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Posted-Date: Fri, 11 Sep 92 09:43:31 PDT
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Fri, 11 Sep 1992 09:43:31 PDT
From:         marken@AERO.ORG
Subject:      Re: MANIPULATION AND FORCE

[From Rick Marken (920911.0900)]

Ray Allis (920910.0845)--

Thanks for the reinforcement posts. Obviously, people still assume that
external events control behavior. This can become pretty silly at times,
as in this comment:

>For negative reinforcement, probably the easiest example is that
>of putting up your umbrella in order to keep the rain off.  The
>behavior is increased (which makes it reinforcement of some type),
>in order to keep away an aversive consequent (rain on your new suit).

A behaviorist would frown on the "in order to"'s in this description of
negative reinforcement. But it shows how difficult it can be to ignore
the actor's purposes when you have not been carefully trained to
do so. Also, the fact that reinforcement means "to strenthen" requires
that the behaviorist view "putting up the umbrella" as a strenthened
response. But what is stronger about it? The fact that it never happens
except when it's raining? But this is only true when another condition is
also met -- the actor wants to keep dry. And, besides, what would an even
stronger version of "putting up the umbrella" be?

How much simpler it would be if behaviorists would see that reinforcements
are just disturbances to controlled perceptual variables; positive
reinforcements are disturbances that, because of the organism's setting
of the reference for the perception, move the controlled perception toward
the reference; negative reinforcements are disturbances that move the
controlled perception away from the reference. This view explains why
the same "reinforcement" -- like rain -- can be positive or negative at
different times. When the reference for wetness is 0, rain is a negative
reinforcement; when the reference for wetness is > 0 you get Gene Kelly
"singin' in the rain". Same perception (wetness) -- different reference;
all because of changes in the reference for that perception by that
pesky, autonomous system deciding what it wants to perceive.

Simple but, somehow, alarming to establishment life scientists.
---------
The war on autonomy

After making the mistake of watching the news last night I realized why
PCT will always have a hard time; people just don't like to believe
in autonomy for anyone but themselves. And they will apparently
continue to wage war on autonomy even though the consequences of that
war are precisely the opposite of what they hope to produce. I am
speaking, of course, of the "war on drugs" -- the greatest and most
sustained crime creation program in history. After watching the news
it became obvious that there was little hope that this idiocy would
end soon in this country. Here is a clear case of trying to do, at
a societal level, what we have agreed is useless on an individual
level -- society is trying to forcibly change the reference level of
a controlled variable (drug usage) -- trying to force it to 0 for
everyone. This is precisely like "rubber band" controlling -- society
is pulling on one end, thinking that this SHOULD make the knot (drug
usage) assume a new position. In fact, the knot changes very little but
the means used by drug users to keep the knot where it was become as
violent as the movements made by society on the other end of the rubber
band in an effort to move the knot to where it "should be".I object to this
idiocy, not because I want to take drugs (the usual assumption about those
who want an end to this drug war idiocy) but because things I care about
are endangered by the wild efforts of society and drug users as they tug
more and more wildly on the ends of their rubber bands. The only
solution is to go up a level ("what do you folks really care about?") or
have a police state (a temporary "solution", at best). It looks to me
like a solid majority would choose the police state in a second.

Ah well.

Pessimistic regards

Rick

     **************************************************************

Richard S. Marken                   USMail: 10459 Holman Ave
The Aerospace Corporation                   Los Angeles, CA 90024
E-mail: marken@aero.org
(310) 336-6214 (day)
(310) 474-0313 (evening)
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