Dear organlearners,
Morty, thank you very much for your introduction. I believe that
you will make very valubale contributions to the concept of an
LO.
You wrote:
> I developed a way about 12 years ago to identify the beliefs that are
> responsble for dysfunctional behavior patterns -- both individual and
> organizational -- and then quickly and permanently eliminate those
> beliefs.
I cannot argue with you. What you call a 'belief' is definitely
to a dysfunctional person a serious belief. But I suspect that
such a 'belief' is something which we may call a 'circumstantial
belief' or a 'multivalue belief' or an 'open belief' in order to
understand them better. I suspect that many of your clients have
either an extremely high level or an extremely low level of
chaos. Now what has chaos to do with it.
Both the emergence of chaos into a bare higher order and its
subsequent digestive embodiment are contingent rather than
automatical. I call the contingencies the seven essentialities
of creativity. Whenever one or more of them are substantially
immature with respect to the rest, mature emergence and digestion
will not happen as it should. We may even get immergence and
indisgestion. One of the seven essentialities is "open-paradigm"
- the 'joker' among the other six. Whenever a person falls
victim when confusing an 'open belief' with a 'closed belief'
('universal' or 'monovalued' belief), it points to a severe
immaturity of the essentiality "open-paradigm".
I like your phrase "quickly and permanently eliminate". I have
had many experiences of exactly this nature when helping a
dysfunctional learner to transform his/her concept of 'belief'
into 'open belief'. However, the person usually falls again and
again into this trap since the underlining essentiality "open-
paradigm" is still immature. But when the learner becomes more
mature in this essentiality so that it harmonise with the other
six, the person gets completely healed. And the healing is
indeed quick - so much so that it appears to be sorcery or
quackery to the ignorant.
What is even more remarkable, the person rapidly 'forgets' these
'beliefs' and the chaos/pains which they have caused. The reason
is that the learner has now CREATIVELY 'resolved' these 'beliefs'
into a higher ordered, more complex creation.
But consider the phrase "appears to be sorcery or quackery to
the ignorant" which I have used. Roger Bacon, one of the first
professors of the Oxford University 700 years ago, identified
four reasons why knowledge does not advance as it should. (How I
love Roger Bacon - he was really a square peg which his
colleaques wanted to fit into a round hole!). One of his reasons
is the ignorance of the those who profess to know all! This means
that they try to force their 'lofty (but open) beliefs' on the
academical system as closed beliefs, whatever it takes. In one
stroke of genious this makes Roger Bacon not only a system
thinker, but specifically an LO thinker.
Morty, you also write
> I've worked with over 1,000 individuals to help them get rid of
> such problems as eating disorders, depression, the inability to express
> feelings, phobias, etc. I've also worked with over 10,000 employees in
> over 30 companies to help them make fundamental changes in employee
> behavior and corporate cultures.
Have you thought about the phrase "fundamental changes"? Do you
have in mind what I at best can describe as a "paradigmatic
transformation in consciousness"? Because this is what happened
to me when I, among others, discovered the seven essentialities
of creativity. The seven essentialities of creativity
constitute what I call the mechanics (syntaxis, feminine, form)
of creativity. I also made another discovery which allowed me to
distinguish the mechanics of creativity from its dynamics
(semantics, masculine, content). I use the words in brackts to
create a context for the word which I use.
A learner or an LO may be dysfunctional in the mechanics or
dynamics of creativity. The dynamics of creativity concerns the
spiral "entropy production -> chaos of becoming -> saturation of
commutation- > emergence of bare higher order -> digestive
embodiment of higher order -> instability of structure -> new
phase of entropy production ......". Dysfunction can be anywhere
along this spiral. For example, entropy is produced by
force-flux pairs. (My forth coming book will explain it in
detail). Emotion is a typical entropy producing force. But an
emotion can also become dysfunctional. How?
One of the most remarkable properties of entropy producing (i.e.
dissipative) systems, is the Onsager reciprocal relationships.
One force, especially when it is not accompanied by its
complementary flux, can induce other force-flux pairs. In terms
of human creativity, for example, one emotion (an entropic
force) can trigger other emotions, each with or without its
flux. These cross inductions, especially if one force-fluc pair
is dysfunctional, can prove to be a real spanner in the works.
> Although we usually speak of learning "organizations." There also are
> learning "individuals" i.e., people who are open to constantly learning --
> which also is a function of realizing that their deepest and most solid
> beliefs are really only "a truths".
I agree whole heartedly, provided I assume your "a truths"
to be an open truth which has been closed. However, to speak
too loosely about 'beliefs' can in itself cause great conflict
and even great immergences. A person may even begin to believe
that there is not such a thing as "the truth". Whenever any
person separtes him/her from "the truth", it is the beginning of
the final death of creativity. Creativity needs fuel to run, and
"the truth" is fuel like "the art", "the right", "the spirit" and
"the love". Cut off this fuel supply and it becomes foolish to
externally force a system which cannot proceed on its own
accord. I consider this the most severe dysfunction in the
dynamics of creativity. It is causing immense suffering for
humans and nature, especially in the present age.
> I've written a book that was just published this month that describes the
> Decision Maker(R) Process, which is the process I use to facilitate
> individuals and organizations to eliminate beliefs. It describes the
> individual, organizational and social implications of the DM Process. The
> steps of the DM Process and a summary of how it works are on the web site.
I will have a look into it. The internet connection from South
Africa to the rest of the world is clogged up the past few days.
I wonder if it is not causing Rick any trouble?
[Host's Note: ...No trouble that I'm aware of. ...Rick]
Best wishes
--At de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre for Education University of Pretoria Pretoria, South Africa email: amdelange@gold.up.ac.za
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>