Was: Structuring-thoughts - Part 1 LO27183
Dear LO-comrades,
At de Lange wrote in reply to Leo Minnighs suggestion of a sixth
elementary sustainer of creativity (ESC):
>Finally, what strikes me profoundly about your suggestion that the EO
>"structuring-thoughts" might be the ESC "thoughts-structuring" is that it
>poses an immense problem. How can we know that animals also structure
>their thoughts? This question throws us deeply into topics such as
>creativity, anthropomorphism, animalism, communication, intelligence,
>consciousness and spirituality.
Greetings At and Leo,
Your autobiographic essay on your long and difficult staggering path
towards identification of ESCs made me aware what it takes to make a claim
like "here is another one". Does the most difficult part, namely to
identify elemenal organizer (EO) also in animals behaviour, provide for a
shortcut? Namely to observe animal organizing behaviour, name it in the
becoming-being manner of EOs and check it's role in humans creativity?
Wouldn't be such EO's most intriguing which are settled close to
destructive creativity? We would employ this EO without special training
as part of our evolutionary heritage, yet become most easily trapped in
destructive behaviour.
Let me take as an example thought-exchanging or dialogue. The word
dialogue does a lot to get this ESC as far as possible away from
destructive forms like flaming, blaming, debate, discussion... (where
exactly is the limit? We had many conversations on this question here.)
Usually the thought-exchanging stops when judgement sets in. At the root
of judgement sits LEM (law of excluded middle) as you have stressed more
than once. Checking briefly in my mind for the other four ESC's the
pattern seem to repeat:
ESCC (elementary sustainer of constructive creativity) ---(judgement)--->
destructive creativity
The pattern seem also to repeat for another three EOs (ESCs?), which have
been identified and stressed by Kepner and Tregoe and which together with
problem-solving form a system of operational management according to them:
situation-assessing
problem-solving
decision-making
future-anticipating
I started to wonder how close I could come with EOs which in themselves do
not include judgement but which in their use are often hardly
distinguished from judgemental thinking. It is here where I think that a
close look at the animals world is most necessary, because in my mind I
take animals as non judging creatures - to interpret specific animal
behaviour as judging would need to be questioned as anthropomorphism.
I wish to offer to the list strength-comparing (competition) as such an EO
(ESC?). Constructively, the outcome of this EO could be the development of
learning couples like master-apprentice or teacher-learner with the
philosophical schools of ancient Greece or the medieval guilds as
examples. Destructively we would think in terms of winners and losers.
Like on the role of dialogue we had many controversies on the role of
competition for learning organizations. Instead of trying to decide
whether competition is constructive of destructive in itself, we may gain
a more differentiated picture if we try to figure out constructive or
destructive forms of strength-comparing and find appropriate wording for
it - like dialogue and debate in case of thought-exchanging.
Liebe Gruesse,
Winfried
--KiWiDressler@t-online.de (Winfried und Kirstin Dressler)
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