[From Rick Marken (930617.1500)]
Many of you are probably asking yourselves "why does this Marken
character get so fired up when the issue of information in
perception comes up?" I will try to explain it in terms of
Workman's Compensation Insurance.
For the last several years, California (with the help of a bunch of
lawyers) has been trying to commit hari kari with Workman's
Compensation laws that make it easy for people to get paid big
bucks for stress complaints. About all you have to do for a well
paid, arbitrarily long vacation is say that something at work "caused"
you to have stress. If you have trouble thinking of ways of collecting
this largess, all you have to do is call a lawyer - 1 -800- NOSTRESS.
My wife is now a big mucky muck in the personnel department at
her place of employment (making big bucks so I can sit here wasting
time on the net; but, then, I have to make dinner so it all works out)
and she comes face to face with this problem every day; anything
that happens to a person at work -- the boss criticizes you, the
door isn't open when you get there -- anything is grounds for
a stress claim. Obviously, businesses have to pay BIG BUCKS for
Workman's Comp so they are motivated to relocate to hell holes
like Colorado (just kidding Bill) where Workman's Comp is a lot
cheaper.
My wife is currently as fired up against Workman's Comp stress
claims as I am against information in perception -- she thinks the
former should not exist, I know that the latter doesn't exist. It
turns out that these obsessions are related. Workman's Comp
stress claims are based on the idea that what happens to people
("stressful information") causes what they do ("have stress"). PCT
shows that people control what happens to thjemselves. So it is
as incorrect to blame stress on "stressful information" as it is to
"blame" the output of a control system on perceptual information.
A Workman's Comp stress suit is based on the same mistaken
concept of behavior as is the notion that there is information
in perception. The apparently academic mistake of locating the
information for action in perception becomes, with a few word
changes, the basis of a destructive myth that is stifling the quality
of life in my state. The criteria for stress claims would change
significantly if people understood how control works -- it's control
OF perception, NOT control BY perception.
It matters.
Best
Rick