Dialectic
Oct 15th, 2004, 01:26 AM
Edit: This is a response to a question posed by da Tao in this thread:
http://www.thefighting44s.com/discussion/viewtopic.php?p=20436#20436
Consciousness in the Individual-Subjective Quadrant
"Upon consideration, we realize everything is a holon."
I suppose I should do my own research (and yes I know this is an overview), but what is included in this 'everything'?
I don't think you meant the word to be taken literally since this is an overview. (i do hate to have a drawn out discussion over semantics)
You've actually hit upon what I consider the one major weakpoint of my overview: I did not elaborate on the nature of the individual-subjective quadrant for two reasons:
1) It would have distracted from the thrust of my essay
2) This is the quadrant with which I am the least comfortable explaining
I'll try to do so now. When I said everything, I meant, literally, everything. Everything is a holon, in that everything is a simultaneous whole/ part, and everything possesses four correlated components/ aspects of existence as described by the four-quadrant model.
But if you did then I would like to propose a test with something like "Ghost".
Something that is made up would not have an individual-objective right? Such as the concept/word of ghost. It certainly is a thought, and features in most cultures... but the science related to ghosts are tenious and it would be hard to argue that it can be described by the hard-sciences. UNLESS, me thinking about ghost or someone making a horror flick with a ghost theme creates the action potential along the axon and the technology behind the movie projector is included in the individual-objective quadrant. But that would be really stretching it.
On the other hand, anything (specific) that physically exist but is yet unknown or yet un-imagined would not have a subjective aspect - at least to human beings.
This is a concept with which I grappled for several months before I gained a fairly clear understanding of the exact nature of the individual-subjective quadrant. With regard to the human holon, it's easy to explain: it's that person's point of view, his/ her thoughts and feelings, the worldspace in which s/he operates. It gets tricker when you move to life that's not human, and even more difficult to understand when you move to non-living matter.
Though I am confident in my own understanding, I do not think I am capable, at this point in my development, to introduce this quadrant wholly in my own words, as I could with regard to overall Integral Theory and Practice. As such, I will be quoting liberally from Wilber, and relating him back to the topic of discussion as necessary. Finally, we must keep in mind that I am taking these quotations out of context, in that they were written assuming the reader has read the relevant passages/ chapters. Though I will explain important terminology which may be unclear, there are aspects of Wilberís quotations on which I will not elaborate here, as I am operating under the assumption that the reader possesses a degree of intelligence and insight where, with some consideration (and possibly minor research), s/he should be able to infer the meaning/ significance of certain terms and references which are not fully explained. I also deliberately leave in aspects of quotations which are not directly relevant to the discussion; I do this to demonstrate Wilberís expansive range of thought and consideration, to give an idea of the depth and far-reaching implications of some of these insights, and to stimulate further thought.
Finally, all parentheses, italics, citations, and quotations are reproduced exactly as the author has written them unless otherwise noted.
We begin by examining the nature of the holon itself.
Reality as a whole is not composed of things or processes, but of holons. Composed, that is, of wholes that are simultaneously parts of other wholes, with no upward or downward limit. To say that holons are processes instead of things is in some ways true, but misses the essential point that processes themselves exist only within other processes. There are no things or processes, only holons.
Since reality is not composed of wholes, and since it has no parts ñ since there are only whole/ parts ñ then this approach undercuts the traditional argument between atomism (all things are fundamentally isolated and individual wholes that interact only by chance) and wholism (all things are merely strands or parts of the larger web or whole). Both of those views are absolutely incorrect. There are no wholes, and there are not parts. There are only whole/ parts.
This approach also undercuts the argument between the materialst and idealist camps. Reality isnít composed of quarks, or bootstrapping hadrons, or subatomic exchange; but neither is it composed of ideas, symbols, or thoughts. It is composed of holons.
There is an old joke about a King who goes to a Wiseperson and asks how is it that the Earth doesnít fall down? The Wiseperson replies, ìThe Earth is resting on a lion.î ìOn what, then, is the lion resting?î ìThe lion is resting on an elephant.î ìOn what is the elephant resting?î ìThe elephant is resting on a turtle.î ìOn what is the Öî ìYou can stop right there, your Majesty. Itís turtles all the way down.î
Holons all the way down. ìSubatomic particles are ñ in a certain sense which can only be defined rigorously in relativistic quantum mechanices ñ nested inside each other. The point is that a physical particle ñ renormalized particle ñ involves (1) a bare particle and (2) a huge tangle of virtual particles, inextricably wound together in a recursive mess. Every real particleís existence therefore involves the existence of infinitely many other particles, contained in a virtual ëcloudí which surrounds it as it propagates. And each of the virtual particles in the cloud, of course, also drags along its own virtual cloud, bubbles within bubbles [holons within holons] and so on ad infinitum Ö.
But itís also turtles all the way up. Take mathematics, for example. The notorious ìparadoxesî in set theory (Cantorís Burali-Fortiís, Russellís), which, among other things, led to Tarskiís Theorem and Godelís Incompleteness Theorem, placed mathematics in an irreversible, ever-expanding, no-upper-limit universe: ìThe totality of sets cannot be the terminus of a well-defined generating process, for if it were we could take all of what we had generated so far as a set and continue to generate still larger universes. The totality of sets [mathematical holons] is an ëunconditionedí or absolute totality which for just that reason cannot be adequately conceived by the human mind, since the object of a normal conception can always be incorporated in a more inclusive totality. Moreover, the sets are arranged in a transfinite hierarchyî ñ a holarchy that continues upwardly forever, and must continue upwardly forever (ìtransfinitelyî), or mathematics comes to a screeching self-contradictory halt. Even mathematics is set in timeís arrow, and timeís arrow is definitely ñ ìtransfinitelyî ñ holarchical.
This is important for philsophy as well, and particularly for many of the ìnew ageî paradigms that now trumpet ìWholism.î ìTransfiniteî (turtles all the way up) means that the sum total of all the whole/ parts in the universe is not itself a Whole, because the moment it comes to be (as a ìwhole), that totality is merely a part of the very next momentís whole, which in turn is merely a part of the next Ö and so ad infinitum.
