Paule A. Steichen. Asch, Ph.D.
IBIS Int'l
Individual Building of Integrated Success
2101 Grandin Road
Cincinnati OH 45208
voicemail: (513) 289-5998
fax: (513) 871-soul/7685
pasteichenasch@fuse.net
···
----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Marken" <marken@MINDREADINGS.COM>
To: <CSGNET@listserv.uiuc.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2003 8:10 AM
Subject: Re: War
[From Rick Marken (2003.03.17.0810)]
> Marc Abrams (2003.03.17.1402)--
>
> Things are looking pretty bleak. From what I understand, Bush is going
on
> TV tonight and giving Saddam & his cohorts 72 hours to vacate.
>
> I don't believe he will, and unfortunately, Men are going to lose their
> lives in trying to bring this man to justice.
>
> If by some miracle Saddam vacates and proves Bjorn right I will rejoice
at
> the outcome. If not, there will be no joy in having to go to war.
But do we really "have to" go to war? PCT shows that we only "have to" act
to
bring controlled perceptions to reference states and protect those
variables from
disturbance. So it is really the existence of our own goals (references)
that
ultimately requires that we act in certain ways. If we didn't have the
goal of
keeping the cursor on target in attacking task we wouldn't act by move the
mouse
in exact opposition to the disturbance wave form. If we didn't have the
goal of
seeing Saddam gone by the end of March we would not "have to" go to war.
If Bush
didn't have the goal of remaining in office we would not "have to" go to
war
because he (like Saddam) could vacate in 48 hrs.
People impose conflicts like this on themselves by adopting goals that
make these
conflicts seem "inevitable" from their point of view. Bush and Co. are
perfect
examples of people who are looking at behavior through causal rather than
control
theory glasses. It appears to them that their actions are caused
(required) by
events outside themselves (Saddam, terrorists). I'm not sure that even my
"mind
reading" demo could convince them otherwise. The illusion of external
causation is
a _very_ compelling illusion, as we all know.
Now that the conflict is inevitable from the perspective of at least one
party to
it, I do hope that it is over quickly, with few casualties and that the
Iraqi
people are able to put a stable government in place that will be less
oppressive
than is the present one.
Best regards
Rick
--
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Senior Behavioral Scientist
The RAND Corporation
PO Box 2138
1700 Main Street
Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138
Tel: 310-393-0411 x7971
Fax: 310-451-7018
E-mail: rmarken@rand.org