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Date:         Wed, 19 Aug 1992 14:09:37 -0600
From:         "William T. Powers" <POWERS_W%FLC@VAXF.COLORADO.EDU>
Subject:      Re: PCT & interactionism
X-To:         CSG-L@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu

[From Mary Powers 9208.19]
(Penni Sibun 9208.18)

>the road ... is constantly changing ...

yes. But it is your perception of the changes that matter to you.
A foot of snow on it is a big disturbance, and you alter your
driving actions accordingly. A freshly painted yellow stripe may
be noticed, but it's not a disturbance.

>it's an artifact--somebody designed and built it--and these are
important things to know about it.

Important to who? It sounds like you are controlling for - have a
high reference signal for - being aware of these things. I'll bet
99% of the people who drive down the road don't give a damn. This
tells me something about you, not about any intrinsic importance.

>I am deeply suspicious of hierarchical organization.

So am I. Word/sentence/paragraph is as pseudo-hierarchical as
cell/organ/organism/group. They are all at the category level.

>I really can't imagine how a custom can be a program ...

I misspoke somewhat. I mentioned rules of the road as principles.
Stop at red lights is a sub-principle. This sets the reference
signal for the following program: If red, then stop. This sets
the reference signal for the sequence: take right foot off
accelerator, put on brake and push. Each part of this sequence is
accomplished by reference signals to lower and yet lower levels,
the last one being the actual effort of the muscles. All this
brought on by noticing a brightness, which is processed as red,
which is observed as being part of a traffic signal, which is in
my lane, which I am approaching ... which I compare with what I
want to be doing when I see a red light, conclude that I am not
doing it, and proceed to initiate the program above.

>how does an individual introspect about it?

I think you introspect by running it through imagination (see
Behavior: the Control of Perception - by the way, if you're
trying to get all this through the net without reading the basic
texts you're asking people to repeat an awful lot of work that's
already been done)

>how are customs passed on and maintained?

Ask a PCT anthropologist. I wish there was one. Children don't
come equipped with the full hierarchy. As it develops they try
setting reference signals similar to the ones around them. They
get love and approval for this, which satisfies inborn reference
signals for being loved and approved of.

>how are they recorded?x
In memory, whatever that is. Ask a neuro-chemico-physio-
psychologist. He probably doesn't know either.

>how are they incorporated into things like building (better)
roads?

Somebody in the highway department gets a lot of complaints about
a dangerous intersection. He is controlling for minimizing
traffic accidents. From his experience he knows that adding a
traffic light and some left turn lanes will do this, so he orders
it done (budget permitting).

It's important to realize that his order is not setting a
reference level for the people doing the job. For them his order
is a perception, and is processed through the nervous system of a
subordinate like any other perception, where it is compared with
reference perceptions already there. It is likely that the
subordinate will have a reference signal for the order that
matches it - this is what I get paid to do - and an error - it
isn't done yet - and do what has to be done. There's a half-baked
idea floating around that organizations are super-organisms, with
the guy at the top setting reference signals and the people below
him being inputters and outputters. Not PCT, for sure.

Mary P.
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