Replying to LO27581 --
Dear Organlearners,
Andrew Campbell < ACampnona@aol.com > quotes
Karl E. Weick who wrote:
>Most organizational theorists, as well as most
>philosophers, mistake the certainty of structures
>seen in hindsight for the emergent order that frames
>living forward. Neither group of scholars has come
>to grips with the fact that their conceptual
>understandings trail life and are of a different character
>than is living forward.
(snip)
>I want to argue that one reason we theorize poorly
>about what matters most is because we use discourse
>that makes it hard to capture living forward with its
>blend of thrownness, making do, journeys and quests
>stitched together by faith, presumptions, expectations,
>alertness, and actions, all of which may amount to
>something, though we'll know for sure only when
>it's too late to do anything about it.
Greetings dear Andrew,
Thank you for quoting Weick so as to introduce his idea of "living
forward" to our LO-dialogue.
I am going to tease you a little once again with the two matematical signs
"=" (is equal to) and "<" (is smaller than).
We know that for the "=" we may have, for example,
2 = 2
3 = 3
4 = 4
5 = 5
The "=" is the most elementary "one-to-one-mapping" we
can possibly have. The 2 can map only on the 2.
But for the "<" we nay have, for example,
2 < 3
2 < 4
2 < 5
The "<" is the most elementary "one-to-many-mapping" we
can possibly have. The 2 can map on the 3, 4 or 5.
We now live in the last month of the year 2001. Soon we will
live in the first month of the year 2002. Which of the following
two expressions is a valid theory for our living?
2001 = 2002
2001 < 2002
Somebody looking merely at the numbers will say 2001 < 2002.
But what Weick could have said is that
. "living in 2001" < "living in 2001"
Does this make sense? I do not think so. But should I connect
living with complexity, the following might make sense:
. "complexity in 2001" < "complexity in 2002"
Does this make sense? Think for example of all the writings of
next year and compare it to all the writings of this year. Will
they be the same as this year's writings or will they be more
complex?
I think "living forward" means to "living into complexity". If
this is the case, then consider the following two expressions
. "complexity of past" = "complexity of future"
. "complexity of past" < "complexity of future"
Which of them is a valid theory for our living? Think about your
own life before you began to participate on the LO-dialogue
as the past and your life since you began participating as the
future of that past. I think you will agree that
. "complexity of past" < "complexity of future"
is as valid theory as
. "living in the past" < "living in the future"
or as
. "world's entropy in the past" < "world's entropy in the future"
How can we progress from the left side of the "<" to its right side? How
can we proceed in a "one-to-many-mapping"? You know of a powerful way
which we have talked about in the past. I have offered an example for the
EO (Elementary Organiser) "painting pictures". Do you still remember it?
Likewise we can use all other EO's to progress from the past to the
future.
Every EO is driven by human creativity. In other words, we progress from
the left side of the "<" to its right side by creating. It means that by
creating we are "living forward". In the same manner we are "living
forward" by other major mental ativities like learning, believing and
loving.
We can make the "<" in
. 2 < 4
an "=" by taking 1 form the 4 and add it to the 2. The result is
. 2+1 = 4-1
or
. 3 = 3
Similarly we can make the "<" in
. "complexity of past" < "complexity of future"
an "=" by taking some complexity away from the future and add
it to the past. This is reversibility. It denies the irreversibility
between the past and the future.
By loading the past with complexity which belongs to the future we can
easily destroy life. How can we do it? There are many examples. Here is
one. We may analyse the past of some person or even some organisation,
judge it to have been too simple and then penalise it for lack of
complexity, i.e. its lack of creating, learning, believing and loving.
This moning I had been thinking a lot about 3rd world countries and their
immense debts. What they have lended has to come from their own future.
That is why their future has become so bleak -- no "living forward"
anymore for them.
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
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>
"Learning-org" and the format of our message identifiers (LO1234, etc.) are trademarks of Richard Karash.