Replying to LO24587 --
Dear Organlearners,
Andrew Cambell < ACampnona@aol.com > writes:
>The difference between stupidity and genius is that
>genius has its limits.
>Anon
Greetings Andrew,
It reminds me of what Niels Bohr once said:
A genius is someone who make all the errors
in a shorter time than everybody else.
It is not hard to make errors. But what about making all the errors in as
short time as possible. Is this a hard thing to do? If it is, then it is
hard to become a genius. But how can we make all the errors in as short
time as possible -- in other words, how can we become a genius?
>We have what we have, no more and no less.
But it seems that a genius has more than what we have! However, your next
thought supplies the answer.
>I wonder if we can really think that they we can frame
>the symmetry/asymmetry of what is going on here, or
>anywhere?
One of the most profound asymmetries I can think of, is that of the
"world-inside-me" and the "world-outside-me". We can reformulate
these two ideas in Systems Thinking as the
system SY = "world-inside-me"
surroundings SU = "world-outside-me".
The genius allows more interaction between SY and SU than everybody else.
It means that the genius is extremely sensitive to the essentiality
openness and the paradigm shifts which it may entail.
Allowing interaction between SY and SU leads to transformations in both --
changes in form. Almost a hundred and fifty years ago a strange pattern
was discovered and given a name which means "same in work content". I will
not give its better known formal name so that your mind do not fall in
traditional grooves. Some dozen years later its complementary pattern was
discovered and given a name which means "increase transform capacity".
These two patterns are easy to articulate:
"work content" of SY&SU cannot change
"transform capacity" of SY&SU will increase
Again I have deliberately avoided the traditional articulations of
these two complementary patterns.
Now, what am I writing about? Some may guess the answer, but let us resist
from articulating it. Now let me quote again what you have quoted too
>Roger Bacon wrote "Though everything is not permitted,
>everything is possible."
You then ask:
>Does that not sound like a river to be forded? Does that not call
>out for a ferryman?
I want to ask something else. What difference is there between Bacon's
insight eight centuries ago and these two patterns less than two centuries
ago? Do "everything is not permitted" and "work content of SY&SU cannot
change" not have something in common? Do "everything is possible" and
"transform capacity of SY&SU will increase" not have something in common?
The only substantial difference is that it took six centuries to add the
"SY&SU" in the basic meaning of each of the two patterns. Will it take
another four and a half centuries to add another qualification to the
basic pattern? Well, things do accelerate a bit. It took one thousand five
hundred years to proceed from "tis steerizo" (something fixed) to
"everything is not permitted" and "panta rhei" (all flows) to "everything
is possible". It is only since WWII that ordinary people began to use
words which being with "eicos" (house) like economy and ecology. They use
his prefix "eco-" to articulate their tacit knowledge on the SU
(surroundings) in SY&SU. So the acceleration is clearly visible.
Acceleration towards what?
>By way of parting I approached an old Navajo and I asked him
>what to tell the children,
>" We see no need to create concepts to separate or fragment
>our daily lives."
Healing the whole broken so many eons ago. It may not be hard to do, but
it takes time because of the complexity which wholeness entails.
>Better than a BMW.
In our mother tongue BMW stands for, among other things
B = "brandarm" (penniless)
M = "maar" (but)
W = "windgat" (braggart)
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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