Dear Organlearners,
Dan Chay <chay@alaska.net> writes:
>This continues my creative learning in At's theory.
>
>I made a post yesterday in which I equated "emotional
>tension" to force and quality and "scapegoating words" to flux
>and quantity. This morning I remembered to think of force as
>potential difference and to think of flux as "flow of something."
>I'm now thinking that equating quality and quantity with force
>and flux probably was wrong.
Greetings Dan,
I love you. Your honest admission above gives me a fine example to
illustrate what emergences in general and emergent learning in
particular are about.
A bifurcation at the edge of chaos can result in either a destructive
immergence or a constructive emergence. Neither is the immergence
absolutely bad nor the emergence absolutely good. Let us think about
the emergences. The emergence may be impaired because one or more of
the essentialities were not sufficiently mature for the type of
bifurcation. In that case a less impaired emergence will be more fit
for survival. It means for emergent learning that we have to refine
the new concept by repeating the bifurcation. For example, Einstein's
Special Theory of Relativity and General Theory of Relativity
illustrates the difference.
We cannot "equate" quality with entropic force and quantity with
entropic flux. To so will be an impaired emergence. But the fact that
you have sensed the "relationship" between quality and entropic force
as well as quantity and entropic flux is part of the emergence. The
impairing had been to think in terms of an identity (equation) rather
than a categorical identity. The entropic force is proportional to the
difference between the two values of an (intensive) quality. The
entropic flux is proprotional to the flow or change of value in an
(extensive) quantity. The difference between an intensive quality and
an extensive quantity, both measurable and thus with values, is that
when a system is scaled up or down, the intensive qualities remain
invariant while the extensive quantities also scale in proportion.
This insistence on emergences of only the best quality plays an
important role in life. We find it all over in nature -- specimens in
a species fighting for the right to reproduce sexually. It has even
been articulated for organisational management in terms of TQM (total
quality management). Lastly, it plays a fundamental role in the
Digestor.
I think you have enjoyed following the role of the seven
essentialities in the game of the Prisoner's dilemma. I certainly
enjoyed the way in which you informed us about your insights. But
then, near the end of the contribution you quote me once again on
evolutionary growth close to equilbrium, the complement of
revolutionary growth at the edge of chaos. You end by writing:
>I wonder, then, how do we combine our dual roles as predators
>and model ubuntu creative and learning citizens of Gaia? And
>what is the "Digestor model?"
I have not written much on the Digestor so far. It is a model on
development close to equilibrium when the rate of entropy production
is low. Political scientists refer to this development as evolution.
It is the one complement of a development cycle. Its complementary
dual is development at the edge of chaos where the rate of entropy
production is high. Political scientists refer to this development as
revolution. The first ever model for revolutionary changes leading to
more complexity was provided by Prigogne and co-workers. It is called
the Brusselator refering to the city in which Prigogine operated.
Consequently the Brusselator and the Digestor are complementary duals
of each other.
By calling them a complementary duality, I stress that they are so
much different that the one cannot ever be transformed into the other,
but also stress that both are needed to afford a complete picture. (In
this sense the seven essentialities may be desribed as a complementary
heptuality.) But is this complementary duality really necessary for an
advancement in self-organisation? Many researchers in the new sciences
of complexity (complex adaptive systems) believe that such systems
live continuously at the edge of chaos. But I think it is case of over
reaction. I believe that we should rather try to become aware of the
full harmony and rythm of complexifying systems, nature offering much
more good examples than culture.
Culture (anything in which humans play a role) rather offer us
examples of what happens when humans are ignorant of or defy the full
harmony and rythm of complexifying systems. Let us first look at what
happens when humans prefer revolutionary changes to evolutionary
changes. Dalton of the French Revolution and Leo Trotsky of the
Russian (Marxist) revolution believed in the eternal revolution.
Eventually they became victims of these very revolutions by those who
could not keep up with its intensity anymore -- Dalton by Robespiere
and Trostsky by Lenin. But it goes much further than single
individuals. The communist block came to an end after seventy years by
buring itself out. The reason is that free energy cannot be used up to
sustain the high rate of entropy production without renewing it.
But what about humans who prefer evolutionary changes to revolutionary
changes? The king of France and the tsar of Russia are examples of
people who believed that changes should be minute, if any. Although
they wielded much power, they were powerless against the sudden
onslaught of the revolutions. The old apartheid South Africa which
existed formally for approximately 50 years, can also be used as an
example. No where in the world were the resistance against communism
with its revolutionary practices stronger. The resistance against all
forms of revolutionary thinking crept, metaphorically speaking, into
the bone marrow of the majority of white South African society.
Revolution meant that they would have to give up their power as a
ruling minority. Never say anything original without getting
permission of those in power.
After having discovered empirically that the Law of Entropy Production
also accurs in the world of mind and subsequently discovering
phenomenologically the seven essentialities of creativity, I became
very sensitive to the fact that self-organisation at the edge of chaos
covers only part of reality. The exact opposite, namely at
equilibrium, baffled me completely because of my training as a
physicist and chemist. At perfect equilibrium there are no
irreversible changes in the system because the entropy prodution in it
is zero. I felt like looking for a jewel in a pitch black cave. A
search of literature relevant revealed that no one even considered the
possibility of self-organisation anywhere else than at the edge of
chaos. For many months my search remained fruitless.
But it was a case of mistaken identity (the essentiality sureness). I
looked for something at equilibrium itself rather than something very
close to equilbrium (the essentiality spareness). But because I kept
on looking for it (the essentiality liveness) at every possible
occasion (essentiality otherness) and believed that somehow I will
stumble on it (essentiality openness), the answer came to me as a big
surprise. One day, while helping students in Analytical Chemistry II
with the gravimetric determination of sulphate, one student failed to
get a complete filtration because of insufficient digestion of the
pricipitate. Like in the dream, while explaining to the student why
the filtrate failed, the answer unfolded to me in another part of my
mind. I wanted to cry out "eureka" like Archimedes of old, but in
those days I was stil too timid to do what I should have done.
Dan, have I told you what is the Digestor model? No. But if you study
the topic "Ostwald diestion" in a handbook on analytical chemistry,
you might get the idea what it entails. Unfortunately, like a cliff
hanger in a soap opera, I will have to stop now. But I promise to tell
you more about the Digestor itself in a following contribution. You
will probably wonder why I have told you about it in this
contribution. Again it concerns that important distiction between
content and form. I have told you in this contribution more about the
form preceding the discovery of the Digestor than its content which
emerged from helping that unfortunate student. Unfortunate student?
Yes, I think she saw me as someone speaking in a trance, probably
under the influence of drugs.
Any soap opera ends with some advertisements. Here is one from
chemistry who sponsored the discovery. Remember the homework --
reading up on "Ostwald digestion" in gravimetric analysis. It will
make it much easier for you to follow the explanation of what the
Digestor is. Lastly, the essentiality fruitfulness require that you
will have to give me a handle with which I can make effective contact
to explain what the Digestor is and what we can learn from it. I am
sure that you and many others are creative enough to provide me with
such a handle.
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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