Dear Organlearners,
Doc. Holloway <learnshops@thresholds.com> writes in LO15587
> We live in both worlds, that of conflict and of peace. That seems
> natural, and the learning organization can perhaps best integrate both
> worlds by balancing competition, strategy, acquisition with profound
> respect and love (philos? agapos?) for their world and a highly defined
> sense of the differentiated self.
Doc, our creativity (or complex adaptive systems) swings between two
asymptotes which I call revolutionary creativity and evolutionary
creativity. Revolutionary creativity happens far from equilibrium in much
chaos where a bifucation develops and finishes as either an emergence into
a higher order or an immergence into a lower order. The Brusselator is a
famous model created by Prigogine and coworkers to depict the emergence by
means of a complex, autocatalytic system of chemical reactions.
We have to try and understand that the emergent new order, already rich in
new qualities, is quantitatively still bare. Thus it has to grow to
maturity. This happens by means of evolutionary creativity. Evolutionary
creativity happens close to equilibrium. It entails many systems, some
feeding on (or in competition with) others in order to grow in each of
their emergent orders. I have created a model, also based on a chemical
phenomenon, which depicts evolutionary selforganisation. It is called the
Digestor. It employs two selforganising systems in a predator-prey (or
competitive) relationship.
The organisation (quantities and qualities in an hierarchial order) of
the two system determine how they will react digestively. The system with
the higher qualities has an advantage over the system with a lower order.
If the two systems are of the same order, the system with the higher
quantitative development has the advantage. The predator-prey can switch
roles when the prey succeeds in destroying (by immergences) the higher
order qualities which have made the other system the predator. The more
the difference in order, the more difficult it becomes to switch roles by
immergences.
This is where the discussion between me and Winfried as well as Doc's
comments come in. An organisation or society which positively promotes a
culture of emergences, will become more and more resilient to digestive
attacks. In other words, this organisation or society will fend off
possible attacks by predators through its own emergences (innovations,
intrepreneurship).
In a certain sense this evolutionary advancement through emergences makes
such an organisation or society very dangerous when its predating become
narcistic, i.e when it loses sight of its ecological position. We have
more than enough examples in almost every country of the world. It is
exactly where the relationship between humankind and the rest of nature
now stands.
(We have the same danger in revolutionary creations - the very conditions
which promote emergences also promote immergences.)
A self-centered predator, although it may be a complex hierarchy of many
orders, ensues when it has not yet emerged to the highest order. This
highest order can be best described by the term "unconditional love" or
"all embracing love". That is probably why Doc wrote (philos? agapos?).
The Greek word "agape" try to capture this "unconditional, embracing
love".
How would we describe this love of the higest order into which we can
emergence? To live in a loving harmony with our Creator, our fellow humans
and the rest of creation. When we have emerged to this highest order we
will not willfully promote ourselves by demoting the creativity of others.
We will not behave as self-sentered predators any more. All our operations
will be frontroom operations. Our love will enable us to endure with
resilience all hardships owing to the backroom and middel room operations
of others.
This love of the highest order into which we can emerge, is that which
distinguish the true learning organisation from pseudo learning
organisations as well as all other organisations of whatever kind.
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/>