[From Kenny Kitzke (2007.11.29.2330EST)]
<Bill Powers (2007.11.29.0848 MST)>
You have recognized the possibility, even a need, for the existence of what you call “the Observer” to more fully explain the behavior of human beings.
<Not their behavior, or their perceptions. Those things are addressed by PCT’s hierarchy of perceptual control systems. What the observer is needed for is to encompass the part of my personal experience that is not explained by the hierarchy: my ability to be aware, selectively, of different parts of what my brain seems to be doing, like writing this. Even when my awareness is occupied with something else, the control of perceptions continues, so obviously awareness and perception are two different things (so reasons my brain at the level of logic).>
If awareness and selectivity are not part of the explanation of behavior, what are they? By your own words they are something humans do that is not explained by the hierarchy of control. Call that extra element behavior, or the nature of the human spirit, it seems to be necessary to fully describe what living humans seem to do. It would clearly help to better understand this function to better understand how humans work.
As I remember this functionality is not part of the perceptual hierarchy or the perceptual control loop. It seems to be able to observe and perhaps act upon the hierarchy or loop to achieve its purpose.
<I’m hazy about what those purposes might be, but yes.>
Could one of those purposes be to assess whether the total output of the hierarchy is pleasing or seems right to the whole being?
<Creating reference perceptions is taken care of in the hierarchy by the output functions of higher-order systems (with one obvious exception); if awareness tries to alter a reference signal arbitrarily at any level but the highest, that will create a disturbance of higher-order systems which will then alter their own output effects on the same reference signal to cancel the disturbance. That’s why you can’t just arbitrarily change your behavior through pure will power (without creating a continuing conflict). You have to reorganize the systems that set the reference levels. You have to get the hierarchy to want something different.>
It is the exceptions that are bothersome. It’s like saying boats float except on Tuesdays, have a nice 7-day cruise. What if the Observer selects by reorganization only the references that are internally consistent without conflict? People seem to do it all the time. Surely, if our theory is to be accepted, we need answers without exceptions.
<I agree, except for the bit about their not being in conflict. They exist in your view from the 12th level; however, the content of that view is the 11th level. When you’re in a level you can’t see it. The content of the 12th level is in what you’re thinking about those system concepts. So far I haven’t been able to see my own thoughts at that level. I just know, logically, that they are probably there.>
This may be what I experience. My conscious mind can’t see them but what if my Inner Man Observer can? If they are probably there, why can’t we get further in describing what they might be like in the model?
<I think we adopt different selves according to context. A businessman may be tough and realistic at work but sympathetic and compassionate when at home or in church. It’s quite possible for these selves to come into conflict when the right combination of circumstances arises. For example, a pastor might visit him at work to get his company to make a substantial donation to a charity, at a time when the businessman is having to lay off people to meet expenses. Being a fiscally responsible executive can easily clash with being a compassionate caretaker.>
I totally agree. And, how is that adoption made? If there is conflict, why can’t the Observer change the self to have an acceptable right for the occasion self? The business man will resolve whether to be charitable and lose a little more or say, come by next year when conditions are expected to be more favorable. The conflict can be resolved in the time it takes to speak one sentence. You are undoubtedly aware that we use a tiny fraction of our brain for conscious activities. What is the 90% doing? Perhaps it does the Observing?
<I think I see signs of it in dogs and cats, especially when playing with them or when having a contest of wills with them. I don’t interact with other animals enough to have similar impressions about them. The main difference between me and animals I know well seems to be the size and complexity of the hierarchies in their brains. They have less to be conscious with, but awareness does not itself seem to have the characteristics of hierarchical systems, so that isn’t a reason to think that the quality of awareness is any different in an animal. I don’t think there’s any less evidence for awareness in animals than there is for awareness in other people (I don’t need any evidence for my own awareness; I experience it directly).>
Salmon and sparrows instinctively know to go to places they have never experienced. How do you explain instincts in living things? Do humans have instincts that are not part of the experienced perceptions? Are the references there from birth, in their genes? Would that be evidence of their animal specie’s spirit for what is right for them to do? Perhaps they have an inner salmon?
