The language that we normally use for expression is prose. People who are
familiar with the concept of "structural thinking" (not to be described in
two or three lines) know the following:
o Prose is inherently linear
o Prose is also inherently parallel
o Prose is incompetent to portray nonlinear logic structures (the type
required to understand patterns of complexity
As far as that goes:
the computer screen is incompetent to portray patters of complexity. It
takes a big wall to show a nonlinear structural pattern, of the type we
have repeatedly found in working with groups dealing with complexity.
As long as people continue to use prose (or what is even worse), bad
graphics, not translatable unambiguously into prose (sheet music being a
great counterexample to the commonplace lousy graphics of the computer
industry and other primitive organizations), the complexity already
beating us about the head and shoulders will only migrate to other parts
of the body, as the propagation of poorly framed ideas advances without
limit through the miracle of modern computers.
-- JOHN N. WARFIELD Johnwfield@aol.com