sensory appreciation

[Jim_Dundon]

[Jim Dundon 05.22.07.0932edt]

  [From Bill Powers (2007.05.17.0650PDT)]

I try very hard not to bamboozle people.

I can see that, but not everyone can be technical and that does not mean
they have evil intentions.

Alexander seems to enjoy doing so. What is the technical meaning of
>"sensory appreciation"?

I think it is a little bit harsh to say he attempts to bamboozle.

I am not sure there is a singular agreed upon technical meaning of sensory
appreciation because Alexanders world was not a technical world but he did
his best to explain his views and the quote below is akin to your more
technical comparison of the behavior of man and machine. I am asking you
to relax your technical requirements for a moment, to stop demonstrating
your "faith in science", faith that you say has no place in science, and be
generous enough to see the value of his comments compared to yours.

from his book "Concious Control" copy attatched.

"The function of sensory appreciation will be clear to us if we stop for a
moment and consider the human organism as an animate machine, and compare
its mechanical processes with those of an inanimate machine. The
reliability of both machines is dependant upon the standard of reliability
of their controlling, propelling, motor, and other mechanisms,......THE
CONTROLLING FACTOR TAKING PLACE AS CAUSING THE OTHER MECHANICAL FACTORS TO
WORK CO-ORDINATELY AND TO GIVE THE BEST PRACTICAL USE.

But the all important DIFFERENCE from our standpoint between the animate and
the inanimate machine lies in the quality of function of their respective
controlling mechanisms. In the inanimate machine the controlling mechanism
is limited by the fixed nature of its own makeup and by certain fixed
conditions in the other mechanisms without which it cannot operate. In the
animate machine, or human psychophysical organism, THE CONTROLLING MECHANISM
IS A wonderful psychophysical PROCESS by means a which an almost unlimited
use of the different units which make up the whole may be brought about ..."

When you say in one of your papers that you used the human organism as a
prototype for the model and then proceeded to limit the prototype to what
can be built into machinery and only explained mathematically and continue
to do so, is that bamboozlement, a commitment to principal, or an ongoing
investigation?

At least alexander gives a wide degree of freedom, his views coincide with
yours in many ways. Maybe we could controll for using that to your
advantage instead of calling him a fraud especially since you have attested
to the effectiveness of his approach to behavior modification.

Best

Jim D

Constructive Conscious Control of The Individual.rar (192 KB)

[Bill_Powers1]

I can see that, but not everyone
can be technical and that does not mean they have evil
intentions.
[From Bill Powers (2007.05.22.1040 MDT)]

Jim Dundon 05.22.07.0932edt –

The problem has nothing to do with being “technical.” It has to
do with my having to read an endless series of assertions that are
completely made up out of the writer’s imagination, with no attempt to
reason or explain. The first hundred pages or so of the “Conscious
Control of the Individual” book, which I got through as best I
could, express ideas that the writer evidently believes, but which seem
to me like the meanderings of a pompous, self-absorbed, prejudiced person
who seems to accept every thought that crosses his mind as true just
because he thought of it. What does he know about “savages” or
about earlier stages of human evolution? Absolutely nothing: he simply
imagines it all, makes up a story. He presents his opinions as facts, his
beliefs as truths, his judgments as infallible.

How did he decide that holding your arms, elbows, and fingers in a
certain way is the “correct” way, while all other ways are
mistakes? Why is lengthening your spine better than letting it be curved?
Why should your head be held forward and up? How did he determine that
all these arbitrary, fussy, peremptory prescriptions for how to be and
behave are the only correct ways? Why should anyone put themselves under
his orders and accept his teachings as gospel? He gives neither reasons
nor justifications.

I am not sure there
is a singular agreed upon technical meaning of sensory appreciation
because Alexanders world was not a technical world but he did his best to
explain his views and the quote below is akin to your more technical
comparison of the behavior of man and machine. I am asking
you to relax your technical requirements for a moment, to stop
demonstrating your “faith in science”, faith that you say has
no place in science, and be generous enough to see the value of his
comments compared to yours.

I’m not talking about faith in science. My faith is in openness, honesty,
self-criticism, humility, and a desire to know what is that takes
precedence over the desire to be right. Those are my “technical
requirements”. I see none of these virtues in Alexander’s writings
that I have seen so far.

From his book
“Concious Control” copy attatched.

