Dear Organlearners,
Jon Krispin" <jkrispin@prestolitewire.com> writes:
>This post is an attempt to integrate some of the ideas that
>At de Lange has been sharing with us recently (specifically,
>entropy and entropy production, bifurcations and emergence)
>with the ABC model of behavior that I have been attempting to
>explain. I am not sure if my attempts to draw the parallels
>that I have been realizing between these lines of thought will
>make as much sense to others as they seem to in my own
>mind, but I am curious what others may think.
Greetings Jon,
What is important to me at this stage, is the "attempt to integrate" (the
becoming or behaviour) rather than its final outcome (the being or
structure). Thus I want to thank you very much for this "attempt to
integrate". To step into an unknown world and explore it is a courageous
thing to do. But the discoveries to be made makes it worthwhile.
>In his primer (Part I, LO19979), he defines entropy as a
>"measure of organization" and a picture fixed at a particular
>"instant of time".
This description of entropy, namely that entropy is a "measure of the
present organisation of a system", did not came easily. As a
physicist, I have been trained to repeat like Pavlov's dog that
entropy is a "meausre of chaos". Only when I became a soil scientist,
I discovered by experience that entropy also had to do with structure,
but with structures unlike the molecular structures which I studied as
a chemist. The structures of soils were much more complex, web-like
and variable. (The technical term is that they are
non-stoichiometrical, i.e they do lend themselves to calculations of
fixed ratios.) So my concept of structure had to broaden to
incorporate both stoichiometrial and non-stoichiometrical
structures -- all which could be expressed by entropy. This
integration took about ten years. But by then I was also trying to
integrate macrosopical objects like living species. The word structure
became more problematical because on this level the word morphology
rather than structure is used. Furthermore, discoveries in molecular
chemistry compelled me like most other chemists to recognise inside a
molecule a fantastic diversity of internal behaviours exist --
submolecular behaviours which are responsible for maintaing the
particular overall molecular structure. In fact, the weak (unstable)
parts of a molecule was the places where such internal behavious were
very mcuh reduced.
Eventually, after I have discovered empirically (1982-83) that entropy
production also happens in the world of mind, I encountered a lot of
new words (notions), all having to do with "structure". Gradually I
began to experience how the word "organisation" articulate the common
feature in all these notions. I began experimenting with replacing
(translating) the words mophology and structure with organisation,
trying to observe if the translated version still conveys the original
meanings. It did, but admittedly only after I put much effort in it.
So, Jon, if you read that I am writing that entropy is a "measure of
the present organisation of a system", it is the result of an
ingretion process which took me almost two decades. If you consult
text books in physical chemistry, you will still find the traditional
rendering that entropy is a "measure of the chaos in a system". In do
not know of even one text book in physical chemistry which will write
that entropy is a "measure of the chaos and structure in a system".
Yet, except that it involves a paradign shift, it is technically easy
to show that entropy is a "measure of the chaos and order in a
system".
>I have to admit that my personal level of competence with
>these concepts is at the "conscious incompetence" level,
>but I have been struggling mightily to integrate them into my
>own thinking. Here, I am trying to make my admittedly
>limited tacit knowledge formal (again).
Marvelous words. It describe much of my thinking during the period
1983-88. But I did not had the word "tacit knowledge" to use. The
closest I could get, was to describe it as "meta-epistemological"
thinking and my attempts to formalise it. Fortunately, I got hold of
Michael Polanyi's book "The Tacit Dimension" (1967) and discovered
with great pleasure that someone had walked this road before me,
trying to capture with words as he proceeded. Sometimes I wished that
I had read his book 10 to 15 years earlier -- it would have save me a
lot of time. But on other occasions I felt fortunate that I did not
read the book much earlier because then my experiences would have been
much poorer.
>intensive (being)--->entropic force
>extensive (becoming)--->entropic flux
Jon, the great difficulty with the mind is that we cannot partition it
like a physical system to discover which measurable quantities are
intensive (unpartitioned) or extensive (partitioned). I wish I could
give you better news, but the wholeness of the mind is here at stake,
very mcuh like a physical living system. It is easy to cut a living
entity in half and determine which quantities also cut in half. In the
case of plants we may still end up in a living plant, although very
much disfigured. But in the case of animals the result is deadly.
We can do at most two things. Firstly, we can conduct "thought
experiments" as Einstein called them, observing the outcomes of these
experiments. I am thinking here in the direction of Husserl's
phenomenology. Secondly, we can observe patients with schizofrenic
disorder much closer to determine extensive/intensive properties.
Here is a thought experiment. The truth values "true" and "false" set
up between them and entropic force. In sharp logic it is a discrete
force and in fuzzy logic it is a continuous force. When I think away
(like in phenomenology) half of the matematical theorems which hover
in my mind, the force set up by the difference between "true" and
"false" stays the same for me. (I really do not know how it is for
other people and would like to hear them on this issues.) In other
words, the two truth values "true" and "false" express an intensive
quantity which we not even yet has given a name. Perhaps we can name
it the "aletheic factor". Whereas "true" and "false" stays the same,
it is not the case with "truth". In other words, if I remove half the
mathematical theorems from my mind, the mathetical "truth" within me
is less (half?). This means that truth is an extensive quanitity.
As soon as I begin to establish the truth of a number of theorems by
logical reasoning, an entropic flux is set up. Actually, as soon as I
begin to make use of simple inferences (modus ponens, De Morgan, etc)
whithin the first theorme, the flux is already observable. This flux
(logical inferences) operating withing the "true"-"false force field,
produces entropy. The first manifestation of this entropy production
is "chaos" (diversity of becoming). Thus I have enabled myself to
observe this chaos while procing the theorem. For example, often at a
particular step of the proof, I wonder if I should not try another
inference rather than the obvious one suggested at that step.
Sometimes I become aware of three or even more inferences which I can
make use of at a particular step -- obviously, not all of them equally
successful.
>Above, in the first snip from At, he states
>>The antecedents (A) of Jon Krispin are nothing else than
>>the entropy producing force-flux (tension flow) pairs.
>What does this mean then for the behavioral energy that is
>required for change? If I understand all of this correctly,
>actually I think At's statement isn't quite correct in this
>context (this is not to say that it wouldn't be correct for
>other contexts and energy forms). I think that the correct
>arrangement would be as follows:
>
>intensive (being)--->entropic force = antecedents
>extensive (becoming)--->entropic flux = consequences
Jon, I for one, will not argue with you, because the world into which
we now are moving, are still very much unknowm. Although I have
fifteen years of thinking into this world behind me, it had been
pretty lonesome. I will carefully think over what you have suggested
above, but it will take time to do so.
Into your favour is the following. In the phsyical world the entropic
force some kind of "antecedent" to its own entropic flux as
"consequent" WHENEVER dissipation plays a role. The best example I can
think of is electricity. The "antecent force" is the potential
difference and the "consequent flux " is the electrical current while
the electrical resistence causes the electrical energy to be converted
into heat.
But there is an exceptional case not in your favour, namely
"electrical superconducting". In superconducting electromagnets the
flux (current) may exist long after the force (potential difference)
had been removed. A superconducting magnet is a dangerous thing to
work with because its current has to remain extremely uniform. As soon
as a change in that current is induced by a number of means, an
internal potential difference is set up, entropy begins to be
produced, and the magnet may explode beacuse of the massive amount of
electrical energy which aill be released.
>The entropy producing force-flux pair for behavioral energy
>are the antecedents and the consequences!!! (I think)
Jon, I have merely sketched in the Primer on Entropy the history of
entropy up to the initial work of Prigogine during the late fourties
and early fifties. I have tried to set the historical record in a more
harmonious perspective, using our modern (post 1970) insights of
"entropy production". I have avoided on purpose any account of these
modern insights themselves since then it would not be a Primer on
Entropy any more. In other words, what I tried to articulate to all of
you, is the meandering path of humankind's perception of "entropy
production" up to approximately 1950. My own contribution to that
Primer was to show to you that despite the incredible meandering,
there was an overall sense of direction, namely that entropy
production causes irreversible changes in organisation. Or, as
Eddington loved to articulate it, that "entropy is the arrow of time".
Articulated slightly better, we can say that "entropy production is
the arrow of time, irrespective of the organisational changes which
take place during whatever passage of time".
But now I have refer to post 1970 perceptions of what "entropy
production" leads to. Here we find a remarkable "diversity of
interpretations" (chaos in the articulating of the the chaos -- the
dog biting its own tail). Prigogine, Eigen, Jantsch and others each
have a unique way in decribing the relationship between entropy
production as cause and its consequences. Even now, at the turn of the
century, there is still not a standard way of describing the
relationship. However, there are some common features. The most
important is that the consequences of entropy production is "first
always chaos and then, secondly, possible order". The switch form
chaos to order is through bifurcations points.
The biggest problem is to comprehend "chaos" and "order", in other
owrds, to "define" them. Each of these authors have their own way in
doing it, and, like Kuhn with his concept of paradigm, all of them
give different interpretations to chaos, and to order, depending on
the context. Thus one seeks in vain for a "clear definition" of chaos,
and of order. In order to rectify this situation, I struggled many
years to give a "clear definition" myself. This closest I can get to,
is that "an increase in chaos is an increase in diversity of becoming
(processes)" and that "an increase in order is an increase in the
diversity of being (structures)". Using these descriptions, I can
safely say that the consequences of entropy production is "first
always an increase in the diversity of becoming and then, secondly,
possible an increase in the diversity of being." I say "safely"
because it is a fair (although not precise) summary of the thoughts of
these authors and an accurate (yet incomplete) account of my won
thoughts on the matter. I speak of these two pahses separated by
bifucrations as the two "manifestions" of entropy production.
