Reference: “All It Is” Chapter 3: “Op Defs”
Friday, December 30
Walton: Good afternoon, sleepy cowboy! Did you enjoy the reading assignment from last night?
David: Not quite ready to “Giddy-up” just yet! When you told me that a discussion of operational definitions would be boring, you definitely understated that possibility. It looked like one of the shortest chapters in this book, but I got very sleepy quite a few times. I practiced the exercise of shutting my eyes along with my mind. Got a couple of good REM cycles in. Think Snow White meets Rip Van Winkle!
Walton: When did you have time to actually fall asleep?
David: Well, maybe I didn’t actually fall totally asleep, but when I read the words about “sometimes operational definitions are pretty dry, boring descriptions,” I could feel my eyelids getting very heavy right away. I did appreciate the suggestion at the end of that paragraph about keeping a cup of coffee nearby, just in case.
Walton: What, if anything, did you learn from the chapter, and why operational definitions are even a part of this study of human behavior?
David: I’ve taken enough psych courses already to recognize that there are two types of people who get into the field of psychology and counseling: the people who love science and research, and the people who love talking and philosophies. I recognize that the science people want to try to measure and examine every single section and piece of who we are. But I think we both recognize that measurements and examinations don’t do that much to help a person “feel better.” They just attempt to quantify the person.
Walton: So are you suggesting that, to some folks in the psychology field, an emphasis on “quantity of life”, or measuring something, overrules “quality of life”, or experiencing something?
David: Exactly. For way too many people in the psych world, the measuring and labeling of a human is a much more important goal than seeking the comfortable functioning of that client. That’s why I won’t want any part of a counseling practice that doesn’t put me right in front of real live human beings talking about real live daily practical experiences.
Walton: Do you think that the operational definitions are totally useless, then?
David: I’ve heard that there are a lot of kinds of political games that have been played with the field of psychology, not to help make people feel healthier, but to help the psychologists themselves get richer and more powerful.
Walton: Give me an example.
David: In one of my psych courses, I learned that tools like the DSM and the many Personal Inventory Tests were all projects designed to financially enrich psychologists and psychiatrists. Insurance companies needed some statistical reason to pay out for services rendered. So a bunch of those shrinks got together, set up some kind of allegedly objective standard, added some code numbers to those standards, and then they could conveniently claim that those numbers represent a certain amount of money to be paid for a certain amount of time spent with clients with those particular problems.
Walton: And what about the MMPI test?
David: Maybe my psych professor was a skeptic himself. But in his Tests and Measurements course, we actually were required to take the MMPI as students, and there were a lot of vague questions. And a lot of repeated questions. And with over 600 items for a client or patient to answer, it didn’t seem to me that there was going to be a very usable statistic emerge from those tests which could then be helpful in guiding any genuine therapists on how to most effectively treat their patients.
Walton: Did you learn that at least one of the reasons for some of the repetition was to verify whether or not the test-taker was trying to display honesty in their answers? I believe it was called the K scale, and if that measurement was way off, then the rest of the test results were likely invalid. The client was allegedly feeling very defensive, and thus lied to make themselves seem more “normal.”
David: So taking the test is a long amount of time spent with very little scientific proof of anything useful!
Walton: I am with you there, partner! So, now that you have had a chance to vent and gripe about the industry itself, what about the aspects of operational definitions that discuss the need for something to be specific, measurable, and replicable? In the study of human behavior, is this a valid concern?
David: To respond to that, let me quote from one of the cited references that you included on your page: “the operational definition is an articulation needed to determine the nature and properties of something, such as duration, quantity, extension in space, chemical composition.”
These are facts and figures, and they may be very useful in the research aspect of counseling. But they don’t really do squat for the one-on-one in-person talking back and forth type of counseling. To me, your PTP program seems to be about examining beliefs so that they can be broken apart into little pieces. But when you quantify something to such an extreme extent, aren’t you just making up more beliefs based on their combinations of the data you acquire? Instead of reducing the number of beliefs you have, you are intentionally increasing the number of limited beliefs that you have to work with.
Walton: I agree, and would like to expand on what you just said, David. Another quote from that page says that a formal definition is “based on a concise, logical pattern that includes as much information as it can within a minimum amount of space.” My area of concern is with the words “concise” and “logical” and “pattern”. The word “concise” denotes an opinion placed upon something, and of course we have already recognized that the opinions of the “professionals” are no more than fancy beliefs. Who is to say what is concise and what is vague? How can you measure those things? And the words “logical pattern”? Logic is also just another series of belief battles thrown back and forth against some specific category of topic or concept. Topics are beliefs. Concepts are beliefs. Logic is based on beliefs. Patterns are based on beliefs. Categories themselves are based on the accumulation of beliefs. Information is based on beliefs.
When we get more into the possibility that a “single absolute truth” exists in the PTP paradigm, we will find that there really are no grand expansive complicated truths in the world. Even the history of numbers and alphabets and measurements of time and space are based upon an agreed upon consensus of people’s early beliefs about how they wanted to measure those things, and how to record those measurements! Beliefs based on beliefs based on beliefs based on beliefs going back as far in time as humans existed. As I stated a few days ago, “Turtles all the way down!”
David: It sounds like we are both agreeing to the nature of operational definitions. So why did you include that chapter in this book?
Walton: For me, that is the most valid comment or question you have raised today! And I hope that my answer is enough for you, for now, at least: the book and the PTP paradigm are meant to serve as a simple basic outline describing every aspect of human behavior. And the potential readers for that outline will come from many segments of the human spectrum. Agnostics and skeptics may find these pages. Science and math folks may read these pages. Simple and uncomplicated readers may discover these pages. And so, for that potential variety of readers of this paradigm, I incorporated some sense of familiarity for most readers. Kind of a place to start. Like in the two drawings on that page, gathering a bunch of random, nonsensical images, and finally putting them into a very familiar snowman shape!
It is very much like marketing a product! You’ve got to initially include some common terms that a reader is already familiar with, in order to engage them in the possibility of re-examining their programmed beliefs. You can’t really sell anything in the world without trying to find certain markers that relate to the potential buyers of some kind of product. Bottom line, the PTP framework is a product. Unless I don’t want any readers at all to ever look at it, I must start where the potential readers are coming from when they opened up the first page. You mentioned earlier that there are two types of psychology students, those in the counseling field and those in the research field. Both kinds of potential students need some frame of reference in order to determine whether or not they will even consider something as radical as the PTP program that you and I are studying here.
Remember this synopsis for the purpose of this program: “PTP exists to wake up the sleepwalking, and to increase awareness in the newly awoken.”
David: You may lead them to the water, but you can’t make them drink!
Walton: Also a very succinct summary!
David: And once the water is inside their systems, we can determine whether or not they can “stomach” the information!
Walton: And then, finally, to eliminate or to substantiate!!
David: PTP – The poo or the pudding!!
Walton: This conversation went downhill rather rapidly, but I get your gist!
David: That is “gist” as well!
Walton: Time for you to go back to bed, Sleeping Beauty! A quick reminder, before you head off – since the next chapter is little more than a Table Of Contents list of all the PTP terms, read the one after it as well, the miracle of the Two Absolute Truths! Deep dive time!!
David: Sink or swim.
Walton: Perhaps both, simultaneously!
David: Glug, glug…..
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