"The function of sensory appreciation will be clear to us if we stop
for a

moment and consider the human organism as an animate machine, and compare
its mechanical processes with those of an inanimate machine.
The

reliability of both machines is dependant upon the standard of
reliability

of their controlling, propelling, motor, and other mechanisms,…THE
CONTROLLING FACTOR TAKING PLACE AS CAUSING THE OTHER MECHANICAL FACTORS
TO WORK CO-ORDINATELY AND TO GIVE THE BEST PRACTICAL USE.

But the all important DIFFERENCE from our standpoint between the animate
and the inanimate machine lies in the quality of function of their
respective

controlling mechanisms. In the inanimate machine the controlling
mechanism

is limited by the fixed nature of its own makeup and by certain
fixed

conditions in the other mechanisms without which it cannot operate.
In the

animate machine, or human psychophysical organism, THE CONTROLLING
MECHANISM IS A wonderful psychophysical PROCESS by means a which an
almost unlimited use of the different units which make up the whole may
be brought about …"

These paragraphs are an excellent illustration of my points above.
Alexander tells us what an animate machine and an inanimate machine are,
and what the controlling factor is, but he gives absolutely no reason why
we should believe him. He does not treat us as equals to be persuaded,
but as ignorant pupils who are to be enlightened, who are to accept his
words just because he says them. What good does it do to hear him say
that “the controlling mechanism is a wonderful psychophysical
process by which an almost unlimited use of the different units … may be
brought about”, when he gives us no reason to think this is true,
and does not say what this controlling mechanism is, why it is wonderful,
what process is involved, and what makes him think the result is almost
unlimited? These assertions are given from on high, as one who knows
informs one who does not know and who wouldn’t understand even if you did
explain. He hints that there are reasons for saying these things but
never says what they are.

When you say in one
of your papers that you used the human organism as a prototype for the
model and then proceeded to limit the prototype to what can be built into
machinery and only explained mathematically and continue to do so, is
that bamboozlement, a commitment to principal, or an ongoing
investigation?

“Limiting the prototype” never crossed my mind – it was all I
could do to come up with a model that works as well as it does. If I knew
how to make a better one I would certainly do so. I suppose that makes it
an ongoing investigation, if I have to choose. Anyway I didn’t say I used
the human organism as a prototype for what can be built into machinery –
that’s your spin. I said that engineers tried to figure out how to make
machines that could do certain kinds of tasks that up to then only human
beings (or other animals) could do. I don’t know how you turned that into
what you said. Your remembering your own conclusions, not my
words.

At least alexander
gives a wide degree of freedom, his views coincide with yours in
many ways.

I think they diverge is far more ways, and where they coincide it’s
purely an accident – he never gives reasons for saying what he says,
whereas I always do. The difference is that I trust my listeners to be
able to deal with observations for themselves, and to reach their own
conclusions given the same observations I use. Alexander, contrary to
what you say, gives no freedom at all to think independently and to draw
your own conclusions. He is too busy telling you what is right, how to
think, and what to conclude.

Maybe we
could controll for using that to your advantage instead of calling him a
fraud especially since you have attested to the effectiveness of his
approach to behavior modification.

No, I have not attested to the effectiveness of his approach, nor have I
said that behavior modification, however achieved, is what we want. You
are remembering your own thoughts about what I said, not what I said. I
have not experienced his approach, and from what I have just been reading
I’m quite certain that I would not sit still for it. Of course if someone
has a serious problem, it’s possible that practically any form of
attention to the details will result in feeling better, but I see no
reason to assume that Alexander’s idea of “better” should take
precedence over mine, or anyone else’s.

Sorry, Jim and other Alexandrites, I am completely unimpressed with what
I have read so far. It’s quite possible that if I experienced the
Alexander Technique at the hands of an expert (who could refrain from
trying to explain things) I would agree that it’s effective, but so far
it’s also possible that I would come away with a different impression.
And it’s dead sure that even if it’s effective, I wouldn’t have any
reason to believe Alexander knows why it’s effective.

Bill P.

[Richard_Kennaway]

I once attended a one-day Alexander technique workshop, and for what it's worth, here is my experience of it. It was some years ago, so I've forgotten a lot of what went on, but Alexander's airy theorising that so infuriates Bill was absent from the workshop. Alexander was mentioned, but his writings were not recommended. The Alexander technique is a collection of physical skills, for which a book is no more useful than it would be for learning how to ride a bicycle. The only particular thing I remember was suddenly being able to loosen and straighten the upper back and neck. Why is that a good thing? Well, it feels better, is all I can say, which is a sufficient reason in itself. And it seems reasonable that having mobility in one's joints, and not having unnecessary tension in the muscles, will also help the joints and muscles last longer.

