Replying to LO27602 --
Dear Organlearners,
Alan Cotterell <acotrel@cnl.com.au> writes:
>Organisational bifurcation sounds like schizophrenia
>to me. If it is, then is an organisation with a high level
>of paranoia dangerous?
Greetings dear Alan,
Hopefully I do understand where your question is leading.
I think that there is a very close relationship between schizophrenia and
ordinate bifurcations. Let me first give a short synopsis of schizophrenia
and then one for ordinate bifurcations so that we can see whether there is
a connection or not.
SCHIZOPHRENIA
The word schizophrenia comes from the Greek words "schistos"=cleave and
"phrenos"=mind. The "-nia" indicates the plural. It is a psychological
term which refers to several serious mental disorders. They are
characterised by some withdrawal from reality as well as abnormal,
emotional behaviour. Usually four classes of schizophrenia are recognised:
simple, catatonic, hebephrenic and paranoid.
In simple schizophrenia the person exhibits a withdrawal from personal
relationships and external interests, often accompanied by extreme
dissatisfaction and indifference.
In catatoic schizophrenia the person exhibits symptoms either such as
bizarre posturing, mutism, rigidity, stupor as if there is a firm
resistance to instructions and attempts to be moved or otherwise like
excessive or apparently unprovoked excitement.
In hebephrenic schizophrenia the person exhibits extreme disorders in
thought such as silly, ridiculous, delusionary and and hallucinationary
thinking, often coupled with a lack of emotion.
Paranoid schizophrenia are characterized by delusions of persecution
and/or delusions of grandeur while often the person may fabricate his or
her own reference framework to systematize these disorders.
As the word "schistos"=cleave indicates, in all these forms of
schizophrenia the person is clearly indifferent to wholeness. Wholeness is
one of the 7Es (seven essentialities of creativity ). The other six 7Es
six liveness, sureness, fruitfulness, spareness, otherness and openness.
They all have to increase to sustain constructive creativity and all its
emerging higher order mental activities.
The 7Es are tightly dependent on each other. Thus a serious impairing in
one of the 7Es usually causes a serious impairing in at least another one
of them.
I think that in simple schizophrenia the primary impaired essentiality is
fruitfulness ("connect-beget"). It then causes the secondary impairing in
wholeness ("unity-associativity") which makes it a schizophrenia. In
catatoic schizophrenia the primary impaired essentiality is liveness
("becoming-being"). In hebephrenic schizophrenia the primary impairing is
in sureness ("identity-categoricity"). In paranoid schizophrenia the
impairing seems to be in spareness ("quantity-limit").
If my understanding of schizophrenia is correct, then there ought to be
six major classes of schizophrenia depending on wholeness as the secondary
impaired essentiality with each of the possible six remaining 7Es the
primary impaired essentiality.
ORDINATE BIFURCATIONS
The organisation (structures and processes) of any system can be expressed
by its entropy. Hence the entropy of the system has to be changed to match
the change in its organisation. The system can produce that entropy self
within or it can be deluged by entropy produced somewhere else in its
environement.
Any system (including the neurological system of animals like fish, birds
and mammals) can be driven to the ridge of chaos by vast entropy
production, whether from within or deluged from the outside. It is here at
the ridge of chaos where ordinate bifurcations will happen. The outcome of
the ordinate bifurcation is either a constructive emergence or a
destructive immergence. The constructive emergence is characterised as a
new higher level of order in that system. The destructive immergence is
characterised as a breaking up of the present level of order to past lower
levels of order in that system.
The outcome of the ordinate bifurcation on a certain level depends on the
complexity of each of the 7Es for that level. If one or more of them are
seriously impaired, the bifurcation will result into a destructive
immergence rather than the constructive emergence. We can think of the
ridge of chaos as having changed into an edge of chaos with an abyss
beyond it. (See the topic "entropy landscapes".)
A system which produces self its entropy so as to move to the ridge of
chaos will not experience an edge on top of the ridge. Hence the
bifurcation will become a constructive emergence. The reason is that
sufficient complexity in each of the 7Es is also needed to produce enough
entropy to reach the top of the ridge for that level of order. But when
the system is driven to the top of the ridge by a deluge of entropy from
the outside, the ridge will often have a edge to it. In such cases the
bifurcation will become a destructive immergence.