This means that there is no place where we can rest and say, ìThe universeís basic principle is Wholenessî (nor, of course, can we say, ìThe basic principle is Partnessî). This prevents us from ever saying that the principle of the Whole rules the world, for it does not; any whole is a part, indefinitely.
Thus, holons within holons within holons means that the world is without foundation in either wholes or parts (and as for any sort of ìabsolute realityî in the spiritual sense, we will see that it is neither whole nor part, neither one nor many, but pure groundless Emptiness, or radically nondual Spirit).
This is important because it prevents a totalizing and dominating Wholeness. ìWholenessî ñ this is a very dangerous concept (a point that will accompany us throughout the book) ñ dangerous for many reasons, not the least of which is that it is always availble to be pushed into ideological ends. Whenever anybody talks of wholeness being the ultimate, then we must be very wary, in my opinion, because they are often telling us that we are merely ìpartsî of their particular version of ìwholeness,î and so we should be subservient to their vision ñ we are merely stands in their wonderful web.
And then, since we are all defined as strands in the web, a totalizing social agenda seems eminently reasonable. It is not beside the point that theorists as diverse as Habermas and Foucault have seen such totalizing agendas as the main modern enemy of the life-world Ö.
I belabor this issue because it is extremely important to emphasize the indefiniteness of holarchy, its openness, its dizzifyingly nesting nature ñ an actualization holarchy, not a dominator holarchy. And a dominator holarchy, recall, occurs precisely because any holon is established, not as a whole/ part, but as the whole, period. ìUltimate Wholensesî: this is the essence of dominator holarchies, pathological holarchies. ìPure wholenessî: this is the totalizing lie.
For all these reasons, I will usually refer to the sum total of events in the universe not as the ìWholeî (which implies the ultimate priority of wholeness over partness), but as ìthe Allî (which is the sum total of whole/ parts). And this sum total is not itself a whole but a whole/ part: as soon as you think ìthe All,î your own thought has added yet another holon to the All (so that the first All is no longer the All but merely part of the new All), and so off we go indefinitely, never arriving at that which we symbolize as the ìAll,î which is why it is never a whole, but an unending series of whole/ parts (with the series itself a whole/ part ñ and so on ìtransfinitely.î)
The Pythagoreans introduced the term ìKosmos,î which we usually translate as ìcosmos.î But the original meaning of Kosmos was the patterned nature or process of all domains of existence, from matter to math to theos, and not merely the physical universe, which is usually what both ìcosmosî and ìuniverseî mean today.
So I would like to reintroduce this term, Kosmos. The Kosmos contains the cosmos (or the physiosphere), the bios (or biosphere), nous (the noosphere), and theos (the theosphere or divine domain) ñ none of them being foundational (even spirit shades into Emptiness).
So we can say in short: The Kosmos is composed of holons, all the way up, all the way down.
Let me end this section with one last example, from perhaps an unexpected source. The ìpostmodern poststructuralistsî ñ usually associated with such names as Derrida, Foucault, Jean-Francois Lyotard, and stretching back to George Bataille and Nietzsche ñ have been the great foes of any sort of systematic theory or ìgrand narrative,î and thus might be expected to raise stern objections to any overall theory of ìholarchy.î But a close look at their work shows that it is driven precisely by a conception of holons within holons within holons, of texts within texts within texts (or contexts within contexts within contexts), and it is this sliding play of texts within texts that forms the ìfoundationlessî platform from which they launch their attacks.
George Bataille, for instance. ìIn the most general wayî ñ and these are his italics ñ ìevery isolable element of the universe always appears as a particle that can enter into composition with a whole that transcends it. Being is only found as a whole composed of particles whose relative autonomy is maintained [a part that is also a whole]. These two principles [simultanous wholeness and partness] dominate the uncertain presence of an ipse being across a distance that never ceases to put everything in question.î
Everything is put into question because everything is a context with a context forever. And putting everything into question is precisely what the postmodern poststructuralists are known for. And so in a language that would soon become quite typical (and is by now almost comical), Bataille goes on to point out that ìputting everything into question counters the human need to violently arrange things in terms of a pat wholeness and smug universality: ìWith extreme dread imperatively becoming the demand for universality, carried away to vertigo by the movement that composes it, the ipse being that presents itself as a universal is only a challenge to the diffuse immensity that escapes its precious violence, the tragic negation of all that is not its own bewildered phantomís chance. But, as a man, this being falls into the meanders of the knowledge of his fellowmen, which absorbs his substance in order to reduce it to a component of what goes beyond the virulent madness of this autonomy in the total night of the world.î Um, and so forth.
The point is not that Bataille himself was without any sort of system, but simply that the system is sliding ñ holons within holons. So the claim to simply have ìno systemî is a little disingenuous. Which is why Andre Breton, the leader of the surrealists at the time, began a counterattack on this part of Bataille, also in terms that are echoed by todayís critics of postmodernists: ìM. Batailleís misforunte is to reason: admittedly, he hreasons like someone who ëhas a fly on his nose,í which allies him more closely with the dead than with the living, but he does reason. He is trying, with the help of the tiny mechanism in him which is not completely out of order, to share his obsessions: this very fact proces that he cannot claim, no matter what he may so, to be opposed to any system, like an unthinking brute.î
Both sides are correct, in a sense. There is system, but the system is sliding. It is unendingly, dizzifyingly holonic. This is why Jonathan Culler, perhaps the foremost interpreter of Jacques Derridaís deconstruction, can point out that Derrida does not deny truth per se, but only insists that truth and meaning are context-bound (each context being a whole that is also part of another whole context, which itself Ö). ìOne could therefore,î says Culler, ìidentify deconstruction with the twin principles of the contextual determination of meaning and the infinite extendability of context.î
Turtles all the way up, all the way down. What deconstruction puts into question is the desire to find a final resting place, in either wholeness or partness or anything in between. Every time somebody findsa a final interpretation or a foundational interpretation of a text (or life or history or Kosmos), deconstruction is on hand to say that the total context ñ or Wholistic interpretation ñ does not exist, because it is also unendingly a part of yet another text forever. As Culler puts it, ìTotal context [final Wholism] is unmasterable, both in principle and in practice. Meaning is context bound, but context is boundless.î Transfinite turtles.
Even Habermas, who generally takes Bretonís position to Derridaís Bataille, agrees with that particular point. As he puts it, ìThese variations of context that change meaning cannot in principle be arrested or controlled, because contexts cannot be exhausted, that is, they cannot be theoretically mastered once and for all.î
That the system is sliding does not mean that meaning canít be established, that truth doesnít exist, or that contexts wonít hold still long enough to make a simple point. Many postmodern poststructuralists have not simply discovered holonic space, they have become thoroughly lost in it (Ö George Batalille, for example, took a good, long, hard look at holonic space and went properly insane, though which is cause and which effect is hard to say).
As for our journey, we need only note that there is system, but the system is sliding: The Kosmos is the unending All, and the All is composed of holons ñ all the way up, all the way down.
-- Wilber, Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality, Revised Ed., 2000. p. 43-47.
At this point, I hope you are convinced that everything can be considered a holon, in that everything can be viewed as a simultaneous whole/ part. A couple points of interest:
1) The risk of becoming a totalizing Whole which can easily be molded into an ideology is the reason F44s does not consider itself focused on ìAsian unityî or ìAsian prideî or ìAsian identity.î Though at first glance it may not be obvious, we are about much more than this.
2) A component of Wilberís work which has been introduced here is a very serious and very thorough critique of post-modernity. What he is saying above is that the postmodern poststructuralist cannot cope with the performative contradiction in his/ her worldview: s/he is universally skeptical of all universals but does not seem to realize or acknowledge or care about this profound instability in his/ her stance. While it is indeed a better stance than everything that came before it (magical/ tribal, mythical/ ethnocentric, and modernist worldviews), and implicitly assumes it is a better stance because it is being used as a stance, it cannot come out and say that its stance is absolutely better (which it is), and so never examines how that absolute value judgement is made (because absolute values cannot exist in its worldview), and becomes mired in its own instability. Briefly, the reason why the postmodern stance is better than everything that came before it is because it is more inclusive, more whole, contains the possibility for more points of view. Itís a bigger whole, a bigger absolute. If I can say that hey, you believe in your God, you believe in your mountain spirit, and you believe in your invisible hand, and we donít hurt each other and we can all get along, thatís better than saying my God is the absolute, Iím going to kill you for disrespecting my mountain spirit, or everything comes back to the invisible hand. But when postmodernism starts proclaiming ìuniversal skepticism toward metanarrative,î or that there are no absolutes, and starts to attack any claims that absolutes could exist it runs into serious trouble because it cannot account for its own stance, and pathology ensues.
So now we have seen that everything in manifest existence (including conceptions of the unmanifest) may be viewed as a holon. Let us more closely examine its whole/ part nature.
A holon functions not only as a self-preserving whole but also as a part of a larger whole, and in its capacity as a part it must adapt or accommodate itself to other holons (not autopoiesis but allopoiesis; not assimilation but accomodation). The partness aspect of a holon is displayed as its capacity to accommodate, to register other holons, to fit into its existing environment. Even electrons accommodate themselves, for example, to the number of other electrons in an orbital shell; they register, and react to, their environment. This doesnít imply intentionality on the part of the electron, just a capacity to react to surrounding actions. As a whole it remains itself; as a part, it must fit in Ö.
We can just as well think of these two opposed tendencies as a holonís agency and communion. Its agency ñ its self-asserting, self-preserving, assimilating tendencies ñ express its wholeness, its relative autonomy; whereas its communion ñ its participatory, bonding, joining tendencies ñ expresses its partness, its relationship to something larger.
Both of these capacities or tendencies are absolutely crucial and equally important; an excess of either will kill a holon immediately (i.e., destroy its identifying pattern); even a moderate imbalance will lead to a structural deformity (whether weíre talking about the growth of a plant or the growth of the patriarchy). And we have already suggested (in chapter 1) that an imbalance of these two tendencies in any system expresses itself as pathological agency (alienation and repression) or pathological communion (fusion and indissociation).
This primordial polarity runs through all domains of manifest existence, and was archetypally expressed in the Taoist principles of yin (communion) and yang (agency). Koestler: ìOn different levels of inorganic and organic hierarchies, the polarisation of ëparticularisticí [agency] and ëholisticí [communion] forces take different forms, but it is observable on every level.î
(I will have much more to say about these two tendencies when we reach the psychological and political levels of self-organization, and particularly with reference to the male and female value spheres, and to political theories of rights [agency] and responsibilities [communion]).
-- Wilber, Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality, Revised Ed., 2000. p. 49.
This understanding of simultaneous agency and communion as intrinsic to holonic existence is crucial for understanding how holons evolve, develop, and interact. To illustrate this, Wilber draws on the work of Maturana, Varela, Thompson, and Rosch, and their work on autopoiesis (systems self-organization), structural coupling (mutual co-adaptation between systems), and the whole/ part relationship:
That agency is always agency-in-communion is a central feature, as I construe it, of Varelaís enactive paradigm. As I would phrase it, a holonís agency (ìintrinsic self-organizing propertiesî) enacts a worldspace (brings forth a domain of distinctions) and does so relatively autonomously, with the crucial addition that a holonís agency is partly a result of ìstructural couplingsî with the appropriate worldspace (all of which we will be explaining in more detail as we proceed). Agency as agency-in-communion thus explains both relative autonomy and micro/ macro codetermination. As Varela, Thompson, and Rosch put it:
ìThe crucial point here is that we do not retain the notion of an independent, pregiven environment but let it fade into the background in favor of so-called intrinsic factors [agency]. Instead we emphasize that the very notion of what an environment is cannot be separated from what organisms are and what they do. This point has been made quite eloquently by Richard Lewontin: ìThe organism and the environment are not actually separately determined. The environment is not a structure imposed on living beings from the outside but is in fact a creation of those beings Ö.íî
They continue: ìThe key point, then, is that the species brings forth and specifies its own domain of problems to be solved by satisficing; this domain does not exist ëout thereí in an environment that acts as a landing pad for organisms that somehow drop or parachute into the world. Instead, living beings and their environments stand in relation to each other through mutual specification or codetermination. Thus what we describe as environmental regularities are not external features that have been internalized, as representationism and adaptationism both assume. Environmental regularities are the result of a conjoint history, a congruence that unfolds from a long history of codeterminationî (Embodied mind, p. 198).
