[From Bill Powers (950811.0600 MDT)]
Joel Perkin (950809.0945 EDT) --
I assume that the following citation was part of your post and not just
an automatic slogan:
\o/ This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent
> his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
/ \ I John 4 x
I've wondered exactly what the message of this published opinion is,
relative to PCT. Presumably, sin is an offense against standards of
morality or at least proper conduct. Such standards, according to our
understanding of PCT, have to exist as reference specifications inside a
person's brain in order to have an effect on behavior. That is, one has
to evaluate the actual consequences of actions against a set of intended
consequences, so that the difference may be used to adjust lower-level
more detailed goals.
If one acts in ways that have sinful consequences, there should be an
error signal that tends to alter lower-level behaviors in the direction
of decreasing the error. If sinful effects continue to occur, this
indicates something amiss with the control systems in the brain.
Assuming, however, that there is no problem with the mechanics of
control, we can only conclude that there is a reference level for the
sinful result of acting -- that it is intended.
But if the sinful effect is intended, it would not be perceived as a
sin, but simply as an intended result. If there is still a sense of sin,
it must be because there is another control system that intends for
something to occur that is incompatible, control-wise, with the first
intention. For example, a child may want to maintain autonomy and
develop independent control of the experienced world, but may also wish
to be in a loving relationship with the parents. When the child wishes
to do something that the parents don't think should be done, the parents
may threaten punishment or withhold support in an attempt to prevent
that behavior on the part of the child. The child will automatically
resist such disturbances, because they interfere with independent
control of the child's own experiences. The resistance will result in
counter-efforts from the parents, so the child may experience feelings
of anger and hatred that accompany the attempt to prevent the
interference by the parents.
The child, however, also wishes to have good feeling toward the parents,
so there is a conflict between the goals of wanting to love the parents
and wanting to be independent. The conflict arises because the only way
to satisfy the parents is to do what the child doesn't want to do, or
refrain from doing what the child does want to do. This is where the
conflict arises between two control processes inside the child, and this
in turn leads to a sense of sin. The "good" side of the child -- that
is, the desires to love and please the parents -- are at war with the
"bad" side, the side that wants to have interesting experiences, like
sexual intercourse, to which the parents object.
Now it seems to me that in the text you cite, the child's internal
desire to have a good relationship with the parents is discounted, and
only the parents' actions are considered. What is basically an internal
conflict in the child is made into an external conflict with the
parents. The parents tell the child about all the painful sacrifices
they have made to give the child a good life and prepare for the child's
future, and accuse the child of being ungrateful, uncaring, and bad. By
this means they encourage the "good" side of the child's internal
conflict, trying to make the child perceive responsibility for causing
an unloving and hurtful relationship with the parents. They hope that if
the error on that side of the conflict becomes large enough, that side
will overcome the other side, so the balance of the conflict will swing
away from the behavior that the parents don't want to see.
This approach, however, is most likely to intensify the child's
conflict, because the other side is also a control process. If the
behavior does begin to change, that very change will cause a larger
error in the conflicting control system, increasing the intensity of the
efforts to carry on the unwanted (by the parents) behavior, to produce
the experiences that are still wanted. The child's sense of sin -- of
internal uncorrected error -- deepens, yet the urge to have the wanted
experiences does not go away.
If the internal conflict becomes severe enough, it is likely that the
child will begin to reorganize. The only goal of reorganization is to
remove the pain of internal error. Since reorganization is not a
systematic process, there is no way to predict what will change as a
result; the only predictable outcome is that the pain will eventually
decrease or even disappear. The child may abandon the goals that are
causing conflict with the parents, or the child may abandon the goal of
pleasing and loving and being with the parents. Or the child may
discover the ability to live two lives; one while interacting with the
parents, and a totally different one while away from them. These are
obvious and common solutions to this common problem.
The optimum solution would involve finding some way of perceiving the
world so that at least the main goals of both the "good" and the "bad"
kind can be achieved without conflict. Happiness and good feelings, both
internal and toward others, are goals that are not bad in themselves,
although destructive means of achieving them do exist. Loving attitudes
toward parents and happy relations with them are not necessarily
restrictive or destructive of autonomy. By changing the means of
achieving these things, one can find ways of resolving the conflicts
that don't go against human nature. The problem, of course, is in
finding an overall view of the world within which autonomy and love can
coexist.
The happiest outcome of reorganization driven by a sense of sin would be
for the child to arrive at a world view that permits both autonomy and
love. There are probably many views of the world that can accomplish
this; there are religious views, scientific views, philosophical views,
and views with no names. They all probably have internal inconsistencies
and drawbacks, but having some such view is far better than having none
and simply suffering the consequences of internal conflicts. And having
examples of such world views at hand, given by fortunate individuals who
have managed to work out their problems, is much better than having to
search for them at random, through unaided reorganization.
It was probably Voltaire (I'm not that literate) who said that if God
didn't exist, mankind would have to invent Him. God represents an
overarching concept within which all human needs and desires can be
brought into a single more or less harmonious system. The imperfections
in our concepts at this level are obvious; even among those who believe
literally in a living God, there are serious disputes about the details,
and people with different concepts find it difficult to live together.
Cultures in which the highest system concepts are too different from
those of other cultures tend to wall themselves off; very destructive
conflicts can result and finding any common ground can be next to
impossible. Yet there is always contact, and always continued
reorganization, so that inevitably fragments of one culture's system
concepts find their way into other cultures. Slowly and
unsystematically, the conflicts tend toward resolution.
When one has found a system concept that seems to bring harmony into
life, there is a natural generous impulse to share it with others who
seem to need it. But this generous impulse may not be perceived in the
spirit in which it was intended if the recipient already has what seems
a satisfactory system concept. Rather than feeling uplifted, the
recipient may feel imposed upon or violated. Then the generous impulse
has the unfortunate side-effect of cancelling its own message by
arousing opposition and hostility. In approaching people who may have
different system concepts, it may be better to put such ideas in the
form of proposals for discussion rather than take-it-or-leave-it edicts.
If you seriously believe that it is effective for a parent to sacrifice
the life of a son as an object lesson to someone else, or even, in
effect, to commit suicide in order to engender serious feelings of guilt
in others, then in reasonable company you are free to make your case.
But you should be prepared to defend it.
ยทยทยท
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Best,
Bill P.