[From Rick Marken (950806.1130)]
Bill Leach (950804.18:30) --
I still agree with Bruce (as I understand him); It is first necessary to
understand what is NOT known about an experiment before on can
begin to shift experimental methods toward PCT methods in an
existing methodology.
I think it's fine if people want to go through every behavioral
experiment that has been done in order to find out what's wrong with
conventional methodology, but I don't think it is _necessary_ to do this.
Once you know that organisms are living control systems and you know how
such systems work then you know what's wrong with current methodology.
We know that living organisms are control systems by inspection
(that's the point of my _Blind Men and the Elephant_ paper); living
organisms are structured so that their inputs are at all times a result
of outputs which are, themselves, a result of those inputs. There is
a closed loop relationship between organism and environment. The
loop is stable and it produces control so the feedback in the loop
must be negative and pretty high gain. We know that such a system
controls its inputs and, in the process, looks like it is responding
to stimuli, being controlled by consequences or generating output.
What we don't know about living control systems is what inputs they are
actually controlling, how they are controlling them and why.
Once we know that organisms are living control systems we know that we
can dedicate our research efforts to studying the control of input,
rather than figuring out why various things were observed under the
assumption that organisms respond to stimuli, are controlled by consequnces
or generate outputs. In my opinion, anyway.
It IS asking an awful lot of any bunch of behavioural scientists,
trained for years in a "non-control" school of belief to recognize the
significance of control to their own work.
It may be asking a lot but it is not asking the impossible; there is an
admittedly small bunch of behavioral scientists who have recognized
the significance of control to their own work, stopped doing their work
and started doing PCT.
Bill Powers (950805.1350 MDT)
If all John knows is that he's supposed to stop kicking Bill, he has no
reason to stop except for a conflict with wanting to stay in class.
Ed Ford (950805.evening) --
Rules, as you so rightly have shown, are a very part of the fabric that
goes to make up our hierarchy.
In fact, they are _only_ a part of the fabric of our hierarchies. Rules
exist only as perceptual variables and references for those variables.
That "conflict with wanting to stay in class" is crucial. That's what
gets children back into class
How can this conflict get kids to stay in class? I think Bill is talking
about a conflict between wanting to kick and wanting to stay in class; the
kid can't do both. The conflict will not get the kid back in class; only
changing the desire to kick that will do it. The desire to kick doesn't
change because it conflicts with the desire to be in class. Something at a
higher level has to change the desire to kick. As Bill suggests, what
might change the desire to kick is learning that there are other ways
(besides kicking) to achieve a goal.
It's the social desire to be a part of others, to be connected to others,
that is the cr>well.
This is not the impression I got while listening to the talks at the
meeting. It seemed to me that the success of your program (in terms of
reducing discipline problems and increasing academic performance)
results from something very simple: letting the "problem" kids (the
ones who don't want to follow the teacher's rules or learn what the
teacher is teaching) leave class. Now the teacher doesn't have to try
to control the problem kids. This policy is implemented non- punitively;
the kids can choose to stay in class (and cooperate) or leave. I think
this policy should be implemented in all school systems immediately.
Best
Rick