[Rick Marken 2019-04-19_11:18:28]
···
Richard S. MarkenÂ
"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.â?
                --Antoine de Saint-Exupery
(David Goldstein 2019-04-20/12:37 pm)
The concept of a negative feedback control system as the building block is exciting. It unifies biology and psychology:
The emphasis on controlling experiences by means of behavior makes one ask about the function of any behavior.
As a therapist, I assume that some important experiences are not under adequate control. I try to identify them and help a person control them better.
···
On Apr 19, 2019, at 2:18 PM, Richard Marken (rsmarken@gmail.com via csgnet Mailing List) csgnet@lists.illinois.edu wrote:
[Rick Marken 2019-04-19_11:18:28]
On Thu, Apr 18, 2019 at 5:22 AM Bill Leach csgnet@lists.illinois.edu wrote:
BL: I do hope that others will not be
too offended by my response to this post.
RM: I think many of the conflicts on CSGNet result from the fact that we have all had our “come to PCT moment” for different reasons. I think it may help calm things down a bit if each of us on CSGNet could describe why we got excited about PCT. Even if it doesn’t lead to a kumbaya spirit on CSGNet I think it would be interesting to know why people got excited about PCT and are often so passionate about it. I would be interested in hearing from everyone on CSGNet – not just the regulars. It doesn’t have to be long and I don’t think this is the kind of thing that you can be judged right or wrong on so there is no need to be afraid of posting if fear of judgement is what has kept you from posting previously. I’ll start the ball rolling to show what I’m looking for:
RM: I got excited about PCT because I realized that, if PCT were correct, then everything I was teaching my students about how to do research in psychology was wrong; it would be the start of a real revolution in the sciences of life. So I went about testing PCT both to make sure I understood it and to see if it really was revolutionary. I found that it was and I’ve spent my life trying to bring the good (or more likely bad) news to scientific psychology. And like Cassandra, I have been ignored but, unlike Cassandra, I don’t bemoan my fate because it’s so much fun to do the science.
Best
Rick
–
Richard S. Marken
"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
–Antoine de Saint-Exupery
This will be brief, or at least brief for me. LOL
I, like so many others, had to take a psyc course. While I
honestly think that I did learn some useful information in the
course I felt that the so called science behind it was anything
but science. My experience to that point was with the real hard
sciences, mechanics, physics, mathematics. I believe that it was
the ‘battle’ between Bill Powers and William Glasser that took
place in the media that prompted me to buy B:CP. In any event,
upon reading that book, I was 'hooked!'Â I found CSGNet, or
whatever it was called back then, attended a conference (lucky it
was scheduled when I could take a break). Met Bill and Mary and
spent several days/evenings chatting with them (primarily Bill but
Mary would chime in with gem of her own now and then). I found
the idea that behavioral science could indeed be a hard science to
be exciting. I could see that being able to actually produce
results that are indpendent of the researcher’s opinion, would
take the field to an entirely new level. I was not so naive as to
believe that the task would be easy. Either doing the necessary
research or ‘converting’ existing practitioners. I have been very
disappointed that PCT has not progressed much since its inception
by Bill. With all of the control processes that fields associated
with studying the physical human body have discovered you would
think that PCT would be of interest.
bill
···
On 4/19/19 12:18 PM, Richard Marken
( via csgnet Mailing List) wrote:
[Rick Marken 2019-04-19_11:18:28]
On Thu, Apr 18, 2019 at 5:22AM Bill Leach <csgnet@lists.illinois.edu >
wrote:
BL: I do hope that others
will not be too offended by my response to this post.
RM: I think many of the conflicts on CSGNet result from thefact that we have all had our “come to PCT moment” for
different reasons. I think it may help calm things down a bit
if each of us on CSGNet could describe why we got excited
about PCT. Even if it doesn’t lead to a kumbaya spirit on
CSGNet I think it would be interesting to know why people got
excited about PCT and are often so passionate about it. I
would be interested in hearing from everyone on CSGNet – not
just the regulars. It doesn’t have to be long and I don’t
think this is the kind of thing that you can be judged right
or wrong on so there is no need to be afraid of posting if
fear of judgement is what has kept you from posting
previously. I’ll start the ball rolling to show what I’m
looking for:
RM: I got excited about PCT because I realized that, if PCTwere correct, then everything I was teaching my students about
how to do research in psychology was wrong; it would be the
start of a real revolution in the sciences of life. So I went
about testing PCT both to make sure I understood it and to see
if it really was revolutionary. I found that it was and I’ve
spent my life trying to bring the good (or more likely bad)
news to scientific psychology. And like Cassandra, I have been
ignored but, unlike Cassandra, I don’t bemoan my fate because
it’s so much fun to do the science.Â
Best
Rick
–
Richard S. MarkenÂ
"Perfectionis achieved not when you have
nothing more to add, but when you
have
nothing left to take away.�
   Â
            --Antoine de
Saint-Exupery
When I first encountered PCT (probably sometime in 1975 when B:CP) was recommended to me by a client at old Ma Bell), my reaction was basically one of, "Yeah, that sounds right." I was, of course, a weapons systems technician in the Navy for 20 years before then and knew a bit about gunfire control systems (servomechanisms, computers, feedback and all that jazz), so the notion of people as “living control systems” seeking to control their perceptions made a lot of sense to me. And, to the extent I’m able, I have made use of PCT in ways that I hoped would interest other people. Don’t know that I’ve had a lot of success on that score but I keep at it.
