How does a Nation learn? LO21083

Bill Harris (billh@lsid.hp.com)
Tue, 30 Mar 1999 11:17:28 -0800 (PST)

Replying to LO21049 --

At said:

> Why dont South Africans perceive what made apartheid such a hideous
> ideology, namely the impairing of the seven essentialities? I have to take
> partly the blame because of not promoting awareness to them enough
> locally. But in trying to do so I have hit a solid wall. If people are not
> sensitive enough to the dynamics of entropy production such as chaos,
> bifurcations, order and digestions, they are even less senstive to the
> mechanics of entropy production which entails the seven essentialities
> because the mechanics as form are emergent to the dynamics as content.

First, let me welcome you back, too!

I once heard an argument as to how Edison introduced innovative products
to the world; he made them look like the familiar. In the case mentioned,
he shaped his light bulbs in the shape of a gas flame, and he mounted them
on the wall in fixtures shaped like the older gas lamps then in use.

Maybe there's a lesson here for any of us pushing new ideas.

I don't mean to indicate there isn't room for the full-blown explanation
of your ideas (or mine or anyone else's), but it may be a bit like
deciding when we're on stage and when we're composing or rehearsing (to
harken back to metaphors Ray Harrell used to bring). I'm certainly not as
good at this as I'd like to be, and this group is certainly a forum for
composing and rehearsing, but I know I sometimes am not clear on how (or
when) to make the move to the stage.

Please don't be offended by this offering. This is tough stuff, and it's
especially difficult when one is pushing as much of a change in thinking
as you are, At.

Bill

-- 
Bill Harris                                 Year 2000 Program Office
mailto: bill_harris@am.exch.hp.com          Hewlett-Packard Company
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