Dear Organlearners,
On 23 Dec 1997 Steve Eskow <dreskow@magicnet.net> writes:
> I would like to use a piece of our exchange to underline the problems
> involved in helping the individuals in a group identify their "taken for
> granted," the mental models they now have that may need to be modified or
> abandoned if learning is to happen.
Steve, I appreciate this line of investigation very much. Forgive me in
not answering your contribution sooner. As for the other readers, this is
a long contribution. Skip it if you are not interested on how "thruth
progress", shedding our fuzzy formulation of it.
> I begin by assuming that it is important that At and all see that At's
> "seven essentialities" needs to be seen as a "mental model" and not as
> unyielding and unchanging "truth."
I am not sure what you are assuming. If you assume that the "seven
essentialities" form a mental model, then you are incorrect. I discovered
the seven essentialities while trying to make sense out of something in
another discovery (1982-83). That former discovery was that entropy
production also shapes the abstract world of mind and not only the
physical world of matter and energy. It was an empirical discovery, the
details of which I will document in my book so that others can repeat the
experiment.
The "something" during that discovery, was three patterns presenting
themselves persistently during the discovery. (Let me call them
"processing structure", "wholeness" and "sureness"). I was baffled by
these three patterns. I knew that they were essential to the former
discovery, but I could not understand why. Nothing of irreversible
thermodynamics and even Prigogine's work on self-organising dissipative
systems suggested how these three patterns coherently contribute to
self-organisation. Yet, the more I searched books and papers covering the
entire academical spectrum, the more I found how often three patterns
figured intuitively in the account of whatever topic the literature was
about.
These three patterns remained mysterious to me, despite my seraches in the
literature. What was their relation to entropy production and
self-organisation? Until one day when I realised that even literature, an
"account of a topic", is a form of self- organisation. I then got the idea
to hunt for patterns of correspondence (isomorphy, adjunction) between two
self-organising (creative) systems, one from the material world and one
from the abstract world. I specifically remember how I kept on cautioning
myself that I have to choose two exemplars (specimens, representative
examples) as free as as possible from any mental models (fixed
perspectives). Eventually it became clear to me that I had to select two
exemplars, each one upon which hundreds of thousands of researchers had
worked through many years to achieve a general agreement (despite paradigm
shifts) on their properties, thus reducing the possibility of mental
models to a minimum.
I selected the chemical system from the material world and the
mathematical system from the abstract world. Believe me, once I have
selected these two exemplars and began hunting for the corresponding
patterns, I experienced frightening darkness. I realised exactly how
Christopher Columbus felt when he set out to disover the east by going
west into a sea unknown. You can imgine yourself this feeling by trying to
answer the follwing two questions. What chemistry do you observe in
mathematical thinking? What mathematics do you observe in the behaviour of
a chemical system?
I eventually discovered seven corresponding patterns. The joy I felt after
discovering each one, cannot be described adequately. I still remember
how, after discovering each one, a lot of things began to make sense. It
also turned out that the three strange patterns which I observed in my
initial empirical discovery, were three of the seven patterns. I was very
much relieved. But at that stage, even after having discovered these seven
patterns, I did not specifically connect them to the
emergences/immergences of bifurcations or creativity in general. This
realisation came a few months later when I was working on two fronts,
phenomenology and self-organisation at the edge. Only then did I realise
that these seven patterns were essential to all emergences and not merely
emergences in chemical or mathematical systems.
I will document the discovery of the seven corresponding patterns and
their generalisation to the seven essentialities of creativity in my book
so that anybody else can double check whether they are merely a mental
model or a profound theoretical discovery.
> At's model is for him a "paradigm," a frame through which he looks at the
> world.
Steve, a theory is open ended whereas a model is confined (restricted).
The seven essentialities form a theory and not a model because they rest,
apart from phenomenology, upon mathematical and chemical theories and not
models. (Whether phenomenology itself is a theory or a model, is difficult
to answer.) Furthermore, one of the seven essentialities concerning
openness makes them explicitly a theory and not a model.
You are right that the seven essentialities now play a central role in my
paradigm. After having discovered them, I was perplexed for almost 5
years. It seemed to me that I was an exception to Kuhn's theory of
scientific revolutions because I was operating from TWO paradigms, the one
"entropy production (dissipation)" and the other one "seven
essentialities". But we must never forget that Kuhn based his theory on
historical evidence. So I feverishly searched through the "history of
science" (old scientific books and papers of the original creators of
science) if somebody else gave a definite indication that he worked from
two world views and not one! Except for religious matters, no one appeared
to operate from two world views. I was very troubled on this matter. I
already knew and experienced how out of place I was for having entropy
production as the paradigm for managing reality. By admitting that I also
operated from a second paradigm make me feel like a fool.
Then, one day, while working on the immense philosophical problem on the
relation between content and form, I suddenly realised that all these
seven essentialities are necessary to describe the form of the
mathematical equation for entropy production! Whenever any one of these
essentialities are disregarded, the mathematical form of the equation
degenerates into something less which cannot describe entropy production
any more! Hence these two paradigms fused effectively into one complex
paradigm having content and form. (The form of the paradigm may also be
thought of as its mechanics, syntaxis or feminity while the content may be
viewed as its dynamics, sematics or masculinity.)
> If learning often involves abandoning a mental model on which one has
> relied on for years, which may have taken years to build, can we not
> predict that At will not abandon his model easily? Would it not be painful
> and unsettling for him to be asked to do so? Would he not resist with all
> of the intellectual energy he has, using all of his skills of language and
> analysis to retain that model?
Steve, I find it diffcult to accept this "skills of language". English is
not my mother tongue and I speak it seldom. I find it extremely difficult
to express myself in English, especially if I have to express things which
have not been articulated before. Often, when I read again through what I
have written, I wonder whether readers will be able to follow me.
Sometimes I think that what I have written, is not English at all, but
some wierd Low Saxon dialect mascurading as English. I am very sorry that
this complicates your task of understanding reality.
I had to abandon or transform hundreds of mental models which I have
constucted or taken over since childhood while tracing the paradigm
"entropy production in content and form" through all reality. This was not
easy because in most cases I had to evalute/weigh once again the paradigm
against the model, trying to remain as creative as possible.
Steve, you can be certain that I will not abandon my paradigm (not model!)
easily for something else which I have shifted from in my past. This is
what irreversibility (entropy production) is about! It is like asking a
mother to abondon her baby. But it does not mean that I am not willing to
conceive, carry and give birth to another mental baby! Irrreversibility is
not rigidness. I am probably more willing to shift my paradigm once again
than anybody else because of my past experiences. But I will not become a
partner in giving birth to a little monster.
If I can mention one figure from the history of science to rest my case,
it is Max Planck. He discovered the quantum effect while trying to
understand thoroughly what is heat and its relation to electromagnetism
and not merely Newtonian mechanics. (Heat plays an important role in the
operational definition of entropy). His discovery led to the birth of
quantum mechanics and a radical shift in technology. He could have ride
the success wave of quantum mechanics, but he kept on questioning heat,
trying to capture something which everybody else seemed to have missed.
Heat is not only about chaos. Heat is in strange way connected to order.
But how? The answer eluded him, but not Prigogine.
> Here is one belief about At's mental model that he expresses clearly:
>
> >No. It is possible for me to fragment them into more than seven
> >essentialities. It is also possible for me to group them into less than
> >seven essentialities. All these possibilities are real. I have disovered
> >these seven essentialities by hunting for corresponding patterns between
> >mathematics as an exemplar of abstract creativity and chemsitry as an
> >exemplar of material creativity. They reflect the position of mathematics
> >and chemistry after many centuries of research in both. They are permanent
> >in terms of the past, but definitely not in terms of the future.
>
> Suppose one reminds At that often the new "paradigm" requires abandoning
> the past paradigm as having little or no explanatory value, as we
> abandoned the "phlogiston" theory in chemistry.
