From: steiny@steiny.com (Don Steiny)
Newsgroups: sci.psychology
Subject: Re: NLP and what the .... are we talking about???
Date: 2 Oct 92 03:14:23 GMT
Organization: Don Steiny Software

jpk@Ingres.COM (Jon Krueger) writes:

>Elizabeth Lane writes:
>> There are things in physics that we must take "on faith,"
>> because there is no way to "prove" the theory.

>It's said that the scientists who read Kapra knew the
>science was pretty poor but thought the Zen was real neat.
>And the Zen folks knew the Zen was pretty poor but
>thought the science was real neat.

>So a suggestion: skip the authoritative sounding physics.
>Either find an example we can understand or make your
>point without.

	Scientists of all sorts make models.   For instance there is a model
of the atom.    The models say, "if we hit the atom or particle with this
much energy and it contains this or that combination of particles, then
such and such will happen."    There are particles that are postulated,
and experiments have been designed, but the equipment to run the experiment
has not yet been made.    That is why they want to build the superconducting
super collider.  
	
	Psychologist make models.   Cognitive psychology is concerned with 
making models of mental processes.   Since mental processes cannot be directly
observed, the models are based on observable things.   Sort of like atoms.
If you do such and such, and so and so it true, then this or that will happen.
For instance, models of memory generally distinguish eposodic memory and
semantic memory.    If people have brain damage or some other amnesia and
forget part of their lives, but can still understand language, then this
would be evidence that the model is valid.  (Or at least it would present
no evidence that it is not valid).   

	One thing that is often mentioned as fundemental to science is
the idea of being able to disprove a claim.   In other words, if someone
makes a claim, there has to be some way of testing it.    Both of the models
above have some things that can happen that would disprove the theory.   

	When you are talking about subjective experience, there is no way
whatsoever that you can prove or disprove someone is having an experience
that they are claiming they are having.    That is why psychology has
always been a difficult subject.    There have been periods in psychology
where only behavior was deemed worthy of study because only behavior
could be emperically verified.    Skinner went so far as to say that there
was no such thing as "language," because it was purely subjective.

	That notion was trashed by Noam Chomsky, interestingly enough,
partially on emperical grounds.   He argued that the presence of recursion
in language would be impossible without some sort of processing and that
the stimulous response model of behaviorism was inadaquate to describe
language.    Chomsky proposed that the job of the linguist was to model
the mental processes involved in generating and understanding language.
He called these mental processes the "grammar" of the language. 

	John and Richard were trying to come up with a model of human 
communication based on a similar approach.   Though there have been great
advances in cognitive psychology, there does not seen to be that much that
has been done about making models of human communication.   Certainly
language is just one aspect.  Even though some of their most devoted
fans in this group tend to use fuzzy langauge and write as if they had
been touched by the Lady of Fatima, John is a very rigorous thinker who
is constantly looking for ways to satisfy himself that something is grounded
in experience.    He just likes to do his own thing and finds the kind
of collaboration that would be necessary to have his stuff accepted by
the scientific community boring, so he just doesn't do it.

	Are there other models of human communication?   I tried reading 
Birdwhistle, with his phoneme analogy, but it was too incredible.  At least
John and Richard proposed some discrete units of behavior that could be
assembled into some sort of a grammar.   Has anyone else done that?

	Scientists do not just stumble across things by running experiments.
If that were the case, then why would they be building supercolliders?
They have some ideas of what they are looking for.    In other words,
science is not purely emperical.   

	It is unfortunate that people would talk about NLP and say "I don't
have to prove it works, just try it . . ." because that sounds exactly like
someone pushing EST, Jesus Christ, or any one of a zillion things that 
seem to have profoundly helped people throughout the ages.   They don't work
for everyone, and they seem to be part of a more general theory about how
people change and make themselves feel better.    Is it that Jesus, EST,
NLP, or whatever helped the people, or is it that they sought help because
they were about to change, or that it helped them because they believed
it would help?   

	Once I saw Richard Bandler speak.   As he spoke, his friend did card
tricks.   At one point he looked as if he had done the same trick twice.  
Richard said "you don't know what you are seeing, you only think you know,
for instance, you think he did the same trick twice, but you don't know how
he did it, so how do you know he did the same thing?"

	Cognitive psychologists have a theory of "cognitive style." Some people
are curious, and some are not.   I want to know what is behind what I see.
I want to know if the tricks are the same.   That is why I, and I believe
many other readers of this forum do not like to hear: "it works, we don't
have to know why?"  To some of us, the knowing why is what it is all about,
that is the fun.   Though I have had some interesting personal experiences
with NLP and know others that have, how could that be enough to satisfy 
anyone?    According to one cognitive psychology book I read, a model
is to organize information and communicate information.   By this process
a model can be refined, improved, or disproved.  That is the point of using 
scientific methods on NLP, because the result is a convincing and useful 
model that can be used to communicate with others.     It is all well and
good to be "saved" by Jesus, NLP, or whatever, but it is boring.   
Communication is interesting.

-don
	
-- 
Don Steiny
Don Steiny Software
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
(408) 425-0382
Newsgroups: sci.psychology