This is also why the ìunitî of evolution is, basically, a micro/ macro unit, which is to say: almost any holon in existence. ìA full list of units looks rather formidable: DNA short sequences, genes, whole gene families, the cell itself, the species genome, the individual, ëinclusiveí groups of genes that are carried by different individuals, the social group, the actually interbreeding population, the entire species, the ecosystem of interacting species, and the global biosphere. Each unit [holon] harbors modes of coupling and selection constraints [communion], has unique self-organizing qualities [agency], and has its own emergent status with respect to other levels Öî (pp. 192-93).
-- Wilber, Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality, Revised Ed., 2000. p. 560-61.
Here, we are introduced to the notion that a holonís agency actually enacts a worldspace in which it exists. A worldspace is not a pre-given, but is codetermined by the holon and its environment. Put another way, in the case of congnition Ö
Ö same-level relational exchange does not mean that the micro exchanges with a pregiven macro: they co-create each other in emergent worldspaces. What this means will become more obvious as we proceeed. For the moment, note Varela et al.: ìThe key point is that such systems do not operate by representation [of a pregiven world]. Instead of representing an independent world, they enact a world as a domain of distinctions that is inseparable from the structure embodied by the cognitive systemî (or, more generally, by the deep structure or agency of the holon; Embodied mind, p. 140).
-- Wilber, Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality, Revised Ed., 2000. p. 562.
So what we are seeing now is that any holon exists in a worldspace which it co-enacted. We may view this as a holonís intrinsic property of ìtranslationî:
The agency (or regime or code) of any given holon translates the world according to the terms of its code or regime ñ it will recognize, or register, or respond to, only those items that fit its code. An electron, for example, will register numerous other physical forces, but will not register or respond to the meaning of literature, nor will it respond to the sexual advances of a rabbit.
Holons, in other words, do not simply reflect a pregiven world. Rather, according to their capacity, they select, organize, give form to, the multitude of stimuli cascading around them. Their responses never simply ìcorrespondî to something ìout thereî; they register (and thus respond to) only that which fits the coherency of their regime (or code or agency or deep structure). This is what Varela means, for example, when he says holons are not ìheteronomous units operating by a logic of correspondence,î but rather relatively ìautonomous units operating by a logic of coherence.î Holons translate their reality according to the patterns of their agency, their relatively autonomous and coherent deep structures; and stimuli that donít fit the deep structure or regime are simply not registered and might as well not exist (in fact, do not exist, do not disclose themselves, for that holon).
-- Wilber, Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality, Revised Ed., 2000. p. 66-67.
Stimuli, or whole worldspaces, then, may or may not disclose themselves to a particular holon. Hypothetico-deductive reasoning does not exist for a platypus. The taste of chocolate does not exist in the worldspace of a superstring. To summarize thus far:
1) Everything is a holon
2) A holon is simultanously agentive and communal, in that it is its own whole and exists as part of a larger whole.
3) A holon co-enacts its worldspaces with its environment, which defines what it can/ will register, recognize, and respond to.
In what way, then, can we determine and interpret just what and how much exists in a holonís worldspace? Why canít all holons exist in one big worldspace and interact with all other holons? Here, we turn our attention to the notion of levels of holons, or depth.
Owing to the self-transcendent capacity of holons, new holons emerge. First subatomic particles, then atoms, then molecules, then polymers, then cells, and so on. The emergent holons are in some sense novel; they possess properties and qualities that cannot be strictly and totally deduced from their components; and therefore they, and their descriptions, cannot be reduced without remainder to their component parts. ìLevels of organization involve ontologically new entities beyond the elements from which the self-organization process proceeds. There is no absolute deterministic level of description.î As Hofstadter puts it, ìIt is important to realize that the high-level law cannot be stated in the vocabulary of the low-level descriptionî ñ and, he points out, this is true from gas particles to biological speciation, from computer programs to DNA replication, from musical scores to linguistic rules.
-- Wilber, Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality, Revised Ed., 2000. p. 54.
We see now that holons in shared worldspaces may interact with one another, and that new holons may emerge from this interaction.
ìThe number of levels which a hierarchy comprises determines whether it is ëshallowí or ëdeepí; and the number of holons on any given level we shall call its ëspan.íî
For this example, let us arbitrarily assign atoms a depth of three (they contain as components at least two other levels). We can imagine a time, early in the universe, when there were only atoms and not yet molecules. Atoms had a small depth (3) but an enormous span, stretching, we presume, throughout the existent universe and numbering in the megazillions (thus, depth = 3, span = zillions). When molecules first emerged, they had a greater depth, a depth of four, but initially a very small span (presumably in the hundreds, or whatever, and then growing rapidly).
This again recognizes a crucial distinction found in any holarchy ñ the vertical dimension and the horizontal dimension. The greater the vertical dimension of a holon (the more levels it contains), then the greater the depth of that holon; and the more holons on that level, the wider its span.
This is important, because it points out that it is not merely population size that establishes order of richness (or order of qualitative emergence), but rather depth. And we will see that one of the greatest confusions in general ecological or new-paradigm theories (whether ìpopî or ìseriousî) is that they often mistake great span for great depth.
-- Wilber, Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality, Revised Ed., 2000. p. 64.
We now have a way to refer to a holonís relative commonness and inclusiveness, or highness and lowness in a holarchy: depth and span. Beluga whales, for example, have more depth than carrots (they ìcontainî more of the Kosmos, in that they are more complex, having nervous systems, spinal chords, and social structures), and in this special sense, we may view them as more ìsignificant.î Atoms have less depth (contain less of the universe) than carrots, but are contained in more aspects of the universe, so in this special sense, we may view them as more ìfundamental.î Phytoplankton is more fundamental than a human being, and a human being is more significant.
