About responding to newcomers.
Unedited posts from archives of CSG-L (see INTROCSG.NET):
Date: Fri Apr 07, 1995 5:54 am PST
Subject: Re: Hello darkness my old friend
I would love to see your post "Altogether now: its about Control" however,at this time approx. 11:06 Thurs. evening, it has not appeared. Is it possibleyou people are posting to separate groups that are supposed to cross-post?I admit to beginning to get a little frustrated with the missing pieces, here.Although I have little to say, as a lurker, it is bothersome.
And while I'm annoyed, I would like to post the question: have you appliedyour understanding of The Test to your responses to Newbies on the group? I seea rather severe controlling for accuracy to the original idea, at the expenseof participation by persons who show up interested.
Just a thought. Susan.
Date: Fri Apr 07, 1995 8:18 pm PST
Subject: Accuracy-control
[From Rick Marken (950407.0830)] >Susan Schweers (950407)
> I would love to see your post "Altogether now: its aboutControl"
Are you receiving posts from the CSG listserver or from UseNet? That postappeared yesterday (4/6) at both sites. Have you seen it yet?
> I admit to beginning to get a little frustrated with the missingpieces, here.
Blame it all on Gary Cziko, the net god;-)With gods like him (and Yahweh) is it any wonder that we've got all theseatheists running around;-)
> have you applied your understanding of The Test to your responses toNewbies on the group? I see a rather severe controlling for accuracy to theoriginal idea, at the expense of participation by persons who show upinterested.
I'm not sure how The Test would affect the severity of my controlling foraccuracy, except to prove that I AM controlling for accuracy. If it's anyconsolation, I consider this a character flaw myself; I have been trying toreduce the gain of my "PCT accuracy" control system over the course of the lastyear (believe it or not). I am trying especially to be less severe withnewcomers. I don't think I ever "lowered the boom" newcomers unless they comeon with an "I know all about PCT; let me explain it to you" attitude and thenproceed to confidently make one false claim after another about it. I wouldnever "lower the boom" on you, for example. And if it ever seems like I amdoing that, just scold me; I respond well to scolding. Just ask Mary Powers:-)
Best Rick
Date: Fri Apr 07, 1995 9:06 pm PST
Subject: Annoyed Newbie
From Dag Forssell (950407 0840) >Susan Fri Apr 07, 1995
>And while I'm annoyed, . . .
Susan, you express annoyance with the continuity and completeness of theposts sent to you from the listserver. I would suggest you send a message SETCSG-LDIGEST to the listserver (as shown in the monthly INTROCSG.NET):
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> I would like to post the question: have you applied your understandingof The Test to your responses to Newbies on the group? I see a rather severecontrolling for accuracy to the original idea, at the expense of participationby persons who show up interested.
What do you mean by interested? This is a serious group, discussing a newscience of life. We do try to make good information available to Newbies, butas a Newbie, you have to do your part. Have you studied the monthlyINTROCSG.NET? Have you taken action on suggestions in it to obtain the basicinformation on PCT? Have you obtained and studied the free PCT Introductionand Resource Guide, either from the WWW server, from my original posting whileyou were lurking, or by sending me a stamped envelope. Have you reviewed thePCTdemos and PCTtexts available from WWW or on disk?
Susan, I don't remember that you responded to Bill Powers post:
Subject: What is Science. [WHAT_IS.SCI]
[From Bill Powers (950213.0845 MST)]
The rest of this is for both you and Susan Schweers
(950212 etc).
If you are interested in PCT, want to participate and be taken seriously,you have to do due diligence. When you demonstrate a sincere interest byinforming yourself, your participation will be worth your while andours.
Best, Dag
Date: Sat Apr 08, 1995 2:59 am PST
Subject: Re: Newbies and accuracy
from Mary Powers 950407
Susan Schweers asks:
> Have you applied your understanding of the Test to your responses toNewbies on the group? I see a rather severe controlling for accuracy to theoriginal idea, at the expense of participation by persons who show upinterested.
By applying the Test do you mean are old-timersaware that some Newbies feel shut out by a lack of simple explanations of whatwe are talking about, and that we criticize their efforts to get in on theconversation?
This is because the group has three purposes. It serves as a means for asmall and widely scattered group of people to continue a discussion that's beengoing on for 4 1/2 years. This is fairly informal, but it does assume anacquaintance with the subject. It serves as a Virtual Institute, with peoplewho are hundreds of miles apart, and who haven't even met, doing some researchprojects together. Finally, it is a public forum, which anyone who happensacross it is welcome to join.
