Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Sun, 3 Jan 1993 09:19:00 GMT
From:         Dag Forssell <0004742580@MCIMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Dag's Misc.

Re: Apology, Be nice to Ed, Scientific revolutions, Gary, Dick.

[From Dag Forssell (930103 01.10)]       Bruce Nevin Dec 30:

>Despite the cost of giving up gossip, it does seem better to try to make
>one's private face and public face more congruent to each other, not by
>restricting private communications to a public standard, but by seeking
>honorable and healing ways of being forthright in the same ways in both
>spheres.  Needless to say, that's a goal, not an achievement--I'm not
>adept at controlling that perception!

I would like to weigh in in Bruce's congruent corner in what I hope will
be a PCT kind of way, by attempting to define a way to be forthright.

In my two page paper: "Control: what it is; where it applies" I wrote:

      The highest expression of respect I can imagine is to
      encourage and actively support your family, associates,
      employees, vendors, customers and friends in the exercise of
      well-informed, effective and satisfying individual control.

I believe this is what the discourse on this net is all about. Private
posts too.

----------------------------------------------------------------
In my presentations, I use this chart. For the environment, I now use
CAPS, inspired by our discussions of REALITY. For the brain, I use lower
case, since it is all perception (reality).

A PERSON.              _______________
                      | Understanding |
                      |       v       |
                      |  Major *want* |
                      |       v       |
                      |  Minor *want* |
                      |_______________|
                              |
                        ______v_____
                       |            |
                   o-->|   Compare  |---o
                   |   |____________|   |
             ______|_____          _____v_____
            |            |        |           |
            | Perception |        |Instruction|     Brain
============|____________|========|___________|=================
                ^               /                  ENVIRONMENT
             ___|___     _____v__     ________
            |       |   |        |   | OTHER  |
            | ACTUAL|<--| ACTION |-->| EFFECTS|
            |_______|   |________|   |________|
                  ^
             _____|___________________________
            |                                 |
            |            DISTURBANCE          |
            |_________________________________|

With this I define EFFECTIVENESS.  (What Ed would call responsibility).
--------------------------------------------------------------------
WHAT IS AN EFFECTIVE PERSON?

WANT:
An effective person develops a good mental map of the world.
An effective person develops a reasoned, legitimate set of wants.
An effective person balances control between self and others.

PERCEPTION:
An effective person perceives data accurately and chooses perceptions
with great care.

COMPARISON:
An effective person is attentive and sensitive to differences between
perceptions and corresponding wants.

INSTRUCTIONS:
An effective person chooses from a range of options to select one most
appropriate for the situation.

ACTION:
An effective person uses resources to function with adequate effort.

ACTUAL:
An effective person directs the action so that it has a strong effect on
the actual variable selected for attention.

DISTURBANCE:
An effective person recognizes or anticipates disturbances and adjusts
minor wants as required in time to withstand the effect without loss of
control.

OTHER CONSEQUENCES:
An effective person is aware of side effects and considers their
influence on self and others.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Now for some musings on respect:
-----------------------
RESPECT

UNDERSTANDING:
Clearly recognize that all beings are autonomous living control systems.

GOLDEN RULE:
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

DIAMOND RULE:
Treat others the way they want to be treated.
(One cannot assume that everyone has uniform goals - the same as yours).

RECOGNIZE THE OTHER INDIVIDUAL:
Demonstrate genuine interest in the other person's world.
Ask permission to enter into the other person's world.
Give permission for the other person to enter into your world.
Listen well... paraphrase.
Covey: "Seek first to understand ...then to be understood."

SUPPORT THE OTHER INDIVIDUAL:
- Support the control system!
- Offer information.
- Question wants.
- Help resolve want conflicts.
- Question perceptions.
- Recognize disturbances as such.
- Help plan more effective control.

REQUIREMENT:
- Work in the other person's head.

GET INVOLVED!     INFLUENCE!     (NO MANIPULATION).
------------------------------------------------------------------

RESPECT

A profound respect for other people is suggested:

1) You cannot impose wants or goals on another individual.

2) You can offer information to an individual,
   which the individual can incorporate if:
      - it connects to  what the individual already understands
      - it does not conflict with the individual's own
           preexisting understanding (paradigm).