I am not hopeful that PCT will be a big hit any time soon. Consider this hypothetical situation: Two guys approach a gather of CEOs and each makes a pitch for their stuff related to managing employees, getting more and better out of them, and that kind of thing. One guy says, "I have here the keys to controlling other people." The other guy says, "It is generally futile and counter-productive to try and control other people." Which one will get the CEOS’ ears?
If PCT ever becomes a hit, it will because one or more devotees of PCT will devise some marvelous, mind-bending applications of PCT to practical, workplace situations that produce undeniable results of big value to the people and the organization. That will generate a lot of executive-level interest and that in turn will draw the attention of many academics and researchers who thirst for executive connections (and corporate dollars).
Otherwise, the involvement of academics and scientists and engineers will rely on situations similar to Rick encountering PCT and having a giant insight. How often does that happen?
···
Regards,
Fred Nickols
Chief Toolmaker & Lead Solution Engineer
Distance Consulting LLC
“Assistance at A Distance”
[Martin Taylor 2019.04.19.15.38]
Since you don't exclude the regulars, I will offer my own. It
amounts to a self-apology for not having the genius shown by Powers
in recognizing the direct applicability of engineering control to
control by living things, despite have similar background knowledge
and to some degree experience with things like analogue computers.
I started out in Engineering Physics, and wrote my first computer
program in 1954. A colleague of my father on some Royal Commission
or other read my 1956 Bachelor’s essay, and suggested I consider
graduate work in Operations Research or Psychology. I didn’t know
what psychology was as an academic subject, and he suggested I look
into Operations Research first. He was President or similar of the
Canadian Psychological Society, and tried to persuade the society to
issue a guideline that undergraduate psychology should not be taken
by anyone planning to do graduate work in psychology, because much
of the first year or so would be taken up with unlearning what you
had been taught. (Sound familiar?) He thought maths and physics were
much better training for a future researcher in psychology, and
should be a requirement for admission to a research postgraduate
psychology degree.
Anyway, that I had the kind of background he advocated proved
useful. My first solo published paper after getting my Ph.D. in 1960
was a prediction of a visual illusion that so far as I knew (or
know) had not been described in the research literature. Using
non-Euclidean geometry and uncertainty analysis, I predicted the
illusion magnitude with an accuracy of which any PCT researcher
would be proud (see figure). The only free parameter in the figure
is the slope of the line through the origin. In this same paper, the
same analysis correctly generated the counter-intuitive prediction
that the more precisely a person perceived it, the greater the
illusion magnitude.
My next published paper, following from my thesis, used uncertainty
analysis to predict the form of what is known as the “distance
paradox” of figural after-effects. Using the same values for two
data-fitting parameters throughout, I was able to fit the distance
paradox in a variety of sensory domains in studies by others: sound
location, linear displacement of one dot by another, tilt of a line
and of a grid from vertical, and my own data for the rotary movement
after-effect. Only for the felt width of a block between the finger
and thumb did one of the parameters have to be changed, while the
other parameter was the same as in the other domains. I later used
the same parameter values to predict the effect using no free
parameters in a quite different domain, visual contrast. The point of this exposition is to show how I learned that an
Engineering approach could be applied with precision to experimental
psychology. As an undergraduate, I had seriously contemplated doing graduate
work in control theory. Perhaps it was good luck that I didn’t, but
it was with that background that I proposed in a book published in
1972 (before hearing of Powers) a three-level perceptual control
explanation of a fact that was known and treated as a puzzle – that
an object actively touched was perceived as an object in the
environment, whereas the same object guided over the hands and
figures never did, but was instead perceived as a series of touches.
