First Principles of LO LO12081

Mnr AM de Lange (AMDELANGE@gold.up.ac.za)
Mon, 20 Jan 1997 12:35:38 GMT+2

Dan Chay wrote in LO12052

> On the Bering Sea, our registrar of time often corresponds to the tide
> cycle. Out there, duration seems to resonate strongly, often
> unpredictably (yes, At), with the weather, especially the wind. And there
> are so many other natural cycles that affect our rhythms in that world,
> too, it seems more clear simply to allude to them. It's dynamically
> complex.

Dear organlearners,

Dan, you said it. Nature does not use a linear clock.

I have often learnt the following lesson in wild nature: the less
technology I have, the more I have to work with nature rather than against
it in order not to become a loosing fool.

The following question is a collary to the lesson: are we not speeding
towards a collision with nature by surrounding ourselves more and more
with technology so that we cannot realise that we and nature are not on
the same course any more.

> At, I wonder, if we can imagine how our notion/s of the meaning of
> complexity seem/s to be emerging, can we also imagine how it/they seem/s
> to be immerging? Also, could you use the neologism eimergence?

I do not understand your second question. I know the term 'neologism', but
I cannot delineate the term 'eimergence'. If you mean emergence +
immergence, then my answer would be no. As far as I can see, we cannot
have both on the same event.

Your first question is an extremely important one. I believe that we have
only one way to manage the complexity of reality; and that is to match it
by developing our own creativity. But, let us merely assume that a
person's creativity is a measure of that person's conception of
complexity. Studies undertaken by psychologists interested in creativity
have shown that the creativity of the general population is decreasing. In
other words, whereas the knowledge on complexity is emerging (surfing)
among a minority, it is immerging (collapsing) among the majority. Thus an
extremely unhealthy situation is developing. The relative number
(fraction) of 'have-nots' is steadily increasing, placing an increasing
burden on the 'have-alls' to part with whatever they have (tax, rob,
donate, ...).

> In this post you said, "What we have to do is never think against a
> background in which time increases linearly."
>
> Would you say, too, "or decreases?" :-)

Yes, indeed. Michael McMaster stresses the importance of attractors (not
necessarily people as the idea seems to go in the thread Inner Circle ->
Whole Circle). For example, our idea of working towards objectives, goals
and missions is based on the reality and importance of attractors. Time
definitely decrease for things which still has to happen in the future.

Whether we think in time increaments or decrements, we should not think in
terms of linear (fixed) changes. The change of changes is very important.
This the 'deep' lesson that we should have learnt from Newton's work:
Force may be equated to the rate of change of the rate of change of
displacement. Likewise, to be able to understand how order may emerge from
chaos, we must not think about entropy, nor the increase (production) of
entropy, but the increase/decrease in the production of entropy. Again, it
is exactly the same for any viable business.

Best wishes
- --

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

-- 

"Mnr AM de Lange" <AMDELANGE@gold.up.ac.za>

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