Dear Organlearners,
Winfried Dressler <winfried.dressler@voith.de> writes:
>I feel more like wandering around in a dark, drafty labyrinth with
>a candlelight in my hand. Where does the draught come from?
>What does the patterns flickering at the walls mean? From time
>to time I think that I recognise something known, yet it may have
>been only a shadow.
Greetings Winfried,
Thank you very much for describing your strong emotions so poetically. I
believe that it fits the emotions of many others who have tried to follow
my account of the Digestor. It certainly describes my emotions the first
few weeks after having realised that the Ostwald digestion process
provides the clues for irreversible self-organisation close to
equilibrium. Some days I felt like a dog, having chased a bus for months,
finally catching up with it -- now what to do with the bus? After I have
worked through all the relevant literature on the Ostwald digestion
process, I still felt the same -- not knowing what to do with the bus!
>>I do hope that the following account of the Digestor will help you
>>"to look through the mirror"
>
>Is this how it looks like behind the mirror? Or is it part of "the dog
>biting its own tail"?
Believe me, I wrote the above about "looking through the mirror because"
because I clearly remember my own confusion (immense chaos far from
equilibrium) about digestions (something having to do with crystal clear
order close to equilbrium).
>I will try to grasp some of the flickers. So I will have a close look at
>your basic equation:
>
>> /_\F = - /_\n*mSU*[E(mSY, Msy) - E(mSU, Msu)]
>
>Let me start with /_\F.
>
>My guiding idea about the digestive phase of learning is, that the
>task of this phase is to increase the systems F: /_\F(SY) > 0
Winfried, you have a wonderful intuition. You begin your contribution at
the very point where your problem is. I have much empathy with you because
this problem is very serious. It has given borth to many of your other
problems, some which you have formulated explictly in your contribution. I
think that once we have solved this problem together, you will be able to
solve many of these problems. Thus I will focus on this problem in this
contribution and not also tackle the others. I am sure that many other
fellow learners will have the same problems like you and even some others.
I will gladly help them with those problems, but not in this contribution.
If they want help to a problem which you have expressed, they merely have
to quote such a problem of yours. If they could say something more about
why it is a problem for them, it will help me very much in knowing how to
help them.
You have got one facet right, namely that the change (symbolised by /_\)
in free energy (symbolised by F) must be greater (symbolised by >) zero
(symbolised by 0) to have an increase in free energy. But think about
those fellow learners who have no background in mathemats, physics or
chemistry. They will first have to become fluent in reading the message in
the symbolic expression /_\F>0. Secondly, they will want to know why an
increase in free energy has to be symbolised by /_\F>0? Why not simply
write F>0? It is because We can even have a an increase in F for negative
values for F. For example, if F (in joule as the energy unit) changes from
-8 (F<0) to -6 (F<0), the change is positive 2 (/_\F=+2, i.e /_\F>0).
But you have not yet grasped the next facet in the same issue. For ALL
spontaneous processes (even self-organisation and even close to
equilbrium), the free energy has to decrease, i.e /_\F<0. NO spontaneous
process will EVER happen ON THEIR OWN when the free energy has to
increase, i.e. /_\F>0. ALL processes in ANY system SY for which ITS free
energy F has to increase, are known as non-spontaneous processes. This
does not mean that non-spontaneous processes are never possible. They can
indeed happen, but in each case they have to be forced by the surroundings
SU to happen through work W done ON the system. When the work W is done On
the system, its effect is to increase the total enegy E (and possibly, but
not always, that part of it called the free energy F) so that we take sign
of W to be positive, i.e W>0. When the system does work itself by
converting some of its free energy F into work so that the system's free
energy F decreases and thus also its total energy E decrease, the sign of
W is negative, i.e W<0.
It all seems to be so confusing! For example, how is it related to the Law
of Entropy Production which says that the entropy S of THE UNIVERSE has to
increase for any thing to happen, whether it is spontaneous or
non-spontaneous? The answer has been provided by that the American genius
Gibbs. I will explain it. It will take a couple of paragraphs.
