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2012 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

30. Disorder and Management: Approaching Computer Software Through Lao Tzu, Heraclitus and Gorgias

verfasst von : Jonathan P. Marshall

Erschienen in: Leadership through the Classics

Verlag: Springer Berlin Heidelberg

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Abstract

We live within a time of intense flux and unpredictable change. It is doubtful whether our techniques of management deal with such times very well, as they tend to look for eternal truths and forms of action and control. This paper asks whether our situation might be improved by looking to pre-Platonic philosophical sources for guidance; in this case the writings of Lao Tzu, Heraclitus and Gorgias. After exploring this background the paper considers the ways that people manage software installations, as these are exemplars of chaotic systems with unintended and often disruptive effects. The conclusion is that these ancient philosophers have something to say to us about the way our attempts to create order actually create disorder. Order and disorder are not opposites which negate each other, but are intertwined in an ‘order/disorder’ complex.

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Vorheriges Kapitel Professionalism in Business: Insights from Ancient Philosophy

Nächstes Kapitel The Yin and Yang of Change: Systemic Efficacy in Change Management

All translations modified by consultation with the Chinese Character and English text in Hatcher 2005.

English language expositions of Chinese medicine or Tai Chi often make a similar point: “excess yin becomes yang, and excess yang becomes yin”. However I cannot find a Chinese original. Perhaps the message is implied in the moving lines of the I-Ching, when the ‘extreme’ 6 or 9 lines move into their opposites?

In contradistinction, we might think of the kinds of description in Newtonian mechanics which do not seem to be of this general form. However, in any particular case, the predicted values may not be entirely accurate.

The definitionality is shown when mathematicians define things differently. Thus in Modulo2, 1 + 1 =0. This is perhaps not very interesting, but it does define a possible system.

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Titel: Disorder and Management: Approaching Computer Software Through Lao Tzu, Heraclitus and Gorgias
verfasst von: Jonathan P. Marshall
Verlag: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Buch: Leadership through the Classics
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-32444-4

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-642-32445-1

Copyright-Jahr: 2012
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32445-1_30

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