Replying to LO26080 --
Dear Organlearners,
Lawrence Philbrook <icalarry@ficnet.net> writes:
>I feel when I working with Learning Organization
>concepts that we do not have language to describe
>what we are trying to describe.
Greetings dear Larry,
It is the same with me. Should I restrict myself to the terminology in the
works of Senge, I can just as much pack up and seek a job in a
supermarket. But by extending the terminology, I jump out of the fat into
the fire. Should I use mathematical terminology, I annoy at least those
fellow learners who had horrible experiences in their math classes. Should
I use the terminology of of irreversible thermodynamics, I could as well
have talked to myself in the desolation of a desert.
I have wrote once long ago that we can imagine the concept of a Learning
Organisation only because we are part of the Learning Universe (LU). This
LU involves everything (all its subjects and disciplines) which is studied
in academy as well that which nobody in it care to study (which is quite a
lot once we begin to search for them). It is because every LO is but a
speck in the LU that we will always have trouble in telling what we know.
I am not speaking here of the tacit dimension of knowing a-la Polanyi, but
of creating information which many other learners cannot digest. Perhaps
we may call it the "finity of telling".
>I will have to think about the LEP and LEC
>differential. I do not think of Learning Organizations
>in mathematics as much as human terms.
A lot of my thinking of LOs is done in mathematical, physical, chemical
and biological formulations (formalisations). I do it specifically to
create a bridge between the humanity sciences and the natural sciences.
But very little of this thinking I dare to tell in a "humanity audience"
using the formulations of these natural sciences. I will be a fool to
ognore the LRC (Law of Requisite Complexity)
I also do the reverse. A do a lot of my thinking in a natural science, say
chemistry, by using concepts and terminology coming from the humanity
sciences. But again very little of this thinking I dare to tell in a
"natural audience" using the languages of these humanity sciences.
The reason why I have to "commute" so much between the natural sciences
and huamnity sciences is my transdisciplinary thinking. It is an important
outcome of what I can call the "art of deep creativity". I have been
exploring this "art of deep creativity" since my early childhood. But it
was as if I was doing it in a deep sleep. The only person who knew what I
was doing was my mentor -- my father's younger brother, Uncle Phillip. But
what he knew about these explorations of mine was pure tacit knowledge.
Since he never articulated it, I had nothing through which to recognise my
own tacit knowing. I awoke partially from this deep sleep in 1967 when I
decided to move from physics and chemistry to soil science. I landed with
my butt in complexity. I awakened to complexity and thus also awakened
fully to the "art of deep creativity". In 1971 I made a crucial choice for
the rest of my life -- to help others learn by finding self out what makes
learning authentic.
In 1982-83 I discovered empirically that LEP (Law of Entropy Production)
acts not merely in the material world to which the brain belongs, but also
in the abstract world to which the mind belongs. Fortunately for me and
everybody else, I was so silly as to believe that others would also
consider my discovery as a break through. At least I was as ignorant to
the power of LEP in the mind as humankind was ignorant to the physical
power which Einstein's E = mc^2 would unleash -- nuclear bombs for
destructive purposes or nuclear reactors for constructive purposes.
>I was doing a strategic planning workshop
>with a company and the president stomped
>up during a workshop and ripped the data
>off the wall that the group had just placed there.
>He said this is wrong this is not our problem.
>Silence was so thick I felt like my heart stopped.
>From a facilitation perspective, it was the exact
>wrong thing to do if you are trying to build levels
>of trust and consensus.
For three years I felt that censuring my own discovery was an immense
wrong done to humankind. Then after my discovery of the seven
essentialities (7Es) of creativity, it took me another three years to
learn that it is the best thing which could ever happened. Only then did I
realise that LEP is merely the necessary condition for creativity. The
sufficiency condition for creativity was not LEP, but the 7Es.
Anyway, I agree with you that censure is the most powerful destructive
weapon of the mind. Many kinds of material and mental tools were used to
keep the ideology and policy of apartheid in power. The best one of them
all was nothing else than censure! I wish I could say "believe me", but I
never will because faith is something which has to emerge from within.
>For me the simplicity of 4 options is intended to
>relate that we are not making these 4 choices at
>the macro level most of the time but at multiple
>levels simultaneously.
It is indeed the case, although I will use "systematics" rather than
"simplcity".
