMPLOYER
[From Rick Marken (2008.01.25.1020)]
Jim Wuwert 2008.1.25.1020EST
It seems that as much as some on here defend PCT-yet they criticize others
for not bringing up what they consider "valid" points.
This seems like a peculiar way to look at it. PCT is a scientific
model of behavioral organization. There is nothing to "defend".
Indeed, I think tha the proper approach to PCT is to treat it with
skepticism. Those who are capable of doing so should implement this
skepticism in the form of properly designed experimental tests. Those
who have been convinced that PCT is a valid model of behavioral
organization -- because, so far, it has passed all scientific tests --
but who are not scientists can go ahead and try to apply it in various
"real world" situations.
But in order to either test or apply PCT you have to understand the
theory. It's the same in any other science, like physics. In order to
apply a theory -- like Newtons laws of motion -- you have to learn
what the theory is and how to use it. This involves learning more than
how to talk about the theory. It requires an understanding of how to
deal with the mathematical relationships described by the theory and
understanding how those relationships relate to the phenomenon under
study. This requires study and work. And there are right and wrong
answers to questions about what the theory says and how it is applied.
I see those of us who you see as "defending" PCT as being in the
position of a physics or math teacher. Those who you see as critics
bringing up valid points I see as students who think they already know
the material. What you see as "defense of the theory" I see as telling
a student that their understanding of some aspect of the theory is
wrongs; they failed the test.
What is unfortunate is that so many novices come to PCT assuming that
they already understand it and that they have so much to contribute to
it. These folks are not really interested in being students; they
assume that they are teachers already. This, of course, results in
conflict since, in most cases, the actual and would be teachers are
controlling for quite different reference states of the perception of
PCT.
When I was learning PCT these kinds of conflicts never arose. I knew
that I was the student and Bill Powers (the only person at that time,
back in the 1970s, who knew PCT) was the teacher. After reading B:CP I
didn't spend my time telling Bill what PCT was really about or how it
really applied to behavior. I learned the theory by asking questions
and listening to what Bill said and, more importantly, by testing my
understanding by building models and doing experiments on real
behavior.
There was no internet then but when I attended meetings with others
interested in PCT I saw that some of these other "students" were like
those who now show up on the net; students who assume that they know
more about PCT than their teachers. I think this is because most
people come to PCT, not as true students, but as believers in some
existing "agenda" that seems to be supported by PCT. So the goal isn't
to learn PCT but to see how PCT (as verbally described) can support
what they already believe. These people will never learn PCT and they
will eventually go away. So it goes.
I have learned -- after 30 years of working on PCT -- that it is a
rare person indeed who approaches PCT as a student. Those are the
people who eventually become the teachers of PCT. Unfortunately, there
have not been many. It's tough with a theory that contradicts
virtually every existing idea of how people "work".
Best regards
Rick
--
Richard S. Marken PhD
rsmarken@gmail.com
From Jim Wuwert 2008.01.25.1350EST
Rick,
I think you make a very valid point, sort of the the Plato and Socrates style of learning. Bill and Rick. I like that type of learning and I find it to be the most effective. I think what also must be understood is that there will be people who may be practicioners in a field (i.e. counseling, leadership,teacher, business, sociology, psychiatrists, etc.) and researchers (neuroscientists, biologists, psychologists, etc.) who may want to learn about PCT and apply it to their practice and/or research. Now, the researchers I will concede probably have to dive deeper into the math and models. But, most practicioners will get lost with the math and scientific models. I am guessing, but I would assume that many people who are checking this forum out are not into the nitty, gritty of research. But, they may find some value in learning more about PCT and find that it may enhance their practice.
Not everyone will approach PCT like Rick Marken-a researcher. What is being done to help these newcomers feel their way around? I.E. ask the silly questions, strut their chests–without being judged or perceived as “know it all ‘wanna be’ teachers.”
Martin answered the questions about what was done in the past. What is being done for the future?
To: CSGNET@LISTSERV.UIUC.EDU
From: Richard Marken rsmarken@GMAIL.COM
Sent by: “Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet)” CSGNET@LISTSERV.UIUC.EDU
Date: 01/25/2008 01:19PM
Subject: Re: most difficult obstacle for me with PCT[From Rick Marken (2008.01.25.1020)]
Jim Wuwert 2008.1.25.1020EST
It seems that as much as some on here defend PCT-yet they criticize others
for not bringing up what they consider “valid” points.This seems like a peculiar way to look at it. PCT is a scientific
model of behavioral organization. There is nothing to “defend”.