Let the entropy of the universe, the entropy of the system and the
entropy of the surroundings be symbolised by Sun, Ssy and Ssu. The Law
of Entropy Production (LEP) may then be formulated as
Sun "must increase as time goes by",
or since Sun = Ssy + Ssu
Ssy + Ssu "must increase as time goes by".
Note that we have no mathematical symbolism to formulate the phrase
"must increase as time goes by" symbolically, unless we make use of
the "change of" concept symbolised by /_\. By doing so the LEP becomes
/_\Sun > 0
in terms of the universe, or
/_\Ssy + /_\Ssu >0
in terms of any system SY and its surroundings SU which make up the
universe UN.
The Law of Enegy Conservation (LEC) does not give such symbolisation
problems. It may easily be formulated as
Eun "is equal to a constant as time goes by"
or
Esy + Esu "is equal to a constant as time goes by"
The mathematical symbolism for this is
Eun = const
Esy + Eun = const
Using the change formalism, we must observe that the "change of a
constant" is equal to zero -- a constant cannot change! In other
words, /_\const=0. Thus the LEC becomes
/_\Eun = 0
/_\Esy + /_\Esu = 0.
I want to stress and stress again how different the LEC and the LEP
are. The LEP cannot be fomulated synbolically without the "change"
concept. With the "change" concept it can be formulated, not as a
IDENTITY, but as
/_\Sun > 0
which is known in mathematics as a ORDER RELATION. This order relation
is a "categorical identity" (sureness) because it links the change in
the entropy of the universe not to one value, but to a whole spectrom
of positive values. People argue all over the world about "change",
that it is essential or that it is a fashion word. But here we see
that it is essential to symbolise the LEP. On the other hand, it is
not essential to symbolise the LEC. The equation
Eun = constant
is already a categorical identity. We do not know the exact value of
this constant and will most probably never know it. Yet all our
experiments and inferences point to the fact that it has a anique
value. Thus, when we use the "change" concept on LEC, it is actually
an overkill. The equation
/_\Eun = 0
says that the change in the total energy of the universe is ZERO. What
can be more trivial than saying that any change to a categorical
identity is equal to zero?
Furthermore, since E as well as S cannot be measured directly, but each
have to be calculated MENTALLY based on MORE than one measurement, we
cannot stop at conceptualising total energy E (of the universe) as that
quantity which never change and entropy S (of the universe) as that
quantity which always change. In other words, we cannot stop at
conceptualising them such as physicists and chemists do. We must go
further, whether we like it or not. This ongoing conceptualisation among
some humans is part of ALL the self-organisation taking place in the
universe, form the emergence of a new virus to the birth of a new star. My
own contribution to this ongoing conceptualisation is that we articulate
our tacit knowledge of the LEC through concepts such as noun, structure
and being while we articulate it for the LEP through concepts such as
verb, process and becoming.
It seems as if I wandered way off from telling the answer which Gibbs
has provided us with. But I have done it paint the picture against
which we evaluate Gibbs answer. What Gibbs did, was to combine both
laws (LEC and LEP) into one expression, namely
/_\F < W
This is a most brilliant emergence of the mind. If we want to compare
it, perhaps only Einstein's famous relativity equation E = mc^2 or
Planck's equally famous quantum equation E = h * f are suitable
candidates. Gibbs, among other things, had to create the concept of
free energy F, that part of the total energy E of a system not needed
to upheld the present entropy S of the system. He also succeeded in
establishing an ORDER RELATION between the "change of being (systemic)
quantity" (namely /_\F) and the "flow of a becoming (path) quantity"
(namely work W).
