From [Marc Abrams (2006.05.16.0814)]
In a message dated 5/16/2006 1:08:43 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, marken@MINDREADINGS.COM writes:
[From Rick Marken (2006.05.15.2110)]
Marc Abrams (2006.05.15.1957)
I may write a Cognitive Psychology text. I have a publisher who would
probably publish it. But the fact is that there would be no market for
the text because instructors will only use texts that teach the
canonical stuff.
Rick, this doesn’t make any sense. Are you telling me a publisher
would publish a book to lose money?
The publisher is a friend of mine who published my methods textbook in
1981. I think she would publish the book if it seemed like it would at
least break even in the textbook market and maybe pick up a few sales
as a trade book. But, you’re right, she might not want to publish it if
it really looks like there will be no market at all.
I’ve got to believe that if you teach another course you can have your choice of texts and if you are as “subtle” as you say you are you should be able to weave control into the curriculum.
It may not be ideal, and it may not be pure PCT but it would be a step forward and in the right direction.
I have taken courses where the “texts” were mimeographed & copied compilations.
I equate this to being a bench player in baseball. When you get a chance to produce by pinch-hitting and such, you must take advantage of your opportunities and produce in those situations.
It would be nice if someone was going to sponsor a chair in the name of PCT but that is not likely to happen so you gotta take advantage of the opportunities when you get it.
Just my two cents.
Actually this is not true. You would have to convince a department
chair or two, but if you are on as solid ground as you say you are
what is the problem?
Curricular requirements change slowly. What is hard is getting a PCT -
based course to be part of the curriculum requirements (as Skinner’s
operant approach became the basis of the required “Learning” course).
I could certainly offer a class on PCT as a special seminar (which, in
fact, I was going to do; my chairman let me offer such a seminar in the
Fall but it didn’t get sufficient enrollment – mainly because there
were not enough senior psych majors who could take the course to
fulfill a requirement; in fact, many students said it sounded
interesting and would have taken it if it could have been used to fill
a requirement – so I won’t be giving it this Fall; maybe next Spring).
OK, so what if it was not initially “based” on PCT but had the flavor of control? Rome was not built in a day and an incremental imposition might work.
Of course this would depend on your creativity and salesmanship, but I think I can help you a bit if you really wanted to do it.
Sure. When there is feedback from output to input two system equations
are needed to describe the behavior of the system.
That might be true of equations but it certainly is not true of
interacting social entities. That is Rick, in interactions between
individuals “feedback” plays only a partial role. Within an
individual and its physiology it is a different story.
Actually, the feedback I was talking about is not within the
individual; if goes through the individual’s environment, which often
includes other people. It’s because of the feedback connection between
interacting in individuals that people can counter control others who
are trying to control them.
Yes, and this “feedback” is metaphorical. not physical. Some information that enters the system does so for the first time, not as part of any “feedback”.
Social feedback interactions are metaphors. There are no pipes,
wires, veins, etc. connecting people.
But there are physical variables, like light and sound energy, that
connect people.
Yes, but it is the connections or interactions between the entities that provide the feedback not the physical entities themselves.
None of this will detract you,
You must mean “distract”, right?
No, I meant detract as in taking something away from you. Rick, you are an extremely bright individual that is extremely passionate about anything you believe in and getting you to look at something that might diminish the value of that belief in your eyes is near impossible.
We all know it as “controlling” and we all practice it, but you are very clever in convincing yourself that straw men abound and that is unfortunate for all who deal with you including yourself.
but maybe someone else out there might give this all a second
thought. Its worth thinking about.
It is worth thinking about. And I’ve thought about it many times. And
Tom Bourbon has done some nice little experiments on it. And I can
guarantee you that every time I think about it (and review Tom’s
experiments) I end up concluding that there are feedback connections
between interacting individuals.
You misunderstand. I am not claiming there is no feedback. I am claiming that the equations you use to represent that feedback is not accurate and that feedback represented by those equations is not the same feedback that actually takes place among people.
Isn’t a perception an “output” of the “input” function?
Yes.
OK, so if this is true why do you think that folks who do not understand the feedback process might think in input → output terms only because they don’t see or understand the ‘bigger’ picture and are looking at a small piece of the puzzle?
To say that ‘everyone’ and ‘all’ puts an unfair label on others and makes things more difficult for you because you think they have no clue when in reality they do have a clue but not the whole picture.
Now, this is not to say that there are folks out there that will never get it. There are, just as the flat earth Society exists today so there will always be folks who don’t get it, for any number of reasons but that is not your problem.
