Dear Organlearners,
Leo Minnigh <L.D.Minnigh@library.tudelft.nl> writes:
>This is a rather long contribution. It will deal with our sense of
>time and memorising.
Greetings Leo,
I am probably one of a few who do not care much about the length of a
contribution. The learning which I can derive from it is much more
important to me.
Thank you very much for reminding us that the world we live in also has a
geological side to it.
There is no place to become so much aware of geology as in the desert.
Because of so little erosion in the desert, a person is confronted with
the present year, a century ago, a millenium ago and even a million years
ago at one and the same glance. It is like a family reunion, grandparents,
parents, children and grand children. My wife's grandmother is now close
to 100 years old. At her last birthday celebration there were five
generations together. Keeping track of all of them makes the mind reel.
>From the geological time table we got the impression that the
>gaps become smaller or shorter towards recent times. Does
>that mean that the laminar flow in the beginning of our history
>runs slow and that it took a long time before an emergence
>happened? Does it mean that with ongoing entropy production
>the number and frequency of emergencies increase? Is it true
>that our own memory shows more anchorplaces in the recent
>past than longer ago?
The biological time table shows a similar "inreasing rate of
diversification".
>Or is the memory of the Earth and our own memory selective.
>Are gaps and emergencies irregular but in the long run frequently
>occurring?
In the case of "an increasing rate of biological diversication" one can
argue against it in that the longer we go back in time, the more we have
to expect an irreversible loss in paleontological specimens. In other
words, the loss of "memory" increases the longer the "memory" has to
persist through the creative course of time. (The only kind of biological
specimens who have no paleontological history, are succulent plants! When
they die, they rot into oblivion.)
Another similar phenomenon which has caught my interest, is the references
at the end of scientific papers. Much more reference is made to recent
papers than older ones. It is the same in the many subjects which I have
worked through ranging from mathematics and physics to education and
philosophy. At first I though it was only a post WWII effect because of
the way research is now funded. But going back further and further, as far
as our local libraries allow me, I observed the same phenomenon happening
100 years ago. Then I had to change my idea -- that it was a result of an
increasing number of people participating in research (the information
explosion) whose work had to be refered to. But can it also be that they
all suffer an increasing loss of memory as time goes back?
I myself has experienced a pardigm shift in my work on irreversible
self-organisation. As a result of that shift, for example, I now view
irreversible self-organisation and creativity as synonymous. Because of
that paradigm shift, I have developed an urge to read and study anything
(books, specimens) going further and further back in time. The roots of
our civilisation, of nature and the planet have become more important to
me in my attempts to observe in full the creative course of time. Thus you
can imagine how this contrasts with most other people's concern with
recent information.
One of the basic problems of hermeneutics is to maximise the information
to be read out of a document while simultaneously minimising the
information to be read into a document. What you have touched upon and I
have replied to, is nothing else than this basic hermeneutical problem.
Are we not reading too much of the "world inside me" into the "world
outside me"?
My discovery that entropy production also happens in the abstract world
and not only in the material world, has brough a new angle to this basic
hermeneutical problem. Up to now it is assumed that humans are free to
give any meaning to the information in any document, although they are
inlined to give a meaning which will fit with their own mental models --
self centered interpretations. (When it concerns exemplars coming from
nature rather than documents coming from culture it is known as
anthropocentric interpretations.) In other words, it assumed in
hermenutics that the only law of interpretation to which all human abide,
is the law that no law can control the interpretation ability of the human
mind. Make a law which (supposedly) determine the way in which humankind
thinks and certainly one creative human will break that law! The new angle
is that there may be many laws of interpretation which we have not yet
discovered because no human has been, is or ever will be in a position to
break them. Even the supposedly breaking or misinterprations of such laws
are merely manifestations covered by such laws. The Law of Entropy
Production is the prime example of such laws.
The implications of this new viewpoint for philosphy are far reaching.
For example, constructivism will give more philosophical mileage than the
various kinds of destructivism of the past or the deconstructivism of the
modernists. I prefer to think in terms of "deep constructivity" rather
than constructivism because of my awareness to the seven essentialities of
creativity. But that is an issue for another time.
Leo, the following was especially valuable to me:
>And if we project this picture to our thinking and our memories,
>at are the emergencies that are the anchorplaces for our thoughts.
>If life was constantly normal and regular, we were not able to
>memorise and no knowledge and creativity will develop in our brains.
>Luckily, life is not regular.
I have never thought about mememories before in this context. However, you
surprised me because most of my own memories do indeed concern emergences.
