[From Bill Powers (920916.0900)]
Last night I tried to be brief. So maybe today I should try to be
lengthy. Something is working backward.
Wayne Hershberger (920915) --
Perception as realizations of the immanent order? I think I like that.
We may say that a perceiver realizes a perceptual environment, but
not >that s/he perceives a realized environment.
In other words, a perception IS a realization of the immanent order?
Yes:
What our perceptual and conceptual realizations both seem to lean on
(albeit, like a house of cards) is the immanent order that those
constructs themselves realize or model. That is, although our
perceptual and conceptual realizations appear to be inventions, the
immanent order which they realize is not; rather, it appears to be
"given."
This is very much like my concept, perhaps identical to it. What you
call a "realization" of the immanent order I have referred to as a
"perceptual function" of the immanent order. There is only one
immanent order, but there are many potential functions of it that
amount to perceptual realizations. Perceptual realizations may differ
from each other in different people, but once they are defined or
acquired, the resulting experience of the world depends on the "given"
processes and entities of the immanent order in a regular way.
Whatever orderliness exists in the immanent order is reflected as a
transformed orderliness in the perceptual realization. Does that sound
consistent with your idea?
I think that when Agre said that the environment is its own best
model, he may have meant that it's easier to use actual outputs and
sense their actual effects, letting the immanent order determine how
the outputs alter the effect, than it is to try to capture all the
immense detail and exactness of the immanent order in a symbolic model
and compute the effects. If that's what he meant, I emphatically
agree. If I could BUILD a realistic arm, I certainly wouldn't bother
modeling it as equations of motion.
Realization, in the sense of "making real," is a better term than
representation. Representation always implies that corresponding to
the inner representation there is something of like form or nature
outside, to be represented. Realization captures the idea that while
the result is a perceived real experience, the immanent order is not
necessarily organized in just the same way, so the experience doesn't
correspond to a mirror image of itself in the immanent order. The
concept of representation makes it difficult to understand why people
supposedly in the same environment don't come up with identical
representations of it.
Thanks for the hipy papi bththdy (if the reference isn't too obscure).
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Ray Allis (920915) --
I got vicarious joy out of your post to Dag Forssell.
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Greg Williams (920916) --
Clearly, it's the environment that determines what the organism must
learn, because the effect of the organism's actions on its own
critical variables is mediated by the environment.
So the environment "determines" what the organism must learn?
It determines how the organism must learn TO ACT, given what the
organism wants TO ACCOMPLISH.
I thought you earlier said that the organism (ALONE) determined it.
The organism alone determines what it wants to accomplish (i.e., a
higher level sets the reference signal). If I want to open a door,
that's up to me. It's up to the door whether I have to push it or pull
it to get it open. What I have to learn is which way to exert my
effort, not what I want to happen as a result. I know what I want. I
just don't have any a priori information about the act that will bring
it about.
If you really mean what you say here (and I would be happy with your
broadening it to "the environment and the organism co-determine" what
the organism must learn), I'm happy. This is truly a Big Step away
from >organismism.
Avoiding an "ism" is just as limiting as adopting one. All you get
from that is negativism. The implication is that somewhere in the
background you have a better ism.
But have any of these influences actually changed E. coli in any
way?
No.
Oh, come on. They haven't influenced SOME of properties of E. coli,
but >they HAVE influenced others. That's OBVIOUS.
I don't think they have influenced ANY properties of E. coli. They've
only influenced where it goes in space and the values of some of its
variables, which are not "properties." They haven't altered E. coli's
mode of operation or organization a bit.
Perhaps we're using "property" in different ways. Behavior is not a
property of an organism, as I use the word. The relationship of
behavior to other events may provide evidence of properties, but a
property is not a specific behavior. It's a _relationship_ between
variables, not a variable. If a behavioral response is expressed as an
equation, the properties of the behaving system are described by the
coefficients and exponents, not the variables. The coefficients and
exponents remain the same no matter what the variables are doing. To
change the properties of a system you have to change the coefficients
and exponents.
Both science and common sense have become obsessed with what the
world >>can do to organisms, from evolution to everyday stimuli.
I agree. But I think the solution to this problem isn't swinging to
the >opposite ideology of radical individualism.
What's "radical" about individualism other than that it denies radical
environmentalism? You seem to be looking for a theoretical stance that
can encompass enough environmentalism to leave loopholes in control
theory, thus keeping it from being "radical" control theory.
All that can be done is to monitor the aspect of the other's
behavior >that you want to affect and vary your actions until you see
what you >>want or fail.
Before that, you can try to understand how the other controls; with a
good -- not necessarily detailed -- model of the others' controlling,
it won't be such a difficult, trial-and-error process as you make it
out to be.
You don't need ANY model to exert control of another person's
behavior. All you need is to find an action that has a reliable effect
on the other's behavior. You don't need to know WHY it has that
effect. You must monitor the other's behavior, and if it deviates from
the state you want to see, alter your actions in ways you can learn
will work. Knowing control theory won't make you any better at that.
The test for the controlled variable begins with finding actions that
reliably affect the actions of another organism. That's what we do
anyway.
If you happen to pick a method of control that avoids conflict in the
other person, you simply control that person's actions, no problem.
It's true control, with no violence. Of course if you do happen to
disturb something else, then you run into resistance. What happens
next depends on how badly you need to control what the other is doing.
Having an effect is most easily done when the effect you want to see
is of no consequence to the influenced person.
Actually, many times it would be easier if the influencee WANTS (a
lot) >what you offer!
If the influencee already wants what you have to offer, then you're
simply disturbing the influencee's control loop, or becoming a means
of completing it. If the influencee is already trying to get
something, your help will result in a relaxation of the influencee's
own efforts as the error gets smaller. That is opposition to your
disturbance. You end up doing all the work.
A little old lady is trying to pick up a 50-pound suitcase, but she
can lift only 40 pounds. She's 10 pounds short. You help her lift it,
and end up supporting 50 pounds, not 10 pounds. She applies a negative
40 pounds of effort against your positive effort.
Try helping somebody who wants to thread a needle, without just doing
it yourself.
You don't have to understand control theory to find such effects.
All >>you have to do is experiment and remember.
PCT provides a theoretical underpinning and, I suspect, as we get
into >greater details (of HPCT), might provide practical tips to
enhance the >success of purposive influence...
Only in the sense of learning how to avoid disturbing other variables.
If you pick a method of controlling behavior that doesn't disturb
other variables, PCT won't make your control any better. You can
already exert perfect control of the other's behavior (the particular
action inquestion) if you like.
This is done all the time. Almost invariably, it leads to conflict.
... and PCT could help prevent conflict by showing the way toward
improved success in human interactions WITHOUT conflict.
The way to improved success is through understanding that purposive
influence (control) of other people is not a practical mode of
interaction. The basic problem is that people want some sort of lever
that removes other people's ability to choose their behavior freely.
They can call it anything they like: help, influence, advice,
guidance, correction, or facilitation. It's still something THEY can
do that makes OTHERS behave more to their liking. What they want is
control of others, by definition of control. Calling it by a different
word doesn't change what is going on.
To the contrary, I think no-conflict, successful instances of
purposive
influence are the rule, not the exception.
I'm not denying that people interact, nor that most of the time the
disturbances that arise are taken care of automatically, with no
difficulty. But that is accidental influence, not purposive influence.
When influence is purposive, its effects on the other's actions are
specifically intended by the influencer. That is, you ask someone to
pass the salt not just to get the salt within your reach, but
specifically for the satisfaction of seeing the person pick up the
salt and hold it toward you. That is the person's action. If all you
want is to get the salt, you don't care how that person gets it to
you, or whether someone else closer to the salt hands it to you. But
when control is what you're after, you specifically want to have an
effect on the other's actions, not just on the consequences of the
actions.
It's this specific desire to perceive having an effect on another's
actions that leads to conflict. It doesn't necessarily lead to
conflict, because it's possible to pick an action of someone else that
the other person really doesn't care about (made-ya-look). But when
that's the case, the only one getting off on the control is the
controller; to the controllee it's a matter of indifference. The
"influencing" action is just another disturbance, being taken care of
automatically.
But controllers aren't satisfied with having effects that are of no
importance to anyone else. They aren't satisfied with trivial
interactions. They want the rest of the world off their backs. They
want others to stop being stupid or acting helpless or getting in the
way. As soon as they try for control of something important, they meet
resistance. And if they don't understand about HPCT, they'll just
increase their efforts and overcome the resistance, and so on to the
inevitable end.
What makes this method of control fail is that it is invariably done
for the good of the controller, not for the good of the controlled.
Exactly -- to be successful, it must be done for the good (as
perceived >by each, respectively) of both. That's what PCT says.
No, PCT says that the controller can control only for what the
controller considers good. The controllee can control only for what
the controllee considers good. The trouble starts when the controller
claims to know what is good for the controllee. Then the action is
based on a reference signal in the wrong head.
When will would-be purposive influencers come to realize this
fundamental fact?
It won't work any better when the purposive influencer tries to make
the influencee behave in a way that is good for the influencee. The
conflict will still come up if any of the influencee's goals are
disturbed. A helping disturbance is opposed just as energetically as
an opposing one. The little old lady thankfully lets go of the handle
as soon as you start helping. She doesn't go on exerting her maximum
40-pound lift. "Good" control of other people's behavior doesn't work
any better than "bad" control. Look at the welfare mess.
What isn't optional is dying if your head is blown off by some guy
who >escalates from purposive influence to violence because he never
heard >of PCT.
You're making a distinction between purposive influence and control by
violence. These are both true control: that is, only the controller
gets to determine the state of the controlled variable. Purposive
influence, when it works, is simply control. When it doesn't work it's
meaningless; it's just one disturbance among many. When it disturbs
something important to the controllee, and the controller insists on
continuing, it leads to violence. We're just talking about control
over a continuum from control of trivial things to control of
important things.
I think you're looking for something that doesn't exist: controlling
without controlling. The word "influence" has that sound. It doesn't
seem to mean grabbing someone and forcing the person to behave. It
connotes sort of nudging, hinting, suggesting, pointing, calling
attention, gently urging. It implies that the controller uses only the
mildest of means and leaves lots of room for variations. And of course
it's assumed that the controller is just trying to help, to do what's
good for the controllee as well as the controller.
But if influence really worked that way, it wouldn't work. Little
nudges will produce little effects which the controllee will shrug
off. The controller will keep the influences small and gentle only
until it's seen that the result isn't what the controller wants. Then
the efforts will get larger, and larger, and larger, until the effect
IS seen. That, after all, is what PURPOSEFUL influence -- control --
is about: to produce the effect you want to see. If a little effort
doesn't do the job, and you still want to control, you'll use more
effort. In the end, if you think that purposeful influence is for a
good end and very important to achieve, you'll end up doing whatever
it takes.
From all the things you've written, I get the impression that you
think PCT might provide a "nice" way of controlling people's actions,
so that important influences can be achieved without the nastiness of
direct force, deceit, and so on. I'm afraid that there isn't any such
answer in PCT or HPCT. Control is control. If you use gentle means and
leave room for variation and choice, all you get is poor control. The
issue is not whether to do a poor or a good job of controlling. It's
whether controlling anything about other people is the way to build a
world we would want to live in.
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I think it might be profitable to turn to how we CAN have influences
on the social world that are useful and that could cure some social
problems. I'm convinced that NO kind of control of another's behavior,
nice or nasty, will work. But we're far from exhausting the possible
ways in which people can interact, and in which they can get what they
want from or through other people. The real challenge from PCT is to
see what is left by way of social interactions if we simply remove the
desire to make people behave in any particular way (unless they're
directly interfering with us, of course). Would this mean just lying
back and becoming the world's doormat? Since that's not what anybody
wants, obviously not. Does it mean something like unilateral
disarmament? Again, obviously not: the goal is not suicide.
There are actually lots of things left, once we get over the idea that
controlling others is going to help. Once we stop devoting so much
attention to finding clever nice ways of controlling others, we can
put all those loose brain cells to work on finding different
approaches to the real problems.
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6 pages. Well, it's still working backward.
Best to all,
Bill P.