[OSList] From linkedin today

[Harrison Owen]

Harold - I like your last line, "If we can hold our theories in the same
fashion as "a likely story", maybe we'll start being able to tell better
stories (theories)." Actually, my words for this are High Play. I've found
that good theory building is best done playfully, which does not make it a
trivial activity, but it does guard against dogmatism. Good theory,
playfully created, and playfully held is always open to revision - or just
plain discard. 

 

Harrison



 

Harrison Owen

7808 River Falls Dr.

Potomac, MD 20854

USA

 

189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer)

Camden, Maine 04843

 

Phone 301-365-2093

(summer)  207-763-3261

 

www.openspaceworld.com 

www.ho-image.com (Personal Website)

To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of OSLIST
Go to:
<http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org>
http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org

 

From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org
[mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of Harold Shinsato
Sent: Friday, January 10, 2014 7:55 PM
To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
Subject: Re: [OSList] From linkedin today

 

Harrison,

It seemed like you were having a problem with understanding when you wrote
the following:

"When I was confronted with what was happening in Open Space (25 years ago)
it made absolutely no sense to me at all. And what makes no sense does not
lend itself to understanding. I "knew," as did everybody else of my age,
background and training - that what seemed to be taking place in Open Space
simply could not happen. Organization was something that we created,
managed, and controlled."

There are so many theoretical frameworks that have begun to embody the more
adaptive systems thinking required maybe not to fully understand, but to
start to improve our models of organization not something as something we
impose - but something that we can nurture, cultivate, or just open
ourselves to experience.

It seems like this thread has been about understanding self-organization. I
love that you brought something from Quantum Mechanics that "somebody's
formulation was good, but not crazy enough to be true." This reminds me of
the Tao Te Ching. The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao.

It reminds me a lot of what you wrote in Spirit, and which you mentioned in
your TED talk. Story tellers don't tell the truth. But in the story, truth
emerges. Probably between the words.

If we can hold our theories in the same fashion as "a likely story", maybe
we'll start being able to tell better stories (theories).

    Harold

On 1/10/14 5:08 PM, Harrison Owen wrote:

Harold - I have no problem with "understanding." Good and useful enterprise.
Question is: Understanding of what? And in what frame or context. I think we
have come to a point where we "understand" J that there are multiple logics,
each appropriate to different senses of reality. Newtonian Physics really
does work. AND Quantum Mechanics was/is crazy. In fact one of the framers of
Quantum Mechanics (Heisenberg I think) remarked that that somebody's
formulation was good, but not crazy enough to be true. Or something.  I
think we may be at a similar paradigm/shift point. We'll see how it all turn
out.

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20140111/50c308d3/attachment-0008.htm>