Replying to LO24994 --
Dear Organlearners,
Gavin Ritz <garritz@xtra.co.nz> writes:
>However At and company have not actually registered the
>learning, they are too busy shoring up what they know (I am
>"being" a bit harsh here).
Greetings Gavin,
I wanted to complete my last contibution before taking a rest and follow
up other emergences, but I will have to make an exception and first reply
to your contribution. There are some very important points in it which
invites and needs careful thinking.
I focus in the LO-list on authentic learning and its complex context,
trying to help fellow learners to understand it. Should I write on all
what else I know and should that get past Rick, I wonder how much of it
will you be able to follow ;-)
>I shared with some a key on the issues of emergence not
>long ago and its linkages to TIME and the continuos field.
>(from a different point of view). AND MOST OF ALL THE
>REALISATION THAT AS SOON AS WE CREATE A VARIABLE
>(LIKE EMERGENCE OR ESSENTIALITIES OR BEING) IT IS
>IMMEDIATELY DISCRIMINATED HENCE NO LONGER A
>COMPLEXITY APPROACH. That is why Progogine, Jaques,
>Bohm (holographic theory) and company are so focused on Time
>(the time of chronos and kairos) and becoming because it
>tries to take the continuous field into account.(which is no variable,
>(the fact that I say this means I am now discriminating again,
>because I am now bringing it into being or creation again)....
When anything is created in whatever manner in a system SY, it happens
because of its very context or environment which is all the surrounding
systems taken together as the SU. Fragmenting that creation from its
system SY and especially from its context SU would certainly in my mind
constitute reductionism, or even discrimination as you put it. This is
exactly what I have avoided in the contribution "Efficiency and
Emergence". The lack of replies to it was questioned by Leo, wondering why
it had been like that. I have explained to him that I painted a
"complexity outcome" in a "complexity surroundings", something which I
regularly call "painting rich picture". I have given my reason why I do so
-- to avoid the very reductionism-discrimination which you point out. To
take something out of a higher level of complexity and let it loose on a
lower level of complexity without the conmtol of the ordinate cybernetic
loop is fatal to the evolution of both levels of complexity.
Another way by which I avoid reductionism, is not to "paint rich
pictures", but to use consistently and coherently the SU-SY distinction in
my personal elucidation of Systems Thinking. I will do so once again in my
next and last contribution on "free energy". I have done it too many
times to even count them so as to refute your following claim:
>The biggest error made on these threads by At and company
>is the use of the discriminated object (or variable) and the
>naming of them like (emergence), as we do this we lose the
>continuous field and hence the complexity approach. We
>immediately "become" reductionist. All systems thinkers seem
>to do this and be totally oblivious to it.
Thank you for your serious warning.
I do not want to speak for other systems thinkers. But what I do in my
private moments of contemplation, is to find out how sensitive these
systems thinkers are for the seven essentialities, espoused or tacitly.
Since the majority are not with us any more, it is foolish of me to say
how they would react to explicit information on the seven essentialities.
As for myself, I have written enough on the seven essentialties to make
the following hopefully clear.
I cannot adhere to some of the seven while denying the rest and still hope
for constructive creativity. Naming anything is for me part of the
essentiality sureness ("identity-categoricity"). By naming anything and
thus giving it a nominal identity, I do not deny the essentiality
wholeness ("monadicity- associativity") or any of the other five
essentialities. I try to avoid any dialecticism between any two of the
seven essentialities -- in this case sureness and wholeness. I have given
examples in the past how fatal such a or LEM-clash (Law of Excluded
Middle) between them proved to be. One of our fellow learners was
particularly struck by one of these examples and have refered several
times afterwards to it. It concerned sureness and wholeness. I argued how
this led to Apartheid -- the pinnacle discrimination which destroyed
people's integrity sooner or later.
