At 12:11 PM 11/19/01 -0900, Julie wrote:
Is anyone else wondering whether there is a link between what we mean by "self-organization" and what we mean by "free will?" Clarification about the similarities and/or differences between these two concepts would help me understand this conversation more fully.
We could get into terrible philosophical run-about detailing with the peculiarities of the dialectical relationship of freedom and determinism. But the simple take, so far as I am concerned is that freedom is meaningful only in relation to determinism, and visa versa. So -- Free Will only exists in a context which in turn determines our degrees of freedom. Thus I am "free" to jump off a wall, if I choose to do so. I am not free to fly to a tall branch. My freedom is determined by the gravity rich context in which I live. And I would suggest that the same sort of thing is true with self-organization. If (as I think) self-organization is the prior (primal) condition of organizations, I am free to cooperate with it or seek to dominate it -- but I can't avoid it. Make sense? ho Harrison Owen 7808 River Falls Drive Potomac, MD 20854 USA phone 301-469-9269 Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org Personal website www.mindspring.com/~owenhh osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
