We tell each other that order really does emerge from chaos, that when we network a lot of pieces that don’t seem to belong to each other and the pieces form a pattern, the whole becomes more than the sum of the parts. A commons is a kind of chaos, and what unites us in iCommons is the conviction that the whole is more than the sum of the parts—that useful, meaningful patterns emerge. If these ideas are true, there ought to be a way to illustrate it. Right? How can we show order arising out of chaos? How can we look right at it? One answer is to use rolling dice to enter the random world, and then see what, if anything, emerges.

As I have been experiencing and thinking about the order, chaos and emergence of meaning in the new digital virtual world, I have seen interesting echoes of some of what I learned when I was doing a lot of reading and studying of aesthetics a couple of decades ago. Back then I created an exercise for myself of painting with dice. The roll of dice would decide where I would draw a line and in what direction. When I had created some shapes in this manner, more rolls of the dice would decide a color for each shape that had formed. Once my universe (the space within the frame drawn on a piece of paper) was filled, I would look at it carefully to see what had emerged.

You can see two paintings by clicking here that emerged from my dice painting days. The two results are from the same rules, printed below them on the same web page. (This page is about a book I wrote in 2002 that included a discussion on the subject.) In the description of the rules, you will see that I refer to the “swamp” from which the meaning of the painting arises. My blog GoldenSwamp.com is named for this concept — like a commons, a swampy place is something from which meaning can emerge by connecting parts that float openly within it. When the connecting happens in environments like these, the whole becomes more than the sum of the parts.

At this point, you have decided I am either being silly or profound. Either way, I think you will enjoy playing with the animation that is illustrated in the above image. The animation is here, open for you to check out.

As you play the animation, what you are watching is emergence for sure. Pieces arise in a blank space. Then colors are added into what begins as an all-white square. Each piece of the shape is a new small something. Each new piece of color is one among many. Everything is miscellaneous — which is the title of David Weinberger’s fast-selling new book about the virtual world: Everything Is Miscellaneous, The Power of the New Digital Disorder (Times Books, 2007). This excellent book gives the background of how we humans have organised knowledge in the past and tells us why we must do this differently in the future because everything is now miscellaneous. Differently in what way? Well, the digital world is a commons, or more messily, a swamp. But the messiness is a good thing because it means openness.

I suggest that spending some time with the dice painting animation will show you that order can indeed arise out of the chaos of a miscellaneous bunch of shapes and colors. In the case of the animation, a harlequin emerges — not by my planning; the dice did it. If you get your own dice, piece of paper, pencil and colors, you can emerge with your own meaning. Just follow my rules or make up your own. After you have made your lines and put color in your shapes, look carefully and you will see something — a bird, a fish, a martian, or some other complete surprise. When something begins to emerge, help it along with a dot to form an eye, or by adding an ear — whatever the mirror of the emergent being reflects in your mind.

The writing I do these days on my blogs and here on icommons.org is about opening educational resources. This article is on that subject too. For us to make the most of opening education into the commons, we should make sure everything is miscellaneous. To accomplish that, everything must be open. One of the reasons a painting — or any work of art — is such a compelling analogy for order out of chaos is that something that is not open cannot be included in what emerges. By definition, every part of an artifact belongs and contributes to the expression of its meaning. For emerging ideas in the commons, the pieces that are not open are effectively not there and cannot add to the meaning. Opening educational resources in the commons is what allows knowledge to be formed, ideas to emerge and understanding to be shared.

BTW: Once I used dice painting as an exercise for young children. They loved it! And I was fascinated to watch how quickly they saw things emerging within their squares of random shapes and colors. I suspect that our minds are made to grasp emergence. Doing so may be a major general reason why opening educational resources in order to allow ideas to emerge, will grandly stimulate learning.

tags: New York United States education open emergence dice-painting order chaos ideas

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