Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Fri, 9 Oct 1992 11:06:00 GMT
From:         Hortideas Publishing <0004972767@MCIMAIL.COM>
Subject:      An ounce of prevention...

From Greg Williams (921009)

>Bill Powers (921008.1800)

>Disturbances can have pronounced effects on the way a person acts. But
>if those actions are successful, and don't prevent other control
>actions from being successful, such disturbances are insignificant in
>the life of the organism.

Do you disagree that the actions taken by a person at time t1 which are
necessary for successful control by that person at time t1 could result in
unsuccessful control (and hence Bill-significance) at time t2? An example is
the successfully controlling person paying for desired expensive shoes (t1)
with his/her credit card and later (t2) having to deal with not getting to go
on a desired trip to the Riviera because of not having enough money.

Do you disagree that the actions taken by a person at time t1 which are
necessary for successful control by that person at time t1 could result in
improved control (and hence, let us say, Greg-significance) of some percepts
(possibly distantly related to the percepts being successfully controlled at
time t1)? An example is putting away paycheck savings (t1) and after
retirement (t2) using them to pay for a trip to the Riviera.

>My position is that external influences are significant to an organism if
>they prevent it from controlling its controlled variables. An external
>influence that does not alter the organism's ability to control any of its
>controlled variables is insignificant to the organism. It causes no change in
>organization and it causes no significant error, hierarchical or critical.

In the first example above, if the ("kindly") storekeeper refused to take the
person's credit card (t1), judging (quite patronizingly) that this particular
assemblyline worker really shouldn't buy a $400 pair of shoes, then that
"external influence" would be Bill-significant at t1 and Greg-significant at
t2, wouldn't it? In the second example above, if the savings bank folded (no
FDIC!) before t2, then that "external influence" would be Bill-significant at
t2, wouldn't it?

>The significant variables (to me) are the controlled variables
>(significant for one reason) or external variables capable of
>preventing control from succeeding (significant for quite a different
>reason).

To which I add: external variables capable of facilitating successful control
(allowing it where otherwise it would be impossible) -- significant for a
third quite different reason.

>>I still think they do [depend on the environment], in important
>>ways, but I don't need them to for what I've been calling "co-
>>determination."

>Are you saying that controlled variables do depend on the environment
>in important ways? What ways, when control is successful?

Historically. Environmental influences prior to time t1 can affect the
trajectory of controlled variables after time t1. This is the
learning/reorganization (my "long-term influence") disagreement we've been
having.

>When the hierarchy is operating properly, all
>perceptions at all levels remain close to their respective reference
>signals: they remain under control.

But the hierarchy (or, more generally, control organization) CHANGES over
time. You think those changes aren't due in any way to the environment; I
think the environment plays an important role.

>Nobody in these categories needs any help in dealing with the world as
>long as all perceptions are successfully controlled at their reference
>levels, and all critical variables remain near their reference states.
>Effects of external events become "significant" only when they
>frustrate or disrupt or prevent control.

I wonder if you practice automotive "preventive maintenance"? Suffice it to
say that there are many people who (patronizingly or not) believe in keeping
drunks from behind wheels, and so forth, to attempt to PREVENT the disruption
of control by people. Are you REALLY pleading for a completely "hands-off"
approach to regulating social interactions? Should the police wait until AFTER
the wreck to arrest the drunk? When the victim is dead, it is difficult to
give him/her any help with controlling!

>When you mention these categories, the implication I get is that there
>is some problem associated with each category. If the welfare mother
>or the TV watcher is controlling all the variables that the person is
>organized to control at all the levels that exist in that person, and
>there is no critical error, the only problem is in the mind of the
>observer who sees something wrong with what the person is controlling
>for and would like that person to control for something else. Any
>attempt to achieve this wish will, of course, result in conflict.

Is there a problem in the mind of an observer who predicts that the presently
successfully controlling TV watcher is going to have problems controlling in
the future which are due in part to his/her current ACTIONS and attempts to
alter how the person ACTS, rather than what the person is controlling for?

>>The resulting data might help to convince some PCTers that the
>>slogan "No one can control you" -- meaning that no one make you
>>want what you don't want -- merits a "Big deal! I can still have
>>plenty of problems -- and plenty of benefits -- due in part to
>>others controlling their OWN perceptions which depend on what I do.
>>And those problems/benefits aren't insignificant TO ME!"

>Problems are problems only if you want to fix them and can't.

For sure. And you certainly can't fix getting killed by a drunk driver after
you're already dead. So you attempt to alter the drunk's ACTIONS beforehand --
you don't try to alter his/her belief than drunk-driving is a God-given right!
-- and deliberately conflict his/her control system by throwing him/her in
jail. Then you give him/her the choice of alcoholism treatment or no driver's
license.

>Benefits are problems only if you can't get them when you want them.

For sure. And if you come to want them when it's too late to get them, perhaps
because a con artist has successfully controlled for certain of his/her
perceptions dependent on certain of your actions, or perhaps because your
teacher was a lousy communicator, or perhaps because your parents believed
that you should do whatever you want to do and not what they think is best,
too bad!

>I would NOT explain to the person that the problems are co-determined
>by the person and by the environment, even though that does pretty
>much cover the possibilities. Even if the problem is partly determined
>by the environment, the person is going to have to get that aspect of
>the environment under control, as perceived, of course, in order to do
>anything about it.

Do you prefer telling the widow of the drunk driver's victim that she's just
going to have to regain control of her perceptions now that he husband is gone
to telling the drunk to get into the police car OR ELSE?

Greg
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