So where to from here

CSGnet Archive CSG2008
1

(Gavin Ritz 2008.03.08.17:56NZT)

This list is not much different to the two or three other lists I have been
on (All to do with complexity, cybernetics and Systems Thinking). Lots of
clever people, with interesting and smart angles to view the supposed
subject with.

So far some of the most basic questions have not been able to be answered,
for example this theory can't do a simple behavioural profile of a
salesperson with an effective measure.

I haven't seen one practical application of Prigogine's Dissipative theory.

I've really looked hard for a practical business application for Complexity
theory, not found one yet.

And Systems Thinking is actually just a methodology and not that great a one
either.

Are we being duped?

Regards
Gavin

2

Gavin Ritz 2008.03.08.17:56NZT)

So far some of the most basic questions have not been able to be
answered,
for example this theory can't do a simple behavioural profile of a
salesperson with an effective measure.

Are we being duped?

I don't think anybody is duped if they control their perceptions.

A salesperson is like entropy and energy and climat, it is a perception.
If anybody wishes to do a behavioral profile of a salesperson, he or she
may have a model of a salesperson. Most people have very, very simple
models of a saleperson, and the disturbances (the salesmen) are often so
differnt from earlier experiences that reorganization is the result.
This happens often too late.

I think PCT tells us that doing profiles of people is the wrong way to
go. People behave the way they behave. And it is we who control our
perceptions. And they are dependent on our earlier experiences.

So where from here? Well control your perceptions and reorganize.

bjorn

3

[From Martin Taylor 2008.03.06.10.21]

(Gavin Ritz 2008.03.08.17:56NZT)

This list is not much different to the two or three other lists I have been
on (All to do with complexity, cybernetics and Systems Thinking). Lots of
clever people, with interesting and smart angles to view the supposed
subject with.

So far some of the most basic questions have not been able to be answered,
for example this theory can't do a simple behavioural profile of a
salesperson with an effective measure.

I haven't seen one practical application of Prigogine's Dissipative theory.

I've really looked hard for a practical business application for Complexity
theory, not found one yet.

And Systems Thinking is actually just a methodology and not that great a one
either.

Are we being duped?

I don't think so. Not by any of them. Think of the corresponding situation with respect to quantum physics. It is over 100 years since the theory was clearly presented by Einstein, 80 years since it was put on a rigorous mathematic foundation. Were we being duped by it in the 20 or 30 years between 1926 and the creation of the first transistor (which I believe was devised strictly from quantum-mechanical considerations)? Without the transistor, what would our everyday life be like now?

Are we being duped because quantum computing can, 100 years after the theory was propounded, only work with single-digit numbers of qbits at a time? In another 100 years, what will be the power of quantum computing? Are we being duped by it because so far it hasn't done any useful computations that couldn't have been made more easily with a conventional PC?

You are talking about theories at the foundation of different realms of thought. To me it looks as though they have a lot of places where they can, do, or will mesh.

As for PCT, which on this list must be your main concern, you can take it on two levels. You can take the precise, atomistic, level where experiments live up to Bill P's requirements of exactitude and universality for every subject every time, or you can work with the less rigorous buut more foundational proposition that people act to control their own perceptions and nothing else. It's less rigorous because it does not specify what you will see any particular person doing under particular conditions, because you will not know what controlled perceptions are being disturbed and you won't know how the person is organized to counter the disturbance, even if you do know what perceptions they are controlling and with what reference levels.

For your salesman question, using the less rigorous approach, you might ask what a person is controlling for when they apply to become a salesman. Is it for the money, for personal validation, to work through a problem they have in meeting new people, ... ? If you figure that out for an interviewee, you might try to find out what mechanisms they might use other than being a salesman to control those same perceptions, or you might try to discover what methods they might use to control the perceptions that are used when being a salesman. And so forth...

As I said in an earlier message, it is likely that skilled interviewers already do all this, even if they don't do it using an explicit PCT foundation. Working from a foundational theory from first principles is an unusual way to produce something novel that is better than what was already available. I can't think of an earlier example of a novel development from fundamental theory than the transistor 50 years after the theory was proposed, but that doesn't invalidate the theories that are developed through a feedback mechanism between effective practice and basic studies. Nor does it invalidate theories that are based on observation and experiment in realms at the time distant from everyday practice -- such as quantum theory.

No. We aren't being duped.

Martin

4

[From Bill Powers (2008.03.08.1037 MST)]

Gavin Ritz 2008.03.08.17:56NZT

So far some of the most basic questions have not been able to be answered,
for example this theory can't do a simple behavioural profile of a
salesperson with an effective measure.

This is a little like a person complaining that algebra hasn't given him one new idea about how to design a new car. I think you may be confusing choosing a tool with deciding what you want to do with the tool. An engineer wouldn't try to design the engine for a new car without using algebra, but he would't expect algebra to tell him what he wants to design.

I'm sure you know more about salemanship than I do, or than most of us in this discussion group do. So you are very well equipped to start using PCT in analyzing the problems you have and the tasks you want accomplished. It would be interesting to know what you think a salesman is trying to do, and what it is about human nature that helps or hinders him or her in doing it.

Example: I'm sure you're aware that many people are suspicious of salesmen, not believing what they say about a product or what it will do for them. How can PCT be used to analyze the causes of that suspicion, and to help salesmen avoid arousing it? How can the concept of behaving in order to control perceptions help? How can the technical details of a control system -- the controlled variable, the perception, the reference signal, the error signal, the output function, the output quantity -- help? How can it help if you understand that people control not their actions but the results that those actions accomplish? When a person doubts what a salesman says, what error is that doubt intended to correct or prevent? What kinds of experiences have led to that error being present? How did the salesman act as a disturbance to cause the error?

