Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Mon, 7 Sep 1992 11:30:00 GMT
From:         Hortideas Publishing <0004972767@MCIMAIL.COM>
Subject:      I agree (S & I IV)

From Greg Williams (920907)

>Bill Powers (920906.1900)

>If we can manage to boil down these long posts into some simple
>issues, we may finally get somewhere. I'll try to be brief.

Sounds reasonable to me.

>1. I have said that control by disturbance is not important, doesn't
>matter, to the controllee. This is because this mode of control DOES
>NOT DISTURB ANYTHING THAT MATTERS TO THE CONTROLLEE, one way or the
>other (harming or helping).... So there is no important effect on any
>controlled variable in the controllee. IF THESE CONDITIONS ARE NOT MET THEN
>THE CONTROLLEE WILL PUSH BACK AND THERE WILL BE CONFLICT.

I agree. Your "control by disturbance" is my "manipulation." Manipulation
works as you say, requiring "cooperation" of the manipulee. I must say,
however, that "control by disturbance" is important in another way to BOTH the
controllee AND the controller, since they ARE both controlling in ways
contributory to the outcome. And, in this sense, I think what we control for
IS important to us.

>2. Now, "don't-care" variables and perceptions.....

I agree. Again, I say that this is how "manipulation" works.

>A controller is free to control the actions of another person without
>conflict if and only if neither the controlling influence nor the elicited
>actions cause uncorrectable errors in the controllee.

I agree.

>A controller is free to control [environmental variables corresponding to]
>uncontrolled perceptions in the controllee without conflict only if the
>perceptions in the controllee are truly don't-care cases -- that is, not
>components of controlled perceptions and therefore not related to any goal of
>the controllee.

I agree.

>3. Purposeful influence on another that does not involve control of
>the influencee (or violence in some form) can be purposeful only in
>the sense that the influencer purposefully controls environmental
>variables on which perceptions in the influencee are thought to
>depend. As long as these environmental variables are not involved in
>the influencee's own control actions, this can be done without
>conflict.

I agree.

>4. There are only two ways in which external influences (purposefully
>manipulated or naturally-occurring) can have an effect on the
>influencee: through altering sensory information, or through affecting
>the physiology of the influencee directly. Effects on physiology fall
>in two classes: sensed effects, and intrinsic effects. These classes
>may have a nonzero intersection.

Sounds OK to me. I'm not waffling because of ideology, just would need to have
some time to think about the technicalities. I agree for now, and I don't
think it would alter our debate if later I noticed a minor "but if."

>5. If the effects are sensory, the results are covered in numbered
>paragraphs 1 and 2 above.

OK

>6. If the effects are intrinsic, then the influencer is actually
>applying coercive force to the influencee, inducing malaise, pain,
>injury, hunger, thirst, suffocation, or other signs of malfunction.
>This almost certainly will require overriding the efforts of the
>influencee to prevent these changes. This violates the condition that
>we are discussing non-coercive influence of another's behavioral
>system.

I agree.

>The argument so far thus leads to the conclusion that while a putative
>controller can control certain actions of the controllee, and can
>control environmental variables not related to any goal of the
>controllee, in no case can the effects disturb any variable under
>control by the controllee without inducing conflict between controller
>and controllee.

Yes. This is why I originally was FORCED (by PCT) to define manipulation as I
did. It works by manipulee "cooperation."

>This sums up what HPCT has to say about the possible interactions of
>people with respect to their controlling each other without coercion.

I don't think so. I believe that PCT also says that how an individual is
controlling at any time depends significantly on past interactions with others
(and the environment in general) as well as on his/her previous controlling.
Resolving this difference between us will involve examining and evaluating
candidate models of reorganization, some of which, I believe, imply that "new"
controlling (after a reorganization) does not SOLELY depend on previous
controlling (and perhaps an "unlawful" internal switching of some sort), but
also on the environment.

>I wrote a lot more, but this is enough to talk about. I don't think
>there is any ideology in the above: it is, as far as I could make it,
>a straight deduction from the principles of HPCT as they stand today.

I agree, except for the last statement.

GW>>... the ideology of some PCTers which denies any "importance" to a
GW>>person of the influences (current and historical) of other people.

>I have never said any such thing. The influence of other people on me,
>current and historical, has been of tremendous importance to me.

That is why I think many people will welcome a theory of influence based on
PCT. We are ALL tremendously affected by each other.

>But assigning and defining that influence and its importance was my act,
>never theirs. Just as you decide for yourself what importance to give my
>offerings concerning HPCT, and what influence to allow them to have on you.

Here is where ideology might be overriding deduction (from PCT). Your
statement is in line with the (only) statement above with which I disagree. It
appears to me that you have left out "half" (figuratively) of the full
implication from PCT, the half about your (current) deciding for yourself what
importance to give something being the conjoint product of BOTH your past
controlling AND environmental effects on you. To leave out the second half
implies its unimportance, and that is simply autonomistic ideology, not a
deduction from PCT. PCT says that no control system is an island -- or,
rather, that "a control system" does NOT include only the ME, but the ME's
environment also. The loop closes THROUGH the environment (often containing
other MEs -- I suppose you would prefer THEYs).

Thanks for being so cogent. I do think we are making progress.

Best,

Greg
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