Replying to LO26447 --
Dear Organlearners,
Alfred Rheeder <pvm@pixie.co.za> writes under the
Subject: Poor Dead Kitty-cat and Reality?
>I am however of the opinion that words often get
>"frozen" because of the peculiar nature of the
>mental model that you mentioned, the mental
>model of sensing and observing that things are
>happening by the presence of or in relation to
>things in an exact and iconic way!
giving us a glimpse into what will come later, namely
>The following thought struck me like a bolt of
>lightning. Should the LRC (Law of Requisite
>Complexity) be a reality, which I believe it is,
>then the requisite complexity of systems are not
>equal! The requisite complexity of system A does
>not equal the requisite complexity of system B.
>Yes Equality is not a reality. I have to contemplate
>what was said during the French Revolution. Liberty,
>Equality and Freedom? I am convinced that a mental
>model of Equality will prevent Freedom - it will be
>destructive!
Greetings dear Alfred,
Than you very much for your rich reply to Sajeela. It contains many fine
topics which I would have love to reply to. But that which I have quoted
above is in my opinion so important that I will focus on it -- Equality.
Let us first contemplate the "freedom". I think that there is not such a
thing as absolute freedom. We are only as free as all our constraints
(including mental models) allow us to change. For me these constraints
involve content and form. The 7 Es (seven essentialities of creativity)
help me to discover constraints in form. The dance of LEP on LEC (free
energy, entropy production, bifurcation, digestion, etc.) help me to
discover constraints in content. Hence I become more free as I become
aware of constraints and then undo them. Consequently freedom is for me
something which has to evolve endlessly. It reaches its highest level in
this dispensation when we understand how we become most free through
Love-Agape.
For example, we do not become more free when we live in a society driven
by hate and using destruction to imbetter the past, even should that
society have freedom as one of its goals. The French Revolution itself
teaches how much freedom was lost through hate and destruction as
constraints. You, Chris, I and some other fellow South African learners
are experiencing once again how hate and destruction, in the (still lofty)
names of patriotism and transformation, are reducing freedom gradually in
our country. Poverty and crime are soaring, indicating how freedom ablates
away.
Let us now contemplate the "brotherhood". This word will anger many a
feminist. Perhaps a "brother- and sisterhood" will satisfy them. However,
the younger generation thinks differently from the older generation. Thus
the old men and old woman and the very young kid to which sex means
nothing, may feel left out. I would then rather suggest "humanhood" to
include all the people despite their differences.
What can any "xxx-hood" less than "humanhood" lead to? Let us consider as
example the Republic of South Africa (RSA). During its 44 years of
apartheid, the RSA was ruled by a secret society called the Afrikaner
Broederbond. Only persons satisfying certain strict requirements (men,
white skinned, Afrikaans speaking, Calvinistic religion, etc.) were
elected into this "brotherhood". A most illuminating book to read is "The
Super-Afrikaners" (1978) by I Wilkins and H Strydom.
Black and coloured people think that white people too there freedom away
from them. But a study of this book (and others) will reveal how the
"brotherhood" took freedom away even from whites. They took away from the
white electorate those mental kinds of freedom which would keep the
"brotherhood" in power forever. This made it possible for non-whites to
regain their own freedom lost by apartheid.
However, most countries in Africa, even the RSA, are now entering a new
phase of "brotherhood" which I perhaps can denotate by the word
"panafricahood". (Ethnologically speaking, the indigenous, Negroid peoples
of all Africa are called Africans. The far majority of them do not
consider Afrikaners as Africans. Neither do they consider non-black people
coming from other continents like Europe and Asia as Africans.) Only
people who subscribe to the ideals of African leaders are welcome to this
"panafricahood" -- the rest rather ought to leave Africa for good. This
"panafricahood" had been developing for many decades under the philosophy
of Panafricanism as its guide. It has been responsible for many traumatic
events all over Africa.
