Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Mon, 16 Nov 1992 13:16:25 EST
From:         mmt@BEN.DCIEM.DND.CA
Subject:      Re: PCT solgan #1; standards

[Martin Taylor 921116 13:00]
(Rick Marken 921116.900)

> the Vallacher/Wegner study is not really relevant
>to what I had in mind when coining PCT slogan # 1: "You can't tell what a
>person is doing by just looking at what they are doing". The slogan refers
>to the fact that an observer sees only observable aspects (sometimes
>relavant actions, sometimes irrelevant side effects) of the process by
>which a person controls their own perceptual experience (the behavior of
>these perceptions being what we mean by "doing" in PCT). It seems to me
>that Vallacher/Wegner assume that they already know what a person is doing
>and are interested in how these doings are described.

I never had a problem with the intent of your slogan, but, as you nicely put
it in this paragraph, you can't tell what your slogan is doing just by looking
at what it is saying.  V/W may or may not "know" what their subjects are doing,
but the subjects say that they know, and what they say can be quite different
without changing the externally visible actions.  That's why I said V/W would
agree with you, even without understanding the PCT implication.  I don't
propose any better wording.  To understand what you mean is to understand PCT,
so I think a succinct catchy slogan cannot really convey its intention
except to one who already understands.

> What I get from PCT is the idea that
>nothing could be less important -- the actual substance of a persons
>references for relationships, programs, categories, principles, "standards",
>etc matters only in terms of how these satisfy higher level goals. The
>system should just be error free -- and this happens by having working
>(conflict free) control systems. Of course, such systems will be setting
>the "right" references for perceptions like your "standards", but they
>are right from the perspective of the control systems (they combine
>appropriately with prevailing circumstances to achieve the higher level
>goals. What is at any time a "right" setting for a particular standard
>from the point of view of the control system may very well appear to be
>a wrong setting from the point of view of someone who "knows the right
>standards".

I suspect this is an angel-free tread zone...

It seems to me that "standards" have evolved in much the same way as linguistic
conventions.  To some extent, it doesn't matter what they are, so long as
people agree on what they are.  They provide a simple way that conflict can
be held to a low value, rather than having every interacting pair of people
carry out a dance to discover a system of mutual accommodation.  The concept
of "evolutionary stable system" comes to mind.  Sone sets of potential
"standards" cannot survive in any real society, because to use them would be
to destroy the society--"kill whoever you see on sight" would be one such.
Other sets are stable because deviation from them tends to set up conflict
in the person who deviates.  Such sets tend to be acceptable to the majority
of the community, and deviation from them causes conflict that is enhanced
by the actions of other community members that object to the deviant actions
(they can't see the behaviour, by PCT slogan #1).  So, conflict in each
community member is reduced by conformity to community standards.

Problems arise when communities with different standards intermingle and
their members interact.  Then, adherence to either set of standards induces
conflict, and there has to be a new dance to discover ways of reducing the
conflict in both parties together.  New "standards" must evolve that either
destroy the old ones, or that allow the use of some of the old ones with the
addition of stnadards that apply to the interaction of people from different
communities.  We used to call that diplomacy.  Now we call it racism.

Martin
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