References and Assumptions

CSGnet Archive CSG1996
1

[from Shannon Williams 960922]

Rick and I have been exchanging some private messages. I sent this
message to Rick, and he thought that he should answer it online.
So here is my message, and he will post his reply:

···

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Hi Rick,

You cannot talk about other people's references, etc.

Actually, you can not only talk about other people's references (for
controlled perceptual variables) you can actually track those references
quite precisely (see Powers second paper in _Volitional Action_,
W. Hershberger (Ed), Netherlands: Elsevier, 1989).

Fine. The only variable that I was controlling for was the recognition
that you can identify your own controlled variables and references.
But I will put my $0.02 towards controlling why you cannot track another
person's references (unless their references are a subset of your own):

If we do not have the same references, then how does it occur to us to
think of a reference that has never guided our thoughts? In other
words, you may imagine some reference to explain my behavior, and then
test your guess. If the test fails, then you know you were wrong. But
if the test passes, it may only mean that you have identified a
controlled variable. But this variable is not neccessarily under the
control that you think it is.

Look at it this way:

One person may always smile and talk nicely because they have an idea
that this is what nice people do, and they were taught to always be
nice. They are controlling for an image of themselves.

One person may always smile and talk nicely because they believe
that what you think of them is important. They are controlling for
an image that they think that you have of them.

One person may always smile and talk nicely because they believe
that it is important for people to see the good things in the
world. They are controlling for an image that they think that you
have of the world.

One person may always smile and talk nicely, because they like _you_.
In other words, they do not always smile and talk nicely, but every time
you are around they do. They are not controlling for anything. They
are just happy when you are around.

etc.

So a guy like Abbott, for example, may be controlling for the idea that

a) conventional research methods can be used to study control, or
b) anomolies in the data of conventional experiments can be used to
   guess at variables that are under control, or
c) PCT is not orthogonal to conventional philosopy, or
d) conventional philosophy is slowly evolving towards PCT, and it has
   been for quite some time,
e) other.

My thinking about PCT may have moved quite a distance from yours or
Bill's.

It was already quite a ways away when you left the net, wasn't it?

What principles of PCT do you think that you believe in that I do not?

I actually should not say that PCT has changed for me. It has changed
my perception of the world. It has disintegrated many of my world-based
assumptions. Your posts and Bill's now seem rife with assumptions that
I do not have.

Many of our assumptions instanciate boundaries that we see in the world.
You do not seem to separate the process that PCT describes, from the
boundaries that PC operates on. In other words, I am saying that when
someone describes a view of the world that you cannot see, you seem to
act to control their view of PCT.

For example:

   a) You distinguish between live things and non-live things,
   b) You distinguish between events that happen internal to an
      organism from those that are external.

Yet neither of these boundaries are neccessary to understand PCT. PCT
is a process. There once existed a (lifeless?) world were it would
never occur to you to instanciate these boundaries. "Life" exists
now because PCT was applicable then. Still today, PCT is applicable
without these boundaries.

BTW- I subscribed to CSGnet. Could you forward to me Bill's
response to Rupert's introduction?

Take Care,

Shannon

2

[From Rick Marken (960922.1940)]

Shannon Williams (960922)--

If we do not have the same references, then how does it occur to us to
think of a reference that has never guided our thoughts?

It is the reference for a _perception_ that we are trying to discover.So
even if I have never set a reference for a particular perception, I can
still tell when someone else has. For example, I have never set a
reference for the perception of having someone dead. But I can sure tell
that OJ did.

Perhaps what you mean is that it would be difficult to determine that a
perception is controlled if I have never had (and, perhaps, cannot have)
that perception. This is a more interesting possibility; it is certainly
relevant to our ability to Test for the perceptions controlled by non-human
animals. For example, we know that dogs can control for sounds that we
cannot experience (as sounds). But we do have instruments that let us
determine that certain physical variables (like very high frequency
vibrations) are present; to the extent that all perceptions are ultimately
a function of simple physical variables we can, at least in principle,
determine what any organism is controlling even if we can't experience that
perceptual variable as the organism under study experiences it. But I
agree that it is probably a lot easier to come up with hypotheses about
controlled variables that we, ourselves, can experience and, possibly,
control, than to come up with hypotheses about the perceptual variables
controlled by a dog, an octopus or a bacterium.

In other words, you may imagine some reference to explain my behavior, and
then
test your guess. If the test fails, then you know you were wrong. But if
the >test passes, it may only mean that you have identified a controlled
variable.

That would mean that we have _suceeded_ in identifying what we wanted to
identify -- a controlled perceptual variable.

But this variable is not neccessarily under the control that you think it is.

I don't understand this. If the variable is under control, it's under
control. What's the problem? I can imagine getting into disputes about what
we _call_ (verbally) the controlled variable. For example, OJ might want to
call the variable he was controlling "degree of bitchiness"; I might want
to call it "degree of being alive". But The Test makes verbal definitions
irrelevant; I have identified a controlled variable when I can predict what
will and what will not be a disturbance to the variable.

One person may always smile and talk nicely because... They are controlling
for an image of themselves.

One person may always smile and talk nicely because... They are
controlling >for an image that they think that you have of them...

Yes. The same actions could be controlling many possible perceptions. The
Test is designed to determine what perception is actually under control. As
you note, you can't tell what is controlled just by looking at some visible
aspect of behavior (like a smile); the smile might be part of the way the
person is controlling for an image of they want for themselves, for an
image they think you want them to have; the smaile might even be an
irrelevant side effect of some other control process (like burping to
control gastric pressure).

So a guy like Abbott, for example, may be controlling for the idea that

a) conventional research methods can be used to study control, or
b) anomolies in the data of conventional experiments can be used to
guess at variables that are under control, or
c) PCT is not orthogonal to conventional philosopy, or
d) conventional philosophy is slowly evolving towards PCT, and it has
  been for quite some time,
e) other.

Correct. And to the extent that I can define each of these variables, I
should be able to tell what would be a disturbance to one and not others
and proceed to try to nail down what variable(s) Bruce is controlling for.
I would say, based on the disturbances I've been introducing over the last
two years, that Bruce is probably controlling for something like a) through
d) (but I would use the term "psychology" where you used "philosophy").
There is nothing wrong with controlling for these things, by the way. I
happen to be controlling for the opposite of every one of these things so
Bruce and I tend to get into conflict. But that doesn't mean that Bruce
isn't controlling for these things, any more than it means that I'm not
controlling for their opposite.

What principles of PCT do you think that you believe in that I do not?

One PCT principle that you don't seem to believe in is that it is always
possible, _in principle_, to determine what a person is controlling for by
appropriate use of The Test for the controlled variable. This seems to be
the point of what you said above -- about my not being able to determine a
person's "references" if that reference has never "guided my thoughts". I
agree that it can be very difficult to determine what a person is
controlling for -- even when what a person is controlling for is rather
"simple"-- like a perception of some aspects of the coins in the "coin
game" (which I highly recommend you try with a friend -- as both
experimenter and subject; see B:CP. p. 235). But, in principle, it is
possible to tell what percpetion a person is controlling because, if they
are really controlling that perception then they can't help but act to
protect that perception from disturbance. There is no way to conceal a
controlled perception except by giving up control of it.

a) You distinguish between live things and non-live things,

I distinguish things that control from things that don't control. Most of
the things that control are living things, but there are a few non-living
things that control too. All living things, however, control. But I don't
know how I distinguish living things that control from non-living things
that control. I think it has something to do with how soft they are;-)

b) You distinguish between events that happen internal to an organism from

those that are external.

Yes. Actually I distinguish between events that happen in the nervous
system and those that happen outside of the nervous system.

Yet neither of these boundaries are neccessary to understand PCT.

I think it helps to know what is happening inside the organism (system) and
what is happening outside the organism. What's wrong with boundaries? How
would you model control without modeling the boundaries between system and
environment?

There once existed a (lifeless?) world were it would never occur to you to

instanciate these boundaries.

It still would help to know what is system and what is controlled by the
system, even if both the system and environment were, say, chemicals. Even
in molecular control systems, the control system is organized differently
than the controlled environment. Marking boundaries helps us see how things
work; the boundary is between the controlling organization (system) and the
organization that is controlled (environment).

Best

Rick

3

[Hans Blom, 960923e]

(Rick Marken (960922.1940))

It is the reference for a _perception_ that we are trying to
discover.So even if I have never set a reference for a particular
perception, I can still tell when someone else has. For example, I
have never set a reference for the perception of having someone
dead. But I can sure tell that OJ did.

No joke? How can you know? Can you, like God (well, you introduced
Him ;-), look into the hearts (or brains) of people? Isn't it
possible that you confuse a reference with an "unintended" side
effect of controlling for something quite unrelated (as to goal, not
as to means)? I'm not talking about whether you have sufficient
evidence _in this case_ (you don't, unless you have hidden evidence
from a court of law), but whether one could know _in principle_. I
doubt it. One can guess, though. And assume that, not finding
anything that contradicts the assumption, it is the truth.

Are you familiar with the "open world" versus "closed world" debate
of Artificial Intelligence? Briefly: in a "closed world", anything
that cannot be proven to be true is therefore "proven to be" false.
In an "open world", however, anything that cannot be proven to be
true still needs to be investigated whether it can be proven to be
false; otherwise it needs to be considered unknown.

It is my impression that you live in a closed world ;-).

Greetings,

Hans

4

[From Shannon Williams (960923.01:50)]

Rick Marken (960922.1940) said:

The Test is designed to determine what perception is actually under control.

The Testor must choose what to test for. The usefullness of the Test is
limited by the abilities of the Testor. Don't you agree?

What limits the abilities of the Testor?

What principles of PCT do you think that you believe in that I do not?

One PCT principle that you don't seem to believe in is that it is always
possible, _in principle_, to determine what a person is controlling for by
appropriate use of The Test for the controlled variable.

The Test is a process used to test for PC. I understand why the test
works. I also understand when it does not work. If you try to re-write
your statement above without your conditional stipulations, I think that
you will find that we have the same understandings.

b) You distinguish between events that happen internal to an organism from
those that are external. Yet neither of these boundaries are neccessary
to understand PCT.

What's wrong with boundaries?

Nothing is wrong with boundaries, except when the boundaries are arbitrary.
If your boundary is drawn up by force of habit, rather than to specifically
apply to the problem at hand, then you are likely to miss the solution to
the problem at hand.

How would you model control without modeling the boundaries between
system and environment?

I agree that this boundary is needed. I do not agree that the boundary
always corresponds physically with an organism's skin. Surely we can
think of scenarios (driving a car, walking on crutches, using hearing aids,
placing a human brain in a robot body, etc.) where skin is not the system
boundary.

Take Care,

Shannon

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--
Shannon Williams
sdollars@airmail.net
http://web2.airmail.net/sdollars/shannon.html