Replying to LO25647 --
Dear Organlearners,
Gavin Ritz <garritz@xtra.co.nz> writes:
>However clock time is extensive you can divide it,
>add it so it is not an intensive factor. Motivational time
>is intensive it cannot be divided added to, its density is
>constant for that individual. It is the same in all proportions
>of the human mind.
Greetings Gavin and fellow learners,
I think that I have to explain this intensive/extensive distinction once
again. Please do not read this explanation as a doctrine, but rather use
it as a guide to ask questions which seldom, if ever, had been asked
before.
For example, consider what I have written below "Reality consists of two
complementary duals, the physical and the spiritual." It can be read like
a dogmatic claim -- talk, listen and little insight. But it can also be
used to generate many questions to assist one's authentic learning. A
teacher can generate such questions, but in the end the learner has to
generate themself. For example: What is meant by "complementary duals"?
What is the difference between a "complementary dual" and a "dialectical
dual"? Are there other kinds of duals also? Is reality not perhaps a tryad
rather than a dyad.
But first let me summarise why the distinction between intensive/extensive
is important. As for the material world to which the brain belong, no
substantial change can happen without a lowering of "free energy F"
driving the "entropy production /_\S". The entropy is produced by
force-flux pairs having the form
[Y(2) - Y(1)] x /_\X > 0
where the quantity Y is intensive and the quantity X is extensive. The X
and Y are complementary duals making up a form of energy of which the
value is given by the product X x Y. This insight is some fifty years old.
Because of its inherent complexity, the applications are growing at a slow
pace. However, minute changes in the sense of reversible fluctuations are
possible at the equilibrium state where the "free energy" is at a minumum
and the "entropy production" zero. This insight is some 100 years old. It
is a less complex concept and its applications have grown at a fast pace.
Perhaps the most profound of all physical changes is that which is called
evolution -- the complexification of nature and specifically the
increasing internal organisation as well as social organisation of living
organisms through millions of years. Although the insight that all
substantial physical changes is driven by "entropy production" through a
lowering of "free energy" is some fifity years old, the insight that
"entropy production" through a lowering of "free energy" is responsible
for evolution per se is some twenty years old.
Reality consists of two complementary duals, the physical and the
spiritual. Since LEC (Law of Energy Conservation) and LEP (Law of Entropy
Production) holds for the physical world, the question arises what their
relationship are to the spiritual world? Do they hold there too, or is the
spiritual world rather the very world in which they do not hold? How will
we learn and hence know that they hold or do not hold for the spiritual
world? If they do hold, does entropy production also happens also in the
spiritual world with entropic force-flux pairs? How will we identify X x Y
product pairs as complementary duals of the spiritual world? Can we expect
spiritual changes to happen without giving attention to the lowering of
spiritual free energy so as to produce spiritual entropy? Does the entropy
of a spiritual system express its degree of spiritual organisation just as
entropy does for a phsyical system?
The measurement of physical quantities are done with instruments and hence
intimately related to the evolution of technology. Today we can measure
more than a hundred of different quantities with astounding certainty.
Compared to this the measurement of spiritual quantities is still a vastly
unexplored word. Do we need advanced technology to explore this world, or
do we rather need advanced mentality to do so? In the example which I have
offered ("target" T as extensive and "commitment" C as intensive), I tried
to keep an open mind to all the question which I have asked above.
Both intensive and extensive physical quantities can be measured so as to
obtain a value for each of them for any particular system. However, the
standardization of their measurement differs because of the different ways
in which they add or substract. For an extensive quantity X the sum of two
values X(1) and X(2) is obtained by adding them numerically. Symbolically
X(sum) = X(1) + X(2)
But for an intensive quantity Y the sum of two values Y(1) and Y(2) depends
on what changes do happen and what changes are possible in the system.
We will often find that the sum is given by an expression which is called
a "weighted average" in statistics. These weights are always less than
one. Symbolically
Y(sum) = W(1)xY(1) + W(2)xY(2)
Thus we may think of extensive quantities like X have values like X(1) with
weights equal to 1, i.e
X(sum) = X(1) + X(2)
may thought of as
X(sum) = 1xX(1) + 1xX(2)
When I speak of scaling (decreasing like in halving or increasing like in
doubling) to distinguish between intensive and extensive quentities, we
should try avoid thinking of this scaling as addition or substraction. We
should rather think of increasing or decreasing the boundary of the system
in such a manner that the patterns of organisation in the system stays the
same. The best way I found to understand this for systems having a
spiritual dimension, is to gain first experience by scalling systems with
only a physical dimension. Thus, when I try to scale, say doubling,
mentally a human organisation (having physical and spiritual dimensions),
the CEO will not get doubled into two CEOs, although most of the personnel
in lower orders will get doubled.
