Complexity and Values LO8397

Rol Fessenden (76234.3636@CompuServe.COM)
09 Jul 96 09:01:52 EDT

Replying to LO8379 --

Hal questions my statement:

"Values are the one thing unique to humanity".
==============================================

He says,

I don't know, Michael and Rol. Values are not uniform across relegious
cultures, political boundaries, or even geologically diverse areas.
Religions, particularly, are holders and promoters of values. But as
Lazarus Long said "One man's religion is the next man's belly laugh."

I would say IDEAS distinguish mankind. And in fact, I would say that
ideas (new knowledge) are the key to creating value (not values).

== end quote ==

This feels a bit on the edge of a semantic discussion, and I would not
agree or disagree too vigorously with Hal. His statement makes me think I
was unclear, however. I do not think _consistent_+ values are unique to
humanity, only values. People take ideas, and put value on them.

There is an interesting story about a chickadee who, during World War II
"discovered" that he or she could poke through the aluminum foil covers on
milk bottles, and drink the milk. Within a year or two, every chickadee
in Britain had learned this trick. Did the original bird have an idea?
Did the other birds learn this idea? Maybe it's a stretch, I don't know.
I suggest only that it leaves open the notion that other animals have
ideas as well as people. What people do is they learn to consciously
evaluate those ideas, and then have long, animated discussions about the
relative merits of different ideas. Chickaddes never do that. I don't
think.

[Host's Note: Arie De Geus, author of the classic "Planning as Learning"
HBR article, told this story at the 1995 Pegasus conference. I wrote an
account of the speech; it's at

Linkname: Learning-Org Sep 1995: STIA - Arie de Geus Speech LO2949
URL: http://world.std.com/~lo/95.09/0303.html

Arie said the bird was the Tit-mouse. I don't know birds well enough to
know if this is the same as a chickadee. He asserted that the tit-mouse
learned en mass to penetrate the foil covers because they are flocking
birds; other birds who are territorial and do not flock were not able to
learn. ...Rick]

-- 

Rol Fessenden LL Bean, Inc. 76234.3636@compuserve.com

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>