Subject: Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension LO25823

From: Chris Klopper (syntagm@icon.co.za)
Date: 12/20/00


Replying to LO25780 --

Dear LO-readers

After a long period of digestive learning I am (once again) crawling out
of the archival woodwork refreshed, stimulated and loaded with free
energy. I thank all the past and present contributors to the LO list for
this wonderful, growing repository.

On Friday 3rd April 1998 At wrote

>> A becoming which is constant behaves like a being.
>> Thus a becoming is linear when it behaves like a being,
>> but nonlinear when it behaves like a proper becoming.

That was (and still is) profound.

I practice as an Information Strategist. I support organisational
decision-making (fruitfulness) by working on (rehabilitating) the
information chain. In the attempt to render the flow of information
understandable (sureness) I have to strain to a more inclusive (wholeness)
understanding of it's liveness for myself. The pathology of information
chains is fascinating and the symptomatology thereof (including the
prognosis) frightening. It is my priviledge to work with many different
companies in many different industries. Among these I have often seen
'becomings which behave like a being", I have just never been able to
articulate it in so rich a picture. At, you have enriched my strategic
minds eye (my growing private gallery of rich pictures) beyond the measure
of words.

More recently Winfried wrote:
 
>My company has noticed that I started to approach strategical issues
>differently. I get the chance to structure my work around entropy
>production. Although I won't take that word in my mouth, the
>concepts help me to design interventions and ways to
>communicate - having a look at the rate of entropy production
>(confusion and ordering, bifurcations and digestion) and the
>essentialities and their interconnectedness (Onsager relations).

It is a very disturbing thing to see a large corporation, which provides
employment for many thousands of people who in turn support even larger
numbers of dependents, use all its energy just to maintain its present
level of organisation. It means there is nothing (or very little free
energy) left to put it on a course of ongoing strategic improvement. That
in turn means that sooner - rather than later - it will relinquish it's
vaunted and celebrated position of competitve advantage. Look at the
FORTUNE 500 list at 10 year intervals and witness the very poor survival
record of all but a select few.

It is even more disturbing to "take THOSE WORDS in your mouth" - as I have
done with conviction and much enthusiasm, only to walk away feeling as if
I charged a blank wall. The dents (and pain) are all in the wrong place.
I can't help feeling that this has much to do with the current debate
(mostly between Artur and At) concerning tacit knowledge. Years ago I read
a contribution to a debate by a neurologist. It was about observations he
made in terms of patients upon whom pre-frontal lobotomies were performed.
The procedure rendered them incapable of immediately recognising a
familiar object like a toothbrush. After a while (and if I recall
correctly) by a linear process of deduction (if...then...) they could work
out what it was indeed a toothbrush.

I firmly believe (even now) that my audience were mentally capable of
recognising the object 'free energy' I think they have what I would like
to think of as deep tacit knowledge. Deep, because it remains beyond my
reach. I may have lacked the necessary and sufficient conditions (all
seven the essentialities?) to stimulate the deductive process.

Perhaps it is not At or Artur, but At AND Artur. Keep going at it please.

kind regards

Chris Klopper
Syntagm Research
'How do you know, you know?'

-- 

"Chris Klopper" <syntagm@icon.co.za>

Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>


"Learning-org" and the format of our message identifiers (LO1234, etc.) are trademarks of Richard Karash.