Efficiency and Emergence LO25044 [complex]

From: Gavin Ritz (garritz@xtra.co.nz)
Date: 07/07/00


Replying to LO25017 --

Dear At and Lo'ers

At wrote:
> Gavin wrote:

> >However At and company have not actually registered the
> >learning, they are too busy shoring up what they know (I am
> >"being" a bit harsh here).
>
> I wanted to complete my last contibution before taking a rest and follow
> up other emergences, but I will have to make an exception and first reply
> to your contribution. There are some very important points in it which
> invites and needs careful thinking.
>
> I focus in the LO-list on authentic learning and its complex context,
> trying to help fellow learners to understand it. Should I write on all
> what else I know and should that get past Rick, I wonder how much of it
> will you be able to follow ;-)

What ever could you mean by this? How do you mean? Where do mean?

> >Each level of complexity is linked to a specific time horizon
> >(see Elliot Jaques) and each level uses a specific mode of
> >processing (that is in the human brain). A lot of this is continuation
> >of Piagets work.
>
> [Host's Note: In the above quoted paragraph, I believe Gavin is describing
> the model on his web site http://sites.netscape.net/gavinritz/info
> .. Rick]
>
> As I see it, each level of complexity is linked to a lower level and a
> higher level. The development of each level depends on the how far the
> seven essentialities have developed for that level. Should in a certain
> system one or more of the seven essentialities be impaired, the level of
> complexity in that system would take a longer time to be reached. Since
> systems intermingle, we have around us some systems still depicting the
> past while others already depict the future. To think of all systems of a
> certain complexity around us as belonging to the same time horizon, is a
> serious blunder.

Who ever said anything to do with the same time horizon?

Not me my whole point is around how the horizons are stretched (to
eternity). No two people live in the same time (the basics of
complexity). Hence people like Prigogine, Jaques, Bohm, and others so
fixated on Time, because of the continuum of time, both psychological and
physical.

> This exactly what happens in international relationships
> between different countries. This is also what happens in South Africa as
> a micro-version of what is happening globally.

The reasons and there are many, is the the ruling parties of the old South
Africa were driven by fear of being swamped by the tribes. Apartheid is an
exclusive value excluding many. The fears of the death (being murdered on
their farms-what we continually dwell on comes to fruition, the laws of
attraction). The needs fo the ruling class to identify themselves, to
shake of the shackles of bondage), only they are so internally focused
(strong internal convictions appropriate the the proper context) "
laarger mentality" that is difficult to take on outside information, only
when totally devastation was at hand did the lights go on. The needs for
power (RSA producing the atomic bomb). The need to create the perfect land
of paradise (only for the selected few, the others must go away). The need
for survival from the so-called marauding tribes. I can go on forever but
let me not. Fear and disapproval was a hallmark of the last regime.

> I have made many times considerable effort in our LO-dialogue to identify
> the internal pattern of what you call "the tension (power) of the
> variable within the variable". In the series "To become or not to become"
> it was one of my goals to elucidate this pattern once again. I will
> summarise it.
>
> Gavin, I can still remember how, after about my tenth contribution and
> many examples of "becoming patterns" on the topic "To become or not to
> become", you told me in a reply of yours (LO24323) that
>
> >On this becoming issue I propose we are not becoming anything
> >at all this is a pure figment of the human imagination hoping
> >there is some reason for our existence in this chaotic looking
> >universe.
>
> Since I trust nothing created be the truth, I am quite willing to question
> the "becoming pattern" as a "pure figment of the human imagination". But
> rather questioning it, you qualify in LO24350 my response as
>
> >I think what you are doing is trying to give the continuos field
> >and the discriminated object meaning.

(I was eliciting a response from you with meaning )
I was assessing your attachment to a specific outcome, and how much you
would protect it, fear of loosing a good comfortable friend is reason to
protect (see my next thread of fear of loss and its desired counterpart)
If you used this same concept thoughout out dialogue (I am not saying I am
immune from it)

> while excusing yourself with
>
> >Tension is purely the product of our fears and the value of our
> >desires, hopes, put neatly the feared disadvantages and our
> >hoped for advantages.
>
> In a subsequent contribution (LO24563) you write:
>
> >I gave you something that you did not receive. I will share
> >this with you once again for the last time least you "perish
> >on the way seeking to find what you desire"

I am using your type of rhetoric for a purpose, this is one of the key
drivers of mankind and you use it without realising you are in it. All
those words are words of fear and dread and you use them continuously.
This gets others to act and respond to you. (remember I called in
ventriloquising some where else). We do this without knowing we are.

