Dear Kent and LOers,
Ken Wilber is one of my favorite philosophers, so I like your bringing in
of holons and rich hierarchy. In this context you try to connect the
concept of holons with At de Langes insights on entropy production:
> As another example, Ken Wilbur, in the book "Sex, Ecology and
> Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution", decided that hierarchy was a
> fundamental concept and devotes the early chapters to this theme. The
> term "holon" has been coined to mean an item in a hierarchy that is a
> "whole system" at some level. Holons at higher levels are composed of
> lower-level holons. Wilbur is trying to improve on what he calls
> "flatland holism". Change of a holon will disrupt or destroy all
> higher-level holons and, in terms of At de Lange, cause "entropy
> production".
I would like to add to the picture you started in the last sentence,
so let me have a try as well.
I understand you in that way, that immergences cause entropy
production. Immergence is the destruction of high level holons. This
can be for example due to impairing wholeness (to fragment, to
disintegrate) of a lower level holon. The entropy is produced while
structural energy (that part of the inner energy that is not free
energy) is transformed to heat and released to the environment of the
holon-system. The structure is than broken on a specific level of the
hierarchy and no higher order (structure, being) is possible anymore.
I agree to this, but I think this is only a small part of the entropy
production picture - you may call it "the dynamics of immergence
beyond the bifurcation point".
I understand At saying, that entropy production drives also a given
level of holons through a zone he calls "chaos of becoming" to the
bifurcation point. There two things can happen: Either a new, higher
level of holons emerge (new order of being out of the chaos of
becoming), or an immergence will happen (in the way discribed above).
Thus entropy production causes either emergences or immergences,
provided the rate of entropy production is high enough to push the
system (described as a hierarchy of holons) through the chaos zone.
(Remark: Entropy production also governs the dynamics beyond the
bifurcation in both cases, emergence and immergence and the
development close to equilibrium - low rate of entropy production.
This is meant, when one says that the "Law of Entropy Production" is a
universal law, governing ALL dynamics in the most generic way. Talking
of entropy production is thus a "simple explanation".)
To reach the emergence of a higher level holon, the pushing force of
entropy production need to be supplemented with the pulling of a
guide. This guide is in my eyes the not yet actual/explicit but still
potential/implicit higher level holon which "wants" to manifest. This
guide is pulling from another room, one may say another universe - a
universe including the new dimension of the higher level. The key that
opens the door to this other room consists of 7 parts - the seven
essentialities, of which wholeness is only one and which can only be
understood fully when the other six are included.
When the key and its parts (even one) is lost, everything seem so
complicate, impossible to accomplish, impossible to understand. And it
is! One is lost in a universe with no way out - not only this, this
universe is shrinking from immergence to immergence.
When the key is whole, it is so simple - so simple that even a small
seed can germinate to a seedling and grow to a mature plant. There are
no seven essentialities to be brought together, no five disciplines or
eleven essences to be taken care of. Only the one real thing, the key:
unconditional love. Nothing has to be taken more care of. This is my
rule of the simple explanation.
Now I have some predictions which I like to ask the consultants among
you to check, especially those, who guide a company through the
necessary changes to become a learning organisation. Take the client
organisation as the present level of holon and the learning
organisation as the higher level holon you are striving for to emerge.
I predict that most of your experiences are of the following kinds:
1.) You help with the one or the other facett or aspect of growing
close to equilibrium. You have some expertise, your niche of activity.
Entropy production is not a major concern for you, you probably stop
reading as soon as these two words appear in a mail on the list.
2.) As soon as the rate of entropy production rises and the zone of
chaos is coming closer, the task of consulting is changing from change
to conservation (get me back to the well known equilibrium). I guess
that you are either the one asked for the change (the one who messed
it all up) or the one turning the wheels back but seldom the two in
one.
3.) You are called when the organisation is deep in the zone of chaos.
Now your job is to organise the immergence (i.e. downsizing). The
organisation made a step back from becoming a learning organisation.
4.) I guess that only very few have real experience with metanoia,
with going through the zone of chaos and arriving at a higher level of
order where something new emerges, for example a learning
organisation. I think this is more than being a guide on a tour -
caves or mountains or whatever. At de Lange uses for such guiding the
term midwife, which fits better to what I think is really going on
then.
Liebe Gruesse,
Winfried
--"Winfried Dressler" <winfried.dressler@voith.de>
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