I notice that you use "continuous" several times to stess the danger of
discrimination. As for me, my understanding of wholeness entails that it
allows for both continuous and continual in making up the one (monadicity)
web (assiociativity). A fine example of the "continual" would be all the
contributions of all fellow learners to our LO-dialogue -- they are
certainly not "continuous". Does this entail, by your argument, that they
are consequently all discriminatory?
>It is like looking at the vase and the face profiles we see only
>one or the other. "from an old thread"
This happens when LEM is one of our Mental Models.
>Emergence is seeing it all at once (very difficult) the dog and
>the lives of all dogs through history in continuum, their purposes,
>ideals, interactions and ends.
I try to extend my "time perception" as far as possible into the past as
well as into the future. As I understand it, one of the gravest dangers is
to "contract" that wide time span all into the present because it will
then lead to a reversible, simplistic and linear Systems Thinking.
Therefore I try to remember that the past is the past and the future is
the future and never try to mix the past and the future up in the present.
>Each level of complexity is linked to a specific time horizon
>(see Elliot Jaques) and each level uses a specific mode of
>processing (that is in the human brain). A lot of this is continuation
>of Piagets work.
[Host's Note: In the above quoted paragraph, I believe Gavin is describing
the model on his web site http://sites.netscape.net/gavinritz/info
.. Rick]
As I see it, each level of complexity is linked to a lower level and a
higher level. The development of each level depends on the how far the
seven essentialities have developed for that level. Should in a certain
system one or more of the seven essentialities be impaired, the level of
complexity in that system would take a longer time to be reached. Since
systems intermingle, we have around us some systems still depicting the
past while others already depict the future. To think of all systems of a
certain complexity around us as belonging to the same time horizon, is a
serious blunder. This exactly what happens in international relationships
between different countries. This is also what happens in South Africa as
a micro-version of what is happening globally.
>In fact as soon as we create the variable the whole thing
>crashes down because we are discriminating again (what I
>shared at the top of this message). There are lots of paradoxes
>here. A sometimes sound approach is to identify the tension
>(power) of the variable within the variable (not that easy) because
>there lies many of the clues to complexity (bifurcation point or
>energy bottleneck).
I have made many times considerable effort in our LO-dialogue to identify
the internal pattern of what you call "the tension (power) of the
variable within the variable". In the series "To become or not to become"
it was one of my goals to elucidate this pattern once again. I will
summarise it.
There are many forms of total energy E. Each form of energy is
a variable of the total energy E. It means that every form of energy
can increase or decrease by way of transformations. Every variable
(form) of the total energy can be expressed by two variables within
it, namely Y which is the intensive (non-scalable) factor and X
which is the extensive (scalable) factor. The product YxX then
decribes that form (variable) of the total energy E. A tension arise
when there is in space a difference between two values Y(1) and
Y(2) of intensive factor Y. This difference Y(2) - Y(1) is called an
"entropic force". As a result of this tension, the complementary
extensive factor X may change through time from the value X(1)
to the value X(2). As soon as this "entropic flux" /_\X = X(2) - X(1)
emerges, the following order relationship
[Y(2) - Y(1)] x /_\X > 0
is indicative of the "entropy production" during the transformation
of the energy variable. I have taken the liberty to call it a
"becoming pattern" since it makes use of the order relationship <
of becoming rather than the equivalence relationship = of being.
Gavin, I can still remember how, after about my tenth contribution and
many examples of "becoming patterns" on the topic "To become or not to
become", you told me in a reply of yours (LO24323) that
>On this becoming issue I propose we are not becoming anything
>at all this is a pure figment of the human imagination hoping
>there is some reason for our existence in this chaotic looking
>universe.
Since I trust nothing created be the truth, I am quite willing to question
the "becoming pattern" as a "pure figment of the human imagination". But
rather questioning it, you qualify in LO24350 my response as
>I think what you are doing is trying to give the continuos field
>and the discriminated object meaning.
while excusing yourself with
>Tension is purely the product of our fears and the value of our
>desires, hopes, put neatly the feared disadvantages and our
>hoped for advantages.
