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From: jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter)
Subject: Re: FIRST order? (intractability)
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References: <3u5u6m$llk@ixnews5.ix.netcom.com> <3u6aiq$mah@engnews2.Eng.Sun.COM> <805801029snz@longley.demon.co.uk> <805851917snz@longley.demon.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 16 Jul 1995 02:53:44 GMT
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In article <805851917snz@longley.demon.co.uk>,
David Longley  <David@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <805801029snz@longley.demon.co.uk>
>           David@longley.demon.co.uk "David Longley" writes:
>
>This thread has only been partially distributed to all groups. In the light
>of recent quaotations  and  comments out of context, I thought these should
>be re-directed.
>
>What the comments reveal is an irrational fear.

That sounds a whole lot like "fanciful imaginings and distortions of
... observed behaviours". 

>It is irrational because so
>long as what is recorded is what  *actually*  occurs,  rather than fanciful
>imaginings and distortions of what observed behaviours,  what  is  collated
>and deduced is *factual* and accurate.

But deduction is not direct quotation, is it?  Thus, the collation and
deduction may omit vital information that isn't recognized as important by the
rules of deduction and collation.  It may lose important structural
relationships.  Sounds like reductionist heaven.

>Careful considerations of this point
>in the context of the case I have made should reduce rather than raise  any
>body's anxieties.

Certainly if you are convinced that there are no sound bases for any such
anxiety before having examined them.

>If *your* future depended on how well  you  performed  in
>your work (as should be the case in schools and prisons), would you not all
>demand that accurate records were kept and used as a basis for any decision
>making about your future??

In a maximum security prison run by Americans, good performance might be to
obey all the rules.  In a maximum security prison run by Cubans, good
performance might be to undermine the authorities, encourage riots, dig
tunnels, etc.  Guess what?  "Perform well" is unavoidably intensional.

Likewise, in a public school, good performance might be to study and memorize
the materials, whereas in a religious school, good performance might be to
resist indoctrination and sow doubt among your fellow students at every turn.

Accurate measurement is fine when there is a consensus as to what should be
measured and what the measurements signify.  But such a consensus is a
function of *values*, and values are intensional.

>One of the main advantages of the system  as  designed is that  the  data is
>openly recorded, and is subject to quality control. The whole idea is to get
>accurate measures of what is achieved as a basis for behaviour management.

One form of behavior management used in the past was to put people into gas
chambers.  Flow and resource analysis was very useful for achieving the final
desired behavior.  I don't want to put the tools of behavior management into
the hands of what I consider to be a morally criminal class (the criminal and
"justice" institution).  In fact, I tend to think that any management of the
behavior of adults, beyond preventing them from harming others, is a moral
wrong.  Would you like to provide your extensional demonstration that I am
wrong to think so, or that this position is "irrational"?
-- 
<J Q B>