It is strange that I never became aware of this fact. I do not have to
make an effort in memorising many of these emergences. They simply pop up
when needed again. On the other hand, I have few memories of digestive
incidents which happened close to equilibrium. However, it is not as if
they got lost completely. It is merely a case of them becoming transformed
into mechanical (sub-conscious) abilities.
The foreplay to the Digestor (my contribution on it appeared after your
contribution to which I am replying) illutrates how each emergence serves
as an anchor for futher thought. A super saturated solution can be
prepared by making a saturated solution of a solvent (e.g. sugar) in a
solvent (e.g. water) at a high temperature and then cool it quickly. If
one is careful and know how crystals are formed, the excess solute in the
solution will not crystalise. If one then drop one microscopically small
crystal in this solution, it will suddenly begin to grow so that
eventually it will become visible to the naked eye. This crystal seed
serves as an anchor for additional crystal growth which drives the
solution towards equilibrium. But the appearance of any crystal seed
itself is an emergent phenomenon. The more complex the building blocks of
the crystal, the more difficult it becomes to get that first seed crystal
-- the emergence. Students doing synthesis practicals in organic chemistry
soon discover this truth when they have to prepare a complex compound in
crystaline form.
The highly dissipative (entropy producing) emergences serving as the
anchors for further, less dissipative actions, have important implications
for Learning Organisations and not only Learning Individuals.
In another topic of our on going dialogue, it is questioned if there is
such a thing as an organisation having responsibility rather than
individuals themselves. Here in South Africa it is also a central issue in
the hearings before the Truth and Reconcilliation Commission. Many of
those having applied for amnesty, suddenly discover that their
questionable deeds done in the name of their group have now become crimes
because collective responsibility is denied.
The basic question is: can a group of individuals be formed as a tight
unit rather than a loose collection of indivduals? The answer is that they
have to have something which can bind some of their thoughts irreversibly
together. For many centuries armies have struggled with this problem.
Today the Learning Organisation seems to offer the best solution. The only
trouble is that despite Senge's careful and diligent exposition of the LO
in terms of the five LO disciplines, the many other publications on it and
even the dialogue on this list, the whole LO methodology seems to be fuzzy
for many who want to pursue it. Why?
I think it is because we know so little of emergent learning. How can the
members of the LO work in teams, have a common vision, etc., if some
thoughts of each member cannot be anchored to even one specific emergence
common to all members? It is possible to furnish such common emergences by
emergent learning. But why do we know so little of emergent learning? Why
is that the little which we know is mostly the tacit knowledge within us?
Why?
I think it is because our awareness of the seven essentialities has fallen
way behind our awareness of other things as humankind has evolved.
Consider, for example wholeness. Are we aware that for every emergence,
how tiny it seems to be, the whole universe participates in it? Every
second or so a child is born somewhere on this globe. Are we aware of such
emergences? Every minute or so a child somewhere on this globe is
mistreated. Are we concerned about these immergences? How can we expect to
find the golden treasures of a LO is we are ignorant to wholeness. The
deepest mines in the world are some gold mines in South Africa -- more
than 10 kilometers below the surface. The successful operation of these
mines provides a remarkable case study in wholeness. Likewise a LO
requires wholeness to bring its golden treasures to the surface.
How many emergences do any LO need to serve as a crystal seed or memory
anchor to bind some of the thoughts of each of its members? Only one is
enough! The more, the faster the emergence of the LO. Is the "vision" for
the organisation this one anchor needed? I am afraid it is not. Why? A
vision is about an expected emergence and not an actual emergence
experienced by all the members of the LO.
What other emergence can serve as the anchor? The only thing which I can
say, is that it must be an ACTUAL emergence. What kind of emergence it is,
I cannot say. Why? As soon as I articulate its kind, I leave the actuality
of the present by making use of the past to model a possible future. Is
this not a subtle way of impairing the essentiality sureness? No because
then I would not have written so much on emergences, wasting everybody's
time.
How do we obtain such an actual emergence? By establishing a culture of
emergences. Promote all kinds of emergences in your organisation. Be
patient with those people who seem to fall behind in emergences or those
people who seem to flourish in excessive emergences. Rejoice in every
emergence of any person which you become aware of. Help people to become
aware of emergences and learn about the nature of emergences. Work on all
four levels of knowledge (experential, tacit, formal and sapient) where
you can, but remember that it all begins at the level of experience.
Begin by smilling. A smile lit by the inner conviction that emergences
make the difference will change the world.
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
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>