[From Bruce Buchanan 940924.23:15 EDT]
Mary Powers 9409.17 writes:
You say you are trying to "accomodate PCT to existence
philosophy", and have cited numerous other philosophers to -
what? Question or justify PCT as philosophically legitimate? I'm
wondering if the effort shouldn't be the other way around - that
other philosophies need to be accomodated to PCT to be
legitimate. . . .
The notion of standards of legitimacy implies, I think, some kind of social
sanction for a position or doctrine that is fixed. In an earlier post I
quoted Whitehead, I think with Bill's approval, to the effect that the
ultimate value available to us lies in the readiness to continually
reevaluate our beliefs e.g. our findings and conclusions.
The fact is that I have found some philosophers with ideas which have
seemed to me valid and insightful, which have helped, in addition to
science and daily experience, to shape my own understanding. This is the
framework, all that I have, against which I must assess new ideas,
including PCT, simply to understand them. To avoid putting all this on
the level of purely personal experience and belief, which can be of no
interest to anyone (except perhaps my family ;-)?) I sometimes try to
relate ideas to thinkers who have given especially clear expression to
particular positions. But this is not a disguised attempt to argue from
authority.
As for the content of thought - specific principles, for example,
or morality - that isn't really what PCT is about. It's about
having principles, and how one goes about satisfying them or
living up to them - just as it's about having sensations, or
seeing events, or constructing categories. . . .it's
awfully easy to get caught up in content (one's particular
reference level for a particular value) and forget that PCT is
essentially _about_ the organization that makes having values
possible.
I believe I understand this, and I also think that a disinterested or
objective focus upon processes at work is of the greatest importance.
Of course PCT is itself a concept and has principles and values
and so on - is about itself. Maybe philosophically this is a Bad
Thing, but it's hard to see how it can be avoided, or why it
should be.
I hope that I have not suggested that I think that involvement with values
is a Bad Thing. In any case, I agree, it cannot be avoided. After all,
whatever happens in a control system happens because somehow it matters to
the organism in some way. When this becomes subject to reflection and the
consideration of alternative possibilities at higher levels of organization
then questions of values become conscious. As I understand the situation,
the values which are possible at the higher levels depend - entirely, I
would think - on the information and control functions at lower levels. In
other words, I do not see any way of imposing values from on high, as it
were, that would be possible in fact or genuinely understandable to the
individual.
As a theory, PCT, as you say, has to exist _in_ language, but
that doesn't make it subordinate to language. I don't know why
you need to "distinguish PCT from an absolute frame of reference
that includes within itself all existence", or what would happen
or be implied if you didn't (do you want to expand on that?).
O.K. briefly, in my view language is a system of symbols which stand for
abstract representations of experience. We probably also have many other
abstracted or selectively retained and filtered representations and
memories of experience which are not rendered into language. Language is
fairly coarse-grained, and some things require a kind of artistry for clear
expression, and moreover language is communal (thus neologisms don't
usually qualify).
So the question may fairly be asked, what lies at the boundaries of the
framework that includes language, as well as conceptual thought? The
answer, of course, is direct experience, including observation and
experiment. By saying there may be a need to "distinguish PCT from an
absolute frame of reference" I meant to say, perhaps somewhat too tersely
;-), that the ideas of PCT are necessarily limited - i.e. as ways of
trying to encode or epitomize a behavior - an expressive behavior utilizing
language - intended to control, and perhaps render more accurately, our
perceptions of the larger world (whatever that is!). I did not mean to
suggest that there is any absolute frame of reference, or that we can know
what all of existence is or means.
Do you really think actions speak louder than words? Does the
incomprehensible behavior of a psychotic make sense on its own?
Or does it start to make sense when you (using words) begin to
put it in a theoretical framework (PCT or any other) - begin to
see its purpose, or the purposes it is trying (even if failing)
to achieve.
By "actions speak louder than words" I intended the usual colloquial
interpretation of this phrase, i.e. that a person's overall behavior,
including the non-verbal gestures and expressions of affect, and including
remembered reliablity, etc., which constitute the context within which
words are interpreted in daily life. Sometimes, when there is a lack of
conguence between what a person says and the seriousness of the subject or
the way he/she says it, we may not know what to think i.e. we may look for
more evidence. Sometimes it may help to suppose or construct a
hypothetical framework ("aha, he must be having an affair!") which may help
to guide inquiry (look for clues) and arrive at a predictively valid
diagnosis (set a trap!), but sometimes a bit more information (an
alternative explanation and evidence) may suffice.
Incidentally, it is neat that you see psychosis as endless
unsuccessful reorganizing, because Bill has thought that too. But
why is it unsuccessful? Physiological explanations aside (for how
much warped physiology is a consequence, rather than a cause?),
the PCT handle on much psychological difficulty is conflict -
incompatible goals. . . .
This is a question, in effect, as the causes of intractable mental
illnesses, and slightly beyond my powers to answer 
- at least not
tersely!
Whether the underlying problem in a psychosis is
conflict also, I wouldn't know. The reorganizing is failing to
resolve the conflict, if conflict is the problem - possibly
because it exists at a higher or more intrinsic level than where
the reorganizing is taking place? Or because control systems are
damaged or defective in some way? Hung up in a positive feedback
loop?
I think the intrinsic reference variables are important, and so I don't
think one can put physiological explanations to one side. Certainly the
kinds of so-called psychological explanations that are little more than
forms of words in the therapist's mind are not very illuminating. As I see
it, conflict must be involved - whether conflict between incompatible
potential satisfiers of basic needs (e.g. to starve or allow one's
children to starve), or between present and anticipated needs, or between
needs and deeply held values (e.g. being a good parent). Perhaps the
conflict involves different hierarchical levels and in fact is based upon
misinterpretations, or upon neurophysiolgical "hot buttons" (Pavlov's
pathological points on the cortex) which may result from excessive stress
and stimulation. Perhaps the conflict is the manifestation of
reverberating postive feedback loops, at higher levels manifested as
incorrigible, i.e. delusional ideological fixations that may involve
cultural-level psychoses, e.g. of the kind which have led to the burning
of witches, or the slaughter of kulaks or jews, etc., or a mass disregard
(or one-sidedly relgious or commercial exploitation) of basic human needs
and instincts. There are lots of possible levels and reasons for conflict,
and I would see the PCT approach as far more hopeful that vaguely
theoretical formulations akin to mythology (e.g. psychoanalysis).
Parenthetically I could also see why PCT formulations might meet not only
with blank incomprehension (which is more than simple incomprehension but
also fear and suspicion) as well as, when the chips are down, violent
opposition. The best strategy for managing such things requires
understanding them. (And this may also relate to undertanding the grounds
for philosophical positions of various schools.) It is no accident that
there is little interest in PCT in a society in which all the levers of
social power and the sense of community security depend upon positive view
of the role of coercive power (e.g. police action) in compelling human
behavior.
These are some of the kinds of considerations that I meant to indicate in
talking about the larger social and/or existential context of thoughts and
theories of PCT.
Enough for now! Cheers!
Bruce B.