3) The individual will change his/her understanding and wants,
   and add to his/her capability to perceive, select and act.

4) Allow individuals to perform. This brings satisfaction, quality
   and productivity.

5) Never impose your subjective judgement on that individual (pt 1).

6) Do encourage individuals who cannot or choose not to accept your
   information to find other environments where they can accept the
   information offered. This includes termination for non-alignment
   and non-performance.

7) Encourage communication about Wants, Perceptions, Comparisons,
   Instructions and Action among all; within and between departments.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
LACK OF RESPECT

Ways to prevent a living control system from functioning:

UNDERSTANDING NOT ALIGNED WITH REALITY:
   Bad information provided to a person will lead to a bad selection of
   wants, poor perception and poor instructions for action.

POORLY DEFINED WANTS:
   Unrealistic or extreme wants chosen by a person leave no margin for
   action to keep actual variable in control. Control system crashes.

PERCEPTION CAPABILITY LIMITED OR DISTORTED:
   Lack of attention, instrumentation, understanding - all cause an
   incomplete or faulty perception of what is going on and lead to
   distorted comparisons.

ACTUAL DOES NOT RESPOND CORRECTLY TO ACTIONS:
   Interference, such as a concerned parent stepping in to protect a
   child from the effects of actions, gives the child false information
   about the world. This defeats the child the next time, when the parent
   is not there to protect it. Thus, by protecting the child, the parent
   defeats the child's development as a control system.

REQUIRE CERTAIN BEHAVIORS:
   Pressure your employees to work 'til 9 PM to demonstrate devotion
   instead of asking for results.

USE REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS:
   This only creates want conflicts. By their nature, rewards and
   punishments are  disturbances interfering with control.

ESTABLISH "HEALTHY" COMPETITION:
   Competition, whether among vendors or employees prevents the
   development of mutual respect.
-------------------------------------------------------------
RESPECT

Things to avoid:

1. Don't criticize.
   Your opinion defeats the process of working in the person's head.

2. Don't tell the person what's "wrong" with him or her. See 1.

3. Don't let the person criticize himself or herself.
   It does not support the development of control.

4. Avoid any discussion of "feelings."  They are secondary.

5. Don't take over the person's responsibilities -- or delegate them
      to someone else. That does not allow the person to function.

6. Don't ask the person why he or she is behaving in a certain way.
   Behavior is an almost incidental effect of your want and perception.

7. Don't bring up a negative incident from the past.
   It is beyond the person's control at this point.

8. Don't challenge or comment on statements about disturbances.
   Help the person deal with them when a plan is negotiated.

9. Don't accept comments about the environment.
   Put them in perspective if they are important to the person.
------------------------------------------------------------------
These charts have much of Ed Ford's work as their origin or inspiration.
------------------------------------------------------------------

If your purpose is to learn PCT and support others who also learn PCT,
I do not believe there will be any difficulty in writing posts which can
be published 100%, even when reorganizing conflict is involved:

Gary Cziko 930103.0240 GMT
>Rick.. ..While I have your attention and admiration, why don't you be
>nicer to Ed Ford?

Gary, you've got it all wrong. Rick IS nice to Ed Greenberg. And Ed to
Rick L. Canon. You should listen in on their amicable private
conversations. (Ed told me a few months ago on the phone: "This is what
the net is for)." Both Ed and Rick have the purpose of studying PCT and
understanding life. Each has some funny systems concepts that any
enlightened bystander like you or I obviously could improve on and
therefore each (obviously to the other) needs to reorganize some. Each
understands that disturbances and error signals are part of that
process/progress. Both are ready, willing and able to do their best to
create a reorganizing error signal in the other in their efforts to teach
each other (infinitely variable!) standards and responsibility, not to
mention systems concepts based on fact / all perception. Gary, it takes
a fully evolved person like yourself to appear to be nice and manage to
get published by those you try to reorganize with mortal body blows. Rick
needs another 10,000 years "(recorded human history)", which I am sure
Ed is willing to give him. Ed will get the last laugh.

It is interesting how you almost welcome the discomfort of reorganization
when you understand PCT and can anticipate and look for greater
effectiveness at the end of that tunnel. Between me and Christine, those
inflicted error signals are out in the open, too. So we discuss Wants and
Perceptions and reorganize.