Indeed, I think tha the proper approach to PCT is to treat it with
skepticism. Those who are capable of doing so should implement this
skepticism in the form of properly designed experimental tests. Those
who have been convinced that PCT is a valid model of behavioral
organization – because, so far, it has passed all scientific tests –
but who are not scientists can go ahead and try to apply it in various
“real world” situations.But in order to either test or apply PCT you have to understand the
theory. It’s the same in any other science, like physics. In order to
apply a theory – like Newtons laws of motion – you have to learn
what the theory is and how to use it. This involves learning more than
how to talk about the theory. It requires an understanding of how to
deal with the mathematical relationships described by the theory and
understanding how those relationships relate to the phenomenon under
study. This requires study and work. And there are right and wrong
answers to questions about what the theory says and how it is applied.I see those of us who you see as “defending” PCT as being in the
position of a physics or math teacher. Those who you see as critics
bringing up valid points I see as students who think they already know
the material. What you see as “defense of the theory” I see as telling
a student that their understanding of some aspect of the theory is
wrongs; they failed the test.What is unfortunate is that so many novices come to PCT assuming that
they already understand it and that they have so much to contribute to
it. These folks are not really interested in being students; they
assume that they are teachers already. This, of course, results in
conflict since, in most cases, the actual and would be teachers are
controlling for quite different reference states of the perception of
PCT.When I was learning PCT these kinds of conflicts never arose. I knew
that I was the student and Bill Powers (the only person at that time,
back in the 1970s, who knew PCT) was the teacher. After reading B:CP I
didn’t spend my time telling Bill what PCT was really about or how it
really applied to behavior. I learned the theory by asking questions
and listening to what Bill said and, more importantly, by testing my
understanding by building models and doing experiments on real
behavior.There was no internet then but when I attended meetings with others
interested in PCT I saw that some of these other “students” were like
those who now show up on the net; students who assume that they know
more about PCT than their teachers. I think this is because most
people come to PCT, not as true students, but as believers in some
existing “agenda” that seems to be supported by PCT. So the goal isn’t
to learn PCT but to see how PCT (as verbally described) can support
what they already believe. These people will never learn PCT and they
will eventually go away. So it goes.I have learned – after 30 years of working on PCT – that it is a
rare person indeed who approaches PCT as a student. Those are the
people who eventually become the teachers of PCT. Unfortunately, there
have not been many. It’s tough with a theory that contradicts
virtually every existing idea of how people “work”.Best regards
Rick
Richard S. Marken PhD
rsmarken@gmail.com
All e-mail correspondence to and from this address
is subject to the North Carolina Public Records Law,
which may result in monitoring and disclosure to
third parties, including law enforcement.
AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY/AFFIRMATIVE ACTION EMPLOYER
Re: most difficult obstacle for me with
PCT
[Martin Taylor 2008.01.25.13.44]
[From Rick Marken (2008.01.25.1020)]
Jim Wuwert 2008.1.25.1020EST
It seems that as much as some on here defend PCT-yet they
criticize othersfor not bringing up what they consider “valid”
points.This seems like a peculiar way to look at it. PCT is a scientific
model of behavioral organization. There is nothing to
“defend”.Indeed, I think tha the proper approach to PCT is to treat it with
skepticism. Those who are capable of doing so should implement
thisskepticism in the form of properly designed experimental tests.
Thosewho have been convinced that PCT is a valid model of behavioral
organization – because, so far, it has passed all scientific tests
but who are not scientists can go ahead and try to apply it in
various“real world” situations.
Although I agree pretty much with what Rick says in this as well
as in the unquoted part of his message, I think it misses what I see
as Jim Wuert’s main point. which follows immediately on the sentence
Rick quoted (Jim can correct me if I misinterpret him).
If you are new to
the theory, you may not speak the language. But, can someone with a
different language still apply PCT, but in their native tongue (i.e.
politics, business, sociology, psychology)? It would seem we may need
to find the things we have in common versus differences without the
person giving up who he/she is. If we want to “convert”
everyone to one language, then we have accomplished nothing except to
make a village of people that look like us. How boring would that
be…
The point, as I see it, is language.
It’s all very well to use “reference signal”
“perception” “perceptual signal”, and so forth in
PCT, IFF (if and only if) you have the PCT technical background to use
them correctly. But take Fred Nichols’ question about how to explain
PCT in organizations to a manager who is neither an engineer nor a
psychologist. The manager’s language is different.
