Dear Leo,and all,
There are chasms too wide for bridges to span.
We may be divided by linguistic chasms too wide to bridge.
As I read you, you are saying this:
I, Leo, am trying to clean your spectacles so that you can see the beauty
and the value and the utility of such concepts as entropy and
form-content. I, Leo, want to cure you, Steve, of your habits of linear
thinking.
Let me turn it around, Leo.
Is it possible that you are wearing spectacles that make you think that
verbal illusions, empty concepts, are beautiful, valuable, useful?
Suppose I need to analyse the workings of human communities: church
communities that are divided on matters theological; business
organizations that are stalled and confused; university departments that
are conflicted.
I need tools that help me to look at these communities in ways that give
me insight, help me to understand these tensions so that I can sort them
out, come to conclusions, and be able to show those in the communities
what is happening.
So: someone teaches me the language of "culture," and provides me with
simple ethnographic techniques so that I can look at the organization as a
cultural drama.
I find these tools clear and coherent, and, more importantly, useful in
illuminating what goes on in the church conflict, in the business dilemma,
in the troubled university department.
Now: someone--let's call him Leo--wants to give me additional tools that
he believes will provide me with insight and skill for my work.
He tells me that the phenomenon of thermodynamics called "entropy" is at
work in all of these troubled organizations. He tells me to avoid linear
thinking, and illustrates errors in thinking with anecdotes of chains,
factories, and restaurants.
The church dispute involves a sharp difference opinion among the members
as to whether gay and lesbian relationships should be recognized and
legitimized by the church. I try to think of which side of this dispute is
guilty of linear thinking, and I get no help from this thinking. I try to
find a way to explain or heal this war by using the entropy concept, and
nothing is clearer to me when I do. I try to apply the form-content
distinction...nothing.
So I use Occam's razor, which Occam conveniently left to me, and to all of
us, and I get rid of entropy and the others. . .
If you are willing and able to drop chains and restaurants and show me how
entropy or the linear thinking notion can help me understand the church
rift, or the troubled university department, I might see some value in
them.
At this point, Leo, I see them as empty concepts. Verbal illusions.
But: thank you for patience, for trying to teach me.
Be well.
Steve
[Host's Note: I fear we are repeating ourselves in the last exchange...
The "entropy" idea doesn't work for Steve; it does for some others.
Perhaps it's time for this thread to die. ..Rick]
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