Entropy production in the spiritual world LO23262

AM de Lange (amdelange@gold.up.ac.za)
Wed, 17 Nov 1999 16:00:46 +0200

Replying to LO23193 --

Dear Organlearners,

John Gunkler" <jgunkler@sprintmail.com> writes:

>Okay, At, I'm ready. You've teased us, again and again, with
>the promise that you would share with us, in your words,
>"a way to demonstrate empirically that a Law (resembling the
>Law of Entropy Production) also happens in the spiritual world."
>Unless I missed it, buried under a torrent of words somewhere
>in an ancient message, you have not done so.
>
>So -- please share this with us.

Greetings John,

Aha, I waited many moons for a fellow learner to ask this question openly
on the list. Finally you did it. Some asked this question in private
email, but I begged them to have patience untill someone ask it on the
list. I then will respond to them by answering the question on the list.
That day has now arrived.

Is it not strange? For four years I have been trying to take fellow
learners on a journey to investigate the outcomes of such an empirical
demonstration. You have summarised this journey beautifully with a
"torrent of words". (Shame on you, you forgot to mention the mathematical
symbols also ;-) Can we have a better description than yours for the first
manifestation of "entropy production"? I often described it as increasing
chaos. Sometimes I gave a glimpse into chaos as "diversity of becoming").

But what is a chaos for a human? In my first ever journey abroad I went to
South America to study succulent plants in habitat -- some of them like
Discocactus species not far away from the Amazon. In my own country my
ears have been hearing a "torrent of words" made up by the more than
thirty languages spoken here. Although I could make out some of it in
languages familar to me, the rest had a familiar sound to me even though I
did not understand it. But In South America I was subjected to a
completely different "torrent of words" from day one. English, German and
Dutch, the languages which are more familiar to me, were as scarce as
chicken teeth outside the mega cities. As a result the little which I knew
of Spanish and Portugese vanished in thin air, aided by the immense
cultural differences between these two continents. I did not understand
the "torrent of words" and even worse was the fact the it sounded
completely unfamiliar.

How great was my relief when I arrived safely back in South Africa and
once again heard the familiar "torrent of words". There was a young boy on
the plane coming home after having traveled more than a year abroad. I
played with him to get him out of his parents' hair. I could sense the
growing chaos within him. As the wheels touched the tarmac, he cried
spontaneously "Hiep-hiep-hoera vir Suid Africa" (Hurray for South Africa).
I wanted to cry. But as soon as I stepped out of the plane, I heard
somebody speaking Zulu. I do not know Zulu. But I will recognise its
sounds anywhere in the world. I began to smile -- finally I was at home.
Familiar chaos is so more bearable. Thus I learnt an important lesson in
paradigm shifts. It gave me new insights on my own shift which began five
years earlier with my empirical discovery that "entropy production" does
happen in the spiritual world.

No John, I have not hidden it in some ancient message. But I have
described carefully the circumstances under which the discovery was made.
I also have initiated dialogues on many seemingly unconnected topics, but
eventually it will become clear how they all are directly related to the
demonstration. I have not teased you "again and again". But I did mention
it on occasion to remind fellow learners that all of us who participate in
"entropy production" are on a VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. Each of us has to make
our own discoveries.

I have kept its mentioning as sparse as possible so as to lengthen the
time for learning about "entropy production" in a FREE MANNER like in
ancient Athens. My strategy was to work as far as possible from the
supposition "what if" .... What if the LEP (Law of Entropy Production)
spans both the physical and spiritual dimensions of reality? For me to be
really serious about the "what if" I have to accomodate "what if not" as
well, although it is already an "it is" and not an "it is not". When you
are really serious about the "what if", your learning may appear to be
like "it is" or "it is not". Nevertheless, for each of you the empirical
demonstration is not yet an "it is", but an "it is not" as John has
pointed out with his challenge.

We should try to understand that once the meandering river of scientific
thinking becomes an "it is" after its final stage, the "torrent of words"
will have reached the edge where it will become the "fall of words". It is
an irreversible event which numbs the mind like standing next to a real
waterfall.

