<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>It seems.</div>it seems order while steadily renewing order<div>it seems equilibrium while oscillating between different levels</div><div>it seems symetric while it becomes asymetric in the same moment </div><div>it seems dance while dancing</div><div>it seems standing in quietness while full of inner vibration</div><div>it is called sleep while steadily breathing </div><div>it seems driving straight while steadily correcting the direction</div><div>it seems to be a system while it is connected and influenced endless</div><div>it seems to be chaotic while it is cosmic</div><div>it seems to emerge within a sudden while it developed itself since long time</div><div><br></div><div>In the words of beloved late Ralph Copleman »Everything is moving«</div><div>That is: Everything is open, every process is open, every system is open.</div><div><br></div><div>My two cents.</div><div>Florian</div><div><br></div><div><br><div><div>Am 19.09.2011 um 19:45 schrieb John Watkins:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Great questions, Michael!<div><br></div><div>I think when I am feeling optimistic (most of the time) I see OST as creating one of those "far from equilibrium states" that Prigogine and Stengers talk about as enabling new orders to emerge; however, in less sanguine times, I could also imagine OST as just a "subsystem fluctuation" enabling larger system stability. But I think that most of our larger systems these days are exhibiting something like either disequilibrium or bifurcation points, so maybe OST is able to restructure the system architecture so fundamentally that a new order could emerge. Weick talks about that restructuring of the system architecture in order to change the "flows" of energy in the system. I think Bateson referred to one kind of larger system disequilibrium as an "uptight system," where at least one of the "variables" is "pinned" at its upper or lower limits of its range of flexibility, resulting in that rigidity rippling through the whole system. Rigid systems change more easily, but not usually in a very pretty way: chaotic bursts, turbulence, tumbling into chaos, new orders emerging spontaneously...</div><div><br></div><div>John</div><div><br></div><div><div><div>On Sep 19, 2011, at 10:24 AM, Michael Herman wrote:</div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#006312"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></font></div></div></div></blockquote></div><br></div></body></html>