Society, rights

[Martin Taylor 940622 18:30]

Bill Leach 940621.18:55 940621.19:09 940621.19:44 and related messages

There's been some prolonged discussion about the concept of "society,"
including the following quotes from the listed postings:

Given just the idea that a human being able to control well is a
fundamental good, then possible an entire structure of ethics and
morality could be constructed using PCT principles to guide decisions in
the "building".

OK, you are assuming you are "society" -- or at least a part of
"society."

Indeed, that is a partial problem with such a question or any discussion
of "society". "We all know what the term means" but it does not even
mean the same thing to any one of us in different context much less among
different people at different time.

<chuckle> I could help this one: Many PCTers might be anarchists (and
of course might not be) but they sure as hell aren't Socialists!

I feel comfortable with the idea that Rick does not deny the existence of
societies and their goals. Only that "societies and their goals" only
exist because individuals perceive "societies" and the "goals of society"
and INDIVIDUALLY set references based upon these beliefs.

The socialist/communists believe that "society" itself is a thing
independent of the people that make up society. Thus, they approach the
"problem" from a point of view that totally ignores the individual.

There's a mixture here of prejudice (literally: judging before gathering
evidence) and an attempt to see where PCT leads.

PCT, in one sense, is an engineering discipline. At its heart is the
core notion that each living organism is based on a hierarchy of simple
control systems, each stabilizing a particular internal variable that is
labelled "perception." When two simple control systems interact by
affecting some aspect of the world that is part of the perceptual signal
of each, the resulting behaviour of the total system (the two interacting
simple control systems) may be stable, oscillating, chaotic, or unstable.
One cannot tell, except by analysis or simulation of the specific control
systems.

In what we may call "classic" PCT, a control system or hierarchy that
does not reduce its error consistently is a candidate for reorganization--
it changes what it is perceiving or it changes how it acts on the world.

If there are two interacting control systems and their resulting dynamic
is not stable, both will frequently or persistently experience error that
they cannot immediately reduce, and both are therefore candidates for
reorganization. Reorganization will proceed until the interaction between
the two control systems is stable and both can control their perceptions,
though these perceptions may not be based on the same perceptual functions
as the control systems were using at the start of their interaction. They
"see things differently" as a consequence of the interaction. The stable
state does not necessarily involve both reorganizing to be the same--it
might well come from them changing their perceptual functions so as not
to be much affected by the part of the world they act on in common.

Large interacting systems are seldom unconditionally stable, particularly
if they are nonlinear, as real control systems must be. If we extend
the interaction of two control systems to three, four, and more, we
would expect to find more and more cause for reorganization as the
control by one of them disturbs the control of others. At least SOME
of the signal loops that pass through multiple control systems are likely
to have positive loop gain at least some of the time. However, there
are likely to be some combinations of perceptual function and of mode
of action that lead to stable interactions much of the time, and
reorganization within the various individual control systems will tend
to bring the structure of interactions to such a situation of usual stability.
Again, it is unlikely that all the control systems will have reorganized
the same way. Instead, it is more likely that they will develop a variety
of forms of perception and actions, so that they occupy what are sometimes
called "ecological niches."

In my Durango talk, I discussed part of this process (you can get the video
from Dag).

I talked about how a control hierarchy could learn a language convention
such as a syntax, and how newly created control systems exposed to the
interactions of older, stabilized, systems should be expected to learn
a convention much like that used by the older systems (though necessarily
not identical). Language is just one set of conventions among many that
have stabilized over the ages within smaller or larger groups of interacting
individuals. Language is an ARTIFACT. It exists independently of its use.
It is the set of conventions that has stabilized by the mechanism described
above--reorganization until interactions stabilize. If "Kill the Umpire"
meant the same as "kill the enemy soldier about to shoot you," we would have
few (N. American) sports with much popularity. But it is a convention
that (usually) does not lead to the demise of the umpire.

"Society" is, I think, an artifact, like language. It exists independently
of the people (or animals) who constitute it. It is the set of conventions
that have stabilized because their use (as a set) leads to relatively low
uncontrolled error in the control systems that are the individuals in the
society. Different "societies" have different convention sets that work
pretty well together, in the sense that so long as people use the same
conventions, their perceptions are reasonably controllable, and whatever
reorganization they do does not disturb other people into reorganizing
into a more stable convention set. But clearly the convention sets that
define and determine most societies are not absolutely stable. In some
societies some people can create large uncontrollable errors in a victim
by labelling that person "Socialist," and can render those errors again
controllable by switching the label to "Capitalist." In other societies,
the labelling can have the same effect in reverse. And the effects can
change over time.

