doing self-organization

[Peggy Holman]

I seem to be on a roll here....

Pat,

I LOVE your posts!

> You said: One of the prejudices of human cognition is to identify familiar 
> patterns and weight them for success thereby stacking the > decks for 
> future success but also tuning our perceptions to look for what makes us 
> successful and ignoring what does not > feed that.


YES!  The questions we ask focus our attention so thoroughly that we can 
completely miss the contextualizing assumptions of our questions.  I have 
been in an inquiry over the last number of months around what would it mean 
if we put INTERACTIONS at the center of evolutionary dynamics rather than 
the current approach which highlights a progression of how things evolve 
(e.g., evolution of galaxies, stars, planets, geology, species, cultures, 
etc.).

There is a dynamism to a relational view that for me, gets lost when the 
focus is on fitness (a la Darwin.)  I think if we switch the foreground and 
background, moving the visible patterns of the path of evolution into the 
background for a while so that we can explore the entirely different set of 
questions and patterns that come out of paying attention to relationships 
and interactions, we may uncover some very useful insights for our work.

> Pat said:
> If love is an action that draws together how do we or the process work as 
> agents for that?


If interactions are a central focus, then understanding what draws us 
together and what tears us apart is key.  I see our work as smack dab in 
understanding the nature of interactions in social systems.  As you no doubt 
know by now, the essence of open space to me is taking responsiblity for 
what I/we love.  I believe that when we operate this way, community 
flourishes.  My friend, Anne Stadler, uses the term the Radiant Network. 
For me, that is what community is when our hearts are open (and the love 
flows) and we feel our connection to each other and the larger whole.  When 
our hearts are closed (like when we are fearful), we are still connected, it 
is just that the connections are invisible.  And so most of us act out, as 
if we are alone.

So, back to self-organization and our work...the more we understand our role 
as practitioners or leaders (or evolutionary agents) of conscious 
self-organization, the more we can serve to wake others up to the 
evolutionary potential they can realize when they enter into open space, 
taking responsibility for what they love, along with its playmates of 
intention, invitation, welcoming our differences.  And then, I think a 
different story of how we interact, how we evolve, the health and well being 
of our systems, all start to take shape.  And then..., well, I think we're 
on to something.

open-heartedly,
Peggy



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Pat Black" <patoitextiles at gmail.com>
To: <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 8:59 AM
Subject: Re: [OSLIST] doing self-organization


> Hello all who are engaged in this thread
> I have taken some time to reflect on the intensity of my passion
> regarding this question and my own reactiveness to certain language
> associations in self organization.  I continue to enjoy the thread
> woven around this topic and feel downright privileged to be present
> for the beauty and eloquence of Peggy's description and the many
> insights from others as we unravel this thread.  I feel it is
> important to continue with this tuning around language because
> language is so central to the creation of reality and experience
>
> Harrison wrote:
> "Pat, I am not sure that Kauffmann would disagree with you regarding the
> centrality of relationship, and I certainly would not (disagree). But
> perhaps it is not an either/or (either relationship or fitness), but 
> rather
> a both/and. I would put it as follows: Our search for fitness drives us 
> into
> (new) relationships, and simultaneously our (new) relationships enhance 
> our
> fitness. At least that may be the case -- but as you point out, some
> relationships can be toxic."
>
> My hang up with fitness occurs from multiple perspectives.  My initial
> reaction is to the notion of fitness from a Darwinian perspective.
> That species compete and the ones with the best genes, the biggest,the
> most resilient, the strongest, the  most adaptable, pick whatever
> characteristics you want, are alive at the end of the game.  Darwin's
> theories have never been the source of opening space for me.  I think
> they are insightful maybe even brilliant but promote in their
> understanding a view that closes space.  Something wins and something
> else loses.  Species can be reduced to and elevated by their
> configuration of attributes.  Also in Darwin's and that Newtonian way
> of thinking there is a weighted importance given to what I the
> observer can observe and a dismissal of things the observer can not
> see, ,as if they do not exist.  I guess that is the single most
> disturbing aspect of the notion of fitness and seems incongruent with
> what I experience in open space.  Prepare to be surprised for me is
> prepare to see what has been right in front of you and invisible.  If
> my sights are set on what is fit the invisible may not be revealed.
> One of the prejudices of human cognition is to identify familiar
> patterns and weight them for success thereby stacking the decks for
> future success but also tuning our perceptions to look for what makes
> us successful and ignoring what does not feed that.  This is why I
> think it is important to get at the language we use in our
> descriptions as it reveals how we compartmentalize and describe
> action.  Artur's description of the micro forces expressed at the
> macro level were helpful and descriptive in this regard.
>
> So I am back onto relationships and looking to expand that discussion.
> Maturana would I think, include love as a micro force that is
> expressed at a macro level.  We most typically in American culture at
> least, think of love as an emotion.  Maturana and many schools of
> psychology suggests it to be a fundamental action in self
> organization.  I have come to think of love as an action juxtaposed
> fear also an action.  In a Newtonian framework love and fear would be
> forces that attract and dispel.  So following this line of thought
> love would be the force that attracts and creates relationships and
> creates entities predisposed to a permeability to more relationships.
> Fear on the other hand would dispel relationships limiting possibility
> and permeability.  Perhaps it is here that we are identifying fitness
> and its connection to relationship.  I don't know.
>
> I am curious about how love and fear as action are expressed at the
> macro level and how open space seems to really provide a substrate for
> love action to predominate in the self organization and this self to
> be actualized and identity formed in this relationship?  If love is an
> action that draws together how do we or the process work as agents for
> that?  Is open space a symbol, that which draws us and binds us
> together?  If we want to weight organization towards love action how
> do we become that action?  And I guess the core question for me is how
> to we language, use language, create language in way that works to
> that purpose?  What are the implications for our language and the
> actual reality we create?  What are all the other questions here?
> Pat Black
>
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