doing self-organization
openspacekorea
openspacers at openspacekorea.org
Thu May 31 17:26:38 PDT 2007
among all the interactions, our best interactions as a transformation agent
seemd to be keep inviting people and communities of people to open space
purified with good aspiration for the group for the whole...
again, i appreciate everyone sharing good perspectives and intentions on
this list...
with much respect and love,
park
-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Peggy
Holman
Sent: Friday, June 01, 2007 5:43 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: doing self-organization
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
>
> *
> *
> ==========================================================
> 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
>From Thu May 31 20:38:32 2007
Message-Id: <THU.31.MAY.2007.203832.0400.>
Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 20:38:32 -0400
Reply-To: deborah at hartmann.net
To: OSLIST <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
From: Deborah Hartmann <deborah at hartmann.net>
Subject: Re: Emergence and Flocking - From the OSLIST Archives
In-Reply-To: <465EBE45.1020101 at hartmann.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Oh, by the way: upon re-reading, I note that this line is misleading:
> there is no way to meet all three goals at once.
In fact, it is better put this way:
> there is no way to meet all three goals separately, simultaneously,
given these resources.
This is because the "aha!" of the exercise is that it IS possible to
meet all three goals with a single, more complex solution in which all
participate :-)
Deborah Hartmann wrote:
> On groups, and simple rules.
>
> Did a really interesting exercise recently: this is different from
> flocking, but it's about self-organization when three "flocks" come
> together... which is the "wall" many self-organizing teams hit within
> the organisation.
>
> 1) Give three sub-groups three different, simple objectives, which
> seem to conflict.
> 2) Tell them all to achieve their own team's goals.
> 3) They must not make any sounds.
> 4) Let them go in a room of limited resources: all teams need to
> manipulate the same resources in their own way to "win", and there is
> no way to meet all three goals at once.
>
> Watch people go from
> * blind obedience
> * to defying and foiling one another,
> * to standing still, puzzled,
> * to standing still, observing,
> * to modeling different behaviour,
> * to collaborating,
> * to success for everyone.
>
> Isn't this a bit like what happens in Open Space? People come, each
> with their own agenda. Some "pro" and some "con" and some for the fun
> of it and other for the networking, and yet others don't know why they
> came. And now we start to dance... :-)
>
> People go thru these at different paces, so some are leaders, some are
> followers. Everyone succeeds.
> It's a really fun exercise to watch - keep your vidcam out :-)
> I think Diana Larsen may have participated in this exercise... Diana,
> wasn't it fun?
>
> lol
> deb
>
--
Deborah Hartmann
Agile Process Coach
deborah AT hartmann DOT net
mobile: fouronesix 996 4337
"Learn the principle,
abide by the principle, and
dissolve the principle."
-- Bruce Lee
*
*
==========================================================
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
More information about the OSList
mailing list