Replying to LO25512 --
Dear Organlearners,
Don Dwiggins <d.l.dwiggins@computer.org> writes upon my:
>>What kind of evolution must the species "Homo sapiens"
>>(the only species in the genus) be involved with if it cannot
>>repeat the physical route? I think that the future evolution
>>of "Homo sapiens" ought to be spiritual rather than physical.
>>If this is indeed the case, then what spiritual activity should
>>we focus upon as the key to spiritual evolution? In my
>> mind there is no uncertainty -- for me it has to be "learning".
>
>Mmm... this separation of physical and spiritual bothers me.
>Can a species evolve spiritually with no relation to physical
>evolution? A related question: what is the physical side of
>an organization (LO or not), and what the spiritual side? Can
>they be completely separated?
Greetings Dwig,
Yes, a separation between the two will bother me also very much. It will
impair wholeness and thus our capacity to complexify creatively.
But is a distinction between the two the same as a separation?
Furthermore, if that distinction makes the one of a higher order in
complexity than the other, does this amount to a separation?
>Symbiosis is usually defined in terms of individuals. I've
>always wondered what the equivalent concept would be at
>the species level. For example, could the predator-prey
>species relationship be considered symbiotic?
Dwig, your question is so important that my lenthy answer to it will seem
to be once again a bout of uncontrolable show-off. But I beg you and
fellow learners to be patient because your question has important
ramifications to our topic in particular and the LO in general.
I am not a professional biologist. But biology has been "dear" to me for
many decades and have done many "daring" things in pursuit of
understanding it better. (Question the information in my reply to Karin
Schuler on "The milk project" ad to what I mean with rhis "daring" and
"dear".)
As I self understand "symbiosis", it is a very complex phenomenon. It can
involve individuals as you have thought of it. It can also involve species
on a higher level of complexity. But it can even involve to such a low
level of complexity as the organelles of a cell. The past two decades an
exciting understanding had been emerging among some cell biologists. In
the course of its evolution the cell did not make one after the other
organelle in it as it began to need such an organelle. (This need driven
creation was the traditional understanding. See how much it corresponds to
traditional thinking of human organisations -- create a job position in
the organisation as the need for it arises. I wonder when cell biologist
will begin to study the LO as well as LO consultants begin to study cell
biology.)
It now seems that various subcellular life forms, finding themselves in
the boundaries of cell wall formed within clay pores, began to function
symbiotically within that cell wall so that they became known as
organelles WHILE the functional cell emerged as a result of it.
Some complexity thinkers in the Kaufmann-Holland style will grab this
understanding as a magnificent example of that they call a "Promethean
CAS". A variety of things are brought together as a system. This system is
not a CAS (Complex Adaptive System). But in order to survive, the system
has to become a CAS. Afterwards, now adapting itself for survival, the
system is called a "Promethean CAS".
It is indeed possible and even beneficial to think along the line of a
"Promethean CAS". But is life really only about survival? What about
love-agape (unconditional one-to-many love)? Think about a person giving
up his/her life so that another person may live as a result of such a
"creative collapse". Yes, since the second person survives it seems that
survival is the strange attractor. But think about the first person's
strange attractor. Was it "love-agape" or "survival"? What is this strange
"love with not even life as its precondition"? How can God love us even
before our life has begun with a conception? How far have our mind not
wandered away from love-agape so as to make abortion free on demand?
What I wanted to stress with love-agape is that Promethean thinking can be
very detrimental to understanding higher order emergences in complexity.
Love-agape, for example, does not emerge in life-threatening conditions,
although it is certainly manifested by such conditions. St Paul had an
immense struggle already two millenia ago in teaching Christians that
love-agape maps itself to all facets of the personality because of its
compelling authority. Love-agape never claim authority over other people,
but serves them so that they also can gain authority over themselves.
Perhaps, to avoid thinking with blinkers, I should also stress that
Promethean thinking is very dangerous to the deep understanding of
hard-core chemistry rather than love which is too touchy-feely for many.
You will be surprised what majority of people (including chemists ;-)
think that chemistry begins when two or more reagents get mixed into a
flask. Bring a variety of compounds together and these compounds will have
no other option than to react chemically -- to show some adaptive
behaviour. It is not like that.