I've also done Tai Chi and yoga for a number of years. The Tai Chi instructor that I've spent most time with is quite explicit -- when the subject comes up at all -- that all the talk of chi (energy) is just a metaphor, a visualisation exercise whose purpose is to lead the student into producing the right movements and reflexes in the right way. It doesn't matter whether there is any such thing as chi or energy meridians, or whatever: what matters is improving your balance, strengthening the legs (Tai Chi does not work the arms at all), and pushing your opponent over while not being pushed over yourself.

It's the same with yoga. The way the teachers I've gone to talk about the postures would make little sense if one tried to take it literally. The purpose of what they say is to produce the right postures in the students by exerting or relaxing the right muscles. Nobody can consciously produce specified muscle actions at will; instead, the movements that we can attend to and deliberately produce are higher level things, like reaching to pick something up. Describing a posture in physiologically accurate detail (even if the teacher were able to do that) does not enable a student to perform the posture. The student has to be led into the unfamiliar posture by whatever means works.

In all of these things, the theorising is no more than a method of producing physical results in the practitioners, and should otherwise be ignored.

···

--
Richard Kennaway, jrk@cmp.uea.ac.uk, http://www.cmp.uea.ac.uk/~jrk/
School of Computing Sciences,
University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, U.K.

[Bill_Powers1]

I once attended a one-day
Alexander technique workshop, and for what it’s worth, here is my
experience of it. It was some years ago, so I’ve forgotten a lot of
what went on, but Alexander’s airy theorising that so infuriates Bill was
absent from the workshop. Alexander was mentioned, but his writings
were not recommended. The Alexander technique is a collection of
physical skills, for which a book is no more useful than it would be for
learning how to ride a bicycle. The only particular thing I
remember was suddenly being able to loosen and straighten the upper back
and neck. Why is that a good thing? Well, it feels better, is all I
can say, which is a sufficient reason in itself. And it seems
reasonable that having mobility in one’s joints, and not having
unnecessary tension in the muscles, will also help the joints and muscles
last longer.

I’ve also done Tai Chi and yoga for a number of years. The Tai Chi
instructor that I’ve spent most time with is quite explicit – when the
subject comes up at all – that all the talk of chi (energy) is just a
metaphor, a visualisation exercise whose purpose is to lead the student
into producing the right movements and reflexes in the right way.
It doesn’t matter whether there is any such thing as chi or energy
meridians, or whatever: what matters is improving your balance,
strengthening the legs (Tai Chi does not work the arms at all), and
pushing your opponent over while not being pushed over yourself.

It’s the same with yoga. The way the teachers I’ve gone to talk
about the postures would make little sense if one tried to take it
literally. The purpose of what they say is to produce the right
postures in the students by exerting or relaxing the right muscles.
Nobody can consciously produce specified muscle actions at will; instead,
the movements that we can attend to and deliberately produce are higher
level things, like reaching to pick something up. Describing a posture in
physiologically accurate detail (even if the teacher were able to do
that) does not enable a student to perform the posture. The student
has to be led into the unfamiliar posture by whatever means
works.

In all of these things, the theorising is no more than a method of
producing physical results in the practitioners, and should otherwise be
ignored.

–

Richard Kennaway, jrk@cmp.uea.ac.uk,

http://www.cmp.uea.ac.uk/~jrk/

School of Computing Sciences,

University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, U.K.

–

No virus found in this incoming message.