Every thing which happens in the universe, including bifurcations at
the edge of chaos or digestions close to equilbrium, has to conform to
this expression
/_\F < W
This expression is incredibly rich in meanings. All the things which I
have written above about spontaneous and non-spontaneous processes can
be derived from it. When the occassion permits it, I will try to show
how the ethics of work, a subject usually contemplated by philosphers
and theologists and mangled by politicians, depends on it. Even the
phrase "Regions work!" in Tom Christoffel's signature is an
articualtion of it. But I have to ush to help you with your problem.
Remember that the Ostwald digestion process is sponatenous -- it
happens on its own accord. Just leave the precipitate alone and some
crystals will grow (the predators) while others will eventually
disappear (the preys). Furthermore, no work is done by any one crystal
upon another crystal. Thus we can be sure that W = 0. What remains of
Gibb's expression?
/_\F < 0
which can be taken as the definition of a spontaneous process.
But, Winfried, note what you did -- you wanted the following to be:
/_\F > 0.
You have articulated your want by calling this expression your
"guiding idea". As someone who had an advanced training in physics,
you are in a much better position than most other fellow learners to
realise how important your need for a source HIGH in free energy is. A
source LOW in free energy may be very near the point, if not at that
point, where the free energy cannot decrease any further. It is like
the needle in the gasoline guage in a car pointing at empty. Why HIGH?
Because then the free energy of that source can decrease by letting
spontaneous changes happening (/_\F<0) and even harnessing them to do
work (/_\F<W). For example, you need that work to drive ALL
technology because they funtion NONSPONATENEOUSLY. Without sources
high in free energy to work upon this technology, they will cease into
a halt, doing nothing. Consider, for example, your computer. The mains
plug in the wall provide you with a source high in free energy -- in
this case electrical of nature. If the power generators stops shaking
electrons from side to side in the supply cables so that they halt
into a rest, the free energy (electrical) will drop to zero. Thus the
mains supply cannot work any more on your computer -- it will go
"dead".
Winfried, you went even further to elaborate on your "guiding idea".
Your physics training was traditional. It said nothing about
self-organisation, neither far away from equibrium, nor close to
equilbrium. It said very little about entropy and order, except
hammering on the notion that the chaos of the universe has to
increase. Thus, unlike most other physicist, you began to learn about
the role of entropy production in also creation order. Consequently
you wrote:
>(Side remark: With this F, the system become prepared
>for a new emergence, in which such F is converted into S
>(entropy is being produced) fast enough, so that the
>produced S is not totally dispersed to the systems surrounding
>but kept within the system. If the essentialities are fulfilled,
>such entropy will condense at the bifurcation point in higher
>order structure (emergence), otherwise it will blow up already
>existing structure and transform the structural energy into
>entropy and disperse it to the surrounding (immergence).)
[By the way, just a technical remark -- free energy F can never be
converted into entropy S, although it is used to produce entropy.
Energy and entropy are different quanities. The free energy of a
system can be increased or decreased by transforming some forms of
energy in the system (making up a certain value of its free energy)
into other forms of energy (making up a different value for the free
energy). In this transfomation of forms of energy the quantity entropy
is produced. In other words, entropy concerns the actual forms in
which energy exists. Entropy is a quality (qualification) of energy in
all its forms rather than a form of energy itself. Whereas entropy S
is expressed in units of entropy, any form of energy, total energy E
and even free energy F is expressed in units of energy. The brilliance
of Gibbs was to conceptualise the quanity free energy in order to tell
us something in energy units what entropy tells us in entropy units.
It does not tell exactly the same thing, but gives another version of
what entropy is telling.)
In other words, you not only bring in as witness your traditional
training in physics, but also your learning about the new science of
chaos, order and complexity. You may call it a "side remark", but you
actually felt the need of calling in this second witness to tell me
how important your "guiding idea" is. I really love your honesty.
But it is now time to try and perceive the the truth please do so with
all your power of mind and heart. The shadow of Gibbs (see your poetic
description above) stands right in your path. You want
/_\F > 0
because you need free energy, but Gibbs says that for all spontaneous
processes, even the Ostwald digestion process,
/_\F < 0.
