[From Rick Marken (930503.1500)]
Oded Maler (930503.1230 ET) --
I was responding
to Rick's claim that he is involved in PCT mainly because it is *the*
theory that will lead humankind to the good end.
I claimed that!?!?
I'm involved in PCT because it seems to be the best model (BY FAR)
of the behavior of living systems -- and I am interested in
understanding the behavior of living systems. I would be surprised
if one's ability to deal successfully with problems (such as conflict)
involving the behavior of living systems was not significantly
improved by having a good model of the causes of behavior.
If someone would prove to you or to
Rick that the most effective contribution you can have on human
situation on the planet is *not* to preach PCT to the blind but rather
do something completely orthogonal (say, meditate and eat carrot -
or any other act which does not involve a commitment to some
scientifc theory). Will you in that case abandon it and give up the
pleasure you have in working on it?
I wouldn't abandon PCT necessarily -- though I would be quite
surprised by the proof. But, if such a proof were, indeed, convincing
to me, I would stop "preaching" PCT and start meditating and eating
carrots. But that's because I do, indeed, want to improve the human
condition -- a value that is quite independent of my interest in
PCT.
The *opinions* people have on large-scale "political" subjects, where
their individual contribution to the closed-loop is practically zero,
indeed don't have much to do with what is true, what is better and
what is possible in the case in question.
The only real closed loop is the one that the individual is in
with respect to his or her own environment. In this loop, a person's
opinions make a very large (non-zero) contribution to the perceptual
variables he or she is controlling; the only variable a person can
reliably control. The opinions and actions of a person can only matter
in terms of what is true, better and possible for that person --
viz. for the state of the person's own perceptions, which can certainly
include perceptions of "large-scale political subjects". The notion
that any person's opinions or actions can have anything to do with
what is really or objectively true, better or possible is the stuff
that ideological maniacs are made of.
The feed-back
that you get when you express a certain political opinion such as "we
should do this and not that in the case of ****" is not the feed-back
from really doing this and not that
In any case it
has very little to do with what is really the best (in whatever
sense) solution to the problem.
When you act to solve the problem all you are doing (if your actions
are "really the best") is controlling your perception of what is
problematic. If the perception involves other people, you are
unlikely to be able to control it at (since you cannot reliably
control another control system -- as long as it is alive, anyway).
Whether you are expressing a political opinion or shooting at rock
throwing Arabs you are doing the same thing -- trying to control a
perception (in the first case, a perception of your political
sagacity, perhaps, in the second case, of your right to live peacefully
in your own home -- even if other people consider it their home too).
Your control is likely to be more consistently successful in the former
case than in the latter.
Best
Rick