Schedrovitsky_fans

Organisation of the process

First example: process organization. At home, on Obruchev Street, I constantly observe the same picture, which can be called a war between architects and the district administration and the city residents. There is a shopping centre near my place. Naturally, all residents of the house leave the entrance and go straight to the store. But for some reason there must be a lawn on their way.

The asphalt path is a detour, and you cannot go straight. Residents trample a path across the lawn, it is regularly dug up, wire is installed by order of the administration, etc. It is interesting how the process is organized. When we lay asphalt, we organize processes in a certain way, channelize them, and direct people through them.

The Brits do the following: they plant lawns in parks, people walk, trample the paths, then after a while the trampled path is asphalted. What’s going on here? I would describe it is this way: first Brits give the opportunity to process the material, natural paths are then formed, after which they are organised with laying asphalt. In our country, space is first organised based on the ideas of symmetry and some other abstract principles, and then the struggle of such organization with a natural and convenient process begins.

Ontological representation of knowledge content

The most important result of the previous analysis is the proposition that the application of comparison actions to objects creates new content: we can depict it with the symbols XΔ1Δ2... This content is fixed, expressed in the sign form (A) (B) and methods of operating with them - λ1λ2. By applying other operations of comparison to the signs (A) (B), we obtain some new content (a subject), which we express in the signs (D) (E) (F) and very often relate directly to the object X.

For example, when we measure sequentially corresponding values ​​of pressure and volume of a certain mass of gas (the first layer of the subject), obtain series of values ​​p1, p2, p3 ..., V1, V2, V3 ... (forming the second layer of the subject), then compare them as p1V1<->p2V2<->p3V3<->... and find the mathematical form of their dependence pV = const (which should be placed already on the third layer of the subject). We consider the content of this form as a “law” to which the gas obeys, and, therefore, we attribute it directly to our object.
But often such direct attribution cannot be made, since the content revealed indirectly from activity with signs does not correspond to the empirically observed or identified properties of the object. Then a special iconic image is built, which “stands” in ‘between’ the iconic form of knowledge and empirically observed objects.

This happens due to the fact that we cannot attribute the results obtained from operating in the fourth layer of knowledge directly to the original object X. To eliminate this gap, a special function , a relationship is introduced , which should represent the object “as such” in a certain way.

Based on this specific function, such representation can be described as ontological representations of knowledge contents. This accurately expresses the specific cognitive role of such sign constructions: they must represent the object in such a way as to ensure its connection with newly acquired knowledge. It is in this way that the so-called “ideal objects” appear - a heavy point, an ideal lever, an absolutely elastic body, a mathematical pendulum.

The difference between an object and a subject of knowledge II

The subject itself does not contain any object. But it can be isolated as special content through practical actions with an object. This content can be recorded in signs/characters. And as soon as this happens, a subject arises and appears in an objectified form in addition to those objects from which it is abstracted. It is objectified representation creates illusions - as if they are dealing with the object itself. This illusory understanding of the essence of the matter, having already arisen in relatively simple situations (for example, with quantity), penetrates into the highest levels of science and completely confuses everything.

The only one way to understand the nature of an object - this is to clarify the mechanisms of formation and structure - means sequential analysis of substitution layers successively built one on top of another.

Thus, we can say that a “subject” is a hierarchical system of substitutions of an object with signs included in certain operating systems, in which these substitutions actually exist as subjects of a special kind, they are objectified in the form of scientific literature or the production activities of society in the creation and use of sign systems. As an example on can consider constant transition of programming languages from ‘lower’ to ‘higher’ levels of programming abstraction.

The distinction between the object and the subject of knowledge allows us to introduce another important concept of methodology - ontological representation of knowledge.

The difference between an object and a subject of knowledge

The object exists independently of knowledge; it existed before its appearance. The subject of knowledge, on the contrary, is formed by knowledge itself. When we start to study or simply “involve” any object in our activities, we consider the object from one or several sides. These different points of ‘views’ or ‘projections’ become a replacement or a “surrogate” of the entire multilateral entity; they are recorded in the symbolic form of knowledge. Since this is knowledge about what objectively exists, it is always objectified by us and, as such, forms a “subject.”
One must always remember that the subject of knowledge is not identical to the object: it is a product of human cognitive activity and, as a special creation of mankind, is subjected to special laws that do not coincide with the laws of the object itself.