Out of this voyage came interesting behaviours which I can organise into
five groups. Although it is perhaps too tedious for you fellow learners,
it is not too difficult to check my comments on these five groups. Perhaps
you can reorganise them with your own insights.

The one group (the smallest in numbers) went so far as to work openly from
"it is" rather than "what if". They have received much flack for doing
this. They have gained valuable experiences in the nature of a paradigm
shift. This will help them to study with much more insight Kuhn's epic
work on scientific revolutions. They will eventually see the invisible
and listen to silence.

Another group (somewhat larger) often wrote to me in private. They
usually wrote that many of the "concepts" which I introduced, rang
intuitively true for them. They also often asked me for clarification of
details or to share in some of their newly gained insights. But they all
had immense difficulties in formalising the things which I helped them to
become aware of. They also feared to participate in open dialogue on the
new paradigm. In such cases Deming's great sensitivity to fear and my own
understanding of the Digestor made me aware of their extraodinary plight.
They often reminded me of pupils and students wanting to learn openly, but
the formalities of the system and those conforming to it (from top to
bottom) make it difficult for learning in the open.

One of them wrote to me last week, saying that he sense something
extraordinary is happening on the list, thinking that someone has actually
asked the question (not in so many words) and wondering how I would reply
to it.

The third group (slightly larger) undertook open excursions in the
dialogues of the list in some aspect related to "entropy production" which
seemed to be connected closely to their own specialities. But as soon as
VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY on "entropy production" moved away from their own
specialities, they stopped with excursions from the view point of "entropy
production". It can mean many things. But I think that most of them feel
very much like group two in strange waters.

The fourth group, not even bigger, but perhaps as small as the first
group, considered the voyage as a waste of time. Perhaps they actually do
believe so, but perhaps they were performing the other side of the "what
if", namely "what if not". I have the greatest respect for them because
they played an important role, namely setting up "differences of opinion"
and thus "entropic forces in intensive properties". Sometimes Rick had to
care for the wickets not falling.

The fifth group is much larger than all the other four groups together.
They did not write to the list on "entropy production" and the immense
web it entails, nor to me in private. Perhaps some of them have written to
some others in private on it, but that I will not know. Some of them have
contributed to the list in varying amounts on a variety of topics. Some
have given the URLs of their web sites/home pages. In such cases I have
taken the pains to see whether they are not responding in their websites
on "entropy production" and what it entails.

This fifth group is homogenous only in one thing -- not taking part in the
dialogue on the web of "entropy production". Otherwise they are as
diverse as the web of "entropy production" itself, namely reality. Their
silence often reminded me of the advice of St James to the first
Christians not to speak, but rather to listen beacuse the speaker has to
serve a greater responsibility. I often thought of them as chameleons.
There is a saying in Africa that the chameleon is the wisest of all
animals because its eyes are always moving, observing, so that it has no
time for even making a noise or moving a limb.

How large is this fifth group? Well, substract a number in the vincinity
of 40 from the total number of recipients on this list, calculate the
precentage and you will get a fair idea of their size. According to some
details given by Rick, it is at least 90% of fellow learners.

[Host's Note: learning-org is received by roughly 2000 addressees each
day. Of course, not all these distributions reach human eyes. ..Rick]

I do not know how it is in your country, but here in South Africa in many
schools and universities the 90% corresponds with the percentage of pupils
and students not visibly taking part in "learning together". It also
corresponds with the abscence of Team Learning in a great variety of
organisations and not merely educational institutions. Thus one of the
five disciplines of Learning Organisations is seriously impeded.

We can undertake similar studies for each of the other four LO
disciplines. Of particular interest to me was the "fifth discipline" --
Systems Thinking. How much influence does any "what if" or its dual "what
if not" have on Systems Thinking? We might be inclined to think that when
suppositions have little influence on Systems Thinking such suppositions
must have little importance. But the "butterfly effect" caution us not to
forget about time, its arrow and their long term effects. Are we
sufficiently aware of evolution, not merely of biological organisms, but
also of organisations and reality in general?

