Original_To:  BITNET%"csg-l@uiucvmd.bitnet"
Original_cc:  TBOURBON
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Thu, 17 Dec 1992 00:25:00 CDT
From:         Tom Bourbon <TBOURBON@UTMBEACH.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: citations;social;Gabriel

From: Tom Bourbon  (921217  00:16  CST)

Ask a simple question ... !

John Gabriel made a simple declaration:

>[gabriel to powers 921214 11:35 CST]
>Subject: PCT and war

>"... those who have been applying PCT in advertising agencies have
>a substantial hand in deciding who gets to be president and C in
>C."

I made a simple request:

>Tom Bourbon  (921215  00:48)

>I collect citations of PCT and I am always looking for new areas
>in which PCT is applied.  I have not seen, perhaps because I
>never looked for them, applications of PCT in advertising.  I
>would like to add that specimen to my collection.  Can you
>provide a few specific citations and examples?

When John did not reply, I repeated my request with a simple
additional remark:

>Tom Bourbon  (921216  09:18  CST)

>I am serious.  I will appreciate any citations you can provide on
>people in advertising agencies who use PCT to sell products and to
>influence presidential elections in the United States.  My
>collection of applications will be incomplete without citations
>for applications as important as those.  Don't keep them for
>yourself!

I am not certain what happened next.

>[John Gabriel to Tom Bourbon 921216 11:54 CST]

>There's a difference between doing PCT in detail, with all the
>hierarchy, about which I have some fairly serious doubts because
>there's so much ECSs seem to me unable to accomplish without
>interactions so extensive that the interactions become more
>important than the ECS's, and Bill's wonderful insight with which
>I completely agree, that people or any other organism, or even
>state machine, do things because of their perceptions, (for state
>machines, read inputs) or sometimes to change their perceptions.
>Carelessly put - In order to change some of their perceptions is
>the way the previous thought should have been stated.

Say what?  I asked for a few citations.

>If you want a PCT based statement of policy for an advertisng
>agency, I don't have it, and don't plan to waste time looking for
>it.

Excuse me.  My mistake.  This is a network of people interested in
PCT.  When you posted a direct statement implying that at least
some people in some advertising agencies have been applying PCT and
that they  "... have a substantial hand in deciding who gets to be
president" and Commander in Chief in the United States, I was
interested and I thought your remark was offered in the spirit that
most of us make our posts on CSG-L.  I asked for more information.
Sorry to have wasted your time.

>If you deny that one of the purposes of advertising is to change
>perceptions of products, political candidates, or other things, so
>that the behaviour of those viewing the advertising is changed, I
>think you are very likely wrong, and I believe others will agree
>with me.

Wait a minute!  Where did that come from?  I made one simple
request for information.  Why are you so eager to fabricate motives
for me and then assert that they are wrong?  I have re-read my
posts at least a dozen times and they contain nothing even slightly
related to your suggestion that I deny the purposes of advertising.
Why would you think I said that?  Now that you bring it up, I agree
that advertising people try to affect the actions of others, but if
you assert on this network that they are applying PCT, I wish you
could find the time to tell us more about it.  Were I a betting
man, I would wager heavily that there is not one advertising person
in the world who applies PCT, but I am willing to change that
opinion in the face of strong evidence.  Why are you so eager to
tell me that I am wrong (about something I never said) and then
tell me that others will agree with you?

Later on, you express a, "... mild irritation with total missionary
zeal for PCT."  I am not at all sure where *your* missionary zeal
is directed, but in the future I will try to stay out of your way.


Tom Bourbon                             e-mail:
Magnetoencephalography Laboratory       TBOURBON@UTMBEACH.BITNET
Division of Neurosurgery, E-17          TBOURBON@BEACH.UTMB.EDU
University of Texas Medical Branch      PHONE  (409) 763-6325
Galveston, TX 77550                     FAX    (409) 762-9961
USA
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