Dear Organlearners,
Greetings to you all.
Freedom and peace are outcomes of authentic learning. Thus they go to the
very heart of a Learning Organisation. I will try to explain. It will be
long so that it will be divided in two parts.
PART ONE -- Freedom, Peace and the LO
The concepts "entropy production" /_\S and "free energy" F have perplexed
many of you. Please be patient because understanding them comes step by
step rather than once for all. Let us recapitulate them once again. (The
strategy later on will be to let you comprehend them better by your
understanding of freedom and peace.)
Much of the total energy E of a system is locked up in maintaining its
present organisation. The present organisation is measured by its entropy
S. The remainder of the system's total energy E is its free energy F. It
is only this free energy F which the system can use to increase its
organisation in the future. It uses a change in free energy /_\F to work
while producing more entropy /_\S which match the change in its
organisation. The system can provide its own free energy or rely on
sources of free energy outside it.
Living systems alternate harmoniously between these two possibilities --
internal or external sources. When any living organism use an external
source of free energy, it is usually called food. But not all external
sources of free energy are food. For example, when an eagle glides on the
wind hunting for a prey, it uses the wind's free energy to move. When it
dives down to a prey, it uses the earth's gravitational free energy to
accelerate. Only when it eats that prey it becomes food. However, when the
eagle flaps its wings to lift itself, it uses its own free energy derived
from carbohydrates stored in its own body.
Likewise a LO will have to learn how to use its internal and external
sources of free energy wisely. Only then it can progress to freedom and
peace like an eagle.
Without food the organism will first use up its stored free energy before
it will eventually die. Physical death is caused by the lack of inner free
energy. For example, a heart attack may stop the circulation of blood
which provides the whole body with free energy. After a few minutes
irreversible damage will set in, beginning with the most sensitive organ
of all, the brain. This lack of inner free energy is often the result of
an incapacity to utilise an external source of free energy. For example,
the digestive system of the body may get blocked. Polluted plastic bags
cause it in wild animals on land and in sea.
Likewise a LO will have to learn the wisdom of providing for mental food
and ensure that it will be digested. The less such food an organisation
has or can digest, the less free energy it will have to seek freedom and
peace.
The concept "free energy" is some 100 years old. It was applied to
material systems for most of that time. But during the last 10 years
it became applied to mental systems too. Is this then not materialism?
No. Since time immemorial uncountably many humans have articulated
their tacit knowledge on free energy under the topic freedom. For
example, those whom we admire as heroes were willing to pay the
ultimate price for freedom -- death -- giving up on physical free energy
to gain in spiritual free energy. As another example I have explained
some weeks ago how too little change of spiritual free energy had
been articulated as vampirism. See
< http://www.learning-org.com/01.07/0018.html >
Does a person belonging to a LO really have to die in order to give up on
physical free energy and hence to gain spiritual freedom? Would we not
quickly claim that this is exactly what should not happen in a LO?
But when I think of Jesus and the twelve apostles as a LO, Jesus died on
the cross to give at least his eleven apostles spiritual freedom. Many
would argue that Jesus and the twelve apostles did not form a LO. But
should I apply the five disciplines of Senge to identify a LO, they formed
a LO for me. Furthermore, the apostles stressed that the spiritual freedom
which Jesus gave them was so perfect by virtue of his resurrection that it
will serve them up to the end of times. Thus it was not necessary to
repeat the sacrificial death of Jesus. Yet many apostles died a violent
death because of not wanting to give up on this spiritual freedom and fall
into the slavery of sin. They were willing to wait in untimely death until
the end of time before becoming resurrected in body too.
You fellow learners can describe many other similar examples. Despite
these examples, I think that the time is coming closer when the real test
of a LO will be whether it can avoid the killing of people so as to gain
in spiritual freedom for all its members as well as the outsiders with
whom they interact. Not only is the killing of humans on the stake, but
also the unnatural death of all other living species. The Green Peace
movement is an expression of this awareness of freedom to all forms of
life. Peace?
Closely related to the concept freedom is the name Frederic. It means rich
in peace="frede". Will the LO be able to provide for spiritual freedom in
a peaceful manner? Yes, but then the LO will have to incorporate freedom
and peace in its five disciplines. For example, in its Systems Thinking it
has to be make sure what freedom and peace are about. In the Personal
Mastery of each member there has to be a becoming towards freedom and
peace for all. Is this possible?
It does not seem so. Freedom and peace are as scarce in the world of today
as they were in all the previous millennia. Why? I personally believe it
is the lack in authentic learning of freedom and peace as well as a vast
ignorance to free energy and entropy production. I try to learn as much as
possible of these concepts. Yet I live in a country notorious for its
violence and crime. I can step out of my house (or it can even happen in
my house) and be caught up in a loss of freedom and peace. Without
exception it will happen because at least one human did not learn how
important free energy and entropy production are to the human condition.
