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Controlled Variables

When I perceive some part of the world that another person seems to control, I might call that part of the world her "controlled variable," but I only know about that variable, and about its present state, as perceptions of my own.

In PCT, we talk about performing "the test for the controlled variable." In the test, I try to disturb a variable that I think the other person controls, and I look to see if she counteracts the effects of my actions.  If she does not cancel out my effects on the variable, then my guess about the variable being a "controlled variable" might be wrong. On the other hand,  if she eliminates the effects of my actions, then my actions might have disturbed one of her controlled perceptions, and, from my perspective, I  might decide that I have found her controlled variable.

Sometimes the discovery of a possible controlled variable is our best clue about a perception the other person is controlling, but people do not really "have" controlled variables. We control some of our own perceptions. To varying degrees, the states of physical variables in the world affect our perceptions, but we do not directly know the states of those variables. Any time we experience some part of  "the world around us," we experience it as perceptions -- we see, hear, feel, smell, taste and so on, but we do not directly "know" the "real state" of the world.

We know the way we want a perception to be. We know the way the perception is right now. We act to make the way the perception is right now match the way we want it to be, and then we act to keep them the same, in spite of other influences that might make them different. At any time, all we know is that the perception is, or is not, the way we want it to be. When we act upon the world, we know our own actions only as perceptions -- we see them, hear them, feel them, and so on. Also, we know the results of our actions only as perceptions; all we know is that our actions do, or do not, result in a perception being the way we want it to be. At no time do we know, or need to know, "the way the world really is." At no time do we directly know, or directly control, a variable in the world.