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269.7.6/814 - Release Date: 5/21/2007 2:01 PM
[From Bill Powers (2007.05.23.0308 MDT)]
Many thanks, Richard, for the observations about the Alexander Technique,
Tai Chi, and yoga. I imagine the same thing applies to other approaches
which have proven value yet are based on pretty hazy if not downright
mystical ideas (like a lot of Chinese and other, including Western,
medicine). I don’t know why these “background stories” seem so
essential, since at the levels of practical doing they usually make no
difference at all. But many people would be indignant or insulted if told
that those stories are nonsense – especially those that seem to have
some connection with modern knowledge about physiology and neurology
instead of imaginary energy meridians, though the connection with modern
ideas is usually pretty sketchy, too…
All this suggests something I’ve suspected for a long time: people simply
like to have things explained at a theoretical level, maybe what I call
the “program” level. Anyway, the levels where we symbolize and
generalize and try to be logical and systematic. Just telling them
“do this, do that” isn’t enough; they want to know why.
So even if you don’t know why doing those things works, you have to make
up something that sounds plausible, or your followers will be
dissatisfied.
I’m not disputing the value of theorizing; when done well, with enough
testing to make sure the theory really explains something, it’s the basis
of all real knowledge. I sure hope that’s true. A lot of people do the
first part of theorizing just fine, which is making up stories about what
is really going on that obey at least some kind of internal logic and
might conceivably be true. Sure, there really might be some supernatural
being in a white robe with whiskers who can wave his hand and make
miracles (one does not need perfect syntax to theorize). Where the
amateur theoreticians miss the point is in the second part, which is
trying to find out whether this theory has anything to do with reality.
That’s where you say, “OK, if this theory is really right, it says
that if I do X, I ought to observe Y. So I shall do X and watch to see
what happens.” That where you get the blasphemers looking skyward
and saying, “If you’re really there, God, I dare you to strike me
dead right now!” It takes real dedication to truth to propose a test
like that, but when nothing happens, at least the blasphemer can claim to
have put a small dent in the Theory of God. That’s the point of testing
theories: a theory that’s too easy to disprove isn’t of much use. I call
it kicking the tires. If the tire immediately goes flat, don’t buy the
car.
A good theorist is not very interested in looking for positive instances
of the theory – after all, the positive instances are what you organized
your story around in the first place, so of course they fit. What’s
really important is to look for negative instances. If there are a lot of
them, or even just one or two really big ones, you need to abandon
something that’s in the theory, because that part, and maybe the whole
thing, is wrong. As I keep saying, it’s better to be the first to find
such flaws rather than being the last diehard.
That’s one reason people invent theories that can’t be tested. Life after
death, for one example, is a very safe theory, because nobody has ever
come back from death and said it doesn’t happen. And nobody ever will.
Some people have come back from what they and other believers claim was
death and said they were still there, but since that’s the only kind of
report there can be, it doesn’t mean much. The report itself shows that
what happened may not have been death, but there’s no way to decide short
of letting putrefaction set in. But that doesn’t prove anything, either.
If you don’t come back, does that mean you couldn’t have if you’d wanted
to?
That way lies madness, and I’m sure that some kinds of madness are simply
theorizing run amok. Some people seem to believe that whatever thought
enters their mind, whatever they think that makes sense to them, must be
true. In some cases, they decide it’s God talking to them, which of
course means it has to be true. In other cases, they just can’t
tell the difference between a possibility and a probability – it
could be true means the same thing as it must be true. Jerry Falwell’s
stories about the Antichrist and what is going to happen to all us poor
souls who will be Left Behind are that sort of thing – it could be true,
so it must be true. On in some cases they simply don’t realize that an
idea can make perfect logical sense, and still be wrong. There are many
more ideas that could be true than are true.

It would be nice to know why all these approaches to well-being work, but
you don’t have to know why to take advantage of them if you need them (if
you do have to know why before they work, maybe they aren’t really what
is working). Unfortunately, many people need them not because they will
really benefit, but because they don’t want to get old and die. That’s
behind most of the big intellectual goofs in history: it’s really not
hard to understand why people prefer to believe they can somehow get
around ceasing to exist. What I still find hard to understand is the
number of intelligent people who, despite years of experience, think that
what they want to be true has some bearing on what is true.

Best,

Bill P.

Richard Kennaway (2007.05.22) –

[Martin_Taylor2]

Re: sensory appreciation
[Martin Taylor 2007.05.23.09.04]

[From Bill Powers (2007.05.23.0308
MDT)]
Many thanks, Richard, for the
observations about the Alexander Technique, Tai Chi, and yoga. I
imagine the same thing applies to other approaches which have proven
value yet are based on pretty hazy if not downright mystical ideas
(like a lot of Chinese and other, including Western, medicine). I
don’t know why these “background stories” seem so essential,
since at the levels of practical doing they usually make no difference
at all…
All this suggests something I’ve
suspected for a long time: people simply like to have things explained
at a theoretical level, maybe what I call the “program”
level. Anyway, the levels where we symbolize and generalize and try to
be logical and systematic. Just telling them “do this, do that”
isn’t enough; they want to know why. So even if you don’t know
why doing those things works, you have to make up something that
sounds plausible, or your followers will be dissatisfied.