Let us think of the possible ramifications of LEP which may entails the
entire physical and spiritual dimensions of reality -- the web of "entropy
production" or the web of reality. Let us now look at the history of a
certain butterfly which has flapped its wings.

We know (or ought to know) how the world was and how people thought and
behaved before Newton announced his Law of Gravitation (for the entire
physical world). He did something unique in the history of humankind. Up
to that point in time people had to appeal to special revelations or
priviledges to know any law. Some claimed that some godhead (including the
living God) revealed the laws to them. Others claimed that they as kings,
priests or prophets have the priviledge to know such laws. But then Newton
arrives on the scene, tells reluctantly how to fomalise the law so that it
can be tested by any INDIVIDUAL serious enough. Slowly one after the other
individual begins to learn Newton's language and thus to follow the
instructions how to discover empirically this law and many others like it
concerning the physical world.

The world has changed much since the days of Newton. Why? He opened up a
new way of experiencing reality, gaining tacit knowledge, then formal
knowledge and eventually sapient knowledge. He was a butterfly like Marco
Polo, Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama. The main difference was that
this buttefly flapped its wings on a continent in the world of mind. It
had incredible ramifications for the world of brain. How sure are we that
no similar butterfly effect will happen when somebody announces how to
discover empirically a law for the spiritual world? Forget a moment that
this law may be LEP. Merely remember your experiences up to the past four
years about such an incident and how people responded as a result of it.
What do you think will happen to this world when such a law indeed gets
announced?

Perhaps the period of time for your experiences is too short to make any
definite pattern out of them. So let us look at history again. Two and a
half centuries after Newton, in world very much changed, Einstein
announced his Special Theory of Relativity (1900). In it he created a new
language to look at the physical world. He made a remarkable deduction
that matter is a form of energy as if energy has become frozen. He soon
realised that Bequerel's discovery of radioactivity was one of the most
significant events of the century just left behind. Few noticed this
opinion.

Even less were prepared for his next leap forward -- the General Theory of
Relativity (1916). In it he offered a new way to think about gravitation.
It was not merely a law involving the attraction of two bodies because of
their masses and the distance between them. It was a law telling us that
we have to combine space and time into one, that we have to stop thinking
that this space evolves linearly and that we have to coach our thinking to
allow for curvatures (non-linearity) in it. Such curvatures necessitate
the manifestation of masses and thus the force of gravitation. In other
words, he gave us a completely new way to think about gravitation.

But did humankind think differently? Did the flapping of butterfly's wings
take effect immediately? No. With its traditional thinking almost the
entire of humankind was at war (WWI). After that war one general named Jan
Smuts warned that the peace would not last because it did not honoured the
dignity of the conquered. Smuts had the experience to know what he was
speaking about. In 1900 when Einstein formulated his Special Theory,
Smuts' own country (Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek) was at war with Great
Brittain while he was a general in it. That Brittish-Boer (BB) war was in
many respects a culmination of destructions based on the creativity of
humankind during the two centuries since Newton.

But the BB war was also a butterfly of things to happen in the next two
World Wars. WWII came as Smuts predicted. Step by step all factions were
forced to throw anything which they had created so far into their war
efforts. Not surprisingly, in went also E = mc^2. One of the first to
realise this development was Smuts in collaboration with Bohr. Smuts knew
Einstein's language and thus what immense destruction the "atomic bomb"
would cause. As fieldmarshall of the Allied forces he encouraged them to
react swiftly. Eventually two bombs were dropped, not in Europe as he
expected and tried to prevent, but in Japan.

Although even up to today relatively few humans were able to learn
Einstein's language, enough of them have learned it to allow its
application it in a destructive rather than constructive manner. The same
can be said of Newton's original contribution to the understanding of the
physical world. So what do we have here? A pattern of two ways going into
opposite directions -- construction or destruction with the destructive
way much easier populated with greater numbers. It is a pattern which
repeated itself innumerous occasions in the history of humankind. Is this
pattern not perhaps the outcome of a "law" operating in both the physical
and spiritual dimensions of reality? How will the discovery and
formalisation of this "law" influence each way?