However, my goal is not to focus in this contribution on the
"brotherhood". I rather want to invite all fellow learners to contemplate
the call for "equality". My first shocking lesson as a teacher some thirty
years ago was that all children are not equal. I had to pay much more
attention to pupils who were "less equal" than others so that they would
not become lost to learning forever. I began to discover gradually how
they had to increase in mental complexity before the educational system
was of benefit to them. Somehow the system passed them on from year to
year into higher grades without taking into account that sooner or later
they will crash into the LRC (Law of Requisite Complexity).
Here in the RSA it is now said that finally all people are equal under the
law. It is not true. The poorer a person is, the less the law protects
that person equal to the rich. It is also said that all people will
finally have the same opportunities by introducing a complex strategy of
affirmative action. It is not true. By making the playing field in South
Africa more level, even less will be able to play on the unlevel field of
the world.
For example, farming which has inherently a high risk is not protected by
governmental measures any more so that our farmers have to compete
globally in protectionistic markets. Therefore job creation in local
farming has been reduced drastically so that poverty increased.
It is also said that our business sector has become much more equalised.
It is not true. Corporative business have grown somewhat, but very small
businesses are disappearing at an alarming rate. Corporative businesses
tend to deal with each other as their equals. But they avoid dealing with
small businesses because it would make their management much more complex.
For example, a country wide chain supermarket buy mostly from suppliers
big enough to produce consistently stocks for all their stores. Another
example, banks (also corporative) lend money far easier to big businesses
than small businesses. Even government with all its bureaucracy makes it
impossible for small businesses to pull all the paper ropes.
I think the time has come to question once again whether either equality
holds while we do not want to live up to it, or that equality does not
hold so that trying to live up to it destroys harmony between what is
inherently different. I think we will also have to question why equality,
should it not hold, have such a tremendous influence on the thinking of a
vast majority of humankind. Is equality among humans a Mental Model, or is
it a constraint following from some deeper Mental Model?
But I want to stress that above all we should think of how and iwth what
we will transcend should we find that equality is indeed responsible for
many of our social dilemmas. I used the word "transcend" rather than the
word "replace" because the latter concept is ruled by the misconceptions
of equality too. To "replace" equality, for example, by a model based an
inequalities, would be fatal as had been illustrated by dialecticism. Here
the "thesis" and the "antithesis" are considered to be exact opposites
(equal in terms of logical negation) through which the "synthesis" has to
be acquired by destroying the "antithesis".
For example, one of our biggest problems in the "new" South Africa is how
much "dialecticism" is now used to obtain equality in the economical,
political, social and religious walks of life. This "dialecticism" has
merely replaced the ideology of apartheid because so many present rulers
found as former freedom fighters safe harbour in communistic-socialistic
countries. Here they were trained in the ideology of dialectics. This
dialectics is often even used to strengthen Panafricanism into a
fundamentalistic philosophy which spills into the rest of the world as for
example "black power".
It took me more than thirty years in my own thinking to transcend from the
equality relationship "=" to the order relationship "<". Among other
things, my systems paradigm had to shift from simplicity to complexity. As
a result of these experiences, I can say that to avoid thinking in terms
of equalities is almost impossible. We cannot avoid it, we can only
overcome it by way of emergences, letting the new order to manage where
the old order could not.
For me the most profound social means to nurture such emergences in all
walks of life is the concept of a Learning Organisation (LO). But there is
a primary requisite to all LOs. LOs have to emerge from Ordinary
Organisations. To equate any OO to a LO whenever all its members are
learners, is not an emergence. It stays an equality despite all claims to
the contrary. I now believe that it is impossible to formulate any
emergence by as many equalities as can be mustered. The sum of all these
equalities will forever remain less than the greater whole which has to
emerge.
>Still dancing on the edges of chaos.
That is why you perhaps shocked many a fellow learner by questioning
"equality". Thanks for doing it. Thanks especially for doing it in such a
civilized manner. When a new order emerges at the edge of chaos, we often
tend to carry the chaos along with it. This is most dangerous to the new
order. The new order should rather drift to a new valley of equilibrium by
letting the new order mature self. By trying to destroy the old order to
sponsor a safer surroundings for the new order the ensuing chaos will lead
to a horde of immergences far more dangerous to the new order than the old
order.
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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