Dear Organlearners,
Doc Holloway <learnshops@thresholds.com> writes:
...snip...
Doc, thank you for your kind words (which I did not quote). I also
appreciate the way in which you persist to brighten the dim edges of our
consciousness.
> Now, notice that I'm not writing about creating a new world or
> experience. I'm specifically writing about recreating what I've got--a
> synthetic approach to creativity, if you will accept that. This process
> encourages me to "fix" things that belong to others. Fix them because I
> believe they are wrong, because they don't fit well with my sense of
> rightness, of fitness. Indeed, our history is filled with attempts at
> fixing things. Each culture has its' own myths about the beings who
> exist to fix or alter the parts of creation that they deem imperfect. I
> assert that this is manipulation, and the consequences of these
> manipulations build up before us as a Tsunami striding across the wide
> ocean of Gaia and humanity.
Ok. Now I understand you much better, also bearing in mind your many other
contributions in furthering the cause of our civilisation. The crux of
your argument is:
"Fix them because I believe they are wrong, because they
don't fit well with my sense of rightness, of fitness.
Indeed, our history is filled with attempts at fixing
things."
If everybody is somewhat like you, then I would not mind their
manipulation. However, history is also filled with opportunists who
manipulate objects (people and nature) for their own selfish interests,
thus negating the interests of these very objects.
It is clear for me that we have to answer the following most important
question: What is in the best interest of all creation (humans and the
rest of nature)? Let us say it is XXX and not YYY. I would then be happy
if you would manipulate me to promote XXX. But I would be very angry if
you would manipulate me to promote YYY. Unfortunately, the nature of our
enquiries are that we usually arrive at many YYYs before we seldom arrive
at XXX. Thus we have to manipulate in such a way that we even bear in mind
the high possibility of confusing YYY with XXX.
I believe that constructive creativity plays an essential role in the
interests XXX. I qualify creativity with constructiveness because
creativity has a bifurcative nature, i.e. it can lead to constructive and
destructive outcomes. I believe that XXX is very close to promote
constructiive creativity in all creation.
A serious way to confuse YYY with XXX is to think anthropocentric. In
other words, to think that what is good for the creativity of humans must
also be good for nature. This leads to the myth that creativity is a
property which only humans possess. To shift from this paradigm of
anthropocentrism, we have to realise that creativity is a property which
other creatures and creations (which we do not even consider as creatures)
also possess. In other words, creativity is a property which can be found
everywhere in the universe.
Now, how will we operationally define creativity? If creativity is a
property which can be found everywhere in the universe, than we will have
to find another "thing" which also occurs everywhere in the universe. We
then try to make a connection between creativity and such a thing and test
wether the connection holds for all instances. Well, I have done it. My
operational definition for creativity is:
Creativity is the result of entropy production.
(See my contribution in LO16041 on Entropy and its production.)
By now you should begin to suspect that the dog is about to bite its own
tail - that manipulation is very much related to creativity. If we bear in
mind the third and neutral meaning of manipulation "manipulation is a
human which changes something on purpose", then manipulation is the human
facet of creativity!
Doc, you have carefully articulated your thoughts by contrasting
"artificial" and "recreation" with "create" which "trancends" and
"emerge", such as in your:
> There is, in humanity, the ability and urge to create. Not to
> recreate--but to create new worlds of images, dreams, thoughts. This
> act seems to transcend the synthetic urge to regenerate the old world.
> When people use their intelligence (whichever of the multiple varieties
> of intelligence they use) to merge with creation, they seem more prone
> to emerge with their own creativity. We each reach this stage in
> different ways, at different points, in our lives. Sometimes we deny
> it--or it is denied to us--and we continue to find ourselves immerging
> into fixing or altering creation rather than creating new possibilities.
Thus, in my opinion, you have moved dangerously close to the edge between
YYY and XXX. I appreciate your bravery. But we have to move right beyond
the edge of YYY to shift to XXX and not, hopefully, to another YYY. Again
entropy gives us an indication in which direction to move.
In the topic "Entropy and its production", I have made use of the
concept "free energy F" in a rather unusual manner. I did not explain
this concept at all, but rather used it to connect to your
experiences by writing:
The free-energy F of any system affects (has a decisive say
in) the FUTURE organisation (development) of that system.
It is now high time to complexify the concept of free energy F a
little bit.
Any change in any system by which the free energy F of the system
decreases, will happen spontaneously, i.e. will happen on the system's own
accord. Such spontaneous changes may be harnessed so that the system
become a source of work. Work is considered to be an organised flow of
energy. But any change in any system such that the free energy F of the
system has to increase, will not happen spontaneously. Such a change can
happen, but only when work and control by an external source are done on
the system. Thus the system becomes a drain of work if it has to change
nonspontaneously.
It is extremely important to understand that both revolutionary emergences
far from equilibrium and evolutionary digestions close to equilbrium
happen spontaneously. They constititute constructive creativity. There is
not such a thing that when a system's emergences and digestions will not
happen on the system's own accord, they can be forced by external work and
control to happen. Any such external work and control do not lead to
constructive emergences and digestions, but to destructive immergences and
consumptions.
It is now most illuminating to observe that whereas almost all changes in
nature happen spontaneously, the very essence of MODERN human culture is
to manipulate nonspontaneous changes. Our clothing, our furniture, our
houses, our gardens, ... and even our technology did not happen on their
own accord. We created them. Without us, they would not have existed. It
is almost as if they have become our icons for constructive creativity.
Unfortunately, we are fooling ourselves because of our paradigm fixation.
Most creations of our culture are not examples of constructive creativity.
They were forced to happen nonspontaneously. While creating them and thus
contributing to human culture, we cause innumerous immergences and
consumptions to happen which affects humans and nature in a horrendous
manner. This is the destructive side of our culture which we keep a blind
eye to.
Doc, you wrote a lot about fixing other people's lifes to which I agree.
Is it because you have tacitly assumed to promote spontaneous changes? How
do you feel about promoting nonspontaneous changes? I cannot promote them
without the following qualification: I believe that it is our very purpose
as humans to uncover the hidden beauty of this universe by making
nonspontaneous creations happen, but never, never ever in such a manner
that we destroy the revealed beauty of the universe. I wonder if we
vibrate in the same manner to the beautiful poem which you have quoted?
> Flowers, Too
>
> Flowers, too, suffer death,
> and yet they are guiltless.
> So, too, our own being is pure
> And suffers only grief,
> Where we ourselves do not wish to understand.
> What we call guilt
> Is absorbed by the sun,
> It comes to meet us out of the pure throats
> Of flowers, fragrance and the moving gaze of children.
> And as flowers die,
> So we die, too,
> Only the death of deliverance,
> Only the death of rebirth.
>
> Hermann Hesse (trans. James Wright)
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/>