Dear Organlearners,
Nick Heap <nickheap@tesco.net> writes:
>I have noticed that in good relationships, good teams and
>good organisations, people are more free to grow and be
>themselves than they are on their own. It is so hard to let
>other people be what they want to be.
Greetings Nick,
Thank you for the input above to the topic. All the good things which you
have mentioned makes me think of "goodwill".
I feel that the following question is very important.
What is the relationship between love and goodwill?
>How can we increase the amount of love in our worlds?
This is a very important question. I hope that fellow learners will help
to answer it.
My viewpoint is that love is an emergent (of second order specifically) of
learning. It means that we have to learn more to love more. In other
words, learning is necessary for loving. But we know that learning can
also result in hate rather than love. This means that learning is
necessary for loving, but not sufficient. Hence we need some sufficiency
requirements to promote love and demote hate. These sufficiency
requirements are for me the seven essentialities of creativity: liveness,
sureness, wholeness, fruitfulness, spareness, otherness and openness.
Consider wholeness as example. Learning without wholeness lead to
ignorance of other parts of the whole. Responses from such parts may then
be experienced as negative. This may result in hate. But learning with
wholeness lead to knowledge on other parts of the whole rather than only
one's own part. Responses from such parts may then be experienced as
positive rather than negative. Thus goodwill may emerge and eventually
love.
Nick, a question which I often think about, but cannot yet answer
satisfactoraly, is whether we really increase the amount of love in the
world when God is taken into account?
You as a chemist will understand this question when I explain it with the
following metaphor. Think of the total energy of this universe. The LEC
(Law of Conservation of Energy) says that the total energy E of the
universe is constant -- it cannot be created or be destroyed, but can
change only from one form to another. While energy is transformed from one
form to another, the free energy F in some parts of the universe decrease
while in other parts it increase. The free energy F is part of the total
energy E. It is that part of E which drives through entropy production the
change from one form to another.
Now think (IN ALL RESPECT) of God Love as the total energy E of the
universe. God cannot be created or destroyed, but can certainly be
transformed, just like E. Think of the love which has emerged within us as
free energy F. It may increase in some people, making them more godly, but
also decrease in others, making them less godly. It may seem to us that
humans can increase/decrease love (free energy F), but in terms of God
Love (total energy E) no increase/decrease has happened.
For others who are not chemists. Think of the love of each of us as a
river -- your love rivers and my own love river. We know that the flow in
each river can be increased as a result of rain or snow falling in its
catchment area. But does such an increase in the flow of your love river
or my love river change the total amount of water on earth?
The reason why I said that I cannot answer the question satisfactoraly, is
that I have no reason to say that God is indeed the total energy E of the
universe. To base an explanation on a metaphor is one thing, but to find
the explanation based on actual reality is another thing.
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>