From Greg Williams (921021)
Bill Powers (921020.1100)
And it can be important TO THIRD-PARTY "OBSERVERS" (such as
sociologists and police officers).
So, they have their own perceptions, and try to control for them. So
what? This still doesn't make actions important to the person using
them for controlling perceptions.
I agree. I'm just (well, it is a pretty big "just"!) claiming that the person
using his/her actions to control his/her perceptions (the "influencee") can
retrospectively consider having used those actions as being important. And
that the "influencer" considers those actions important, and not just
retrospectively. And that third-party students of social interactions consider
those actions important. (And that, come to think of it, DURING an
interaction, a person might consider his/her actions "important" in a
different sense from Bill's "importance" -- that is, requiring
concern/attention (perhaps for later mulling-over), but not control (i.e., not
explicitly setting a reference levels for particular hand movements, but, in
some sense, noting movement patterns he/she considers "important").
There's no preference for any particular action; all that matters is the state
of the perception.
I agree that often (though not necessarily always; see above), "all that
matters" (meaning all that is controlled) is "the state of the perception."
But many people will simply say, "Big deal." Those people will include all
who, unlike Bill, attach importance to interactions wherein some parties
control for some of their perceptions which depend on the actions of other
parties. Ideology comes in if Bill tries to go from an "is" (his definition of
"importance") to an "ought" (claiming that "importance" as he defines it
should be ALL-important to participants in such interactions, retrospectively
or not, and to third-party investigators of such interactions). If he tries to
do this, I claim that he will "turn off" a lot of folks to PCT ideas -- folks
like the 40-year-old accountant who is glad that he learned the multiplication
table in school, and like the little old lady who realizes a year after her
roof was "repaired" that it wasn't.
Please note:
... "important" as you define it (that is, involving
reorganization of the control structure of someone upon whose
actions another's controlled perception depends) ...
At least try to argue against me instead of a straw man. I gave this
definition yesterday:
"DEF: Something is important to a person if the person perceives it
and has a reference signal to compare it with. "
If you like, I will expand it slightly: " ... and tries to control
it." Although that is not always the case -- one may not know how to
try to control it. The definition above covers it, I think.
I brought up reorganization because you had, several posts ago, said (in line
with your recent definition of "importance") that B disturbing A or altering
A's environment is "unimportant" to A if A maintains control throughout, and
that B disturbing A or altering A's environment would be "important" to A only
if A lost control, becoming conflicted, and therefore reorganizing.
To be explicit, I claim that many people consider as highly important
social interactions of the type wherein B controls for some of his/her
perceptions which depend on some actions of A, REGARDLESS of whether A's
actions during the interaction are important (your definition) to A or not,
and REGARDLESS of which of the four types of control in my summary of several
weeks back is being used by B, meaning REGARDLESS of whether A reorganizes or
does not. If you claim that those people SHOULD NOT consider as important any
such social interactions wherein A's actions are not important (your
definition) to A during the interaction (so A does not reorganize), then PCT
is going to be a very tough sell with respect to what those people consider
to be important to them.
Bill, who am I to tell you that you should perceive a problem with PCT being a
tough sell? That I believe there IS a problem with it is MY ideology. There is
no perceived problem for you if you believe that you are right about what
everyone SHOULD believe to be important, and that virtually everyone else is
wrong, even if you believe PCT ideas deserve wider attention... until you
begin to perceive people shrugging and walking away when you tell them what
they should and shouldn't believe to be important. And then I won't have to
tell you that you should perceive a problem; you'll be perceiving it.
Best,
Greg