[From Fred Nickols (2009.09.29.0820 EST)]
This showed up in my mail box as the thought for the day. It didn't draw the intended chuckle; instead, I was reminded of the PCT trusim that "You can't tell what someone is doing by watching what they're doing."
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A priest was walking along the cliffs at Dover when he came
upon two locals pulling another man ashore on the end of a rope.
"That's what I like to see", said the priest, "A man helping his fellow
man".
As he was walking away, one local remarked to the other, "Well,
he sure doesn't know the first thing about shark fishing."
P.S. FWIW, I don't use that truism verbatim; instead, I say "You can't tell what someone is up to by watching what they're doing."
Regards
Fred Nickols
nickols@att.net
[From Ted Cloak (2009.09.29.0911 MST)]
[From Fred Nickols (2009.09.29.0820 EST)]
/SNIP/
P.S. FWIW, I don't use that truism verbatim; instead, I say "You can't
tell what someone is up to by watching what they're doing."
I like that "truism", and have used it myself, in my draft PPt presentation "Perceptual Control Theory and the Evolution of Culture".
That said, how else are you going to tell what someone is up to? By their telling you? And how else are you going to tell what a non-human animal is up to? Can formal procedures be worked out for doing that?
Regards,
Ted
[From Rick Marken (2009.09.29.0850)]
Ted Cloak (2009.09.29.0911 MST) –
Fred Nickols (2009.09.29.0820 EST)–
P.S. FWIW, I don’t use that truism verbatim; instead, I say "You can’t
tell what someone is up to by watching what they’re doing."
I like it better as “You can’t tell what someone is doing by just watching what they are doing”.
I like that “truism”, and have used it myself, in my draft PPt presentation “Perceptual Control Theory and the Evolution of Culture”.
That said, how else are you going to tell what someone is up to? By their telling you? And how else are you going to tell what a non-human animal is up to? Can formal procedures be worked out for doing that?
You betcha. That’s what the “test for the controlled variable” is about. Indeed, it was specifically to illustrate that “truism” and to show how “the test” solves the problem posed by it that I developed the (still imperfect but slowly improving) “Mind Reading” demo (http://www.mindreadings.com/ControlDemo/Mindread.html).
Best
Rick
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Richard S. Marken PhD
rsmarken@gmail.com
www.mindreadings.com