Dear Organlearners,
Winfried Dressler <winfried.dressler@voith.de> wrote:
> The first time when I followed the path up the ladder was 15 years ago,
> when I read Erich Jantsch's "Selforganisation of the Universe". In this
> ladder was a break, that puzzled me: the path came from particles up to
> humans and went on to human organisations (family, nation...). The break
> was when he arrived at humans - there is a picture on this in his book, I
> can look it up, if you want me to.
Yes, this disturbing break is very clear.
> I couldn't resolve the puzzle until I read Ken Wilber's "Eros, Kosmos,
> Logos" 2 years ago. Wilber resolves the puzzle by distinguishing
> individual holons from social holons. How does this fit to your example?
In an individual holon (human) there is some harmonious balance
between becoming-being. This is necessary to living. Sometimes this
balance is seriously disturbed. Consequently the individual's ability
to live physically and spiritually, is seriously impiared.
In a social holon there must be a commitment by the individual
holons to upheld the social holon's becoming. However, this
commitment is not trivial. It can only be upheld by mutual leanrning.
It means that the individual holons have to participate in
organisational learning - the organisation being the social holon.
> Wilber calls this thinking "flatland holism". But neither your nor
> Husserls thinking is "flat": Low order (low complexity) holons that
> connect to create a higher order holon, to which they are essential, but
> that does not let them unchanged (yes, there is a top-down feedback), is
> at the heart of emergences. "Flatland" is a clear immergence, I guess
> "identity-categoricity" (sureness) being impaired. So let us be very
> careful in the use of the word "essential".
Flatland holism is dangerous. If there are no peaks, there are no
sources of free energy to drive future becomings. It is like
expecting water to move over a great flat stretch of land. It will
move nowehere because everywhere it has the same free energy.
For example, the former Soviet and its satelite countries have been a
victim of the flatland holism of communism.
> A "plasmodial organisation" in this picture would be a social holon on the
> highest emergent level available to the individuals, waiting for a
> structuring emergence to happen in a process of coevolution of individual
> and organisation - called organisational learning. One example would be
> tribes to form a nation, or nations to form ? (not yet emerged, but there
> is some kind of plasmodial organisation called "globalisation"). For such
> social emergences to happen, it is necessary (I avoid "essential" here!)
> that a critical mass of individuals emerge to the ability of managing
> higher order complexity.
You first sentence has an astounding depth of meaning for me.
Your description fits the situation in South Africa remarkedly. The
destruction of Apartheid left both the black and white people in a
phase of "plasmodial organisation". The black people have to
reorganise their own culture into a democracy - which was never the
case before. In other words, little of their former organisations
will be operative unchanged in the new democracy. The white people
have to give up their dream of a restricted democracy - which will
never be the case again. Little of their former organisations will
survive unchanged.
Would you say that, in a restricted sense, German people are also
experiencing since the fall of the wall a phase of plasmodial
organisation by trying to let one Germany emerge from the former
West and East divisions of Germany?
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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