from Kent McClelland (2016.06.17.10.15)
Hello to Bill, Rick, and Martin.
KM: Martin’s latest post (2016.06.16.22.59) provides a good answer to Bill’s question about the utility of the word ‘atenfels’, but since I was involved in coining the term, I wanted to say something from my own point of view about why the word
may be a useful addition to our tools for the PCT analysis of human behavior.
KM: I think, Rick, that your problems with the term (see his post on
2016.06.16.1130) originate in your highly restrictive view of the “right� way to use PCT in understanding human behavior. Here’s a quote from
an earlier post (Rick Marken 2016.06.13.1905).
RM: Well, the above is my idea of what I think is the conceptual error of trying to divide up any particular example of controlling into disturbance, feedback function and atanfel.
I think that the focus of all analysis of behavior based on PCT should be on controlled variables
. Once you know what people are controlling – exactly
what perceptual aspect of the world they are controlling – then you can predict with accuracy how properties of the physical environment, whether they be considered external disturbances or part of the feedback function, will be related to variations in output
and the controlled variable itself.
KM: I’m afraid I don’t agree with your assertion that “the focus of all analysis of behavior based on PCT should be on controlled variables
�,
and my disagreement is
based on PCT as I understand it. If we as PCT analysts are trying to gain a better understanding of human behavior, there can’t just be one right way for us to accomplish that lofty goal. The
goal of understanding human behavior is high-level perception, and any well-functioning neural hierarchy will provide many different means to reach high-level goals. Sometimes it
might be a good strategy
for us to focus first on controlled variables in seeking to understand human behavior,
but sometimes going at the analysis from another direction might give
better results.
KM: I’ll grant you, Rick, that it
makes
a lot of sense for psychologists like you
to focus on identifying the variables that individuals are
trying to control, IF your only
goal is to understand the behavior of individual persons (although I’m not sure it’s
the only good way to do PCT analysis, even at that level). But for sociologists like me, when the goal is to study topics like social power,
restricting one’s
focus to the variables controlled by individual persons is just a nonstarter. For one thing, in large groups of people the individuals are controlling lots and lots of different and conflicting perceptions. Not only that, but
at
any given moment
every individual in the group is simultaneously controlling lots of different perceptions at different levels of the hierarchy. We’re talking
here about a whole humongous lot of different perceptions.
KM: To catalog all the perceptions simultaneously controlled by a large group of people would be a big-data problem of truly mind-boggling proportions. Imagine trying to use The Test to sort out
all these different perceptions individually! And even then it wouldn’t necessarily tell us much about a topic like social power, which emerges at the social level from the collective control of similar perceptions by individual persons sharing a common environment.
For that, one needs instead an analysis that focuses on social-level phenomena.
KM: In my chapter for LCS IV, I’ve argued that since it’s
obviously
impractical, if not entirely impossible,
to perform a one-by-one, individual-level analysis of what large groups of people are controlling, a more practical alternative for the PCT analyst may be to
begin by turning one’s attention to something that can be observed: the collective effects of all these control loops on
the
physical environment that the group of people share.
KM: Whenever people try to control their own perceptions (assuming they aren’t just imagining things), they have to do it by making some kind of perceptible modification to their physical
environment,
which will then have some observable physical effects. (It is this fact, of course, that makes it possible for an analyst to do The Test of what another person is controlling by observing the environmental effects of their control efforts under different conditions
of disturbances.) If lots of people are trying to control similar things in a shared environment, these effects upon the environment will be cumulative. My argument is that careful PCT-informed observations of these physical effects on socially shared environments
can give us clues about the emergence of social power. When a physical environment is shaped by collective control, it takes the form that it does, I would argue, because powerful groups of people want to keep it that way to make it easier to control the perceptions
they want to control. And at this point in the analysis, the concept of atenfels comes in handy.
KM: Let me go back to an example that Rick (2016.06.13.1905) and Martin (2016.06.15.10.39)
discussed
earlier: road
surfaces as atenfels. Suppose we observe that a particular road is extremely wide, extends for many miles, and has a smooth hard surface, carefully
maintained. That kind of road surface is great if the perception you want to control is driving a car or a truck at a high rate of speed from point A to point B, but if the perception you want to control is walking
along
the path of this road from point C to point D, or bicycling, or riding a horse, or going by rail, it might suit your purposes much better if the
road
had an entirely different kind of surface, one not specially optimized for high-speed automobile traffic.