The next stage in my unknowing approach to PCT was the development
of the Layered Protocol Theory of (initially) human-computer
interaction. Some seven or eight years into this development, I
re-encountered Powers and PCT. It did not take long to see that my
LPT theory was just a special application of PCT to communications
between two entities, whether they be living or machine. That was
when I began to appreciate the power of PCT. I guess I had the
advantage of having had no training in undergraduate psychology, but
having had an extensive engineering and control undergraduate
experience followed by graduate work in psychology, and having long
used my engineering background as a foundation of my research
trajectory in psychology. Now, over 60 years since I ought to have understood how the
engineering analysis of control could and should be applied to life
itself, I continue to be astonished at the ever widening scope of
science involving living things to which PCT provides a more solid
underpinning than has been available hitherto. And that is exciting.
Martin
···
[Rick Marken 2019-04-19_11:18:28]
On Thu, Apr 18, 2019 at 5:22AM Bill Leach <csgnet@lists.illinois.edu >
wrote:
BL: I do hope that others
will not be too offended by my response to this post.
RM: I think many of the conflicts on CSGNet result from thefact that we have all had our “come to PCT moment” for
different reasons. I think it may help calm things down a bit
if each of us on CSGNet could describe why we got excited
about PCT. … I would be interested in hearing from everyone
on CSGNet – not just the regulars.
Rick
···
From: Richard Marken (rsmarken@gmail.com via csgnet Mailing List) csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Sent: Friday, April 19, 2019 8:19 PM
To: csgnet csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Cc: Richard Marken rsmarken@gmail.com
Subject: Why are you excited about PCT? (was Re: goal of our researchgate project)
[Rick Marken 2019-04-19_11:18:28]
On Thu, Apr 18, 2019 at 5:22 AM Bill Leach csgnet@lists.illinois.edu wrote:
BL: I do hope that others will not be too offended by my response to this post.
RM: I think many of the conflicts on CSGNet result from the fact that we have all had our “come to PCT moment” for different reasons.
HB : I agree.
RM : I think it may help calm things down a bit if each of us on CSGNet could describe why we got excited about PCT. Even if it doesn’t lead to a kumbaya spirit on CSGNet I think it would be interesting to know why people got excited about PCT and are often so passionate about it. I would be interested in hearing from everyone on CSGNet – not just the regulars. It doesn’t have to be long and I don’t think this is the kind of thing that you can be judged right or wrong on so there is no need to be afraid of posting if fear of judgement is what has kept you from posting previously.
HB : I agree. If I remember right I never judged any oppinion about PCT being wrong or right from aspect of PCT, But I judged and criticized any attempt of emphasizing that individual oppinion is PCT oppinion like Rick or Bill Leach you are doing.
You Rick frequently use “formula” : “PCT says”… Well in this cases I just show you what PCT actually says.
I never claimed that my oppinion is PCT. But I created myself a “perceptual model” out of PCT which by my oppinion shows Bill Powers Life work and can be proved with experiments and analysis of behavior. All that point to where Bill came with exploring how organisms function. There is quite some work to be done to come to the point of “full” understanding how organisms function. And I supported my PCT “portion” version with Life examples (CSGnet archives). The destiniy of experiments is unknown.
RM : I’ll start the ball rolling to show what I’m looking for:
RM: I got excited about PCT because I realized that, if PCT were correct, then everything I was teaching my students about how to do research in psychology was wrong;
HB : The same thing about me. When I realized that my pedagogy is wrong, mostly because of reading Neill and Summerhill “free” school and talking to headmaster, his daughter, I tryed to find explanation why my pedagogy is wrong. Well I found it in PCT. Through thousands of relationship with school stuff and specialy with learners I found out that PCT is right theory about explaining how really people function. So my teaching practice gave me scientific ground for establishing what PCT is really offering. But into PCT I came through RT (Glasser).
RM : it would be the start of a real revolution in the sciences of life. So I went about testing PCT both to make sure I understood it and to see if it really was revolutionary.
HB : Your global approach is by my oppinion right, and it would be good if you explain to Bill Leach that “testing” of PCT or any other idea about how organisms function is necessary. It seems that he thinks that phyosophy is enough. What Bill Leach says is true and no other “proofs” are allowed. We all know that LCS will do whatever it has to do to achieve goals. And I’m obviously a disturbance to Bill Leach achiving goal to prove that you Rick was right. I think you should take part of responsability for bill Leach behavior and our extreme conflict.
HB : So I think it’s not the problem idea that PCT should be tested but I see the problem in number of Tests (experiments) which should be increased to scientific level so that we could see whether PCT is really revolutionary.
