The most difficult obstacle for me with PCT

CSGnet Archive CSG2008
1

Jim Dundon 01.26.08.1600est)

Bill,

Your invitation to state some rules I would like to see appllied to csg discussions has not been ignored or forgotten. Here’s a starter.

But before I launch into anything I want to emphasize that I am convinced that PCT is an accurate description of behavior----for those who study, incorporate and apply the theory. I believe stimulus response is a valid theory for those whose mental constructs are organized around the theory. They are different relational frames each of which contains seeds and fruits of its own validation. To compare the results of the two different studies as studying the same thing “behavior”. They study different parameters. It is not scientific to compare them.

I have been getting into a lot of trouble by trying to prove something without saying what I believe because I wanted to respect the fact that this is CSG net not Cisena net.

I will try a different tact.

I believe we live in worded worlds. I call these worlds Cisena projects. I believe that we can live in contradictory worded worlds alternately, switching as serves our purpose. These worlds are not primary. our sense of existing, to be being, is primary. Words and our loyalty to systems, of which PCT is one, faclitate this.

I do not require anyone to adhere to any specific worded world, even the cisena concept, because that would run counter to it own premise, which says that existance is primary. For me that would be the top level’s reference signal. That would allow for changes at all levels including language. That is why I believe more in what I say than I do in PCT. To me PCT is secondary as are all worded worlds

The PCT world is a worded world. Its concepts are contained in experience namings.

Behavior IS control of perception for anyone who apprehends, comprehends and disciplines himself into it’s incorporation and application using its words and math, (more words)

All of my comments which I thought would open doors to that understanding have failed.

So I have to reorganize, modify a few principals and try from the top down instead of the bottom up.

1 You have said “The theory must be true at all times and in all places”

2 You have also said “We must test and prove our theory”

3 You imply that “just knows are anethema”. And not allowed.

OK. These are three primary rules according to you.

Lets look at them and combine them.

How do you know they are justfied?

Did you prove them to be valid values. Or do you just know?

On what basis do you conclude that the rule of proof is exempt from itself?

Is there an unspoken rule? I call them unspoken understoods. Kinda like hush! don’t bring that up.

"All times and all places’

How will you know that you have tested it in all times and all places???

That you have in fact discovered that last place and time that will ever exist?

I suggest that you apply your hard rules to your own satements.

Do you realize that by making that stipulation you are describing relational frames? times and places are quantum relationships.

Mathematically speaking you are saying that any time and place in which PCT is not understood and applied is not a time and place.

In the Cisena world all worded vworlds are valid times and places. Each is a truth but there are truths and there are better truths. PCT is only one, NOT THE ONLY one. I’m not sure it is the best.

You have indicated in one book that the heirarchy is learned. That is a better truth. But indicates that you recognize the fact that HPCT can only be true in all times and places via incorporation and propogation which belies your rule. I suggest that is true also with respect to PCT.

When Rick mentions he’d rather control a perception than another person, how does “controling another person” magically become not a controled perception. In other words, if PCT must be true at “all times and places” then there is no time or place in which that the choice rick says he makes is possible, scientifically speaking, and we know that everyone on this net is committed to being scientific. controling a percption instead of a person is not a possible choice in PCT. But Rick says he does it.

I propose that PCT bringing about changes in behavior be considered proof that it is not nor ever will be true in all times and places except by virtue of belief, unproven faith, kinda like a self holding relay system.

You have often indicated that you understand how a coceptualized model effects behavior, and I agree. They are worded worlds. You have said that Freuds pressure system is not good because it leads to that kind of behavior. So you have understood that models and behavior are mutually influential, yet you contradict that when you when you say that PCT is omnipresent. Not realizing that contradiction is unbecoming even a novice. It suggests that that statement is political, not scientific.

Is it possible that they can coexistant in a person. who is to say that Freudianism can not be a principal or that PCT is not a Freudian product? The adherents of course, making true what they will in a worded world…, their Cisena project.

Best

jim

···
2

[From Rick Marken (2008.01.26.1830)]

Jim Dundon (01.26.08.1600est)

When Rick mentions he'd rather control a perception than another person, how
does "controling another person" magically become not a controled
perception.

I don't think I said that. What I believe I said is that I do often
feel like controlling other people. This is a shorthand way of saying
that I sometimes feel like controlling various perceptual aspects of
their behavior. But I think I also said that I try to resist the
temptation to control other people because I know that the likely
consequences of those efforts will be conflict between myself and the
other perception.

In other words, if PCT must be true at "all times and places"
then there is no time or place in which that the choice rick says he makes
is possible, scientifically speaking, and we know that everyone on this net
is committed to being scientific. controling a percption instead of a
person is not a possible choice in PCT. But Rick says he does it.

