CONTENTS
EPISODE 3 - Cognitive Tools for Individuals
EPISODE 4 - Organizations Develop Minds of their Own
Episode 4 is by far the most complex part of this hypertext. Understanding and explaining the technologies to extend personal cognition into Popper's World 3 is easy compared to what I am attempting in the present episode. Here I combine theory from a number of disciplines to present what is basically a biological understanding of organisations, based on biological thermodynamics, competition, evolution and the growth of organizational cognition (World 2) and persistent knowledge (World 3). Few if any of the ideas are original with me, or even especially controversial when looked at in their own domains, but I believe that I have combined the different domains in an original way to gain some unexpected insights towards a biological theory of organizations and towards understanding the present and potential roles of cognitive technologies in maintaining organizations as biological entities. My hope is that with this biological understanding, such organizational knowledge can better be managed.
The first and major part of the episode will be to build a conceptual and theoretical framework. I will review non-equilibrium thermodynamics of biochemical and biological systems; concepts of self-organization; the properties, possible origins and early evolution of life; concepts of organismic heredity; properties of organizations, including organizational memory and cognition, that transcend those of the people that may be affiliated with the organization at any point of time; and concepts of knowledge and knowledge growth at the organizational level.
Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics and the Emergence of Complex Autopoietic Systems
In the beginning...
Fluxes of Energy Drive Cosmic Evolution
The Emergence of Chaos and Complexity
Autocatalysis, Self-Regulation, Self-Production, Autonomy, Identity and Autopoiesis
Natural Selection and Descent With Modification
Origins and Importance of Systems of Heredity
Foundation Problems in Organizational Theory and Epistemology
Semantic issues
Epistemology in an Organizational Framework
Introduction to a Theory of Organizational Knowledge
Michael Polanyi's Concepts of Personal Knowledge vs Popper and Kuhn
An Epistemological Holy War
Knowledge: The Explicit - Tacit Dimension
Organizations as Transcendent Entities
Initial Definitions of the Organization
Collective vs Transcendent Properties of the Organization: Self-Regulation and Autopoiesis
Cognition
Organismic Biology and Heredity
Autopoiesis and Membranes
Organizational Self-Production and Heredity
Other Organizational Paradigms
Organizational Knowledge, Learning, Adaptation and Evolution in a Competitive Environment
Categories of Organizational Knowledge
Classifying Organizational Knowledge
Building organisational knowledge, intelligence, wisdom and stategic power
Tools for Keeping Data and Establishing Organisational Memories
Data processing for large organisations
Turning Information into Organisational Knowledge
Making the Tacit Explicit
Corporate Knowledge, Intelligence and Feedback Build Corporate Power
Birth of the Cybercorp