Several different subjects can correspond to the same object. This is explained by the fact that the nature of a subject of knowledge depends not only on what object it reflects, but also on why this object was formed, to solve what problems.

Lets consider a simple example to clarify these general abstract definitions. Let’s assume that we have two groups of sheep in two settlements. These are undoubtedly objects. People deal with them, use them in different ways, and at some point they are faced with the task of counting them. First, one group is calculated, let’s say - 1, 2, 3, 4, then the second - 1, 2, 3, 4, and finally both numbers are added: 4 + 4 = 8.

And already in this simple fact there are a number of very complex and at the same time very interesting points. Objects, rams, have a various representations and when we start counting them, we highlight one side of each group - the number of rams. We express this quantity in symbols, in the number 4 once, then in the number 4 a second time, and then we perform some strange action - we add the numbers. If we did not have two groups, but, say, five, and each of them had 4 rams, then we would not add, but simply multiply the numbers: 4 x 5 = 20, i.e. would have produced another, even stranger action.

Why do I always call the actions strange? Let’s ask ourselves, can the action of addition be applied to rams as such? Or, say, the action of multiplication? Or - let’s continue this line of reasoning - the actions of division, root extraction, exponentiation? Definitely not.

But there is another, no less important point here. We can ask ourselves: do these operations—addition, multiplication, exponentiation—apply to “squiggles” expressing signs, or to numbers? When we add, we do not add numbers, but signs. And there is a big difference between a number and a sign, because a sign is just an icon, a trace of ink, paint, chalk, but a number is a representation of objects, it is an icon in which a certain aspect of objects is expressed. And we do not add numbers because they are symbols, just as we do not multiply them because they are signs; we add and multiply because these icons because they express a strictly defined feature of objects, namely quantity.

In them, the object receives independent existence, separate from objects, and in accordance with this, when we talk about numbers as a special formation, different from rams as such and from the number of rams, we don’t mean an object and the characteristics of this object, but a special, a separate “subject” created by mankind.
Tbc…

Personality and organisation

Consider a person who is joining a group/company. They encounter an organisation and relate to it in a very complex way. At this point the problem of personality and organisation arises. The person must assume a certain place and become a “cog” in this organisation, but not just a “cog” - we are considering taking on the position of a responsibility by becoming a boss. He still has the right and obligation to oppose himself to the organisation. And in this sense, being a boss means a special place and a special position.

And he must be in an opposition to the organisation, even if he created it himself.

In general, this opposition - a personality vs organisation - is one of the main sociocultural oppositions of our time. By itself, it developed somewhere “in the region” of the 13th-14th centuries. The modern concept of personality was taking shape precisely at this time in Italian cities. It is closely connected with the struggle of parties in Florence and with the existence of the prince as a formal power (he had no real power).

Personality begins to form only in opposition to an organisation. It’s a paradoxical thing. You can be an individual if you oppose the organisation, separate it from yourself. And vice versa, to be a person of an organisation, you must give up your personal qualities, and even your personality. And therefore, people in a company pursuing the interests of that company must all be the same, indistinguishable.

An important problem arises in the 20th century: how, with the further development of an organisation, can one be able to remain an individual while losing many factors of individuality? We arrive at a completely new relationship between an organisation and an individual as such. Not between an organisation and a human, but between an organisation and a person, because a person always lives in an organisation and outside an organisation a society cannot exist.

A individual develops only in opposition to the organisation, a person has the right and opportunity to leave the organisation for a club and confront that organisation in search of their own and free decisions. Anyone who opposes an organisation must always know that they will be beaten without mercy.