Your problem is reaching as many people as possible with as much of the message (whatever it happens to be) as possible and sometimes that requires compromise and incremental steps.
Aren’t perceptions constructed from sensory inputs, imagination/memory
and emotions?
Yes.
Ok, and here is where my greatest interest lies. Not my only interest but my greatest. I am interested in the dynamics that produce our perceptions. and I believe system dynamics might be the best way of investigating these various control processes.
reference it will not match the prestige reference. So I used the
decision making chapter in the Cognition text as the basis for
discussing the PCT model of intra and interpersonal conflict.
This doesn’t explain anything. Multi-criteria decision making is a
field of study unto itself and the model you described is just one
instance. You do not detail how your little “conflicts” are resolved
I did in class. I explained that the only way to solve conflicts is by
“going up a level” and changing the goals that are creating the
conflict. This also let me talk a little about the method of levels as
an approach to therapy.
Certainly an interesting twist and way of handling a “decision hierarchy”. But here you have to be careful about “going up” a level.
In a decision hierarchy each level is independent of the “higher” levels and are fully dependent on the levels below. It is a purely linear one-way (top to bottom) affair.
I have a program called the Analytic Hierarchy Process that is very popular for multi-criteria decision making and a sister product called the Analytic Network Process (ANP) which is made for non-linear (networked) decision problems. That is, decision problems that deal with “feedback”. You might be interested in taking a peek at this stuff for a number of different reasons.
I can see why you might turn away from that. Why not use B:CP the
next
time?
Two reasons. One is that it’s way too difficult for most Psychology
undergraduates
So make one that is not too difficult. If you spent half as much time
trying to figure out a way to reach people instead of complaining
about how much of a “victim” you are, you might be surprised how far
you could go.
I don’t know if I’ll be able to write the simplified version of PCT but
I’ll try to stop complaining about being a victim (when exactly was I
doing that, by the way)?
Every time you complain about SOMEONE ELSE being responsible for your shortcomings and inability to move ahead.
I have never heard you be self critical about why you have not been successful in being able gain larger acceptance for PCT.
You talk of “enemies” and of “useless” research and of folks being too “dumb” to “get it” , and other such nonsense, yet you never look at your own shortcomings and think that they have anything to do with anything, or how you might be able to do a better job. It is always someone else’s fault.
Yet, I have never heard you talk about WHY your methods may not be working, or what you may be doing to contribute to the inability of reaching folks.
I am NOT saying you CAUSED anything to happen. I am suggesting you have not used your creativity and brilliance for more positive rather than negative pursuits.
I think a MAJOR problem and issue is your lack of respect and tolerance for others. Tolerance is not being “kind” to someone and than snickering behind their back. Tolerance is understanding that each of us has an equal right to believe what we choose to believe and even if we don’t agree with it, we need to realize that the person is controlling for that belief for very specific and _valid_reasons.
and, second, I want to use the texts that are the
standard texts in the field. I don’t want to push my agenda in a course
unless I have been specifically hired to push it.
Good idea if you want to remain employed, but what about teaching a
“lie”?
Certainly says a great deal about your character. You can do other
things beside teach things you hold in contempt.
I don’t believe conventional psychology is a lie and I don’t hold it in
contempt. I think conventional psychology is based on a misconception
(that behavior is open loop) and I’m happy to explain why that’s true
to anyone who is willing to listen.
Rick, I don’t think you hear yourself talk enough. I did not pull this stuff out of the sky. You are the King of overstatements.
I happen to disagree with you and I think the differences are important. You say people have “misconceptions”. I don’t believe that. I believe people simply don’t know or see the whole picture and in fact most people have no need to see the whole picture.
Your position is one of folks thinking the “wrong” thing. My position is one of ignorance. I suspect folks have no clue they do not understand because there is no reason for them to understand and frankly they could care less. You seem to think that they reject your ideas and favor others instead
Sort of like Ptolemy vs. Copernicus. For the average observer on earth it mattered little which model was ‘right’. For thousands of years man set his time by the moon anyway. It was not until the need for good navigational aides became paramount did it actually matter which model was ‘right’.
I think given the ‘right’ approach most folks are open PROVIDED THEY see a need for understanding it in that fashion.
That means it is up to us to find out why they might need to know this info and how it might be able to help them.
If you are unwilling to do this than you are not really serious about wanting others to adopt it.
Using B:CP as the
text in a Cognition class would have been unfair to the people who
hired me (to teach a particular curriculum) and to the students (many
of whom have to prepare for the GRE).
How would it be “unfair” to the people who hired you if they knew what
text you were using and why?
Because there is a core curriculum to be covered in the Cognition
course. B:CP does not cover that core (though it touches on some of it).
