Dear LO'ers, dear At,
I had to skip most of your tasty message, At. I am chewing with a lot of
moisture in mouth and rest of the digestive channel.
> Leo, when I woke up this morning, I knew that today I had to write "What
> is an emergence". I knew that I had not the luxury of incorporating
> pictures and strange formulas into a book. I had many everyday examples to
> choose from, but when I arrived at work I was sure it must be "bake a
> cake". As soon as I read this last part of your message, I had the goose
> flesh. Someone might tell me that this is not global synchronicity, but
> merely serendipity, but I will believe otherwise.
I believe otherwise too. It seems that thoughts are permanently in search
for companions, to move and meander together. Like the fish in a school,
the sheep in a flock, moscitoes or birds in a dynamic cloud composed of
other individuals of the same species, like the watermolecules in a river,
or the smoke particles of a burning cigarette: "a grand coherency and
consistency begin to manifest itself .....". Like the electrons in the
oven, working together as a team and yelling "we are baking a cake"!
> Go carefully back in
> this contribution until you find the sentence "A grand coherency and
> consistency begin to manifest itself, all behaviours now focusing on the
> baker." Read that paragraph again and you will discover depths of meaning
> which will astound you. Please bear in mind that I have written that
> paragraph before Jeanette phoned me or before I have received your
> contribution, otherwise you will fail to discover these deeper meanings.
I hope that I sensed the meanings (see above; we are baking a cake).
However At, the cake is for me not ready yet. We may dialoguing together
and parallel, but these electrons might also scream (with the same
enthousiasm): "we are burning the ingredients".
The secrets of the constructive emergency of baking a cake, or the
destructive immergency of burning the ingredients is for most of us
alchemy. Only a subtle deviation in the chain of components and processes
makes the difference. Jeanette and her team of colleagues is permanently
looking for, and understanding of these deviations.
We are all looking for, and understanding of those deviations. How could
we be the baker, so that all the squatters become a cake in the oven of
the city? How could we avoid the hurting of the ingredients, instead of
breaking and matching the molecules at the right places in the right
order, so that the mixture becomes a tasty and lighty pastry, or a Turkish
delight (has nothing to do with a Xmas turkey, although this bird seems to
be stuffed with it :-)).
The mystery of all bifurcation points stays for me as a puzzle. Is it just
coincidence that a process chooses the immergency, rather than the
emergency? Or lies this choice already in an earlier stage of the process?
In that case we should not speak of bifurcation points, because that means
that the trajectory before reaching this point, follows one single line:
/
_______________________________/ (bifurcation)
(start of process) \
\
(-------> time)
If it is not a matter of choice, than in earlier stages occurred a
'butterfly effect'. Which means that we should speak of a deviation
(instead of a point). For a long period in the process the trajectory is
composed of two parallel lines which at a vaguely defined point shows a
significant deviation: one following through towards an immergency, the
other towards an emergency:
/immergency
____________________________/
____________________________
parallel trajectory \emergency
\
(-------->time)
In my mind it is the last case. Otherwise it is for Jeanette, her team or
us, useless to look for devieations. We must follow the track bachward
towards the start of the process in search for the butterfly.
> I have not been able to lift a tip of the veil. This is not how emergences
> works. But I have tried to bake a cake, using only my mind and the
> computer. I hope you will enjoy eating this cake of the mind. Through
> technology it will become multiplied into thousands of cakes. For me this
> is no wonder. The wonder in multiplying a few fishes and loafs of bread
> happened close to 2000 years ago.
I am licking and tasting the cake, maybe I have consumed already some of
the cake, maybe I am working on a 'misbaksel' (waster, in Dutch litterary
a mis(bad)-baking.
PS The kitchen in house, is the kitchen of the thought
dr. Leo D. Minnigh
minnigh@library.tudelft.nl
Library Technical University Delft
PO BOX 98, 2600 MG Delft, The Netherlands
Tel.: 31 15 2782226
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Let your thoughts meander towards a sea of ideas.
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--Leo Minnigh <L.D.Minnigh@library.tudelft.nl>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>