Dear Organlearners,
Winfried Dressler <winfried.dressler@voith.de> writes:
>I just want to make clear, that the "Winfried", you refer to,
>correspond to what we called "universe" (system + surrounding):
>The analogy of "Winfried" is not the growing crystal but the
>whole digestor. I think this is a most important learning step,
>which I would have seen differently before our communication
>on the digestor. I tended to identify myself with the growing
>crystal, looking for the required surrounding to feed on
>whatever is outside myself. To recognise, that the elementary
>building blocks are inside myself and nothing that needs to be
>worked/pressed/pushed on me from outside seems to me to be
>also one of the basic messages which you, At, don't become
>tired to try to get across whenever you discribe your concept
>of learning, isn't it?
Greetings Winfried,
Great, man, great. You keep on surprising me. I thought your next
response would be to show me how you use the personal free energy gain
through digestion to drive the bifurcations needed at the edge of
chaos. But you have made an even bigger jump.
It is one thing to say that wholeness (like the other six
essentialities of creativity) is necessary for a bifurcation to result
in a constructive emergence and not a destructive immergence. It is
another thing to know it experentially, tacitly, formally and
sapiently. You have now advanced to the order of thinkers like
Socrates (who shaped the thoughts of the western civilisations) and
Confucius (who shaped the thoughts of the eastern civilisations).
Socrates considered himself as a midwife to assist with the birth
(emergence) of thoughts. Confucius teached that moral values and hence
the ethical system are based on inner thoughts rather than notions
offered on the markets.
To be aware of one own's digestive growth on one's existing orders and
hence an increase in the capacity for personal will (free energy) is
not that difficult. Even toddlers become aware of it when they insist
"I want to do it self". But to become aware that the whole universe
participate in this digestive process so that one is actually a part
of the universe which as a whole has to decrease its free energy, is
something far more complex. To become aware that one's own predation
depends on others becoming the prey is one thing. But to become aware
that as predator one has to serve the prey so that they become wise
predators also, is the key to heavenly friendship. It is then when the
lion and lamb co-exist in peace.
Winfried, now you understand what I mean when I say that the "world
inside me" is one part of me. The other part of me is the "world
outside me".
>Identify oneself, or even worse, others with a growing crystal.
>Is there any essentiality wich is not impaired? Yet it seems
>to be a desease among humankind today. Where does this
>desease come from? What would be the cure?
I think that the disease is something peculiar to digestive growth
(competition, predator-prey) close to equilibrium. To see this, we
must compare the Digestor (a model for growth close to equilibrium) to
the Brusselator (a model for bifurcations at the edge of chaos). For
example, the Digestor is concerned with open ended processes whereas
the Brusellator is concerned with processes linked into a closed loop.
Another difference is that the control system in the Digestor is
regular structure whereas in the Brussleator it is the auto-catalysis
process. We can work through all seven essentialities to find some
interesting differences.
However, what is important is the end effect. Awareness to the seven
essentialities fades away as one's "mental crystals" grow in terms of
their existing qualities M. The existing qualities resulted from a
certain level of perfection in the seven essentialities. The digestive
growth does not change this level of perfection. Hence, for example,
it becomes more diffcult to make a categorical identification of a
small crystal in the surroundings with a much higher M. To all outward
appearances, this crystal seems nothing else than another prey to be
digested. (See the dialogue between me and Leo Minningh on the IBM-MS
saga.) Over confidence is the result -- "we will eat this small
competitor for breakfast".
The cure is to let each person experience all kinds of emergences, how
irrelevant they might seem to be. Thus people will have to be guided
in how to proceed self to the edge of chaos where bifurcations happen.
The "self" here is very important. The seven essentialities operate
when producing entropy. When one or more of them are at a too low
level of perfection, the entropy production will usually be too low to
reach the edge of chaos. Thus the person will have to be guided in
increasing the entropy producing force-flux pairs, both in magnitudes
and numbers. This course leads into greater complexity. Eventually,
when the person reach the edge of chaos where the bifurcations happen,
the person will have to be guided as to why a bifurcation resulted in
an immergence rather than an emergence. It will be one or more
essentialities still impaired (not sufficiently matured). Then the
person has to be encouraged to try reaching the bifurcation again and
again until it results in an emergence. The kind of emergence is not
so important as the fact that it must be any kind of emergence.
Obviously, just as eternal evolution (eternal digestions) close to
equilbrium can result in a peculiar death of creativity, eternal
revolutions (eternal bifurcations) at the edge of chaos can also
result in its own peculiar death of creativity. In the case of eternal
evolution (as is manifested by for example capitalism) it is an
decreasing awareness to the mechanics (liveness, sureness, wholeness,
...) of creativity. In the case of eternal revolution (as is
manifested for example by communism) it is a decreasing awareness to
the dynamics (limited free energy, entropic force-flux pairs, entropy
production, ....). The cure for this is to strive for a swinging
harmony (and not a static equilbrium) between evolution and
revolution.
Try to picture for yourself what becomes in this harmony of the
quantities m (low order) and qualities M (high order) as time goes by
and all seven essentialities mature progressively. The m follows a
wave pattern almost like saw teeth while the M follows a stair case
pattern to the highest level of perfection. The amplitude of each
succesive crest is bigger and the height of each succesive step is
higher. For me these two patterns are the most remarkable in the
creative course of time. But in that same creative course of time when
the seven essentialities remains the same or even retrogress in the
levels of perfection, the waves crests become smaller while the
staircase goes downwards with the steps becoming closer to each other.
Eventually the grand equilbrium called eternal death results.
I have tried to articulate this picture with words. When we live in
nature, this picture is painted by living species and the fossil
remains of others. But we can also express this picture in terms of
music. One of the most beautiful pieces of music for me in doing this,
is the Choral Fantasy for Piano, Orchestra and Choir of Beethoven. Do
yourself a favour, listen to this great master piece and become once
gain aware of the creative course of time.
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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