Conflicts among people can arise at any level of the hierarchy, but the
lower the level at which the conflict is expressed, the easier it is for
the conflicting persons to find other ways of satisfying their higher-level
reference signals without reorganizing. So reorganization is more likely
to occur when the conflicts are at high levels--what we call systems and
principles. Stable societies, in the sense of the artifactual sets of
conventions, are those in which the reference levels for high-level
perceptions, and the fairly high-level supporting parts of the hierarchy,
are in most people such as to create little or no conflict. Again, this
does not mean that everyone will have the same reference levels or even the
same perceptual functions or modes of action to control their perceptions,
but it means that the ways they have reorganized TOGETHER does not result
in much conflict.

Some of these high-level perceptual functions that develop through
reorganization have to do with what we call "rights."

Living things, humans included, have no inherent "rights." None. What
they have in common is an ancestry that acted in such a way as to pass
on their genes.

No person alive had a single ancestor who acted so as to get himself or
herself killed before mating. A person lived in a society that did not
"believe in a right to life" after some fashion was less likely to pass
on their genes than would someone be in a more solicitous society. So we,
the living, are likely to have had ancestors who lived in a society in
which the convention "no unprovoked killing" was part of the stable set.
Other societies, if ever they came into being, must have died as surely
as the people of which they were composed died.

We, as children, reorganize so that we can stably act (i.e. continue to
control our perceptions) in the environment of social convention of our group.
We "absorb" the conventions, perhaps without consciously knowing it until
perhaps we are confronted with the existence of another society--another
set of conventions which work reasonably well together in the sense of
stability agains the random reorganizations of the individuals.

Now, I hope that the foregoing will suggest that not only "socialists/
communists" (two wildly different concepts, by the way) believe that
"society itself is a thing independent of the people that make up society."
Classic PCT leads one to that view as well, from a point of view that
concentrates on the individual. So the "Thus" in "Thus they approach
the problem from a point of view that totally ignores the individual"
is a total non-sequitur.

Society as artifact is as worthy of study as is the artifact, language.
PCT explains how the artifact is created and (quasi)stabilized. It isn't
stable in the sense a control system is stable against disturbance, but
it is stable in the sense that a ball on a surface of hills and valleys
is stable against moderate shaking of the surface. The ball can lie
for a long time in or near one place, but then it can move rapidly to another
"stable" place. So with society. Mores change. Some principles probably
are required for a society to be stable (I suspect a "do not kill" principle
to be one). Some go together with others to form a coherent group, but
could be changed for others--we have only to look at the different sets of
conversational customs to see that. And yet others are malleable. We
pick them up because our friendship group uses them, but as fads they
come and go (ever hear of "beanies" now?).

So, we come back to the first passage I quoted:

Given just the idea that a human being able to control well is a
fundamental good, then possible an entire structure of ethics and
morality could be constructed using PCT principles to guide decisions in
the "building".

Yes, probably so. And many of them, any of which could serve a stable
society, but which would be incompatible with other such sets. Conflicts
would arise when people using different conventions interacted. Would
a fundamentalist Christian be happy being required to worship Aphrodite
and participate in a Bacchanale, or would there be some perceptual error
in either or both of the Christian and the Christian's hosts?

It might well be possible to use some vastly expanded version of Bill Powers'
CROWD program with reorganization, on some supercomputer, to see what
kinds of stably interacting kinds of structures developed. That would
be a very interesting exercise, some day.

Martin

<[Bill Leach 940624.23:39 EST(EDT)]

[Martin Taylor 940622 18:30]

"Society" is, I think, an artifact, like language. It exists
independently of the people (or animals) who constitute it. It is the
set of conventions ...

I am still uncomfortable with this though I may well argue myself into it
since to accept your position is to provide support for an assertion of
my own.

Basically, depending upon how you want to view the term "society", what
you are saying is that "There has to be a set of basic rules for society
that are dictated by the very nature of multiple atomomous control
systems operating in a common environment!"

What I am taking from what you are saying is that PCT indeed
(theoritically) DOES tells us what the minimum moral and ethical standard
set must be for a society.

I am still not sure that I accept your analogy with a physical object but
the comparison to language is a strong point in your position it think.

You will probably fail in any attempt to convince me that socialism (or
communism) can be a "proper" society for human beings. Socialism uses
force against individuals to "redistribute wealth", it is the application
of this arbitrary force that is wrong.

-bill

[From Dag Forssell (940625 1045)]

[Bill Leach 940624.23:39 EST(EDT)] >>[Martin Taylor 940622 18:30]

"Society" is, I think, an artifact, like language. It exists
independently of the people (or animals) who constitute it. It is the

                                                               ^^^^^^^^^

set of conventions ...

  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Basically, depending upon how you want to view the term "society", what
you are saying is that "There has to be a set of basic rules for society
that are dictated by the very nature of multiple autonomous control
systems operating in a common environment!"

What I hear Martin say is that as the infant develops, grows up and
matures, it experiences the world including the sounds and actions of its
elders. From these experiences, including conflicts, the developing
brain learns "the way the world is." This includes the "artifacts" of
language and predominant "agreements" "(society)" that the child is
exposed to over and over, more or less consistently.

