Replying to LO25389 --
Dear Organlearners,
Winfried Dressler <winfried.dressler@voith.de> writes:
>The concept of rheostasis and homeostasis shed some
>light on the intuitive concepts of evolution and revolution
>(for an old, established company like ours, likely to be
>captured in labile equilibrium): 'Evolution' (as used above)
>is the effect of undoing rheostasis by authentic learning.
>'Revolution' (as used above) is the effect of breaking
>homeostasis by rote learning.
>
>(Let me state clearly that these are no definitions of
>evolution and revolution, not even my. By no means! It is
>just a clarification of a special use of these two words in a
>special context as depicted above. I have used to be
>somewhat baffled by the discussions in our company,
>because I was thinking of revolution as 'ordinate bifurcation,
>either emergence or immergence' and evolution as 'digestive
>learning'. And this is quite another use of the same two words.)
Greetings Winfried,
It all boils down to one thing. What name shall we use for what we can
define without using that name.
I myself define the concept of a labile equilibrium as a result of either
[Y(2)-Y(1)] = 0 or /_\X = 0. In the case of [Y(2)-Y(1)] = 0 much of what I
can say about it, correspond to what has already been written on the
subject "homeostasis". Hence, because of the "principle of priority", I
have to say that [Y(2)-Y(1)] = 0 is the character of "homeostasis". In the
case of /_\X = 0 I had rather a free hand because nobody kept pushing with
the original idea of Heraclitus until a theory could be made from it. Thus
I selected the name "rheostasis" because in the entropic pattern
. [Y(2) - Y(1)] x /_\X > 0
the /_\X indicates a flow="rhei" (Greek) of an extensive quantitiy
rather than a difference of an intensive quantity.
Not all rheostasis are bad (although in my own experiences the majority
are bad) and not all homeostasis are good (although in my own experiences
the majority are good). Sometimes the bad becomes the good and vice versa.
For example, a whale has a thick layer of fat to prevent a flow from heat
out of the body into icy cold water. A friend of mine who also have
diabetes got perforations of the intestine during a serious bout of thirst
in the desert. Microbes began to "flow" into the rest of his body and
within two days he was mortally ill. He lingered for more than a month in
the shadow of death because of his body turning completely septic. He, by
the way, uses insulin to mantain the glucose homeostasis in his blood. I
rather gave up this artificially maintained homeostasis so as to make use
of biochemical pathway which I experienced in my days as a long distance
runner almost forty years ago ("burning up protein") and as a boy almost
fifty years ago keeping racing pigeons.
As for "evolution" and "revolution", I have two assymptotes which
I think of. The one extreme is changes where the entropy production
is small and slow. It may be formulated tecnically as
. /_\S | /_\t =>= 0
where the sign "|" means "divided by" and "=>=" means
"infinitesimal small". Here /_\t is the change in time so that
/_\S | /_\t may be called the "rate of change of entropy". The other
extreme is changes where the entropy production is large and fast.
Technically
. /_\S | /_\t >> 0
where the sign ">>" means "very large".
Again, in the case of
. /_\S | /_\t >> 0
much of what I can say about it corresponds to what has already
been written on the subject "revolution". So I have often used the
name "revolution" by way of the "priciple of priority" for the latter
asymptote. But as for
. /_\S | /_\t =>= 0
I have far greater difficulties in finding by the "priciple of priority"
the best name. I have two possible choices -- reformation and
evolution -- and both involve both low and high rates of entropy
production, although the high rate case received far less attention
than the low rate case. Since my discovery of the Digestor as
a model for the low rate case, I am inclined to used digestion
more and evolution less.
Also here we cannot say that all cases of /_\S | /_\t =>= 0 are good
(although the majority are good in my experiences) and all cases of /_\S |
/_\t >> 0 are bad (although the majority are bad in my experiences). For
other persons the opposite experiences may hold.
Furthermore, to use /_\S | /_\t =>= 0 so as to break a rheostasis is not
always a good solution. Sometimes we need the "revolution" of /_\S | /_\t
>> 0 to make or break a rheostasis. We have a wonderful factual story
about a brave little girl (Rachel de Beer) who during a snow storm (not
often experienced here) saved her little brother by putting her clothes on
him and then laying over him so as to use even her body as a protective
barrier. She died, but he was saved.
Likewise we may need occasionally the "digestion" of /_\S | /_\t =>= 0 to
prepare someone to make or break a homeostasis. In other words, a theory
of creativity which takes into account /_\S | /_\t as well as the pattern
[Y(2) - Y(1)] x /_\X is not sufficient. It needs a higher order level to
set up an ordinate cyber loop so as to control when, for example /_\S |
/_\t =>= 0 will be good or bad. This is why I stress "authentic learning"
to be crucial to any theory of creativity, even my theory which takes LEP
and LEC into account. In the case of Rachel de Beer she used "authentic
love" to set up such a control loop. I fact, this is the stuff of which
heroes are made of -- controlling behaviour by autheticity all the way up
to unconditional love.
I think that my insistence on the ordinate cyber loop in a theory of
creativity is rather unique. This complexifies creativity so much that
anyone interested in creativity becomes quickly intimidated (Digestor
action) by such a cyber loop. Yet they are attracted by stories of heroes.
Can you perceive that there is a vast difference between theory+practice
and an elementary sustainer of creatvity? The theory+practice is the
result when we begin to formalise "exemplar-studying " and perhaps also
"problem-solving", transforming the "elementary" nature into a
"fundamental" nature, this losing the richness of the implicit wave
packet.
>I am wondering how a homeostat can evolve constructively.
That is a very deep question. Related to this question is how to shift
from one exclusive homeostat to a more inclusive rheostat as in for
example a paradigm shift. To answer this question we need to know in why
the equilibrium state (stable or labile) is so essential. Physicists were
no fools in identifying the "reversible and equilibrating" system as
important. The foolishness came with invoking LEM -- to claim that the
"irreversible and changing system" is a myth.
Once you have answered this question, you will know when to make or break
a homeostasis in whatever organisation. However, this does not mean that
the other members of that organisation will know it too or accept your
decision. It is here where the emergence of an organisation into a
Learning Organisation becomes of crucial importance. My experience with a
Learning Organisation is that it has an intuitive (tacit, implicit)
awareness for labile equilibria so that its "frightening articulation into
a fundamental" as I have done it is not necessary.
>Is the best use of a homeostat to serve as food for the
>digestive learning of other, more complex systems?
Yes, although I would rather say to maintain conditions favourable for
digestive learning. However, as soon as the homeostasis begins to prevent
emergent learning as in the case of modern education and training, then it
becomes rather a "worst use". I hope the example of my own diabetic
condition illustrated the point. I wish some fellow learner would come up
with a more frequently experienced example.
Dear Winfried, I have learned to be very cautious in using ethics (good,
better and best as well as bad, worse and worsest) in a rote manner. Rote
ethics, excluding rote love, is perhaps the cruelest of spiritual torment
I can think of.
With care and 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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