Who will discover this strange "law" without making appeal to special
revelations or priviledges? Can it be done without technical languages
like in the case of Newton's Law of Gravitation and Einstein's
reformulation of it? Does it have to be a learning individual who will
discover this "law", or should it not be rather a learning organisation?
Did Einstein, who was perfectly aware that his own efforts was focussed on
the physical world, had any insight on this "law"? Well, in 1926 a book
was published which was begun in 1913 early during WWI. Soon afterwards
Einstein studied this book titled "Holism and Evolution". He came to the
conclusion that together with his own theories on relativity the theory
presented in this book were to be the most significant events for the 20th
century.

What theory was presented in this book? Firstly, the observation that
along the course of time a one-to-many-mapping [my wording] of systems
takes place. The author did not restrict this mapping to merely biological
systems, but showed how it occurs in the entire physical world as well as
in the spiritual world, finally culminating in the personality of each
human. What struck Einstein is that for this person there was not any more
an abyss between the physical and spiritual worlds -- they were merely the
two sides of the same coin called reality. The second thing is that this
person did offer like Darwin a reason for this one-to-many-mapping of
species, physical or spiritual. But unlike Darwin it depended on a
property of all the systems rather than the peculiarities of the system
itself. This property was identified as wholeness. Einstein realised that
this wholeness was the very driving force (which he called "unification")
of his own "wild efforts"!

Who was the author of "Holism and Evolution"? Jan Smuts. In 1948 he lost
the general election in South Africa to a party who formulated apartheid
as their ideology and policy. He was devastated. Few realise why.
Apartheid was designed directly in opposition to holism -- once again the
two ways, contructive or destructive -- once again the majority following
the destructive way, but now believing naively that it was a most
constructive way! At this old age and for his last two years he flung
himself again into deep study. Was wholeness really the only property
which determined constructive evolution? What was the actual "law"
operating in both the physical and spiritual dimensions of reality of
which holism was not yet the full rendering? How will humans ever be able
to articulate this law and with what language will they do it? He
carefully worked through even the Bible and its NT in Greek, hoping to
find the clue there if it cannot be found anywhere else.

[Host's Note: I believe At is referring to:
Holism and Evolution : The Original Source of the Holistic Approach to
Life
by Jan Christiaan Smuts (Editor), Sanford Holst (Editor)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1887263144/learningorg

(It's a 1999 edition of the 1926 work. Link above is in assoc with
Amazon.com)

..Rick]

John, with this picture on a law valid for the physical world I wanted to
tell you that we have to prepare ourselves for the complexity which will
also develop when a "law" valid for the spiritual world becomes
empirically demonstrateable. We are still desperately struggling to manage
the complexity which developed from demonstrating empirically the physical
laws. Should we open the pandora box of spiritual complexity also?
Imagine that the "law" is valid for both worlds -- can we imagine what
pandora box of hyper-complexity will be opened up?

Empirics (exploration and demonstration) is essential to the scientist's
way of "laying bare the truth". Some say that this "laying bare the truth"
is or should be the overall or one and only mission of the scientist. But
are we not entering the dimension of belief when we make such a claim? Is
it not more important to know WHY the scientist has to "lay bare the
truth" rather than actually "laying bare the truth"? Is it not more
important to know what else the scientist has to do than "laying bare the
truth"? Do we humans not first need a skirt of fig leaves to cover our
spiritual nakedness?

>But, before you do, please warn us if you have some
>idiosyncratic meaning for the term "empirical." What I,
>at least, mean by it is "verifiable or provable [i.e., falsifiable]
>from observation or direct experience." Etymologically it
>derives from the Greek "empeirikos" which means
>"experienced."

No, I have no idiosyncratic meaning for the term "empirical". My
understanding of it is at least that which you have given above. But I am
very concerned about the context in which we will use the term "empirical"
as I have indicated above. Furthermore, allow me three extra notes on
empirical itself.