KM: The road thus provides an atenfel for traveling across the city, which people can freely use to control their own perceptions. The fact, however, that a significant part of the shared social space in this
city has been devoted to building a stabilized atenfel that takes this particular form tells us something important about relationships of social power between the groups of people living there. The road as an atenfel is open to all comers for controlling
whatever perceptions they want to control, but its physical form serves the interests of some relatively powerful
groups of people (those who own cars, trucks,
gas stations, car dealerships, oil companies, fancy homes in the suburbs, etc.) much better than it serves the interests of others (those who own none of the above).
KM: My argument, then, is that we can regard the stabilized forms of physical features in a shared social environment as evidence of effects of the ways that competing groups of people within that environment
try to control their perceptions, and the predominant forms of these stabilized physical features can inform us about the perceptions that the most powerful members of the community want to control. You’ll note, here, that I’ve come back around to identifying
the perceptions that people attempt to control, but my social-level analysis had to begin by observing the forms taken by the stabilized features of the socially constructed physical environment. The atenfel language gives me a way of performing this sociological
analysis more precisely than if the only analytical tool I had was to talk about individual feedback functions. (As Martin noted in his tutorial on atenfels (
2016.06.07.16.56),
the term atenfel can also apply not only to physical objects but to other more abstract kinds of stabilities, such as patterns of human behavior. He makes these points quite brilliantly, to my mind, in his forthcoming chapter on “language and culture as malleable
artifacts� for LCS IV.)
KM: You actually made a conceptual move in this direction yourself
, Rick, in your
blog post on the Orlando mass killing in the Facebook page for Controlling People (see Rick Marken 2016.06.15.1100 and https://www.facebook.com/ControllingPeople/
).
You say,
The gain of a controller depends on its physical strength as well as what is called the “feedback function” – the characteristics of the environment that link the controller’s actions to the state of the perception being controlled. The feedback function can
magnify or attenuate the physical strength of a controller, thus increasing or decreasing gain, respectively. The feedback function for a person who is controlling for killing people (which is the ultimate way to control them) is the weapon in their hand.
The gain of a controller holding a semi-automatic rifle is considerably greater than that of the same controller holding a knife (or, better, nothing at all).
. . .
The only way we can prevent such people from creating catastrophes like the one in Orlando is to make sure that the GAIN of their controlling is kept low. And the only way to do that "from outside the controller� is to make sure that the feedback function doesn’t
magnify the gain of the controlling. Since we can’t identify such controllers in advance, the most effective way to do this is to keep semi-automatic weapons out of the hands of all citizens except those who have a legitimate reason to have them (police and
military).
KM: Here you’ve described the rifle used by the killer as a “feedback function� that increases his gain in controlling the perception of killing people. But calling this object a feedback function seems much
less precise to me than calling it an atenfel. First of all, the word ‘function’, as I understand it, refers to a mathematical equation describing transformations of physical energy in the control loop, and a rifle is obviously an object, not an equation.
Second, to actually set up the equation for this feedback function for the
killer’s control of his perception, we would need to consider a complex set of physical
feedback paths from the movement of his finger on the trigger and manipulation of the direction of the rifle in space, through the physical transformations involved in the internal mechanisms of the rifle, to the effects of gravity and air friction on speeding
bullets (where air is either a disturbance because it slows the bullet or an atenfel because the slowing is minimal), to the friction and other physical effects of the passage of bullets through human bodies, to the transference of light rays and sound waves
and odors (presumably) from the effects of the bullets on the bodies back through the air to the killer’s sensory organs. All that sounds to me like it would make for a pretty complicated mathematical equation to set up, but please go to it if you think you
can. (Which I view as a fair request, since you’ve been pestering Martin to come up with the mathematical formulas that would demonstrate the role of atenfels in individual control loops.)
KM: The way your example could relate to an analysis of social power, as I see it, is this: Why is it that atenfels like semi-automatic rifles, which provide mass killers with convenient tools for quickly and
easily controlling their diabolical perceptions, are so widely available in the social environment of the USA? Exactly whose perceptions are being controlled here? This issue sounds
pretty similar to the one you’ve
raised in your blog, and you make a good point in the blog that the rifle increases the gain of the individual’s feedback function enormously. But to call the rifle a feedback function instead of an atenfel just muddies the waters from my point of view, and
your focus on the individual feedback functions instead of on the socially controlled forms of the physical environment misses a very important point to be made about social power.