Knowing all this, we may now examine the notion of a holonís manifestation in the individual-subjective realm. Please note that the individual-subjective quadrant is also referred to as the ìUpper Leftî or ìULî quadrant, an arbitrary location, as the quadrants could have been placed in any orientation, but are referred to in this way for efficiency and consistency.
As I already briefly suggested, to the extent that we recognize that holons have an interior, and to the extent that all holons exist by virtue of relational exchange with same-depth holons, then to say that a group of holons share a common physical space (which everybody accepts) is also to say that they share a common interior space.
"Worldview" is too pan-psychic and suggests that, for example, cells share a developed cognitive map of the external world, which is a bit much (although Varela's biological cognition comes close, and I am comfortable with the way he presents it). But for most purposes, I will adopt the more general term "worldspace," which means the sum total of stimuli that can be responded to (i.e., that have actual meaning or impact or registration). This cannot be determined by a mere empirical analysis of action systems, because we all already exist in the same physical universe, so physical parameters alone cannot explain the differences. Worldspaces are a priori to physical parameters (but not ultimately a priori to awareness, as we will see).
In other words, worldspace, as I use the term, does not have the ordinary panpsychic connotations or implications. Typical panpsychism confuses consciousness with a particular level of consciousness (perception or intention or feeling) and then is forced to push that "consciousness" all the way down. I am completely uninterested in that approach. Do atoms possess an actual prehension (Whitehead) or perception (Leibniz)? I don't know; that seems a bit much. But they do possess depth, and therefore they do share a common depth. And a common depth is a worldspace, a worldspace created/ disclosed by a particular degree of shared depth ....
I earlier noted that a sign is any aspect of reality that represents another, to another. So that all holons, existing by virtue of a network of relationships with other holons - all holons are signs. That is, the regime of any holon translates only a particular range of signs (it registers only a circumscribed band of stimuli); the band of common translatable signs is a holon's worldspace. (I will in a moment add the crucial qualification that the meaning of "registerable signs" therefore implies that the signs are in fact codetermined by the registration, and that codetermination is what I mean by a worldspace proper.)
Likewise, if a holon is to enter a deeper worldspace, it will have to transform, not merely translate, and this transformation opens it to an entirely deeper and wider range of signs: a new world, a new worldspace, within which it will then translate according to its own regime, or basic self-organizing principles, in structual coupling (agency-in-communion).
With reference to Varela's enactive problematic, a holon's agency enacts a worldspace (brings forth a domain of distinctions), and does so relatively autonomously, with the added understanding that a holon's agency is partly a result of its historical "structural couplings" with the appropriate milieu. Agency as agency-in-communion thus enacts a worldspace codetermined by subject and object.
Varela, Thompson, and Rosch: "Emergent states [are] constrained by a history of coupling with an appropriate world. By enriching our account to include this dimension of structural coupling [codetermining communion], we can begin to appreciate the capacity of a complex system to enact a world .... The result is that over time this coupling selects or enacts from a world of randomness a domain of distinctions. In other words, on the basis of its autonomy the system selects or enacts a domain of signifiance" (Embodied mind, pp. 151, 155-56).
Thus, as I earlier mentioned, a worldspace is not simply pregiven and then merely represented via a correspondence of agency with its allegedly separable communions (other agencies). Rather, the coherency of its agency (autonomy), structurally coupled with other communing agencies, enacts a worldspace mutually codetermined. Using a cellular automata (named Bittorio) for example: "We can say that a minimal kind of interpretation is involved, where interpretation is understood widely to mean the enactment of a domain of distinctions out of a background. Thus Bittorio, on the basis of its autonomy (closure), performs an interpretation in the sense that it selects or brings forth a domain of significance out of the background of its random milieu .... These regularities constitute what we would call Bittorio's world [worldspace]. It should be apparent that this world is not pregiven and then recovered through a representation .... Bittorio provides, then, a paradigm for how closure [agency] and coupling [communion] suffice to bring forth a world of relevance [a worldspace] for a system [a holon]" (p. 155).
-- Wilber, Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality, Revised Ed., 2000. p. 568-69.
We see now the first mention of consciousness in relation to the enactive problematic. This establishes that we will not take the conventional route of defining consciousness as any particular form of consciousness (prehension, irritability, sensation, perception, intention, etc.): if we did, then consciousness would be an emergent quality which arises at a certain depth. Wilber also makes the point of nothing that anything that possesses depth (which is everything) exists in a worldspace of other things at the same depth.
My own claim, however, is that the distinction interior/ exterior is not an emergent quality, but rather exists from the first moment a boundary is drawn; exists, that is, from the moment of creation. What most panpsychists mean by consciousness or mind is not what I mean by consciousness, which is depth. Because consciousenss is depth, it is itself literally unqualifiable. It is depth, not any particular, qualifiable level of depth (such as sensation or impulse or perception or intention) - those are all forms of consciousness, not consciousness as such.
In other words, depth isn't a quality, like sensation or impulse or idea, but a relationship (or opening) among holons. Thus, I have never been satisfied with any of the pan psychical theories, because they qualify depth with particular manifestations of depth (such as sensations or feelings or intentions), and these do not exist throughout the holarchy of being, but emerge only at particular levels of depth, whereas depth itself is present from the start (or wherever there is a boundary). I am a pan-depthist, not a pan-psychist, since the psyche itself emerges only at a particular level of depth.
This is why I keep saying that I don't really care how far down the reader wishes to push "consciousness," and why I'm not really concered with whether plants have sensations, etc., because by "consciousness" most people mean some favorite form of consciousness (sensations or intentions or desire, etc.), and none of those go all the way down. But depth goes all the way down, and depth is unqualifiable.
-- Wilber, Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality, Revised Ed., 2000. p. 566-67.
