Curt asks:
> I just reread all of the related postings and I'm also intrigued
> by the questions such as why is reductionism so ingrained in our typical
> approach to problems?
The historical answer is grounded in the success of an approach to
solving the challenges of the world that developed from Aristotle and
early Greek philosophers. (There were other approaches in that day
but they didn't solve the same kind of challenges well.) That is, we
have a 2,500 year old tradition that is thoroughly embedded in our
logic, language and common thinking - by its efficacy at solving
certain kinds of problems as much as anything.
Also, the reductionist thinking works well and fits inutitively for
those areas which are of a scale that are amenable to our senses -
easy measurement and accessible understanding being two benefits.
He then asks:
> and how do we take a system as a whole and approach
> change that way?
Rol responds (in selected part):
>Learn how my work can multiply or leverage the power of others.
And Curt responds with "what's been bugging me since" I started
exploring complex adaptive systems theory is that boundedness,
strange attractors and unpredictability suggest that "I may be able
to learn how my work has leveraged the power of others but not that
power in the future."
The dilemna in these systems is worse than that. You can know how it
leverages the power of others close to you but cannot know how it
leverages - or defeats - the power of the wholes system.
BUT
The system can optimise for itself for both current and future.
However, there is a very important missing here. That is, we are
talking about systems composed of living, self-generating, linguistic
(ie. intelligent) entities and, while some of the characteristics
remain the same when extended into the system, many do not.
An intelligent organisation (corporation) of intelligent entities
(human beings) is not limited by these characteristics of non-living
and non-intelligent systems.
Living systems can know the whole IN DIFFERENT WAYS than non-living
ones and that is by patterns and implicit connections. Particularly
when these are embodied in language systems, and the agents have
access to the language, can other possibilities emerge.
--
Michael McMaster : Michael@kbdworld.com
book cafe site : http://www.vision-nest.com/BTBookCafe
Intelligence is the underlying organisational principle
of the universe. Heraclitus
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations
For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>