Replying to LO25927 --
Dear Organlearners,
Andrew Campbell < ACampnona@aol.com > writes:
>...and now i learn that the O.U.P are putting the dictionaries
>'online'..so maybe that is the answer, in the UK they are
>going to make the dictionary 'alive' to new word productions
>by opening it to the 'net'...heaven knows where this will
>take you and Leo and friends in your lexicographical meanderings....
Greetings dear Andrew,
You are an artist. One of the things which a painter do to become aware of
the main message of a painting, is to step back, look at the painting,
step back further, look again, etc., connecting each image as the picture
recedes successively into the back ground so as to get the movie.
You will remember that entropy gets produced by entropic force-flux pairs.
To become formally aware of an entropic force or an entropic flux, one
must become aware of intensive and extensive properties. To become aware
of an intensive proeprty or an extensive property, one must scale the
system up or down. Those properties which scales as the whole system
scales, are extensive. Those properties which stays the same (or change
far less than the scaling) are intensive. A difference in an intensive
property is an entropic force while a change in an extensive property is
an entropic flux. Now why all this talk?
That stepping back of the artist is nothing else than an entropic scaling
as I have described above. It is done to become aware on the tacit level
of knowledge of what is intensive and what is extensive to the painting.
By steeping successively back the different memories connect together so
as to produce entropic forces for the intensive properties which change
slowly and entropic fluxes for the properties which change very fast.
Whenever both are present for some form of energy which the artist tried
to express, they can act as an entropy producing force flux pair. As a
consequence this extra entropy has to be manifested as a change in the
organisation.
For some artists this change in entropy and thus change in organisation is
the message of the painting. It is so for me too. I sometimes get almost
dizzy with excitement when listening to Beethoven's piano sonanatas and
how he use this technique of entropic scaling in rythm and harmony to
create musical messages. I wonder if it is for you so too. Perhaps I have
committed the unforgiveable sin of telling what I should rather have kep
silent on.
But I do it to come to our very topic of "Dialogue, language, learning"
and what you have written. Let us step back, step by step, thinking over
all the contributions to this topic as one immensely rich painting. To do
it we will have to open each one and read quickly through it. Then, taking
one step back, we skim again through each one, trying to get one message
for each paragraph. We keep on doing until we are so far away only one
message remain in the movie.
What message do you get? I get the message which says "transdiciplinary
thinking" and not disciplinary or interdisciplinary thinking. I have once
wriiten a little bit to this topic which is very dear to me and a few
fellow learners to whom it is dear too have responded in public and
private too. Now what has what is the connection between that part of your
response which I have quoted and this transdisciplinary thinking?
I firmly believe that as we go deeper in this millenium, transdiciplinary
thinking will accelerate the fastest of all kinds of thinking. This is so
because transdisciplinary thinking is the best (and perhaps only)
sustainable way in which we can transfrom our thinking from the paradigm
of simplicity to the paradigm of complexity. Now, in such
transdisciplinary, as soon as we have become "literate" (and not
necessarily "experts") in a discipline, we will need a "dictionary" for
that discipline. For languages it will be the typical dictionaries for
them, but not that "typical" ;-) I mean that they will look differently
because they will have to do what the transdisciplinary thinker want them
to do. They will in a very "condensed manner" (see the topic Learning
Condensate) for each word bring together its pronounciation, its
etymology, its thesauric context, its history of application, its
different meanings and its translations into main other languages. At
present I have to consult many dictionaries and often run my legs lame to
the library to get it done.
I want all of it done as a Learning Condensate on one CD ROM. I want it
for English, German, Dutch and even my mother tongue Afrikaans. I also
want it for languages of the Middle Ages which are not used any more. I
even want it for ancient languages like Gothic, Greek and Latin. My want
list is shocking, is it not? No, here in South Africa it is very difficult
to get hold of old books out of print long ago. In the case of expensive
dictionaries it is much worse. To reproduce them on CD ROMS with all the
IT software is now fairly inexpensive. The only thing still needed is a
growing market. And that market will certainly come into bloom as
transdisciplinary thinking is accelerating.
Likewise the use "discipline dictionaries" will also come into bloom. I
mean by this something like a "dictionary of mathematics", a "dictionary
of physics", a "dictionary of chemistry", a "dictionary of geology"and a
"dictionary of biology" as well as dictionaries of central disciplines to
the humanities like a "dictionary of psychology", a "dictionary of
economy", a "dictionary of politics" and a "dictionary of philosophy".
They will also have to be in the manner of a Learning Condensate as I have
explained for a language dictionary.
I think that "entropic scaling" will play a crucial role in producing
Learning Condensates. I know that you study our LO-dialogue on Michael
Polanyi (MP) closely. Just as I wanted to finish off my last reply to
Arrur, I said to myself. At, MP is not only a physical chemist and a
philospher, but also an artist. His meanderings with the "maxims" or
"rules of art" in Personal Knowledge is more than enough evidence for you.
Do that back stepping process while looking at "The Tacit Dimension" to
see its main tacit message. I did this entropic scaling and I almost fell
backwards off my chair. It was the pattern
. [we can know] > [we can talk]
rather patterns like
. [we can know] = [we can talk]
or the following pattern as some believe MP followed
. [we can know tacitly] = NOT [we can talk]
I know that these two patterns based on the
. order relationship > of becoming
. equivalence relationship = of being
have struck very deep into your own mind. The ">" gives rise to what I have
explained as the SINGULAR "one-to-many-mapping" (the word transformation
could also have been used for mapping). The "=" gives rise to what I have
explained as the PROLIFIC "one-to-one-mappings". To go from "=" thinking
to ">" thinking involves a paradigm shift so grand that few are ware of it.
MP wrote "The Tacit Dimension" in 1966 after a silence of nine years, a
delay caused by "hope and fear" he writes. In a mere 100 pages he covers
what he calls dozens of essays and volumes of unpublished work. He says in
the preface that his reliance on the necessity of commitment was greatly
reduced by working out the structure of tacit knowing. Then in one simple
sentence he writes: "It has a FROM-TO structure". He then continues in the
next sentence that it proved to be "a richly revealing presentation of
thought." Well, if MP did not here think of what I tried to express with
"one-to-many-mapping", then what did he try to tell us?
MP was indeed a great artist too.
My thinking on MP is now much more mature than two decades ago. One
reason is that I worked so hard and wide on the significance of LEP when
formulated in the form
. /_\S(un) > 0
and contrasted to LEC which gets similarly formulated in the form
. /_\E(un) = 0
I know that you also now are running around in ever increasing circles
like a dog who stopped chasing its tail (the = case), but a mission (the <
case) becoming clearer as the chase is going on in widening circles. You
have overcome your blind fear for anything even resembling mathematics. So
when you think about Leo and me, it is because you are doing it too ;-)
Remember what I have written to you so many times: "The knowing is in the
doing".
Can anyone running around in ever increasing circles not become aware of
wholeness (increasing wholes)? Do you know of an artist who excelled in
chasing the tail of "=" rather than the mission of ">"? What is the
relationship between wholeness and creativity? Can this topic "Dialogue,
language, learning" make sense without sufficient wholeness?
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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