Firstly, Newton's original discovery, all subsequent discoveries of
physical laws including the LEC (Law of Energy Conservation) as well as
LEP (Law of Entropy Production) and Einstein's magnificant reformulation
of Newton's law, were made from the paradigm of simplicity. Perhaps it is
possible to make discoveries of spiritual laws also from this paradigm,
but I do not believe so. I believe, based on my own experiences and thus
tacit, formal and sapient knowledge evolving from it, that discoveries of
spiritual laws will be made from the paradigm of complexity. All empirics
are related to our sense organs of which we become conscious through our
paradigms.

This brings me to my second note. Pasteur knew from several personal
experiences that novel discoveries are made only by minds sufficiently
prepared for it. There is no hope for the unprepared mind to make a
breakthough discovery by chance. This Pasteurian pattern is even
reflected in the instruments which we use to extend our sense organs so as
to make profound empirical discoveries. The age of making novel
discoveries with simple instruments like a ruler, a mass balance or a
thermometer is closing. Simplicity cannot prepare us for complexity. Allow
me to explain.

My youngest daughter Ilse-Marie is experiencing this truth. She is
working as a chemical analyst in an pharmaceutical institute. Both
analytical chemistry and pharmacology are complex disciplines. She uses
complex instrumentation like mass spectrometers and chromatographs. To set
up, for example, a HPLC (High Pressure Liquid Chromatograph) takes the
better part of a day before reliable measurements can be made.

Ilse-Marie works from the paradigm of complexity. I have coached her on
the tacit dimension to do so. She still lives in our house and I thus have
many opportunities to do so. But the boss (CEO) of the institute works
from the paradigm of simplicity. I have never met her boss and never had
any influence on this person (except through Ilse-Marie ;-). Often, in
less than an hour after a sample was handed to the analysts, the boss will
be asking for results. The effect is disastrous. Empirics go haywire.
Spirituality declines. Employees are caught up in destructive conflicts.
Consultants aggrevate the problems. Reality becoming shattered into a
zillion pieces. Almost every day Ilse-Marie surprises me with her coping
of this situation.

My third note is on the novelty of the empirical demonstration. How much
deviation from the common, standard and tradition are we willing to accept
so as not to shut our eyes for such a novelty? Consider, for example, the
use of chromatographic evidence in a court of law. The repeatability of
chromatography has already been established for a couple of decades before
courts of law accepted chromatographic data as evidence too. In other
words, when a new order does emerge from chaos as a result of "entropy
production", are we willing to accept any emergence as a new order?

>Then, just one more preliminary (I have even a higher
>standard for scientific "laws" than that they be merely
>empirically verifiable) and that is that any scientist, by
>following the described procedure, can replicate the results
>claimed. This means, in the case of spiritual matters, that
>you may not require that I be "of the faith" in order to
>"experience" what you describe. So, if you have "a way
>to demonstrate empirically that a law of entropy production
>happens in the spiritual world," it must not require religious
>faith from the scientist who wishes to understand or replicate
>its demonstration.

Thanks John for formulating it so clearly. Yes, faith will not play a
role, although some experience in complexity will be necessary. But since
experience and experiments all belong to the empirical facet of the
discovery, this Pasteurian necessity of experience to become conscious of
what the empirical demonstration will be "saying" need not be too great a
problem. I have worked hard with my "torrent of words" to help you
preparing for it.

However, there is one tacit assumption which you have made and which I now
have to articulate. I have often worked that as a theme in my
contributions so as to give fellow learners experience in this assumption.
You have used the word "scientist" in the singular form. Perhaps you have
assumed that all empirical discoveries may be made by "learning
individuals". For example, in LO23181 you wrote "I think that it's
difficult to understand organizational learning as anything other than
individuals' learning if one identifies the only outcome of learning to be
"knowledge." "

I think that one of the features of the paradigm of complexity is that
some empirical discoveries can only be made by learning organisations and
not learning individuals. I have stressed the one-to-many-mapping of
"entropy production" not for deaf ears. The individual corresponds to the
"one" and the organisation to the "many". It means that in "entropy
production" and its manifestations we have to take into account what
Prigogine articulates as the "law of large numbers". In chapter 6 "Order
though fluctuations" of his and co-author Stenger's book "Order out of
Choas" he gives an excellent (and complex ;-) discussion of this "law of
large numbers". Basically it boils down to ".. we can no longer follow an
individual chemical trajectory. We cannot predict the details of temporal
evolution.".... by focussing on any particular individual.

