Three Cases in Control

[FredNickols]

[From Fred Nickols (2014.11.29.1050 EDT)]

My apologies for dredging up the control of other people issue again but I want to see if my thinking has gone awry.

The word behavior is in common usage. We use it to refer to very specific actions such as flipping a light switch to more encompassing actions such as driving a car. It is used to refer to overt behavior such as conversing with another person and to covert behavior such as talking to one’s self. It refers to conscious, deliberate behaviors such as examining the pros and cons of an issue to more or less automatic behaviors such as many of those involved in riding a bicycle.

Frankly, I think there is a problem with the statement that “Behavior is the control of perception.” It begs the question, “Perception of what?” I will readily and happily admit that our behavior is the means by which we do or don’t control certain perceived variables and that our perceptions of those variables inform us as to our success or failure in controlling them.

Rick, I think, wants to view finger position as a behavioral variable. I don’t have any problem with that. Finger position can vary and varying your finger position involves behaving (unless some other force is doing the positioning). However, I think Rick also wants to view finger position not just as a behavioral variable but also as behavior itself. There I disagree.

That said, I have the greatest respect for Rick’s grasp of PCT and it worries me that he is mistaken or that I don’t understand. So I’m going to try to clarify some things, not the least of which is my own grasp of PCT.

As it happens, Bill Powers didn’t include a definition of behavior in the glossary of B:CP – first or second editions. He did define control (in both editions) as:

“Achievement and maintenance of a preselected perceptual state in the controlling system, through actions on the environment that also cancel the effects of disturbance.”

It would seem that as far as Bill was concerned the use of control implied successful control and that if the preselected perceptual state was not achieved or maintained control did not take place. So, it also seems that there is a difference between a control system that intends or attempts to control a variable and one that succeeds in doing so.

On to the issue that Rick raised: Can one person control another person’s behavior? My answer is Yes and No. Yes in the ordinary views of behavior and No in the PCT sense of behavior and control.

In the ordinary use of the terms behavior and control I can get you do what I want. I can ask, plead, bribe, beg, pay, cajole, coerce and threaten you – and, on at least some occasions you will accede and do what I want.

1.   Suppose I ask you to lift your right arm and hold it straight out from your side, parallel to the ground for about five seconds.  Being agreeable you accede to my request and after the specified time you lower or drop your arm.
   

2.   Now suppose I hold a $100 bill at the point in space where your hand was when you held out your arm and I tell you that if you again raise your arm and hold there for five seconds you may also take the $100 bill.  You again raise your arm to the specified position and after the allotted time you grasp the $100 bill and lower your arm.
   

3.   Suppose now that I grasp your arm and lift it into that same position.
   

In these three cases do I control your behavior?

My answer is that using ordinary definitions of behavior and control the answer in the first two cases is yes and in the third it is no.

My answer is that using the PCT definition of behavior and control the answer is no in all three cases.

These situations are more or less illustrated in the diagram below.

My basic point is that although I am able to get you to do what I want, you remain in control of your behavior – in all three cases.

Does what I’ve just described make sense? Is there a flaw in my grasp of PCT? What is it I’m not getting about Rick’s notion that we can control the behavior of other people?

Regards,

Fred Nickols, CPT

Distance Consulting LLC

Assistance at a Distance

The Knowledge Workers’ Tool Room

“Be sure you measure what you want.”

“Be sure you want what you measure.”

[tedcloak]

[From Ted Cloak (2014.11.29.1040 MST)]

[Fred Nickols (2014.11.29.1050 EDT)]

My apologies for dredging up the control of other people issue again but I want to see if my thinking has gone awry.

The word behavior is in common usage. We use it to refer to very specific actions such as flipping a light switch to more encompassing actions such as driving a car. It is used to refer to overt behavior such as conversing with another
person and to covert behavior such as talking to one’s self. It refers to conscious, deliberate behaviors such as examining the pros and cons of an issue to more or less automatic behaviors such as many of those involved in riding a bicycle.

Frankly, I think there is a problem with the statement that “Behavior is the control of perception.” It begs the question, “Perception of what?” I will readily and happily admit that our behavior is the means by which we do or don’t control
certain perceived variables and that our perceptions of those variables inform us as to our success or failure in controlling them.