This is a really confused set of statements. I don't know how you came
to these conclusions. Are you a native English speaker? First, I don't
believe anyone has ever said that PCT must be true at all times and
places. I think most of us believe that PCT is a true model (as true
as models ever get) of purposeful behavior at all times and places;
but non-purposeful behaviors, like falling, are covered by other
models, like Newton's laws of motion. I have never said that I make
the choice you describe: between controlling another person and
controlling perception. That would be (as you say yourself) an
impossible choice to make, but you don't say why it's impossible. It's
impossible, from a PCT perspective, because the only thing we can
control are perceptions.

So try to calm down and read the posts carefully.

Best

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken PhD
rsmarken@gmail.com

3

[Martin Taylor 2008.01.26.23.06]

Jim Dundon 01.26.08.1600est)

But before I launch into anything I want to emphasize that I am convinced that PCT is an accurate description of behavior----for those who study, incorporate and apply the theory. I believe stimulus response is a valid theory for those whose mental constructs are organized around the theory.

To me, this sounds much the same as saying that the laws of thermodynamics are an accurate description of thermal processes for those that believe in thermodynamics, while the phlogiston theory of heat is an accurate description for those that believe in the transfer of phlogiston from a hotter body to a cooler. Or, that the Earth IS flat if you believe it to be so, but is round if you believe that.

How is what you say different in nature from those paired statements? -- or do you believe that science works only by affecting people's belief through rhetoric? Any theory is as good as any other, except that some are supported by better rhetoricians?

I guess a more charitable interpretation of your paragraph is that a scientific theory is an accurate description of what it purports to describe only when its descriptions are made by someone who is familiar with the theory. But with this more charitable interpretation, I don't see how you can argue that "stimulus response is a valid theory" when data do not support it.

Behavior IS control of perception for anyone who apprehends, comprehends and disciplines himself into it's incorporation and application using its words and math, (more words)

The word "for" is hard to interpret, here. If you mean for the theorist who is trying to test the theory against data, and who must "apprehend, comprehend and discipline himself into it's incorporation and application using its words and math", then the problem becomes the word "IS". That word "IS" would imply that the person is not a scientist. A scientist wants to test whether "IS" might be justified, and would accept your statement only if you substitute "is hypothesized to be" for your word "IS".

On the other hand, if you are thinking of the word "for" as applying to someone who might want to learn PCT in order to apply that understanding to his own interactions with other people, in the same way that one might want to learn a religion and use its dogmas to guide one's behaviour, I suppose you might be able to find someone to whom the paragraph might apply.

In case you were wondering, I do believe the weak form of the Whorfian hypothesis. I don't believe the strong form that you seem to espouse.

1 You have said "The theory must be true at all times and in all places"
...
Mathematically speaking you are saying that any time and place in which PCT is not understood and applied is not a time and place.

This also is hard to interpret. Physicists assert that the laws of Nature are the same at all times and places. However, physicists also accept that we do not yet know the laws of Nature, since according to our best understanding, the two most fundamental laws (General relativity and Quantum Chromodynamics) seem to be fundamentally incompatible. Since there is nowhere that the laws of Nature are understood, you must therefore be saying that there exists no time nor place.

This being true, your claim that a failure of the beings on a planet of Epsilon Eridani to understand PCT condemns them to nonexistence is a much weaker claim, and redundant.

You could be right, but it doesn't advance our attempt to understand the world to take that as a basic truth!

PCT (of which HPCT is one possible variant) is just a theory about how all living things work. That's a large claim, but one I believe to follow from the laws of thermodynamics. If it is true, it would be true in all times and places, even if nobody understood or applied it.

So you have understood that models and behavior are mutually influential, yet you contradict that when you when you say that PCT is omnipresent.

Again it's hard to know whether I interpret you correctly, but you seem to confuse applying an understanding with the understanding itself. If PCT is actually true always and for all living things, but I don't know that, then when I observe someone performing some odd actions, I won't ask myself what perceptions might be being controlled by those actions. If I do know PCT, I might ask that question, and might address my own behaviour accordingly. Either way, PCT would be true always and for all living things. It's only my application of my understanding of it that might influence my behaviour.

I see no contradiction between on the one hand saying that PCT describes the behaviour of all living things and on the other saying that not all living things know this (putative) fact and that knwoing it might influence the behaviour of those that do know it.

I believe quite strongly either that I must be misinterpreting you, or that you are misunderstanding the nature of PCT as a science (or possibly that you understand the nature of science very differently than I do).

Martin

4

[From Bill Powers (2008.01.26.1152 MSWT)]

Jim Dundon
01.26.08.1600est

Sorry, Jim. Our worlds are just too far apart for communication.

Bill P.

5

[From Richard Kennaway (2008.01.27.1025 GMT)]

[From Bill Powers (2008.01.26.1152 MSWT)]

Jim Dundon 01.26.08.1600est

Sorry, Jim. Our worlds are just too far apart for communication.

I googled for the "Cisena" he mentioned and found http://www.cisenaproject.com
The site doesn't say who is involved in it, but it appears to be the work of one person -- Jim Dundon? Anyway, it strikes me as kookdom of the first order.

···

--
Richard Kennaway

6

I googled for the
“Cisena” he mentioned and found

http://www.cisenaproject.com

The site doesn’t say who is involved in it, but it appears to be the work
of one person – Jim Dundon? Anyway, it strikes me as kookdom of
the first order.
Hi, Richard –

Yeah, and that pretty much closes off the discussion. There is something
wrong with Jim, so we can’t get impatient or angry or argue – any of the
things we might do with someone who is merely an intellectual opponent.
It’s like having a short leg or being blind – not his fault. He hasn’t
asked for help from any of us, so I think I have to just back
off.

Alice, my sister, has had another operation on the wrist she broke last
year and is apparently better for it. She’ll be back to editing soon (we
got through the Forword, Ch1 and Ch2 while she was visiting two weeks
ago). Bruce Abbott is working on the programs for Chapter 7, with about 5
programs to go. I think we might be ready to wrap it up in mid-to-late
Spring. I’ll try to get everything to you in essentially final form well
before that, so you can finish anything that needs to be done for your
Appendix. One thing that will be forthcoming is a contract assigning 20%
of my royalties to you (I haven’t forgotten that). I hope that makes you
rich, because then I will be even richer (but Bruce gets 20%
also).

Are you maintaining any communications with Warren Mansell and his
bunch?

Bill

7

[Martin Taylor 2008.01.27]

[From Richard Kennaway (2008.01.27.1025 GMT)]

[From Bill Powers (2008.01.26.1152 MSWT)]

Jim Dundon 01.26.08.1600est

Sorry, Jim. Our worlds are just too far apart for communication.

I googled for the "Cisena" he mentioned and found http://www.cisenaproject.com
The site doesn't say who is involved in it, but it appears to be the work of one person -- Jim Dundon? Anyway, it strikes me as kookdom of the first order.

Thanks for digging up that link, Richard. I would not have bothered, but since you did, I read the whole thing, and I must say I disagree with your evaluation.

I agree with you that it seems to be the solo work of jim dundon (I wonder what he sees as the significance of not capitalizing, like e.e.cummings).

Where I disagree with you is in its kookiness. I grant that the visual style of presentation would lead one to think "kook", but if you discount the pseudo-versification, and read it as prose, it reads like the work of a bright person who has looked inward quite deeply.

Put simply (and jim may correct me), i is as I suspected from his contributions to CSGnet. He accepts (or has developed for himself) the strong Whorfian hypothesis, according to which our experience is dependent on the words used to describe it. Whorf was an insurance adjuster, who began work on what was in influential theory in (I think -- I'm going from quite old memory here) the 1930s, after he noted that he had dealt with an explosion caused when someone tossed a cigarette butt into a gasoline drum marked "empty". "Empty" is a words signfying that the container has nothing in it. But the intention was to say that there was nothing _useful_ in it. It actually contained a very explosive mixture of air and gasoline fumes.

Quite a few studies tested this strong form of the hypothesis, by examining the apparent relationship between the experiences of people who spoke languages that were structured differently, for example languages in which the distinction we make between noun and verb is not made (jim is right to make the point that they can be conflated), but in which there is an equivalent distinction between things that last longer and shorter than a cloud.

Personally, I accept a weaker version of the Whorfian hypothesis, according to which our experiences can be modulated by the words used to describe them. Language is, after all, in evolutionary time a very recent add-on to our toolbox of life. It would be very strange if what jim (I presume) says on the page "The Naming Named Namer" were true, since it would imply that only humans are living:

"Living, being, is a continuous process; naming is an essential part of that process."

In respect of PCT, on his "Related Readings" page, jim gives more space to his notes on B:CP than to any other book. The comments in those notes illustrate that he has some misconceptions about PCT. Here are those notes, complete:

Exceptional paradigm breaking theory of behavior. Enlightening book. According to PCT all behavior is closed loop, negative feedback [error correcting], comparing to an internal reference signal. More than anyone else, Powers attempts to support his concept with his knowledge of the nervous system. At first glance it appears that the theory speaks of all behavior from the catatonic schizophrenic to astronaut, but as I read the book it appears that he might be referring only to what most of us would call productive or purposeful social behavior. I'm waiting for Bill powers to clarify this. He is going to have to decide whether he means some behavior or all behavior. He says the theory is not about attitude. Why not? Aren't attitudes part of behavior? Why does he find it necessary to dictate the elimination of any word or concept from a language. It looks like his theory contains personal values about how we should behave not just a neutral theory about what behavior is. I'd also like to know what spontaneous behavior is from a PCT perspective. In addition, what are responses to uncontrolled for stimulus, such as a birds trill or a wave crashing, are these unplanned, uncontrolled for responses not behavior? What about first t me experiencings, they could not have been controlled for, does this mean the experiencing was not behavior? The theory had a lot of influence on William Glasser of Reality Therapy in which he emphasizes verbing, another big jump in behavioral theory, or taking responsibility, which is really a very old theory. [Sound like Dr. Phil?] Book gets technical but starts out in everyday language. Essential reading. Other good books available on their website at www.perceptualcontroltheory.org/

As I understand it (or should I say "according to my Layered Protocol Theory of communication"), communication is a process in which an originator (O) wants to perceive some effect on a recipient (R) -- LPT is a specialized form of PCT, as I discovered about 15 years ago. If the communication is collaborative, R wants to allow O to perceive the effect O desires, whatever that may be. The desired effect might be that R opens a window (overt act), or perhaps that R understands an idea (the perceptible effect might be R nodding, lifting an eyebrow, or asking a question that indicates to O that the effect has not been achieved yet. Either way, in cooperative interactive communication, each party is controlling several perceptions of the other.

When the communication is through a book, the feedback loop is broken. O must control in imagination the effect of the writing on R, which is hard, since many different Rs have different background knowledge structures. To overcome this difficulty, written communication has its own language, a language that uses many formal structures that are supposed to be known to the various different Rs. However, when the communicative content consists of new ideas, and the desired effect on R is that R should understand (and with luck accept) those ideas, formal structure is not enough.

In jim's comments of B:CP, and in Bill's respinse to jim: "Sorry, Jim. Our worlds are just too far apart for communication." we see an illustration of just this. Even though jim thinks he understands PCT, the comments quoted above make it clear that he doesn't -- or rather, his understanding of it differs significantly from mine; and jim's attempts on CSGnet to express his belief in the strong Whorfian hypothesis have used a language that evokes only bewilderment from Bill.

Language isn't just words or names, but is for communication, not only among different people, but internally within oneself. jim notes that, and notes the positive feedback influence it can have on creating rigid conceptual structures, but he doesn't use that understanding reflexively, to ask whether the conceptual structure he has created might be as much a creation of his feedback process as of observation of the world.

In the cited comments on B:CP, we have a language problem (I think it's a language problem, but it might be a misunderstanding of PCT): "In addition, what are responses to uncontrolled for stimulus, such as a birds trill or a wave crashing, are these unplanned, uncontrolled for responses not behavior?" Maybe I'm biased by my own undestanding of PCT, but I would translate the question, and having translated it, find that it answers itself, thus: "What perceptions do we have that are uncontrolled, such as the emotional and aesthetic pleasures we get from hearing a birds trill or a wave crashing, are these perceptual effects not behaviour?" No, in PCT language, perceptions are not behaviour. But the aesthetic and emotional perceptions ARE responses. They are the effects of the operations of perceptual functions.

Another problem that might be language, but I think is not: "as I read the book it appears that he might be referring only to what most of us would call productive or purposeful social behavior." here jim seems to have not noticed the important role of side-effects -- effects of actions on the environment other than those effect that influence the controlled perception. Furthermore, "social" is entirely too restrictive, in that almost all behaviour is controlling non-social perceptions, most of which are not ordinarily Observed.

I think jim is smart, and wrong -- or perhaps wrong not in his direction of thought but in its exclusivity or emphasis. I cannot recognize in myself his belief that thinking is done through words. For me, putting thoughts into words (or equations) is the final and most difficult stage of thinking through a problem. The "conventional psychologists" so frequently derided on CSGnet talk about people with different cognitive styles, of which one dichotomy is between visual and verbal thinkers. jim appears to be a verbal thinker, who thinks everyone else must be, too. Some professional psychologists have also held to that view. One, a professional musician in his spare time, said that he could not comprehend what it would be like to imagine a visual scene!

The long and short of it is that I don't think we should dismiss jim as a kook or troll. Gadfly might be a better designation (and as he says, the way you label him does affect the way you think about him -- and vice-versa, in a feedback loop). Right or wrong, he at least has a point of view that interacts with PCT, and I believe him to be capable of learning. Likewise, I think that some of what he says might be valuable to us, if we can get through the difficulty in learning his language.

Martin

8

[From Bill Powers (2008.01.27.1154 MST)]

Sorry, to all involved. I didn’t notice that Richard Kennaway’s post was
sent to CSGnet. My reply should have been private. My opinions, needless
to say, could be wrong – but I’d better say it.

Best,

Bill P.