We have to be sensitive to what already long ago Hegel called "dassein"
(individual) and "mitsein" (organisation). If we think that we can make
as "dassein" all empirical demonstrations, we are simply shutting our eyes
for "mitsein" demonstrations.

It is like the job of an optician in physics. One photon of light can
never set up a diffraction pattern. Several photons are needed. Its like
the job of an analyst in chemistry. Many molecules of several kind are
needed to set up a chromatographic spectrum. One molecule of one kind can
never give rise to a chromatographic spectrum. Its like the job of any
taxonomist in biology. The concept of a new biological species (plant,
animal or microorganism) cannot be formed upon on one individual specimen.
Several specimens are needed to form a concept of the species and its
innate diversity. As Smuts put it, the evolution of a whole is determined
by its field which consists of other wholes. The evolution of the
personality of each person depends on interaction with many other persons.

So, be not surprised that we have to step down from the claim that an
individual can learn and discover anything. When I do take up your
challenge, this issue of the individual (dassein) versus the organisation
(mitsein) may be central to the empirical demonstration.

>So, to summarize the challenge: Please explain your
>empirical demonstration of the law of entropy production in
>the spiritual world without (1) messing around with the
>meaning of "empirical;" and without (2) requiring us to share
>your religious beliefs or faith. If you can do this, I promise
>that I will listen attentively and with all the skepticism that I
>typically use when learning to understand any purportedly
>scientific evidence.

John, I ought to feel fortunate in that the challenge have come from you
and that you have made conditions (1) and (2) as stated above. I say
"ought to feel fortunate" because you did not specify "simplicity" nor the
"individual" as other conditions. By this you forced me to articulate
something which I would rather have prefered the challenger should have
done self. But as such you and I will have to live with the nature of a
paradigm shift.

Since I have already lived with the new paradigm of complexity since 1968
and thus gained much experiences in the shift from simplicity to
complexity, I prefer to meet your challenge when I feel the time is ripe.
Perhaps the following may assure you or infuriate you. Your challenge was
exactly the challence which I have put to myself after having made these
discoveries in 1982-83. I have taken up my own challenge by completing my
book several years ago. You will find, exactly as you have stipulated, a
documentation of the empirical demonstration in chapter 2 as well as
indications how to repeat it. But you will not find my book because I have
not yet published it. Two other fellow learners on this list have copies
of it. They have sworn not to reveal it unless instructed by me. Thus the
documentation is not actual to you or all other fellow learners.

So why did I not seeked the publication of my book at all costs. Why do I
prefer not to make public what has been documented in chapter 2? Why am I
so crazy because every one else seems to go for fame, glory and richdom?
Was it because some publishers felt that my book would not make a cent?
Was it because my first reports to journals on the empirical discovery and
its outcomes were met with such scepticism that it boils down to me being
crazy?

Yes, because of these events they contributed to my experiences on
destructive immergences and constructive emergences at the edge of chaos.
To be concerned not only about HOW "laying bare the truth", but also WHY
doing it. So did many other events of which some I have told on this list.
My sensitivity to the WHY has to do with my calling. For five years I was
trained as a scientist and the next four years I learned how to behave
like one. During that nine years I simply assumed that my calling was that
of the scientist. But were it not for me as a scientist getting my hands
dirty with soils and thus experiencing "complexity" and "entropy
production", I would have remained deaf to the calling of my heart. My
mind said I am a scientist, but my heart said I am rather a teacher. My
dear wife and my dear late uncle (spiritual tutor) know how much this
conflict between my mind and heart boiled over into their lives and that
of others.

