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Incidentally Affected Variables

When a person acts and controls his perceptions, his actions affect many variables in the environment -- probably an infinite number of variables. Out of all the many variables the person affects, only a few of them directly affect the perception the person controls. In the Basic Loop, the "controlled variable" represents all of the environmental variables the person affects in order to affect his own controlled perception. What about all of the other variables affected by his actions? The box labeled "incidentally affected variable" ( iv ) represents them.

Some examples of incidentally affected variables are very simple to describe. For example, when a teacher in a classroom  presents a lesson, and a child in the room speaks out in order to perceive a pleasant interaction with a friend, the child might be unaware that his speaking affects not only the friend, but the perceptual the experiences of everyone else in the room. Thus, the student who speaks out might incidentally disturb, and disrupt, the activities of many other people.

A person who controls  a particular perception is often completely unaware of the myriad other variables she affects by her actions. A person who smokes nicotine cigarettes might say she does it for (perceived) pleasure, or for a (perceived) calming effect, or for (perceived) social approval from significant others, or for any one of many other specific perceived consequences. At the same time, she is blissfully unaware of the countless other incidental consequences that she does not perceive. Yet, when she smokes, many of the incidentally affected variables might affect other people in ways that they dislike. What is more, when she smokes, the effects on many incidentally affected variables in her own body might accumulate over time and eventually produce consequences of which she is acutely aware. The same is true of a person who engages in "unprotected" sex with his partner, in order to experience certain immediate perceptions.

Every time we act, we incidentally affect infinitely more variables that we perceive ourselves as affecting.