Daniel, thanks for your wonderful input to the growth and complexity
(or limits to growth) conversation. I appreciate your information
regarding the expanding universe. Even more, the rich material of
increasing complexity and growth provides the basis for building what
I'm working on.
You say "complexity may be increasing but that means nothing for
growth" and then distinguish "development" from growth. I happily
accept your terminology. I also want to say that, in the
non-material arena of information, knowledge and learning, I consider
growth and development to be equivalent. One of the business traps
is to consider growth and development to be equivalent in the
material world and to fail to distinguish that we are transforming to
a world of information.
To use the biological metaphor of physical growth and maturation, I
consider it is the latter that is of most significance in systems based in
linguistics - such as human beings and their institutions.
-- Michael McMaster Michael@kbddean.demon.co.ukLearning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>