Dear Organleaners,
Winfried Dressler" <winfried.dressler@voith.de> writes:
>Obvious? Trivial? Just evident? Note that in the sense
>of my thesis, a belief is always reasonable. An
>unreasonable belief, or a belief that has not yet been
>tested for reasonability is a mere guess.
Greetings Winfried,
Please explain your statement "a belief that has not yet been tested for
reasonability is a mere guess" to me. I have had personal experiences
exactly to the contrary. In a past thread ("Virtual Faith") I mentioned
that I have stumbled on a most extraodinary message in more than a hunderd
passages of the Bible (with not a single passage contray to it) that
people should trust only God.
Today I firmly believe that I should trust only God. Furthermore, if you
ask me to reason (explain) it, I will do so with clarity, although I will
have to wade though the complexity of reality, bringing in concepts such
as entropy production, creativity and learning.
But thirty years ago it was completely different. I was very sure about
the message, but to me it was the most "unreasonable" message that I ever
came accross. If I now think about it in terms of what you have written
above, it was definitely no "guess". But I must admit that when I stumbled
on that message, it was also not a belief. In other words, the
"unreasonable message" was not yet an "unreasonable belief". But the
message was so clear that I could offer no reason why I should not accept
it as an belief. So I accepted it as an belief, not with the mind, but
with the soul. As you can expect, it immediately became an "unreasonable
belief", but it never was a guess.
What happened next? Because of this immense "entropic force" between my
mind (do not connect with it before you can understand it) and my soul (do
not understand it before you connect with it) and the "entropic flux" ( my
eyes rushing over the many thoughts over the context (passage) of each
reference to trust, the "entropy production" in my spirit became immense
and I speeded towards the bifurcation at the edge of chaos. The
bifurcation resulted in the emergence of a simple prayer; "Lord, please
teach me that this belief is reasonable. I am willing to learn whatever
it takes." In other words, I have connected my "unreasonable belief" to
your another belief of mine -- your very thesis that "a belief is always
reasonable" for that prayer to emerge.
Then another twenty years followed in which many things had to happen with
me before I could finally admit that it was not an "unreasonable belief"
any more.
I find it interesting that you stress the belief that "a belief is always
reasonable" by calling it a thesis. As I see it, a thesis is an essential
belief in the belief system. Take the thesis away and the belief system
immerge. A thesis is also very close to a paradigm in the sense that a
paradigm is made up of a number of theses. For example, the paradigm is
the molecule and the theses are it's atoms. The interesting question now
is, what happens during a paradigm shift (transformation) -- do all the
theses transform, or is it merely a group (one or few) of them which have
to change? I still believe today just as I believed thirty years ago that
"a belief is always reasonable", although I experienced during this same
course of time a remakable paradigm shift. In other words, this thesis did
not change during the paradigm shift. (I can think of a number of other
theses also which also did not change.)
One thing I still have to think carefully through. When did the belief "a
belief is always reasonable" became a thesis for me? During my years at
university as a student? It is interesting that both you and I have had
our major formal training in physics. I hesistate to use the word
"education" rather than "training" because the one thing which I HATED
during my "training" was that there was so little "education" in it. I use
the word "hate" because my feelings were really strong -- more than once I
felt like burning down a lecturing hall or making a bomb in a laboratory.
Was I not struck with blindness that my physics professors actually
educated rather than trained me? I do not think so. I became "educated"
during my "training" by going to the university's libarary, reading books
in stead of cramming facts and theories in my head as I should have done.
I devoured books written by physicists like Heisenberg, Bohr, Einstein and
Eddington trying to explain to the reader what physics is about. Our
lecturers expected us to do such reading, but they never cared if we did
it. Why am I so sure? I became very conscious of the fact that I seldom,
if ever, met them or of my fellow students among the racks of books. (I do
get absent minded when reading a book, but I usually sat on the floor
between the racks so that they had to stumble over me.) Did the belief "a
belief is always reasonable" became a thesis because of reading those
books? I really do not know!
While reading the books of phsyicists and chemists who themselves brought
fundamental changes about in physics and chemistry, I found it peculiar
that they often stressed that their scientific theories (systems thinking)
are worthless if these theories cannot be explained in ordinary language
to the general public (lay people). They also walked the talk. Was it a
clever scheme to keep the tax payers paying up? I really could not
understand it. And as the years went by, I noticed the same thing in even
older books of scientists at the frontiers of even older ages. It was not
a clever scheme, but it was definitely a strange, peculiar thing. Only
after my own paradigm shift I began to understand why they did it. They
longed for a Learning Organisation with humanity itself! They wanted to
share with all people their own emergences which they knew would
eventually have great influence on most people.
When I think about my education (and some training) during the five years
at secondary school, I can remember a number of incidents in which "a
belief is always reasonable" played a central role. But I am not sure
whether it was as a thesis or merely as a belief. When I think about my
education during the seven years at primary school, I can remember one
incident still vividly which happened in the last year (1957). By that
time I have read all the children books (fiction and non-fiction) and most
of the fiction books in the adult section of our town's public library. I
have also read all the fiction and almost all the non-fiction books in the
school's library. But there was one book which I feared to take in my
hands because it was so thick and its title was so intimidating "Die
Atoom" (The Atom). If I still remember it correctly, it was a tranlation
from Dutch into Afrikaans and the author was a certain De Vries. (Maybe
Leo can help me out on this one.)
Well, one day I took courage, borrowed it and began to read it. To my
great surprise it was unlike the other non-fiction books. It read like a
story book. But even more fantastic, I began to feel a deep understanding
of what is happening in the world of scientists and the world of atoms. If
I carefully think about it today, it was through the reading of that book
that I became aware of "a belief is always reasonable".
But, Winfried, for a belief (unreasonable, tested or not) to be a mere
guess, seems to be unreasonable for me. Maybe I am struck with blindness,
but I cannot see the reason in it.
>By the way, physics has made tremendous improvements,
>which cannot be stated for the humane sciences. May be,
>the difference, that makes the difference is whether conflicts
>are accepted as real or not.
Winfried, is this not very close to a judgement? If I were nasty, I could
have asked you to inform me about the measurements and inferences which
you based this conclusion on. If I wanted conflict, I would have merely
said that it is the opnion of a trained phsyicist. But I am very
concerned that we she should learn from each other. It is true that
physics has made tremendous improvements if we compare the phsyics of
today with the physics at the end of each previous century. However. the
same can be said for many other subjects, comparing each one with its own
history. This has to be expected -- evolution in both the physical and
spirtual world.
But what we cannot do, is to compare apples with pairs. We cannot do it in
physics, for example, we cannot say that momentum is a more tremendous
quantity than electrical current or that energy is a more tremendous
quantity than energy. But we have learnt in physics that we must seek all
the possible relationships between two or more quanities. Likewise we must
search for all the relationships between different subjects and even
faculties. If the one develops slower than the other one, there are
definite reasons for it. It is Interesting that all these reasons have to
do with the very modern subject called complexity.
>In this sense I wish to pose two questions:
>1.) What are the fundamental beliefs to Systems Thinking?
>2.) What kind of challenging older beliefs (wich ones?) led
>to those fundamental beliefs of question 1.)?
Let us all try to answer these questions. But in the mean time, think
about a striking observation which Robert Mayer made hunderd and fifty
years ago.
History teaches that the same person who posed
a question was also able to first answer it correctly.
This is a wierd conclusion, but it is true in the majority of cases.
Best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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