[From Rick Marken (951130.1200)]
Fred Nickols (951130.0550 EST) --
Re: Bill Powers' thermostat puzzle.
Its [the thermostat's] design is such that it does not control for room
temperature but only for temperature in its immediate vicinity.
Actually, it controls an electrical current, which is a perceptual
representation of the size of the heat sensative coil.
In any case, the thermostat is responsible for maintaining the appropriate
room temperature and it didn't. For such sloppy work the thermostat should
receive a damning performance appraisal, placed on disciplinary warning
and, if its performance does not improve, it should be terminated.
This would be funny if it were not such a painfully accurate description of
the way we typically deal with human control systems. People (like
thermostats) are responsible only for maintaining their perceptions at
specified reference levels. The thermostat is responsible only for
maintaining it's own perception (the electrical current) at the specified
reference level. The thermostat is performing well if it is controlling this
perception, even if, in doing so, it is not keeping the room warm enough for
someone else.
The thermostat (like employees, children, spouses, etc) received a damning
performance appraisal becuase it did not control a variable (room
temperature) that someone ELSE (like the employer, the parent, the spouse)
wanted controlled. Such a damning performance appraisal cannot possibly help
anything (except, possibly, make the appraiser feel better) unless the
appraiser knows that the controller:
1) can control the variable (or a correlate thereof in the controller's
own experience) that the appraiser wants controlled
2) has agreed to try to control that variable
3) has agreed to maintain that variable at the level desired by the
appraiser
In the case of the thermostat, the appraiser knows that the device can
control a correlate of the variable (room temperature) that the appraiser
wants controlled (so the appraiser knows 1 and 2 are true); the appraiser
also knows how to force the thermostat to maintain that variable at the level
desired -- by setting the thermostat (actually, setting the reference
signal); so the appraiser has complete control over the level at which the
thermostat "agrees to" control a perception; the controller knows that 3 is
true. If the thermostat doesn't keep the room warm, the appraiser has only
himself to blame.
In the case of people, the appraiser typically has only a vague idea about
the variables a person is controlling and whether the person can control the
variable (or a correlate thereof) that the appraiser wants controlled.
Moreover, the appraiser doesn't even know whether the person has agreed (or
even CAN agree) to maintain a particular variable at the level desired by the
appraiser. So the approaiser typically doesn know whether 1, 2 or 3 is true
of the controller. PCT suggests that appraisers should try to figure out
whether 1, 2 and 3 are true of a controller before making their appraisal; if
they don't, their appraisal will not be very useful to the controller OR the
appraiser.
Best
Rick