To the manager you can talk about goals, both organizational and
personal. Goals may map fairly well onto “reference values for
particular perceptual signals”, but the manager will not
understand the technicaly more precise PCT language. Do the people in
the organization take on board the organizational goals as their
personal goals, or “do the people accept as controllable
perceptions those constructs that the bosses have specified, and give
them reference values the bosses say should be the right reference
values”). The manager can talk about authority and responsibiity,
which are concepts involving PCT structures, but are not attributes of
single control systems (though I suppose “authority” might
map onto power available to a single output function).
In politics, what are the PCT mappings to political language?
There’s just one issue in politics – how do I get re-elected (or if
you are a dictator, how do I not get deposed). In PCT terms, how do I
get people to adopt a reference value of “me” for a
controlled perception of who is “in charge” (another concept
that demands a mapping onto PCT constructs). Good politicians
reorganize so that their actions induce people to develop and to
control a perception of who is in the office, with the “right”
reference value for that perception. Or, in other language, a good
politician inspires people to give their vote.
You really can’t talk to people if you don’t use their language
and they don’t know yours.
In respect of new people joining CSGnet, they try to use PCT
language, because that is what is spoken here. They may even think
they know what the words mean, and quite probably thier concept has
some relation to the accepted technical meaning. But their usage of
that language is unlikely initially to be fluent PCT. I know it took
me a little while to realize that “goal” was a mapping for
“reference value for a controlled perception”, or that
“gain” mapped onto how important it was to achieve the
goal.
It’s hard for members of a group whose only common language is
PCT to try to respond to a new person in a language with which the new
person is familiar, partly because we may not know what language that
is, and partly because even if we did know it, we probably couldn’t
speak it even as fluently as they speak PCT.
My analogy is myself trying to speak German. I have a few words,
enough to get me hotel rooms and meals, and maybe a little more. I’m
sure I use wrong German words when I try to go outside that basic
travel vocabulary. Maybe the native German speaker – or a better
analogy, an Italian who also speaks a bit of German – can make sense
of what I’m trying to say, but she may well not be able to talk to me
in English any better than my German. We have to work to develop an
understanding of just what we are trying to get across, whereas if we
were native German speakers, a few words would do the job.
In the “natural language” social context, once in a
while the native speaker will correct an important misuse of words,
but usually they don’t unless the non-native speaker asks for
correction. That’s different from what happens on CSGnet. When a new
person uses a word differently from the technical PCT-speak usage, the
error often gets pounced on; but what gets corrected is usually not
the misuse of the word but the misconception of PCT that is generated
by the misuse of the word. It’s like what is sometimes called a
“false friend” among cognate languages.
Here’s a false-friend analogy. In English, a library is a place
from which one can borrow books, whereas in French “librarie”
signifies a place to buy them. If you were to go to a French
“librarie” and try to walk out without paying for the book,
you would probably not be told you used the word wrong, but would be
charged with attempted theft.
Anyway, all I’m saying really is that I think Jim Wuert was right
when he said:
I think the
relationships in this forum become very complex with the words we use.
The same word may mean two different things to two different people.
… I also acknowledge that one cannot hear tone of voice and emotion
in the written word. That interferes with the communication that is
taking place here.
As a recent example, I suspect that this is behind what must seem
to anyone versed in PCT as a most extraordinary comment by Gavin Ritz
(Gavin Ritz 2008.01.25.17.27NZ). I suspect it may have something to do
with a difference between his and the PCT concept of “control”
:
“Using PCT would be dysfunctional,
humans are not ants.”
When you look at the rest of Gavin’s message, and compare it with
Fred Nickols’ [From Fred Nickols (2008.01.24.0805 MT)] discussion of
organization, it seems clear that what Gavin is talking about is
almost textbook PCT.
In PCT-speak, conflict happens and control is lost when different
control systems try to bring closely related perceptions to different
values. Or, in Gavin’s language:
Conflicts arise in organisations mainly
due to very poor accountability
structures, ie accountability of role
relationships.Set this correctly (and very few
organisations do) and almost 90% of the
conflicts are immediately
resolved.
But Gavin doesn’t see that these are saying much the same thing
in different language, or rather, that the implications of the PCT
technical statement are what Gavin says is the case in the language of
organizations.
Enough said, I think.
Martin
[From Rick Marken (2008.01.25.1230)]
Jim Wuwert (2008.01.25.1350EST)
Now, the
researchers I will concede probably have to dive deeper into the math and
models. But, most practicioners will get lost with the math and scientific
models.