Rick, I think, wants to view finger position as a behavioral variable. I don’t have any problem with that. Finger position can vary and varying your finger position involves behaving (unless some other force is doing the positioning).
However, I think Rick also wants to view finger position not just as a behavioral variable but also as behavior itself. There I disagree.

That said, I have the greatest respect for Rick’s grasp of PCT and it worries me that he is mistaken or that I don’t understand. So I’m going to try to clarify some things, not the least of which is my own grasp of PCT.

As it happens, Bill Powers didn’t include a definition of behavior in the glossary of B:CP – first or second editions. He did define control (in both editions) as:

“Achievement and maintenance of a preselected perceptual state in the controlling system, through actions on the environment that also cancel the effects of disturbance.”

It would seem that as far as Bill was concerned the use of control implied successful control and that if the preselected perceptual state was not achieved or maintained control did not take place. So, it also seems that there is a difference
between a control system that intends or attempts to control a variable and one that succeeds in doing so.

On to the issue that Rick raised: Can one person control another person’s behavior? My answer is Yes and No. Yes in the ordinary views of behavior and No in the PCT sense of behavior and control.

In the ordinary use of the terms behavior and control I can get you do what I want. I can ask, plead, bribe, beg, pay, cajole, coerce and threaten you – and, on at least some occasions you will accede and do what I want.

Suppose I ask you to lift your right arm and hold it straight out from your side, parallel to the ground for about five seconds. Being agreeable you accede to my request and after the specified time you lower or drop your arm.

Now suppose I hold a $100 bill at the point in space where your hand was when you held out your arm and I tell you that if you again raise your arm and hold there for five seconds you may also take the $100 bill. You again raise your
arm to the specified position and after the allotted time you grasp the $100 bill and lower your arm.

Suppose now that I grasp your arm and lift it into that same position.

In these three cases do I control your behavior?

My answer is that using ordinary definitions of behavior and control the answer in the first two cases is yes and in the third it is no.

My answer is that using the PCT definition of behavior and control the answer is no in all three cases.

These situations are more or less illustrated in the diagram below.

My basic point is that although I am able to get you to do what I want, you remain in control of your behavior – in all three cases.

Does what I’ve just described make sense? Is there a flaw in my grasp of PCT? What is it I’m not getting about Rick’s notion that we can control the behavior of other people?

Ted: I think you are controlling your perception of my arm held straight out at my side. In each case your behavior is controlling that perception.

what perception of mine I am controlling in all three cases.

Best

Ted

[rsmarken]

[From Rick Marken (2014.11.29.1300)]

···

Fred Nickols (2014.11.29.1050 EDT)–

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FN: My apologies for dredging up the control of other people issue again but I want to see if my thinking has gone awry.

Â

FN: The word behavior is in common usage. We use it to refer to very specific actions such as flipping a light switch to more encompassing actions such as driving a car.Â

RM: Right, the word “behavior”, as used in the social, behavioral and life sciences, is just a general, non-technical terrn that refers to “what organisms can be seen to be doing”. When we are interested in specific behaviors we have to describe them in more detail. In scientific discussions, these more detailed descriptions of behaviors are called “operational definitions” and they are usually quantitative. So, for example, in my studies of object interception behavior, this behavior is more precisely described (operationally) as changes in the 2 D coordinates of the pursuer relative to the 3D position of the object to be intercepted.Â

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FN: It is used to refer to overt behavior such as conversing with another person and to covert behavior such as talking to one’s self. It refers to conscious, deliberate behaviors such as examining the pros and cons of an issue to more or less automatic behaviors such as many of those involved in riding a bicycle.

RM: I agree.Â

FN: Frankly, I think there is a problem with the statement that “Behavior is the control of perception.� It begs the question, “Perception of what?�

RM: This is not “begging the question”. Begging the question means “assuming the conclusion in the premise of the argument”  A nice example of begging the question will be given at the very end of this post because this approach to argumentation has been used in the arguments against the idea of control of behavior  But saying that “Behavior is the control of perception" is not begging the question.Â

RM: The question “Perception of what”? hasn’t been begged because the conclusion of the argument (that behavior is the control of perception) is not in the premise to the argument (which is not in that statement but in the book B:CP itself; the premise of Powers’ argument is that behavior is control). B:CP goes on to explain what control is and why what is controlled is perception. And the question “perception of what” is also answered in the book; it’s perception of aspects of the physical environment as it impinges on the sensory receptors of the control system.