Giordano Bruno becomes a model personality in the new history. The Cardinal says: “Just admit that you may be wrong” - don’t say that you are wrong, just say that you may be wrong! But he refuses. And since he and this cardinal are friends, they studied together, he says to him: “What are you doing? They ask such a small thing from you - and you will live.” And he says: “No, I’ll go to the fire to prove that I’m right.” What kind of dogmatism is this? What does it mean that he is right? That’s not the point - he’s demonstrating his personality traits.

Another example is Socrates. He annoyed the Athenians so much with his questions so that he was sentenced to drink a cup of hemlock. His students gathered 30 talents of gold so that he could escape, but he said: “I am not a fool, but a philosopher; I don’t seek profit, but the truth. I will drink this hemlock so that these Athenians will always be remembered as bad people who committed a crime against a personality.”

Purpose of methodological self-organisation

The method is needed to solve problems of a new class. We are now being fed fables about how we will start using computers and this will simplify the solution of problems and reduce the number of employed people [this text was written/recorded in 1980es]. This does not make sense. The introduction of computers will increase the number of employed people. But over time, computers will give us the opportunity to solve problems that we have not solved before. When differential-integral calculus was developed, we started being able to calculate areas bounded by curves. But the following is interesting: have people been able to deal with such areas under curves before? Yes - there was a barrel standing in the market, someone would measure it with a stick and would say: there’s about a hundred litres here - and that’s it. And no differential-integral calculus was needed. And if you start convincing me that differential-integral calculus makes it easier to estimate the volume of that barrel than that stick, the chances are that I would disagree.

Let’s imagine that an organiser and manager is dealing with complex objects. Since these objects are always captured by him to the extent of his “depravity”, the “corruption” of his ideas, at first, control and leadership are carried out superficially, and everything else that is not captured, lives its own natural life. There is a boundary between what is captured by a manager and lives artificially, and what lives naturally.

When a manager gets new tools and methods, he can add a new layer by using them to make this management more effective. From my point of view, he controls his object/company/department every time, but first only according to a limited set of obvious parameters/metrics, which are lying on a surface, leaving everything else to a natural course of affairs. The introduction of new tools, including systems analysis, gives us the opportunity to extend the managerial scope to a larger number of factors.

The introduction of new methods is always associated with the complication of an organisational management system. What does this give us? This gives us the opportunity to do things we haven’t done before and not do things we’ve done before.

From my point of view, the introduction of new methods is always carried out by a small group of enthusiasts who want something beyond what they have done so far. For some reason it is necessary - I don’t know and I’m not discussing their personal goals now. Then it becomes a model and begins to spread, since working with old methods becomes impossible.

I once had a conversation with a famous film director, he was sharp in his statements, and he gave me a formula which I like to use. He said: trying to solve complex problems in a simple way is what we call fascism. From my point of view, there are no simple solutions to complex problems. Every time we try to solve complex problems by using simple methods, we always take the path of destruction of the living whole - that’s what he wanted to say.

We argue that this type of knowledge should be complex so that it makes ourselves even more complex and to put us on par with the times, with the complexity of tasks.
Let’s have look at the history of human beings. In order to match the production of knowledge in any of these functions - tools, the ability to act, the ability to understand - a person must constantly pull something onto themselves. People came up with a tools, knowledge, and all kinds of ways of using them. There is a practitioner who uses tools, above them stands a technician who created those tools. The technician is not the end of the chain: then comes a scientist who gives a technician knowledge, a teacher who shapes it, and a philosopher who always supports a teacher.

Functions of knowledge

Knowledge by no means represents ‘tools’ or ‘weapons’. Knowledge is something what is fundamentally more important and significant. Those people who regard knowledge as ‘weapons’ or an instrument of work, reduce themselves to being an appendage/extensions of those tools. Those people say: give me a hammer, and a nail and tell me what to hammer in and where, or - give me a machine gun - and I will shoot.

It doesn’t matter whether it is a military weapon or a technological one, in this case the person views themselves as an extension of that tool. They are an appendage to this tool, and are used together as if they are attached.

Knowledge (to use tools) acts as a carrier of a certain method of action. Each such mode of action unfolds in two capacities: the ability to act and the ability to understand. These functions are characteristic of all types of knowledge.