The two expressions are contradictory to each other. In other words,
the proposed model of the Digestor seems to be useless for your needs.
It cannot both raise and lower its free energy FOR THE SAME PROCESS of
some Ostwald digestion. You have arrived at the point of a logical
contradiction -- the dog biting its own tail. Something has to happen,
but what?
Observe that these two contradictory statements serve as a very stong
entropic force in your mind. Observe how they cause an immense flow in
propositions and questions -- all the things which you have written
about in your contribution. Thus you are mentally in a state of high
entropy production. Its first manisfestation as diversity of becoming
(chaos) is there for everybody to be seen -- thanks to your dilligence
in responding to my contribution on the Digestor. How far are you from
the edge of chaos and the bifurcations which happen there? Will they
result in a destructive learning immergences or constructive learning
emergences? Will something (Gibbs or you) have to give in, or will
some new understanding emerge? Let us walk the path.
We cannot sell the cake and eat it. In the SPONTANEOUS process along
the PATH of Ostwald digestion the free energy F has to DECREASE, i.e.
/_\F<0. The free energy of the result, namely larger crystals
(increased m) because of more perfections (increased M), cannot be
applied to REPEAT THE SAME PATH again spontaneously. The free energy
for that path has become so low that it cannot decrease even further
as before. We have reached the limit (essensiality spareness) for that
path.
We can look at the mirror to see an image, but we cannot expect to see
through the mirror and find the image again. When we want to look
through the mirror, we must expect to see some real thing behind it
rather than a virtual image in it. The free energy of the large
perfect crystals, although now low for the digestion path, is not
necessarily low for different paths leading to other outcomes. What is
low for the one path may very well be high for another path. It means
that when we want to use these large perfect crystals as a source high
in free energy, one path of the many possibilities is excluded -- the
path of repeating the same thing or fixing the symmetry. But all
different paths are allowed (essentiality otherness), although not all
of them will happen (essentiality liveness). The beginning of such a
different path must begin where the Ostald path has stopped
(essentiality fruitfulness). It must take production of entropy
further into the future (essentiality wholeness). Try to become aware
of the fractal nature of the next step following the growth of
digestion (essentiality openness). Only when the next path is not
digestion will the possibility arise that the low free energy after
the digestion process acts as high free energy for something else.
Eternal digestion close to equilbrium is just as futile as eternal
revolution at the edge of chaos. But swinging between them is the
music of life.
Obviously, you will ask what will become of the big, pure BaSO4
crystals themselves and not the Digestor model. Nothing -- because of
a lack of certain essentialities, especially fruitfulness and
otherness. But in geology we have magnifcant examples of the growth of
homogenous crystals until suddenly, they begin to diverge into growing
a "matrix" of a different crystals -- the process of granitification.
(Maybe Dr Leo Minning will explain to us the granitification process.)
In other words, the Ostwald Digestion process does not always lead to
a complete dead end because big, pure BaSO4 crystals fail to become
something else.
When we go from inanimate minerals to living nature, we find that the
crystal lattice does not provide the best framework for the digestion
process (except in some SF stories). The ability of different kinds of
small molecules, most of them having a backbone of linked carbon
atoms, to form long chains and even networks of macro-molecules
provides for a much better framework. The DNA hellix is a magnificent
example. In these molecular chain and web macromolecules I suspect
that the basic form of the Digestor equation
/_\F = - /_\n*mSU*[E(mSY, Msy) - E(mSU, Msu)]
will still hold -- three factors /_\n, mSU and [Esy -Esu]. The only
thing which will change, is how the E function is determined by m and
M. But, since we work with a difference between Esy and Esu, these
different functionalities will cancel out.
As for your questions on the quantities m and M, I will try to answer
them in another contribution. This contribution is now getting out of
proportion.
Lastly, you wrote in reply to my:
>>The lower orders of the system itself, expressed by mSU,
>>do not play such a role here.