> >The formula for your motives lies is in this simple concept.
> >Do not rush to defend your point but think and experience
> >what I am going to say and do not answer me, I have no
> >need to pursue this point.
> (snip)
> >Listen carefully.
> >
> >This formula has been used down the ages to bind us all,
> >it is myopic and powerfully controls all those who embrace it.
> >
> >Do not defend your point.
> >
> >Here is the secret again.
> >"It is one of the first lessons which one has to learn while
> >exploring the desert. Seek something very obvious on the
> >horizon to serve as beacon and then begin to browse towards it. "
> (snip)
> >Now for the other side of the formula:
> >"Without this beacon you will get lost and perish. ......"
> (snip)
> >Remember the formula is the tension between: the hoped-for
> >ideals, desires and our feared disadvantages, losses and dreads.
> (snip)
> >It controls you, it is not liberating, but gives the impression of
> >doing so.
> (snip)
> >Contemplated this and you will have learnt' something.

I am sharing with you something central to your life? (you wrote it I
commented on it). It is about recognition, identity, creativity, freedom.

> I have carefully questioned myself as to what you have written, trying to
> learn as much as possible from it. As you have requested, I have not
> responded in defence to your evaluation, but have waited until you broke
> the silence which now has happened. My silence have perhaps precipitated
> the recent topic "Our dialogue here".
>
> You say that the tension is a product of our "feared disadvantages" and
> our "hoped for advantages".
>
> What you are saying means for me that tension is the PRODUCT between
> NEGATIVE outcomes and POSITIVE outcomes. As such the product between
> something negative and something positive of the same kind has a negative
> value itself. Only when the product is either something negative with
> something negative or something positive with something positive, will the
> product be positive itself according to algebraic laws. In other words,
> the tension as you define it is of necessity something negative.

This is not even close to the issue, there is no algebraic sum, mathematics
does not work here.
Well not yet, if you know then share it with me, because you would then know
how to create the first thinking computer (not impossible I might add). You
cannot out think this one. AND this is not the answer.

> I say that creative tensions are specifically entropic forces, namely the
> DIFFERENCE (rather than the product) between two values of a quality of
> creativity (intensive outcome). As such the tension as a difference will
> never be only negative. It depends on the two values Y(2) - Y(1).
> Whenever, for example, Y(2) is larger than Y(1), the tension will be
> positive. In fact, for this reason the very case in which we view Y(2) as
> a positive outcome and Y(1) as a negative outcome, the DIFFERENCE will be
> positive whereas the PRODUCT will be negative.
>
> To define the tension as product entails that no matter how much the
> positive outcome is stressed, multiplying it with a negative outcome, no
> matter how minute it may seem, will make the tension itself as negative.
> As such it then becomes one of the "feared disadvantages, losses and
> dreads".
>
> But to define the tension as a difference entails that stressing the
> positive outcomes sufficiently enough will eventually make the tension
> itself as positive. However, this does not make the tension "the hoped-for
> ideals, desires" since tension alone (the [Y(2) - Y(1)]) is not a full
> becoming pattern. It still needs its complementary entropic flux /_\X =
> [X(2) - X(1)]. (See the essentiality liveness "becoming-being".) Without
> that entropic flux and whenever the system is complex so that it will
> exhibit Onsager cross inductions, the growing tension will map onto many
> secondary "entropic force-flux" pairs through the Onsager reciprocal
> relationships.

You are fixed on a point of view, you will need to shift your level of
abstraction. I do not think the answer you seek can be viewed from where you
are.
What on earth is an Onsager cross induction?

