Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Mon, 7 Sep 1992 17:44:00 GMT
From:         Hortideas Publishing <0004972767@MCIMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Sciences & Ideologies V

From Greg Williams (920907 - 2)

>Bill Powers (920907.0900)

>Let's stay with the basic ideas for a while and make sure we
>understand each other.

Sounds good to me.

>I'm controlling variable v by means of action a. You apply a
>disturbance d to v. This causes v to depart from v*, my reference
>level for it, by approximatly d/myloopgain; my action causes a to vary
>enough to produce this result, so that a is nearly -d. So by varying
>d, you can cause a to vary.

So far, so good.

>This is your control of my action.

If you say so. To be more precise, might we say that it is A (no pun
intended) way to control your action? Seriously, it is control IF by causing a
to vary (per the above), I am controlling SOME of MY perceptions (which must
be related to your actions in some lawful way, or the loop won't be
completed). It isn't (my) control of anything if I am just influencing your a
("accidentally," so to speak) without intentionally controlling some
perceptions of mine.

>You can have a reference level a* for a.

I can? By PCT, I can ONLY control for MY PERCEPTIONS. (I could say HOW MANY
TIMES DO I HAVE TO SHOUT THIS?, but I won't.) Now, I could have a reference
level corresponding to my perception that you are performing action a* -- and
my perception could be flatly wrong, for some reason or another; or I might
have a reference signal for some other perception which is (possibly
complexly) RELATED to your action which I am manipulating.

>My action a will come to a state of about a*/yourloopgain.

IF I am controlling for my perception that you are performing a* and I am not
fooled in some way.

>By this way, this takes no cooperation from me -- I don't have to pay
>any attention to my own action. All I have to do is continue doing
>what I was doing before: keeping v near to v*. From my point of view,
>your variations of d are just another disturbance. It doesn't matter
>to me whether those variations are systematically aimed at a goal of
>yours or are random.

I'm sorry I led you to this confusion. What I meant by saying in my previous
post that "cooperation" is necessary for manipulation to work is simply that
the manipulee's control must NOT be conflicted. The manipulator intends (and
how well he/she succeeds depends on how good a model he/she has of the
manipulee's controlling) to "set up" the situation so that the manipulee will
(given that situation) "naturally" control so as to allow the manipulator to
control certain of his/her own perceptions. So, the conned mark must be
"cooperatively" greedy for the game to "work" (with respect to what the con
man wants to happen).

>By our postulates (which forbid conflict), I must not have any goal
>that forbids my action a to be controlled by you.

Yes, that's what I was just trying to say.

>So my action can't be "important" to me -- that is, I can't have any goal for
>it, but must be willing to let it vary as you choose.

You've ALMOST got it. I can set up a situation so that you will act in the
way you want to act (given the situation) AND I can control the perceptions I
want to control. What I CANNOT set up (for manipulation to work) is a
situation so that you will want to NOT act that way. So the action in question
can be EITHER "unimportant" (your sense) to you or "important" to you -- it
CANNOT be "important" to you that you DON'T do the action I want you to do.
Your controlling (especially: HOW YOU PERCEIVE THE SITUATION -- and you might
MISperceive it or perceive it INCOMPLETELY, because an exploiter has set it up
thusly, using his/her model of your controlling, which could be wrong) must be
such that you will "go along" (I early said "cooperate," but that was
confusing) with the manipulation.

>I can't have any preference for a particular state of my action if you are to
>be able to control it without conflict with me.

No. You can prefer to do it; you cannot prefer to not do it (if I am able to
control your action without conflict). If you are greedy and the con man shows
you (you believe at the time) how to get a lot of money by "going along" with
him, you might get to the point where you are even suggesting how the
(unbeknownst-to-you) scam should be played out. You can positively LOVE to be
performing the actions which you THINK will satisfy your wish for moola. Your
gain for those actions can be sky-high (and that makes the manipulator's job
very easy). At any rate, I can see (sometimes) a fairly loose coupling between
the manipulator's controlled perceptions and the manipulee's actions which
result in control by the manipulator of his/her perceptions. The short answer:
by "fostering" (another confusing word?) your "natural" control of particular
actions which you might have VERY STRONG PREFERENCE FOR, I can manipulate you.
Manipulations of truly "don't-care" actions are also possible. We are indeed
progressing in interesting directions!

>This procedure works best if I (higher level) pay no conscious attention to
>my actions at all, but just let the (lower-level) control system operate
them.

Not necessarily, as per my comments immediately above.

>It has just occurred to me that we are probably using the term "important" in
>different ways. I suspect that you're using it to mean _objectively_ important
>-- that is, important in ways unknown to me but known to the manipulator (in
>the manipulator's opinion).

We needn't get THAT objective. How about just "judged by you AFTER the
manipulation of you (or after you know the full "facts" about an attempted
manipulation) to be important to you? But I see that you're catching on.

>The manipulator may believe that if he can get me to bring my action into the
>state a*, something good for me will result, or something bad for me will be
>avoided.

Yes, and I would term that an attempt at "facilitation" -- it would BE
"facilitation" iff the manipulee, after the successful manipulation
[facilitation is a KIND of manipulation], judges the result to be "good" for
him/her. I'll go out on a limb and say that I think our major difference
overall is that I think successful manipulations (both facilitations and
exploitations) are extremely common, and you think they are extremely rare. Am
I right about that? It is an EXTRA-PCT question -- an empirical issue which I
think depends on the particulars of individual manipulations. PCT says only
that manipulation CAN fail, and that, in general, the Test probably can be
used to increase the chances of a manipulation succeeding. Most importantly,
PCT does NOT say that manipulation is necessarily bad for the manipulee. And
it does not say that ONE kind of manipulation is always best -- that's what I
chided Rick about "prescribing."

>The manipulator may, for example, have the opinion that if I could be
>maneuvered into learning the moves that result in taking square roots
>correctly, this action by me will be of future benefit to me even though I'm
>indifferent to it now and am not doing it "on purpose.".

Well, I didn't think of that -- luckily, I didn't say HOW long after the
completion of the successful manipulation the manipulee should judge its worth
to him/her. At any rate, I suppose that in many cases, the manipulee might not
be able to say whether the manipulation was beneficial or not -- perhaps NEVER
could. A very interesting point (remember I had said that the manipulee might
find it difficult to judge the worth of propaganda and advertising, in at
least some cases) -- that's something that makes life complex and interesting,
I think!

>Is this what you're talking about when you speak of importance?

Basically, yes -- as laid out above.

Best,

Greg

P.S. Shouldn't you tell Hans B. about how E. coli actually controls, based on
Koshland's work? He seems to think it is conjectural, not empirically based.
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