> One of my recently certified instructors for our Systems Thinking
> course asked me, "I've been thinking about reinforcing and balancing
> processes in the human body and in nature. I can find lots of
> balancing processes.
>
> "I'm thinking that in the human body and in nature, Balancing
> processes are healthy and reinforcing processes are sickness and
> disease."
At first glance it really looks like there are only balancing
processes in nature, or at least among the "good or healthy"
processes.
IMHO this is not very surprising that balancing processes play an
important role, as nature (and the human body as being part of it)
is representing a system which seems to be very "stable" in the
sense of being in good balance.
But if we take a little closer look we'll also find reinforcing
processes, which are "good". At the moment (at least in northern
hemisphere) we can actually watch a lot of such processes in nature.
Another example might be LEARNING! If you're learning to juggle for
instance and after the first frustrating efforts you have managed
to overcome these and see the first positive results: this will
motivate you to go on practicing -> more steps taken -> motivation
up -> .....
This is of course true for all learning!
So in total it seems to me that it's not the question of "balancing
= good" nor "balancing = bad", but we will find both processes
connected in healthy systems! So you can never look at one (either
balancing or reinforcing) processes as being good or bad.
The whole system in total will give an answer if it's healthy or
ill. And if we take this one step further: as all of the systems are
OPEN SYSTEMS (a closed system doesn't exist actually), we have to
go to the highest level of the systems we perceive to judge if the
subsystem we look at is behaving "good or bad".
I'm not really sure whether I managed to make my thoughts clear,
and I'm putting it down as food for thought ... see what you think.
--- YoursRoland Foerster ----------------------------------------------------------- "Die Zeit ist so gross, wie man sie sieht, und an der Groesse der Zeit waechst der Mensch" C.G. Jung ----------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Roland E. Foerster, Management Consulting & Development Bueelisackerstr. 28, CH-5622 Waltenschwil, Switzerland voice: ++41-57-23 14 68, fax: ++41-57-22 83 65 e-mail: foerster@dial.eunet.ch (NeXT & MIME-Mail welcome)