🚀 go-pugleaf

[From Tim Carey (990504.0755)]

Hiya Rick,

Thanks for the post ...


>[From Rick Marken (990503.0800)]


>Not at all. See B:CP, Ch 17 and MSB, p.91-124.


Good thanks.

>_side effects_ of variation in qo or qi. Behavioral variables
>(like qo and qi) can be perceived by an observer and, therefore,
>can be controlled by the observer.

I think I understand how an observer can observer qo but I'm not at all sure
how an observer can observer qi. I'm assuming you're referring to something
like the Test where you can get a pretty good idea of what the other
person's qi is. Even then though I'd always assumed that what we meant was
that Person B now has a qi that corresponds to Person A's qi. I'm not really
sure what I make of observing another person's qi, that'll take a bit of
getting used to.

PCT shows that if an observer
>_does_ try to control a variable that matters to an actor, the
>actor will "fight back"; there will be conflict. If the observer
>is much stronger than the actor then the actor will lose the
>conflict; I call this kind of conflict (where on party to
>the conflict is much stronger than the other) "coercion".


Does PCT say that this is categorically the _only_ option available in this
instance? Isn't it also possible that the actor may begin controlling
another variable?

>We say that "behavior is not controlled by external events" to
>distinguish PCT from cause-effect models of how behavior _works_.
>Under ordinary circumstances (according to PCT) behavior (qo and
>qi) is the observer's view of the actor controlling his own
>perceptions.

Here's this little qi problem again. Are you now saying that qi is the
observer's input and not the actors? I had assumed that when you mentioned
qi above you were referring to the actor.

>The fact that the player's running path is not caused by external
>events under normal circumstances doesn't mean that it can't be
>controlled by external events _at all_.

OK, this is really good clarification Rick. Thanks. I've been off base
(pardon the pun) here for a while. I had thought (and I'm not sure whether I
read it somewhere or whether I dreamed it up on my own) that once a
reference was set then the environment _did_ determine the actions that
would be needed to control this perception. If, for example, I want to
maintain the cursor at a value of zero on the computer screen and the
disturbance value is 20 then my handle position must be -20. If the
disturbance then moves to 40, I _must_ move my handle down to -40.

Similarly, I had assumed that if a person set a reference for seeing and
feeling the baseball in his hand then the path, speed, etc. of the baseball
would determine (in large part) how the person would act. I'd really
appreciate your clarification on this.

The player's running path
>is just a variable I can perceive; and I can control it if I want.

Can't you control it for only as long as the player is interested in
catching a ball. This is actually one of the principles behind
countercontrol (at least I thought it was).

Thanks for the post,

Cheers,

Tim