This is a profound notion which I had trouble comprehending, and it is only through continuous contemplation over several months (with of course less formalized consideration over several years) that I am comfortable, both rationally and intuitively (or experientially) with this notion. A natural question to ask, however, is why viewing consciousness as an emergent quality presents us with serious difficulties. Wilber explains:
This is why I think it is such a terrible mistake to view consciousness as an emergent quality, instead of seeing it as depth, itself unqualifiable. If we think that consciousness is a specific quality, then we have only two major choices in how to situate it: (1) define the quality that consciousness is supposed to be (feeling, intention, perception, or whatever) and then push that quality all the way down to atoms. This is the standard panpsychic approach, which I find unacceptable (even though, for convenience, I sometimes resort to that terminology). But even less acceptable is: (2) define consciousness as an emergent quality, and then pick the point in evolution that we think it is supposed to have jumped out and emerged (and haggle endlessly over terms: Do apes have self-consciousness or just rudimentary consciousness? Do the shrimp we boil for dinner really have feelings?).
But consciousness is not an emergent quality, because the Left-Hand dimension does not emerge from the Right-Hand dimension. That is, the interior does not emerge from the exterior; obviously, they both emerge together, hand in hand, with the first boundary creating a unvierse, from the very first differentiation of the Kosmos into an inside and an outside (which is, at the first boundary, an interior and an exterior). The Left-Hand dimension does not emerge from the Right-Hand dimension, but rather goes with it, as the within, the interior of the exterior, at every stage. It is the interior depth of every stage, and not something that surprisingly pops out at some bizarre stage down the line. Forms of consciousness do indeed emerge (as forms of matter do), but consciousness itself is simply alongside all along, as the interior of whatever form is there (from the moment of creation). Because the surfaces are surfaces of depth, forms are forms of consciousness, and the interior and exterior, as the Buddhists have it, are coemergent from the start, and not something leaping into being somewhere down the road.
Put differently, consciousness is the openness (or Emptiness) of the holonís regime ñ an openness itself that is not an emergent quality, but what allows qulities to emerge (as the various regimes and worldspaces).
-- Wilber, Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality, Revised Ed., 2000. p. 575-76.
I want to emphasize that forms of consciousness do emerge, just like forms of matter, but consciousness, or interiority, is present from the start, as we have seen that all holons, and thus all forms of manifest existence, enact/ co-enact worldspaces, or ìpoints-of-view.î
Returning, then, to your original query:
But if you did then I would like to propose a test with something like "Ghost".
Something that is made up would not have an individual-objective right? Such as the concept/word of ghost. It certainly is a thought, and features in most cultures... but the science related to ghosts are tenious and it would be hard to argue that it can be described by the hard-sciences. UNLESS, me thinking about ghost or someone making a horror flick with a ghost theme creates the action potential along the axon and the technology behind the movie projector is included in the individual-objective quadrant. But that would be really stretching it.
On the other hand, anything (specific) that physically exist but is yet unknown or yet un-imagined would not have a subjective aspect - at least to human beings.
ìGhostsî likely do not exist and cannot be identified via current conventional scientific practices (hypothesis-testing, hypothetico-deductive reasoning) and instruments, but the idea of ìghostî does exist (and, research tell us, they emerge from magical/ mythic modes of cognition). ìGhostî is a concept, and a concept is a holon that exists in a conceptual space. This is how the ìghostî concept manifests in the four quadrants (these examples are by no means exhaustive):
Collective-subjective [LL]:
Cultural beliefs (which, again, stem from magical/ mythic cognition and linger), or the shared cultural worldspace. Also, the word ìghostî itself, as language requires mutual interpretation of shared meaning, which is a part of that shared worldspace.
Collective-objective [LR]:
Socio-economic systems which use the notion of ghost to create fear/ excitement/ education and generate financial gain: movies, books, psychics, exorcists, debunkers, etc.
Individual-objective [UR]:
The firing of neurons, secretion of hormones, and the general processing which occurs when a complex neocortex is present.
Individual-subjective: [UL]:
The ìpoint-of-viewî of the holon itself, which determines what it will register, recognize, or respond to. The concept of ìghostî exists in a conceptual worldspace and interacts with other concepts, like ìgods,î ìdeath,î ìancestors,î and ìnon-existence,î to name a very few. The concept of ìghostî cannot get hit by a car (though the concept of a ghost getting hit by a car can exist), nor can it feel hungry (though the concept of a ghost feeling hungry can exist). These stimuli do not disclose themselves to it, and from its point of view, they donít exist.
I hope now that it is clear how any holon manifests in the UL quadrant and enacts/ co-enacts its own worldspace, or ìhas a point of view.î
Thus ends the appetizer. If you wish to discuss this any further, I would be more than glad to do so. Onto the main course Ö.
http://www.thefighting44s.com/discussion/viewtopic.php?p=20436#20436
Consciousness in the Individual-Subjective Quadrant
"Upon consideration, we realize everything is a holon."
I suppose I should do my own research (and yes I know this is an overview), but what is included in this 'everything'?
I don't think you meant the word to be taken literally since this is an overview. (i do hate to have a drawn out discussion over semantics)
You've actually hit upon what I consider the one major weakpoint of my overview: I did not elaborate on the nature of the individual-subjective quadrant for two reasons:
1) It would have distracted from the thrust of my essay
2) This is the quadrant with which I am the least comfortable explaining
I'll try to do so now. When I said everything, I meant, literally, everything. Everything is a holon, in that everything is a simultaneous whole/ part, and everything possesses four correlated components/ aspects of existence as described by the four-quadrant model.
But if you did then I would like to propose a test with something like "Ghost".
Something that is made up would not have an individual-objective right? Such as the concept/word of ghost. It certainly is a thought, and features in most cultures... but the science related to ghosts are tenious and it would be hard to argue that it can be described by the hard-sciences. UNLESS, me thinking about ghost or someone making a horror flick with a ghost theme creates the action potential along the axon and the technology behind the movie projector is included in the individual-objective quadrant. But that would be really stretching it.
On the other hand, anything (specific) that physically exist but is yet unknown or yet un-imagined would not have a subjective aspect - at least to human beings.