Gary, while I have your attention, PLEASE give me the phone number of
Educational Researcher. I thank you for copy of your paper, but I really
want to buy the real thing where everything is in context (and crisp).

Nice demo. Thanks for description. Who is Arlo Guthrie?

About demos. An analogy:

Those systems concepts can be likened to a pile of pick-up-sticks. The
ones near the bottom of the pile are based on simple snippets of
information (principles). Others higher in the pile are based on more
principles and on underlying (pre-existing) systems concepts. As a loving
teacher, you can offer information which challenges and suggests changes
in recent (on top) systems concepts. But challenge the ones near the
bottom, which support and are intimately intertwined with all the later
ones. - You might as well kill the person. These systems concepts have
been held so long and are so basic to the structure that they have become
unchangeable facts. Removal would collapse the structure and set the
person back to an early and ineffective, insecure, incomplete stage of
development.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Scientific revolutions:
I think it is important to inform an audience of the existence of past
scientific revolutions to pave the way for ours. I have in mind a short
series of slides roughly as follows:         (these are too many)


OLD SCIENCE                REVOLUTIONARIES        NEW SCIENCE
                            (Time frame)

-----------------------------
Old paradigms fail         Winning paradigm       New paradigm
to solve problems.         gradually              accepted,
Competing paradigms        accepted.              taken for granted.
offered from many          Old experts die.       Old paradigms
(outside) people.                                 forgotten.
-----------------------------

Earth centered             Copernicus Kepler,     Sun centered
universe.                  Galileo, Newton        universe.
                           1543 - 1687
------------------------------

Alchemy                    ?????                  Phlogiston
                           1500 - 1600 ????       chemistry
-------------------------------

Phlogiston chemistry       Priestly, Scheele      Oxygen chemistry
                           Lavoisier,
                           1760 - 1780
--------------------------------

Heat = matter              Molecular motion       heat = molecule
called caloric             paradigm               motion.  Gas laws,
                           ???????
---------------------------------

Aristotelian mechanics     Galileo, Newton        Newtonian mechanics
                           1600 - 1700
----------------------------------

Newtonian mechanics        Bohr, Einstein         Relativity,
                           1900 - 1930            Quantum mechanics.
-----------------------------------

Labor = craft              Taylor                 Formal organization.
                           1910????               Division of labor.
-------------------------------------

Formal organization.       Shewhart               Empower individual
                           Deming                 Define purpose
                           Juran                  Measure process
                           1940-2010
-------------------------------------

?????????????              Descartes              Man: Cause-effect,
God causes all?            1637-                  --->Behaviorism
                                                  --->Cognition
-------------------------------------

Cause-effect               Powers                 Perc. Control Theory
                           1957-2030
-------------------------------------

The above is written as a very rough conceptual sketch and solicitation
of commentary, data, suggestions for sources of detailed information.
Please let me know (on the net of course) how I can understand this
better and present it well.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

While perusing Kuhn for specifics, I came across a statement on page 60,
(about gases) which inspires me to state:

"Contemporary psychologists' commitment to the 'scientific method' is
simultaneously a (rarely articulated) commitment to the non-existence of
internal purposes in an organism."

--------------------------------------------------
Dick Robertson] (930101.1600)

>Ed and now Dag have succeeded in reaching the "public," and that
>brings me to a third topic, how the public picks up new ideas.

Ed has reached the public. Dag is still making progress.

>...I think PCT carries implications that long run benefits accrue for
>people who realize that we create our own experience (and our own
>environment as a by-product) with our actions.  But that theme
>hasn't been very much developed so far. Anyone got any ideas about
>how to demonstrate, not just claim, that?

"long run benefits" like personal effectiveness, cool, calm and
satisfaction. Dick, I really appreciate your post. I can hardly imagine
any demonstration beyond testimonials from satisfied clients, students,
readers etc. But that will add up with time.
-----------------------------------------------------

The discussion of animism sounds interesting. Am I alone in thinking that
the general public is unaware of the term and what it means? (I have not
heard it). Is anti-animism the same as saying that people are cause-
effect machines?
-----------------------------------------------------

Best to all,  Dag
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU