At 10:07 PM 9/28/2006, Pat Gunning wrote: >----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- >To answer John Medaille's question about what >definition of spontaneity is being used, >"spontaneous" as I understand it refers to an >order (a normative system in a sociological >sense) that is unplanned, either by any single >participant in the order or by a group acting in >concert. Regarding the common law, one can argue >that the development of A normative system in >accord with the King's wishes was indeed >planned. However, the PARTICULAR normative >system that emerged over hundreds of years was not planned. It occurs to me that this definition drains spontaneity of any real meaning, and is being mis-applied in any case. Every system, using this definition, is spontaneous, thus making the term useless. The King planned to set up a system of law courts and he did. If you mean that he did not contemplate every particular decision, that wasn't part of the plan, because if he already had the decisions, he wouldn't have needed the courts. As someone already mentioned, you might as well call the 747 unplanned, because no planner can predict the actual outcome. Administrative and market systems can in principle be planned with an arbitrarily high degree of precision; outcomes cannot be, because they are about the future, that which is not. The outcomes of a plan may approximate the intentions of a planner, depending on the kind of intentions he had. But the failure to realize the intentions of a planner does not make an outcome "spontaneous," because the term refers to the sources of action, not the outcomes of action. An plan about the future that is too narrowly defined is likely to defeat the planner, but that doesn't mean that the actual result is spontaneous; the result still follows cause and effect. Any actual order is the result of the systems that created it and the actual conditions that the system encounters. The system may be well or poorly planned, in the sense of being attuned to the kind of circumstances it is likely to encounter. But no one can predict with precision what it will actually encounter. The problem of the planner is that he must deal with two things: The present and the future. But the present gives us more data than any person or group can absorb, while the future gives us nothing at all. A planner may think the results of his plan are "spontaneous" because they ran counter to his intentions; but he may merely have been a poor planner or a poor prophet. The planner will influence the future, but he cannot control it. And this is true of every act. Every action contains within it, foreseeable and unforeseeable consequences, and all actions are consequential. The real problem is that the term is simply being mis-applied: spontaneity refers to the source of an action, not its result. An action may be "spontaneous," its result is never is, but follows the course of cause and effect. The result may appear spontaneous, but that is only because the actors know too little about causes and their effects. Such "spontaneity" is an appearance only, not a reality. The Oxford Dictionary of English defines the term as follows: spontaneous /spn'tens/ adjective. performed or occurring as a result of a sudden impulse or inclination and without premeditation or external stimulus: the audience broke into spontaneous applause | a spontaneous display of affection. -having an open, natural, and uninhibited manner. -Biology (of movement or activity in an organism) instinctive or involuntary: the spontaneous mechanical activity of circular smooth muscle. -archaic (of a plant) growing naturally and without being tended or cultivated. Note that all of the definitions refer to sources of action. John C. Medaille