We shift from an old paradigm to a new paradigm to achieve coherency and
consistency between more facts of observation. Our understanding or
explaining of anything depends on how many facts we can connect coherently
and consistently to this anything. Thus, one way to view a paradigm, is to
see that it act as the hub which connects to a network or web of facts.
This means that all those facts which does not connect to the paradigm,
elude not only our comprehension, but usually also our observation.
Consequently, when we shift from an old to a new paradigm, we only do so
when the new paradigm includes at least that which was connected to the
old paradigm.
I am glad that you have mentioned the "phlogiston" theory. Although the
notion of phlogiston (created by Ernst Stahl) occupied chemical thinking
up to the end of the eighteenth century, modern handbooks on chemistry
seldom have anything to say on it. The result is that we know so much less
about the shift from one to another paradigm.
Phlogiston was considered, among all the elements of a substance, that
special "element" which aided the spontaneous reactivity of the substance,
especially in combustion. I write "element" because although Robert Boyle
already proposed the concept element in 1661, nobody realised that mass
was a property of elements. Yet, the way in which chemists thought about
phlogiston, was that it was a special kind of element - specifically that
element which drives the reaction to happen by releasing itself from the
combustable compound. To use a modern terminology (jargon?), Stahl
considered phlogiston to be that special element which determined the
attractor state to which any compound would change!
Then entered Antione Lavoisier the scene. He began to weigh the masses of
the reactants and products of reactions. In 1789 he published a book by
which he caused a paradigm shift in chemistry. He showed that he could
acount for all the masses of the reactants and products and furthermore
that they conform to the law of condervation of mass. He showed that
phlogistion, if it existed, did not have mass because it could not be
meaured by weighing.
What did the chemists do? They simply dropped the notion of phlogiston as
a hot potato and thus stopped questioning what was driving a chemical
reaction to completion - what attracted its reactants to become products.
But Lavoisier merely showed that phlogiston had no measurable mass like
other elements. Thus it could not be an element. He did not refute the
other property of phlogiston, namely that it is the driving force of a
reaction.
Thus about a hundred had to pass before Willard Gibbs, by using the
concept entropy, showed anew that every chemical reaction do have a
driving force, namely its "free energy" or chemical potential. I have not
found a single reference in literature that somebody realised that Gibb's
mathematical formulation of free energy was a magnificant shift from
Stahl's primitive articulation of phlogiston.
Stahl's phlogiston theory failed because up to Lavoisier, chemists could
not distinguish the two concepts intrinsical to it from each other, namely
"element" and "free energy". The concept mass eventually provided for the
distinction - elements have measurable mass and free energy not. Does it
mean that free energy really has no mass? Only after Einstein we now know
about the equivalency between energy and mass. The mass associated with
the change of free energy (m = F/c^2) of a chemical reaction is so minute
that Lavoisier would never have been able to measure it with conventional
mass balances. Thus in priciple Lavoisier was wrong - if he had a
sensitive enough mass meter, he would have been able to meausre the mass
of phlogiston!
>From this phlogiston theory we can learn a great lesson. Where there is
smoke, there has to be fire. In other words, when there is a fact of
observation (the smoke), there has to be a theory which explains, descibes
and predicts (the fire). It may not be the fire we expect because of the
paradigm we operate from, but there is definitely some kind of fire which
we will eventually discover after having shifted to a suitable paradigm.
This is what Niels Bohr's Correspondence Principle, which he used so
fruitfully in Quantum Mechanics, is all about. We should never throw out
the baby with the bath water. Even if the water is dirty, we have to keep
searching for the baby and save it. The baby in the case of phlogistion
theory is "that which drives the chemical reaction to its future". Our
baby today is "that what drives us to a more complex future"!
> At has put years and love into creating his seven essentialities, his
> mental model.
That is true. But I do not agree with the "mental model" angle.
> So have most of us devoted years to constructing our frames, our models,
> our personal convictions.