Best to all,
Kent
···
On 06/16/2016 10:16 PM, Martin Taylor wrote:
[Martin Taylor 2016.06.16.22.59]
I also agree with this. I believe the compelling reason is that the concept that an environmental feedback path is usually composed of several distinct sections is normally ignored. The output is connected to the CEV by a wire (a unity-gain path) and the CEV
is connected to the perceptual input by a wire. That the output might be a finger movement that moves a mouse that sends motion-related values through a wire to a complicated electronic processor that send values to a screen processor that produces a cursor
pattern at a place on a screen is totally ignored, so no word is needed. Once you break up that pathway into components that can be influenced independently, you need a word to talk about the concept of an environmental path component. Having a word also means
that the issue of interactions between different control systems (in the same person or in different people) becomes easier to think about.
Is a wire affected by the variations in the current flowing through it? Such a wire, or rather, the conductivity of such a wire, could be an atenfel for controlling some perception, say the position of a cursor on a screen in a tracking task. The mouse position
is signalled to the computer by signals through its connecting wire (unless you have a wireless mouse). Without that wire, you can’t control the cursor.
True. If the mouse wire is cut, you can go and get a new mouse, a wired joystick, a trackpad or a wireless mouse. Either a new wire or a wireless transmitter-receiver pair has the property of transmitting your control movements to the computer. None of your
movements affect the atenfel in question, which is the property of being able to communicate your movements to the computer.
True, that’s almost the first fact mentioned in the tutorial. (Quoting the start of the tutorial): “Let’s start from the idea of one simple control loop.
If this is all you are interested in, there’s no reason to think of splitting any of the segments represented by arrows into components. All that matters is the influence that the variation of the value at the tail of the arrow on the value at the head of the
arrow. In most loop analyses, the arrow represents a simple connector, so there is even less that matters. Loop gain and transport lag is often enough.”
I hope so. But I would not use the word “disturb” in this context, because “disturb” has a specific meaning in PCT. “Affect” or “influence” would be appropriate. You also seem to be taking the cross-influence to be a side-effect, which indeed it might be. But
things get more interesting when it is an intended effect, either enhancing or reducing the ability of the other person to control.
If someone really doesn’t want you to be able to control the cursor-target relationship perception, cutting the wire to remove the “conductivity” atenfel would be quite effective. As for resolving conflict, I think the issues are much the same as for the “standard”
or “classical” conflict in which the opponents both try to set a single environmental variable to two different values. Imagine a conflict (a rather artificial one) in which only one mouse is available that could be paired to either of two computers, and both
computers are running a tracking task. Only one of the tracking tasks can be performed at any given time, just as would be the case if the two opponents were trying to do the tracking task on one computer, but wanted to set the cursor at a different distance
from the target. The resolution to the two-computer-one-mouse conflict is to provide a new atenfel, the transmissible mobility of a second mouse that could be paired to the other computer.
If you want to go a bit deeper into the nature of atenfels, we have a small taxonomy of them. The mouse-wire case is in the class “Catalytic-Limited”. “Catalytic” means it is unaffected by being used and “Limited” means it can be used in the environmental feedback
path of only a limited number of perceptions at any one time. A different kind is “Resource” which is affected by being used, as is a candle whose “shedding light” property is used up ever second the candle is lit.
from here on, I think your understanding of the nature of an atenfel differs sufficiently from mine that it is hard for me to make a specific comment, but I will try. Probably my comments will not seem germane, but who knows?
In this case, you refer to a conflict over a “Limited” type of atenfel. One kind of atenfel limit is embodied in an object that has different properties that could be used as atenfels for control of different perceptions, but if one person is using one of those
properties, another person can’t use any of its properties. If I am cutting something with a Swiss Army knife, you can’t use it to get a stone out of a horse’s hoof, or anything else.
On the other hand Limits can be very broad. A road is an atenfel for control of a perception of being in some distant place if you use the mobility property of a bike or car as another atenfel in the same environmental feedback path. A highway is very little
affected by the passage of a car or bike, and until there are so many cars as to slow traffic its use by one car doesn’t affect its simultaneous use by another so it is a “Catalytic (effectively) Unlimited” atenfel for controlling a perception of being rapidly
at another place.