This is a concept with which I grappled for several months before I gained a fairly clear understanding of the exact nature of the individual-subjective quadrant. With regard to the human holon, it's easy to explain: it's that person's point of view, his/ her thoughts and feelings, the worldspace in which s/he operates. It gets tricker when you move to life that's not human, and even more difficult to understand when you move to non-living matter.
Though I am confident in my own understanding, I do not think I am capable, at this point in my development, to introduce this quadrant wholly in my own words, as I could with regard to overall Integral Theory and Practice. As such, I will be quoting liberally from Wilber, and relating him back to the topic of discussion as necessary. Finally, we must keep in mind that I am taking these quotations out of context, in that they were written assuming the reader has read the relevant passages/ chapters. Though I will explain important terminology which may be unclear, there are aspects of Wilberís quotations on which I will not elaborate here, as I am operating under the assumption that the reader possesses a degree of intelligence and insight where, with some consideration (and possibly minor research), s/he should be able to infer the meaning/ significance of certain terms and references which are not fully explained. I also deliberately leave in aspects of quotations which are not directly relevant to the discussion; I do this to demonstrate Wilberís expansive range of thought and consideration, to give an idea of the depth and far-reaching implications of some of these insights, and to stimulate further thought.
Finally, all parentheses, italics, citations, and quotations are reproduced exactly as the author has written them unless otherwise noted.
We begin by examining the nature of the holon itself.
Reality as a whole is not composed of things or processes, but of holons. Composed, that is, of wholes that are simultaneously parts of other wholes, with no upward or downward limit. To say that holons are processes instead of things is in some ways true, but misses the essential point that processes themselves exist only within other processes. There are no things or processes, only holons.
Since reality is not composed of wholes, and since it has no parts ñ since there are only whole/ parts ñ then this approach undercuts the traditional argument between atomism (all things are fundamentally isolated and individual wholes that interact only by chance) and wholism (all things are merely strands or parts of the larger web or whole). Both of those views are absolutely incorrect. There are no wholes, and there are not parts. There are only whole/ parts.
This approach also undercuts the argument between the materialst and idealist camps. Reality isnít composed of quarks, or bootstrapping hadrons, or subatomic exchange; but neither is it composed of ideas, symbols, or thoughts. It is composed of holons.
There is an old joke about a King who goes to a Wiseperson and asks how is it that the Earth doesnít fall down? The Wiseperson replies, ìThe Earth is resting on a lion.î ìOn what, then, is the lion resting?î ìThe lion is resting on an elephant.î ìOn what is the elephant resting?î ìThe elephant is resting on a turtle.î ìOn what is the Öî ìYou can stop right there, your Majesty. Itís turtles all the way down.î
Holons all the way down. ìSubatomic particles are ñ in a certain sense which can only be defined rigorously in relativistic quantum mechanices ñ nested inside each other. The point is that a physical particle ñ renormalized particle ñ involves (1) a bare particle and (2) a huge tangle of virtual particles, inextricably wound together in a recursive mess. Every real particleís existence therefore involves the existence of infinitely many other particles, contained in a virtual ëcloudí which surrounds it as it propagates. And each of the virtual particles in the cloud, of course, also drags along its own virtual cloud, bubbles within bubbles [holons within holons] and so on ad infinitum Ö.
But itís also turtles all the way up. Take mathematics, for example. The notorious ìparadoxesî in set theory (Cantorís Burali-Fortiís, Russellís), which, among other things, led to Tarskiís Theorem and Godelís Incompleteness Theorem, placed mathematics in an irreversible, ever-expanding, no-upper-limit universe: ìThe totality of sets cannot be the terminus of a well-defined generating process, for if it were we could take all of what we had generated so far as a set and continue to generate still larger universes. The totality of sets [mathematical holons] is an ëunconditionedí or absolute totality which for just that reason cannot be adequately conceived by the human mind, since the object of a normal conception can always be incorporated in a more inclusive totality. Moreover, the sets are arranged in a transfinite hierarchyî ñ a holarchy that continues upwardly forever, and must continue upwardly forever (ìtransfinitelyî), or mathematics comes to a screeching self-contradictory halt. Even mathematics is set in timeís arrow, and timeís arrow is definitely ñ ìtransfinitelyî ñ holarchical.
This is important for philsophy as well, and particularly for many of the ìnew ageî paradigms that now trumpet ìWholism.î ìTransfiniteî (turtles all the way up) means that the sum total of all the whole/ parts in the universe is not itself a Whole, because the moment it comes to be (as a ìwhole), that totality is merely a part of the very next momentís whole, which in turn is merely a part of the next Ö and so ad infinitum.
This means that there is no place where we can rest and say, ìThe universeís basic principle is Wholenessî (nor, of course, can we say, ìThe basic principle is Partnessî). This prevents us from ever saying that the principle of the Whole rules the world, for it does not; any whole is a part, indefinitely.
Thus, holons within holons within holons means that the world is without foundation in either wholes or parts (and as for any sort of ìabsolute realityî in the spiritual sense, we will see that it is neither whole nor part, neither one nor many, but pure groundless Emptiness, or radically nondual Spirit).
This is important because it prevents a totalizing and dominating Wholeness. ìWholenessî ñ this is a very dangerous concept (a point that will accompany us throughout the book) ñ dangerous for many reasons, not the least of which is that it is always availble to be pushed into ideological ends. Whenever anybody talks of wholeness being the ultimate, then we must be very wary, in my opinion, because they are often telling us that we are merely ìpartsî of their particular version of ìwholeness,î and so we should be subservient to their vision ñ we are merely stands in their wonderful web.
And then, since we are all defined as strands in the web, a totalizing social agenda seems eminently reasonable. It is not beside the point that theorists as diverse as Habermas and Foucault have seen such totalizing agendas as the main modern enemy of the life-world Ö.
I belabor this issue because it is extremely important to emphasize the indefiniteness of holarchy, its openness, its dizzifyingly nesting nature ñ an actualization holarchy, not a dominator holarchy. And a dominator holarchy, recall, occurs precisely because any holon is established, not as a whole/ part, but as the whole, period. ìUltimate Wholensesî: this is the essence of dominator holarchies, pathological holarchies. ìPure wholenessî: this is the totalizing lie.