The vast majority of actions in cooperative organised structures (companies) are actions without understanding. When one group of people become the bearer of a goal, others are organised at a lower level, and the people not only can, but are also obliged to act without understanding.

This, by the way, is the meaning of an organisation. Organisation is a form of structuring human labor in such a way so that whether we like it or not, the right and ability to set goals is taken away from the vast majority of labor participants and are usurped and appropriated by leaders and managers.

You know that when the Nuremberg trials began, many war criminals had to be acquitted, because they answered that they were doing their duty, that they were a cog in that mechanism and they gave an oath that they would carry out the orders of their superiors.

That’s why I say that within an organisation, on one hand (I will talk about the other later), people are not required to understand what they are doing. They must act in a certain way whether they understand what they are doing or not.

I distinguish four forms of knowledge. It is quite possible to use knowledge as a tool, it is possible and necessary - this is a normal use of knowledge. But this is not its main objective. Knowledge impacts people differently. Knowledge is what changes, transforms, makes a person stronger. Knowledge should be considered not so much instrumentally , but in relation to people’s abilities. A knowledgeable person does not use knowledge (to use a tool/gun/computer) as a tool , although this also exists. A person who has knowledge, due to this knowledge, receives a method of action that transforms their ability.

We then separate the ability to act and the ability to understand - these are different things.

In this case one can ask a question: it turns out that people can have a high ability to act/perform without the ability to understand? Strange? No, not really, there is nothing strange here. This does not mean that a person does not think, because in order to carry out an action without understanding, one must think, since such action must be created.
We take actions, and only then begin to understand their meaning, immediate and more distant consequences. A person is always involved in a difficult situation, from which the consequences of their actions spread in waves.

I argue that the use of knowledge as a mode of action, as the ability to act and understand, sets contradictory, at least different requirements for organisation of knowledge in opposition to the use of knowledge as a tool, as an instrument. If we can say with some degree of certainty that a tool must be easy to be used, we can make opposite requirements for knowledge as an ability.

Reflection

Reflection is a representation in the mind of what I do and how I do things. In this sense, reflection is the opposite of abstract thinking, since it scoops out the essence of activity.

Reflection is extremely specific: it describes things exactly as they happened, as one would have tried to imagine things for themselves - in all the details and nuances.
- And what if I represented things incorrectly?

It happens. But in relation to reflection, the criteria of correctness and incorrectness are not suitable. By the way, it is about reflection when we say that this is my idea, and this is yours.
Everyone has their own vision, their own point of view. Reflection depends on the experience of a person and on the angle of view from which they see each situation. Reflection is very subjective.

Note that the way we live and how we act is defined by our ability to reflect. Reflection organizes our space and time. I can watch my life - let’s say, relationships with some significant people for me - like a film. The episodes from which line up one to another, form a story of my relationships, skip insignificant moments, and what happened to me at 18 stands before my eyes as if it were yesterday.

A person knows/understands themselves and their actions through reflection, through reflective awareness. By the way, what follows from this is that the richness of human experience is determined by reflection, by how much a person thinks about what happened to them. And this is actually the main unit of what we call ‘experience’. The elementary unit of experience is not just action, but action plus subsequent reflective thinking: how did I act and what happened?

Scientific knowledge

The paradoxical thing about the science is that anyone who is appealing to it is fighting against development. A manager who does everything "according to science" makes makes the development impossible.

To some degree science emerged as a social institution that replaced religious ideas. Previously, people appealed to God, whereas science allowed to appeal to the laws of nature. But the ‘appealing’ approach/function remained the same. If before people used to explain everything they did not understand by God’s judgement, the emergence of science has led to the replacement of that explanation - now someone, who may not know much about engineering may say - that plane is flying (not because of God), but because of the laws of science. The statements - because of God or because of science may mean the same thing for a person unfamiliar with the laws of physics.

Reflexive position and goals

A person usually does not really know what they are doing, do not realise how they behave and act. In order to know one needs an exit into a reflexive position. This reflexive position then takes shape in an external look at oneself, to one's actions and to that fragment of the social world in which a person lives. And then this fragment acts as an object.

