Replying to LO24484 --
Dear Organlearners,
Dan Chay <chay@alaska.com> writes under the topic
How to reverse....LO24484
>At, in some of my no-spare time I've been grazing pretty
>intensively on thermodynamics in relation to energy insufficient
>to sustain 1) exponential growth dynamics in 2) complex
>adaptive systems. I'm still stuck on making the connection
>to mitosis and meiosis.
Greetings Dan,
We have now bifurcated into an interesting topic. But I want to stress
Winfried's profound insight into the original topic: How to reverse
irreversible changes. He noted that it can only happen by making an
irreversible change outside the system in the surrounding systems.
I am not surprised that you got stuck by connecting the mitosis/meiosis
pattern to entropy production and all which gets manifested by it. I
myself experienced much difficulties to see the underlying pattern. It is
only when I began to master a rich picture which contains many different
parts in it that I was able to see this underlying pattern pervading the
whole picture!
The basic pattern which you have to try and see is this in terms of
Systems Thinking. A certain system S has to evolve through successive
stages S(1), S(2), S(3), ..... to greater complexity. The question is how
the each stage get formed. Let us think in terms of the first stage S(1).
There are two possibilities.
The one possibility I may call the UNILATERAL possibility. It means that
the decisive information (system entropy) which will determine the future
evolution of S(1) into S(2) comes from only one source. Acid-base
chemistry, mitotic (asexual) cell divisison, commensalistic symbiosis,
leader-follower relationships and even mathematical substitution follows
this basic pattern.
The other possibility I may call the COLATERAL possibility. It means that
the main information (system entropy) which will determine the future
evolution of S(1) into S(2) comes from two (or even more) sources in
"equal" amounts. Oxidiser-reducer chemistry, meiotic (sexual) cell
divisison, peer relationships, mutualistic symbiosis and even mathematical
intantiations follows this basic pattern.
An interesting example is in the marital stutus of two spouses.
The law in South Africa distinguish between two cases:
* unilateral origin: in community of property (the husband
contribute mainly to the common possession) and
* colateral origin: outside community of property (each spouse
contribute to a shared possession by way of a contract).
Fifty years ago 90% of mariages was in community of property.
Now the figure is almost reversed.
When we look at nature, it is uses the colateral origin sparsely and the
unilateral origin lavishly. For example, in the physical body of each of
us meiosis (colateral origin) happend only once when the two gametes (egg
and sprerm cells) fused into one sigote. Zillions of cell divisions
afterwards were always by meiosis. This gave Richard Dawkins the idea to
propose his thesis of the selfish gene. The system protects its own
interests.
The reason why nature uses the colateral origin so sparsely, is because it
is so difficult to find matching partners among the incredible diversity
possible. To put its bluntly -- humans may mate with primates with almost
99% correspondence in genes, yet it fails to produce offspring as a result
of mismatch in the 1% of genes not corresponding.
The reason why nature gets away by this seemingly denial of the
essentiality otherness (diversity) is that it allows the system to connect
(by virture of openness) to irreversible changes in the surroundings. In
other words, the system does not have to include diversity by way of a raw
material in its original formation, but adapts after formation to
diversity in its surroundings. The key is thus to provide such rich
surroundings. (One of the reasons for my patnting rich pictures!)
The ramifications of this pattern in learning is profound. We cannot deny
the meiosis (fusion of two ideas, one from the teacher and one from the
learner) in the beginning. Thus at the outset a teacher is just as
important as the learner in contributing to synthesis of the idea. But as
soon as the teacher+learner idea has emerged, the teacher has to allow the
learner to explore in full the major the ramifications of this idea. The
only thing which the teacher still can do to contribute to the
development, is to make some irreversible changes in the surroundings
(Winfried's insight) to guide the developement of the idea in a certain
direction by way of meiosis.
If we really want to "fxxx ux" the future development (I do not have a
better way to express it), is to alter an initial colateral input with a
subsequent colateral input. To try an alter the consequences of a meiotic
(sexual) deed with a subsequent meiotic (sexual) deed is the most foolish
thing to do. It may seem crude to say it, but especially here in Africa
people try to correct the way of things with additional fxxxing. Meiosis
(sex cannot correct) meiosis (sex). A chemist knows this -- if he/she
wants to get life out of a redox reaction, it has to be followed up by
acid-base reactions.
I cannot stress how vitally important it is not to try and rectify or
correct a "many-origin" outcome by subsequent "many-origin"
strategies. It will only work if we are profound artists in
match-making.
Only God knows enough for such match-making. We should rather
try to sustain the evolution of the "many-origin" outcome by making
sound changes in its environment. Unfortunately, we seldom realise
that we are the main features in such an environment. Thus we
seldom change ourselves so as to sustain by mitosis what meiosis
has delivered to us.
Dan, it seems as if I have spoken about incomprehensible things. But it
is not. When I collect seeds of hundreds of different succulent plants in
the wild, all these seeds are the products of meiosis. When I have to grow
them in my hot house to mature plants which I can sell, ALL subsequent
activities are based on mitosis, providing correct soil, nutrients, water,
light an other ambient conditions. Only when I have to establish a new
generation of seed producing plants (so that I do not have to go back into
the wild to collect fresh seed), do I have the opportunity to sellect the
parent plants. Should I make a mistake, then the subsequent meiosis will
produce seed of which the following mitosis cannot correct the meiosis
selection.
There are many things in our human nature which we can change by making
suitable changes in our environment. The concept of a Learning
Organisation is the most important way to accomplish this. But we cannot
ever change the fact that we are Homo sapiense -- we had human parents and
we will give rise to human children. We have to accept this fact. The
inhuman practise to get rid of people who do not fit in, have to be
stopped now and forever. We just have to fit in everyone which we might
label as a "misfit".
When I think of anyone as a misfit, then I am the "misfit" because of such
thinking.
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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