That's true now. But I see a future where practitioners will have to
learn the math and models of PCT just as engineers have to learn the
math and models of physics.
I am guessing, but I would assume that many people who are checking
this forum out are not into the nitty, gritty of research. But, they may
find some value in learning more about PCT and find that it may enhance
their practice.
My experience is that practitioners who don't get the math and models
never really get PCT and how to apply it. That doesn't make them any
worse as practitioners, by the way. Right now, the practice of
psychology is mainly an art so those who are good at practice will
remain so no matter how little or how much they get of PCT. However,
my guess is that once psychological science is based on an
understanding of the controlling nature of organisms -- ie. PCT --,
then practice will move from pure art to art informed by science (like
engineering).
Not everyone will approach PCT like Rick Marken-a researcher. What is being
done to help these newcomers feel their way around? I.E. ask the silly
questions, strut their chests--without being judged or perceived as "know it
all 'wanna be' teachers."
Asking silly questions is fine. I think we take all questions
seriously and try to answer them in a way that helps the questioner
understand the theory a bit better. But "strutting their chests", to
the extent that that involves telling us what's really true of PCT --
such as saying that no one has any idea how the highest level
references are set or that PCT views the behavior of organizations of
people in the same way as it views organizations of ants - is quite a
different thing. It's like the kid in algebra class thumbing his nose
at the teacher while saying that there is no way to find the value of
x in the equation y = x/z when given the value of y and z. If the
teacher explains that you actually can find x in that situation and
explains how, is that treating the student with disrespect?
Martin answered the questions about what was done in the past. What is being
done for the future?
As far as teaching PCT I plan to continue doing in the future what I
have done in the past: trying to teach PCT as best as I can without
losing it when disrespectful "students" (like the algebra student
above) start criticizing PCT out of ignorance. I would love, however,
to see some criticism of PCT coming from students who already do or
are trying hard to understand PCT. That would be neat.
Best
Rick
--
Richard S. Marken PhD
rsmarken@gmail.com
[From Kenny Kitzke (2008.01.24.1040CST)]
<Dick Robertson,2008.01.24.1040CST)>
In a message dated 1/24/2008 11:41:05 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, R-Robertson@NEIU.EDU writes:
[From Bill Powers (2008.01.23.1912 MST)]
Kenny Kitzke(2008.01.23–
Would you agree that if
> reference perceptions do exist at Level 11, they are NOT set or changed
> in the same way as the reference perceptions at the ten lowerlevels?
-[From Dick Robertson,2008.01.24.1040CST)
Yes, and I keep saying so every time you or anyone else asks about it. My
words don’t seem very memorable. I have proposed some ways in which the
highest-level reference conditions might be established. Maybe you can
think of some more. It’s pretty clear that people do not easily change
their system concepts, although over enough time this can happen.Yes,one of my suggestions (not highly supported maybe) is that above the11th level there is a ferment of gradual reorganization, such as wepresumably had as each higher level in the developing hierarchy wasorganizing. I don’t recall offhand how much theorizing went into thequestion of when a given level was organized, such that it couldcommand the levels below–from which it supposedly came.
My question for you Dick is that, as I understand Bill’s theory of reorganization, the only time the reorganization system even functions is when intrinsic physiological or biochemical variables necessary to support life (essential for survival per MSOB, page 50) are not controlled by the control hierarchy.
So, when and how in your experience of a long life did you sense your reorganization system kicked in and you had “a ferment of gradual reorganization” take place and what intrinsic survival variable was involved?
Also, you apparently disagree with Bill and I that the top level references are NOT established by the control hierarchy system at all? Please expand and clarify your suggestion.
<Therehas been some quasi-evidence (if that’s not inconsistent–I can’t thinkof the word for self-contradictory right now) I’ve seen in groups thatmeet regularly, where members sometimes would say things like, “I don’tfeel like myself today,” or where someone would say to another (whomthey’d known for a long time) “You know, you’ve changed. You used to bemore ______ but lately you’ve become______.” The other part of thequasi evidence would be found where a person would seem to beexperimenting with his Principles. Haven’t you ever seen that? I thinkI have. And if so, you have to ask yourself, "Where are the commandscoming from that would reset Principle level reference signals.>
Exactly. Me too. My wife has said that to me (as I learned HPCT). Seriously. She thinks I have become more self-centered than I used to be. She blames PCT!