Firstly, storing the compounds in separate containers is chemistry and not
no-chemistry. It is actually forcing a labile equilbrium (keeping "free
energy" constant) on each compound in terms of a rheostasis. That labile
equilbrium is just as much chemistry as the stable equilibrium which will
be attained after all the compounds have been mixed in the flask and given
sufficient time to react. I am pretty sure that more than 90 percent of
all accidents in chemistry labs and industry results from people not
having even the slightest clue that a labile equilibrium is also
chemistry. All these accidents could have been avoided.
Secondly, it is not the bringing together which causes them to react. The
"bringing together" is merely to satisfy the essentiality fruitfulness.
What drives them to react, is the formula /_\F < W. When no work (like
electro-chemical work) is done on the flask, then the "free energy" F must
lower for any reaction to happen spontaneously at all. Otherwise (should
it not happen spontaneously) it is possible to force by external work the
internal reaction to happen non-spontaneously.
Here is an experiment which anyone of you (perhaps teachers) can do to
observe how many people of your organisation (perhaps students in a
chemistry course) are in the grip of Promethean thinking. Get all the
people together as an audience. First demonstrate to them some chemical
reactions which have a marked change in physical experience like colour
(eg. blue to yellow) or phase (eg. liquid to gas). Then ask all those who
had some schooling in chemistry to write down what they think will happen
when "sodium chloride" (do not use the name table salt) is mixed with
water.
The Promethean thinkers will write the following. A violent reaction will
take place with yellow flames developing and a yellow-green poisonous gas
liberated. The sodium of "sodium chloride" makes them think how sodium
reacts with water. The sodium melts and often burts into yellow flames.
The choride of "sodium chloride" makes them think of chlorine gas which is
yellow-green and very poisonous. What they then do are not to think of
"sodium chloride" as one thing, but to add the two things
"sodium"+"chloride" to water so that chemistry has to happen.
With these two examples (love from above, chemistry from below) I hope to
have given you a feeling that we should avoid Promethean thinking in
symbiosis too. Symbiosis is "living together of symbionts in a prolonged
or even permanent fashion". Symbiosis is definitely not "living together
of members in a temporary fashion". For example, marriages between human
couples fail at an alarming rate because many of them think of marriage in
the latter veign along Promethean lines. Furthermore, what will happen to
the cells in my body when the organelles in them begin divorcing each
other?
There are usually four kinds of symbiosis distinguished in biology.
1 mutualism -- all symbionts benefit from what each other produces
2 commensalism -- some symbionts benefit from what the other
symbionts producess while the latter suffer no detrimental losses
3 inquilinism -- one symbiont share in what another symbiont owns
(like a "home") without degrading the ownership
4 parasitism -- some symbionts benefit as a result of which the other
symbionts suffer detrimental losses.
On the level of individuals it seems as if the prey-predator phenomenon is
nothing else than parasitism. But on the species level it is rather a case
of mutualism. The predator species benefit in food. The prey species
benefit in genetic drift by the culling of the weaker.
However, the prey-predator phenomenon is far more complex than that. We
can have the situation where the prey species and predator species is one
and the same species like in for example many fish species. The predator
will then not only eat the mature weaker (mutualism), but also the
immature weaker (parasitism). Such cannibalism (biologists do not see it
as a kind of symbiosis) would have lead to the extinction of that species
if there was not some means of escape or protection in terms of a labile
equilibrium. Among cannibalistic species which do not have any means of
escape the protection of progeny by parent(s) as the proto-family has
emerged. The parent Y(2) defend the progeny from the predator Y(1) by
setting up the Y(2) - Y(1) = 0 homeostasis in terms of adults or a /_\X =
0 rheostasis in terms of the young. For a homeostasis the parent Y(2)
challenges the predator Y(1) with Y(2) = Y(1) which means "I am equal to
you so bugger off".
But what has all this ramifications to say for our topic in particular and
the LO in general? When we think that all fellow learners come together on
the list for information, chat, conversation, debate or argumentation, and
then suddenly expect the LO-dialogue to emerge, are we not thinking along
Promethean lines? Do we throw ourselves voluntarily together on any email
list and on occasions we have to make the best of this email list as a
dialogue, a sort of "living together of members in a temporary fashion"?
Is this what symbiosis is? Is this what a Learning Organisation is?
