🚀 go-pugleaf

[From Rick Marken (990503.0800)]

Tim Carey (990503.08020) --

> The conversation seems to centre on the external control of
> behaviour. Is this as new slant on PCT or am I missing something.

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

> I'm asking for the following reasons:
>
> 1. I thought the term "behaviour" in technical PCT referred to
> the 'working of the entire loop' ie perceiving, comparing, and
> acting. I find it hard to understand how someone could externally
> control these 3 aspects of behaviour.

If that's what you mean by "behavior" then behavior certainly
can't be controlled by an outside agency. But I prefer to let
"behavior" mean what it means to psychologists and other behavioral
scientists: the observable "doings" of organisms. So I use "behavior"
to refer to things like arm movements, bat swingings and ball
hittings. PCT makes us aware of the fact that these doings are
changes in the values of variables which may be actions (qo) used
to produce some result, the result itself (qi) or irrelevant
_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. 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".

> 2. My understanding of PCT was that behaviour wasn't controlled
> but was the process by which perceptions were controlled. So
> again, I'm at a bit of a loss to make sense of a "control of
> behaviour" statement in this forum.

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. A baseball player's running path (qo) toward a fly
ball, for example, is not a caused result of external events
(like the ball's trajectory); it is the observable means by which
the player actively controls a perception of the ball's optical
velocity.

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_. The player's running path
is just a variable I can perceive; and I can control it if I want.
For example, I can cause the running path to end at a particular
point by running out on the field and tripping the player. The
trip is the main caause of the path's shape when I do the trip.
The effect may not last long; the player may get up quickly, shake
it off and continue controlling optical velocity. This shows that my
trip is not the _only_ thing that affects the player's path; but
for a moment it was the biggest effect.

Coercion is important to understand because it prevents normal
controlling; it is also important becuase many people (parents,
for example) think it's precisely the right way to raise kids
(it "teaches them a lesson"). I think practical PCT should be
about helping humans find alternatives to coercion. We can't do
that if we don't know coercion when we see it.

Best

Rick
--
Richard S. Marken                 Phone or Fax:  310 474-0313
Life Learning Associates          e-mail: rmarken@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~rmarken/