Dear Organlearners,
Greetings to you all.
I hope will Rick will not link this contribution to LO24371 because the
"origin of power" is a topic in its own right which may help us much in
our learning. [Host's Note: As you wish... Rick]
In LO24371 Gavin Ritz <garritz@xtra.co.nz> wrote the following:
>I still have not observed one human action that cannot be
>explained in very simple motivational terms and its aggregated
>form POWER and dependence.
It seems to me in this quotation that MOTIVATION is the "origin of power"
which determines the actions of humans.
The past couple of months I had several interactions with local people who
are learning with renewed interest the theory of holism of Jan Smuts. Each
of them has become deeply aware that Smuts often explained how wholeness
(imbedded wholes) is the power which drives evolution forward. For Smuts
evolution involved all the actions of all living species (including
humankind) through all times. In other words, for Smuts WHOLENESS is the
"origin of power" which determines the actions of humans.
In all fairness to Smuts and his immense spiritual capacity, I have to
mention that since the end of WWII with the ignorance of world leaders in
those days to wholeness and especially since 1948 when he lost the
elections to the ideology of apartheid (unwholeness), he increasingly
questioned his own understanding of holism.
The issue is that AT LEAST two completely different things are postulated
as the "origin of power" which determines the actions of humans --
"motivation" and "wholeness". I stress the AT LEAST because in his private
letters Smuts laments the fact that some religious people (and not merely
some Christians) accuses him of atheism. The accuser would self maintain
that the GOD of his/her religion is the "origin of power" which determines
the actions of humans. By comparing "god" with "wholeness", the accuser
would come to the conclusion that "wholeness" must be the "god" of Smuts'
rather than the GOD of his/her religion. (Some accusers who knew that
Smuts was a devout Christian who regularly studied the NT in the original
Greek, went so far as to accuse him as a type of the Antichrist.) So the
list has to be extended to include at least three completely different
things as the "origin of power" which determines the actions of humans --
"motivation", "wholeness" and "god".
I am sure that most fellow learners can easily extend this list from their
own experiences. I can and will also give one example. I have often
explained some human actions by means of LEP (Law of Entropy Production).
Even though I have often stressed that any understanding of LEP is futile
without taking LEC (Law of Energy Conservation) into consideration as an
equal partner, and even though I have stressed that LEP helps me to
understand human creativity from a "non-human point of few", some people
accuses me for believing that ENTROPY PRODUCTION is the "origin of power"
which determines the actions of humans. Thus I can extend the list of
possible "origins of power" to "motivation", "wholeness", "god" and
"entropy production".
This list can be made very long by making use of the input of humans based
on their experiences.
But there is also another dimension to the issue which few (like Smuts,
Boehm, Maturana and Capra) are aware of. This is that many concepts A, B,
C, .... are related to one another through a "complex web implicit to
reality" independent from our human conceptualisation of it. Thus some
people may consider A as the "origin of power", others may consider B as
the "origin of power", etc. However, there is a consistent and coherent
manner in how A, B, C, ..... influence each other so that anyone of A, B,
C, .....can be considered as the "origin of power", although our
understanding how each one may be the "origin of power" will differ
because of our different perceptions of reality. This dimension may be
summarised by the word "complexity".
Thus we have to extend the list of possible "origins of power" into
"motivation", "wholeness", "god", "entropy production", "free will",
"...", "...", "...", "...", "complexity".
With such an impressive list it is quite natural for a learner to
get very much intimidated by it. Thus an intimidated learner
may argue innovatively or irrationally as some modernists and
post-modernists do that
* there IS NO "origin of power"
* even should there be any "origin of power", it does NOT
DETERMINE uniquely the actions of humans
* it is of NO IMPORTANCE to know what is the "origin of
power" which determines the actions of humans
* the "origin of power" is fictive rather than actual
* the actions of humans are simply serendipituous
So we even have to extend the list to include even these possibilities. It
is enough to shut of the enquiring spirit of many a learner so as to avoid
the issue all together, drift along, become a hermit or anarchist, seek
absolute power so as to overide all possible "origins of power", etc.
It is with such a "painting rich picture" that I wish to urge fellow
learners to seek by learning the understanding of the "origin of power"
and its possible relationship to the actions of at least some humans, if
not all systemic phenomena like living organisms.
As for myself, I have made great strides in my own learning by making use
of the concept of one-to-many-mapping. One such a mapping is the
content&form distinction in systems thinking. For example, I myself will
not try to compare "motivation" with "wholeness" since "motivation"
concerns content whereas "wholeness" concerns "form". Its like comparing
the left leg with the right leg and decide which one will sustain the
chicken.
Eventually I was compelled to ask the question "From what origin does the
one-to-many-mapping of the mind derives its power for thinking." This
brought me once again to a very long list of possibilities, contemplating
each one carefully.
As I now self understand it, the actions of humans are determined from two
ordinate levels, the one very low down and the other one very high up.
These two levels are connected by a complex field between them. This
complex field affords an "ordinate cybernetic loop" on which I wish to
write some day.
Its almost like how the motion of the needle of a compass is determined by
both the North pole and the South pole. In the case of electric and
magnetic motion Faraday came up with the brilliant idea that an electric
field emerge from an electric pole and a magnetic field emerge form a
magnetic pole. Thus the needle of the compass moves because its own
magnetic field interacts with the magnetic field between the Noth and
South poles at the position where the compass is situated. Maxwell himself
said that Faraday's idea of a field is one of the most innovative ideas in
the entire history of science.
Whereas electromagnetism involves two fields (electric and magnetic) to
give a self-contained explanation as Maxwell managed to show, the material
and mental actions of humans are determined by a seven-fold field. I now
use this metaphor of "field" rather than the phenomenological term
"essential" because Jan Smuts managed to explain uniquely much of the
interaction between wholes of the same and different orders in terms of
the concept "field of a whole". Perhaps this idea of a "field" coming from
Faraday will help fellow learners better than the idea of an "essential"
coming from Husserl.
Anyone working with a compass know how easily it can give abberated
readings because of local disturbances. Even though abberated, one cannot
call them wrong because they are the correct readings for such a local
disturbance. One can only try to wisen up to such local disturbances by
looking for signs which will indicated them such as many geological
materials lumped together. Some geologists have even mastered the art of
prospecting by using such abberations! Thus one also has to wisen up to
other behaviours as indicators of direction, for example, the side of
rocks or trees on which lichens grow. The desert affords fantastic
learning experiences in this respect.
It is the same with the "origin of power" with me in many cases of
explaining human behaviour. Sometimes the seven-fold field is locally so
disturbed that the lowest and highest level are incomprehensible or even
does not seem to exist. I then have to make use of other indicators too.
This is only possible because I have prepared myself in advance by
excersises to do so.
I have learned that very seldom I can offer a simplistic explanation (even
trying as much as possible) for a complex becoming like that of human
actions.
I can offer a simplistic explanation for the "origin of power". It is that
all power originates from God. But God also asks whether I should not
question Him without end on all His works. It even includes how all power
originates from Him. Thus I will lie to fellow learners should I claim
that the question to the "origin of power" is simplistic and offer it as
the only explanation. Is it not the oldest book in the Bible, namely Job,
which teaches us about the complexity of God and that true power can
always be recognised by its grace.
I think that Job and his three friends indeed formed a LO, although
unusual to Senge's present day standards. What would Job's learning be
without his three friends, even though their inputs sometimes increased
his agony. I cannot even imagine a book Job without his three friends.
I would very much like a LO-dialogue on this topic. I believe it is
something which Learning Individuals will never fathom. It requires the
learning in a Learning Organisation.
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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