Human activity does not always assume an object/or an objective. When a person gets up in the morning, goes to toilet in a usual way, has breakfast and runs to work - there is no objective in front of him. And when it begins to perform its usual daily functions according to a routine, there is no objective either, there is no task to transform something, to do something. He/she just works, just functions. And so does every man.

By the way, here is an interesting question: is there any purpose in all of this? There are no goals.

All people run aimlessly. And hence the distinction between behaviour and activity. People "behave" all the time. Let me tell you about myself so that I don’t offend anyone. So I woke up in the morning, I rub my eyes, I have to get up, it's time. I get up even though I don't want to. I am gradually waking up. Do I have a goal?
- not to be late for work.

What kind of goal is that? I move with half-closed eyes, wash my face, have breakfast - I have no goals. I get onto the bus - there is still no goal. I sit on the train, I have a seasonal ticket - there is no purpose. I get off the train, I walk further - there is still no goal. And then I look at the clock in the subway and see that I'm four minutes late for a lecture - and here for the first time I have a goal: I realise that if I squeeze through the crowd closer to the exit, slip through the passage, quickly run up the stairs - I will win two minutes.

Where does the goal originate? When a failure or violation occurs in my ordinary daily behaviour.

Ways to solve problems

The subject is always a link between a thing and a word. This is a double link, it consists of a transition from a thing to a word (the link of substitution) and from a word to a thing (the link of reference), i.e. there should be a forward and a reverse transition. The thinking itself unfolds as a multi-dimensional transition: initially it occurs on an object, then in substituting words, then in words replacing words, and so on. These processes always happen simultaneously.

This is what the problem solving process is based on. We do some work, and if we hit a barrier, we make a transition to the level of descriptive words, until we find a solution. And then we move back to the object. The point of solving problems is to find a language in which the solution is obvious. Once we find such a language, we find a solution.

Let's consider an example with school puzzles of travelling trains. A train leaves from point A and travels to point B at such and such a speed at such and such a time, and another train leaves the point B to travel to point A at such and such a speed at such and such a time - when will they meet? How can we solve this task?

We need to find a language in which the solution is trivial. When such a language is found, the solution becomes simple. Let’s use the language of intervals: consider an interval AB, with the meeting point being somewhere in between - at the point C. The solution is defined. Of course, this is not a solution if you need to know at what distance from each of the points or at what time they will meet. But the advantage of the language of drawing such intervals is that we have already found the meeting point: they meet at the point C. Now one can start moving backwards, by looking for numerical expressions of time, path, etc. But we have already found a solution by using schematic intervals and we can translate it into a numerical solution.

Archimedes used this approach for solving similar problems. He was faced with the task of determining the areas described by arbitrary curves. For solving those we need some really complex methods of differential and integral calculus. Whereas he found the ratios of those areas very simply: he took pieces of thick bull skin, cut out the corresponding figures from them, weighed them and thus found a solution. And having found a solution, he then looked for a formulas to express those relationships.

So, what is the approach for finding solutions to problems? I will repeat once again: it consists of finding a language in which the solution is obvious. Having found such a language, we can then translate it into another language, into another language form in which we need to get an answer. The search for a solution to a problem is always a kind of sublimation through languages, until we identify a language where the solution is simple, and then we start working backwards.

The process of assuming a position of a top manager

One of the first question that arises is: should a newly appointed manager assume their place immediately, or should they wait a month or a few months?

One of the main mistakes which people frequently make is: a senior manager "jumps” into the position and begins to function as they are expected by the existing system. And why do they do that? Because they accept expectations. By doing so they sell all their freedom. They sell their prerogatives of a manager, as they say, for a pinch of tobacco.

The question therefore is: should one “jump” into a their position/chair, or should they just hold it for some time?

Imagine that someone quickly assumed their position, all the connections /relationship s from an org chart get activated. When or as soon as all that happens, would they have time to think and act?
- not really.