Please, do not think that I criticised you. (In Greek the word for judge
and the word for criticise is exactly the same word!) I merely wanted to
help you because you are so very, very close to the systematics of all
changes in their entire complexity driven by LEP! Please also do not think
I am picking a fight with you. I have deliberately enganged with you in a
LO-dialogue on LEP as the generator of all changes. Dozens of fellow
learners wrote last year in private to me on this very issue. I think that
this dialogue will be of great help to them as well as the dozens of
others who did not write in private.
Prigogine made the creative stroke of a genius (see also my recent reply to
Gavin Ritz) when as a young man in the early 1950's he complexified the
expression /_\S(sy). Here the "/_\" means change, the symbol "S" means
"entropy" and the tag "(sy)" means "of the system SY". By sheer imagination
he wrote:
. /_\S(sy) = /_\(rev)S(sy) + /_\(irr)S(sy)
Here the tag "(rev)" means reversible and the tag "(irr)" means
"irreversible". Numerically the /_\(rev)S(sy) can be either zero, or an
increase or an decrease. But the /_\(irr)S(sy) can only be "always
increase minimally to break symmetry". Thus
/_\(rev)S(sy)
corresponds to nothing else than your
"zero" <=> "holding the same",
"increase" <=> "more of the same"
"decrease" <=> "less of the same"
while /_\(irr)S(sy) corresponds to
"always increase minimally to break symmetry" <=> "different"
But here now comes the snag which took me more than ten years to unravel.
The entropy is a measure of the organisation of any system. This is
because the entropy of a system has to manifested as the organisation of
the system! (Wierd is it not). Even all our interpretations of entropy is
a few of the zillions of manifestations possible for entropy. The
manifestations of the first three changes of /_\(rev)S(sy), namely
"zero" <=> "holding the same",
"increase" <=> "more of the same"
"decrease" <=> "less of the same"
is the "one-to-one-mapping" of kind. Unfortunately, the manifestations of the
last change of /_\(irr)S(sy), namely
"always increase minimally to break symmetry" <=> "different"
is a breaking of this "one-to-one-mapping" of kind.
When /_\(irr)S(sy) is so large that it drives the system to the edge of
chaos, its manifestation is now a "one-to-many-mapping" of kinds.
Furthermore, it splits your "different" into "more others of higher kinds"
by emergences or "more others of lower kinds" by emergences. It now acts
as a Bifurcator. But when /_\(irr)S(sy) is so small that the system drifts
into the valley of equilibrium, it actually drives the former three
"one-to-one-mappings. It now acts as a Digestor. We can summarise this
splitting of your "different" into "always increase minimally to break
symmetry" <=> "different" <=>.......
. <=> "more others of higher kinds"
. /
. \
. <=> "more others of lower kinds"
So, for /_\S(sy) itself, we have your for changes. But for the
manifestations of /_\S(sy) IN ALL LEVELS OF COMPLEXITY (your "multiple
levels") we have five changes.
>As you can see, I have trouble staying
>detached from my own mental models
>but I try. We can only learn from the point
>where we are standing.
I also have your trouble.
As midwife for authentic learning I have to guide you from the point where
you are NOW standing. But I also have to guide you to the next point where
you WILL be standing. It took me ten gruesome years of authentic learning
with help from nobody to move my systematics from the point of four
changes (/_\S(sy) itself) to the point of five changes ( manifestations of
/_\S(sy)). This is a movement from the CONTENT of change (/_\S(sy) itself)
to the FORM of change (manifestations of /_\S(sy)). I want you to take the
step which you want to take. Should it be the step from four to five, I
want to help you. Should it be any other step, I hope that I will still
can help you because I still want to learn together with you.
>My task is to try to see the Mental Models
>that are operating and to initially say they exist
>rather than judge them. All mental models made
>sense at some point or they would not exist.
Superbly said!
But allow me to make you aware of the very Mental Model which deny the
complementary duality of content-form. Leo, Winfried or Andrew can engage
in this dialogue on this very Mental Model for they are now deeply aware
to it. The constraints which this Mental Model places on learning
(individual and organisational) are legio. An OO which claims to be a LO,
but which denies this Mental Model, has to think again on its claim.
>What has changed that makes the mental model invalid?
>What must change to make it invalid?
>What is the new mental model beckoning?
These are powerful questions which we will have come back to, or which
others can take up in this dialogue.
>Knowing that they exist at all helps a group
>perceive that mental models are not abstract
>things but real, alive, and painful to let go of
>most of the time.
Very, very true.
>Anyway, keep thinking I appreciate your emails on the list.
Thank you for your kind words.
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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