From subjective, intuitive, statistical generalization, the brain learns

to hold the fork in the left hand when eating (I am Swedish, remember),
not in the right hand like uncouth barbarians. You learn that mother
insists on the family eating together at dinner time, and take that for
granted. In turn your child experiences your insistence on the same
conventions, and other adults in your house choose not to argue with you,
but sit down for dinner, too. You learn the local language in the same
way.

Martin calls a set of such conventions an artifact because the set is
internalized by most (many?) individuals in each generation and is passed
on to the next. Martin was careful to note that it is in no way passed
on exactly, but slowly changes, as new individuals interpret the set
differently. The artifact does not exist anywhere outside individuals,
but still appears to have an existence of its own. It is convenient
shorthand to talk of "language" and "society" as independent entities,
and that is OK, as long as we are very clear that they DO NOT exist
outside the brains of individuals, not even on paper (since writing is
interpreted by individuals). In most discourse (outside CSG-L), such
clarity is absent, and renders discussion misleading.

What I am taking from what you are saying is that PCT indeed
(theoretically) DOES tells us what the minimum moral and ethical
standard set must be for a society.

Not at all. Martin's discussion applies equally to solitary polar bears.
He is only suggesting how the phenomenon we observe comes about
and how it can be rather stable across generations.

Hope this agrees with Martin and is helpful to you.

Best, Dag

<[Bill Leach 940625.23:20 EST(EDT)]

[Dag Forssell (940625 1045)]

Dag;

I will obviously have to give a great deal more careful thought to what
is trying to "germinate" in my head about all of this. I am pretty well
convinced that PCT predicts that what Martin refers to as instabilities
is an inevitable in human control systems operating in a common
environment with similar basic needs as it would be for a "engineered"
control systems attempting to control the same variable to different
values.

I am not trying (at this point) to assert that any particular "minimum"
standards must exist but that some set HAS to develop or the society will
not survive (Martin's example of murder is one that does seem to fit
without too much convincing).

There is also, I believe, a significant difference between those customs
that are imposed such as you described (fork) and such things as honesty,
"fair play" and the like. For these latter, the specifics may vary
greatly from one group to another but without much doubt, all societies
have some rules related to such things.

As I say, the thing need a great deal more thought on my part and of
course may well have been thought over and discussed extensively prior to
my involvement.

-bill

[Martin Taylor 940626 17:55]

Bill Leach 940624.23:39 EST

Basically, depending upon how you want to view the term "society", what
you are saying is that "There has to be a set of basic rules for society
that are dictated by the very nature of multiple atomomous control
systems operating in a common environment!"

That's a misunderstanding. What I am saying is that when changeable systems
interact, there are two possibilities. Either the way they interact does
not induce changes in the interacting systems, or it does. If it does,
the interaction changes. If it does not, the interaction stays stable.
As with reorganization in the individual, changes keep happening until
the total system is stable. At this point, if it ever occurs, you can
fairly talk about the interacting individuals having created a stable
"society" in which there are perceptions of rules of interaction. They
are the social conventions I have called "artifacts."

Nothing I know of in PCT indicates that there is only ONE possible set of
interacting conventions that is stable, or even that there are ANY such
sets. Even if there exists a set that is stable in one physical
environment, it may not be stable in another one, and is most unlikely
to be stable when the physical environment is changing (as in the last
few centuries). Rules that will work for a frontier society living off
the undespoiled resources of an expanding frontier are unlikely to be
stable for a more mature society, for example.

What I suggested was that there was a possibility of doing PCT-based
A-life experiments to determine whether particular kinds of interaction
showed up as likely to belong to most stable sets of conventions. I
anticipate that there are, and that these are what we give the names
of "natural rights" "moral behaviour" and the like.

What I am taking from what you are saying is that PCT indeed
(theoritically) DOES tells us what the minimum moral and ethical standard
set must be for a society.

In principle, I suppose that PCT studies just MIGHT possibly by experiment
(and just perhaps theoretically) find that there are certain requirements
on social conventions for stability. It might be surprising to find out
what they are. (In a different theoretical context, such convnetions
might be called "Evolutionary Stable Strategies").

Martin

<[Bill Leach 940626.20:09 EST(EDT)]

[Martin Taylor 940626 17:55]

Probably some missunderstanding there on my part for sure. However, your
comment concerning "Evolutionary Stable Strategies" is probably about all
that I can "ask for" in this.

Basically, that is saying to me that there will be "rules" or "standards"
that develop concerning certain aspects of interaction that will develop
due to the fundamental nature of the beings.

I believe that "property rights" is one such rule set. It has quite
obviously evolved a great deal and even evolved (and is evolving) now. I
suspect however that their is something quite fundamental to "possession
of something" and that some sort of rule system has to develop.

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