> Good to hear from you again! As usual your post sent me into a
> "moonage daydream" as a colleague puts it (this is a good thing).
James, thank you very much. I have written that "happiness" is an
adjoint of emergences in which humans participate in order to answer
Carlos Neves' question about Happiness at Work. I would rather have
written that this "happiness" is a manifold with many "shades" such
as bliss, joy, ecstacy, gladness, pleasure, felicity comfort, etc.
(Please note the order of the shades.) But then my contribution would
have become too long for most readers.
Another manifold adjointed to human emergences is "pryness" with many
shades such as inquistiveness, curiosity, searching, questioning,
interests, etc. (Again, please note the order of the shades.)
We have a very serious problem here in South Africa as part of
Africa. Students here believe that since Africa has contributed very
little to the "world pool of knowledge", Africa will continue to do
so. Thus they try to memorise what the rest of the world has to teach
rather than to rely on their own emergent learning. Since they have
very little experience in emergent learning, they also have very
little experience in its adjoints such as "happiness" and "pryness".
The consequences are devastating. Consider the univeristy library.
Only a handful of students will be found prying amongst the books
between the racks. But hundreds of them will be sitting in the
library at every available table, trying to memorise a xerox copy of
some fellow student's notes of the lectures. I want to cry when I see
their long, unhappy faces. I want to cry when I see them "breaking
out" at extramurial activities, indulging in what no person with
a healthy spirit would ever do.
> I
> think that there is one thing missing from your post however. It fails
> to take into account the derivation of "ignorance is bliss". We must
> not forget that there are many people in the world who have no desire
> to change, learn, or 'emerge'. By and large, the respondents to this
> list do not fall into that category, but I have worked with people who
> spend more energy fighting change than it would take to try the change
> and reject it if it was found not to work.
James, I agree with your observation. I did not comment on this lack
of mental/spiritual emergences in order to keep my reply to Carlos as
short as possible.
I am excited that you have used the word "desire" rather than "need"
in your observation "there are many people in the world who have no
desire to change, learn, or 'emerge'". We should never forget that
human emergences manifest a third adjoint, namely "fondness". Again
it has many shades like longing, craving, desire, wishe, need, etc.
By reducing each manifold to its lowest shade, for example
"happiness" to comfort, "pryness" to interests and "fondness" to
needs, an "apathy" towards emergences is caused. A person who is
driven by comfort, interests and needs will not go far when the going
gets rough. All the shades in each manifold are necessary to provide
enough "free energy" to drive future emergences.
As soon as a person's "free energy" for emergences is used up, the
person appears to be in a state of "apathy". It is not possible to
break this state of apathy with external work and control, although
the person may undergo other changes. However, these changes will
stop as soon as the external work and control cease. To break the
apathy itself, a culture of emergences is needed. In such a culture
even the slightest emergence is imporant.
<snip>
> Variety _is_ a key factor to my satisfaction at work, and I am
> fortunate enough to work in an environment where variety and change
> are the status quo.
Variety is one of the seven essentialities of creativity. These
essentialities are necessary to ensure that a bifurcation from chaos
to order will result in an emergence and not an immergence.
Another essentiality is "being-becoming". Your "change" refers to the
"becoming" part of this essentiality. If "being-becoming" do not work
harmoniously as a complementary (push-pull) pair, then the emergence
will be seriously impaired. Usually, and as you have noted, it is the
"becoming" part which is underdeveloped. However, the converse is
also possible with "action junkies".
> "I am what I am and that's all that I am" - popeye
>
> JHC
>
> P.S. how's the book coming?
We are still trying to find a publisher. Some have already replied,
saying that the book is "too esoteric" to use the words of one reply.
It is disappointing, but I have expected this reaction. Why? The book
involves a major paradigm shift - comprehension of the material and
abstract realms of reality as two complementary sides of the same
thing with at least one unifying pattern, namely entropy production.
Among other things, the book not only documents the discovery of
the seven essentialities and explains them carefully, but also
employs them in the creation of the book. Let us just take variety as
an example, since you have mentioned it. We have great variety among
the academical spectrum: mathematicians, physicists, chemists,
engineers, geologists, biologists, botanists, soologists,
physiologists as well as systems thinkers, ecomonists, sociologists,
psychologists, educationalists, linguists, theologists, philosophers,
etc. The communication and cooperation between even two closely
related disciplines is becoming less as information is exploding. The
more important it becomes to set up interdisciplinary projects, the
more difficult it becomes to manage them!
We may group the professionals broadly in those who study nature
("naturalists") and those who study culture ("culturalists"). There
are very, very little communication and cooperation between
"naturalists" and "culturalists" on common issues. The "naturalist"s
way of doing things is confusing and intimidating to the
"culturalist"s way of doing things - and vice versa. In this book I
speak for both the "naturalist" and the "culturalist". This is
summarised by the book's subtitle: how to manage chaos, order and
complexity in nature and culture. Why?
The book opens up the common ground between nature/culture,
material/abstract, archaic/post-modern, etc in terms of three
concepts: "deep" entropy, "deep" creativity and "deep" learning. The
"deep" means that each concept has been formulated such that a common
ground for all parties involved has been established.
For example, "deep" creativity means that creativity is not a
property which merely humans possess. It is an immensely complex
property of the universe with human creativity at the top end of the
scale. Furthermore, creativity is the most valuable intelectual
property of both "naturalists" and "culturalists". Thus it has to be
formulated for both in the ways both are doing things.
Is it not madness and hubris to bridge the entire academical
spectrum? No. It is one of the consequences of a transformation of
consciousness. Such a transformation has to result from a basic
paradigm shift - creation is a whole - every human is a whole - every
creature is a whole - reality is a whole. Without this paradigm
shift, much of reality will remain a black box. Because of our
ignorance to this paradigm we will not be able to experience common
emergences and their adjoints such happiness, pryness and fondness.
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/>