Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Mon, 5 Oct 1992 12:03:00 GMT
From:         Hortideas Publishing <0004972767@MCIMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Giving in

From Greg Williams (921005)

>Bill Powers (921004.0800)

>I guess what I object to in your proposals that we can "guide"
>reorganization in other people is the assumption that the guider can
>arbitrarily set this as a goal and then just carry it out. The whole
>discussion of "influence," from your end, seems to be setting up the
>influencer as an independent agent, with the influencee simply
>reacting as the influencer wants. This puts all the volition and
>agency into the influencer and ignores that of the influencee.

I have taken pains to try to show, on a PCT basis, that one person CANNOT
"arbitrarily" control JUST ANY of his/her perceptions depending on another
person's acting a certain way.

>It
>really seems to me to be an attempt to get around the interactive
>nature of control and go back to the old picture of the organism's
>behavior as a passive consequence of external events.

Sorry about your confusion on this. I do think your confusion is mainly due to
your own active processes, and has little to due with what I actually say.
Nevertheless, I'm willing to point out our areas of agreement once again.

>When we influence the actions of others in systematic ways, we succeed
>(when we do) only BECAUSE they are independent controlling agents, not
>DESPITE that fact.

I agree.

>You can't make a person reorganize without inducing critical error into that
>person, or creating a situation that does it for you.

Fine. I'd still like to hear how you think more mundane learning works.

>The immediate reaction
>of the other person will be to find SOME way to counteract this most invasive
>act, or to negate or escape from the situation that produces the error, by the
>most direct and immediate means possible including setting the situation back
>to the way it was. The other person isn't going to just wait around passively
>while you, to suit your own goals, start causing pain or suffering. You can
>set problems all you like, but there's no constraint on the other person to
>solve them according to the rules you had in mind, or to seek the particular
>solution you consider the "right" one, or even to be interested in the problem
>in the first place. When you use this method, you're in constant danger.

No doubt.

>I objected that you can predict the outcome of reorganization only
>when you arrange the environment so that only one action or learned
>method of control will in fact correct the critical error. You took
>this to mean that there IS a way of guiding reorganization -- just do
>what I described. But I offered this as an objection because it is so
>unlikely that you could ever do this with a human adult, a peer,
>without some great source of power behind you.

Remember that I was only claiming that the four types of control involving
what others do are POSSIBLE according to PCT, with an explicit caveat that any
of the types of control might be DIFFICULT in particular situations. I am
sympathetic to your notion that guiding reorganization isn't easy. How about
guiding more mundane learning, though?

>I claim that in order to establish the conditions under which this
>kind of influence (and many other kinds) could be even apparently
>effective, you would have had to establish a background of power over
>the other person and over the environment, power denied to the other
>person. In many of your examples of means of influence, I believe you
>are assuming (perhaps without knowing it) surrounding conditions that
>amount to establishing a far greater degree of coercive control over
>the other person than the degree of influence indicated by the simple
>example. This is particularly true when you speak of influencing or
>guiding another person's reorganizations.

I agree with you that a background of "power" relations can (sometimes, at
least in the short-run) aid the success of control depending on what others
do. But so can a background of "exchange" relations. Now, maybe you want to
count ANY exchange relation as a species of coercive "power" relation. That
obscures the symmetric-asymmetric distinction I was trying to make awhile
back, but it would certainly be in keeping with your thoroughgoing "it's
ALWAYS me vs. the world" philosophical view. (That reminds me of a story.
Between my junior and senior years in college, I worked in DC for consumer
rights advocate Ralph Nader. Toward the end of the summer, I began to get fed
up with his acting as if -- I would phrase it now -- HIS reference signals
were the best ones for EVERYBODY. So I demanded an audience, and asked him,
"Do you really think that all the people who think they're NOT getting screwed
by the corporations are wrong?" He simply said, "Yes." For Ralph, "freedom's
just another word for nothin' left to lose.") At any rate, treating "exchange"
relations -- including those where all parties claim they have benefitted from
the exchange -- as "power" relations, I AM assuming such background relations.
But I don't think, as you seem to, that all such background relations are in
some sense heinous.

>But it is true even of such
>innocuous means of influence as rubber-banding. How are you going to
>keep the other from seeing what you're doing? Or, after seeing it,
>from objecting to it or deliberately changing the goal simply to
>frustrate your attempt at influence?

As I pointed out way back, you can only model what the other person wants, and
then test that model and revise it if necessary. As we've agreed, control
depending on what another person does CANNOT be arbitrary. You would be well-
advised to NOT rubber-band with someone who tells you he/she doesn't want to
do it.

>You propose as one effective means of controlling another:

>>3. A arranges B's environment so as to trigger learning
>>/reorganization in B's control system resulting in actions which A
>>wants to perceive.

>The natural reaction of B is to prevent A from arranging B's
>environment in that way, perhaps by sinking a knife into A or by
>driving a car past A's house and letting loose with an Uzi. This
>method of control dooms itself to failure. That's why I don't treat it
>as a serious proposal: it can't work, except temporarily.

IN SOME CASES, that would be "the natural reaction" of B. But not in cases
exemplified by B going to A -- and paying A money -- to "teach" B to swim. Of
course, I agree that there is a (heinous?) background lurking covertly: A
won't "teach" for free, and the pool is behind a security desk.

>There is another reason I don't treat it seriously: that is because
>reorganization will NOT result in the actions which A wants to
>perceive, but in whatever actions B decides may work best for B. You
>assume that A can arrange the environment so that only ONE action can
>succeed.

No, a finite SET of actions. Skinner called such a set an "operant."

>But you overlook the action of changing the environment back
>to its original state, you assume that it's POSSIBLE for A to make
>this arrangement without any interference from B, and you assume that
>A can anticipate all possible outcomes of reorganization (such as
>suicide). I think these assumptions are unwarranted, in general.

I don't overlook, assume, assume, or think the above. As I pointed out before,
A needn't know beforehand ANY solution to the problem he/she sets for B. A
only needs to be able to recognize a solution when (and if) B "gets" it.
Explicitly: control via "guiding" learning/reorganization is NOT GUARANTEED TO
WORK EVERY TIME. I know that ever so well, based on homeschooling our kids. I
also know ever so well, on the same basis, that control via "guiding"
learning/reorganization is DOES NOT FAIL EVERY TIME.

In the absence of compelling evidence backing up your "it's basically
impossible" arguments, I must again agree to disagree with you.

I suggest that you interact with Gary Cziko, rather than me, for at least a
couple of days regarding "outside" influences on learning/reorganization. It
appears to me that you are more reasonable in your claims when replying to
Gary than when replying to me on the very same points, perhaps simply because
you don't want to surrender a millimeter to me. Sometimes, higher-level goals
can get in the way of understanding, as you previously pointed out to me
regarding ideologically driven arguments.

Best wishes,

Greg

P.S. Did you get the corrected pages for the arm paper? Are they OK? How did
photographing the figures work out? Have you sent the paper to SCIENCE yet?
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