I think there’s a good lead to why this may be, in PCT itself.
It’s a question of control. A specific action sequence may produce a
dewsired effect in the absence of disturbance, but what happens when
the environment changes a little?

To make this concrete, my wife, writing a multi-file book using
Nisus Writer, knows very well how to click on the file she wants to
edit in a folder window that always opens in the top-left part of the
screen, and how to make changes in the file that then opens in Nisus
Writer. But, if for some reason the folder window isn’t open when she
turns the computer on, she’s lost and has to come for help. The
“theory” that the folder is a container inside another
container, and you can “open” a folder from a contaner as
you can open a file from a container is something she hasn’t properly
assimilated. The actions work perfectly if the folder window is open
where she expectes it to be, but the “why” is missing. If
she could grasp the “why”, she could figure out the actions
needed when the folder window isn’t open, but as it is, the actions
are a kind of magic invocation of the desired result.

Now, even faulty theories must be able to describe a “why”
for useful actions at least some of the time, or they wouldn’t
survive. Even appeals to an unobservable deity work some of the time,
and moreover, they quite consistently make the person who appeals feel
better. Reorganization won’t make faulty theories go away if the
actions they suggest prove useful in the face of some disturbances.
The theories may fail for larger changes in the environment, but then
the “why” adduced is that one is now working outside the
range of applicability of the theory, not that the theory is false.
One seeks or uses a different theory in the new environment, just as
one finds a different mode of transport when one’s car is out of
commission.

You say:

Where the amateur theoreticians miss the
point is in the second part, which is trying to find out whether this
theory has anything to do with reality. That’s where you say,
"OK, if this theory is really right, it says that if I do X, I
ought to observe Y. So I shall do X and watch to see what
happens.

In saying this, you are assuming that the “amateur
theoretician” has a reference to perceive the theory itself as
having withstood attempts to disprove it, whereas in most cases I
suspect that the perception of the validity of the theory is a passive
one, not a controlled one. The theory HAS proved its worth by allowing
effective perceptual control in some range of varied environment (or
in the face of some disturbances), and is therefore passively
perceived as valid. There’s no perceptual control requirement to see
whether it works in other, “uninteresting” environments in
which the theory isn’t “supposed to” work.

A good theorist is not very interested in
looking for positive instances of the theory – after all, the
positive instances are what you organized your story around in the
first place, so of course they fit.

Maybe the book writers perceive themselves as “good
theorists”. Maybe sufficiently many positive instances seem to be
enough to make the story probabilistically likely. Maybe it doesn’t
matter that a rigorous theorist might not perceive them to be
“good theorists”. If the theory provides a “why”
that is sufficient to allow the practitioners to control what they
want to control under a wide enough range of circumstances, neither
the theorist nor the practitioners are likely to reorganize
differently.

Martin

[Bill_Powers1]

I think there’s a good lead to
why this may be, in PCT itself. It’s a question of control. A specific
action sequence may produce a dewsired effect in the absence of
disturbance, but what happens when the environment changes a
little?

Now, even faulty theories must be able to describe a “why” for
useful actions at least some of the time, or they wouldn’t survive. Even
appeals to an unobservable deity work some of the time, and moreover,
they quite consistently make the person who appeals feel better.
Reorganization won’t make faulty theories go away if the actions they
suggest prove useful in the face of some disturbances. The theories may
fail for larger changes in the environment, but then the “why”
adduced is that one is now working outside the range of applicability of
the theory, not that the theory is false. One seeks or uses a different
theory in the new environment, just as one finds a different mode of
transport when one’s car is out of commission.
[From Bill Powers (2007.05.23.0827 MDT)]

Martin Taylor 2007.05.23.09.04

You have some good ideas here. There is obviously a use for the
stories about why things happen, especially when the theories work in
detail and quantitatively, but also simply as mnemonic devices. They help
us remember what to do and how to do it, while purporting to explain why
at the same time. You remind me of something I read about learning
Chinese characters, which was to the effect that all that stuff about
root patterns is just a lot of stories that help the memory, and we’re
not to take them too literally. But learning the stories does help,
apparently.

Also, you remind me of an accidental discovery while turning an old
experimental gadget into a computer experiment for Dick Robertson. The
original device, back in the 1950s, involved four buttons and four
lights. You had to try to turn the lights off as fast as possible by
pressing the right button. At first the subject just stabbed at random,
discovering which button went with which light. After that correpondence
was learned the reaction time between turning on of the next light and
turning it off dropped to a new plateau. It stayed at that plateau until
the subject learned the sequence of buttons going with the order in which
the lights turned on; after that, the subject poised a finger over the
next button and hit it as soon as the light turned on. The problem was
that the scorekeeping dial showing the machine’s score still kept inching
upward. Finally the person discovered that hitting the right button
before the next light came on made the dial turn backward, and that
eventually brought the machine’s score to zero, the goal of the
game.