In a subsequent contribution (LO24563) you write:
>I gave you something that you did not receive. I will share
>this with you once again for the last time least you "perish
>on the way seeking to find what you desire"
>
>The formula for your motives lies is in this simple concept.
>Do not rush to defend your point but think and experience
>what I am going to say and do not answer me, I have no
>need to pursue this point.
(snip)
>Listen carefully.
>
>This formula has been used down the ages to bind us all,
>it is myopic and powerfully controls all those who embrace it.
>
>Do not defend your point.
>
>Here is the secret again.
>"It is one of the first lessons which one has to learn while
>exploring the desert. Seek something very obvious on the
>horizon to serve as beacon and then begin to browse towards it. "
(snip)
>Now for the other side of the formula:
>"Without this beacon you will get lost and perish. ......"
(snip)
>Remember the formula is the tension between: the hoped-for
>ideals, desires and our feared disadvantages, losses and dreads.
(snip)
>It controls you, it is not liberating, but gives the impression of
>doing so.
(snip)
>Contemplated this and you will have learnt' something.
I have carefully questioned myself as to what you have written, trying to
learn as much as possible from it. As you have requested, I have not
responded in defence to your evaluation, but have waited until you broke
the silence which now has happened. My silence have perhaps precipitated
the recent topic "Our dialogue here".
You say that the tension is a product of our "feared disadvantages" and
our "hoped for advantages".
What you are saying means for me that tension is the PRODUCT between
NEGATIVE outcomes and POSITIVE outcomes. As such the product between
something negative and something positive of the same kind has a negative
value itself. Only when the product is either something negative with
something negative or something positive with something positive, will the
product be positive itself according to algebraic laws. In other words,
the tension as you define it is of necessity something negative.
I say that creative tensions are specifically entropic forces, namely the
DIFFERENCE (rather than the product) between two values of a quality of
creativity (intensive outcome). As such the tension as a difference will
never be only negative. It depends on the two values Y(2) - Y(1).
Whenever, for example, Y(2) is larger than Y(1), the tension will be
positive. In fact, for this reason the very case in which we view Y(2) as
a positive outcome and Y(1) as a negative outcome, the DIFFERENCE will be
positive whereas the PRODUCT will be negative.
To define the tension as product entails that no matter how much the
positive outcome is stressed, multiplying it with a negative outcome, no
matter how minute it may seem, will make the tension itself as negative.
As such it then becomes one of the "feared disadvantages, losses and
dreads".
But to define the tension as a difference entails that stressing the
positive outcomes sufficiently enough will eventually make the tension
itself as positive. However, this does not make the tension "the hoped-for
ideals, desires" since tension alone (the [Y(2) - Y(1)]) is not a full
becoming pattern. It still needs its complementary entropic flux /_\X =
[X(2) - X(1)]. (See the essentiality liveness "becoming-being".) Without
that entropic flux and whenever the system is complex so that it will
exhibit Onsager cross inductions, the growing tension will map onto many
secondary "entropic force-flux" pairs through the Onsager reciprocal
relationships.
Let us look at one profound tension, namely that between the rich (the
"have-s") and the poor (the "have-nots"). The history of humankind has
many examples (eg. France, Russia, China) of social revolutions caused by
allowing this tension to grow out of proportion by neglecting its
complementary flux to happen too so as to deflate the tension as I have
explained with several examples in "to become or not to become". What
happened in each of these social revolutions?" Dozens of secondary
force-flux pairs were unlashed upsetting most walks of civilised life,
resulting in vast confusion among people because of the overall
complexity. In the past the tension between the rich and the poor were
contained in particular countries or regions. sparing the rest of the
world from it. But as we move deeper into "globalisation", the more every
country and region will become involved in any future revolution triggered
by the tension between the rich and the poor. Is this tension not
presently growing globally out of proportion? Can even the mightiest
country like the USA spare itself from from the unlashing secondary
force-flux pairs like in attacks on for example air liners or embassies?
