In Gleick's book, "Chaos", he talks about the second law of thermodynamics
and self-organizing systems. Some people have talked about
self-organizing systems in this chat group. It seems that maybe we can
connect the discussion about choice as an illusion to the concept of
self-organizing systems. Here's a possible connection.
John Woods has posited that our choices are simply a manifestation of our
paradigms in conjunction with whatever situation we find ourselves. In a
crude approximation of a mathematical notion, our paradigms operate on the
situation through our thought processes and produce a set of sequenced
actions that we perform to achieve some consciously or non-consciously
articulated result.
The concept of self-organization implies that matter and energy and maybe
people will spontaneously organize themselves to produce order in the
midst of apparent chaos. So what is the implication for how people would
self-organize in the midst of chaos (i.e., everyday life)? I will posit
that the way a group of people self-organize is the collective result of
each of them interacting in the John Woods model. That is, each person
operates on the situation through his/her paradigms and thought processes
in a way that movies through phase space to a semi-stable point of dynamic
equilibrium.
This is clearly a non-linear process that changes every time any person
takes an overt action (and probably even if the state change is only in
the paradise of their minds because they have had a paradigm shift which
will ultimately manifest itself in some outward and unpredictable action).
The group will (I think) organize around some set of group needs
(consciously or non-consciously articulated). They will jointly take
action to produce results that help them meet their individual needs in
the context of the group acting to meet the collective needs. Depending
on the paradigms of the individuals, the group will function on in a phase
space that is a mix of victims and creators.
If the group is functioning as a team that understands how to create the
conditions for peak performance for a group and does create them, the
group will be operating mostly in creator phase space. If the group is
functioning without conscious awareness of these conditions, it will only
be luck if they land in creator phase space. Many more of these groups
will land in victim space which is where I believe many American
organizations live. I'll even go so far as to posit most American orgs
live there. I'll even be specific and posit that 99% of American orgs
live there and maybe as many Americans.
So the efficacy of any group (they are all self-organized) can be measured
by how much of their energy goes into creating value for its stakeholders
vs. how much is dissipated through friction and adds no value for anyone
and maybe even subtracts value. I believe that two predictors for which
orgs will fall where in phase space is the degree to which the people in
the org understand the conditions that enable peak performance and work
together to create them for themselves and all other stakeholders.
Well enough meanderings on this topic. Look for another posting on some
thoughts provoked by Gleick's book, "Chaos."
Later.
-- Willard Jule 75272.3452@compuserve.com