Dear organlearners,
James Carrington wrote in LO14807
> As long as we keep in mind that the implementation
> of this concept is relative to the observer. Many
> individuals are not aware of the dynamics of the
> discovery process and would tend to view it more as
> a rising (expanding) vortex of knowledge as I used
> to.
What we probably are thinking of, is a push-pull switching
with an overall drifting towards more complexity. Winfried
likened it to the swing of a pendulum. You liken it to a
rising vortex.
Your vortex comes very close to the dynamical icon (mental
picture) which I use to summarise a great amount of
complexity. It is a ragged, V-shaped vortex, very much like
a killer tornado. Both the vertical axis and the horizontal
diameter represents the complexity in respectively quality
and quanity. The loose ends represent immergences rather
than emergences.
> Regarding your barrage at the end of LO14807:
James, I did not try to indimidate anyone with a barrage of
salvos. If we merely count the words in what I have written
and what your written reply, who is making a barrage?
> >What I meant by the "origin of structure- process",
> >is how did these two concepts emerged within us? Were
> >their emergences a pure thing of the abstract, or were
> >there emergences also related to something we sense
> >outside us? Were their origin in the Big Bang which is
> >so often mentioned nowadays, or can we observe this
> >origin even today? Is it possible to admit this
> >"origin" without the creativity of humankind coming
> >into the picture? Is it necessary to know how the
> >concepts structure (being) and process (becoming) have
> >emerged within us, or can we simply go on and use them
> >as we do with many of our tools? What if
> >"becoming-being" is one of the contingencies which have
> >to be taken into account for emergences. What if
> >becoming- being is essential to emergent learning? Will
> >we not remain ignorant to emergent learning if we remain
> >ignorant to becoming-being?
> Once again, I have to seriously question the concept
> of an origin even in the contextual constraint of
> structure-process. Making order of (perceived) chaos
> is not a trait specific to human beings, therefore,
> I can't say that the two concepts emerged in humans
> at any point. It would be tantamount to this hard-
> core Darwinian saying that there was a specific
> origin to humans. If, however, we are to stick to
> conceptual thinking, then I can definitely agree
> that at some point man concluded that he has the
> ability to think and learn. This was probably about
> the time that someone created a god to explain that
> which was apparently unexplainable (Chaos). Deity
> worship is a characteristic specific to Humans.
> Sorry, I'll stay away from theological discourse
> from now on. It is necessary for humans at this
> point to understand structure-process, order-chaos,
> and the emergent learning involved with these
> concepts in order for us to further our
> development as a society of rational beings.
Every complex creation (system) is made up of lesser
complex creations (subsystems.) It is true for material
creations as well as creations of the mind (concepts).
Our concepts of stucture and process are not simple, but
complex. This is so because we can already say something
about both. It is only the degree of complexity of the
concepts structure (being) and process (becoming) which
differs from human to human. When I am asking about the
origin of these two concepts, my question concerns the most
inner layer (least complex level) of these two concepts. It
may also concern something outside ourselves which we may
have perceived through our senses.
Since this LO-list is about learning and not "full
complexity", it will be wise not to spend too much effort
on theological discussions. However, to avoid theological
discussions when trying to understand full complexity is
actually trying to understand a "reduced complexity".
I can only add to your last conclusion. I will use your
wording with a slight change (indicated by [..]) to it.
"It is necessary for humans at this point to understand
structure-process, order-chaos, and the emergent
learning involved with these concepts in order for
us to further our development as a society of
[creative] beings." In other words, I have generalised your
"rational" to "creative".
Rationality is only one of the many complex emergents of
human creativity. Another similar emergents are
"linguality", artistry and spirituality. Many people view
creativity as the superset encompassing all subsets such as
rationality, linguality, artistry and spirituality. My
experience is that these people find it extremely difficult
to think of creativity as something more basic from which
these properties emerge.
> All too often rational intelligent people find
> themselves limited by the inability to release
> themselves from conventional thought processes
> without even realizing that it is their own mind that
> is blocking the way. It is a relief to have an
> intelligent dialog on high concepts without
> digressing into religious dogma.
My experience is as follows. Whenever there is in a person a
stark mismatch between the complexity of the concept
"structure" and the complexity of the concept "process",
the person's creativity is impaired or "blocked" as you
have put it. I will honour your desire not to discuss this
blocking in religious matters. However, I am open and
willing to such a discussions.
> AT, I look forward to your book.
