Dear Organlearners,
Steve Eskow <dreskow@magicnet.net> writes:
in reply to Steve Levy - and his wife-:
> >A learning organization should be able to nucleate itself by uniquely
> >pursuing paths never before seen or flowing naturally to a place never
> >before reached. I believe that the use of metaphors merely delays or
> >diverts us away from achieving a heightened state of awareness - one of
> >the precursors to learning.
>
> Can we really do without metaphor and look at reality without it?
...snip...
Steve, what you have written, reminds me of Wittgenstein. He has
concluded, after a full life of enquiry into human rationality, that we
cannot escape the fact that we are creatures who have to think rationally
by using languages.
> Reality isn't real any more.
>
> It's not out there just waiting for people to take off those metaphoric
> glasses, see it accurately in all its pristine realness, and map it
> accurately.
>
> (That "map" metaphor again.)
>
> Looking at organizational "entropy", as At and others do, is looking at
> organizations metaphorically.
Let me explain my viewpoint by using languages (triggered by thinking of
Wittgenstein) as a metaphor.
The Ancient Egyptians used hieroglyphs to write. Some hieroglyphs each
represented simple phonemes (sounds), others each represented syllables,
others each represented full words and others each represented metaphors
(complex relationships for which we will use a couple of sentences). Then
human writing differentiated into three main branches, the languages with
a ideographic ortography to the far east (Chinese), the languages with a
syllabic ortography to the middle east (Arab) and the languages with a
phonemic ortography to the north (Greek). Yet they all have two things in
common. Firstly, they have an "ortography for writing" - an organisation
of "symbols to be printed". Secondly, each of them is secondary to the
spoken language itself.
Let us now think of the inner complexity of the ortographic units in these
three main language groups. The inner complexity increases from the
phonemic through the syllabic to the ideographic units. Similarly, the
inner complexity of terms/metaphors increases from those describing the
inanimate physical realm through those terms describing the biological
realm to those describing the cultural (sports, arts, business, politics)
realm of humankind. Again they have two thing in common. Firstly, they
have an organisation of "terms to image a realm" - an "ortography for
thinking". Secondly, each of them is secondary to its "spoken" language -
language which many of us deperately try to "speak" rather than to
"write".
What I think Steve Levy tried to articulate is that we should also try to
"speak" this new language rather than only "write" it. But let him be the
judge.
Concerning your remarks on "entropy", you are right (in the sense of my
metaphor of language) that all the terms related to "entropy production"
(note, not "entropy") have a metaphoric value. In fact, as a student up to
1968, I considered their metaphoric value like that (to use my metaphor)
of a regional language with a phonemic ortography. I could write several
such languages and had more than enough doubts about the use of "entropy".
It was like writing Greek <Big Grin>.
Then, from 1968 up to 1982, I had to change my opinion. I needed a
language to write about the behaviour of complex things. I discovered that
"entropy production" (rather than "entropy) and its related terms also
satisfied my syllabical ortogrpahic needs. To be able to think in terms of
phonemes and syllables was a pleasant surprise. It was like writing Greek
and Arabic <Bigger Grin>.
I never expected that I would have to change my opnion again. But since
1982-83. I needed a language to write about the complexity of reality
itself and not some complex things in it. At first I was sceptical about
"entropy production" and its related terms and searched for another
language through the entire academical spectrum to satsify my even more
complex needs. But eventually I ended up speaking a new language in which
"entropy production", "creativity" and "learning" were its parent
languages to satisfy my ideographical ortographic needs. To be able to
think in terms of phonemes, syllables and ideogrpahs was sheer delight. It
was like writing Greek, Arabic and Chinese <Biggest Grin>.
I also became cautious, knowing that I might have to change my opnion
again. I began to wonder what are these "spoken" languages which we try
capture with our "writings", irrespective of the "ortogrpahy" we use. Then
I had to change my opnion once again. Since 1992 I began to hear these
"spoken" languages. They were the "tacit knowledges" in each of us,
created in terms of the experiences of each of us. (The tacit knowledge of
a person is that knowledge which a person has, but which has not been
articulated by that person before. Intuition and forebode, for example,
belong to our tacit knowledge.) Is it not crazy? I now hear and speak
those tacit languages which some of us so desperately try to do. I am like
a toddler in speaking and hearing them, but I am maturing. And with this
came the insight that I am not "writing" Greek, Arabic and Chinese by
mixing the basic ortogrpahies, but that I am contibuting to the
development of a consistent and coherent hieroglyphic ortography. It is
now like writing Ancient Egyptians <Bigger than Biggest Grin>.
> Looking at, say, 23 people as if they were a single entity we might call
> by a single term--say the term "organization"--and then taking that
> welding of 23 people into something singular called an "organization" one
> metaphoric step forward and calling it a "learning organization," is one
> way that metaphor begin to group and cohere: and become "reality".
>
> As for me, Steve, I've said this before and I say it again:
>
> I never metaphor I didn't like.
As for me, the difference between an organisation and a learning
organisation is that in a LO we learn to write and read in terms of a
common hieroglypic (=phonemic+syllabic+ideographic) ortography about the
things we now speak and hear, things which have not been articulated
before - our tacit knowledges. To do this, can we do anything else than
using metaphors from reality, metaphors as simple as phonemes (individual
sounds) up to metaphors as complex as ideographs? Like Wittgenstein I
think we have no other option. Why? We cannot deny or escape that superior
creativity by which we have become humans.
However, I believe the one thing we all should avoid, is to become victims
of this very creativity in the sense of the "boiled frog" or the
Malthusian trap. We should desire wisdom rather than trying to be clever
because clever catches its master. Wisdom will make us free.
Best wishes
--At de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre for Education University of Pretoria Pretoria, South Africa email: amdelange@gold.up.ac.za
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