What a Newbie may not realize is that new Newbies keep coming along.Initially their questions about PCT were answered, patiently and at length.This got to be pretty repetitive, tiresome and time-consuming.Since the questions tend to be pretty similar, we began a monthly posting of anintroduction, including resource material and a bibliography. This is by way oftelling Newbies that the answers to a lot of their questions have been writtendown already, please take the time to read some of this material, and then askyour questions about whatever you disagree with, don't understand, or don'tfind covered in the books.
As for a "rather severe controlling for accuracy to the original idea" -what would you prefer? Sloppy generalizations? The aim of PCT is to put thebehavioral, social and life sciences on as solid a footing as chemistry andphysics. Severe accuracy is the name of the game.
The potholes developing in the Infobahn are not of our making.
Mary P.
Date: Sat Apr 08, 1995 3:20 am PST
Subject: Re: Newbies and accuracy
[From Oded Maler (950407) -again]
Mary Powers 950407:
Susan Schweers asks:
>> Have you applied your understanding of the Test to your responsesto Newbies on the group? I see a rather severe controlling for accuracy to theoriginal idea, at the expense of participation by persons who show upinterested.
> As for a "rather severe controlling for accuracy to the original idea" -what would you prefer? Sloppy generalizations? The aim of PCT is to put thebehavioral, social and life sciences on as solid a footing as chemistry andphysics. Severe accuracy is the name of the game.
I would call it ("controlling for accuracy") as a futile attempt to createin the minds of others the *exact* perceptual variables that the "oldie" has.This is useless because in order to reach the same variables one has, at least,to go through the same development as the "oldie" (including the adoption andthen the rejection of the silly beliefs of experimental psychology). It issilly because it also assumes the same meaning of words and is based on somevery coarse classification of the world: there are pre-PCTpeople who devote most of their time to S-Rpsychology and PCT people who don't do *that* terrible thing anymore.
But it's fun.
--Oded
Date: Sat Apr 08, 1995 4:03 pm PST
Re: Hello darkness my old friend
[Bill Leach 08 Apr 1995 17:25:32]
>Message timestamp: [Susan Schweers 06 Apr 1995 23:10:57 -0400]
> And while I'm annoyed, I would like to post the question: have youapplied your understanding of The Test to your responses to Newbies on thegroup? I see a rather severe controlling for accuracy to the original idea, atthe expense of participation by persons who show up interested.
I am a relative Newbie as I have only been active for around a yearnow.
If a person on CSG-Lreally IS interested in PCT and wants to learn something about PCT thenaccuracy is essential. In my short time of watching and participating in thenet I have observed:
"People insisting that "so and so's" school or theory encompasses PCTmany times."
"PCT is "really such and such" but just using different terms."
"PCT must have "xyz" added to explain "abc" phenomenon."
"Oh this is great! Just what I have been looking for... A formalexplanation for how perception controls behaviors --wonderful."
"PCT does not deal with the 'big questions'."
It appears to be virtually certain that the ONLY theory that encompassesPCT is Control Theory.
All of the theories that "seems as though they are 'like' PCT" differ attheir most fundamental level --the level that few of their practitioners consider.
The vast majority of the 'phenomenon' that I have heard proposed asexamples of "things needing an explanation in PCT" either are explained in PCTor are shown as irrelevant to understanding behavior.
Then there is a large group that "decides that they understand PCT" and"use it" to justify their existing beliefs concerning behavior. Thus, they'banter about' PCT sounding phrases to explain examples of phenomenon that ARENOT examples of a control system in operation.
Finally, there has been a large number of people that wanted to use PCT toexplain or justify some philosophy or philosophical position. They havegenerally either decided that PCT supported their position (ignoring statementsto the contrary) or just quietly disappeared.
I personally realize now that the long time PCTers have been seeing theseand variations for many years. While it is easy to criticize the "hard core"PCTers for being 'unyielding' with Newbies it is also not too hard to recognizethat the 'old timers' have seen the same distortions, the same missing of theessential points thousands of times.
What understanding that I have is directly due to the unwavering dedicationto exacting expression (primarily Rick Marken). He almost hounded me on pointafter nitpicking point but it is precisely his determination that I not get bywith sloppy terminology and loose meaning that helped me.