Ok, so work with what you got rather than complain about what you can’t have. This is an example of “complaining” when you really need to figure out how to take advantage of a situation. As little an opportunity as it might very well be.
OK, so here is an instance where control theory and traditional theory
have a common point. Are you suggesting there are no others, or they
are not worth discovering and dealing with?
I’m sure there are others. My baseball catching work is based on work
done in the context of traditional theory. So such work can certainly
be found. But I’ve been looking in the literature for one heck of a
long time and I haven’t found much in the traditional (cause-effect)
theory literature that contributes much to our understanding of
control.
I think it depends on what you are looking for. If you are looking for better explanations than you very well might be wasting your time. But if you are looking for ways of explaining control to others within a framework they currently understand I think you are missing the boat.
This past semester is a great example. You were able to use the decision hierarchy and explain a bit about going up a level. Not quite PCT, but it was a way of introducing a set of new ideas, and you said it worked.
This is what I am talking about and this is what I am attempting to do in the Psych Chapter of the SD Society. That is, show them the differences and benefits of thinking i& modeling in a control theoretic framework. If they see value they will buy in, its that simple. But its up to me to supply the reasons and any failure will be mine not theirs, because it would mean I was not able to either provide a sufficient answer for their needs which means I did not understand them well enough or failed to show a real difference in what they already know and use and what I think they could use.
In either case it would bring me back to the drawing board to see how I might be able to improve my efforts.
I think it’s great whenever PCT relevant stuff is found in the
traditional literature. I just don’t think it’s worth the effort to try
to find it because it’s so rare.
This is NOT what I mean. Do you understand now what I mean now ? I am not looking for collaboration. I am looking for instances where my control theoretic position better explains a position and provides a better result. The traditional position just provides a framework and point from where I can begin to communicate from.
Better to spend the time doing the PCT
research, which certainly may have been inspired by traditional
research (like my catching work).
Not to be overly critical, but what "research"are you talking about?
What exactly did the baseball catching demo demonstrate? That is Rick, what profound new knowledge was gained from doing it.
Tracking tasks are wonderful, but if you are going to get someone’s attention you have to do something different than what you have been doing for the past 30 years. Your demo’s are all take-off’s on ONE theme, the tracking task, and that is just not going to get the job done.
The tracking task shows that controlling is in indeed a very strong possibility, but where is the encore? Another tracking task? I don’t think so.
I already knew what was going on in Cognition.
Than why did you make such a poor choice for a text? Why weren’t you
better prepared to take advantage of some of the “common points” you
encountered instead of having to wait until “next time”?
The text selection really wasn’t that bad. I was able to work with it
quite well.
Rick, here is a great example of you not taking responsibility for things you do. First it was a poor choice, now it really wasn’t all that bad.
You just can’t make a mistake and admit it can you? You really think it diminishes you as a person and I think you are tragically wrong.
If you spent the same amount of time thinking of clever ways of improving instead of clever ways of defending yourself you might be better off.
If it makes sense it will sell. That is, if you can show how cognition
could be better explained by your method it should work. It won’t be
easy, but what have you got to lose?
Try putting your money where your mouth is as they used to say in
Brooklyn.
I think you may be right. Writing such a text is actually something I
might want to do during this period of career change.
Go for it Rick. The experience itself might provide you with new insights into how to present your material in a way acceptable to your audience.
Taking purpose (control) into account can change completely what
people think cognitive experiments tell you about cognition.
Yes, so why not show that?
Why not, indeed. I think I will.
Again, right on!!!
Rick, there is no “conventional” view. You are fighting a straw man.
The “conventional view” is not a straw man. It is described in every
Research Methods text in psychology and the social sciences.
Rick, what you don’t seem to fathom is that you are not fighting against “text books”. You are fighting against ingrained ideas that go way beyond any single text book.
Ask any practicing clinical psychologist which text book theory he follows. You should get some answer after he/she stops laughing long enough.
Your “conventional” wisdom is a potpourri and amalgamation of ideas people have gathered about how others work from the beginning of human kind. The labels you attach you attach for your own convenience. If you want to reach people you must understand where THEY are coming from and adapt to them. If you want others to care about your work, you are going to have to care about theirs.
I really hate saying this but all you need to do is take a look at the collaboration record of one Bill Powers to see what I mean.
It is the
cause-effect or IV-DV view of behavior. It is the idea that behavior
(the DV) is caused by external or internal events (the IV). This view
does not recognize the possibility that there are controlled variables
that are influenced by both IVs and DVs and whose value is specified
autonomously by the behaving organism itself.