SCHIZOPHRENIA and BIFURCATIONS.
I am not a psychiatrist. I am a teacher who, in his teacher's training
more than 30 years ago, had to learn psychology and how to to identify
mental disorders among pupils so as to direct them to a qualified
psychiatrist as soon as possible.
Before realising that my call was teaching, I did research in the
complexity of soils. It is there where I learned of entropy production and
how it influences the complexity of soils. So when I spotted the first
schizophrenic pupil in school, I was surprised that so much of it
corresponded to the destruction of soil fertlility (productivity) by vast
entropy production.
My awarness of this correspondence was tacitly. Should I at that stage
tried to ariculate it formally, I would not have succeeded. Only a dozen
years later, after having discovered the 7Es and having managed to
articulate them, would it perhaps have been possible. I write "perhaps"
because I was still very immature in my understanding of the 7Es, perhaps
too immature to ariculate my tacit understanding.
ORDINATE BIFURCATIONS in ORGANISATIONS.
I think that we have to distinguish between ordinate bifurcations in
individuals and in organisations. The ordinate bifurcations in
organisations will begin with its individuals and then extend to groups
forming among peers with subsequent bifurcations in these groups.
We may expect further destructively immerging (rather than constructively
emerging) behaviour in a group of people of which its individuals have
mental disorders. Typical examples are to be founded in overcrowded jails
and mental institutions chich are usually understaffed too. To the
opposite end we have the Learning Teams in Learning Organisations(LOs).
Here the constructive emergences in the Personal Mastery of the
individuals in the team is crucial.
Let us now get to Alan's question:
. "If it is, then is an organisation with a
. high level of paranoia dangerous?"
Peter Senge writes in the Appendix to the Fifth Discipline on the 11
essences of a LO. It is possible to combine some of them (as I did several
years ago in our LO-dialogue) into seven essences reminiscent of the 7Es.
Whether the 11 essences of a LO or the 7Es, they have to be in shape for
that Ordinary Organisation (OO) to emerge into a LO. One of the major
characterestics of that LO will be its Metanoia, according to Senge. The
LO differs from the OO since the OO has merely "orthonoia" (ordinary
thoughts).
When an OO is deluged by entropy production from the outside (such as
happened by the hideous and tragic events of 11 September 2001), that OO
will be forced to the ridge of chaos. Should some the 7Es be seriously
impaired in most of its members, they will experience as individuals
psychological disorders. Hence, collectively in peer groups, they may
exhibit strong paranoia. But should the 7Es have been cared for
sufficiently in its members, then the that OO may emerge into a LO because
of this highly irreversible (entropy producing) event. In it Learning
Teams will form each with its own metanoia rather than paranoia.
It may seem as if I am being highly theoretical here. But the fall of
apartheid was just such an highly irreversible event with massive entropy
production. For 9 years I had the opportunity to observe how in many OOs
psychotic peer groups immerged destructively, often with severe paranoia.
(South African fellow learners may contemplate in this regard OOs like the
AWB and PAGAD.)
Most of the remaining OOs managed to regain their composure and paranoia,
but they did not have the capacity to emerge into LOs. A few OOs did
indeed emerge into LOs with striking Metanoia. In the topic "Audit of a
Learning Organisation LO27568" I reported on two such cases here in
Pretoria.
Should the frequency of such highly irreversible events with vast entropy
production increase in future, then in their own interests these OOs will
have to question whether it is not better for them to emerge into LOs. I
have read many times how the concept of a LO gets sold so as to have "at
the edge of chaos in globalisation a competitative advantage". I think it
is far more important to stay alive at the ridge of chaos than to be a
winner at the edge of chaos. OOs which have emerged into LOs will
experience the intense deluge of chaos, not as an edge with an abyss
beyond it, but as a ridge with a minor gulley at its top. Thus they will
have metanonia as a result of it rather than frequent paranoia when
remaining as OOs.
In conclusion all the above may be summed up as follows. In any
organisational bifurcation, the LOs will experience metanoia whereas many
of the OOs may experience dangerous paranoia as a result of temporal,
mental disorders appearing in some of their members.
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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