[From Bill Powers (950929a)] --
Brian D'Agostino (950928.1020) --
the problem seems to be with the phenomenon at issue, not with some
failure on my part to understand PCT. Your description pertains to
a system that is more or less successful at maintaining control.
The political phenomenon I am investigating involves, I think,
people who are chronically dissatisfied with their country's level
of military power, or with an historical trend regarding it.
Although as individuals they have almost no control over these
variables, hawks and doves nevertheless have a constant disposition
to do whatever they can to bring their country's military power
into line with their reference perceptions--a state of affairs they
strive towards but rarely achieve.
According to PCT, a person who is in a state of chronic large error
would be continuously reorganizing. If these errors concerned the
highest levels of goals, what do you think the result would be, in PCT
terms?
I find it hard to conceive of a person who is organized so that the
highest-level control processes always fail to correct errors. When it
seems that this is true, I would rather guess that I have failed to
understand what is actually being controlled. Consider professional
sports. Half of the players in a given year belong to teams with losing
records, yet year after year they devote their lives to the game. They
obviously consider something to be more important than winning. It's
hard to generalize about what that might be -- for some, it's obviously
the money; for others, like Ernie Banks, it's obviously just the joy of
being part of the game; and for still others, it's the fame and
recognition that come from having made it into the big-time ranks of
players. People are different.
(When they do temporarily achieve it, they tend to reset their
reference perceptions with the result that they continue pushing
against the system in their preferred direction. For example, in
the post Cold War situation, doves have seen some decreases in
military spending, but now they want even greater decreases.)
That's one interpretation of what they are doing, but it implies chronic
failure to control, and if that intepretation is correct I would expect
them eventually to turn to other pursuits in which they would experience
less error. If they persist, then I would have to look for a different
understanding of their goals. There is something accomplished by what
they're doing that is more important to them than succeeding at changing
the state of their country's military power. As you say, they are
willing to _change_ their reference levels for an acceptable state of
military power in order to maintain --- what? Enjoymnent of pushing
against the system? A sense of working for the good? The feeling of
being part of an organized movement? A sense of personal importance? The
only way to find out is to ask.
Bill: In a hierarchical system, the output of all control systems
but those of the lowest level consists not of producing actions,
but of manipulating goals for lower systems.
Reply: I don't get that. Isn't "manipulating goals" a kind of
action?
Not one that is directly visible as overt behavior. A change of goal can
be seen from outside only through observing that the effects produced by
the person have begun to change toward a new direction, that different
disturbances are now resisted. Separating a change of goal from a change
of perception (due to reorganization) is not necessarily easy; one has
to see specific goals in the context of many goals at the same level. Is
the same perception now being controlled at a different level, or is the
old perception no longer being controlled at all? In any case, the
manipulation of goals (that is, reference signals) is not generally easy
to observe from outside the person.
Bill: The hierarchy does not have one single apex but many -- if
the idea of system concepts is accepted as the highest defined
level.
Reply: That seems like an empirical and theoretical question, and I
don't think we should assume _a priori_ that PCT has any inherently
correct or incorrect answer to it.
Martin Taylor had one good answer to that. The PCT model is basically a
collection of simple control systems that each control in a single
dimension, so that controlling a complex variable actually requires
independent control of each independent dimension. This is probably not
entirely correct because of interactions among related control systems
at the same level, but at least it shows that we have to consider
complex controlled variables as a constellation of attributes, any one
of which could in principle change independently of the others.
You're right that this is an empirical question: the question is whether
we can identify what seem to be multiple system concepts that are
perceived and maintained by people's behavior, or whether there is just
one single system concept at the apex of the hierarchy, the concept you
would like to call the Self. I think there is considerable evidence,
however anecdotal, that the Self is not the only controlled perception
at the highest levels, and that it is not, as experienced, even at the
highest level in every person or even most persons.
Of course all perceptions and goals exist inside individual persons, but
that is not the question. The question is whether that collection of
attributes that we call the Self, with a capital S, is the consideration
around which all other goals of a person are organized, or whether there
are goals that people pursue that can require subordination of the Self
to other goals that are considered more general and that take priority.