Yes Rick, but this in itself is not a fatal flaw. This shows a lack of understanding of the big picture, not some refusal to admit that there may be more to the picture than they currently believe.
If I got ten psychologists in a room you would probably find 12
different theories about human behavior floating around.
Yes. They would all sound different. And some, Carver and Sheier,
would even say their theory is based on control theory. But you can
tell from the way all the theories are tested (using IV-DV methodology)
that they are all the same theory: open-loop cause-effect.
Yes, and for me this is a challenge, not a rebuke. Maybe Rick, just maybe some of their ideas may be correct. Why not try to mutually explore those questions rather than try to contest one another for who is “right” or “wrong”. Maybe each of you are partially right and wrong and there is a third answer waiting in the wings for discovery.
See Rick, that is the problem when you feel you have the whole ball of wax already in the can. And this is not just your issue. I think science in general is more competitive than an NFL game and fought over with a lot meaner.
But it does not have to be this way. Each of us needs to decide how we will conduct ourselves. I would hope that the advancement of a science would take precedence over personal honors but that is often not the case. Too bad for all of us.
The “best” theory is the one that is the most serviceable. That is,
the one that can answer the broadest range of questions.
I thought it was the one that fit the data best.
WHO’s data? When you speak of metaphors “data” becomes relative and difficult to judge. So the next best thing is what works best for the broadest range of needs.
So you have to know the
conventional view very well before you can understand what PCT says
WHICH conventional view? And who’s?
The cause-effect model. I think you have to have taken a psychological
Research Methods and Statistics course (and passed with at least a B)
before you are prepared to learn PCT.
Kind of a limited market, wouldn’t you say? How many on CSGnet do you think pass this litmus test? Well, at least now you have a legit reason for why 99% of the folk’s might reject PCT.
Sure takes the burden off your shoulders.
If you don’t understand
conventional psychology then you certainly won’t understand what the
big deal is with PCT.
I don’t think you fully understand the significance of control. Or maybe you have not expressed it very well and it doesn’t lie in the differences of view on output either
Remember Bill Williams (may he rest in peace)? Will he was one dude who did, but he could not express it very well either but he was onto something big before his untimely demise.
As an economist he understood that folks were not rational beings. They were not necessarily “optimizers”, “satisficer’s” or “bounded” in any rationality. He understood that we are all CONTROLLERS.
Rick, what you and others have failed to express is that rationality as we know it does not exist and every single person who has an idea about human behavior has it based on some form of rationality, NOT some input → output model and here is where the I believe the biggest opening for the learning and introduction of control exists.
Maybe not PCT in its full implementation, but the notion and concept of control.
Maybe, maybe not. What will PCT look like when this happens? Like
today? I doubt it.
Hopefully it will have a lot more substance.
How is that “substance” supposed to get there? >From more tracking task experiments?
But the basic approach to
research, which involves modeling and testing for controlled variables,
will be the same tomorrow as it is today.
There is other types and kinds of research that can be done to strengthen the control viewpoint. Maybe not PCT specifically, but control in general.
I think you will see some of this at work from the SD Chapter and the modeling of psychological phenomenon we do with SD.
Have you looked at the CSGnet archives lately?
No.
You should. It’s a great way of reflecting on what has and has not been done and said.
Do you really believe all the political and religious talk is somehow
moving you closer to that reality you hope for?
No.
So why do it? Who cares what you or I think about Bush or any other politician?
It really is unfortunate you see yourself as some poor victim and
isolated from the rest of the world
But I don’t see myself this way. I think I’m one of the luckiest people
in the world. I not only get to witness an extraordinary scientific
revolution (with a gorgeous, brilliant wife at my side)
Again with the hyperbole. If its a revolution its one of the more silent ones.
but I also get
to contribute to it, however modestly. And I certainly don’t feel
isolated from the rest of the world. I have lots of friends and
acquaintances who appreciate my work on PCT.
Rick, PCT is isolated, not you. You and Bill have done a wonderful job of selling PCT as nothing something that is like nothing anyone has ever experienced and unfortunately too many people are convinced of that and see no worth for their own work.
Now if you really believe the litmus test you stated above than all this other stuff is BS. Which is it?
And I am also united with
the vast majority of the people in the world (and 70% of the people in
this country) who find the current US administration appalling.
Good, and in two years you will be able to change it.
but that is a position you have CHOOSEN and until you get your head
out of the sand it is where you will continue to be.
Another proof that you can’t see what another person has chosen without
testing for the controlled variable.
Yes, and confirmation that your head is firmly implanted and ready to bloom.
Regards,
Marc
