Stan Berberich < sberberi@uhl.uiowa.edu > writes in reply to my comment:
>>.... love is the only power which can deal effectively with
>>destructive creativity. But this power is not readily available
>>to us because love does not emerge automatically. We
>>have to take care of love more than anything else.
>
>My question:
>Does anything "emerge automatically"?
Greetings Stan,
It is a very important question which tax our powers of perception.
As I understand it, nothing emerges automatically. All emergences are
highly contingent. The requirements (contingencies) for emergences to
happen are so complex that they reflect the complexity of reality. Thus
it is through emergences that we become aware of the complexity of
reality. (These requirements are nothing else than the seven
essentialities of creativity.)
A constructive emergence is one of the two possible outcomes of ordinate
bifurcations. The other outcome is a destructive immergence. These
bifurcations occur at the edge of chaos. This edge is reached by driving
the entropy production to break point. When one or more of the
requirements are not satisfied, the immergence (rather than the emergence)
will happen automatically.
We often find in nature that these requirements are taken care of as part
of nature's activities. Furthermore, we may even not be aware of such
requirements. Thus it it is easy to perceive in such cases that emergences
happen automatically. However, as soon as massive changes occur in nature,
these changes may impair one or more of these requirements. It is then
when we discover that emergences do not happen automatically.
When we observe the human species in particular, its physical brain
(neurological system) is so advanced that it can create innumerous
ordinate bifurcations in the abstract world of mind. By advanced I mean
that one single human brain has the capacity to trace (match. model) all
the different bifurcations which happens in physical nature. The result
is known as "deep" knowledge. With "deep" I mean all kinds of knowledge
Unfortunately, the mind has lost its power to direct the mental
bifurcations into only constructive emergences. Thus destructive
immergences occur far more in mind than in nature. In most religions an
awareness of this sad state of affairs is acknowledged and some of them
give an explanation such as "loss of karma" or "sin". Spirituality is a
reaction to this sad state of affairs. Spirituality is the ability to
optimise mental bifurcations in terms of constructive emergences rather
than destructive immergences in knowledge.
Spirituality is definitely not something which comes automatically or
which is sufficient to cope with this dialectical (constructive emergences
versus destructive immergences) nature of the human mind. However, it is
possible for us to evolve in spirituality just as it is possible to evolve
in intellectuality or creativity. To make this possibility actual, we have
to make use of the interaction between believing, learning and creating.
We can also study this interaction and incorporate the outcome of such
studies in our system thinking. This will help to optimise our
spirituality.
>Another query:
>Is love created resulting in an emergence or does love exist
>and we draw from it?
Stan, I will try to answer this very important question with as little
reference as possible to my personal belief as a Christian. To do this, I
have to make use of the idea that emergences create bridges. An emergence
connect two (or more) different things for a new thing to appear. (Browse
again through the essentiality fruitfulness to see how it happens. See
<http://www.learning-org.com/98.07/0206.html> .) The emergent plays the
role of the bridge.
In my systems thinking (which is a mental model when it cannot bridge the
mental models of others) I make a distiction between Divine Love and
immanent love. Immanent love is the penultimate emergence of God's
Creation. The ultimate emergence happens when Divine Love and immanent
love emerge into a new dispensation. For example, in the Christian
religion Jesus (Son of God and Son of man) is the prototype of this new
dispensation.
Many people who are not aware of emergences and thus the relationship
between God and humans have an emergent character, but who are aware that
there must be some relationship between God and humans, express this
relationship as "immanence". This viewpoint entails that God dwells in His
creation so as to permeate the spirit of every human. Thus any human
merely has to scoop up (mine) a bit of God to obtain some measure of
whatever property God has, including love. The viewpoint of "immanence" is
closely related to the viewpoint that knowledge is something which can be
scooped up (mined) since it apparently exists outside humans.
It all boils down to the mental model of the "claimer" (prospecter, miner,
patent holder, taxer). According to this model every thing can be obtained
by laying claim to it. This mental model has serious consequences on all
walks of life and not merely immanence as a consequence. For example, many
marriages broke up because the one partner claim the love (or many other
things) of the other partner. Many countries are been destroyed by all
the political (sectional) claims called for by its peoples. Many
economies are being destroyed by all the claims for taxes and duites. But
it is in spirituality where the "claimer" model has its most disastrous
effects. For example, people may want to control spirituality by
doctrines, i.e. claim spirituality by claims. Another example is they
want to purify spirituality by claiming judgements, irrespective of how
inferior these judgements may be.
Stan, in the last two paragraphs I actually wrote about something which
you did not queried explicitly. We cannot obtain love by claiming it.
But you have worded your query carefully with something else "or does love
exist and we draw from it?". Yes love do exist, divinely and immanently
(by way of emergences). Yes, we can also draw from such love when it is
presented as a gift with no strings attached. In other words, we can
enrich each other's lives with unconditional love. But we must take care
not to present love as a second hand gift. The gift of love requires
originality. This originality results from emerges. Hence, when a person
give God's love away, it is only possible when that person's immanent love
and the Divine Love have emerged into one love belonging to the new
dispensation.
Drawing on unconditional love (love given away as a gift) is the best
thing which can happen to us. It makes all the destructive immergences of
life bearable. It fires all our constructive emergences like nothing else.
It rejuvenate our motications. It brings a smile to our face even when we
try something else rather than smiling. Therefor the essence of
spirituality is to make it possible for other people to draw upon our own
unconditional love -- to let them have that love which we also desire.
This leads to a joy which persists even in the face of hurt.
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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