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Date:         Sat, 26 Sep 1992 19:13:06 -0600
From:         "William T. Powers" <POWERS_W%FLC@VAXF.COLORADO.EDU>
Subject:      Dag's diagrams; impedance

[From Bill Powers (920926.1900)]

Dag Forssell (920926) --

An ambitious undertaking. It makes me nervous, because it takes the 11
levels as Gospel about 20 years prematurely. Also, it doesn't (can't,
really) capture the parallel nature of systems at these levels, and
the branching networks that underly each system at each level.

One reason this is difficult to do is that's hard to get a true set of
examples that show what the levels are about. At the system concept
level, for example, "I am a successful entrepreneur" isn't really a
reference signal at this level, because "successful" implies that the
dimension of variation is in degrees of success. Actually the
reference level should be "I am an entrepreneur." Success is defined
by lack of error -- that is, how closely your perception of yourself
matches the reference perception. simply picking an image of an
entrepreneur DEFINES what success means.

I don't see how the other perceptions at level 11 amount to system
concepts: "Customers benefit from my product" sounds to me like a
principle, or even a logical deduction. And how is a relationship
between your work and frequency of travel a system concept?

I've never seriously tried to fill in all 11 levels like this. The
only way I could think of doing it realistically would be to head for
the analyst's couch and start taking apart my own goal structure. This
sort of example isn't too difficult to construct at the lower levels,
but it's damned hard to think up arbitrary examples that really show
the difference between the levels. At the higher levels I think you
would have to study the organization in a real setting with a real
person.

Try starting with a system concept like "I am an entrepreneur." Then
try to answer the question, "What makes you think you're an
entrepreneur?" The answers (for some person) might be things like
"Well, I get out and hustle, I take risks, I hope to get rich, I
organize things..." from which a listener would derive "Hustle; take
risks; get rich; organize" and so on. In other words, you should get a
series of generalizations which are the elements that for this person
make up being an entrepreneur. Then you have to take each of those
principles, and ask for examples, which will get you specific program-
level perceptions.

I don't think you can just make up diagrams like this, not if you want
them to have any persuasive force. They have to be based on actual
personal experience, yours or someone else's, or they just won't be
convincing. In effect, you have to start doing the research that we
need, with real people, to find out how these higher levels actually
hang together. This can't be done at arm's length, in an uninvolved
and abstract way. If you do, it will SOUND and BE uninvolved and
abstract.

If you just want to get the general idea of the levels across, I think
it's best to avoid drawing such specific diagrams, unless they contain
actual data from a live person.
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Martin Taylor (9209025.2000) --

The "impedance" concept is sort of ingenious, but I can't see how to
model it so that a particular output from a control system would be
spread out among all the different possibilities -- what would keep
all of them from trying to happen at once? It is really harder to
drive a car than to ride a bicycle? When I try to reduce your clever
idea to a specific case, I can't think of a way to make it work.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Best, and goodbye until about Thursday ...

Bill P.
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU