Replying to LO28954 --
Dear Organlearners,
Terje Tonsberg <tatonsberg@hotmail.com> writes:
>So in more detail we have:
>
>Emergent learning:
>
>Motivationally: (study --> emergence --> pleasure
>of discovery) as a behavioral contingency.
>Structurally: (study --> emergence --> increased
>number and magnitude of questions)
>Where digestive stages are needed for emergences
>to continue occuring.
>
>Digestive motivation:
>Motivationally: (study --> absorbing information into
>knowledge structure --> pleasure of rapid knowledge growth)
>Structurally: (study --> knowledge growth of currect
>structure --> increased number of answers)
Greetings dear Terje:
I have enjoyed thoroughly the way in which you have made sense for
yourself of an intricate topic.
>The function of learning becomes to build a knowledge
>structure that continues to emerge and digest. This
>means that the information absorbed from the environment
>and the knowledge on the inside needs to be treated in
>the right way, i.e. with the right form of motivational or
>structural energy. The form is reflected in the 7Es.
If I may change your wording to fit my own thinking, I would
change only two things.
(1) I would substitute "structure" with "organisation"
(2) I would substitute "motivational or structural" with "organisational"
Nevertheless, your aticulation is very good.
>In the digestive phase this means that one has to get an
>answer for the questions that arise after an emergence
>Right after an emergence there are many questions, i.e.
>a discovery raises new questions, this is what is meant
>by a "high level of entropy" after an emergence.
The above and the rest which I cannot quote makes me happy to see that you
hink so fluently in terms of entropy and its dance between digestion and
bifurcation, resulting in the entropy landscape. Given the fact that you
have not been schooled deep in the physical sciences, this is an
outstanding performance! You are either a superior rote learner ( ;-) or a
learner who can figure out self why the digestion phase and bifurcative
phase are complementary to each other.
A string of bifurcations without subsequent digestions between each will
cause eventually a burn-out. This happens frequently in organisations
pressing for novelty in production. It is highly traumatic for the
burnt-out persons. Likewise an excessive digestion on every bifurcation
will cause a complacency, thinking the future is merely a replication of
the past. Only a catastrophe can shock a complacent person out of this
hypnosis.
There are five things which I want to stress so that you can ponder upon
your own subsequent learning. I have found themselves most important in my
own learning. Please consider them as hints to your own "Instructional
Design and Learning" specifically with respect to the topic entropy.
The first is that mentioning entropy in a discussion often leads to
adverse responses. How dare you mention such a word when we try to
establish order. How dare you bring in thermodynamics which merely has to
do with machines. How dare you subject us to a law which applies only to
closed systems. The misconceptions concerning entropy are many and
serious. They have been formed upon frivolous information involving much
speculations, but little observation or falsification. Please take care
when mentioning entropy and how it changes, what causes the change and
what consequences the changes have. Humankind's insight on LEP (law of
entropy production) involves a time scale much larger than that of the
life of a learner.
The second is that only a handful of scientists have made a thorough study
of irreversible thermodynamics and its application to non-equilibrium
systems. The reason is that the complexity involved is staggering and thus
most intimidating. A superior knowledge of mathematics, physics and
chemistry is required to appreciate all its intricacies. In the present
era of specialisation, publication and conferment few are willing to
master such a comprehensive body of knowledge in order to advance in it.
The fact that Prigogine was awarded the Nobel prize in chemistry is still
some mystery to me.
The third is to think further than entropy in terms of its possible
interpretations. Physicists got stuck in interpreting entropy as a measure
of chaos. Chemists follow them suite rather than accepting what the
standard entropy of compounds indicates. Entropy is also a measure of
order. Now what of a system has both chaos and order to it? I can think of
only one thing -- the organisation of that system. [I would be glad to
learn from any fellow learner a better description than organisation.]
Consequently an increase in the entropy of a system means an increase in
the organisation of that system, chaos and order as well as process and
structure. The dance of entropy tells us which of them prevails.
The fourth is always to seek the cause of entropy production. The cause is
at least one entropic force-flux pair corresponding to the conversion of
one form of energy into other forms. The entropic force is the difference
in the intensive (non-scalable) factor. It helps me in such a case to
think of a quality in human systems (otherness). The entropic flux is a
flow in the extensive (scalable) factor. It helps me in such a case to
think of something countable in human systems (spareness). Both the force
and its flux are needed to produce entropy. Once these entropic force-flux
pairs are found, the networks of interactions in any system and between
systems began to reveal themselves. Vague phrases like "political forces"
or "economical forces" begin to take shape.
The fifth is to know why LEP (Law of Entropy Production) has to be
introduced to the human sciences. Since LEP was discovered some 150 years
ago, it took more than 100 years for a few thinkers such as Prigogine and
Jantsch that LEP is the driving force (necessary condition) for all
evolution in nature. Long ago the cosmologist Sir Arthur Eddington
suspected that scientists have scratched only the surface of understanding
LEP. There is a vast abyss between the human (cultural) and natural
sciences which we have to bridge and ultimately heal. My own empirical
discovery during 1982-83 was that LEP is one of the bridges over this
abyss.
I find it astounding that nature has only one law for increases and that
is LEP. I find it astounding that in human culture increases play such a
fundamental role -- investments, learning and spirituality. I find it
incredible that no one else perceives a common pattern between natural and
cultural increases.
I find it astounding that nature has only one law for "one-becomes-many"
and that is LEP. I find it astounding that in human culture this
"one-becomes-many" play just such an important role -- think of business,
art or language manifesting itself in many forms. I find it incredible
that no one else perceives a common pattern between natural and cultural
"one-becomes-many".
We live in a world in which peace and advancement have become very
fragile. We live in a world in which love and respect have become very
scarce. We live in a world in which opportunists have displaced the
philanthropists as role figures. We live in a world in which external
information has displaced knowledge living within a person. We live in a
world in which humankind is about to terminate its own evolution through
die-off and its global effects. I think that it is high time to take
inventory of just what we are doing.
Terje, your attempts at making Humpty Dumpty whole again does not go
unnoticed.
>> (snip) .... but not actually tried to make an audit of it,
>>I would say that here in South Africa it is in the order
>>of 4/5ths (80%). I would be surprised should it be less
>>than 2/5ths (40%) in any other country.
(I am refering here to the wasting of educational resources which leads to
overcrowded curricula.)
>How did you calculate these figures?
Two ways:
(1) Counting the number of a topic (to be learned) occurs in successive
cources, either prescribed or to be affirmed again. If had been mastered
fluently during the first course it occured, such a repetition would not
have been necessary.
Mediocrity in education is the greatest waster of its resources.
(2) Counting all the hours spent in preparing for tests (both teachers
and learners), then the tests and then getting them marked answers back
while there is little, if any, interactive feedback.
Lack of interactive feedback in education is the another great waster of
its resources.
>At said:
>
>>But why is there pleasure in discovery? One part of it
>>could be genetic, but there is also the element of feeling
>>of accomplishment.
>>
>>A deep question which I will answer to next time. I now
>>have to rush.
>
>My comment:
>
>I'll be at the edge of my seat for this one...
I have created the essay "Intellectual Passions" which ought to answer in
part the question.
>By the way, you once mentioned that you have
>empirical support for your theory. It seems to me
>that it should be possible to measure emergences
>as well as entropy precisely through a combination
>of behavioral/ physiological signs?
Yes, this empirical discovery indeed made use of "signs" as you speak of
them, but they involve "structural&procedural", i.e., organisational
entities in many levels of the mind. Furthermore, the measured outcome is
as astounding complex as the measuring instruments.
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@postino.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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