[OSList] Creating Space or Opening Space?

[Harold Shinsato via OSList]

Hi Lucas, thanks for adding some of your thinking here. I was intrigued 
by something you said at the Qiqochat supported online Open Space 
experience we had on the OSHotline this past Tuesday. It seemed to 
relate to what started happening soon afterwards on the OSList.

About "creating" or "opening" space - I do believe these are useful and 
powerful metaphors. But in terms of some of the cosmology thinking - I'm 
remembering what my college professor at my first Physics class said.

We don't really know what time is beyond *time is what we measure with 
clocks*.
We don't know what distance (space) is beyond it is what we measure with 
rulers.

I opened that class's text book, and couldn't find it, but I found the 
time definition with a quick internet search. It is attributed to 
Einstein, and other text books do consider it an operational definition 
of time. It seems fit well with Harrison's notions that we don't really 
understand time or space.

Even given our not really knowing - we still measure it. Play with it. 
Live in it. And one huge transformation from Prigogene which has been 
discussed on the OSList before - was an insight from the life sciences 
that essentially overthrew the principles of Entropy that caused the 
character played by Woody Allen in Annie Hall to get really depressed as 
a boy that the ultimate end of the universe was complete dissolution. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U1-OmAICpU

"Why are you depressed, Alvy?"
"The universe is expanding... Well, the universe is everything, and if 
it's expanding, someday it will break apart, and that will be the end of 
everything."

The problem with the principles of Thermodynamics that Entropy (i.e. 
disorder) always increases, is that these principles came from the study 
of closed systems. If the Universe is truly a closed system, our old 
physics required a rather dismal cosmology.

Maybe trying to nail down the ultimate truth about the Universe into a 
formula or equation is a bad idea anyway, but the Universe *AS I SEE IT* 
will certainly decay and dissolve to death. And I'll have to grieve that 
understanding. Because my understanding most certainly is FINITE at any 
point in space/time. But all I have to do is let go, and I can open up 
some space in my understanding. And maybe at that point - I'll break 
open into a new understanding. One that is bigger and greater than the 
previous one. New Space! at least for me. And if it creates space for 
me, perhaps I can invite someone else into this new space as well. Or 
maybe we can walk into it together, after properly grieving our past 
understanding - may it rest in peace.

To me - how this relates to your insight if you create space for X - you 
are creating space against Y: perhaps there's something valuable to 
that. Because often there really is a clearing away necessary in order 
to "open" space. When I go to an OST event, I most certainly am choosing 
to clear my calendar to accept that invitation. Yet - if anything - I've 
always found my world expanded after attending an Open Space. Always! 
And perhaps that is simply because my Understanding grew - and therefore 
- voila - more space at least in my own head.

And about your final sentence in bold, although there's some truth in 
your win/lose perspective - perhaps if you viewed things from a 
different perspective - the perspective that could take in the whole 
system - you would see that the pie grows enough for everyone to 
ultimately win - if they accept the invitation into this bigger pie. And 
that bigger pie is the growth of our collective understanding and 
comprehension of this infinite mystery.

     Cheers,
     Harold


On 9/2/15 7:47 AM, Lucas Cioffi via OSList wrote:
> That's an interesting thread you started, Daniel, about inviting 
> non-invitation.
>
> Harrison writes yesterday:
>
>     Here’s a thought... Space/time is infinite, defined by our minds,
>     and limited by our imagination. So “constraints” are only what you
>     make them out to be. AND... it is always nice to have as much
>     “space/time” as possible. A “genuine invitation” creates a LOT of
>     space/time.
>
>
> *Do y'all think we are creating space or are we opening space?  It's 
> an important distinction, because creating implies a win-win but 
> opening could be a win-lose situation. *I'd say none of us is ever 
> creating space, just opening it, and that someone or something is 
> always losing something else when we do.
>
> *I'll do my best to explain...*
> Instead of "creating space" I'd argue that instead we are "creating 
> space */for/*" because the space literally already exists.  We are 
> creating opportunity for voices to be heard and for people to 
> participate.  But in some indirect way a */space for X/* is at least 
> indirectly a /*space against Y*/.  We are never actually creating new 
> space, instead we are creating "*/new space for/*" by marking that 
> space with an invitation/purpose, principles, and a law of two feet.  
> The space (the hotel conference room, the warehouse, etc) already exists.
>
> I don't disagree, Harrison, that overall space/time might be 
> infinite–I don't know :) –but each of us is limited to being in one 
> physical space at a time, monitoring/interacting with a handful of 
> physical spaces virtually, and having 24 hours in a day.  In that way 
> we'd all agree that space and time are nearly zero sum at a personal 
> scale, so when we open/create space for _________, and people accept 
> the invitation, we are decreasing energy and time spent some where 
> else.  There is a cost.  We don't talk about that, but I don't think 
> we forget that either.
>
> So, to take this argument full circle (pun intended), I'd say that 
> whenever we open space, we do it by force.  Space doesn't open on its 
> own (or does it?!-- what if we aren't really /opening/ space and the 
> space is already open, that we're just the first to see it?). Well, 
> even if space opens on its own and then if we're the first ones to 
> walk into it and invite others, we are still inviting by force–this 
> not a bad force or a coercive force, but it's a force nonetheless.  We 
> know this, because we know how it requires force to launch an 
> invitation into the world.  (Or is this not always the case?  Can 
> someone invite by simply being?)
>
> Any invitation displaces people's time: to read it (maybe just 30 
> seconds) and then much more time is displaced for people choose to 
> attend (an hour, a day, etc).  What I'm trying to say is that I'm 
> beginning to see opening space more and more as active, forceful (in a 
> good way), and intentional.  When we open space that was previously 
> closed, we are using force, and that might mean that someone else is 
> experiencing something else closing (the old order of business in an 
> organization or fewer people attending another event or doing 
> something that they would have otherwise been doing if they weren't 
> attending).
>
> Bottom line: It's hard to argue with creating space because it looks 
> like a win-win, but somewhere someone or something is losing our time, 
> energy, and support in the short term.  In the case of an organization 
> the person losing is the boss who wants to keep the old order of 
> things.  When that situation isn't applicable, we're at least spending 
> time away from other things we could be doing such as tending to a 
> vegetable garden or taking Fido for a walk. *So it's always important 
> to keep in mind who/what is losing when we open space, and perhaps 
> using the phrase "creating space" is a good way to focus on the upside.*
>

-- 
Harold Shinsato
harold at shinsato.com <mailto:harold at shinsato.com>
http://shinsato.com
twitter: @hajush <http://twitter.com/hajush>
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