When I translated this to a computer game, I used the keyboard keys C, V,
B, and N for the buttons. Then I discovered that after I had done the
task a few times, the second plateau developed in no time at all – in a
single trial. What had happened was that I had noticed the sequence in
which the letters had to be pressed, such as C,N,B,V. That was all it
took to know the sequence. Without the symbols, learning the sequence of
keys had taken far longer, a dozen trials perhaps. Introducing symbols to
go with the actions made the learning almost instantaneous.

So your suggestions and these examples may point to a lower level of
cognitive functioning where letters and words are really just arbitrary
shapes, with sequences of words or letters serving to represent sequences
of lower-level perceptions. Maybe the symbolizing is a functional part of
sequence recognition, reducing a complex perceptual situation to a small
set of symbols which are then easy to recognize when they occur in
different sequences. This is a pre-linguistic use of these levels, but
clearly would lead later to something more like the way we use words now.
HailMaryfullofgracetheLordiswith
theeblessedartthouamongstwomenandblessedisthefruitofthywombJesus.
Said at full penance speed, this is not language but simply a sequence of
sounds, each repetition to be ticked off by moving a bead. It can be said
without any higher-order meaning; it’s just what you have to do if you
weren’t nice to your mother yesterday, and when it’s over you can forgive
yourself.

So words like “chakra” and “meridian” and
“aura” and “energy” are not really words that
represent some other perceptual experiences but simply mnemonic symbols
that you pop into sentences in the right places to produce a feeling of
understandingness. You don’t have to know what they mean, in the usual
sense of meaning. They don’t have to mean anything; they’re just markers
in a sequence.

This may be what you have in the back of your mind when you say

In saying this, you
are assuming that the “amateur theoretician” has a reference to
perceive the theory itself as having withstood attempts to disprove it,
whereas in most cases I suspect that the perception of the validity of
the theory is a passive one, not a controlled one. The theory HAS proved
its worth by allowing effective perceptual control in some range of
varied environment (or in the face of some disturbances), and is
therefore passively perceived as valid. There’s no perceptual control
requirement to see whether it works in other, “uninteresting”
environments in which the theory isn’t “supposed to”
work.

It’s not a theory at that level of use of words, is it? It’s more
like a mantra. It’s what you call what you’re doing. That doesn’t call
for testing – just remembering.

A good theorist is
not very interested in looking for positive instances of the theory –
after all, the positive instances are what you organized your story
around in the first place, so of course they fit.

Maybe the book writers perceive themselves as “good theorists”.
Maybe sufficiently many positive instances seem to be enough to make the
story probabilistically likely.

When you are looking only for positive instancs, I don’t think there’s
any idea of testing a theory – only showing how to use it. I flutter my
fingers in the air just over your solar plexus and pour healing thoughts
into you. You see me doing this and feel warm pricklies inside, so
clearly it’s working. When you say it’s working, I say “Of
course.” It would never occur to me to drape a sheet over you in
such a way that you couldn’t see my hands, then not use my hands, or to
do everything except think the healing thoughts, to see if you’d still
feel the warm pricklies. That’s just not done.

Maybe it
doesn’t matter that a rigorous theorist might not perceive them to be
“good theorists”. If the theory provides a “why” that
is sufficient to allow the practitioners to control what they want to
control under a wide enough range of circumstances, neither the theorist
nor the practitioners are likely to reorganize
differently.

Agreed.

Best,

Bill P.

[Richard_Kennaway]

[From Richard Kennaway (2007.05.24.0921 BST)]

[From Bill Powers (2007.05.23.0827 MDT)]
So words like "chakra" and "meridian" and "aura" and "energy" are not really words that represent some other perceptual experiences but simply mnemonic symbols that you pop into sentences in the right places to produce a feeling of understandingness. You don't have to know what they mean, in the usual sense of meaning. They don't have to mean anything; they're just markers in a sequence.

I think you have just explained a lot of human discourse.

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--
Richard Kennaway, jrk@cmp.uea.ac.uk, Richard Kennaway
School of Computing Sciences,
University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, U.K.