Yes, they will not have much time to think.
If someone quickly jumped into fulfilling expected activities, what would that mean? It means that they started working/functioning within the existing framework of relationships. My question therefore is: when should a person start functioning as a manager? Should they even start in the first place? Maybe they should join an organisation and make a start by not interfering with the operational processes initially?

What are the limits and restrictions of existing relationships related to a manager? Should a manager assume/accept they relationships directly from an org chart? Should they adjust themselves to blend into the system or should they adjust the org structure?

Everything depends on who that person would like to become: an organiser, an operational manager, a governor, or a ‘functional’ CEO (somewhat who follows the expected processes to a letter).

Another simultaneous question is - what should become a subject of their activities? What should they do first of all?

For example, this is what I would do if I was appointed. I would not participate in the life of the team/company initially at all, I would sit in my office and would do nothing. Everything that is required, can be done by a chief engineer/ deputy manager(s). I would generally entrust all the work into direct supervision to other managers in the org chart and would not get involved with anything.

I would do the following: under the pretext that I am a new person, I would ask them to conduct all the current work, I would just sit and observe the processes. In the future, I would continue not being involved , my job is to create efficient processes by re-organising the org chart and interactions, I don’t need to participate in the operational activities.
By doing so I would have freed myself time for reflection.

A senior manager needs to handle two distinct situations: assuming office and creating a development program.

I assert that senior management evolves around creation of transformational programs. Those (senior managers) who do not do that cannot manage. No one but a leadership team can do this job.

- Does that mean that a boss should not get involved with any daily operational activities?
Of course. What kind of boss is that, who gets involved with routine operations? That is why we do not have real bosses: they tend to operate as ‘traffic controllers’, as opposed to doing their job.

Reflection

Imagine that someone asks a question someone else. Let's say we have six people. So the sixth person asks a question.

Let's say he - let's take a standard situation - asks: you were doing something now, please tell us what you were doing. What should be done to answer this question?

It turns out that in order to answer from a position where some kind of thought action was previously performed, one needs to go into a reflective position, to look at yourself acting from the outside, to imagine what, in fact, you were doing.

There is one subtlety here. Let's say we can imagine what we did ourselves, each of us. But there may be a question: what was done in this situation? And that will be a different question. Often a person sees well and knows what they were doing, but cannot not see or know what was happening on around them. Sometimes they see what was going on around them, but have absolutely no idea what they were doing. Sometimes they know how badly others acted, and cannot imagine at all that they acted badly.

What we call the “mind”, “subtlety” of a person, is determined not by the structure of their thought, but by this ‘reflection’. We say about someone that he is stupid, and about the other that he is subtle and cunning. The ancient Greeks called Odysseus "cunning". The cunning Odysseus differed from everyone else in that he had a refine ability to reflect.

In general, this is one of the most powerful individual psychological indicators of a person - the ratio between their consciousness of thought-action, i.e. consciousness directed at the objects of action, and their reflective consciousness, i.e. the way they see and think about themselves.

Right now, when I work, my consciousness doubles, triples, all the time, First of all, I have some content that I need present to you. I also watch the audience all the time, and I choose a few people and try to look in their eyes. Through another part of my consciousness I am observing myself all the time, controlling what and how I do, trying to imagine how I look from your point of view, from your position.
Therefore, several modes of my conciesness work simultaneously, including reflective thoughts. We usually say that a person is subtle with some feelings if someone has developed this reflective component and who knows how to see themselves from outside, they clearly understand and know what they are doing.

A person, can ask himself a question: how do I look in the mind of another person, how does he treat me? And by the way, many human actions and games - in military and sports - are built on this.

This thinking component, which takes into account the ranks of reflection, determines that thing which we call the subtlety of the human mind as opposed to stupidity. There are people - great scientists, inventors - who have done a lot and are very stupid at the same time. Such a person works like a locomotive. He has no situation - there is a program, which he follows. He doesn’t care if something happens along the way, if people get offended by him, he just carries on. The other situation is also extreme - if someone is thinking what other people think about them all the time, what a team thinks about him, how he will look. And he ends up by doing nothing.

