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-boun...@lists.openspacetech.org [mailto:oslist-boun...@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.
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