Why have you given-up on your ideas?

CSGnet Archive CSG1996
1

Rick Marken (961025.1020) sez:

Bill Benzon:

Hmmm...I might be interested in publishing those experiements [on control
of sequence and program variables]...The only issue is whether or not the
work is appropriate to JSES...

Thanks for thinking of me but, based on my perusal of the Website, I don't
think JSES is the forum I'm after. I'm interested in publishing for an
audience that either doesn't already have an agenda or has _my_ agenda (the
understanding and promulgation of PCT). One of the only places where such an
audience exists is on CSGNet.

Rick Marken you are a damned fool! JSES has no particular agenda (the
articles and audience are quite diverse) but you clearly don't want your
ideas in a forum (that is, the world) where you can't control how people
interpret and use them. That's not how intellectual life works. You get
your ideas out there and, if you are fortunate, they take on a life of
their own. If the ideas are good, they will thrive, perhaps not
immediately, but in time they will.

You bitch and moan that PCT is unjustely neglected, but you won't take a
very simple step to get your work out to another audience, one that might
send you reprint requests from several continents--which doesn't, of
course, mean they'll read the article when they get it, or that they will
adopt the ideas. You are your own worst intellectual enemy. Seems to me
you are determined to take this wounded maverick act to the grave.

And I am stunned that you really seem to think that PCT has an answer for
everything, or at least an answer that beats all commers past present and
future. That's ridiculous. Human behaviour is far too subtle and complex to
yield to one person or one group's set of ideas, whether it's Bill Powers &
Co. & HPCT, or me & whatever it is that I've got going.

ยทยทยท

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2

[From Rick Marken (961025.1500)]

Bill Benzon

you clearly don't want your ideas in a forum (that is, the world) where you
can't control how people interpret and use them.

No. I just don't like to waste a lot of time publishing research for people
who are not interested in it. But I still do it occasionally, anyway (I've
currently have a paper being considered for publication by _Psychological
Methods_ and I have submitted a short, applied paper to Martin Taylor for
publication in the _International Journal of Human-Machine Systems_ [a
revised -- and Aerospace approved-- version will be on it's way to you in a
couple week's, Martin]). Maybe I will submit something to JSES. I still need
to do more work on the experiments; and then it will take a while to write it
up.

You bitch and moan that PCT is unjustely neglected

I do? Sorry, I don't mean to. I know perfectly well why PCT is neglected (and
avoided) and I also know perfectly well what I can do about it -- nothing.
What's to bitch about?

but you won't take a very simple step to get your work out to another
audience

I have taken the very _difficult_ step of getting my work out to the public
many times -- and succeeded. I have published in many different, "high
profile" psychology journals. I'm not afraid if putting my work out in front
of an audience. It's just that the cost/benefit analysis doesn't pencil
out for me anymore. It takes time to do the research, write it up and then
try to get through an impossibly (but, again, understandably) hostile review
process. The benefit is a bunch of reprint requests, an occasional fan letter
and that's it. No follow up research by anyone. No new work on the model.
Nada.

..Seems to me you are determined to take this wounded maverick act to the
grave.

Actually, my wife asked me to wear my cowbit outfit tonight; I'll throw in
my wounded Bret Maverick routine and see how it works out;-)

And I am stunned that you really seem to think that PCT has an answer for
everything

What makes you think that I think PCT has the answer for "everything". PCT
has (I think) what are currently the best (if not the only) answers to
questions about how human purposeful behavior works. That means that PCT
has an answer to _alot_ of things, but not _everything_.

I argue against alternatives to PCT only if those alternatives are not real
models, if they are not models of purposeful behavior or if they are known to
be incorrect models of purposeful behavior.

I know that some people think that there is value in every point of view;
that every person's ideas have some value. I think that every person may have
value; but I don't think every person's ideas have value. No matter how
earnestly held or intellengently arrived at and defended they may be, some
ideas are just plain wrong.

Human behaviour is far too subtle and complex to yield to one person or one
group's set of ideas

That's just a religious convicion. Maybe it's true; maybe not. Right now,
we're trying to see how much of purposeful behavior we can explain with PCT.
If you know of some behavioral phenomenon that PCT can't handle but that some
other theory can, then we sure would like to hear about it. And we'd also
like to hear about how that other theory explains all the behavior that PCT
is already known to (and demonstrably does) explain.

Best

Rick