[From: Bruce Nevin (Wed 930324 08:44:38)]
The application of PCT to our own ongoing discourse is a Good
Thing, and I hope it continues until I am able to participate
more.
It is of special interest to me because it involves how language
differs from arm movements or getting a beer in that language is
socially standardized, else it could not serve our purposes.
It is possible to know what someone is doing by watching what
they are doing, when they are doing something that is socially
standardized. When Rick writes "this is a colloquial meaning of
disturbance" I know that he is producing certain socially
standardized words in certain socially standardized relationships
to one another and to other words assumed known. (Assumed known,
in many cases, because they occur nearby.) We can know the words
and the relationships in a determinate way<*> because they are
ยทยทยท
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* Up to structural ambiguity for the relationships, and then each
branch of the ambiguity is itself also determinately knowable.
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socially standardized. We can't tell what precisely they mean by
what they are saying, and therefore may disagree about that, but
what they say in the more limited, literal sense is known and
determinate. This is because it must be socially available in a
reliable, determinate way for language to be useful to us.
The meanings (nonverbal perceptions) that I associate with the
words and words-in-relation may differ from those that you
associate with them, and probably do. Nonetheless, we assume
that the differences should be matters of detail. (This is the
fundamental assumption of science: that the universe is knowable,
consistent from one part of it to another and from differing
points of view.) So we seek agreements, and in seeking
agreements we talk some more, and some of this subsequent talk is
words and word-relations not mentioned earlier, words and
word-relations associated for each of us with some perceptions
that we associated (differently from each other) with the first
round of words.
The proposal has been that there is a great deal of
recognition-by-production in the processes of associating
meanings with heard or read discourse. What would I be meaning
if I said that? At an even lower level, what might I want to say
next if I had just said that? And even for the word dependencies
themselves, e.g. having said "this is a colloquial" what might I
want to say next? Given the socially standardized patterning of
English, only certain kinds of words are likely to come next.
From this process of re-creating what is heard
as what is said internally arise expectations as to what is
coming, and expectations in some cases so strong that the words
need not be fully there. (So, instead of "the meaning of `statements
which appear to transform PCT into an S-R like formulation are
disturbing' is a colloquial meaning of disturbance", Rick can say
"This is a colloquial meaning of disturbance.")
And, as you might have guessed, the message from which I have
been quoting one point of many at which I could bring this in:
(Chuck Tucker off-line to Rick Marken):
statements which appear to you to transform PCT into an
S-R like formulation are disturbing to you
[ Rick Marken (930322.2100) ] --
This is a colloquial meaning of disturbance. The statements
which "appear to me to transform PCT into an S-R like formulation"
are just perceptions (or the cause of perceptions, if you like);
They are not necessarily disturbances in the sense that they tend to
push a controlled perception away from a reference. The perceptions
resulting from these statements are probably uncontrolled, in the
sense that they depend ONLY on the statements, and not on any of
my own output effects. That is, the resulting perceptions might
be described as p(t) = d(t) -- where d(t) is the statements -- but
not p(t) = d(t) + o(t). If there is no effect of the organism on a
perception VIA THE EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT -- that is, if there is no
contribution of o(t) to a perception, then that perception CANNOT be
controlled.
I think the perceptions resulting from the statements you describe
are uncontrolled -- my outputs have no effect on them. This
just means that there is no output I can produce that will change
the way I perceive what Martin, Allan or anyone else is saying;
I just perceive what they say (or have perceptions based on what they
say).
When you are using language, you are producing outputs as part of
the process of understanding what was said. There is no need to
invoke references for uncontrolled perceptions to account for
your discomfort at someone saying things about a cherished
concept that you would regard as error if you said them yourself.
And I hardly think it is the case that your concept of PCT is an
uncontrolled perception for you!
Gotta do some work for BBN
Bruce
bn@bbn.com