Spontaneity LO10961

Mnr AM de Lange (AMDELANGE@gold.up.ac.za)
Tue, 12 Nov 1996 10:50:53 GMT+2

Bob wrote (LO10875):

> In your post of 11/4/96 you stated:
[cut]
> > Furthermore, in the new information era, this solution is
> > not stable enough. Remove the external work + control and the
> > person will eventually stop accepting this essentially. There is no
> > rejuvenation which had to happen internally! Thus all information
> > with respect to becoming can perish.
>
> Therefore, could you expand on your thinking in regard to the
> following statement: ...in the new information era, this solution is
> not stable enough. Why is it not stable enough?

Although the answer is complex, I will try to formulate it as simple as
possible.

The industrial era has been powered by so called non-renewable energy
resources. They are non-renewable because they have taken millions of
years to be established by billions of emergences in a climatical period
favourable to plants. They are now almost depleted. We do not have
billions of years to rejuvenate them, nor a favourable climate. Once these
sources are not available anymore, we can forget about maintaining most
nonspontaneous processes by external work and control.

The annoying fact about forcing nonspontaneous transformations to actually
happen by external work and control is that any accompanying internal
emergences are usually absent. In other words, take the external agent
away and the transformation ceases. Should there also have been
emergences, then these emergences would have made the system more
spontaneous so that the system could have been able to transform on its
own accord.

The nonspontaneous character of the transformation points to a history
(past) scarce in emergences. The scarcity in emergences point to some
deficiencies. It is these very deficiencies which are partly responsible
for the lack of emergence during the forced nonspontaneous transformation.
Another cause is the excessive entropy production. More entropy has to be
produced for any transformation when it is nonspontaneous than when it is
spontaneous. Too much entropy produced and its manifestation into chaos is
not a good thing.

That which I have described in the above three paragraphs is probably the
most important reason why third world countries fail to perform upon
foreign aid. They do not have the infrastructure to force the aid for a
nonspontaneous transformation into real action. What is even worse, by
trying to do so, they deplete their already scant resources even more.
Thus they sink in a downward spiral of trying to make it work, but always
failing.

It is also probably the most important reason why a failing
business/industry often fail to improve upon expert aid. The business as
learning organisation has used up its nonrenewable mental energy
resources. These mental resources may be called nonrenewable because of
the very nature of emergences, including mental ones. Emergences are
asymmetric-transitive rather than symmetric-reflexisive. This means that
we cannot get the same kick out of life by repeating the things which we
already have done. If the aid is intended to make the business operate as
in the past, it will often fail because the emergences cannot happen as
they have happened previously. The original emergences had too much
irreversible effects.

> Have you developed
> or had success with "mass" programs where clearly "rejuvenation
> internally" had to take place for success?

With learning organisations, no. With individual learners, yes.

The following reports a planned experiment. I planned this experiment to
check on many unplanned experiences.

I have programmed 5 CBT lessons (in the old days of the PLATO system
running on CYBER computers) which I have interspersed between 75 other
typical (much rote learning) CBT lessons. In these 5 lessons only emergent
learning was possible. I used these lessons to help a student to
conceptualise what is emergent learning, especially when the student got
stuck in one of these 5 lessons. I also made sure that the student became
aware that he/she becomes more spontaneous towards learning after each
emergence. I carefully guided them into a culture of emergences.

The learners performed exceptionally. Whereas they failed the previous
year (without CBT) the course completely (final mark less than 40%), they
performed better than the whole class from which they came from the
previous year. They all have at least doubled their average mark and a
greater fraction of them got distinctions. But my greatest joy was that
they are now still pursuing learning for life. This was not because of
CBT, but because of using CBT as a lever to introduce them to emergent
learning and its gain in spontaneity.

> Have you had success where
> the issue is not just the organization's surface mental models, but
> their belief systems that appear to them invisible in their
> consciousness? I believe that I have had success in these areas, but
> in very small teams not in the organization as a whole. Even the
> people who have changed are so overwhelmed by the organization that
> most have taken refuge by quitting.
>

I did not have much opportunity to work with organisations per se. Most of
my work were with individuals. What I did notice was that even when a
learner has discovered how to become more spontaneous by emergent
learning, that very learner was still easily made nonspontaneous by one
and only one thing, namely the complexity of his/her environment. On many
occasions I had to save them from the abyss by 'showing' them that their
own emergences were indeed powerful enough to resist the complexity of the
environment. In other words, the complexity of the environment intimidated
them so much that they began to believe their won emergences to be
inferior.

I also have noticed that once a learner has discovered emergent learning,
that learner is much sooner ready to discover the interaction between the
tacit/intuitive/(invisible?) dimension of knowledge and its
cognitive/formal counter dimension.

My 'showing' consists of making them sensitive to the fact that emergent
learning is complemented by what I call digestive learning. Whereas the
emergent learning is the birth of the new and noble thought, digestive
learning is the growth of this bare new thought to maturity. It needs food
from the outside to do so. If the emergent thought is eating, excercising
and sleeping (like babies and toddlers), all is well. The fact that it is
still a baby or toddler, is nothing to feel inferior about. I tell these
students to nourish their mental babies rather than worrying about the
seemingly gigantic thoughts of others. I also tell them that these babies
have to become mature to make place for other babies. Too much babies and
too few adults to look after them is a dangerous situation.

I am indebted to Socrates for this metaphor of babies. This metaphor is
easy to understand wheras the following formal description may baffle the
mind. All emergences are revolutionary creations happening far from
equilbrium. This is the way of life. However, it is the idea of continuous
revolutions which leads to failure. Each revolution needs to be followed
by an evolutionary or digestive period to become mature. This digestion
happens seemingly close to equilbrium. In other words, the storm of
emergence has to be followed by the tranquility of digestion. Furthermore,
the digestion eventually produces a mature creation which becomes the very
source of energy needed for the next emergence! In other words, a
revolution cannot feed on itself. Likewise, a digestion cannot continue
indefinitely. It will eventually break down.

> In short, if you could continue this thread and take your thoughts
> deeper it would be very beneficial.
>

I have probably gone further than I should have done. The simple reason is
that the properties of emergences which I have described above should
first be experienced by emergent learning before they can be comprehended.
It also has sense to use what I have said to sustain digestive learning,
but only when that digestive learning has been preceded by emergent
learning.

I do have a book in the pipeline for next year in which all the above is
treated, but I will refrain from saying anything about it until Rick
decides it should be done.

[Host's Note: Authors are welcome to share information about their books
and other publications; I judge whether to distribute a msg based on
whether I think the readership of the list will enjoy the msg. Msgs with
an element of self interest are fine as long as their content justifies
distribution. ...Rick]

Best wishes

--

At de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre for Education University of Pretoria Pretoria, South Africa email: amdelange@gold.up.ac.za

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