Replying to LO25023 --
Dear Leo and Lo'ers
> Gavin, you use the expression 'At and company'. Since we all form on this
> list a community, a companionship, should I read your expression as 'all
> of us' (including you)? If that is the case, why do you then put the name
> of At in front? Maybe it is because of sympathy with At, since I guess
> that he feels sometimes somewhat isolated.
I mean those that strongly associate with the concepts of the seven
essentialities and being and becoming plus a whole host of other concepts
that has got cosy without any challenge.
> You mentioned however something more important: the discrimination of
> variables (a contradiction as I understand you well). As soon as
> 'something' is named/taken apart/discriminated it will loose its
> variability and is not longer part of the process. Is this interpretation
> correct, Gavin?
Actually what happens as soon as we have a variable it becomes a
discriminated object not part of the continuous field (the wave or the
particle type concept). Both are in existence something like this: in
foreground [Discriminated object DO] [Continuous Field, CF] in background,
and [CF] in foreground, [DO] in background. They are always together, some
one once said that if you try observe something you find it attached to
the rest of the universe.
> If so, I see your point. However I think that your way of seeing this
> needs some precision. First of all, an emergence is in my opinion not a
> variable. It is a result of a process, the outcome. Birth and death are
> not variables, and we could discriminate these emergences without the risk
> or the result of fixation.
If that is so then it becomes a variable, an outcome is very much a
variable maybe only conditional, in one direction, but more than likely in
both directions. (see Systems thinking and modeling). Birth and death are
also very much variables have you seen the Systems thinking population
model with births, deaths, birth fractions, population and life expectancy
as variables? Not only that I can put a specific number to deaths which
actually makes it an interval variable. There are 10 deaths today
yesterday there was 5 that means there are five more today than yesterday
and we then have 15 deaths. We are dealing with a very nice interval
variable here.
> The thing is Gavin, if we accept complexity as it is and if we are afraid
> - for whatever reason - to touch complexity, we will walk forever in the
> thick fog, thinking that we know our way, thinking that we look, but we
> will see nothing. And we even can't talk and dialogue anymore with our
> company. That is too easy or too fatalistic for me.
I am not saying we must not discus these things I am saying I am
challenging At's point of view ( I am also not saying that it is
incorrect, quite the contrary)
> To comprehend complexity and holism (in this case used as rough synonyms
> and discriminated terms), one should KNOW of the variables, elements,
> characteristics, processes, etc. And if we talk about, study, or
> discriminate these elements, complexity will not a priori be lost.
> Complexity is too complex for such a simple action.
>
> But maybe Gavin pointed to the UNDERSTANDING of complexity in our MIND
> (which is another complexity). And please Gavin, reread what At has writen
> about this (rephrasing Einstein):
In my opinion I think At is stuck at a level of logic (abstraction ) that
misses the very point of complexity. Using mathematics and the LEM (or any
other of Aristotle's laws of thought) type logic is not useful for this
type of complexity. Hence my challenge. One needs a paradigm shift in
abstraction here. AND I am not saying how to do it, I am just challenging
the concepts " I am systems thinker (cybernetician) after all."
And I have read At's articles I have looked at his very first article on
this that goes some way back.
Leo it is all in our mind, the variable is not the object it is what we
choose the object to be.
It's in our mind.
Kindest
Gavin
--Gavin Ritz <garritz@xtra.co.nz>
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