It is very common to invoke LEM on the "becoming pattern"
[Y(2) - Y(1)] x /_\X > 0
The two values Y(1) and Y(2) are usually merely two of many more
possible values. But what now happens is that all the other
possible values for Y are "erased from the rich picture" so that
only the two values Y(1) and Y(2) remain. For example, people
who oppose themselves as the "poor" against the "rich" fail to
think of other people who are even far more poorer -- perhaps you
know the saying in Afrikaans which translates literally into English
as "complain about hunger with a bread under the arm". What
then happens after only the dual Y(1) and Y(2) are allowed, is
that they are set up as dialectical duals: either Y(1) or Y(2), but
not both -- either the rich, or the poor, but not both.
What now happens after a dialecticism has been imposed by way of LEM on
the entropic force [Y(2) - Y(1)] is a remarkable study in how the seven
essentialities interact. By using LEM the first time Y(1) and Y(2) are
fragmented from all other possible values of Y -- either "Y(1) and Y(2)"
or the "other values of Y". This discrimination impairs the essentialties
spareness and otherness seriously. Without the lower binding of spareness
and the upperbinding of otherness, the dialecticism degrades into a "free
for all war" in which the innocent get hurt most. This "free for all war"
is triggered when LEM is invoked a second time, either Y(1) or Y(2). The
second failing is usually the worser one.
There is a certain creative tension which is very real to me. It is cause
by the difference between "contructive creativity" and "destructive
creativity". In a certain sense I can allign your "feared disadvantages"
with "constructive creativity" and your "hoped for advantages" with
"destructive creativity". Should you care to study all the literature on
creativity, you will find that I am the only one who stresses the
"constructive"/"destructive" dialectic of creativity. Furthermore, I use
the seven essentialities to explain exactly how this dialectic emerge
since they actually helped me to become aware of this dialectic and later
on to understand its dynamics. That is why I am able to explain your
valuable warning
> The biggest error made on these threads by At and
> company is the use of the discriminated object (or
> variable) and the naming of them like (emergence), as
> we do this we lose the continuous field and hence the
> complexity approach. We immediately "become"
> reductionist. All systems thinkers seem to do this and
> be totally oblivious to it.
as I have done in the beginning of this contribution.
Yet even with respect to "destructive"/"constructive" creativity I still
try to avoid LEM as far as possible. Both are presently in me because my
Personal Mastery of the seven essentialties is a lifelong process rather
than a sudden outcome. Hence the tension between "destructive" and
"constructive" will exist until the end. I can let it either increase or
decrease. It will increase when I stop growing in one or more of the
essentialities by dogmatising an immergence of the past. It will decrease
when I commence with authentic mental behaviour by seeking for an
emergence in the future. Thus the "arrow of time" is real to me. The one
thing which I cannot and will not do, is to force other learners into the
same dynamics as a result of the "arrow of time", telling them that they
also must suspend LEM.
I know that I have to learn much of the seven essentialities. Unlike many
others I do not deny them as "fictuous imagination" since I have
discovered them all together by using more than "fictuous imagination".
Yet, even this discovery does not make me an authority on them who cannot
err in them. I can, for example, still let sureness immerge destructively
into demarcationism (or nominalism as Occam of the "razor" fame called it,
or the creating of "discriminated objects" as you call it) as I have
explained many years ago on our LO-dialogue. (See
<http://www.learning-org.com/98.04/0207.html> .)
Gavin, whenever I introduce a new "complexity topic" to our LO-dialogue, I
am not "too busy shoring up what they know" on this topic. I spend a lot
of time embedding this new "complexity topic" in its "complexity context",
so much so that I had to endure a lot of criticism on the length of my
writings. I do not mind such criticism because it encourages me to keep
trim even when the context is complexity.
So, when your critique points to the opposite, I am eager to learn how
depite all my efforts I can still improve on avoiding creating
"discriminated objects". But if it entails that I have to stop self
creating constructively and learn authentically by merely importing
through rote learning the "discriminated objects" of others, I will not do
so. Sureness is here at stake for me.
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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