> Let us look at one profound tension, namely that between the rich (the
> "have-s") and the poor (the "have-nots"). The history of humankind has
> many examples (eg. France, Russia, China) of social revolutions caused by
> allowing this tension to grow out of proportion by neglecting its
> complementary flux to happen too so as to deflate the tension as I have
> explained with several examples in "to become or not to become". What
> happened in each of these social revolutions?" Dozens of secondary
> force-flux pairs were unlashed upsetting most walks of civilised life,
> resulting in vast confusion among people because of the overall
> complexity. In the past the tension between the rich and the poor were
> contained in particular countries or regions. sparing the rest of the
> world from it. But as we move deeper into "globalisation", the more every
> country and region will become involved in any future revolution triggered
> by the tension between the rich and the poor. Is this tension not
> presently growing globally out of proportion? Can even the mightiest
> country like the USA spare itself from from the unlashing secondary
> force-flux pairs like in attacks on for example air liners or embassies?

You are not looking in the right place, At, change your level of abstraction.

> There is a certain creative tension which is very real to me. It is cause
> by the difference between "contructive creativity" and "destructive
> creativity". In a certain sense I can allign your "feared disadvantages"
> with "constructive creativity" and your "hoped for advantages" with
> "destructive creativity". Should you care to study all the literature on
> creativity, you will find that I am the only one who stresses the
> "constructive"/"destructive" dialectic of creativity. Furthermore, I use
> the seven essentialities to explain exactly how this dialectic emerge
> since they actually helped me to become aware of this dialectic and later
> on to understand its dynamics. That is why I am able to explain your
> valuable warning

There is some association with destruction and creation, but that is not
the full picture. AND creativity is very much a human need "variable" but
its opposite is not destruction. The opposite of creativity is bondage,
restriction, suppression, being trapped (not destruction). Remember the
fear or the loss (it is having just a slightly different angle on the
issue)

> > The biggest error made on these threads by At and
> > company is the use of the discriminated object (or
> > variable) and the naming of them like (emergence), as
> > we do this we lose the continuous field and hence the
> > complexity approach. We immediately "become"
> > reductionist. All systems thinkers seem to do this and
> > be totally oblivious to it.
>
> as I have done in the beginning of this contribution.
>
> Yet even with respect to "destructive"/"constructive" creativity I still
> try to avoid LEM as far as possible. Both are presently in me because my
> Personal Mastery of the seven essentialties is a lifelong process rather
> than a sudden outcome. Hence the tension between "destructive" and
> "constructive" will exist until the end. I can let it either increase or
> decrease. It will increase when I stop growing in one or more of the
> essentialities by dogmatising an immergence of the past. It will decrease
> when I commence with authentic mental behaviour by seeking for an
> emergence in the future. Thus the "arrow of time" is real to me. The one
> thing which I cannot and will not do, is to force other learners into the
> same dynamics as a result of the "arrow of time", telling them that they
> also must suspend LEM.
>
> I know that I have to learn much of the seven essentialities. Unlike many
> others I do not deny them as "fictuous imagination" since I have
> discovered them all together by using more than "fictuous imagination".
> Yet, even this discovery does not make me an authority on them who cannot
> err in them. I can, for example, still let sureness immerge destructively
> into demarcationism (or nominalism as Occam of the "razor" fame called it,
> or the creating of "discriminated objects" as you call it) as I have
> explained many years ago on our LO-dialogue.

If you hold on to them they are worthless, if you are prepared to give
then up well who knows, they might be useful.

> Gavin, whenever I introduce a new "complexity topic" to our LO-dialogue, I
> am not "too busy shoring up what they know" on this topic. I spend a lot
> of time embedding this new "complexity topic" in its "complexity context",
> so much so that I had to endure a lot of criticism on the length of my
> writings. I do not mind such criticism because it encourages me to keep
> trim even when the context is complexity.

Good on you, from one South African to another always ready for a good
fight?

[Host's Note: Well... I'll assume that's a South African figure of speech.
No fights here. ..Rick]

> So, when your critique points to the opposite, I am eager to learn how
> depite all my efforts I can still improve on avoiding creating
> "discriminated objects". But if it entails that I have to stop self
> creating constructively and learn authentically by merely importing
> through rote learning the "discriminated objects" of others, I will not do
> so. Sureness is here at stake for me.

This is definitely not the my purpose (expansion and creation is my whole
point), happy tacit learning.

Kindest
Gavin

-- 

Gavin Ritz <garritz@xtra.co.nz>

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