These are not direct answers to your request for a cookbook producure for screening salesman. But they are a means toward arriving at such procedures, and in the process, learning things about selling and salemanship that even you, perhaps, didn't know before. That's the way PCT can be useful. You still have to solve your own problems, but PCT provides some new tools for doing so.

Best,

Bill P.

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5

(Gavin Ritz.2008.03.09.10.47NZT)

[From Bill Powers (2008.03.08.1037 MST)]

Gavin Ritz 2008.03.08.17:56NZT

So far some of the most basic questions have not been able to be answered,
for example this theory can't do a simple behavioural profile of a
salesperson with an effective measure.

This is a little like a person complaining that algebra hasn't given
him one new idea about how to design a new car.

This is a little of a silly response, because math is not a method of design
while applied thermodynamics and material science clearly is, sure using
mathematics.

I think you may be
confusing choosing a tool with deciding what you want to do with the
tool.

I'm not confused at all.

An engineer wouldn't try to design the engine for a new car
without using algebra, but he would't expect algebra to tell him what
he wants to design.

This has nothing to do with the issue; my thermodynamical theory will
definitely tell me how to design an engine, whilst I need some math to do
it. You know that you're an engineer too.

I'm sure you know more about salemanship than I do, or than most of
us in this discussion group do. So you are very well equipped to
start using PCT in analyzing the problems you have and the tasks you
want accomplished.

Well this is the problem I'm grappling with, I want to know more about the
hierarchy levels, for example how would I measure the "sequence" perception,
or for example the perception of "systems concept".

It would be interesting to know what you think a
salesman is trying to do, and what it is about human nature that
helps or hinders him or her in doing it.

Example: I'm sure you're aware that many people are suspicious of
salesmen, not believing what they say about a product or what it will
do for them. How can PCT be used to analyze the causes of that
suspicion, and to help salesmen avoid arousing it? How can the
concept of behaving in order to control perceptions help? How can the
technical details of a control system -- the controlled variable, the
perception, the reference signal, the error signal, the output
function, the output quantity -- help? How can it help if you
understand that people control not their actions but the results that
those actions accomplish? When a person doubts what a salesman says,
what error is that doubt intended to correct or prevent? What kinds
of experiences have led to that error being present? How did the
salesman act as a disturbance to cause the error?

Okay now I'm getting better responses and getting somewhere.

These are not direct answers to your request for a cookbook producure
for screening salesman.

I'm not looking of a cookbook answer, things never come this way.

But they are a means toward arriving at such
procedures, and in the process, learning things about selling and
salemanship that even you, perhaps, didn't know before. That's the
way PCT can be useful.

You still have to solve your own problems,

I was never in doubt about this.

>but

PCT provides some new tools for doing so.

Well this is what I would like to achieve.

Regards
Gavin

6

(Gavin Ritz.2008.03.09.13.41NZT)

[From Martin Taylor 2008.03.06.10.21]

(Gavin Ritz 2008.03.08.17:56NZT)

Martin

Nor does it
invalidate theories that are based on observation and experiment in
realms at the time distant from everyday practice -- such as quantum
theory.

QM is not in anyways distant from everyday practice. As I mentioned in my
last email, a company I started years ago makes MCT (Mercury cadmium
Telluride) a semiconductor used in FLIRs and other Infrared devices. It's
pure QM (and thermodynamics) with a very very practical use. Used in
policing, military and industry to detect heat signals in the infrared
range.

Is oscillating crystal devices used in GPS and mobile phone systems far from
everyday practical use? So too with silicone semiconductors. Is this far
from everyday use? No not at all.

All human endeavours are to meet the needs and ally the fears of mankind ie
to control the perception of the universe (in our ultimate perceptual
state).

I do agree PCT does have something, and I want to tease it out, for a
practical application, that way one gets more adherents, and using the law
of attraction, better information flow, hence greater and better application
hence more information, the outward spiral of skilled-knowledge use.

Regards
Gavin

7

[Martin Taylor 2008.03.08.22.22]

(Gavin Ritz.2008.03.09.13.41NZT)

[From Martin Taylor 2008.03.06.10.21]

(Gavin Ritz 2008.03.08.17:56NZT)

Martin

Nor does it
invalidate theories that are based on observation and experiment in
realms at the time distant from everyday practice -- such as quantum
theory.

QM is not in anyways distant from everyday practice.

But it was _at the time_ when Einstein proposed it, and still was when Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Bohr and the rest were developing the mathematics of it. It still was, when the theory was as old as PCT, complexity theory, or systems theory (perhaps not the last) are now.

As I mentioned in my
last email, a company I started years ago makes MCT (Mercury cadmium
Telluride) a semiconductor used in FLIRs and other Infrared devices. It's
pure QM (and thermodynamics) with a very very practical use. Used in
policing, military and industry to detect heat signals in the infrared
range.

Yes, but it was invented AFTER the transistor, which I mentioned as being the earliest device I know that was developed purely from the theory. My (admittedly scanty) understanding of technological history suggests that it is usually around half a century from a basic theoretical discovery to first real implementation, and around a century until the theory becomes fully embedded in practical application. And that is for a theory that has many people contributing to its development. Your example fits this very well.

At present, MOL seems to be the first thoroughly practical application of PCT. Maybe some of the educational approaches are, too, but I don't know much about them. Ed Ford used to be on this list, but that was a while ago.

I do agree PCT does have something, and I want to tease it out, for a
practical application, that way one gets more adherents, and using the law
of attraction, better information flow, hence greater and better application
hence more information, the outward spiral of skilled-knowledge use.

Exactly! Perhaps MOL might suggest some potential approaches to your immediate problem. Not being a practitioner of MOL, and not knowing much in your area of interest, I don't think I can be much help in pointing to how, but it may be worth a thought.

Martin