Ragnar,
If you are going to be examined on your findings I would urge you to be
cautious about citing Maturana and Varela as confirmers of the thesis that
"social systems" are "living organisms."
Here is some of what they say on pages 198-199 of "The Tree of Knowledge."
"Organisms and human social systems,therefore, are opposite cases...
Organisms and human social systems cannot be compared without distorting
or negative the features proper to their respective components."
Here is an interesting opportunity for our own "learning organization" to
look at a belief that may need to be discarded, but will probably be clung
too because it fills some need to believe.
Some of us need to believe that human groups, teams, organizations,
institutions, clubs, associations are alive and can be described by the
sciences that have been developed for living creatures: this mental model
resurrects itself regularly, is tenacious, and finds ways of moving
concepts like "creativity is entropy" into the discussion. It is, of
course, a metaphor with some utility, and properly used is of value: why
it is taken to extremes by believers is a case history in the power of
mental models to deceive.
Steve Eskow
--"Dr. Steve Eskow" <dreskow@magicnet.net>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>