From the second edition of B:CP , commenting on changes in the field since it was first written:
Gradually, the existence of closed causal loops is beginning to demand notice in every field of behavioral science and biology, in cell biology and neuroscience. They are simply everywhere, at every level of organization in every living system. The old concepts are disappearing, not fast enough to suit me but quite fast enough for the good of science, which must necessarily remain conservative.
Sure, there are lots of mentions of the terms, in particular “control system”, as something that keeps a certain process in place, guarding it against deviations, sometimes overreacting and swinging the process in the opposite direction, sometimes giving in under the external influence. This is all well and good, but this is an irrelevant observation, one that has no influence on it being useful for me, personally, to get into this.
If it’s feasible for me to develop a useful anti-procrastination technique based on this whatever, I expect that these techniques would already be developed, and their efficacy demonstrated. Given that no such thing conclusively exist (and people try, and this stuff is widely known!), I don’t expect to succeed either.
I might get a chance if I study the issue very carefully for a number of years, as it’d place me in the same conditions as other people who studied it carefully for many years (in which case I don’t expect to place too much effort into a particular toy classification, as I’d be solving the procrastination problem not PCT death spiral strengthening problem), but that’s a different game, irrelevant to the present question.
That’s not why I referenced the quote, it was to address the, “so if it came out 30 years ago, why hasn’t anything happened yet?” question. i.e., many things have happened. That is, the general trend in the life sciences is towards discovering negative-feedback continuous control at all levels, from the sub-cellular level on up.
If it’s feasible for me to develop a useful anti-procrastination technique
Actually, PCT shows why NO “anti-procrastination” technique that does not take a person’s individual controller structure into account can be expected to work for very long, no matter how effective it is in the short run.
That is, in fact, the insight that Kaj’s post (and the report I wrote that inspired it) are intended to convey: that PCT predicts there is no “silver bullet” solution to akrasia, without taking into account the specific subjective perceptual values an individual is controlling for in the relevant situations.
That is: no single, rote anti-procrastination technique will solve all problems for all people, nor even all the problems of one person, even if it completely solves one or more problems for one or more people.
This seems like an important prediction, when made by such a simple model!
(By contrast, I would say that Freudian drives and hypnotic “symptom substitution” models are not actually predicting anything, merely stating patterns of observation of the form, “People do X.” PCT provides a coherent model for how people do it.)
Rote, not-rote, it doesn’t really matter. A technique is a recipe for making the effect happen, whatever the means. If no techniques exist, if it’s shown that this interpretation doesn’t give a technique, I’m not interested, end of the story.
That’s not why I referenced the quote, it was to address the, “so if it came out 30 years ago, why hasn’t anything happened yet?” question. i.e., many things have.
The exact quote is “If the fruits of whatever this thing is (which remains meaningless to me until I study it) prove valuable, I’ll hear about them in good time”, by which I meant applications to procrastination in particular.
A technique is a recipe for making the effect happen, whatever the means. If no techniques exist, if it’s shown that this interpretation doesn’t give a technique, I’m not interested, end of the story.
To most people, a “technique” or “recipe” would involve a fixed number of steps that are not case-specific or person-specific. At the point where the steps become variable (iterative or recursive), one would have an “algorithm” or “method” rather than a “recipe”.
PCT effectively predicts that it is possible for such algorithms or methods to exist, but not techniques or recipes with a fixed number of steps for all cases.
That still strikes me as a significant prediction, since it allows one to narrow the field of techniques under consideration—if the recipe doesn’t include a “repeat” or “loop until” component, it will not work for everything or everyone.
The statement of results needs to be clear. There are no results, there might be results given more research. It’s not knowably applicable as yet. You may try it at home, but you may whistle to the wind as well.
My usage of “technique” was appropriate, e.g. surgery is also very much patient-dependent; you cut out a cancer from wherever it is in a particular patient, not only in rigid pre-specified places.
Since I made my meaning clear in the context, and you understood it, debating it was useless.
From the second edition of B:CP , commenting on changes in the field since it was first written:
Sure, there are lots of mentions of the terms, in particular “control system”, as something that keeps a certain process in place, guarding it against deviations, sometimes overreacting and swinging the process in the opposite direction, sometimes giving in under the external influence. This is all well and good, but this is an irrelevant observation, one that has no influence on it being useful for me, personally, to get into this.
If it’s feasible for me to develop a useful anti-procrastination technique based on this whatever, I expect that these techniques would already be developed, and their efficacy demonstrated. Given that no such thing conclusively exist (and people try, and this stuff is widely known!), I don’t expect to succeed either.
I might get a chance if I study the issue very carefully for a number of years, as it’d place me in the same conditions as other people who studied it carefully for many years (in which case I don’t expect to place too much effort into a particular toy classification, as I’d be solving the procrastination problem not PCT death spiral strengthening problem), but that’s a different game, irrelevant to the present question.
That’s not why I referenced the quote, it was to address the, “so if it came out 30 years ago, why hasn’t anything happened yet?” question. i.e., many things have happened. That is, the general trend in the life sciences is towards discovering negative-feedback continuous control at all levels, from the sub-cellular level on up.
Actually, PCT shows why NO “anti-procrastination” technique that does not take a person’s individual controller structure into account can be expected to work for very long, no matter how effective it is in the short run.
That is, in fact, the insight that Kaj’s post (and the report I wrote that inspired it) are intended to convey: that PCT predicts there is no “silver bullet” solution to akrasia, without taking into account the specific subjective perceptual values an individual is controlling for in the relevant situations.
That is: no single, rote anti-procrastination technique will solve all problems for all people, nor even all the problems of one person, even if it completely solves one or more problems for one or more people.
This seems like an important prediction, when made by such a simple model!
(By contrast, I would say that Freudian drives and hypnotic “symptom substitution” models are not actually predicting anything, merely stating patterns of observation of the form, “People do X.” PCT provides a coherent model for how people do it.)
Rote, not-rote, it doesn’t really matter. A technique is a recipe for making the effect happen, whatever the means. If no techniques exist, if it’s shown that this interpretation doesn’t give a technique, I’m not interested, end of the story.
The exact quote is “If the fruits of whatever this thing is (which remains meaningless to me until I study it) prove valuable, I’ll hear about them in good time”, by which I meant applications to procrastination in particular.
To most people, a “technique” or “recipe” would involve a fixed number of steps that are not case-specific or person-specific. At the point where the steps become variable (iterative or recursive), one would have an “algorithm” or “method” rather than a “recipe”.
PCT effectively predicts that it is possible for such algorithms or methods to exist, but not techniques or recipes with a fixed number of steps for all cases.
That still strikes me as a significant prediction, since it allows one to narrow the field of techniques under consideration—if the recipe doesn’t include a “repeat” or “loop until” component, it will not work for everything or everyone.
The statement of results needs to be clear. There are no results, there might be results given more research. It’s not knowably applicable as yet. You may try it at home, but you may whistle to the wind as well.
My usage of “technique” was appropriate, e.g. surgery is also very much patient-dependent; you cut out a cancer from wherever it is in a particular patient, not only in rigid pre-specified places.
Since I made my meaning clear in the context, and you understood it, debating it was useless.