Organizational Artistry LO12383

Mnr AM de Lange (AMDELANGE@gold.up.ac.za)
Thu, 6 Feb 1997 14:23:36 GMT+2

In reply to Ray Evans Harrell who wrote in LO12348

Dear organlearners,

I wish I could quote more of Ray's remarkable exposition, but we are
always under the pressure to keep our responses short. So please refer to
LO12348. Thank you Ray, for all the trouble which you have taken.

Whenevr we try to explain something, the fruitful explanations are those
that resemble an emergence. It has to be like that because
insight/understanding itself is an emergence.

Every emergence is complex - some are only more complex. In our
explanation we may focus on a particular pattern (property) of an
emergence, but we should never loose sight of all the other patterns. On
order to deal with Ray's contribution, I want to stress that an emergence
is asymmetrical transitive rather than symmetrical reflexsive. I have
explained this pattern in a previous contribution.

Ray explains artistry by beginning to distinguish between two types of
artists: the {fine, sacred, high brow} artists which I prefer to call the
deep artists and the {popular, profane, low brow} artists which I prefer
to call the shallow artists. I think that many artists will differ from
him and may even want to chastise him for it. Nevertheless, this
distinction goes further than artists. We also can make such a distinction
among, for example, learners: we can get deep learners and shallow
learners. In fact, we can make this distinction in almost all human
activities!

Ray also gives the key how to make this distinction, namely intent.
Artists use the word 'intent' rather than 'motivation', but I think that
both words may be used. In another contribution of mine I have stressed
that spontaneity (intent, motivation) is as important as the distinction
between chaos and order. Ray now says the same. In other words, what are
we saying? Spontaneity is vitally important to distinguish between deep
workers and low workers, whether they are artists, learners, scientists,
players, business people, goverment officials, believers, etc.

Then Ray goes one step further by writing that the deep artists are those
who work theoretically. He explains his choice of the word 'theory'. But
what he actually did (which deep artists are so good at), is to introduce
the asymmetrical transitive pattern of an emergence. In other words, he is
trying to explain deep artists in terms of something else, namely the way
deep scientists work. They work theoretical-empirically! And just to make
sure that we do not get stuck on the theory part, he stresses the
importance of performance in the arts - the empirical part! Ray also tells
us a little about theorising.

However, and forgive me Ray to take an issue here, it is exactly here
where the monkey throw the wrench into the machine. I have had a throrough
training in the basic sciences (chemistry and physics) and had been a
teacher/lecturer in these sciences for a number of years. I can safely say
that very few people understand the theoretico-emprical methodology of the
deep scientists. It is even worse, very few people has the INTENT to
understand it. In other words, only the deep learners will try to
understand your explanation of artistry in terms of science.

Allow me to explain what a true theory is. A theory is a description of
some part of reality by using monadic (collective) words or other monadic
symbols. The x of a mathematician in the function f(x)=3x + 4 is a monadic
symbol. The word 'animal' for dogs, cats, birds, etc,. is a monadic word.
Every part of reality has a past, a present and a future which more than
often differ among themselves. A true theory is a theory which
categorically explains the past, manages the present and predicts the
future of that part of reality. (Artists will use the word 'beautifully'
and scientists will use the word 'precisely' rather than the word
'categorically' which I have used.) The role of empirics is to know
categorically the present facts of that part of reality, day after day.
(Note: holism = monadicity + emergence)

Now why do the past, the present and the future of almost every part of
reality differs? I love to answer this question with the following
sentence: yesterday, today and tomorow differ because of the CREATIVE
COURSE OF TIME! Unfortunately, we have learnt through the ages to consider
time and space as primitive concepts - simple notions, ur-givens. Therefor
it is difficult to comprehend that time has indeed a complex facet, namely
that it follows a creative course!

Now take my explanation of what a true theory is (it explains yesterday,
manages today and predicts tomorrow monadically and categorically) and try
to extend Ray's explanation what a deep artist is. The result is: a deep
artist is a person who explains yesterday, manages today and predicts
tomorrow on some part of reality with his art. Does that not sound
beautiful?

But here is the monkey with its wretched wrench. I have said that
yesterday, today and tomorrow differs because of the creative course of
time. This means that an artist, after all, is a person who follows the
creative course of time. But we all know the simple fact that an artist is
a creative person who lives creatively. In other words, after all that has
been written up to now, we are back to square one - we are caught up in
the viscious circle of the Bertrand Russel - the deadly practise of
self-referance.

How? Ray has given the answer implicitely: performance, empirics,
exploration, experimentation, .... I want to proceed a little bit further
by stressing explicitly two patterns:

1 the asymetric-transitive nature of emergences
2 the creative course of time.

In other words, if we wish to understand what artistry is, we have to
focus on something not symmetrical reflexsive to artistry. Time is a
typical candidate. Unfortuanately, we are so used to linear (noncomplex)
measurements of time that time is a bad candidate, eventhough it has a
creative course!

But what about time's arrow? What is the "arrow of time"? The cosmologist
Sir Arthur Eddington created this phrase to refer to the the most central
and astounding property of the quantity ENTROPY. (Eddington was no fool
and he knew it - shortly after Einstein anounced his theory of relativity,
somebody said to Eddington that only three persons understand the theory -
upon which Eddington replied "who is the third person?".)

What property of entropy do we refer to? It is most remarkable that when
time increases linearly and simple, the entropy of the universe also
increases, but nonlinearly and complex! In other words, the quantity
entropy might just be that other asymmetrical transitive thing which we
have to use to explain what time is. This has been done by Ilya Prigogine
in a truly remarkable manner (see "from Being to Becoming"). Entropy may
also be that very asymmetrical transitive thing which we have to use to
explain what creativity is. And creativity might just be the thing which
we have to use to explain something else, namely, what learning is.

It is indeed possible to explain creativity (artistry, science) and
eventually even learning in terms of entropy in a most illuminating and
exciting manner. This is exactly my thesis. I summarise this thesis by the
string

entropy->creativity->learning

By following this thesis, I have had many hours of sheer intellectual
delight, but also immense spiritual pain, exactly as an artist who whish
to explore the universe of his/her art. Now, after much experience, I have
only one piece of advice:

get out of beating around in the bush.

In other words, emerge to to that viewpoint on the landscape of life which
is based on entropy as its foundation. Shift to entropy creation as the
sensible paradigm.

Ray, I wish I had enough space to explain why intent is the key between
deep creativity and shallow creativity. There is indeed a coherent
explanation based on entropy, specifically structural entropy or the
entropy of being which is needed to fire the entropy of becoming. Only
deep beings can fire deep becomings. If God permits, I will do it in some
future contribution. Also, I am very sorry to have thrown a wrench into
your wonderful explanation, but as you have said it in the one of two
pieces from you which I now will quote
"As the dialogue has evolved I have become convinced that
the conversation can handle it. In fact I have been
impressed with your dealing with my daily issues."
I am honoured to use that words for myself.

The other piece which I wish to quote is
>To consider profit as the motive is like climbing Mount Everest
>in order to become a tour guide. Quite frankly it is too hard
>for such meager rewards.
Thank you very much for such a striking metaphor.

Best wishes
- --

At de Lange
Gold Fields Computer Centre for Education
University of Pretoria
Pretoria, South Africa
email: amdelange@gold.up.ac.za

-- 

"Mnr AM de Lange" <AMDELANGE@gold.up.ac.za>

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