Management

When does management occur? Firstly, when an organisational system is rigidly designed, secondly, when deviations from the expected processes begin. if these conditions exist, we can apply two mutually exclusive ideas: retain a formal structure, and, at the same time, we need to keep in mind that in real situations, regulatory approach cannot be fully efficiently ent. This is where the need for management comes in.

Management is needed when you build a system from unreliable elements. The goal is to achieve reliability of the whole [company] with unreliable elements [people]. Only then management becomes necessary.

We are talking about such work techniques which can be applied in real situations and which would allow for compensation for inevitable deviations all the time - hourly, daily, monthly, etc. One does not correct deviations, guided by the goal that they have planned, but attempts to compensate for those deviations.

If there is an expected ‘norm’, and deviations from the expectation are impossible, then no management is needed. But that never happens because every company always performs differently from an expected roadmap.

Let’s consider an example of managerial decisions which compensated inefficiencies in hockey. A famous coach decided to implement the following idea: two players should attack a player from the competitor team. This simple principle started the Soviet school of hockey - with a strategic thought for managing the hockey game. The second idea was based on re-arranging the teams based on the players abilities and by changing the objectives for teams. Previously the strongest player used to go to the first squad, the second strongest went to the second, the third to the third, then the next ones, etc.

Then the coach decided this: he had three strong forwards - he moved them all to the first squad, the next ones (grouped by ability) to the second, etc. He created three groups, which differed sharply in their ability and strength. He also set different strategic goals for them: the first squad (which became the strongest in the country) should aim to win the maximum number of goals, the second must prevent goals from being scored, and the third one should aim to miss the smallest number. Due to such redistribution of players’ abilities in squads, the first squad always won more than the third one lost, because it is easier to play in defence and strong players in the third squad used to be a waste of resource. And this approach allowed the team to win gold at international competitions.

Both ideas represent examples of efficient managerial decisions. I will repeat once again: management is 'maintenance' of the whole [company/team] function/objective with varying parts [people]. There can be no management without variability of parts.

Problems and problematisation

The problem arises not when someone expresses the right thought, and another person - a wrong one. If one expresses the correct thought, and the other person is incorrect, then - there is no problem. We just need to establish who is wrong and who is right.

The problem arises when two people say opposite things and both are right.

Here is the problem in the form of a paradox which evolved into modern mechanics. What did Galileo show in 1632? He studied the free fall of bodies, and he had the concept of speed, which was defined as the division of the path a body would have travelled by time - there was no other definition of speed. He saw that if the ball is falling vertically and along an inclined surface, that leads to two mutually exclusive, but equally correct solutions: the speeds of these balls are simultaneously different and the same.

He thought that when a ball launched vertically would have reached the floor, another ball which was dropped simultaneously on a surface would have travelled a shorter distance. This means that the speed of the second ball is smaller than the speed of the ‘vertical’ ball, hence there must some difference between the speeds. Then he took the ratio of the paths traveled by each of the balls and the ratio of the times they travelled - it turned out that the speeds were equal. His interpretations of this experiment created a problematic situation.

Note that Galileo did not distinguish between average and instantaneous velocities. He was able to introduce the definition/concept of instantaneous speed on the bases of this paradox. The issue here is that the concept of average speed is not suitable for comparing accelerated motions. The concept of speed is an invariant for uniform motions. Whereas if one considers accelerated movements, then it is no longer possible to compare them using the concept of speed, one needs to introduce a derivative or derivatives depending on the structure of movements.

Idealisation II

Now, by using one example, I will describe how idealisation can be achieved.

Aristotle in the 4th century BC began to study free fall. He had various philosophical fantasies along the following lines: he believed that there was something attracts everything, that all natural movements are directed to the centre of the earth due to some unknown reasons/forces. He began to study what that might be. All researchers up to and including Leonardo da Vinci (and he had the finest experimental techniques) discovered the same thing. They took three or four bodies with different masses and recorded the speeds with which the bodies fell.

