Replying to LO26688 --
Dear all,
this contribution will only be readable for those of you who enjoyed the
journey on which At de Lange took us over the years. So please skip it, if
this mokka-concentrate is nothing for you!
Dear At,
(I put the parts of your contribution to which I connect at the bottom,
because then my selection will be clearer.)
Where does the negative-destructive connotation of the term "constraint"
come from in your mind? You surprised me by putting "constraint" close to
"sin".
>From the time when you wrote about the rate of entropy production I can
recall two equations:
/_\S>0
/_\/_\S<0
You wrote about upper and lower limits and these connected in my mind with
my seed-understanding of spareness.
We talked about slower and slower decreasing free energy until equilibrium
as a consequence. I think this was in the context of the digestor model. I
heavily struggled with the seeming contradiction that on one hand side,
the digestive phase of learning is the time of buildup of free energy for
the next emergent step and on the other hand it is a movement towards
equilibrium with decreasing free energy. What I have learned is that a
creative collapse of the equilibrium provides the free energy necessary to
create a seed of higher complexity. This seed only emerges, when the
necessary conditions - 7E - are mature enough for this emergence. This
seed will feed on the old organization as well as on outside sources in
order to grow itself to maturity.
You surely remember my learning. It was only after this learning that I
encountered the Theory of Constraints. And this was well after the
originator of the TOC, Goldratt, has learnt his lessons on the devastating
effects of broken constraints, effects like those I would expect from
impaired spareness, or from flooding a system with external entropy in an
immature state.
No-sin may be closer to god, I don't know (I have no idea what this no-sin
should be).
But no-constraint is as hell as an atomic bomb or a super nova.
For me, understanding constraints is YES-understanding. It revitalizes
(and here I talk of experience - my main concern was: where to get the
free energy from, which I need) in a similar manner as the insight into
spareness as an essentiality may revitalize.
I can imagine negative connotations of the word constraint only the
context of past destructive effects through rote learning in the net
between oppression and breaking oppression. I don't subscribe to this
game. But language and meaning of words is of couse not an individual
issue.
Liebe Gruesse,
Winfried
In a complex contribution, At de Lange wrote:
>An example of a "morphogenic" term which Christians identify with "sin",
>but which followed the path of sensation => experience => tacit knowledge
>=> articulation is the term "constraint" of Goldratt. However, as for
>myself, there is something in both the terms "sin" and "constraint" which
>deeply troubles me personally. It is that they have a negative-destructive
>connotation which then has to be transformed into something with a
>positive-constructive meaning. In other words, they cannot be used anymore
>to refer to the transformed result, except with the logical operation
>"non-constraint" and "non-sin". By always beginning with something
>negative-destructive rather than staying as much as possible on the path
>of positive-construction, is for me a huge leap backwards on the path of
>positive-construction.
>
>I am trying to say is that there is a gradual progression among humankind
>to say tacit knowledge in a positive rather than a negative manner -- to
>say YES with more understanding rather to say NO with comprehending less.
>A YES with little understanding revitalises far more than a NO with much
>understanding which rather kills. The 7Es (seven essentialities of
>creativity -- liveness, sureness, wholeness, fruitfulness, spareness,
>otherness and openness) have given me the capacity to do so. The very
>reason is that the 7Es are not simple, but that we have to complexify
>daily in them to keep on saying YES rather than NO. As Jan Smuts said of
>one of them, holism is not wholeness, but increasing wholeness.
snip
>I do agree that the rate of entropy production is as important as entropy
>production /_\(irr)S itself. The rate involves the expression
>/_\/_\(irr)S, namely the change (the first "/_\") of the change (the
>second "/_\") of the entropy (the "S") in an irreversible (the "(irr)")
>manner. A couple of years ago I tried to focus on it a number of times in
>our LO-dialogue, but soon discovered that we all know too little of
>/_\(irr)S to go into /_\/_\(irr)S. Thus I had to lower the rate of entropy
>production in authentic learning so that we all can catch up on /_\(irr)S
>itself.
--"Dressler, Winfried" <Winfried.Dressler@Voith.com>
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.