> From: Richard Karash <rkarash@karash.com>
> Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 22:16:50 -0400 (EDT)
>
> On Tue, 8 Oct 1996, Robert Bacal wrote:
> > ....is it possible for a group of individuals to
> > collectively understand a complex system?
>
> Do individuals and groups have a cognitive limitation in grasping complex
> systems?
>
> In my experience, clearly YES. Considering just the relative simple
> systems archetypes, for example, I regularly find that people just cannot
> see them... not until they've heard a little about them and, more
> importantly, practiced seeing them.....
>
> And, these comments are about seeing relatively simple systemic
> structures. Many important real-world phenomena are much more complex and
> therefore probably much harder to see.
Rick,
I think you've missed the essence of Robert Bacal's question. Yes,
untrained/inexperienced individuals have trouble "seeing" systemic
structures, but apparently they have the capacity to see the simple
systemic structures because after your training people can see the
structures.
I think the question was more focused on the limit on understanding. If
one accepts the premise that individuals have limits on what they can
understand, does that imply that collections of individuals have limits as
well?
I'd wonder what "understand" means in the context of individuals vs. the
context of collections of individuals. I'd also wonder how one could tell
if a collection of individuals understood something. I don't have any
easy answers to these questions, but I think they're important if one is
to answer the original question.
Regards,
Jeff
--Jeff Brooks <BrooksJeff@AOL.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>