I might be that very one human self, doing something ignorantly which
endangers the freedom and peace of others. That is why I have to keep on
learning more of freedom and peace. That is why I am sharing what I am
learning with you fellow learners so that we can learn together as a team.
That is why the LO-dialogue is so critically important. That is why we all
have to create constructively. That is how we will gain in knowledge and
thus respect for the constructive creations of others. Thus we will know
and respect the free energy of all living species with which they have to
create their future organisation. Thus we will avoid deluging them with
our own entropy production or its outcome as value added products.
Do I write on freedom and peace to get you interested in "free energy" F
and "entropy production" /_\S and thus fix the attention on me? It is
quite possible because some people deliberately did some strange things to
become famous. Furthermore, are the connections made in this contribution
too weird to be credible? Let us see how other people on Internet feel on
these topics.
Let us conduct an advanced search with Google on Internet.
< http://www.google.com/advanced_search >
How many hits are there to present files mentioning freedom and peace?
6 780 000 for freedom, 9 090 000 for peace and 857 000 for both. These
numbers are staggering! It will take anyone months to read through all the
files. But these numbers indicate that the minds of at least internetters
are definitely awakening to freedom and peace. So how will humankind
achieve this freedom and peace?
Let us explore it in a manner unveiling complexity. We will now use the
upper window of Google: freedom peace. To it we will add
Search Hits Key words in third window
(1) 579 000 religion, believing, faith
(2) 357 000 personality, spirituality, character
(3) 499 000 knowledge, learning, experience
(4) 119 000 creativity, brain, innovation
One out of two files indeed mention some spiritual facets of freedom and
peace.
Let us see how many internetters are aware of the energy-entropy
dynamics. We will now use the second window of Google for key
phrases with in the upper window: freedom, peace
Search Hits Key phrase in second window
(5) 711 total energy
(6) 8 entropy production
(7) 1130 free energy
Merely 2% of the files mention anything on the energy-entropy dynamics.
This is a cause for serious concern. It is like people who want to live, but
who do not know how to get food.
Let us also explore the awareness to the 7Es (seven essentialities of
creativity). Since very few people are aware of my discovery and
articulation of the 7Es, we will have to be very lenient in exploring
their awareness. I have given the 7Es nominal names (which have to be
preserved) as well as seminal names (which can be changed to indicate the
complexity in each.) I will persistently use only one name for each
essentiality to search for it. For some 7Es it will be the nominal names
(like wholeness and openness) because they are already known as such. For
the rest it will be a part of the seminal name (like identity, limit and
diversity) or a synonym close to it (like novel).
Search Hits Key words 1st window added to: freedom, peace
(8) 273 000 becoming (for liveness)
(9) 211 000 identity (for sureness)
(10) 16 600 wholeness
(11) 81 200 novel (for fruitfulness)
(12) 177 000 limit (for spareness)
(13) 131 000 diversity (for otherness)
(14) 44 900 openness
It is disconcerting that wholeness and openness which signify two
essentialities formally, give the least hits.
Let us now search with more than one essentiality so as to increase the
complexity. We will use "wholeness" as the "umlomo" (interpreter,
mouthpiece) for the increasing complexity between freedom and peace on the
one hand and the remaining 7Es on the other hand.
Search Hits Key words in addition to: freedom, peace
(15) 44 900 wholeness, becoming,
(16) 5 250 wholeness, identity,
(17) 1 650 wholeness, novel,
(18) 2 880 wholeness, limit,
(19) 3 230 wholeness, diversity,
(20) 2 000 wholeness, openness,
There is more than a tenfold decrease when two essentialities are kept
in mind.
Let us now include three essentialities to depict even more increasing
complexity. We will use openness in addition to wholeness as umlomo.
Search Hits Key words in addition to: freedom, peace
(21) 1 190 wholeness, openness, becoming,
(22) 938 wholeness, openness, identity
(23) 254 wholeness, openness, novel
(24) 516 wholeness, openness, limit
(25) 670 wholeness, openness, diversity
This decrease in hits illustrates the LSC (Law of Singularity of
Complexity). The more complex any species becomes, even Internet files on
freedom and peace, the less the number of specimens of the species.
We will finally use one key word for each category in the last search to
indicate even more complexity.
Search Hits Key words in addition to: freedom, peace
(21) 2 creativity, wholeness, "entropy production"
One of these hits is a passionate contribution by fellow learner Winfried
Dressler on our LO-list learning-org.com.
I think that the data speak for themselves. By supplying Google's advanced
search engine with an increasing complexity of key words, the number of
hits decreases gradually. It means that for freedom and peace we can
either focus on a simplistic strategy as the vast majority of internetters
do, or we have to focus on a complex strategy as the small minority do. We
will have to swim either with the stream of simplicity or against it
exploring the fractal path of complexity. We will each have to make our
choice and live with its consequences.
PART TWO will now follow.
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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