I wish a thousand or more will write a note to this effect
to my agent to help her with the publication of the book.
The book is unique in many respects. Publishers need books
which say something new on some defined topic so that they
can sell their books. This book says so much new on so many
topics - some topics (like chaos/order) only recently known
- that the book cannot be fitted into any existing category.
Furthermore, since it does not merely talk about the "web
of life" (to use tha name of Capra's book), but intends to
guide the reader into becoming one with the "web of life"
at any part of it, it does things which do not fit into
present tradition or convention.
Incidently, since she has made it known on another list-
server, Sherri Malouf <sherri@maloufin.com> has offered to
act as my agent. She often contributed to the LOlist.
However, I think that her present "lurking" on the list is
due to the fact that she is working through the manuscript.
> Could your capsulize your concept of
> imperative logic?
Although I do not intend it to be such, the following may
be boring, or a black hole, or an intimidating barrage to
those who are not interested in rationality or those who do
not have some background in declarative logic. If you do
not skip the following and discover that you want to ask a
question or make a comment, please feel free to do so. I
would appreciate it very much. Now for James' requested:
First of all, what sort of sentences will we study in
imperative logic? It is easy to say "commands". But do we
realise that objectives, goals and missions are examples of
imperative sentences? Do we realise that there is some sort
of logic among commands, although not yet formalised or
articulated as is the case for statements (composite
declarative sentences)?
The validation of connected statements in declarative logic
is done in two major ways. The one way is by proof
reasoning, using "beings" of truth such as axioms and
theorems and using "becomings" of truth such as inference
rules. Aristoteles already made use of this way. The other
way is by model calculations, using Boolean algebra or
truth tables as a model. Although the idea "calculemus"
originated with Leibniz in the seventeenth century, it
began to bear fruits only in the late nineteenth century.
Ususally two truth values are used in these models, namely
T (true) and F (false).
In imperative logic, I had to consider three "values",
namely "being", "becoming" and "being-becoming" (= system).
This make imperative logic from its outset much more
complex that classical, propositional logic. However, I
managed to simplify it into a two value system ("being"
and "becoming") without losing too much of its flavour.
I provided for both a "proof reasoning" and a "model
calculus".
The "proof reasoning" maintains a balance between deduction
and induction. The "model calculus" shows clearly what is
also argued in the proof reasoning, namely that logical
connectives such as AND and OR are NOT SYNCATEGOREMATIC AS
IN THE CASE OF DECLARATIVE LOGIC. In other words, whereas
in statements the logic connectives such as AND and OR are
believed not to have any truth value themselves, they do
have a being/becoming value when connecting commands!
I designed both the "proof reasoning" and "model calculus"
so that they match into the broader theoretical framework
which I offer to account for chaos, order and complexity.
For example, the calculus do not employ operators such as +
and x in Boolean logic, but rather order between becoming
and being!
There are also some other differences between imperative
and declarative logic. For example, there was a time when
I also believed as tradition and convention require that
declarative and imperative logic are disjunct. However, I
was greatly surprised to discover that declarative logic is
a subset of imperative logic. (It may depend on the manner
which I have formulated imperative logic and thus be a
subvective conclusion).
I then used this imperative logic to formulate in a symbolic
manner many of the well know "laws/rules/wises" of
teaching, for example, "work from the known to the
unknown". It is startling to see how all these "laws"
unfold in a symbolic manner or how Bloom's taxonomy of
educational objectives unfolds.
On the other hand, it is reassuring to see in terms of
imperative logic that the present clash in education
between the behaviourists who favour learning objectives
and the cognivists who favour learning concepts, is but
merely the result of a reduction of a far greater
complexity. We should take care not to favour exclusive
thinking by advocating either outcome based education or
structure based education. Both are needed to render
complexity more real.
All this happens in the 40 pages of chapter 8 in my book.
What I want to stress, after all, is that both structure
(being) and process (becoming) play an essential role in
learning. In fact, in a different chapter (6) of my book I
show that "being-becoming" is indeed one of the seven
essentialities of creativity. If we accept the tenet "to
learn is to create", then the role of being-becoming in
both appears to be not so far fetched any more.
Actually, I do not use the ordering being-becoming in my
book, but rather the converse becoming-being. This ordering
is much closer to what happens when chaos (of becoming)
bifurcates into order (of being). This is discussed in
chapter 5. Can you already se a bigger picture in the
making while I merely articulate your tacit knowledge? Or
is the bifurcation still far away?
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/>