<Well, since I haven’t chosen to believe that what the Bible says is true, or infallible, it doesn’t reveal the same thing to me. There are words in it that say it is true, but that isn’t enough to show that the words are true. What tells you that the words are true, other than your own decision to accept them as true?>
The Bible makes thousands of claims in the areas of world history, prophecy, geography and even science. I have not found any to be patently false after years of study and comparison. So until I do, I find it far more credible than the science texts I read in high school in 1960. That includes the statements that seem improbable like Noah’s ark or Jonah in the fish or Jesus walking on water. These can’t be easily proved or disproved. I suppose they are believed by faith. But, science is chock full of similar speculations of things that might have happened or been possible. Are they any more trustworthy? Are they any less wishful speculation? The Big Bang? Give me a break! Science can’t even determine how or when our moon came into existance. It can’t explain why gravity exists. It’s often abra-cadabra. Psychology is the perfect example of craft speculation and correlation statistics and tests and conjured-up experiments masquerading as science as Dag points out. And, as you have repeatedly claimed about reinforcement theory.
In that sense, we have faith in science until it is proven wrong. I think the same applies to the Bible for me.
The Bible term equating to the Observer is the “Inner Man.” Since that term is used only once in the New Testament, it is difficult to expound about its meaning.
<This, then, in a matter of faith or belief, not knowlege (as I defined these things the other day). The mention of a term in a book is not evidence about anything, so I’d say this is a matter of deciding what to accept as a fact without regard to evidence – faith.>
No, I don’t accept your definition as you suggested you would hold a belief by faith when the evidence is contradictory. What contradictory evidence do you have that refutes the Bible? People will say things like a virgin birth (a woman did not know a man) is impossible. Is it? Women are now having babies without intercourse with a man. If a surgeon can do it, a God who can create life out of dirt could too. I am having a little fun now.
There are independent evidences of the existence of Jesus and reports of miracles that He did. Shall we assume everyone lied alike or that He was a magician?
Christian Bible scholars interpret this functionality quite differently. Some do claim this is the immortal soul of man. I totally disagree.
<Well, why? You must have some reason for disagreeing. How you interpret a few words has more to do with what you want to be true than what you know to be probably true. Is what is right for Christian Bible scholars wrong for you?>
I have reasons for my view or will admit when I am not sure. Death is described in many places in the Bible. A soul rising to heaven after death is not found in scripture. Is Peter in heaven? Or, it that an assumption? These differences are often caused by a confusion of English words such as spirit, soul, breath of life. These require studies far too extensive to try to cover in a sentence. I certainly am prone to error even if the scriptures are not.
<Are right and wrong things that exist independently of people, so they are the same for everyone? If so, what is wrong with those Christian Bible scholars? Or with you? How do you decide which one is wrong?>
That is what is go great about your theory Bill. Everyone decides for themselves. It is inherit in the human nature to do it and want the right to do it. You are a prime example. So am I. And, the Bible agrees as well that man ways are not God’s ways. I think that not murdering or stealing is pretty much the same guide for all men, societies and nations. There given as God’s written universal laws but not all men obey them for they keep them from getting what they want. There is no mystery here.
<The longings may come from the Inner Man, the Observer, but I would say they concern something that words like knowledge, purpose, love, and emotion do not encompass. I doubt that anyone is born knowing what those terms mean, yet we are all born being able to observe.>
The terms come after the experience. Curiosity is not learned is it? Isn’t an infant curious before it knows a single word? The urge to understand is felt, experienced by the Inner Man. A word evolves to represent the urge felt. Or is this just too simple for a scientist?
I am surprised that as a PCTer you would venture a guess on how uncertain Jim is about the Creator. How could you possibly know?
<I can make reasonable guesses, based on a rather firm conviction that I am not substantially different from other people.>
You are a one-of-a-kind within a species. It is hard to understand where the similarities end and the differences begin. Can Democrats make firm convictions about the way Republicans think?
