Dear organlearners,
Steve Eskow <dreskow@magicnet.net> writes:
> But after thinking about learning and creating in that kind of verbal way,
> I come back to the questions facing me: how do I feel about school reform?
> Do I favor "privatizing" the Internet? Should the US withdraw from the UN,
> or pay its back dues? Do I favor compulsory health insurance? What necktie
> goes with this shirt and suit?
Steve, it took me much mental effort to think persistently in terms
of creativity in all the realms of my life.
> And I find that any formulas like yours do not help me: help me to learn
> my way to solutions, help me to create solutions.
It is not necessary to think in terms of my formulas to be able to
learn. However, it is necessary to see the act of learning, although
indirectly, as a universal act because we can learn about anything
in this universe. It is to the credit of Arthur Koestler that he saw
the act of creation as a universal act. I merely took over where he
left off.
> More fundamentally, you believe profoundly that "entropy" is a key to all
> the mysteries of the human condition:
Yes, "entropy production" together with "energy conservation" is one
of the keys. Day after day I test the validity af this key in a
Popperian spirit. Another key is the Living God, the Creator. Since
it is part of reality that only a minority believe in this latter
key, I expect a much smaller minority to investigate the pther key.
>
> >Entropy production is necessary to create additional entropy for the
> >universe, entropy needed to maintain future organisations when they
> >present themsleves. The future is forever before us so that we better
> >have to care much for it. By now it should be obvious that "entropy
> >production" is our link to the future.
>
> By now, At, is obvious to me that "entropy" is not our link to the future.
Steve, I consistently write about "entropy production" as one
complex concept. You persistently refer to "entropy". It is another
concept, but related to the former one. Mathematicians would say
"entropy production = entropy(t2) - entropy(t1) > 0"
where t2 is a time later than t1. This is the reduced description of
entropy production. The wholesome description of it is all together
very complex. See any advanced book on irreversible thermodynamics.
It is to the credit of Prigogine that we now kwow how this hideous
equation looks like.
I will honour your belief, but I cannot subscribe to it. Progogine is
not the only one who believes that "entropy production"
(irreversibility, dissipation) is our link to the future. Sir Arthur
Eddinton was the first person to express this belief. He called
entropy the arrow of time.
I tell the following story just to impress you with Eddington. Some
physicists believe that he was the first person ever to fully
understand Einstein's theory of relativity. It is told that one day
somebody made the following remark to him: "Only three persons
understand Einstein's theory of relativity". He replied with" "Who is
the other person?"
> And the notion that "entropy" offers us advice on how to improve relations
> between South Africa and the US, or whether to buy Microsoft stock, or how
> to improve education in the formerly Third World--that notion doesn't
> connect with anything that I can recognize.
To which I can only say: "connect-beget" is one of the seven
essentialities of creativity (and thus learning, if we accept that to
learn is to create.)
> Your Seven Essentialities are what some call a "totalizing general
> theory," what C. Wright Mills called a "Grand Theory", what Lyotard calls
> a "metanarrative."
That is to be expected since I discovered them by searching for
corresponding patterns between the chemical system (material) and the
mathematical system (abstract). Few people will argue that chemistry
and mathematics are not central sciences. Many chemists consider
chemistry as a grand theory and many mathematicans consider
mathematics as a grand theory. This often makes it difficult to
communicate with them effectively. Fragmenting (denying
"associativity-monadicity) and demarcating (denying
"identity-categoricity) the seven essentialities will also do it.
> Such theories have this in common with I Ching and Nostradamus and
> Biblical prophecy: after the fact, they can be shown to have predicted
> those facts--indeed an American author has just written a book called The
> Biblical Code, or something like that, which demonstrates that the Old
> Testament predicted everything that has occurred.
I can even use our local telephone directory as a source of code with
an apprpiate key to predict things which already has happened. But I
will not waste any entropy production on it.
> Long may you weave, At.
Steve, "quantity-limit" is another essentiality which I cannot deny.
Thus there will come a time when I will have to stop this weaving
with you.
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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