24. Dr. Ackoff’s Huge Mistake

The first twenty-three articles covering Dr. Ackoff’s 1993 presentation, which gives the best explanation I’ve ever heard for how we got to where we are today, can be summarized by:

The ONLY way to improve ANYTHING is to begin at the BIGGEST system and work backwards!

Dr. Ackoff had stated the biggest system was “God” (the First Cause) and his presentation showed the source of all the flaws from the Renaissance Age to our current Age are due to our inability to understand/define God.

The previous article showed the ONLY non-contradictory Model for God: Right and Just.

That article ended with:?

Here’s the thing: Did you notice this non-contradictory Model for God shows us that the heretic Dr. Ackoff made a huge mistake?

We will cover this mistake in today’s article!

In Article #21, I wrote:

This crucial section of the 1999 presentation covered 2/3 of the 1993 presentation in a condensed illustration. (Basically, everything I shared in articles #3 through #11, with the exception of article #8). Let’s look more closely at this crucial section of the 1999 presentation.

Dr. Ackoff illustrated all of this information with a spectrum that went from “Science” to “God”. “Corporation” was in the center of the spectrum.

On the “Science” end, he recognized this as analysis because he said science tries to understand by taking things apart into its elemental pieces. However, Dr. Ackoff showed that analysis only results in knowledge, while understanding only comes from synthesis, which on this spectrum is represented by moving towards the “God” end.

The previous article showed how causality (the topic Dr. Ackoff was cutting out of his presentations after 1993) was the key to determining the Model for God.

Right and Just are a qualitative and quantitative measure, which is why they don’t contradict. In fact, these two are inseparable. It is right to be just and it is just to be right.

The Bible speaks to this when it says God is holy. A concordance gives the definition as pure and set apart. Both of these definitions speak to holy meaning something that lacks contamination, or said another way, is of one substance.

When I worked in the detergent industry, I wrote an article for a publication that asked the question: What is your definition of clean? Take a moment and see if you can come up with YOUR definition for clean.

Most people say their definition of clean is lacking dirt. It’s then that I ask, “Do you believe there is absolutely no dirt, even microscopically, on the object you state is clean?”

Clearly, the definition of clean isn’t that there is no dirt whatsoever!

In reality, YOUR definition of clean is having an acceptable level of dirt!

The reason everyone’s definition of clean is different is that everyone has a different level of dirt they are willing to live with.

What makes the word holy so powerful is that it implies there is NO dirt AT ALL. The holy thing is of one substance.

What is the substance that God is made of? The qualitative principle of Right and the quantitative principle of Just, which aren’t separable.

This means that not only isn’t God the biggest system…God is not a system!

If we were going to place God on Dr. Ackoff’s spectrum, God ought to be at the small, analytical end. This is where Dr. Ackoff stated God was when he explained why we couldn’t understand God according to the Renaissance Age. God can’t be taken apart and, Dr. Ackoff stated, we couldn’t determine the identity of the First Cause because it was causeless.

Dr. Ackoff moved God to the synthesis end of his spectrum after learning in 1968 that college students were reading the I Ching. This moving God from one end of his spectrum to the other PREVENTED Ackoff from Modeling God.

Dr. Ackoff says a system is a whole with two or more essential parts and the identity of the system is defined by its function in the bigger system.

God is defined as the First Cause, the Creator. Since God has a function, shouldn’t that have told us God belongs on the analysis end of Dr. Ackoff’s spectrum?

I've been watching videos by Dr. Ackoff from after 2000 and I love how he answered every question he was asked. He never tried to duck a question or say a question was irrelevant. His talks were about the importance of creativity (heresy), so it would completely ruin his credibility to dismiss an unusual question. More to the point, I’ve been wondering what question I would have liked to ask Dr. Ackoff if I had had the chance. I think it would have been this…

“It seems that the definition of a system implies that it is created. The essential parts exist before they are brought together into a system. Wouldn’t that mean the ONLY thing in the universe that is not a system is the First Cause…the Creator?”

I like to think he would have asked for my number in order to continue this discussion in private.

Dr. Ackoff’s huge mistake was identifying God as the biggest system as an effect of what he learned in 1968.?

Before we look at the identity of the biggest system, let’s look more closely at what was actually going on with God in the 1960’s.

Link to Next Article: 25. God in the 1960's

Link to Table of Contents:The Decline and Fall of the Machine Age