Diana McPartlin (diana@asiantravel.com)
Tue, 17 Feb 1998 08:53:33 +0100
Hi Platt and squad,
Platt Holden wrote:
> Once you become imbued with MoQ principles they begin to show up in places
> you wouldn't expect to find them. The other night I began reading Michael
> Crichton' s novel 'The Lost World' and came across this passage in the
> Prelude:
>
> "He shifted at the podium, transferring his weight onto his cane. 'But even
> more important,' he said, 'is the way complex systems seem to strike a
> balance between the need for order and the imperative to change. Complex
> systems tend to locate at a place we call the edge of chaos. We imagine the
> edge of chaos as a place where there is enough innovation to keep a living
> system vibrant, and enough stability to keep it from collapsing into
> anarchy. It is a zone of conflict and upheaval, where the old and the new
> are constantly at war. Finding the balance point must be a delicate matter
> -- if a living system drifts too close, it risks falling over into
> incoherence and dissolution; but if the system moves too far away from
> edge, it becomes rigid, frozen, totalitarian. Both conditions lead to
> extinction. Too much change is as destructive as too little. Only at the
> edge of chaos can complex systems flourish.'"
>
> This sounds like good old Static/Dynamic Quality to me.
Yes, "chaos" sounds like Dynamic Quality and "rigid, frozen,
totalitarian" sounds like static. The position of balance is clearly the
desirable or high quality (or high morality) position, too far either
way is low quality (or low morality).
> Catch 40: It's wrong to make moral judgments.
Did I just make one? Was I wrong?
Diana
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