Yes, that’s the example of providing a second mouse so tracking tasks can be done on two different computers at the same time.
I’m trying to see a way in which the speed could be an atenfel for controlling a perception of the finger to be moving in a figure 8 pattern. It seems to me to be an independently controlled perception. I grant that you can’t physically move without the move
having some speed, so in that sense the speed is indeed a property of the environmental feedback path, but it is a variable, and changing it doesn’t affect the control of the pattern shape. Speed isn’t a component of the environmental feedback path for controlling
the perception of the pattern shape. It is a property of the signal waveform that propagates around the loop.
I would call it a property of the disturbance that is Per2’s influence on the position of the knot whose position Per1 is trying to control.
Yes, disturbance bandwidth is critical in the ability of someone to control. You could, however, use the rubber-band example in a different way to illustrate an “atenfel” conflict. The atenfel in question is the elastic modulus of the rubber band, which varies with temperature. If there were a Per3 who could instantaneously vary the
temperature of Per1’s loop of the band, and did it very fast, Per1 would have great difficulty in control, just as would be the case if Per2 moved erratically fast. That would be an example of Per3’s interference with an atenfel in Per1’s environmental feedback
path to impair Per1’s control.
But it isn’t correct, as I hope I have demonstrated. Think of “atenfel” as the strength of a link in a chain that represents the whole environmental feedback path, or as the electrical properties of a component in an electronic circuit that is in the environmental
feedback path.
I hope this helps.
Martin
On 2016/06/16 8:11 PM, Bill Leach wrote:
Gads! I told myself that I wasn’t going to put in my ‘2 cents’ worth on this discussion. However, after having read the attached exchange I changed my mind.
First I absolutely agree with Rick (and thus undoubtedly with Bill Powers) that adding new terms to PCT is not something that we really want to be doing unless there is a compelling reason to do so.
Now the rest of this is based upon what I think that ‘atenfel’ means (gleaned primarily from the attached discussion). I also expect that Kent or Martin will be quite happy to correct me if I am in error here.
An ‘atenfel’ is something in the environment that is affected by a person controlling a perception.
The ‘atenfel’ may not necessarily have to affected by that person, that is there could be another way to achieve control of the desired perception that would not necessarily affect that
particular ‘atenfel.’
So specifically an ‘atenfel’ is NOT itself the controlled perception for the person. For this purpose, the term provides nothing for the basic PCT model.
However, and this is where I think that Martin and Kent are coming from, in a situation where two or more people controlling their perceptions AND in doing so are affecting an ‘atenfel’ that disturbs the ability of others to achieve control then this term might
be a useful construct when attempting to understand and resolve conflict between two or more persons.
If I am even close on all of this then I invite Martin and/or Kent to provide a some useful real world examples.
I believe that a generative model could be produced but the environment part of the model would likely be highly complex. The ‘atenfel’ for the model would be something that is affected
by the control efforts of two (or more) people attempting to control their perceptions where the perceptions that they are controlling are not the same.
The controlled perceptions would indeed have to be different for the two person case. Thus the effect on the common ‘atenfel’ would be an incidental effect to both (or maybe all) of
the controlled perceptions.
from the standpoint of a person trying to resolve a conflict between two or more persons, identifying such an ‘atenfel’ could be very useful in an attempt to find different control methods for each of the parties to achieve their own control without preventing
control or a different perception by another (or others).
In trying to come up with my own example I could not seem to help myself from falling back on the simplest control example that I have ever seen… the knotted rubber bands.
We know that one party (Per1) is controlling to keep the knot over the dot on the paper. The other (Per2)
could be controlling for making a figure 8 pattern with his/her finger. An ‘atenfel’ for this situation then
could be the speed at which Per2 makes figure 8 pattern.
This speed may not be of any particular concern to the Per2 (and thus is completely incidental) whereas it can be of major concern to Per1 (especially if their reaction speeds are as
slow as my own).
Identifying that the ‘speed of motion’ in this hypothetical case is the ‘atenfel’
and it is not something that either party is trying to control would allow for a simple conflict resolution where both are able to achieve control of their desired perception, by merely
asking Per2 to slow down.
Again, if my example is correct, then in this case the need for a special term would not exist.