There are people who claim that they are ready to sacrifice their
personal existence if doing so will support some concept like a
religious system of belief, love of country, freedom of everyone from
oppression, or freedom of intellectual enquiry for everyone. And there
have undoubtedly been many instances of people actually doing this. In
such cases it is hard to see how all behavior could be subordinate to
preserving whatever it is that a person experiences as a Self.
I like Ockham's razor, and therefore I prefer to proceed on the
assumption that the hierarchy has one apex, at least in the absence
of evidence to the contrary.
How would you classify a concept such as Science, which for many people
is a concept that is far more interesting than their own personal
characteristics? It seems a weakness in an argument if one has to say
that such appearances really conceal an overriding concern with Self,
when the only evidence for that is in one's imagination, or is found
only through comparison with one's own personal organization. And even
without considering the question of hierarchical order, where does one
place concepts that seem irrelevant to Self, such as geography,
mathematical systems, physics, political science, cosmology, or
biochemistry? At what level or in what position do you place concepts
like family, or loyalty to any group? Is a child absorbed in the
behavior of a bug and awakening to an interest in the natural world
concerned only with the Self, or is the Self even a consideration at
that moment?
The logical candidate for this is the self. This view is
consistent with empirical work in political psychology from the
1930's through the 1950's suggesting that ideologies or belief
systems are explained in part by psychological needs, rather than
the reverse.
Why are "psychological needs" confined to the subject of Self? I think,
for example, that satisfaction of curiosity about the world is just as
much a psychological need as satisfaction of hunger or sexual longings.
There is joy to be found in the exploration of other minds, and in
joining with others in the attainment of goals too large for an
individual to achieve alone. There is joy in serving others as well as
in serving one's individual needs; the one does not exclude the other.
Bill: I would disagree with saying that the perceptual functions
are the sole locus of cognitive functions.
Reply: I was using "cognitive" the way it is commonly used in my
field, which is something like "pertaining to the processing of
information originating outside the person."
That takes in a lot of territory. Perception provides a picture of how
the world is, or appears, at any given moment. But what happens to that
information? It is put together with other information; it enters into
thinking about implications and conclusions, and eventually some of it
leads to and is affected by actions. All of this involves "processing of
information." Everything the brain does by way of perception,
comparison, and action, at one level or many, involves the processing of
information. The term "cognitive" is only an indicator of a vague
category of processes, and does not refer to any specific process.
I'm not interested in having a semantic debate about how you or I
think the word _should_ be used.
Well, if you expect me to use it the same way you do, some discussion at
least seems called for.
Reply: In light of the above, maybe [the errors you pointed out]
are not "errors" at all, even if I am concerned about not
misrepresenting PCT, which I am. By the way, although I try to be
accurate when stating that "Powers says X," I am neither interested
in "adhering" to PCT, _nor_ in creating my own system. Rather, I
am interested in using other peoples and my own ideas and methods
where they are useful in a given context, and discarding them where
they are not.
PCT is not a religion or a political system to which one swears
allegiance. It is a structure of scientific thought based on
observations and analysis informed by known properties of control
systems, and explored through making hypotheses and testing them against
observation. Much of what I say about applications to human nature is
conjectural and subject to debate or even disconfirmation. But the basic
structure of PCT is on firm grounds. One can't simply say that control
processes work according to PCT when it is convenient to think so, and
otherwise can be interpreted any way one pleases.
This is not to say that the "firm grounds" of PCT are unassailable. It
is only to say that to modify the bases of PCT requires more than a
superficial acquaintance with what they are. Hans Blom and I are
currently engaged in an exploration of a different model that, while
sharing some of the basic properties of our "standard" PCT model, has
what seems to be a different underlying organization. Blom's model has
to be taken seriously because as we explore it in one circumstance after
another, it continues to produce results that are essentially identical
to those of the PCT model. There is a suggestion that Blom's model can
do something that the PCT model can't do -- continue to produce
appropriate outputs, or at least avoid catastrophic failure, when there
is a loss of input information. So we will explore that, too, using the
tools which we both understand and which are more basic even than
control theory. The point is that at this level PCT can be challenged,
but to do so one has to have learned to use certain intellectual tools.