More to the point, I think I change my top level perception (somehow) volitionally rather easily, and certainly not in response to any intrinsic survival variable. Let’s say I perceive my attitude to be one of complaining to you and everyone I meet about what happens to me. I don’t want to be perceived as a complainer by other people. Instead, I substitute a reference attitude of being thankful for all the good things that happen to me. Not only do I feel better about myself, people seem to like talking with me more. I trust these attitudes are system level perceptions about people, including myself? And, by experiement, I may have tested the principle/belief of being a thankful person and found it is more satisfying for me and my friends.
If this fits, I would say that my conscience, my inner man, my emotional heart, my human spirit produced a change in my top level reference for my real time attitude. It’s not slow, it’s not random it’s a choice of who and what I want to be. But, this change in system reference selects a new belief reference and down the hierarchy where the words coming out my mouth are thankful words and not criticisms.
What do you think?
<Asyou say, Bill, you have proposed various other possible explanations.It might be useful to review them here, so we can see how far along thethinking might be.>
Me too, all in one place rather than scattered here and there. This would be far more interesting to me on this net than discussions of politics or economics.
Would you agree that these Level
> 11 reference perceptions are the most important ones regarding a human’s
> contentment with their life? Do they not establish the desired
> reference perceptions that one’s behavior must satisfy so as not to
> experience error within their life?<Thatprompts a thought that maybe the workings of the Intrinsic System actfirst upon the highest levels (Like Prinicple ) to find “solutions” tointrinsic error before widespread reorganization is triggered. (Off thetop of my head; maybe useless).>
It does not jingle-jangle for me.
<But Kenny, I hope you’re readingthis. I can’t quite tell where you’re coming from in your recent postsabout what PCT fails to do. Whoever said that the explanation of theoperation of living control systems would solve the problems of humandysfunction, misery, etc.? True, various PCT-ers have suggested thatwhen an understanding of behavior as the control of perception is morewidely grasped that people would more readily and more effectivelybargain for their objectives, realizing how to convert zero-sum gamesto non-zero sum games (a la the lessons of the rubber band game) suchas Ed Ford has pioneered in education of especially hard to reachchildren. But the political, philosophical, and economic work mustcontinue to work on these problems of society. Hopefully better with anunderstanding of how behavior really works, but not expecting PCT (asan area of what neuro-anatomy and neuro-physiology
currently is thought to cover) to supply the answers to human happiness.I’m sure you know all this. Where has your current critique of PCT stemmed from?
Best,
Dick R.>
Perhaps I am dreaming, imaging that humans who understood themselves as perceptual control systems would be more able to change their system references in ways that, despite disturbances, they did not have errors that engender negative behavior. So instead of being upset that Ron Paul is not winning the Republican party primaries and put Paul signs in my yard (that is what a friend is doing and he sends me posts every night of how the media is subverting this brave Consitutionalist) and protesting his opponents and calling them names, I simply choose to not be the kind of person who is worried about politics. No counteracting behavior needed. Ah, internal freedom. Yep, I guess I am dreaming. There’s nothing wrong with dreaming, I hope? 
[From Fred Nickols (2008.01.25.1923 MT)]
[From Rick Marken (2008.01.25.1230)]
<snip>
My experience is that practitioners who don't get the math and models
never really get PCT and how to apply it. That doesn't make them any
worse as practitioners, by the way. Right now, the practice of
psychology is mainly an art so those who are good at practice will
remain so no matter how little or how much they get of PCT. However,
my guess is that once psychological science is based on an
understanding of the controlling nature of organisms -- ie. PCT --,
then practice will move from pure art to art informed by science (like
engineering).
Oh, gee, darn, dang and phooey! Much as I try I can't resist responding.
I don't get the math of PCT but I fancy myself as having a "practitioner's grasp" of PCT. By "practitioner's grasp" I mean a grasp of the key concepts and principles and some of the implications of the models (and by models I mean diagrams of relationships between and among the elements of the theory). And so I do my best to advance PCT down the practitioner's path (i.e., the path of application).
And here's a shot across your bow in return. It's my observation that there are giants in the areas of theory and giants in the area of application or practice (and, no, I don't fancy myself a member of either group). There are practitioners whose accomplishments exceed the capacity of any theorist and there are theorists whose accomplishments exceed the ken of any practitioner. Fortunately, for the rest of us, there are occasionally people of less than maximum capability in either category but of sufficient capability in both to bridge the gap between the two. Thank goodness for them (and, no, I'm not a member of that category either).
Long live theory; long live practice; long live empiricism; and long live bridging the gap.
Regards,
Fred Nickols
nickols@att.net
--
Fred Nickols
Toolmaker to Knowledge Workers
www.skullworks.com
nickols@att.net