Re: Wheatley List

Stephen Wehrenberg (stephenw@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu)
Sat, 14 Jan 1995 22:31:07 -0500 (EST)

Two decades ago, while reading Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance, I happened on his passage discussing "quality" as being the
name for the edge of which you speak. I had no idea what I was reading
(at the time), but it had a profound impact, nonetheless. His second
book (Lila, if I remember) seemed to be an attempt to extend the idea,
but I think Pirsig lost the edge.

His edge was the place where you meet the environment BEFORE you assign
value oto the signals you are receiving. That's a pure place, untainted
by the values, attitudes, beliefs, prejudices, and KNOWLEDGE you might
couple to the signals. I understand Bhuddists have found this place in
their Satori, and most religions have a similar meditative altered
awareness phenom. Carlos Castenada is the master of describing this.

Anyway, just wanted you to know that I believe you're on to something.

Stephen Wehrenberg, Ph.D.
stephenw@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu
"Life is a jam session."

On Sat, 14 Jan 1995, Robert Levi wrote:

> Thanks to Rick for his posting on some of Wheatley's thoughts from the
> Systems Thinking in Action Conference. Here's some more from a day I spent
> with her about a year ago:
>
> "Edge of chaos:The place where you're taking things in and interpreting
> them. It's an edge where you can watch your own thinking to process your own
> information to stay vital and alive. It's the place where organizations need
> to be at."
>
> I've been thinking about this lately...the boundary between systems (or
> identities of systems). That's where the energy is, at the boundary where
> information (& energy) flows from "outside" to "inside" (& vice-versa). In
> terms of personal mastery, I think of it as where my belief system takes
> "observable data" and begins to move up the ladder of inference (shown below
> for those who don't know what it is):
>
> /---/ I take ACTIONS based on my beliefs
> /---/ I adopt BELIEFS about the world based on my conclusions
> /---/ I draw CONCLUSIONS based on my assumptions
> /---/ I make ASSUMPTIONS based on the meanings I added
> /---/ I add MEANINGS, both cultural and personal
> /---/ I select DATA from what I observe
> /---/ OBSERVABLE DATA (as a camera might capture it)
>
> In saying that it's the place where organizations need to be at, I believe
> she is saying that orgs have to look at their own cultural meanings,
> assumptions, conclusions and beliefs about who they are in order to stay
> vital and alive.