Even my number of experiments I’ve done (about 10) and PCT analyses of behaviors (about 8 on CSGnet) I could say that we need more of experiments and Life examples to Test PCT. But I could say that from results of my experiments and analysis of Life behaviors model of PCT which I created stands.
I presented the model over 50 x. So my experiments and analysis show that PCT (my exctract) is right frame for explaining how generally organisms function.
I started with experiments quite early because at least 3 years I didn’t understand what PCT is about. Many Bills’ contradicting statements increased my confussion. And he some times said to me : “I changed my mind”. So the turning point was when I started with experiments which were the extension of my professions. Some experiments were already done, so I just have to make right interpretation of the data. I used some theories and Bills model which I made and it turned out that experiments match with my extract of PCT.
As I said, I think that your approach to understand PCT is right, the only problem I see is that you used only few laboratory examples which are to fast to show the real nature of behavior. Gain is simply to high. You need more Life examples and PCT analysis of behavior to confirm your theory. Psychologist are known for their abilities for scientific research (so I assume you should have similar abilities), but many more examples are nedeed and right basis for interpretations set.
RM : I found that it was and I’ve spent my life trying to bring the good (or more likely bad) news to scientific psychology. And like Cassandra, I have been ignored but, unlike Cassandra, I don’t bemoan my fate because it’s so much fun to do the science.
HB : That’s what I tried to say. You should know a lot aboput scientific psychology which you could explain to Bill Leach how it works.
I also think that your few examples approach made you form wrong model of how organisms function. So I’d advice you more scientific examples and analysis of Life behaviors. And I think that others could do the same. Members could analyse their life experiences in PCT manner precisely analysing their behaviors.
Usually people are unaware of what they are doing, because they don’t control moves (it would be impossible to control all 600 and more muscles). Instead of that people control parts of perception of the environment to achieve what they want. So the question is : which is the mechanism that enable this sort of control? It’s not “Control of behavior”.
Boris
Best
Rick
–
Richard S. Marken
"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.”
–Antoine de Saint-Exupery
[Richard Pfau (2018.04.24 10:55 EDT)]
Having come into psychology from the “hard sciences” as a former engineering student (4 years at the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute and 3 years studying “Mechanics” at Johns Hopkins University), I graduated with a BA in psychology feeling that psychology was a "soft science."Â That feeling continued and as a result, when I formally retired in 2003, my dissatisfaction resulted in a decision to try to develop an improved, unified theory/model of human behavior.
After 2 years of research looking at models, theories, and other psychological literature, I discovered Perceptual Control Theory and decided that this was as good or better than anything that I could develop. As a result, after more years of research and thinking, PCT ended up as the foundation of my book “Your Behavior: Understanding and Changing the Things You Do” (St. Paul: Paragon House, 2017) – a book that, among other things, explains in Chapter 9 how PCT meets the criteria of good theory so well.
My sense of PCT as a good, solid, “hard science” approach to psychology is why it will apparently be the foundation of the next book that I am researching and planning to write, related to the idea of whether we can control the behavior of other people or only influence it.
···
On Fri, Apr 19, 2019 at 2:19 PM Richard Marken csgnet@lists.illinois.edu wrote:
[Rick Marken 2019-04-19_11:18:28]
On Thu, Apr 18, 2019 at 5:22 AM Bill Leach csgnet@lists.illinois.edu wrote:
BL: I do hope that others will not be
too offended by my response to this post.
RM: I think many of the conflicts on CSGNet result from the fact that we have all had our “come to PCT moment” for different reasons. I think it may help calm things down a bit if each of us on CSGNet could describe why we got excited about PCT. Even if it doesn’t lead to a kumbaya spirit on CSGNet I think it would be interesting to know why people got excited about PCT and are often so passionate about it. I would be interested in hearing from everyone on CSGNet – not just the regulars. It doesn’t have to be long and I don’t think this is the kind of thing that you can be judged right or wrong on so there is no need to be afraid of posting if fear of judgement is what has kept you from posting previously. I’ll start the ball rolling to show what I’m looking for:
RM: I got excited about PCT because I realized that, if PCT were correct, then everything I was teaching my students about how to do research in psychology was wrong; it would be the start of a real revolution in the sciences of life. So I went about testing PCT both to make sure I understood it and to see if it really was revolutionary. I found that it was and I’ve spent my life trying to bring the good (or more likely bad) news to scientific psychology. And like Cassandra, I have been ignored but, unlike Cassandra, I don’t bemoan my fate because it’s so much fun to do the science.Â
Best
Rick
–
Richard S. MarkenÂ
"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.â?
                --Antoine de Saint-Exupery