security and enterprise

CSGnet Archive CSG2001
1

[Stefan Balke (01.04.09)]

Rick Marken (01.04.08.1750 PDT)

Well, if you're just asking for a WAG (Wild Ass Guess) I'd say "yes".

Is a WAG something like a joker? (I've never heard the expression). If so,
do you mean that a joker is without further meaning?

> For me it would make sense to suppose that this could be true for
> the variables "security, freedom and togetherness".

I'm not sure these are principles (in the HPCT sense), let alone
universal.

With "security" I mean a principle which is not necessarily represented in
words. It is the control of a specific amount of security, which is needed
to master a situation or task. If a person doesn`t care for the necessary
minimum amount of security, he will have accidents, no friends, an empty
fridge, a lot of debts and serious diseases. Over a period of time _every
person everywhere_ will be victim of his low level of security.

The principle to maintain a certain level of "honesty" is directly related
to "security". If I look around, then I see that all other principles are
directly related to "security". It's impossible not to control for security.
Mountain climbers and other adventurers are controling for security. Also if
you play russian roulette, you want to know how many bullets are in the
revolver before you pull the trigger.

All I

can tell you is that writing down an HPC-structure with named
variables, based on no research at all, is not what would make
_me_ happy.

The only kind of research I think of is asking myself and others about my
and their controlled variables. And within this setting I'm interested in
meaningful universal principles. But I'm not interested in writing down
meaningless names of meaningless variables. It has to make sense for
practical use. And that would be the test of the whole, whether it can lead
to repeatable effects in my practical work with families and children. In
that case I would say I understand the structure. So if I knew that
everybody controls for a at least minimum level of security, than I know a
lot about him. If I also knew, that he controls for not to much security,
than I know even more. I can alway analyse his reactions under the aspect
that he needs security and how much this situation will give him in terms of
security. Another important principle is enterprise.

Regards,
Stefan

2

[From Rick Marken (01.04.10.1400)]

Stefan Balke (01.04.09)--

With "security" I mean a principle which is not necessarily represented in
words. It is the control of a specific amount of security, which is needed
to master a situation or task. If a person doesn`t care for the necessary
minimum amount of security, he will have accidents, no friends, an empty
fridge, a lot of debts and serious diseases. Over a period of time _every
person everywhere_ will be victim of his low level of security.

I just don't see this as a particularly productive way of going about
things. It strikes me as similar to Glasser's efforts to find the five
basic needs. I think the question of what people want and need is an
empirical one. The problem with trying to think of the basic needs or
principles or whatever is that you can make verbal arguments for nearly
anything being a basic need or principle: security, survival, happiness,
wisdom, moderation, etc. I think this approach to understanding things
is similar to the "just so" story approach to understanding behavior
taken by evolutionary psychologists. It's science by storytelling. I
happen to like storytelling a lot; my wife happens to be one of the
great yarn spinners since Homer and the J author of the Bible. But I
think the power of stories is lessened when they are taken as
_explanations_ of phenomena (such as behavior), as they too often are in
religion and in some branches of science.

The only kind of research I think of is asking myself and others about my
and their controlled variables. And within this setting I'm interested in
meaningful universal principles.

I really would encourage you to approach this somewhat differently;
using a verbal version of the test rather than simply relying on a
person's verbal description of what they control (even if these verbal
descriptions are sometimes accurate).

Best regards

Rick

ยทยทยท

--
Richard S. Marken, PhD
RAND
PO Box 2138
1700 Main Street
Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138
Tel: 310-393-0411 x7971
Fax: 310-451-7018