Dear John Baxter,
sometimes the folks telling us on TV or such about the weather talk in a
way as if the weather has a will. And feelings. And a strategy.
Well, this is just their way of talking about something that is
difficult to describe.
In my way of looking at the world, they are describing manifestations of
the selforganisationforce meddling with the weather... without having
proper language for the manisfestations so they use psychological terms
or the likes to make sense of it.
This holds for manifestations of the selforganisationforce observed in
groups, organisations and systems composed of people.
One of the specific manifestations is the action of a battle with two
groups of soldiers attacking each other. It looks as of there is one
"will" in each group of soldiers. Everybody does the same, all fire at
the same time, all advance or retreat in orderly fashion.
It seems, however, to be more likely that they show this "will" because
all will of the kind we usually talk about has been drilled out of their
minds and souls and bodies...yes, a little bit is left in each soldier,
but "control", which is that which can reduce the acivity of the
selforganisationforce to near zero (never completely), has been very
powerful.
Cheers
mmp
On 22.10.2014 01:11, John Baxter via OSList wrote:
Sure thing Harold
Yes groups have an emergent wholeness, but that does not mean that they
take on characteristics we understand in individuals. We should be
careful not to anthropomorphise (?) them.
Groups definitely have aliveness, needs, strengths, weakenesses,
robustness, identity... lots of things. I can understand what these
characteristics mean for a collective, as a system, and a collection of
individuals. To me they all make sense.
I can't understand what "will" means for a group. Nor do I see will in
action. Some similar things I do see... e.g. the individuals in a group
give consent for a collective decision... but this isn't the same thing
as will. This is group behaviour emerging out of a collective of
individuals, with individual wills, consenting to be identified with a
certain position by virtue of membership (some more loosely bound than
others, and all with their own interpretation of the contract).
This is /not/ will, it is characteristically different.
I am guilty myself of shorthanding, using individual psychological terms
to describe group behaviour. Sometimes it is pragmatic, but we
shouldn't hold on too tight.
Cheers
Michael M Pannwitz
Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany
++49 - 30-772 8000
Check out the Open Space World Map presently showing 398 resident Open
Space Workers in 69 countries working in a total of 143 countries
worldwide: www.openspaceworldmap.org
--
Michael M Pannwitz
Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany
++49 - 30-772 8000
Check out the Open Space World Map presently showing 398 resident Open
Space Workers in 69 countries working in a total of 143 countries
worldwide: www.openspaceworldmap.org
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