<div dir="ltr">Dear John/All<div><br></div><div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.7272720336914px">We are both actors on and in the universe. </span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.7272720336914px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.7272720336914px">So every act of </span><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.7272720336914px">organisation we make in the universe is an act on and by our selves -</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.7272720336914px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.7272720336914px">an act of self-organisation.</span><br></div><div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.7272720336914px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.7272720336914px">When we act both upon and in the world/universe we change it, the entire system, even if our act is tiny - the whole system changes as a result of that act. But we are also part of that universe - so we are also changed. We change and we are changed. We act and we are acted upon.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.7272720336914px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.7272720336914px">Each one of us is a self - unique, beautiful, somehow separate and able to observe, yet also part of the whole. When an actor acts both on and in the universe, it is the act of a self. When a self organises, that is self-organisation.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.7272720336914px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.7272720336914px">Harrison, it is no accident that the word self refers to something "in" the universe" and also refers to the human self. They collide, collude and collaborate. </span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.7272720336914px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.7272720336914px">And when it happens, space opens.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.7272720336914px"><br></span></div><div><font face="arial, sans-serif">best wishes</font></div><div><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="arial, sans-serif">Paul Levy</font></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 22 October 2014 13:31, Michael M Pannwitz via OSList <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:oslist@lists.openspacetech.org" target="_blank">oslist@lists.openspacetech.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Dear John Baxter,<br>
<br>
sometimes the folks telling us on TV or such about the weather talk in a way as if the weather has a will. And feelings. And a strategy.<br>
Well, this is just their way of talking about something that is difficult to describe.<br>
In my way of looking at the world, they are describing manifestations of the selforganisationforce meddling with the weather... without having proper language for the manisfestations so they use psychological terms or the likes to make sense of it.<br>
<br>
This holds for manifestations of the selforganisationforce observed in groups, organisations and systems composed of people.<br>
<br>
One of the specific manifestations is the action of a battle with two groups of soldiers attacking each other. It looks as of there is one "will" in each group of soldiers. Everybody does the same, all fire at the same time, all advance or retreat in orderly fashion.<br>
It seems, however, to be more likely that they show this "will" because all will of the kind we usually talk about has been drilled out of their minds and souls and bodies...yes, a little bit is left in each soldier, but "control", which is that which can reduce the acivity of the selforganisationforce to near zero (never completely), has been very powerful.<br>
<br>
Cheers<br>
mmp<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 22.10.2014 01:11, John Baxter via OSList wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Sure thing Harold<br>
<br>
Yes groups have an emergent wholeness, but that does not mean that they<br>
take on characteristics we understand in individuals. We should be<br>
careful not to anthropomorphise (?) them.<br>
<br>
Groups definitely have aliveness, needs, strengths, weakenesses,<br>
robustness, identity... lots of things. I can understand what these<br>
characteristics mean for a collective, as a system, and a collection of<br>
individuals. To me they all make sense.<br>
<br>
I can't understand what "will" means for a group. Nor do I see will in<br>
action. Some similar things I do see... e.g. the individuals in a group<br>
give consent for a collective decision... but this isn't the same thing<br>
as will. This is group behaviour emerging out of a collective of<br>
individuals, with individual wills, consenting to be identified with a<br>
certain position by virtue of membership (some more loosely bound than<br>
others, and all with their own interpretation of the contract).<br>
This is /not/ will, it is characteristically different.<br>
<br>
I am guilty myself of shorthanding, using individual psychological terms<br>
to describe group behaviour. Sometimes it is pragmatic, but we<br>
shouldn't hold on too tight.<br>
<br>
Cheers<br>
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
Michael M Pannwitz<br>
Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany<br>
<a href="tel:%2B%2B49%20-%2030-772%208000" value="+49307728000" target="_blank">++49 - 30-772 8000</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Check out the Open Space World Map presently showing 398 resident Open Space Workers in 69 countries working in a total of 143 countries worldwide: <a href="http://www.openspaceworldmap.org" target="_blank">www.openspaceworldmap.org</a><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
-- <br>
Michael M Pannwitz<br>
Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany<br>
<a href="tel:%2B%2B49%20-%2030-772%208000" value="+49307728000" target="_blank">++49 - 30-772 8000</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Check out the Open Space World Map presently showing 398 resident Open Space Workers in 69 countries working in a total of 143 countries worldwide: <a href="http://www.openspaceworldmap.org" target="_blank">www.openspaceworldmap.org</a></font></span><div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><br>
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