That is also true. That is why we have to honour the earnest thinking of
our fellow humans. Even if it seems to us that most of the thinking of
some of them some of them is chaff, we are still oblidged to search for
the grain of truth among the chaff.
> It is all very well to talk easily of personal mastery , and of helping
> others change mental models.
Talk is cheap, doing is expensive. It is the deeds by which we back up our
words which makes the difference.
> Whether my models involve the belief that organizations are alive, or that
> life rests on seven essentialities, I find it hard to admit that my own
> beliefs are also mental models that rest on foundations that are as shaky
> as those I think need to be changed: because they are not mine.
Steve, if you say that I should not try to change your beliefs, you are
absolutely right. Your beliefs are subjected to your own mental
self-organisation, just as it is the case with each of us. But one thing
we can never canonize, is that our beliefs should not be questioned by
others. We must be completely open to our fellow humans for questioning us
without end. This is one of the ways by which we connect as human beings.
(Incidently, this openness is one of the seven essentialities!).
> If personal mastery means giving up chocolate, or learning a new computer
> program, I can commit myself to learning.
>
> If it means changing my mental model and looking at the possibility that
> there are not seven essentialities, or whatever the model is on which I
> ground my life...
>
> Easier said than done.
Personal mastery is more than taking from the environment (chocolate
sweets or computer programs) what suits us. Taking from the environment
what is suitable and favourable, consititutes the one main mode/phase of
creativity which I call evolutionary creativity. It always happen in a
diffuse manner at many places close at equilibrium where the entropy
production is low and order abounds. In the case of learning (mastering) I
call it digestive learning.
But personal mastery is also about rejuvenating our inner intellectual and
spiritual organisation. It happens far form equilbrium at the edge of what
seems to be an engulfing chaos. It constitutes the other main mode/phase
of creativity which I call revolutionary creativity. In the case of
learning I refer to it as emergent learning.
Emergent learning is not easy. It consumes our sources of free energy to
produce entropy like a monster, often leaving us exhausted. These sources
of free energy are the qualities of life which we belief to be as solid
and rigid as a rock. However, by the very shaking of them, we set the
energy free for possibly a new order to emerge. This we do by stepping up
the chaos of our becoming until a saturation point is reached - a point at
which we cannot depend on the dispersion of energy to the rest of the
universe any more.
However, at this saturation or bifurcation point, things do not happen
automatically as before. The future now becomes highly contingent. We can
joyfully emerge to a new era when we honour the complex web of
contingencies involved, or we can painfully immerge to a lower order if we
condone the imparing of some of these contingencies.
This complex web of contingencies is nothing else than the seven
essentialities of creativity. It took me an incredible amount of free
energy converted into chaos before I could order themselves in a manner
consistently and coherently to the rest of my experiences and those
documented by others. In my book I will try to articulate them as best as
I can.
But that will always be a miserable attempt because fundamentally each
person has to acquire all seven of them through his/her own emergent
learning, giving his/her personal theoretical account (explanations,
descriptions and predictions) of them. One person can never do this
emergent learning for another person. But after a person has learned these
essentialities emergently, that person can help as a midwife others in
their own emergent learning.
We often wonder what the differences are between individual learning and
organisational learning. One difference is intellectual and spiritual
midwifery. Such explicit midwifery is typical of organisational learning,
but very rare in the emergent phase of personal mastery. In personal
mastery we have to rely much more on our intuition.
But I often have insights how my gut feelings are shaped by my contact
with other humans, nature and God. I often detect in these gut feelings
the implicit (tacit) midwifery of the Creator and Creation. But I also
often detect in them my own hubric (ignorant, agrrogant) despotism,
especially when working together with other people towards a common . That
is why I value the dialogue on this list so much - to distinguish between
midwifery and despotism. Steve, this includes your highly respected
critisisms.
Best wishes
--At de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre for Education University of Pretoria Pretoria, South Africa email: amdelange@gold.up.ac.za
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