In your field there are no theories of this kind, theories that can be
explored and tested in a way that connects with the structures of
science and mathematics right down to the ground level of basic physics.
When you offer alternatives, you have as yet no way of knowing whether
you are violating basic principles that are very hard to disprove, or
simply offering an equally viable alternative interpretation. In some
respects, you just have to take the word of those acquainted with the
theory at a deeper level -- or decide nmot to trust them.
Conversely, it is why I did not get any trouble from the eclectic
folks on my Ph.D. committee. You and Rick think the reason is that
my ideas were orthodox from their point of view. In fact, however,
Robert Jervis is a higher ranking and more respected member of the
Columbia Political Science Department than any of my mentors were.
Jervis' ideas were much more of an orthodoxy at Columbia than
behaviorism, and I blew Jervis out of the water.
You misunderstand. We were saying that you, your eclectic committee, and
your opponents were ALL working within an orthodox framework (aside from
your own introduction of PCT concepts). Did the eclectic folk on your
committee accept the idea of using population statistics as a way of
determining individual characteristics? If so, they were entirely
conventional in the terms in which Rick and I both made our comments. I
have never heard of Jervis, and suspect that Rick hasn't, either, and
neither Rick nor I care about whether cognitive factors or self-concepts
are a correct explanation of hawkish or dovish sentiments (we would
probably not accept either explanation). Blowing Jervis out of the water
(a term, I believe, from naval warfare, the use of which probably
indicates from this survey of 1 that you are a Hawk) may be a source of
satisfaction to you, but it means nothing to us. We don't know what is
considered orthodox or heretical within your discipline, nor do we have
any reason to favor any of the warring parties.
If my mentors were concerned about upholding orthodoxy, they would
have insisted on putting Jervis on my committee, and I would have
either conformed or perished.
They were not concerned with upholding orthodoxy in terms of
explanations of militarism, but they obviously upheld orthodoxy in the
uses of statistics, because they upheld your uses of them. That is all I
was talking about.
Bill: You could . . . . place the masculine/feminine reference
signal and the military power reference signal at the same level,
so that these become coexisting system concepts. You could also
have placed the concept of military power at the top level with the
masculine/feminine dimension, as a principle, at a subordinate
level. . . .
Reply: This problem is similar to the one discussed above about
whether the hierarchy has one apex or more than one. For the same
reasons as I gave above, I believe the self system is superordinate
to policy preferences and belief systems generally, although this
is ultimately an empirical question
There's nothing wrong with adopting a working hypothesis and proceeding
on the assumption that it's true. But the conclusions should then
reflect the fact that their truth remains contingent on the truth of the
working hypothesis. In your case, unfortunately, your working hypothesis
was that the self system is superordinate to policy preferences and
belief systems, which happens to be the same as the conclusion you drew
from your data, to blow Jervis out of the water. So what you have done
is to show that if your working hypothesis is correct, you can find a
way to interpret data that is consistent with it. But if the working
hypothesis is not correct, the interpretation is invalid.
I was trying to point out that demonstrating a correlation between
aspects of the self system and aspects of militarism cannot show whether
Self or Cognition is superordinate, because correlations are non-
directional. The same correlations could equally well support the
opposite assumption. So you are left with no support for your hypothesis
-- only a conclusion that it is consistent with your interpretation of
the data. Unfortunately, the opposite conclusion is also consistent with
the data, unless I have missed some critical aspect of the analysis
(which is always possible).
Bill: Why can't it be that some people are against war for some
reasons and others are against it for other reasons? . . . All
hawks are not alike and all doves are not alike.