Eventually I listened to my heart. It resulted into undescribable peace in
the "world-inside-me". That peace was very much needed because
simultaneously it resulted into undescribeable conflicts with the
"world-outside-me". I tried to resolve that conflicts where possible, but
my failures gave me even more experiences and thus knowledge on the
immense shift between the paradigms of simplicity and complexity. In terms
of simplicity "laying bare the truth" can happen at any time. In terms of
complexity it and even its documentation have to happen somewhere along
the course of time.

John, since my calling is principally that of a teacher and not that of a
scientist, I have to act according to the responsibility of a teacher and
not merely to that of a scientist. A teacher has to know when the fruitful
moment arrives so that the bifurcation will result into an emergence
rather than an immergence. In terms of "dassein" the fruitful moment may
have arrived, but what about "mitsein"?

I am experienced in what it takes to be a teacher. Since the day when I
decided that my principal calling is that of a teacher, I was scolded on
innumerous occasions. Let me tell of the first ever incident. I went into
a bank late in 1971 (a couple of days after having been appointed as
teacher at a school). There I met one of my professors at university (who
also had relationships with that school). Our encounters were always
friendly and mutually enquiring. He even gave my wife and me a beautiful
wedding present. That day I greeted him first as the custom is. But he
stared at me blankly, ignored me completely as if I was did not exist and
finally tried to walk right through me. I had to jump aside. At first I
was surpised, then the hurt came, but eventually it evolved into
curiosity. He was not trying to bully me -- he was really not seeing me. I
had become invisible to him.

I do not know how you or anybody else are going to react for not releasing
the documentation as a result of your challence. Some may even try to
walk right through me as has happened several times after that first
incident. Some may do it to intimidate me into subordination and
conformation. Some may do it because I have become invisible. But
eventually I will release the documentation of that empirical
demonstration when I think the time is ripe. John, you wrote "Okay, At,
I'm ready". Perhaps the time is ripe for you, perhaps not. But for how
many fellow learners are the time ripe? How many can write with conviction
"Okay, At, I'm ready."?

How will I know the time is ripe? When I perceive that sufficient fellow
learners know how to follow freely the "what if"/"what if not" of
spiritual exploration. When I know that they know how to work on both the
inner and outer dimensions of communication. When I know that they know
how to feed their guts because explications deplete the spontaneity of
their intuition. When I know that they know how to use creative collapses
to emerge into even the highest order. When I know that they know how to
stop the hurting because of people having memories which they are not
aware of and which differ. I need not give tests or examinations to know
this. I need not for them to speak my "language". I only need the sharing
of their experiences with all of us. I need the "mitsein".

But is the time getting ripe? As for me, I can sense it like sensing water
in the desert. As for you fellow learners, you will have to answer that
question yourself. It is very difficult for newcomers to answer it because
a change in something complex happens slowly. But for old timers it can be
different depending on how much learning took place.

So what can we do in the mean time? Keep up the dialogue! Perhaps some of
you may accuse me of playing a game of poker by bluffing with an empty
hand. Perhaps others will become very serious about the "what if"/"what if
not" exploration. Neither poker nor "what if"s are for the individual. I
am just as curious as any of you fellow learners what will become of the
future. As for myself I know that I must keep the future as open as
possible in the limited time and its arrow available to each of us.

Thank you John and thank you everybody else for the wonderful experiences
in the dialogues on this list. Hopefully I can diminish the "torrent of
words" because you, John, have pointed out that the "fall of words" is in
sight.

Learning individuals ("dassein") or learning organisations ("mitsein")
can never be reduced to one another. A "mitsein" is more than a bunch of
"dassein"s. As learning individuals we can still discover or create some
novel things, but many, complex and invaluable are the novel discoveries
and creations waiting to be made by learning organisations. All our
scientific accomplishments up to date have the stamp of "dassein" upon
them. But none of them and not even all of them together can match up to
any natural language. Does it not strike you that languages have the stamp
of "mitsein" upon them.

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>