A nice example to study this scaling, is the hour glass used long ago for
measuring time. Should I think of the scaling as addition (or
substraction) I will merely double the amount of sand in the hour glass,
leaving the glass itself unchanged. Thus the top part will take twice the
time to get empty of sand. This tempts us to conclude that time is
extensive. But should I think of the scaling as changing the boundary I
will have to double even the size of each of the glass halves as well as
the hole separating them and not only the volume of sand inside the
system. In this case the top part will take the same time to empty than in
the reduced version of the watch glass. From this we will have to conclude
that time is an intensive quantity.
I have to stress that few people in the physical sciences are aware of
this distinction between intensive and extensive quantities. Even less
scientists think of scaling physical systems in terms of this distinction.
There is a curious discipline called Dimensional Analysis (used in
designing systems for operation in conditions far from equilibrium like
jet planes) in which one becomes intuively more aware of this distinction,
although it is seldom employed formally to its full advantage.
I have to stress even more that far less people are aware of this
distinction between intensive and extensive quantities for systems having
also a spiritual dimension. I have often observed how an organisation got
scaled upwards so as to supposedly increase one of its measurable outputs.
Then, after some time, it becomes known through measurements that this
particular output has changed far less, if any, for the upwards scaling
done on the system. In most cases people were complete oblivious to the
fact that the particular output was intensive rather than extensive. What
they then usually did, was to set on a course of problem solving or even
worse, fault finding. Then comes almost invariably management through
forced control of non-spontaneous actions.
>The human mind is a void when we are born, we create
>attachments through many things, first through hunger,
>pain and pleasure. Suckling our mothers breast for warmth
>and sustenance. Then we start filling this void with facts,
>values, fears, pain, pleasure, hopes, ideals, concepts and
>notions, ambitions, seeking to fulfill some longing.
(snip)
Is the human mind a void when we are born? Is the first nine months in our
mother's womb merely for our physical development? Are we born as purely
animals from whence we begin to become humans? Is the first breath taken
by the baby also the sign of its mind being switch on like a computer? Is
this the reason why we think so lightly of abortion? Is this the reason
why we think so little of the mother tongue and how it helps shaping the
mind even before birth? Is this the reason why we so easily conform to
parrotry and find it so difficult to question any creative output?
>We keep covering this pain with more layers eventually
>forgetting what this pain is. We then start hoping and
>desiring, for ideals, attached to things or other people,
>hoping for salvation from this wound that we do not even
>know exists anymore. We don't even know the nature of
>this wound. But we keep seeking.
>
>Some call it the devil others call it the dark side, but it is
>our own pain. We are cut off from something and we think
>if we find this thing "the holy grail" all will be fine and happy.
>So, some think that to feel special and be seen will work,
>others want the comfort of others for security, others think
>that lots of possessions will do it. Others think that love is
>the answer, harmony in the world, no its must be the creativity,
>freedom, liberty. No it must be abundance, surely it is support
>of our family, no its the evil created by others, they are the
>problem. What turmoil we seem to live in.
>
>Because we have cheated ourselves we think we can fill
>that emptiness. So we create hope and have faith in another
>direction that maybe this will fix things inside, but inside
>we really now that this could never be. But we still cling to it.
>It's our anchor, we will die for it, it is our rock, the citadel that
>gives us strength.
>
>Is this really so, sadly no.
I think we allow ourselves to become cheated by thinking like the
technology (machines) which many from humankind are creating. Foremost in
the choir is the computer, the emblem of EBIT (Electronic Based
Information Technology). We buy our computer with some basic hardwired
programs in some of its chips, but otherwise just with unused active and
storage memories. We also buy the OS (Operating Software) with which we
are going to initialise it as well as the AS (Application Sofware) with
which we load it afterwards. We read a little about computers to become
literate and discover that all computing is done in terms of two opposing
electronic states symbolised by 0 and 1. We make our computer operational
and then connect by Internet into cyberspace with its virtual reality.
We never become aware that the entire virtual reality (and not merely
cyberspace) which we create with our technology is one big example of
non-spontaneous organisation requiring increasing levels of free energy,
sustained by ever increasing work (/_\F < W) offered by humans as the
slaves of such technology. The more we sit in front of our computers, the
more we isolate ourselves from a world with other living creatures which
self-organise spontaneously.
>We are but forever boxed into our minds time-space
>structure no longer a void but the potential to become
>infinite. But it can never be so because it is boxed in
>a finite brain. This makes us struggle for freedom to be
>liberated to express ourselves to be creative. But all we
>do is allow the pleasure principle to work. Energy flows
>through us (this is work) energy in flow. It gives us great
>pleasure and fantastic sensations. And we think this is
>the truth. We mistake this for Love, but all this is, is
>smoke and mirrors.
