Prof. Ilya Prigogine

[Artur F. Silva]

At 01:41 01-02-2001 +0100, Christoph J.W. Schmees wrote:

>In the first place there is no connection between choas theory (fractals,
>Julia sets, bifurcation, you name it) and Prigogine's work

What do you mean by "there are no connections"?. As Prigogine created
chaos theory, there are obvious connections. Do you want to say
that a lot of new fields diversified from that and have now no
direct connections?


Will say: Prigogine researched cases of spontaneous order in highly
>dissipative systems where the least you would expect is order. He defined
>the conditions under which those cases of spontaneous order are *possible*.
>This is what he got the Nobel prize for, as far as I know.

I read at least two books from him and saw a film where he explained
the beginning of his carreer. He said that in physics and termodinamics
what was considered important were situations of equlibrium, or systems
"close to equilibrium".  When he decided to study "systems far from
equilibrium"
he was considered fool, because those problems had no scientific interest.

But that was his interest. He discovered that systems out of the equilibrium,
may disagregate (immerge) or they may emerge to unexpected higher order
equilibrium situations.

Free energy and direction of flow are only constructs he cretaed to solve the
major problem and situation.  They are much less important that the situation
themself : how do systems far from equilibrium behave?.

>And, by the way: No real world system or organisation is in state of
>equilibrium. You may have stationary states, where a sort of dynamic
>balance is maintained. But more often you find the transitional state to be
>the most common, the "normal" case. And yes, here chaos theory as well as
>Prigogine's self-organisation *may* apply. Not guaranteed. Still it is
>worth while to use analogies and give them a try.

I am not so sure about that. First because applications of Chaos theory to
management of organizations are recent and in many cases done by people
that only a superficial understanding of the physical concepts envolved.
Second, because the REAL conditions of Chaos theory are confused with
"commonm sense" feeling of chaos we all have - that IS NOT the same
thing.

So, I would suggest: we need to read (or re-read) the bibliography (and I
am speacking about the real stuff and not simplifications) and
AFTERWORDS decide on that...

When some one says that "all organizations are at the edge of chaos"
I would like them to know some real corporations or bureaucratid
Public Administrations...


Regards

A.

*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu
Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html

===========================================================
OSLIST at EGROUPS.COM
To subscribe,
1.  Visit: http://www.egroups.com/group/oslist
2.  Sign up -- provide an email address,
    and choose a login ID and password
3.  Click on "Subscribe" and follow the instructions

To unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at egroups.com:
1.  Visit: http://www.egroups.com/group/oslist
2.  Sign in and Proceed