[OSList] Self Organizing vs. Physics & Entropy...

Thu Feb 13 12:29:20 PST 2014

Harrison,

I think people often confuse "closed system" with systems like bureaucracy (the iron cage of modernity, that Taylor loved!), that seem so rigid and impervious to change, when, in fact, they are perfect examples of open systems in the definition that Bertalanffy described - they take in all kinds of energy, they use what they need to recreate themselves, often at a higher level of their own order, and they excrete the rest of the energy that does not serve this end back into the larger system around them, thus preserving themselves almost no matter what happens (also called autopoiesis).  I think that idea of an unchanging system that reinforces itself might be easily confused with the idea of "closed."  Just an error of understanding the nature of "open" in this case.  Closed is dead, and closed is, as Gödel proved, impossible anyway.

John

On Feb 13, 2014, at 9:05 AM, Harrison Owen wrote:

> And here’s 2 cents from another old coot! When talking about “open systems” – and yes Bertie did it, I believe – it is well to remember the opposite, CLOSED SYSYEMS. If only because they are much more common and comfortable in the organizational world we seek to address. Every manager (until very recently) is ever hopeful that they can effectively close their systems thereby eliminating extraneous variables, surprises and other oddments of a living world. The hope/expectation is certainty, predictability, control. Otherwise known as Management Nirvana. After all that is what good managers do!
>  
> I don’t know who came up with the notion of a “Closed System,” but it certainly has been around for a long, long time. So maybe somebody in the 1800’s? Closing the system was an artifice of the scientific enterprise. To do a responsible experiment, one sought to close the system against odd variables which might skew the results. So if the experiment had something to do with radioactivity, you needed lots of lead to guard against the stray neutrino. Of course you knew (as a good scientist) that you couldn’t really close the system, but you tried. And at the very least you were hopeful that the “uncontrolled variable” was of such a low order that it would not mix up your porridge.
>  
> No problems here just as long as everybody knew and understood the rules. “Closed Systems” were simply and only a figment of the scientific imagination – but a useful one when doing critical experiments.
>  
> Problems arise when you begin to think that Closed Systems actually exist, and that happened, I think, with the rise of Scientific Management – back at the beginning of the 20th century. Think of Mr Taylor with his time and motion studies. And then, a little later on, all those good behavioral scientists. Management was going to be “scientific” with all the accoutrements of SCIENCE. And a central one was the notion of a Closed System – which would allow for Real Management Control!
>  
> Great idea, but flawed from the onset. Any good scientist knew that a closed system was only a scientific conceit, useful in the experimental world, but only if you remembered that it didn’t really exist. Management Science missed the boat. And thereby hangs a tale. Control, as they hoped they had it – never existed.
>  
> Harrison
>  
>  
>  
> Harrison Owen
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> From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org [mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of Chris Kloth
> Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2014 10:30 AM
> To: oslist at lists.openspacetech.org; johnw536 at mac.com
> Subject: Re: [OSList] Self Organizing vs. Physics & Entropy...
>  
> At the risk of seeming to be an old coot, I do plead guilty to cootness, I would like to clarify one aspect of the history of "open systems." 
> 
> John posted "The term "open systems" comes from thermodynamics, especially from Prigogine and Stengers..."
> 
> While I love how Prigogine and Stengers and others who have explored what contemporary physics (chaos, complexity, string and other theories) have added to our understanding of human systems, I am looking at my copy of Ludwig von Bertalanffy's General System Theory, published in 1950. He is usually credited with both the earliest description of Open Systems (importing energy, using energy, expelling energy) in nature (he was a biologist) as well as the application of open systems to human systems in that same publication. 
> 
> In a practical sense the theory is so fundamental that it continues to inform much of how we understand the world today, including chaos, complexity, etc. The reason I like to keep old Ludwig's work in front of us is that I find that when folks I am working with begin to explore the systems they are part of it is easier to start with the subsystems (individual people, groups, communities) we are able and willing to make choices about, influence and shape... together (oops, have I mentioned interdependence lately?) :-0! They also more easily begin to grasp that those subsystems are part of a larger environment or ecosystem that is more complicated and chaotic... like severe weather (he said with the snow outside his house piled as high as his car windows... oops, have I mentioned vulnerability lately?)
> 
> Thus, (the coot substitute for the currently popular vernacular "So, ..." and the popular alternative of my youth "Like, ...), I thank John and others for keeping the latest thinking on how science may inform our questions and answers about systems in our conversations, but I like to give credit where credit is due.
> 
> Just sayin'!  ;-)
> 
> Shalom, 
> 
> Chris Kloth 
> ChangeWorks of the Heartland
> chris.kloth at got2change.com 
> www.got2change.com 
> phone - 614.239.1336 
> fax - 614.237.2347 
> 
> Think Globally, Act Locally 
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> Please think about the environment before printing this e-mail. 
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> 
> On 2/11/2014 11:19 PM, Lucas Cioffi wrote:
> Hi All, 
>  
> I read that "Open Space works because self-organization works."  But I remember from physics class that disorder (entropy) in the Universe is always increasing, so when the order of something increases (such as during OS), the order of something else must decrease.
>  
> Paraphrased from Wikipedia: 
> "The second law of thermodynamics states that in general the total entropy of any system (the disorder, randomness, or our lack of information about it) will not decrease other than by increasing the entropy of some other system."
>  
> So when participants organize themselves during Open Space does something else become disorganized?  Or is it that all the disorder created (by consuming the muffins, coffee, fuel, paper, electricity, etc) always outweighed by the order created by the self-organization?
>  
> For what it's worth, below is an interesting thread I found from the list archives from a few years ago that mentions entropy...
>  
> Lucas Cioffi
> Charlottesville, VA
>  
>  
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: John Watkins <johnw536 at mac.com>
> Date: Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 12:25 AM
> Subject: Re: [OSList] Designing an OS way
> To: Artur Silva <arturfsilva at yahoo.com>, World wide Open Space Technology email list <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org>
> Cc: "76066.515 at compuserve.com" <76066.515 at compuserve.com>
> 
> 
> Artur,
>  
> The term "open systems" comes from thermodynamics, especially from Prigogine and Stengers, who also refer to them as "dissipative" systems.  It does not mean open to change; it means open in the sense of importing "energy" from outside itself and excreting "energy" back into the surrounding system.  Such systems are most often self-organizing and self-recreating (autopoiesis).  They "sort" energy into that which will help them recreate themselves and that which will not, and they dissipate the rest, creating, paradoxically, internally order and externally more entropy.  Bureaucracies are actually great examples of open systems in this regard.
>  
> John
> 
> 
> 
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