Heart Intelligence LO22735

AM de Lange (amdelange@gold.up.ac.za)
Fri, 24 Sep 1999 20:50:17 +0200

Replying to LO22708 --

Dear Organlearners,

Greetings to you all. I wrote:

>From irreversible thermodynamics, i.e. the study of "entropy
>production", [we learn that] the difference in any "intensive
>quantity" can function as an entropic force. For example
>pressure is an intensive quantity and thus we ought to visualise
>even "pressosynthesis". Where will such "pressosynthesis"
>happen? Those parts of our body subjected to the greatest
>differences in pressure, namely the soles of our feet!

There is a bit of MAMPARA science here. ("Mampara" is a local word which
refer to something so badly formed that it is not fit for use.) The word
"synthesis" is of Greek origin ("syn"=together, "tithemi"=place). Hence,
if we want to combine it with pressure, we must use the Greek word for
pressure. The usual word is "baros"=weight. Thus I should have written
"bar(y)osynthesis".

Leo Minning can tell us a lot about "barosynthesis" in the realm of rocks
-- geology. It is perhaps the major mode of synthesis of minerals. A
diamond is a magnifcent example of "barosynthesis".

Again, as in the case of "olicarpic" which should have been
"olichocarpic", my mind was focussed elsewhere. I was thinking about

>The mere existence of the compound as something with an
>internal, microscopical order ensures its "Gibbs chemical
>potential". Thus, by mixing two compounds so that they can
>react, the difference in their "Gibbs chemical potential" become
>available as an entropic force to drive the reaction forward. I
>will call this traditional way of producing new substances
>"interosynthesis" -- a term which you will not find in the
>chemical literature.

I was contemplating how many times, when I included sufficient diversity
in other ways of doing a thing, I discovered that the traditional way of
doing things have never been named. I was thinking how little we actively
employ the essentiality otherness ("quality-variety"). I was also thinking
how extremely diffcult it often is to name the traditional way which never
got a name.

Many entropic forces can be used to drive a certain change. It all
happens through what is know in irreversible thermo= dynamics as the
Onsager Reciprocal ("cross-induction") Rrelationships. These RRS are the
actual description of the web of compelxity in terms of entropy
production.

Let us think again of all chemical reactions as a kind of change. Chemical
reactions reactions are needed to produce any certain compound. It can be
constructively whereby we call it a synthesis or addition reaction. It can
be destructively whereby we call it an ablative, decomposition or
elimination reaction. It can also be both in a linked setup whereby we
call it a substitution or interchange reaction.

It is worthwhile to think about chemical reactions because our physical
body is among other things, an extremely complex chemical system, so
complex that no chemical industry come even close to its complexity.
However, even between our spiritual nature and our physical nature an
extremely complex interface exists, the one heavily influencing the other.

Traditional chemistry amounted to mixing compounds and see what become of
them. No extra entropic forces involving intensive quantities such
electrical potential, magentic potential and pressure were used. That
diversity came only in the later phase of chemistry.

These extra entropic forces are all macroscopical of nature. It means
that we can use our bodily organs to design and create measuring
instruments and using them. However, the entropic force at work during the
traditional way of mixing compounds and see what happens, is of
microscopical nature. Although the technical term is "microscopic", the
word "atomistic" describes the nature much better. This "atomistic" nature
is the whole outcome of electromagnetic, weak interaction and nuclear
forces among the elementary particles which make up the nuclei and
electrons of atoms. In other words, the "Gibbs chemical potential" as the
entropic force which drives chemical reactions the traditional way, is a
holisitic concept. It is nothing alse than the free energy of the compound
as "a result of elements having emerged into a unique compound".

How does a number of different atoms manage to emerge into a unique
molecule (or polyatomic ions) which are the elementary units which makes
up the unique compound? This question touches the very heart of
chemistry. Chemists use the word "structure" to describe the various atoms
and their geometrical arrangement when sustaining the molecule which has
emerged. Sadly, the use of this word creates many a conceptual problem for
the student. Greatest among these problems is that the student think of
the molecule as a rigid structure like a sturdy house. Tell the students
that they should rather think of a house which just makes it during an
eartquake, and they stare at you with "Greek eyes". They think of the
molecule as a rigid statue of a human rather than the living human itself
with a body which can make gymnastic contortions!

A much better word to use is "organisation" rather than structure,
provided the student conceptualise an organisation as something having
both chaos and order. Therefore I tell them to think of a "natural"
organisation such as the families of most of us, rather than of an
"artificial" organisation such as schools where order is used to combat
chaos rather than to emerge from it.

It is the same with mental intelligence, heart intelligence and a host of
other intelligences. Together they seem to function chaotic. We should not
try to use the one intelligence to combat the others, but rather try for a
harmonious emergence between all of them, a wholesome (holistic)
intelligence capable of acrobatic changes. Chemistry offers us an terrific
example of what I mean. The various atoms are not in combat with one
another with one eventually becoming the winner, forcing the others to
become obedient shadows of it.

