Language and self organizing systems

[Pat Black]

I find this discussion about self organizing systems fascinating and
thrilled now that it is connected to language's role.  I think language is a
manifestation of self organizing and contributes to the increasing
complexity of self organizing.  I have had the luck of growing up with a
severe speech impediment.  I understood language but was not understood when
I used it.  Speech is not an issue for me now but I have a unique
relationaship with language because of that experience.  I also was raised
in a home where illiteracy was present so the next level of language
abstraction was also an issue.  Both issues limited orientation with the
environment.  Because of these expereinces I have always thought of language
as a way to orient myself with my environment and myself.

When we talk we make ourselves visible and known to ourselves.  There is
something self referential that happens when we speak.  We tell ourselves
what we think and we learn how we are in relation to the environment. The
realtionships are reflected back to us. We make choices to belong or not
based on what is reflected back.  We sometimes assume another's language and
identity if in this orientation process we feel disconnected to the
environment which for young children would be defined by family
relationships.  Relationships grow and are structured through language.
There would be no culture if there was no language.

So would language be impossible if there are no divisions?  That question is
backwards for me.In self organizing systems no divisions are impossible.
Organization at least identifies categories if not creates them. If creation
is innately self organizing there must be this dividing and the dividing
must serve creation.  Seems to me that in the ideal state, this dividing
increases the surface area of each entitiy, increasing the possibility for
new relationships.  New relationships facilitate transforamtions which are
the active manifestation of creation. Creation is creating.

This leads me to the magic thread that has also been floating.  I am
attracted to OS because in the opening of space language can be used to
orient us with the environment in a way that does not seem life threatening
and so our surface area expands allowing for more realtionships which lead
to transformation and creation.  Creation is the magic.

Just some thoughts
Pat Black


>Date:    Wed, 16 Feb 2005 18:30:04 +1000
>From:    Bob Dick <bdick at scu.edu.au>
>Subject: Re: On self-organizing

>It seems to me that language obliges us to carve up an indivisible
>world into pieces.  Language works by categorising, even though the
>world doesn't come in the categories that language provides.

>When all divisions vanish, though, doesn't that make language
>impossible?  And then what?

>Cheers    --  Bob

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

To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist