Efficiency and Emergence LO25039

From: AM de Lange (amdelange@gold.up.ac.za)
Date: 07/06/00


Replying to LO25032 --

Dear Organlearners,

Gavin Ritz <garritz@xtra.co.nz> writes:

>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.

Greetings Gavin,

I want to particpate less (efficient ;-) in the LO-dialogue so that some
emergences elsewhere can happen. But you write some pretty important
things which I have to respond to for the sake of authentic learning.

I do encourage fellow learners to scrutinize what I write so as to promote
their own authentic learning. Thus I appreciate your response too. In the
same spirit I will scrutinise your own writings too.

You say that the seven essentialties do not get challenged.

Wholeness is one of them. The evolution of the concept wholeness has a
long history of many centuries. Thinkers like Leibniz, Goethe and even Jan
Smuts spring from my memory. Jan Smuts defined holism in order to show
that wholeness is the driving force for evolution. He carefully explains
in his book Holism and Evolution how wholeness involves both any whole and
its field of which neither can be neglected. Evolution is lesser wholes
forming and growing into greater wholes by cycles so as to uncover the
wholeness of the universe created into it.

You now write:

>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.

I am not oblivious to the corresondence between Smuts' holism and your
"disriminated objects" which you say "All systems thinkers seem to ... be
totally oblivious to it" (LO24994). I wonder how many fellow learners can
spot the correspondence too?

I have a serious question for all fellow learners. With what and how will
you challenge your understanding of wholeness?

In LO25009 you write:

>At de Lange's Essentialities is a reduction approach within
>a complexity approach.

The way in which I have discovered them, may be perceived reductionistic
since I have searched for corresponding patterns between ONE material
system (which happened to be the chemical system) and ONE abstract system
(which happened to be the mathematical system). I was fully aware that I
used ONE system from each realm of reality. Hence I followed it up
searching for the one-to-many-mapping in each realm. In this second phase
I had to make use of Husserl's phenomenology. That is the very reason why
the root "essential" occurs in the name "essentialties".

Even at this higher level of complexity, it is still possible to view them
reductionistic. That is why I stress that the seven essentialities pertain
to the FORM of a creative system while "entropy production" (involving
total energy, entropy, free energy, entropic forces and fluxes,
bifurcations and digestions, etc.) pertain to the CONTENT. I have stressed
that this form/content distinction is a complementary dual rather than a
dialectical dual so that LEM do not apply here.

And with this additional field as if not enough, I have worked several
times with fellow learners through the manifestation of this deeply
creative system in the ordered levels of the human spirit, focussing on
creativity, learning, believing and caring love. So where is the reduction
in my approach? I know where it is. Since I am aware how intimidating
complexity is, I have focussed on the main levels of complexity in the
human spirit, avoiding a host of other mnior levels.

I have another serious question for fellow learners: What is not covered
by wholeness?

>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."

To become aware of mispresentations is important to Personal Mastery.
Mental Models are important causes for such mispresentations.

I have written many times that as we shift from lower to higher levels of
complexity, LEM becomes accordingly less operational. I have also given
many examples. To claim that I persist with using LEM in high levels of
complexity may be your perception of what I am doing.

I will ay the logic issue aside this time.

In LO25031 you write:

>The key for your tacit learning At is, this is what drives you,
>what is it? You mentioned something in an earlier thread
>about frustration of some of your work not being recognised
>by colleagues, (the internal motives, what are they? What are
>the feelings associated with this?). You do not have to share
>this with anyone. This has everything to do with Human
>depletion deprivation and expansion and pleasure and desires
>and how the energy is structured (or stuck) around that.

I have to share the joy and pain with fellow learners so that they do not
get the false impression by claims such as "all problems can be solved" or
the "system guarantees 99.9% success". I have often said that humankind is
now experiencing one of its grandest paradigm shifts ever. Only history
will be the judge to this claim. Whatever role (minor or major) I self
play in it, I have to tell share the whole of that very role with fellow
learners.

Should the future prove that no grand paradigm was shifted, then the loss
will be minor. However, historical information on spiritual dymanics
during past paradigm shifts are scarce. See, for example, how little is
available on the Copernican shift. The little which Max Planck and Albert
Einstein wrote about their own discoveries were always a light of insight
to me. Paradigm shifts are, after all, emergences. Consequently, when a
person cares little for emergences, that person will not take any interest
in paradigm shifts too.

It troubles me when a person is not aware how LEM is used tacitly in the
arbitrary selections of demarcationism. Here is an example. In LO25009 you
write:

>Many of the worlds complexity thinkers are aware of this hence
>the focus on time eg (pschycological -kairos -the Greek for time
>(kinetic comes from this word) & physical, chronos, or
>chronological time (clock time) ) (two different meanings of time
>in Greek lost in the English lanaguage) and things like the
>holographic theory.

The word kinetic comes from the Greek word "kineo"=move.
I see little connection to "kairos"

The Greek word "kairos" means "moment of time", "arrival of time" and
"event in time". In other words, it refers to a short "interval of time".
We will use in English "moment".

The Greek word "chronos" means "span of time", "fullness of time" and
"measured time". In other words, it refers to long "period of time".

Let us try to avoid "discriminating objects". Let us suspend LEM. Let us
search for other Greeks words also used for time. I can think of three
now:

The Greek word "hora" means very much the same as the English hour, a
"regular interval of time".

The Greek word "heemera" is the longer version of "kairos". Whereas
"kairos" means "short interval if time", "heemera" means a "long interval
of time" like in "the days of Alexander".

The longest version of "kairos" is "genea". It means a "span of time
involving generations" or "dispensation".

In other words, the "field" of "kairos" is not merely "chronos", but also
"hora", "heemera", "genea" and many other Greek words with a temporal
dimension in them. This field goes further as we find by way of synonyms
other words related to "kairos", "chronos", "hora", "heemera" and "genea",
but less obviously a dimension of time to them. Its like establishing the
network between time, entropy production and evolution.

It becomes a mess should we try to "cut and paste objects together"
seemingly unrelated to each other at the first possible opportunity to
impress others. I do hope this is not the impression which I leave.

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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