Andrew, replying to Art and Alfred in LO28233, writes:
>Dear Art and Alfred,
>
> > Thank you Alfred for that coffe break which eventually became a lunch
> > break. Your thinking helped me to break out of my own vicious circle of
> > reasoning.
> >
> > Later that night I began to understand my own mistake. By using the
> > meaning of neutral, I allowed LEM (Law of Excluded Middle) to creep into
> > my own reasoning. What LEM did was to isolate my reason from the rest of
> > my mental faculties. My reason became a closed box. Meaning emerges not
> > merely from reason, but from all my mental faculties. My mind has to close
> > to allow for that emergence of meaning. This closing is better known as
> > contemplation-introspection-reflection-meditation.
> >
> > Only after the kernel of meaning had emerged, I can open my mind again for
> > that meaning to grow by digestion. In this I extend the kernel of meaning
> > by adding other meanings to it through their relationshups with it.
>
>Your thinking reminded me of this...
>"Think in terms of loops, inputs and outputs are totally dependent on
>interactions within the systems, richness comes from internal
>connectedness. Give up the boxes and work with the entire loopiness of
>the thing." Francisco Varela.
A closed loop is also an excellent way of viewing human behavior. Our
actions serve to keep our perceptions of relevant conditions aligned with
our intentions. To paraphrase Andrew's quote of Varela: Give up the
stimulus-response model and work with the entire loopiness of human
behavior. The notion that people act to control what they perceive
translates in other systems to the idea that all systems act to control
what they receive. That's a roundabout way of saying that system survival
depends on its inputs, not its outputs. (True, there might be an imposed
or even a natural contingency between outputs and inputs, but that doesn't
alter the system's dependency on inputs.)
The "loop" has two primary stages: transformation (i.e., the conversion of
inputs into outputs) and transaction (i.e., the exchange of outputs for
new inputs to continue the cycle or loop that defines the system in
question).
My point? Well, if you apply the "loopiness" thing to organizations,
especially to businesses, you will quickly see that, to paraphrase John
Donne, no organization is a system unto itself . To get a "loop" going,
especially an infinite loop, you need receiving and supplying entities
(customers and suppliers). Then you notice that even these three are but
parts of a larger stream of activity and that the roles of supplier,
producer and customer are relative, not absolute. That brings you face to
face with the prospect of an organization's processes not really being
"the organization's processes" but merely segments of larger streams of
activity, only some portion of which "belongs" to the organization in
question. And that forces you to face squarely the fact that process
boundaries are delineations of these larger streams of activity and that
where you set the boundaries (and, Yes, you set them, they don't exist) is
probably the most important choice you will make with respect to studying
and understanding the process you have just defined as a consequence of
establishing its boundaries.
Which brings me to what Andrew's post reminded me of -- the closing lines
from an old poem about systems that I published more than 25 years ago:
"Enjoy these few small truths, ponder them well,
and perhaps some day in turn you can tell
someone you know - be it family or friend -
how there is no beginning and no end,
no cause, no effect, not one can be found
in closed loops going around and around."
Regards,
Fred Nickols
740.397.2363
nickols@att.net
"Assistance at A Distance"
http://home.att.net/~nickols/articles.htm
--Fred Nickols <nickols@att.net>
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