Replying to LO30583 --
Dear Organlearners,
Bill Harris <bill_harris@facilitatedsystems.com> wrote:
>Your perpetual reminding me that it has to do with free energy
>is helpful. Just to (try to) bring it down a level on the ladder of
>abstraction, here's the thinking I went through in my discovery.
Greetings dear Bill,
Thank you for telling me about your personal experiences. I think that you
are on the right track, although things may still appear confusing to you.
But first allow me to get of the ladder of abstraction by giving a
concrete example. If water in a stream has to flow on its own accord from
one place to another, it has to flow downhill so that its gravitational
energy (a from of free energy) can decrease.
While working through your reply several times, i began to get the notion
that you are not making enough distinction between the PRIMARY
"spontaneous action as as a result of lowering of free energy" and the
SECONDARY "prevention of spontaneous action by a free energy barrier" Let
me explain it. Think of the stream flowing downhill. This is the primary
spontaneous action. Now think of putting a weir (barrier) in that stream.
The water will stop flowing further downwards. This is the secondary
prevention of the spontaneous action.
There are two ways to get the water beyond the barrier. The first way is
to install a pump, driven by energy from the outside, to force the water
over that weir. This a non-sponatenous (coercive) action. The second way
is to construct a siphon (a pipe fully filled with water) over the weir.
The water, by way of its connection with water in the siphon, will flow on
its own accord (spontaneously) to the other side and hence further down
the stream.
It seems from my description so far that we cannot make an ethical choice
between the two ways. But let me add just one extra fact. The pump is
driven by child labour rather than gasoline. Now we can make an ethical
choice!
Using a siphon to overcome the free energy barrier of the weir illustrates
what every catalyst does. It helps the action which is spontaneous, but
prevented at some stage, to continue without itself getting consumed by
that action.
Catalysis is most important to leadership. A leader or manager should have
the insight to see when a spontaneous change gets blocked, step in,
restore connection without getting consumed and finally leave when the
change is on way again. In other words, a leader or manager should act
like a siphon rather than a pump driven by some cheap labour.
Bill, i hope that the above give some hint to the answer of your question:
>How do we when acting as managers "manage" the
>organization to produce certain results without coercing
>people?
>Perhaps i am completely wrong in what you still find difficult to
>understand. Please let me know if i am way off the mark.
It always struck me with awe that 99% of all biochemical reactions in all
kinds of living organisms from bacteria up to elephants need to be
catalysed. They are spontaneous reactions, but they are prevented by some
or other free energy barrier. In most cases the free energy barrier is
caused by too much complexity involved at some stage. Enzymes (biological
catalysts) never simplify this complexity, but merely reorganises it so
that it becomes fitting to the needs of the reaction.
To come back to the topic "Two years after 9/11". Is the USA ready for a
pardigmatic change, but prevented by a free energy barrier? If it is the
case, then it needs leaders who can act as catalysts. South Africa needed
such a leader and 1994 Nelson Mandela showed just how good a catalyst he
was.
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@postino.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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