Thomas Seay wrote:
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> http://edge.org/3rd_culture/randall05/randall05_index.html
>
> <<We are at such a point in mankind's evolution where changed conditions invalidate all our policies that have been so successful even in the recent past, and that presumably have constituted the ideal response to a presumably unchanging and unchangeable human condition. No wonder we are stupefied and confused-but our mistake is the same which many cultures have made before us, namely to force a rigid model upon a fluid reality.
The metaphor is sloppy and admits of a third member to the comparison. An ocean is certainly fluid and changing, but always changing in the same way. The changes since yesterday (literally yesterday: Spt. 30, 2005) are the sort of changes an ocean exhibits. That kind of change can be best understood by seeing it as variations in a rigid model, not as seeing it as subject to irreversible change. And thus Jantsch's point becomes banal rather than profound, like a rule of thumb. The problem with a rule of thumb is always to decide whether, IN THE PRESENT CASE, the rule applies. Similarly, the problem of understanding a fluid reality is the problem determining whether IN THE PRESENT CASE the change is change that makes a difference.
Carrol