CSG-L participants,
Some of you CSG-L participants are providing me with an almost overwhelming
array of opportunities to exchange views. However, before I continue
interacting with you on technical issues of orgamismic/organizational control,
I want to share some reactions to my experiences as a newcomer to this
discussion list and make a specific suggestion to Rick Marken.
Overall, I find this group to be one of the most gracious that I have
encountered in my professional experience. It is a pleasure to exchnage ideas
with CSG-L participants. As I have mentioned in most of my posts, I am
gratified by the willingness of CSG'ers to help me come up to speed on PCT.
I also appreciate the willingness of CSG'ers, especially Bill Powell, to
help me explore communalities between my own views (evolved over 25 years) and
PCT (evolved over a much longer period). You seem to understand that this
path to understanding--bootstrapping from one's current point of view--is
likely to be far more effective than forcing a newcomer to choose between
simply adopting the perspective accepted here or disengaging. It is for these
reasons, as well as because of the very intriguing substance of PCT, that I
have become involved.
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Now I want to offer a suggestion to Rick Marken.
Rick,
Oded Maler recently wrote
"Concerning the specific research issues that Michael [Fehling]
raised, it seems that it might lead to areas of controversy concerning
higher-order entities such as organizations. What is a factory
controlling for? Should every perceptual variables of the factory
be encoeded using one transmission line ("one neuron for one percept")
or should they be distributed in time and space?"
You replied by saying
"Where are the receptors that produce the perceptual signal
carried by the transmission line(s)? Is there a big transparent
retina hangling over the factory deriving perceptions of things
like "productivity" and "team spirit"? Where do the perceptual
signals carried by the transmission lines go? To the big
"organizational control system" in the sky (up there above
the transparent retina).
I think some research issues can be ruled out as issues before
anyone starts asking for funding."
Unfortunately, this caricature of the ideas I sketched comes across as very
sardonic and condescending. It distorts rather than seeks to clarify the
issues that I attempted to raise. Due to this distortion, your conclusion
about the quality of our research reduces to nothing more than an insult
stemming from an apparent lack of understanding or an unwillingness to come to
grips with the underlying issues. I simply cannot afford the time to first
correct the distortions that this introduces and before moving on to a more
constructive examination of PCT's application to social/organizational
systems. This saddens me, because I find so much of value in the rest of your
commentary.
In the future, if I or anyone else states a view that you are _convince_ is
absurd, I suggest that you simply ignore it. Foolish ideas tend to die a
quick death when not nurtured by further commentary. On the other hand, if
you find that the ideas are confusing, then I suggest that you either
(a) ask for clarification, making the effort to merely point out what
seems wrong-headed or confused, or
(b) make an attempt to _reconstruct_ the issues on more intelligible
terms that plausibly represent the view to which you are reacting,
then address your critique to this reconstruction.
Frankly, I am a great fan of the second of these two approaches. You may
recognize it as a technique that is employed by the best conceptualizers in
philosophy and other fields.
Please accept these remarks as constructive suggestions. For the most part,
I am finding the opportunity to exchange ideas with you and other CSG'ers to
be rewarding. That is why I am motivated to try to resolve this particular
concern. I hope that we can do our best to exchange ideas without distortion
and deprecation. I'll do my part.
- michael -