Turtles (short)

Mon Feb 14 08:31:32 PST 2005

Marty Wrote: Of course if you look at any part of the whole (financial
systems, Iraq, the US, you, me) things can seem fairly closed from time to
time.  But if you look at the deeper whole, I don't know if anything is ever
closed or if "we" ever "open" a space.  Maybe we just give it a nudge, when
it is already on the verge of realization, helping it to see that it can be
open, because it is already open.  

Marty - I think you have it precisely right. Or at least I agree with you,
which may not be the same thing. 

Harrison

Harrison Owen

7808 River Falls Drive

Potomac, Maryland   20845

Phone 301-365-2093

Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com <http://www.openspaceworld.com/>

Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org

Personal website http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hhowen/index.htm
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU 

To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives Visit:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html

-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Marty
Boroson
Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2005 12:12 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: Turtles (short)

Dear friends:

I am new to the list and this is my first post, but I am a great fan of
turtles and so must jump in.

For me, I have to ask who or what is the "self" that is self-organizing?  If
this self is really Self (ie. God or Spirit or Brahman or whatever you'd
like to call it) then surely everything in creation is indeed
Self-organizing, and included in this are so-called non-living systems.
Everything is part of an emergent order.  (This is just another way of
saying ... turtles all the way up!)

Of course if you look at any part of the whole (financial systems, Iraq, the
US, you, me) things can seem fairly closed from time to time.  But if you
look at the deeper whole, I don't know if anything is ever closed or if "we"
ever "open" a space.  Maybe we just give it a nudge, when it is already on
the verge of realization, helping it to see that it can be open, because it
is already open.  

Marty Boroson
Devon, UK

www.becomingme.com

----- Original Message ----- 

From: Artur Silva <mailto:arturfsilva at yahoo.com>  

To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU 

Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2005 3:15 PM

Subject: Re: Turtles (short)

Masud Sheikh <masheikh at cogeco.ca> wrote: 

HO wrote:
"Or put rather bluntly - There are only some mildly deluded folks who think
they did the
organizing. Outrageous for sure, and possibly a break with reality, but that
is pretty much where I found myself."

I believe the statement "there is no such thing as a non-self-organizing
system" is true for living systems, but not for non-living systems. For
instance, in any "organization" there are systems of people, who find that
the best team-building may be done around the coffee machine or bar, rather
than in a classroom, teaching "teamwork". There are other systems (e.g. the
financial reporting system) that are non-living. Both the living and
non-living systems interact with - and impact - each other.

Let me stop here, and invite others to join in

Masud - thanks for taking the lead on this.

Harrison - there are two things that I don't understand in this last post
and in some others from you. I think I have already referred to this, but
let's go again.

1. You refer often to Kaufman's conditions for self-organization. Clearly
those conditions are NOT current and they occur only in special situations.
So it seems to me that there is a contradiction between your references to
those conditions and your persistent affirmations that "there is not such
thing as a non-self-organizing-systems". Can you clarify your thoughts about
this please?

2.  I agree with Masud that the statement is true for "living systems". So
when we consider the humans as part of an ecosystem we can see them as a
"living systems". But human organizations are not only "living material".
Masud gave an example with the financial system, but there are others. An
organization is a mix of living people with objects, rules, procedures,
hierarchies, etc that are not "living" in the biological sense. Those rules
and procedures inhibit, in my opinion, their being "living systems". That's
is precisely the reason why we talk about opening the space - the fact that
quite often in organizations and even in communities the space is pretty
closed. Any comments?

Artur

  _____  

Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do
<http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=29915/*http:/info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250>
more. Manage less. * *
==========================================================
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

* * ==========================================================
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

*
*
==========================================================
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
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20050214/360573f1/attachment-0016.htm>