FN: Rick, I think, wants to view finger position as a behavioral variable.Â

RM: I think most people would say that moving one’s finger is a behavior. A more precise (operational) definition of this behavior is variations in the position of the finger over time. Finger position, then, is just an operational definition of one example of behavior. It is indeed one kind of behavioral variable.

Â

FN: I don’t have any problem with that. Finger position can vary and varying your finger position involves behaving (unless some other force is doing the positioning). However, I think Rick also wants to view finger position not just as a behavioral variable but also as behavior itself. There I disagree.Â

RM: Very peculiar but you are certainly entitled to you own approach to language.

Â

FN: That said, I have the greatest respect for Rick’s grasp of PCT and it worries me that he is mistaken or that I don’t understand.Â

RM: Don’t worry. If I’m wrong I’ll correct myself when my wrongness is pointed out to me.

Â

FN: On to the issue that Rick raised: Can one person control another person’s behavior? My answer is Yes and No. Yes in the ordinary views of behavior and No in the PCT sense of behavior and control…

Â

 FN: My basic point is that although I am able to get you to do what I want, you remain in control of your behavior – in all three cases.

Â

FN: Does what I’ve just described make sense? Is there a flaw in my grasp of PCT? What is it I’m not getting about Rick’s notion that we can control the behavior of other people?

RM: You are making  one of at least three arguments that has made to show that control of the behavior of a control system cannot be done. The argument seems to go something like this:Â

1. The behavior of a control system is the control of perception

2. Control systems control their own perceptions.Â

3. Therefore, the behavior of a control system cannot be controlled.Â

RM: This argument is fine (it doesn’t beg any questions). But it looks at the situation only from the point of view of  the system being controlled. What is being left out is the control system that is controlling the behavior of that control system.In the rubber band demo, for example, the argument above is true of both S and E. S is controlling his own perception of the knot relative to the dot. But E is also controlling his own perception of S’s finger position. The position of S’s finger  is an aspect of S’s behavior just as the position of the knot is an aspect of the behavior of the rubber bands.So E is S’s behavior as much as S controlling the behavior of the rubber bands.Â

RM: Since this is a pretty obvious observation about what E is doing, another argument by those who don’t like the idea that S’'s behavior is being controlled is that it is not S’s finger position that is being controlled but only a perception of S’s finger position that is controlled. So E is not controlling S’s behavior but just a perception of S’s behavior. But this is true of all controlling, whether of the behavior of a living control system or of an inanimate object. So in a tracking task PCT tells us that it is a perception of the cursor-target relationship that is controlled, not the reality on which that perception is based.Â

RM: But it turns out then when people control their perceptions – like S’s finger position or the distance between target and cursor – they are also controlling perceptions than an observer has – perceptions that the observer treats as reality. So in the tracking task when S controls a perception of target-cursor distance he is also controlling what I can perceive (and measure, the measurements also presumably being my perceptions) as the varying distance between a target and cursor on the screen.Â

RM: So I am comfortable saying that the subject in a tracking task controls the distance between target and cursor, without noting every time that it is actually a perception of that variable that is being controlled. Similarly, I feel comfortable saying that E can control what I (and I presume what everyone else) can see as S’s finger position – S’s behavior – without caveating that with the statement that it is probably a perceptual aspect of what I see as S’s behavior that is being controlled.Â

RM: Finally, there is a third argument that has been used to deny that the behavior of a control system can be controlled. It goes like this:Â

1. The behavior of a control system is not what we see it doing but, rather it’s behavior is the control of it own perceptions.Â

2. Therefore, when we see a control system (E) controlling what another control system (S) is doing, the control system (E) doing the controlling is not controlling behavior of the other control system (S).Â

RM: Now that is begging the question!Â

RM: I believe I have shown why each of these arguments is wrong. But to no avail. So, as I said, I give up. But I Â would like to hear, from those who think that the behavior of a control system cannot be controlled, why they would object (if they do) to situations that seem to involve rather obvious (and ugly) examples of control of behavior, like the enslavement of people.If behavior can’t be controlled then slaves are just controlling their own perceptions.Â

RM: I happen to rather strongly object to slavery, by the way, because I know that behavior can be controlled. But I don’t see why anyone who believes that behavior can’t be controlled would object to it.Â

BestÂ

Rick

–
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Author of  Doing Research on Purpose.Â
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In nature there’s no blemish but the mind

None can be called deformed but the unkind.

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