Master's Thesis: Languages of Conscious Evolution (Reflective Adaptation): "What we need to understand may only be expressible in a language that we do not know." -Anthony Judge When god saw the tower of Babel he said, "And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech."  (Genesis 11) Until then the world that had spoken one language was splintered and we have been reconstructing ever since.  As I look back over my two years at Harvard I learned many languages. Languages of leadership, learning, technology, public policy, knowledge management, adult development, and Complex Adaptive Systems. Unfortunately, they I have not given them an area where they may interact like a Complex Adaptive System . I believe that by setting my thesis as a boundary around these five classes and seven languages that something will emerge that is of greater cognitive complexity than in addressing any one class individually. I seek to do this because I recognize: Cognitive limitations of human comprehension.   That systemic problems start out as individual policies I have the power to change individual policies Changing individual policies impacts upon public problems  Language is a theme that arcs across the various subject domains of this paper. There are many languages taught within the intellectual disciplines and in order to become fluent in them I must move beyond the mere repetition of vocabulary and mindless obedience to grammar. Yet each of these is the foundation upon which fluency is built, and it is built through use. In building this fluency I will use Anthony Judge's Hazard's of System Building to temper my fervor and zealotry: 1. You identify with your system. It cost you blood to build it, and if it is attacked, it is your blood that is being shed. 2. You cannot tolerate tentativeness, suspension of judgment, or anything that does not fit the system. 3. You cannot apprehend anyone else's system unless it supports yours. 4. You believe that other systems are based on selected data. 5. Commitment to systems other than your own is fanaticism. 6. You come to believe that your system entitles you to proprietorship of the entities within it. 7. Since humor involves incongruity, and your system explains all seeming incongruities, you lose your sense of humor. 8. You lose you humility. 9. You accept all those points - insofar as they apply to builders of other systems. 10. So do 1. (P.S. I hope I believe in the cult of fallibility) I built my current system upon the following assumptions. First, that my master's thesis will equal more that the sum of the individual components of my class projects: Second, I assume I can construct and fill  an 'emergent box' both physically (with colleagues, allies, confidants, etc.) and virtually (with siliconyogi.com and my master's thesis): Lastly, I propose that this box I have co-constructed with my environment is sturdy enough to withstand the heat generated by a Complex Adaptive System so that a more subtle and comprehensive solution can emerge that is superior to any one individual or group's.

Please send your comments to Andreas Agiorgitis. This document was updated 10/22/03.