Should I confine myself to the system SY which I have created and ignore
its surrounding systems taken together as SU which makes up the rest of
the universe, I would become an isolated system which will act as a midget
universe itself. This isolation would eventually become like a system
operating in the void so that the system would begin to act as having been
created as a void itself. Such a system will sooner or later have lost all
its free energy without having emerged into all the higher levels of
complexity with Love at the top.
>No At, we are all prisoners of the algedonic signal
>- alas if only you could see. I have been there and
>back. If I could take you behind the Wizards curtain
>I would but it none of my business. This veil cheats
>us all.
I will become a prisoner of this algedonic signal when I ignore the fact
that an entropic force [Y(2) - Y(1)] is more than two opposing values
which complement the entropic flux /_\X which is more than an increment. I
will become a prisoner when I ignore the fact that all the entropic
force-flux pairs perform the dance of LEP on LEC by which I meander
between the equilbrium for one level of complexity to the edge of chaos
which opens up other levels (lower and higher) of complexity. Thus I will
think nothing of religion and think of Love-agape as a fake.
Gavin, you and I have something special in common. You have lived in South
Africa and I am still living here. The people of our country have been
subjected to such a diversity of algedonic signals which people elsewhere
can hardly imagine. It is a pity that our Jan Smuts (statesman) passed
away before we had the opportunity as thinking adults to have a
LO-dialogue with him.
Few have studied Jan Smuts as the "father of holism". I began to study him
only after 1985 for some curious reasons which I have described long ago.
But my admiration for this unique person grows by the month. To have
sustained and even developed his mentality in our country and also our
world bent on so much destruction and banal perceptions is most
extraordinary. I would encourage you to study Smuts too and use his
profound insights to help you question him as well as the world which he
did not allow to box him in.
A year after the publication of Holism and Evolution (1926) he gave a
lecture to students of the University of Witwatersrand. He said to them
that he speaks to them as a seeker among seekers. He said that he
had seen a light when he was young and that that he had been following
that light to guide him through the maze of life. He said that he speaks
to them at such point in time for which the words of the poet applies:
. The old world is dead
. The new unready to be born.
He stressed that we are not living in a fixed universe, but in a creative,
learning universe. He concluded by making a most compelling disclosure.
When he began to think in all earnest with wholeness as his guiding light,
he discovered that instead of the hositility which he had been subjected
to, he actually life in a friendly universe. This allowed him to read deeper
into the riddle of the universe.
>I also apologize to you about the techniques I used
>some months, I used a motivational lever to separate
>you from your motives and values, it was unfair of me.
>But I felt that you often use this very lever yourself,
>I am sure you are unaware of it. It's the very algedonic
>signal I go on some much about. And it does not allow
>for authentic learning. It is a mental means to control
>outcomes.
Apology accepted.
I have explained before how I make use of entropic force-flux pairs in my
midwifery. Entropy cannot be produced by only the entropic force [Y(2) -
Y(1)] or only the entropic flux /_\X. Both are needed as a complementary
dual. Sometimes I supply the entropic force [Y(2) - Y(1)] in my writing,
but then resist in supplying the entropic flux /_\X too. This has to be
done by the learner. (Perhaps some of these cases made you aware of me
misusing algedonic signals.) The effort of both of us then becomes Team
Learning. Other times I supply the entropic flux /_\X upon which the
learner has to complete the complementary dual by supplying the entropic
force [Y(2) - Y(1)].
To do this in cyber space is most difficult for me when compared doing it
with a learner in front of me. It is difficult because I cannot observe
what is happening to the learner and thus control my feed back loop as
swiftly as it should be done. Furthermore, learners come and go in
cyberspace, making it impossible for me to probe their actual level of
complexity. Before I can even think of doing it, the newcomer will take a
pot shot at me. But with a learner in front of me, I make as certain as I
can whether that learner has reached the "requisite level of complexity"
before even sketching either an entropic force [Y(2) - Y(1)] or an
entropic flux /_\X based on what experiences that learner has disclosed to
me.
I base this certainty on probing the learner's awareness to each of the
seven essentialities. I complement this probing on form by probing also
the content, trying to get an idea of the spiritual free energy which the
learner has available. I do not even try sketching either an entropic
force [Y(2) - Y(1)] or an entropic flux /_\X when the free energy is
dangerously low. I will rather try Team Learning by getting involved with
the learner as soon as possible into one of the five elementary sustainers
of creativity so as to help that learner recharging his/her spiritual free
energy. The more the free energy of the learner and the more the level of
complexity, the more I encourage the learner to complexify the dance LEP
on LEC. Sometimes, happening in front of my very own eyes, this
transformation of a learner now exploring is/her creative capacity fully
is more exquisite than any work of art which I have encountered elsewhere.
Aha, but it is just talk. How could we see, as Andrew asked indirectly in
another topic. Perhaps we need to learn the art of questioning.
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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