It turns out that the greater the mass, the greater the speed. You can check that again and again - you can climb the tower and throw stones from it - and you will see that the heavy ones will fall faster, and the lighter one will fall slower.

Aristotle formulated a law: the speed of fall depends on the mass.

What does Galileo's law say? Each body will fall with the same acceleration g, i.e. at the same speed regardless of its weight: heavy or light. Empiricism shows us that the heavier the body, the faster it falls. Why? As Galileo suggests, there is no direct connection between mass and speed, but there is a connection through the resistance of the medium: the heavier the body, the less dependent it is of the resistance of the medium. This is an extra connection that confuses the whole picture. Empirically, the greater the mass, the greater the speed, but it is not this connection that works, it simply does not exist, but this observation is due to indirect, “extra” connections which determine everything. And the study of this phenomenon took two thousand years, before it became possible to find real laws.

It's easy for us when we stand on the shoulders of Galileo to know that we just need to remove the atmosphere. How did he know this? Nobody knew that before him. Do we use Galileo's law in airless space or in air?
- In the air.

This pipe, which they show us at school, where a pen, a pebble and a piece of paper fly together - all this was born later. Torricelli did this after Galileo had formulated the law.

But Galileo had to reach this by the power of thought. Moreover, all empiricism suggested the opposite. Leonardo da Vinci, no matter how much he experimented, could not find the real law: he was too guided by this reality. But in reality, there are multiple interplays of numerous effects. One such factor is the fact that the body is attracted by the earth and flies with constant acceleration. But the body interacts with the environment, and the environment slows down the rate of fall - this is a completely different "game", which is superimposed on the first one. This means that in reality we are dealing with two or three different effects - and we have their net result. And we need to separate one from the other.

How could Galileo do this? He said: "If the facts do not fit my logic, then it's too bad for the facts."

He was a brave man, he almost went to the fire because of this.

By the way, I'm not kidding. Because of this. Because of the way of thinking. This relates to our conversation yesterday, when someone asked me if it was possible to draw an idealistic/futuristic organisational chart. I would say: it’s not only possible - it’s necessary.

Because if the facts do not correspond to our schemes, then those facts can go to hell, if we want to rise to the reality of thinking.

This means that this transition from reality to the reality of thinking, always presupposes some courage. One must be able to free oneself from a mass of things and derive a certain law.

Idealisation

To carry out idealisation means to be able to take something out of reality and throw it into the reality of thinking.

But there is a difficulty here. We need to describe something mathematically - but what?

The way Michael Faraday worked when he was just beginning to study the first laws of electromagnetism was the following. He didn't know what depended on what. Faraday was a stubborn and diligent person, and his diary records have been preserved. When he began observing those laws, he dealt with the effects of Volta, Galvani, Oersted's experiments. When Oersted closed the circuit, a compass happened to be nearby and the compass fluctuated. Before him, people thought that magnetic phenomena were one thing, electrical phenomena were another, and they had nothing to do with each other. Oersted discovered the relationship between them in 1820 and began studying the phenomenon.

Faraday diligently described what kind of wires he used - whether he used copper, or brass, or zinc, how he arranged them, etc. Today we know that electromagnetic phenomena do not depend on the material or the type of wire, but because he did not know that he described all those details. It was important for him to identify what impacted his electromagnetic experiments, and what did not, and to discard a huge number of factors, because the real world is polysystemic, everything is connected.

In the world of science you have to constantly decide what is not connected with what, what can be discarded as insignificant. In a process of abstraction, the ‘elements’ that can be connected by simple, homogeneous mathematical dependencies are retained. Therefore, the transition from the reality to ​​pure thinking is incredibly difficult and complex and depends on our ability to discard everything that cannot be expressed in homogeneous mathematical or similar structural dependencies.

Michelangelo beautifully said that the talent of a sculptor is to take a stone, then to imagine the future sculpture in it and remove everything superfluous.

Same approach applies here as well. The work of a scientist is to see through complex reality, and to establish/identify among different dependencies, what is really connected with what. And this “actually” connected thing needs to be described in the reality of thinking through a formal language.