Dear Organlearners,
Fred Nickols <nickols@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>Ouch! My head hurts. :-)
Greetings Fred,
I understand how your head must feel!
It took me about 10 years to understand how in the material universe
to which the brain belongs
/_\F = 0 (relic of the past in the future)
/_\F <> 0 (active participation in change from past to future)
(/_\F is the change in free energy, "<>" means "not equal to".)
It took me about another 10 years to understand how in the abstract
universe to which the mind belongs the same applies. What I did was to
pull your mind for a few minutes (20 minutes?) along 20 years of my
own struggle of understanding. If such an acceleration is not hurting,
then nothing will ever hurt.
>I won't pretend that I followed every nuance or implication of
>At's post regarding free energy, etc., but I think I grasped
>enough of it to respond to his query about a word to use in
>lieu of "creative." First, a word or two about "creative"...
You understood more than enough to create such an able response. Thank
you very much. Even if your response was feeble or sharply negative,
the mere fact that you responded indicate that the case /_\F<>0 rather
than the case /_\F=0 applies to that response.
>"Creative" can refer to the ability to create, in which case it
>is quite similar to "productive" (i.e., the ability or capacity to
>produce). "Creative" also implies imagination, often a free-wheeling
>one. I think At is using "creative" in the sense of capability
>to create or produce -- specifically, to produce change and
>more specifically to produce or create change in one's self.
>It's very tempting to call that "learning."
It is also very tempting for me to call it "learning".
But I live in Africa and have learnt that the majority of people in
Africa think differently about learning. Before 1992, during the years
of apartheid, few white lecturers with white students in white
universities perceived the different way in which black pupils learn.
Most black pupils in most black schools were taught to memorise
information verbatim as "knowledge". Any deviation in the
regurgitation of what was learned rotely, was considered to be an
error. This is still happening today, even 7 years after the era of
apartheid! In other words, /_\F=0 still applies in the majority of
cases because these people still believe that
knowledge = understanding = copy of information.
However, in most former white universities, the black students are
fast becoming the majority. Thus many white lecturers now have to deal
with this sad state of affairs, namely
knowledge = understanding = copy of information
The contencious among them are struggling with their hands in their
hair. How to change the notion of these black people (or, as I
believe, guide them to change that notion themselves) which has been
so firmly engraved into their minds.
What is knowledge and understanding? I will not spend screens of
copying what other thinkers have to say. Not that it is unimportant
what they have to say. But in the context of this specific
contribution such a review will exemplify the case /_\F=0. However,
when /_\F<>0 applies to such a review of information, then we are
actually creating knowledge and understanding. In other words, as soon
as we begin to organise such information evolutionary and
revolutionary with respect to our own context, we are growing in
understanding and knowledge. This is how I perceive learning, i.e
/_\F <> 0
Incidently, I cannot see how Knowledge Mangement (KM) software can
take over this function of the mind. Of course, if someone discover
the "Rosetta Stone" for KM so that the computer can do what my mind
was supposed to do, namely /_\F<>0, then we will be in serious
competition with computers. Many a SF story will then become actual.
>Other words that came to my mind were "adaptive," "self-governing"
>and "self-regulating."
Yes, indeed. For example, when Humberto Maturana speaks of
"autopoietic systems", it refers to systems for which
/_\F<>0 !!!.
It is impossible to have autopoiesis (auto=self, poiesos=doing) while
/_\F=0.
Exactly the same applies to Stuart Kauffman's "complex adaptive
systems". Adaptation is impossible with /_\F=0. Adaptation, simple or
complex, requires the opposite.
Since the seventies, thinkers began to stress the word change. See,
for example, the growth in the number of books and papers in which the
word "change" occur in the title.
Some people even begin to object against the excessive use of the term
change in organisational work as a panacea or a fashion word. I have
often stressed that when anybody's tacit knowledge (intuition, gut
feeling) warns that there is "a snake in the grass", to take such a
warning seriously. So what is wrong with using the notion "change"
left, tight and center?
The notion "change" is not a well formulated concept in organisational
work. The best example which I can give, is unfortunately cloaked in
symbolism. I will try to unravel the symbolism. The symbol for change
is /_\. The change in any system (state) property P is defined by
/_\P == P(later time) - P(earlier time).
To speak and write about change or /_\ without also specifying the
property P upon which it acts is to articulate change insufficiently.
In other words, /_\ alone is formally meaningless -- we have to insist
on the operator /_\ and the operand P on which it act. We have to
insist on the "full Monty" /_\P.
The epitome of change which drives all changes in all properties is
/_\S(universe) == S(un, later time) - S(un, earlier time)
We have for the entropy S of the universe "un" that
/_\S(un) > 0.
