[Martin Taylor 2006.03.27.15.44]
FROM: JIM DUNDON
3/26/2006 11:07 PM
I have been following the csg postings for some time. I've several questions and would appreciate your comments. I will be discussing PCT on my web site which will be a discussion forum looking at theories of behavior, among other things, from the point of view of languaging.
Language communication was my entry into PCT. I had/have a theory called the "Layered Protocol Theory" of dialogue, which I discovered to be a specialized version of PCT. So PCT is definitely relevant.
Is he [Bill P] or is he not saying that ALL behavior is the control of perception? from the PCT point of view is the behavior of the neurotic, the sociopath, the catatonic schizophrenic the control of perception.
All behaviour, yes. The questions that the non-normal behaviours raise are about what kinds of effects within PCT would result in those kinds of aberration. They aren't much talked about because few people on this list know the ailments and PCT both at the depth necessary to make sensible statements that could lead to careful analysis.
You ask whether the behaviours of the neurotic, the sociopath, the catatonic schizophrenic [are] the control of perception. Well, yes, if you realize that control doesn't alway work as well as it might. That control can fail is always implicit in the theory, and in quite a few situations it becomes explicit.
What does PCT say about what most people refer to when they say spontaneous behavior? Does it exist in PCT?
Spontaneous in what sense? A twitch, or an unexpected decision to change one's lifestyle? Remember we are dealing in nonlinear systems, with considerable structural complexity. That makes it hard to produce explicit predictions in situations where the nonlinear system dynamic is near a bifurcation. A bifurcation would often be realized (as observed from the outside) as soemthing quite out of the blue (spontaneous?). System noise comes in, too, but away from a bifurcation, it shouldn't result in qualitatively different behaviour.
Does PCT exclude from behavior, experiencings such as any sensorial input which has not been planned for? An unexpected telephone ringing, the trill of a bird, the smell of spaghetti cooking, would impinge on my senses without my controlling for them to do so.
Those are called "disturbances" if they affect controlled perceptions. Otherwise they are just perceptions not currently being controlled.
At that initial level, is it behavior? If not, what is it?
System input.
What does PCT say about dreaming?
Nothing explicit, and I don't remember any discussion of it. Dreaming does, however, seem closely allied to imagination, and there's been a lot of discussion about that, even in a thread that is ongoing at the moment. Usually when one is dreaming, one's musculature is paralyzed, which means that if there is any control occurring, it must be through imagination.
They would appear to me to fit within the context of behavior yet I find it difficult to think of them as perceptions which can be controlled for. Again I ask is PCT about all and any behavior or only certain kinds?
"Behaviour" is usually taken to be system output -- the effects on the outer world, which may be observable by an external perceiver. You are treating system input as part of behaviour. Certainly we do control our sensors, such as by turning our eyes, or moving so that we can hear better. But those movements are the behaviour. What we then see or hear is not -- at least not as conceived within PCT.
Somewhere in Bill Powers literature he says that "this is not about attitudes". Why not? Aren't attitudes behavior?
I don't know what Bill was referring to when he used the word "this".
Personally, I don't think attitudes are behaviour in themselves. "Attitudes affect behaviour" is the way I would put it, and from the viewpoint of an outside observer, attitudes can be inferred from behaviour. In my understanding of PCT, attitudes may reflect different reference levels for some high-level perceptions, or they may reflect alterations in the gain level of some high-level control systems (i.e. how much one cares to correct the effects of dispturbances). There are probably other ways that what we might call "attitudes" can influence behaviour.
Why try to exclude or limit the use of any concept or word or combination of words that people use in their behavior from a concept which speaks of behavior?
I can't speak for anyone else's use of language, or for the interpretations people make of my language. All I can say here is that I'd be surprised if Bill had intended to exclude some kind of behaviour.
However, what Bill often does do is something with which I wholeheartedly concur: he disparages the use of words that only restate an observation. I silly example might be: "one goes to sleep because of the increase of the dormitive essence". He coined the term "dormitive principle" for such words. He's interested in what happens, not in whether rewording can make something seem clever.
In B:CP Bill Powers says "behavior is the process by which organisms control their input sensory data". I see this clearly as being the case in controlling a cursor on a monitor but is it the case as I drive along the highway with dozens upon dozens of assorted and sundry thoughts entering my mind?
Yes. And with dozens of other cars and traffic lights influencing where you choose to direct your car (and influencing those "random" thoughts).
Do you consider these input sensory data? These appear to me to be uncontrolled for inputs, therefore, according to PCT they are not behavior.
The values of the inputs that matter are being controlled. Many of what you call "uncontrolled inputs and therefore not behaviour" may well enter into the controlled inputs. The controlled imputs (at one level) ar things such as adequate distance from the car ahead, perceiving the right landscape as one continues along the chosen route and not some other, and stuff like that. At another level the controlled input may be to perceive oneself as being a good breadwinner, and to perceive your family to be happy. The inputs you mention, and a myriad of others, may well contribute to the control of those perceptions.
I would consider them a kind of unsolicited behavior because they are thoughts and feelings taking place in my brain. I sometimes find myself responding to them but in most cases they are unsought for. What are they according to PCT?
Imagination and/or memory.
Hope this goes a little way towards helping.
Martin