Reply: I agree, and it would seem you have not read my paper
carefully if you think I need to be told this. In my conclusion I
wrote "There are, of course, exceptions to the statistical pattern,
such as male hawks who are not motivated by machismo and male doves
who maintain macho self systems through behaviors other than
militarism." (p. 283) [Here's my first interview question: Are you,
Bill Powers, a male dove who maintains a macho self system through
behaviors other than militarism? Behaviors such as intellectual
contests with real or imagined enemies?]
How can you speak of "exceptions to the statistical pattern" when the
correlations are so low that nearly ALL the respondents would be
exceptions to it? This is not a matter of finding a few outliers on an
otherwise narrow scatter plot. It is a matter of the entire scatter plot
consisting mainly of outliers. Let me look at some files for a minute
...
Well, I know it's on Dag Forssell's PCT Texts disc but I can't get to it
quickly. What I was looking for was a post where I showed some scatter
diagrams having various correlations between X and Y. Maybe someone else
can find it and post it. I wanted to show the appearance of a scatter
plot for which the X-Y correlation is 0.5 or so. The points are all over
the map, and the regression line would give wildly incorrect predictions
for most of the points.
[Here's my first interview question: Are you, Bill Powers, a male
dove who maintains a macho self system through behaviors other than
militarism? Behaviors such as intellectual contests with real or
imagined enemies?]
Why not ask me if I've stopped beating my wife? I wouldn't answer that
question, either.
Bill: This [in-depth interviews] would be a much more demanding and
time-consuming approach and would obviously not be suitable as
thesis material.
Reply: Wrong on both counts. Fishing expeditions are much easier
and faster than solving all the problems of conceptualization,
measurement, data collection, and statistical analysis that I had
to solve before I could even begin interpreting my data.
Nonsense. How many hours did you have to spend with each respondent to
your questionnaire before you could even start reducing the data? The
reason questionnaires are used is that you don't actually have to
interact with individuals at all. You don't have to find out what the
words on adjective lists mean to them, and you don't have to ask why
they agreed or disagreed with attitude or policy statements. You just
write down the numbers, and they represent the person. You end up with
only the most superficial understanding of the person's structure of
goals and perceptions.
I don't know what "in-depth interview" means to you, but I would hardly
think of it as a fishing expedition. Even for a person practiced in the
art, to get the kind of information abut one person that is needed could
take weeks. I'm talking about getting to know a person almost as well as
you know your best friend. On what other basis could you make valid
pronouncements about this person's actual perceptions and goals, and how
they relate to each other?
Precisely because few graduate students are capable of such work,
and because most Ph.D. committees are not capable of directing or
evaluating it, interviews seem to be a more common method of data
collection in the social sciences than original survey research.
I don't know what an "interview" in your field amounts to. For me, it
would amount to a major project, especially as I have no experience with
such things. If I were doing it full-time, I imagine that with practice
I could do 10 or 20 in a year. In other words, to study your 413
respondents would probably take me 5 to 10 years. And then the data
analysis could start. How long does one of these "easy" interviews take
a political science student to do? I am sure that your skills are far
above those of the average graduate student, but how long did it take
you to "do" your 413 people before you started doing your data analysis?
Since some CSG members have chosen to attack my research, the only
options I saw were to submit, withdraw, or fight, and I have chosen
to fight for lack of a better alternative. This means that the only
way you can now learn about my research is to admit under the
pressure of debate that your initial views were mistaken, which
will be unpleasant for you, and much less satisfying for me than a
Socratic exchange would have been.
So the only way to get along with you is to agree that everything you
have done is right? That considerably narrows the possibilities for
communication, especially as the rules you propose seem to work only one
way. As hard as this may be for you to believe, my primary concern is
not that of satisfying your demands (any more than your primary concern
is to satisfy mine). So far, you have taken very little time to find out
what my views are, and where you have reflected them back to me you have
shown that you misinterpreted them. And, I may add, you have done so in
hostile and agressive ad-hominum terms that I have found hard to resist
replying to in like language. I hope that your characterizations of me
and my attitudes have at least occasioned some merriment on the net for
those who have interacted with me longer than you have.
···
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Best,
Bill P.