Now, to get to your thinking on this matter:
>Stated otherwise, antecedents are the entropic force which
>prompts the occurrence (being) of the behavioral energy form,
>and consequences are the entropic flux which shapes the flow
>(becoming) of the behavioral energy form. If we are to
>understand the entropy ("measure of organization") of a
>system of behavioral energy at any given point in time, we
>must consider both the antecedents (entropic force) and
>consequences (entropic flux). And it is the entropy
>production that results from the interrelation and interaction
>of this complementary dual that is necessary for irreversible
>self organization of the behavioral world.
What you are doing, in terms of my own understanding (which might be
utterly wrong), is to articulate your sensitivity to the first
manifestation of entropy production as "increased diversity of
BECOMING (chaos)". Since entropic fluxes are also "becomings", you
identify this first manifestation (first consequent) as the entropic
fluxes. Further more, your articulation of the antecedents as entropic
forces (rather than as force-flux pairs) is because the force
flux-pairs do not exist on their own, but emenate from the existing
being (structure) at that point of time (the present). In other words,
you reduce your awareness of the force-flux pairs (as antecedent) to
the structure which gives rise to them. But you may be right and I may
be wrong by being aware to what is merely fiction.
>Can a change in entropic force (antecedents) without a
>corresponding change in entropic flux (consequences)
>support the entropy production necessary for change?
>I don't think so. Neither can a change in entropic flux
>without a corresponding change in entropic force. Both
>are necessary.
Jon, this is one of the truths about entropy production we must never
forget.
What I never could ascertain clearly from the literature on behavioual
psychology, is whether the A (antecedants) and C (consequents)
"connect simultaneously". In other words, whether your scheme A=>B=>C
is not actually A&C=>B. (the sign "=>" signifies a temporal separation
while the sign "&" signifies the same space-time" event. If that is
the case, then we have much harmony in our tacit understanding. Then I
understand "perfectly" what you mean by:
>What does this mean for behavior then? Changing either
>the antecedents or the consequences without considering
>the other will never lead to irreversible self organization of
>behavioral energy and emergence of behavior, only
>immergence (like putting all the ingredients for a cake
>into a pan without mixing them before baking. Yuk
(nip)
>All of this leads to the entropy production necessary
>for the irreversible self organization of behavior and the
>emergence of behavior of a higher order to occur.
>We can play the role of "the baker" in the entropy
>production necessary for change in a system of
>behavioral energy by designing antecedents and
>consequence to prompt and support the behaviors
>that we want, but, the final bifurcation point at the
>edge of chaos that takes control of the self
>organization of behavior is out of our hands and in
>the hands of the individual.
Jon, I want to put it even stronger. We must never forget the role of
emancipation. To use the metaphor, we must guide the system even to
become its own "baker". Our role then has to diminsh into acting
merely as the "supplier" of raw materials. The last step in the
emancipation would be to guide the system to become its own
"supplier".
>From my post, LO20152:
>Finally, the real success and effectiveness of the use of
>behaviorist methods to influence any behavior, whether it
>is overt action or internal behaviors like attitudes,
>perceptions, or mental models, is determined, not by the
>"influencer", but by the target. This is because they are the
>ones who will make the judgement as to whether or not any
>attempts to reinforce are positive or negative, not the
>influencer. The influencer may be able to discern how it
>was received by the "target" by observing the patterns of the
>behavior that is shaped by the reinforcers, but they cannot
>decide for the performer if it is positive or negative. The
>performer will decide if they are only going to give enough
>action to avoid a negative outcome (like losing their job),
>or if they will go beyond that, and how they feel about it.
Yes, I agree fully with you if you mean by "target" and "performer"
the irreversibly self-organising system.
>So, At, what do you think? Does this make sense given
>your much deeper understanding of entropic force/flux pairs,
>entropy production, bifurcations and emergence?
I liked your contribution very much. As I have said, it is a
courageous attempt in exploring a new world of understanding and
telling us about it.
The one thing which complicate matters very much, is that we have to
seek for a common pattern through the entire web-of-reality. In other
words, what I have to do now, is to take your suggestions and see how
far I can go with them in the physical world (inanimate as well as
living) and the spiritual world (creating, learning and believing).
You will have to gibve me time to think them carefully over. In the
mean time, keep up with the exploring and the dialog!
Best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.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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