[From Bruce Abbott (941211.1330 EST)]
Kahn's Communications Officer: "The Enterprise is hailing us!"
Kahn (smiling): "Let them eat static!"
[From Rick Marken (941210.1900)]
Bruce Abbott (941210.1330 EST) --
Are we on the same wavelength now, or am I still stuck in "Who's
on First?"
I wish we were but I'm still hearing a lot of static. I am tuned to a
wavelength that picks up on the fact that organisms are controllers of
their own experience; you are seem to be tuned to a wavelenth that
picks up on the appearance of consequences as selectors of behavior.
Yes, you do seem to have a lot of trouble receiving my communications. I
think it's because your perceptual filters are set to accept only TRT concepts
in my writing, so that if I say anything consistent with PCT it gets distorted
into TRT and reacted to as such.
It's a pure case of stimulus-response. (;->
Just to be sure you are actually READING what I have said with SOME attempt at
comprehension, how about paraphrasing my statement. Then show me how this
differs from the PCT view of the same events. I would find this far more
helpful in advancing my understanding than your typical reply, which simply
copies my statement (sometimes taking it out of context in doing so) and then
asserts that I am wrong and PCT is right.
Behavior varies (reorganization in progress), affecting the environment,
changing the state of a perceptual variable, changing the error between that
variable and its reference level. If the error is reduced, that behavior,
which a higher-level system had "selected," remains selected and thus becomes
part of the output function of the lower-level system controlling that
perceptual variable. As seen from OUTSIDE the behaving system, the cat tries
this 'n that; those responses in the situation that are followed by a
satisfying state of affairs become more strongly connected to the situation so
that, when the situation recurs, the response is more likely to occur.
The first description is mechanistic, the second, functional. The first is
PCT (if I've described it correctly); the second is the empirical law of
effect. The second gives the appearances, the first explains them. It's not
a case of right and wrong.
Or if it is, I've completely missed it. Explain.
Regards,
Bruce