[From Rick Marken (940217.1400)]
Bill Leach (940216.18:55 EST)--
Re: PCT Morality
PCT neither supports nor refutes any concept such as "absolute right",
"absolute wrong", "moral position", 'ethical standard" or even "absolute
truth".
If some specific statement is made concerning one of the above and that
statement is "provable" by the rules for epistemology, PCT remains
"neutral" except that results from testing using PCT should support the
alledged "truth" and if not then there is obviously an error somewhere.
PCT is an attempt to explain all human behavior, including what might
be called "moral behavior" or "the moral aspects of behavior". It should
also explain the "proving behavior" of epistemologists and why some people
act to defend the notion of absolute right while others don't.
You say:
Our "subject" can not change "SO's" perception (short ...
I said:
Not true. The "subject" cannont know exactly ...
You reply:
I will assert that my statment above (>>) IS correct because I said "can
not change" and not "can not influence".
Bill Powers (940216.1015 MST) just posted a reply to this. Yes, you
can change other people's perceptions; you just can't know exactly
how those perceptions are changing. In fact, that's what PCT methodology is
about; trying to discover what perceptual variables are being controlled by
seeing if your attempts to change the state of a perception is resisted.
Bill Leach (940217.07:25 EST)--
When I said "social" I did not mean in social in terms of any particular
behaviour but rather that "by design" humans will deal in groups rather
than alone BECAUSE it is their nature.
So people "deal in groups" because its their "nature" to "deal in groups"?
Now you are using the word "nature" as a dormative principle. Yes, PCT
does NOT deal with things like people's "social nature" or, for that matter,
their "agressive nature" or their "intelligence". These are all dormative
principles -- words that make it seem like there is something inside the
person that produces each of the differnent kinds of behavior we see --
socializing, fighting, solving problems, etc. Dormative principles are
garbage theories designed to explain garbage data. If you are looking to PCT
for such theories you will, indeed, find it flawed.
The central phenomenon addressed by PCT is CONTROL -- purposeful
variations in environmental variables. These variations are seen as
(and named) "social interaction", "fighting", "problem solving", "walking",
"talking", "skiing", "religious ritual", "studying", etc, etc. When you take
a careful look at what is actually happening when people are doing these
things, you will see that variables are being controlled. In social
interaction, for example, SOME of the variables controlled are "inter-
personal distance", "vocal intelligibility", "target of gaze", "word
selected", "degree of smile", etc, etc. The fact that these variables are
controlled can be established by watching for resistence to disturbances --
natural or artificially produced environmental variations that influence
the state of these variables. Move closer to a person and see if they move
back just enough to preserve the original distance. Turn on the radio and
see if the person starts to talk a bit louder. Move to the side and see if
the person move her eyes to keep her gaze fixed on you. Etc. What you are
looking for is influences on a variable that compensate for disturbing
influence, maintaining the variable in its original state.
People control and in so doing they produce MANY different kinds of results
purposefully. What this means, according to PCT, is that all the behaviors
that we see and name are our view of people acting to keep perceptual
variables matching reference signals. That's all their is to it -- but it
works when applied to the details of behavior.
If you want anything deeper you'll have to look into information theory.
Best
Rick