The essential concept of PCT is so simple (at least to someone alreadyfamiliar with engineered control systems theory) that it nearly seems silly --at first.
The essence is that you perceive (consciously or unconsciously). Someperceptions have an INTERNAL reference value (a 'desired' state or level). Yourbehavior IS caused by the existence of a difference between the reference andthe perception. Exactly WHAT your behavior may consist of is a function of whatyou have learned will reduce the error or even random attempts at control toreduce the error.
Some of the more 'shocking' ideas that 'fall out of PCT' (though notnecessarily uniquely):
You control (or at least attempt to control) what YOU perceive and notnecessarily "what really is".
You can not actually KNOW what "really is".
Everyone of us IS a control system including the "dispassionateobserver".
"Groups" do not act, only individuals act.
We will quite literally defy all logic and rational thinking in support ofa very strongly held belief.
PCT is morally neutral, it does not support or deny any particular beliefsystem.
Most of the "Big Questions" are irrelevant to behavior but PCT usuallyidentifies complete sets of issues that few will recognize as central to the socalled Big Question.
-bill
Date: Sat Apr 08, 1995 9:21 pm PST
Subject: Re: Newbies and accuracy
<[Bill Leach 950408.19:41 U.S. Eastern Time Zone]
>[Oded Maler (950407) -again]
> I would call it ("controlling for accuracy") as a futile attempt tocreate in the minds of others the *exact* perceptual variables that the "oldie"has. This is useless because in order to reach the same variables one has, atleast, to go through the same development as the "oldie" (including theadoption and then the rejection of the silly beliefs of experimentalpsychology).
Of course you are entitled to call it whatever you wish. However, it mostcertainly is the insistence upon accuracy and precision that does enable one tobegin to "get PCT". Not that I may necessarily be an excellent example of astudent of PCT but at least I am new at it and thus my memory for my own uniqueexperience with PCT may be of use to others.
One thing about my background might make my own experience a bit differentfrom that of many others is that I absolutely accepted, believed, understoodand had extensive experience with the idea that an engineered control system"controls what it perceives". That is, the idea of talking about a"Temperature controller" controlling NOT temperature but rather its' PERCEPTIONof temperature did not strike me as strange in the least. I was already quiteused to the idea that engineered control systems only control what we want themto control when the input function really does measure 'the thing that we wantthe system to control'.
Even with that sort of background however, there were still several"stages" to my experience. The first was the "AH!" realization that Bill Powerswas indeed equating the 'behavioral system' of living things to control systemsin exactly the same way that Control Theory applies to engineered controlsystems.
The second "AH!" arrived while reading B:CP and realizing that he alsointended that the control system concept could account for the very complexbehavior of humans --including 'thinking.'
The "AH!s" kept coming as I began to question how PCT could explain various"observed" behavior and that much of what is thought to be "abnormal" behaviormay well not be abnormal at all. Additionally, realizing that much of whatmost people might consider to be surprising about behavior is no more than anatural consequence of control system operation.
_THE AH!_ hit when I began to understand that all of these ideas apply tomyself --I too am a control system, controlling my own perception. That PCT tells MEthat controlling my own perceptions is the ONLY thing that I do or can do.Someone else may affect my perceptions but they can NOT control them nor can Icontrol theirs. I say this in the very precise meaning of the term control.Another may be able to keep me from controlling my perceptions but they are NOTthen _controlling_ my perceptions --they are still controlling their own perceptions which happen to include anenvironmental disturbance that overwhelms my ability to control.
> It is silly because it also assumes the same meaning of words and isbased on some very coarse classification of the world: there are pre-PCTpeople who devote most of their time to S-Rpsychology and PCT people who don't do *that* terrible thing anymore.
Were the people throughout the years that have attempted to measure thedistance between the Earth and the Sun silly because their estimates were notultimately accurate? How about the people that studied the properties ofradioactive materials and often "identified" the wrong nuclide?
It is by trying to explain or relate a PCT principle to some example (realworld or otherwise) AND having the PCT Police "demand" precision of expressionthat one learns PCT. It is NOT enough to understand control theorymathematically nor even engineered control systems operation (as I did). Onequite literally MUST doggedly attempt to relate what one "knows" about behaviorto PCT principles IN A FORUM OF PCTers that do not allow ambiguous or sloppyassertions go unchallenged and then honestly look for and examineinconsistencies.
-bill