At the end of each contribution of every digest our host Rick ends with
. Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com>
. Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>
Do we take notice of the "public dialog" in it? Do we ask ourselves what
it means? Does it mean that we will have to stop seeking information,
chat, conversation, debate or argumentation and seek only lenghty replies
on lenghty replies in a rhetoric fashion as indicative of a LO-dialogue. No,
heaven forbid that. I am not trying to set an example which others have
to follow. I "dare" to speak out what is "dear" to me. I think that Rick wants
with the "public dialog" something much deeper. But let him speak out
how he wants it.
As for me, I self want a symbiosis in the sense of "living together of
symbionts in a prolonged or even permanent fashion". If I were the
moderator, I would allow any information, chat, conversation, debate or
argumentation so long as it is focussed on the LO. And as for the LO, it
is more than businesses and other formal organisations which can benefit
as a LO. Every kind of human organisation, whether formal or informal,
small as a family or large as a nation or even the UN, can become a LO.
Becoming a LO?
Why will any human organisation want to become a LO? Does that
organisation have the need for survival so that its members have to adapt
their organisation into a LO? I have little hope for their complex
adaptation efforts should they follow the Promethean line of thinking.
Whatever their organisation, they are not a bunch of individuals thrown
together and who, in order to survive, will have to become a LO.
[Do not confuse this with those who have become a LO -- they will be able
to survive or die such that EVERY member of that LO will be happy, whether
the choice is life or death.]
The very fact that they are already an organisation should warn them not
to follow the Promethean line of thinking because they are already in some
kind of symbiotic relationship. Perhaps they are experiencing too many
labile equilbria of which many cause them a lot of problems.
Nevertherless, what they each should strive for, is the best kind of
symbiotic relationship for their organistion. For biological symbiosis we
have seen that there is five kinds of synbiosis (should we include
cannibalism too). Which kind is the best? For human organisations many
kinds of organisational systems have been proposed so far. Which kind is
the best? Is it an issue of each kind being best for its kind of
conditions -- the hammer for a nail and the screw driver for a screw?
As for myself, I do not see a LO as another kind of organisation due to
its management model which is suitable for certain conditions. I see it
rather as a higher form to which any kind of organisation, whatever its
management model according to the conditions, can emerge into. Likewise
do I see our LO-list as kind of email list (of the management kind) which
has emerged to a higher order. Significant of this higher order is what
Senge calls "metanoia". I see "metanoia" as the sharing of novel thoughts
from which all of us will benefit -- mutualistic symbiosis so that all
symbionts will benefit mentally from what each other produces. And how
will it happen? Through what Rick calls a "public dialog". At the end of
every contribution he calls for it in a clear, yet unobtrusive manner. It
depends on us whether we will answer to that calling.
How will we in our dear LO-list emerge to that higher order? How will any
human organisation whatever its kind emerge to a higher order? I firmly
believe that there is only one way possible -- authentic learning. That
information may already have been made available. But information is not
knowledge while knowledge itself grows by learning.
We will only know by learning drawing from doing and not talking.
>>Dwig, thinking of computer programming languages, how
>>much symbiosis is there between them? (If you do not want
>>to answer this question, I understand.)
>
>Having watched the evolution of programming languages for
>four decades, I'd love to answer at length, but this probably
>isn't the forum for it.
(snip)
>More along the lines of my original claim: how many
>"languages" (linguists sometimes use the term "microlanguage")
>are there in an organization? How much symbiosis is there
>among them? Let me add to my earlier claim: you can tell a
>learning organization (or the degree...) by observing the
>relationships among the microlanguages in the organization,
>and by the way they evolve. Perhaps a good OD or management
>consulting group should havea linguist or two on staff...
OK, now I get a much better idea at what you are getting at.
The following will be the manifestation of its constructive creativity,
both emergent and digestive.
As for emergences, there will be in a LO almost as many "microlanguages"
as there are members to that LO. But before the LO stage there will be far
less "microlanguages". As for digestions, in a LO most members will be
after some time be fully multi-"microlingual" so as maintain the
LO-dialogue with every other member. Before the LO stage most members will
be mono-"microlingual", some bi-"microlingual, a few tri-"microlingual"
while seldom someone will be fully multi-"microlingual".
But to any outsider it will seem as if that whole LO with its speaking in
many tongues have been on a liquor drinking spree ;-) Perhaps some of you
fellow learners will now want to study the event leading to Acts 2:13 once
again.
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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