So what happens between the atoms when they managed to sustain the
emergence of a molecule? First of all, the atoms cease to function as
atoms (nucleus in centre, electrons surrounding it) characterising their
elements. It is much better now to think of each atom consisting of a
kernel (nucleus plus inner electrons) surrounded by valency (outer)
electrons. The inner electrons in a kernel are so tightly bound to the
nucleus that no other chemical compound has sufficient free energy to
"touch them". They are chemicaly inert.

The molecule is made up of kernels (inert parts of atoms) and valency
electrons. These valency electrons can be either bonding electrons or free
electrons. The bonding electrons are shared between two or more kernels to
form the bonds which keeps the kernels together. The free electrons are
"shared" (if we can use that word) by one and onely one kernel. The word
"share" thus gives another conceptual problem. Chemists thus sometimes use
"attract". Bonding electrons are attracted by two or more kernels and free
electrons by only one kernel. BOTH the bonding electrons AND the free
electrons help in shaping the orientation of kernels with respect to each
other.

An even better word than "attraction" is the word "commute". The binding
electrons commute with two or more kernels while the free electrons
commute with only one kernel. The bonding electrons are thus an example
for thoughts coming from Systems Thinking (ST) while the free electrons
are examples of thoughts coming from Mental Models (MM). The disiplines
ST and MM are two of the five disciplines by which Peter Senge
characterise a LO. Thus the emergent molecule itself is nothing else than
the example of the very LO itself!

Likewise we ought trying to think of "holistic intelligence" as ST. Some
thoughts are bonding thoughts while other thoughts are free thoughts. Free
thoughts commute with only one of the mind, heart, feet, etc. They result
in mental models and likewise heart models, feet models. etc. Bonding
thoughts commute with at least two of the mind, heart, feet, etc. They
result into a kind of Systems Thinking. This "holistic intelligence" or
"Systems Thinking" is of vital importance to understand that human's
personality -- the very LO of that human.

But let us come back to that "interosynthesis" of traditional chemistry
which exclude electrosynthesis, magnetosynthesis barosynthesis, etc. Is
this name also MAMPARA science? I cannot say. What I do know, is that it
depends completely on the irreversible self-organisation of the various
compounds participating in the chemical reaction. The reaction itself is
then a higher self-organising system which eventually, for closed systems,
will end up in the dynamical equilibrium as its attractor state. The
equilbrium is said to be dynamical because both the forward reaction (from
reagents to products) and the backward reaction (back action) happen,
only now at equal rates.

The most extraordinary thing is that the self-organisation of the various
molecules and thus their respective free energies which depends on such
self-organisations helps to determine the final equilibrium state. In
other words, the reaction equilbrium as the higher self-organising system
is a function of the free energies of its constituent lower
self-organising systems. Now thinking about the "holistic intelligence"
which emerges from the mind intelligence, heart intelligence, feet
intelligence, etc., have incredible ramifications. If we tend merely to
our mind intelligence and not the other intelligences also, the holistic
intelligence is like a reaction which proceed only little into the forward
direction before equilibrium is reached. Such reactions in chemistry are
known as non-spontaneous reactions.

Shall I keep on calling the traditional chemical reactions which rely only
on mixing different compound with different internal free energies (Gibbs
chemical potential) as "interosynthesis"? One of the Greek word for 'in'
is "ana" which can also mean 'up' or 'throughout'. Perhaps we might call
these traditional reactions "anasynthesis". The Greek word for 'self' is
"auto". Perhaps we might call them "autosynthesis" reactions. The Greek
word for 'intestine' is "enteros" which suggested "enterosynthesis" in the
first place. Another Greek word is "entos" for 'within'. Perhaps we may
call them "entosynthesis" reactions.

All of these possible names describe some vital information about
traditional chemical reaction happening spontaneously when two or more
compounds are mixed. I do not prefer any particular name above
(enterosynthsesis, entosynthesis, anasynthesis, autosynthesis). I can even
suggest some more. What I do know, is that chemists never cared to name
the traditional, spontaneous reactions which they studied for so many
centuries, reactions which depend on the self-organisation within each
molecule and the self-organisation between the molecules which makes up
the reaction.

Furthermore, the term "self-organisation", like "autopoiesis"
(self-making), is very recent. They are indicative of a grand paradigm
shift taking place in science. What shift? The shift from "simplicity" to
"complexity" as the basic assumption in human thinking. A shift which
makes "heart intelligence" as actual as "mind intelligence". This shift
is not MAMPARA science. It is in the happening. The sooner we become aware
of it, the sooner we will be prepared for the great changes to come. Hence
the sooner we will realise how vital learning organisations are to meet
the challenges which these changes will impose on us.

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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