<Based, also, on what I have heard and read other people saying about a Creator, which seems pretty vague and confused to me.>
I compare what other people say against what the Bible says. If God did write it, His opinion has greater credibility.
<Partly it comes from knowing that there is a difference between a self in the hierarchy and an Observer of that self that doesn’t seem to have any permanent home in the hierarchy. I write, speak, and think through the hierarchy, which is how my hierarchy comes to contain thoughts and logic and feelings about an Observer (which, I observe, continue to be modified now and then). That hierarchical self contains ideas about what is really in charge of it, That Man Behind the Curtain who we are supposed to pay no attention to (which I have discovered is also me, though a different kind of me). So I can understand how other people, coming across this same rather confusing set of ideas and experiences, might conclude that the thing in charge of them is some powerful being outside of them who knows their inner thoughts and feelings and judges them from on high. Yet I think the same people also realize that in some way, they ARE that observer, so they think in terms of a mysterious Soul, which ancient Indian philosophers called the Atman.>
I see no conflict between having an autonomous Inner Man while there is an external all knowing being that knows what my Inner Man is up to. The Bible does not say man has a soul it says man is a living soul. The difference is profound.
<The conjectures and theories about this Observer phenomenon are endless and endlessly varied, and I don’t believe any of them. Not even mine. Christ said, reportedly, that the Kingdom of God is within you. I think we should take that literally.>
These are theological constructs and often based upon metaphors. I don’t think any human has a complete understanding. For those needing absolute proof, I guess the Bible will let you down. I suppose that is where faith comes in. Even if you believe the reported claim of Christ that He will return; the exact day and hour is stated as unknown. Yet, Christians will debate the details till it drives you crazy. Your theory explains these things to me so I can relax.
I am not uncertain about the Creator.
<I am sure you are certain about the existence of an idea and feeling which you call “the Creator.” When you look inside yourself, there it is. You can’t doubt what you directly experience.>
The only idea I try to have in my Inner Man is what the Bible reveals. It is tempting to try to add to that, but I would experience that as error.
<You can, however, doubt anything that is said about that experience, including what you, yourself, think or say about it. You know for certain that you are reading these words, and at the same time you can doubt what I am trying to say by writing them. If you have thoughts about what I’m saying, you know that those thoughts are occurring, but you don’t know if they are correct.>
I can to the same degree you claim you can tell what Jim is uncertain about.
Neither were the founders of our country which recognized the Creator in the Constitution as giving the citizens unalienable rights to life, liberty (self-control) and the pursuit of happiness (to define their own purpose).
<Saying it doesn’t make it so. But I accept what they wrote as a very good proposal for running a country, if you put “perhaps” before the references to God. I don’t need God in there to make me agree that we should grant people rights.>
They did not put perhaps in there. They did not need to. You do. So be it. Has anyone asked you what rights should be granted?
Every state in the USA uses the word “God” to refer to this Creator in the preamble of their Constitution. Is there some doubt and uncertainty in your mind about what “Creator God” they meant?
<Oh, yes. Quite a lot of doubt. I doubt that any two of them have exactly the same idea. People who say “God” in Utah aren’t talking about the same God they speak of in Massachussetts, or Mississippi, or California, or Syria, or Bangladesh. Words don’t “have” meanings; we give them meanings out of our own experiences.
So that’s my honest report on what I actually think.>
If they meant any other god than the God of the Abraham revealed in the Bible, I’d like you to produce some evidence. It’s the same one I mean. The details are not clear. They are probably beyond our human capability to understand such a described being. This is no reason to drop the belief.
That’s my honest response. I might change my mind next week…like a scientist, based on new evidence. 
<Best.
Bill P>
You too, my friend. I hope Bry doesn’t read this. It is bound to be too embarrassing for him. Creationists and scientists humble enough to say I may be wrong, but right now I perceive it this way.
Kenny
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