The cases /_\S(un) < 0 and /_\S(un) = 0 are ruled out. It is known as
the Law of Entropy Production (LEP). The LEP applies to the universe
as a whole. In many systems we may even have temporal decreases in
free energy. In such cases the increase in entropy of the surroundings
is so large the sum of the system's decrease and the surroundings'
increase is still a netto increase. We may even have exactly the
opposite, the increase in entropy of the system outbalancing the
decrease of entropy in the surroundings. (Remember the Digestor!)
The principal systemic property of ANY system in the universe which we
can identify categorically from
/_\S(un) > 0
is
/_\F == F(later time) - F(earlier time)
For this we have to thank the genius of Gibbs. It means that when we
think about any organisational change, we have done very little if we
did not consider /_\F for such an organisational change. It is
/_\F <> 0
and not
/_\F = 0
which drives such organisational changes.
The occurance of two events in time in this definition of /_\S
requires the "creative course of time". In other words,
/_\time == later time - earlier time <> 0.
Should we have
/_\time == later time - earlier time = 0
then the "creative course of time" has no meaning. Yesterday, today
and tomorrow are the same thing. Knowledge and understanding will have
no meaning. Creating. learning and believing will cease to happen.
>I'm curious as to what others have to say and what At will
>have to say in response...
Fred, I am more curious than you. I can express myself technically by
saying that in all our organisational changes we have to acknowledge
/_\F <> 0
To acknowledge the opposite, namely
/_\F = 0,
is to lose irreversibly the grib on any organisational change. The two
can be taken together by the phrase "creative commitment to an actual
change in free energy".
But, Fred, I cannot say the same thing with a simple word from the
ligua franca English or my mother tongue Afrikaans. I have been
searching for such a word for several years. I have asked my friends
in the department of African languages if they know of such a word
expressing a "creative commitment to an actual change in free energy".
But first I had to explain to them the meaning of "creative commitment
to an actual change in free energy". It hurt their heads just as
yours. Probably, just as you, they did not follow "every nuance or
implication" of my explanation just. But, basically, since I could not
give them an English or Afrikaans word expressing this meaning, they
could not respond with a word from the more than a thousand Banthu
languages. The same applies to colleagues in the department of
classical languages. I want to make sure that such a word does not
exist.
A little over a hundred years have passed since Gibbs created the
symbolic expression /_\F, calling it the "change in free energy of a
system" and supplied it with a meaning. This concept was one of the
vital keys to the emergence of the diciplines physical chemistry and
biochemistry, each with a manifold of technical terms relying on /_\F.
For example, consider the technical term "catalyst" (enzyme). The
function of a catalyst is to change /_\F further somewhere along a
reaction path without changing /_\F further for the entire reaction
path. It sounds wierd, but this is what a catalyst does. A graphical
representation can explain nicely how this happens.
----->----->----->----->--path-->----->----->------>-----
__uncatalised__
/ \
/____catalysis____\
/ \
__F(begin)__/ \ ...................
\ }
\ } /_\F
\__F(end)__ }
A catalysis "bulldoze" away steep hills in free (potential) energy.
The enzymes in our body make reaction highways for our biochemistry.
Another vital key was the concept of electron. But I do not want to
diverge into this key now. To summarise, before the emergence of the
concept /_\F, the disciplines physical chemistry and biochemistry did
not exist. I believe that the opening up of the concept /_\F to the
humanities in general and management science in particular will cause
the emergence of new disciplines similarly. But before this can
happen, we have to realise the vast ramifications of the difference
between
/_\F <> 0
and
/_\F = 0
Perhaps I am searching for sausage in a kennel. Perhaps I am that
sausage. But I really want to make sure that a word for the "creative
commitment to an actual change in free energy" does not exist. If such
a word does exist in any natural language, then I will gladly use it
like I have been using the word "ubuntu" (living in harmony with
Creator, fellow humans and the rest of creation). If it does not
exist, then somebody will have to create it in such a way that it
convey the meaning
/_\F <> 0 ~~ YES
and
/_\F = 0 ~~ NO
without having to resort to technical explanations.
At present there is a drive to get the English word "commitment"
accepted in Afrikaans as a valid Afrikaans word. The standard
Afrikaans word for commitment, namely "toevertrouing" (literally:
entrusting, German: "anvertrauen"), seems not to carry what these
people want to express with commitment. However, whether they want to
express actually "creative commitment to an actual change in free
energy", is another question. And whether they want to get their heads
hurting to understand this question, is yet another question ;-)
Thanks again Fred for responding to this topic.
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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