>I think this is a typewriting mistake and you meant mSY.
You are correct. You read with a fine eye! It should have been mSY.
>Ok, this was hard work. I am looking forward to the graphs!
>Do you already have an idea, where they will be published?
Yes, thanks to the work of our host Rick, you may find them with your
web browser at:
http://www.learning-org.com/graphics/9904Graph1.GIF
http://www.learning-org.com/graphics/9904Graph2.GIF
http://www.learning-org.com/graphics/9904Graph3.GIF
Make a print out of them to keep close by when you study their wording
given in the Digestor LO21308.
>Thank you for this farreaching lesson. Either I have got
>it right, or you may be able to point me to where I got
>stuck. I hope, I could express myself sufficiently clearly.
You could not have expressed yourself better. The point where you got
stuck, is not realising that entropy production is the basic cause of
symmetry breaking. The emminent physicist Herman Weyl was the first one to
realise that all laws of physics (except LEC and LEP) came as a result of
symmetry breaking. Prigogine is one of the few who suspect and often
stresses that LEP is the principal cause of all symmetry breaking. I have
the same suspicions. In order to employ the low free energy of a large,
pure crystal, the symmetry of the digestion path has to be broken -- we
have to try and look TRHOUGH the mirror rather than AT it.
I want to end with two remarks. The one is that Jesus also had to
explain this asymmetry when wanting to employ free energy -- among
others refering to his own destiny. He did it by using the metaphor of
a seed. A seed cannot carry fruit unless it dies by germinating into a
seedling which has to grow into a mature plant which may bear fruit. I
cannot match this metaphor with my own example, but hopefully the
following will help. When water runs downhill, it happens because of
its decrease in free energy. This decrease may be used to generate
electricity (gravitational energy converted into electrical energy)
with which we can drive many of our technologies. But the decrease
cannot be used to repeat the downward running of water because the
water is now at the bottom and not the top. If we really want to
repeat that downhill running of the water, we will first have to
generate electricity (asymmetical change) and then use the electrical
energy to pump (again asymmetrcial change) the water uphill. In other
words, we have to form a closed loop of asymmetical changes.
The other remark is that humankind (or most of it) has become very
much self-centered through the ages. First it used slaves (animals and
humans) to act as sources of free energy, not worrying much about how
the free energy of these slaves will be rejuvenated. Now it use all
sorts of technologies to work for it, again not worrying about
replenishing the orginal sources of free energy for these
technologies. Whereas nature is incredibly rich in closed loops of
asymmetical changes, humankind (or most of it) fragments these loops
at the very point where these loops serve its own interests. The
result is that humankind condones these fragmentations. The resulting
lack of wholeness makes it diffcult to understand how spontaneous
processes can be linked into a almost infinite chain or web of
spontaneous processes. Where does the all free energy comes from to
drive so many spontaneous processes since each use up some free
energy? The answer -- symmetry breaking at each point where one
spontaneous process links to the next one, thus resulting in a fractal
path for the chain or web! At the very heart of this fractal path is
the swinging between changes close to equilibrium and changes far from
equibrium.
Winfried, your free energy will decrease while you learn digestively.
It has to be like that for digestive learning to happen spontaneously.
The result of this digestive learning is that you have digested a lot
of information coming from the environment. You cannot continue with
this path because eventually your mental free energy will be too low.
But by now using all the digestive learning to initiate a new phase of
emergent learning, the low free energy after digestive learning acts
as high free energy for emergent learning -- learning within yourself
about something new to you. In other words, your need for an increase
in your free energy which you expressed so clearly at the beginning,
is not furnished by merely digestive learning, but by continuing the
path after digestion into a different path (liveness, wholeness,
otherness, sureness, etc.) See how much you have done this in your own
life. This is what the seven essentialities are about -- to be able to
follow the creative course of time. Once we have made this paradigm
shift, we have a new understanding of what is happening to our
universe.
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
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>