For all these reasons, I will usually refer to the sum total of events in the universe not as the ìWholeî (which implies the ultimate priority of wholeness over partness), but as ìthe Allî (which is the sum total of whole/ parts). And this sum total is not itself a whole but a whole/ part: as soon as you think ìthe All,î your own thought has added yet another holon to the All (so that the first All is no longer the All but merely part of the new All), and so off we go indefinitely, never arriving at that which we symbolize as the ìAll,î which is why it is never a whole, but an unending series of whole/ parts (with the series itself a whole/ part ñ and so on ìtransfinitely.î)
The Pythagoreans introduced the term ìKosmos,î which we usually translate as ìcosmos.î But the original meaning of Kosmos was the patterned nature or process of all domains of existence, from matter to math to theos, and not merely the physical universe, which is usually what both ìcosmosî and ìuniverseî mean today.
So I would like to reintroduce this term, Kosmos. The Kosmos contains the cosmos (or the physiosphere), the bios (or biosphere), nous (the noosphere), and theos (the theosphere or divine domain) ñ none of them being foundational (even spirit shades into Emptiness).
So we can say in short: The Kosmos is composed of holons, all the way up, all the way down.
Let me end this section with one last example, from perhaps an unexpected source. The ìpostmodern poststructuralistsî ñ usually associated with such names as Derrida, Foucault, Jean-Francois Lyotard, and stretching back to George Bataille and Nietzsche ñ have been the great foes of any sort of systematic theory or ìgrand narrative,î and thus might be expected to raise stern objections to any overall theory of ìholarchy.î But a close look at their work shows that it is driven precisely by a conception of holons within holons within holons, of texts within texts within texts (or contexts within contexts within contexts), and it is this sliding play of texts within texts that forms the ìfoundationlessî platform from which they launch their attacks.
George Bataille, for instance. ìIn the most general wayî ñ and these are his italics ñ ìevery isolable element of the universe always appears as a particle that can enter into composition with a whole that transcends it. Being is only found as a whole composed of particles whose relative autonomy is maintained [a part that is also a whole]. These two principles [simultanous wholeness and partness] dominate the uncertain presence of an ipse being across a distance that never ceases to put everything in question.î
Everything is put into question because everything is a context with a context forever. And putting everything into question is precisely what the postmodern poststructuralists are known for. And so in a language that would soon become quite typical (and is by now almost comical), Bataille goes on to point out that ìputting everything into question counters the human need to violently arrange things in terms of a pat wholeness and smug universality: ìWith extreme dread imperatively becoming the demand for universality, carried away to vertigo by the movement that composes it, the ipse being that presents itself as a universal is only a challenge to the diffuse immensity that escapes its precious violence, the tragic negation of all that is not its own bewildered phantomís chance. But, as a man, this being falls into the meanders of the knowledge of his fellowmen, which absorbs his substance in order to reduce it to a component of what goes beyond the virulent madness of this autonomy in the total night of the world.î Um, and so forth.
The point is not that Bataille himself was without any sort of system, but simply that the system is sliding ñ holons within holons. So the claim to simply have ìno systemî is a little disingenuous. Which is why Andre Breton, the leader of the surrealists at the time, began a counterattack on this part of Bataille, also in terms that are echoed by todayís critics of postmodernists: ìM. Batailleís misforunte is to reason: admittedly, he hreasons like someone who ëhas a fly on his nose,í which allies him more closely with the dead than with the living, but he does reason. He is trying, with the help of the tiny mechanism in him which is not completely out of order, to share his obsessions: this very fact proces that he cannot claim, no matter what he may so, to be opposed to any system, like an unthinking brute.î
Both sides are correct, in a sense. There is system, but the system is sliding. It is unendingly, dizzifyingly holonic. This is why Jonathan Culler, perhaps the foremost interpreter of Jacques Derridaís deconstruction, can point out that Derrida does not deny truth per se, but only insists that truth and meaning are context-bound (each context being a whole that is also part of another whole context, which itself Ö). ìOne could therefore,î says Culler, ìidentify deconstruction with the twin principles of the contextual determination of meaning and the infinite extendability of context.î
Turtles all the way up, all the way down. What deconstruction puts into question is the desire to find a final resting place, in either wholeness or partness or anything in between. Every time somebody findsa a final interpretation or a foundational interpretation of a text (or life or history or Kosmos), deconstruction is on hand to say that the total context ñ or Wholistic interpretation ñ does not exist, because it is also unendingly a part of yet another text forever. As Culler puts it, ìTotal context [final Wholism] is unmasterable, both in principle and in practice. Meaning is context bound, but context is boundless.î Transfinite turtles.
Even Habermas, who generally takes Bretonís position to Derridaís Bataille, agrees with that particular point. As he puts it, ìThese variations of context that change meaning cannot in principle be arrested or controlled, because contexts cannot be exhausted, that is, they cannot be theoretically mastered once and for all.î
That the system is sliding does not mean that meaning canít be established, that truth doesnít exist, or that contexts wonít hold still long enough to make a simple point. Many postmodern poststructuralists have not simply discovered holonic space, they have become thoroughly lost in it (Ö George Batalille, for example, took a good, long, hard look at holonic space and went properly insane, though which is cause and which effect is hard to say).
As for our journey, we need only note that there is system, but the system is sliding: The Kosmos is the unending All, and the All is composed of holons ñ all the way up, all the way down.
-- Wilber, Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality, Revised Ed., 2000. p. 43-47.
At this point, I hope you are convinced that everything can be considered a holon, in that everything can be viewed as a simultaneous whole/ part. A couple points of interest:
1) The risk of becoming a totalizing Whole which can easily be molded into an ideology is the reason F44s does not consider itself focused on ìAsian unityî or ìAsian prideî or ìAsian identity.î Though at first glance it may not be obvious, we are about much more than this.
2) A component of Wilberís work which has been introduced here is a very serious and very thorough critique of post-modernity. What he is saying above is that the postmodern poststructuralist cannot cope with the performative contradiction in his/ her worldview: s/he is universally skeptical of all universals but does not seem to realize or acknowledge or care about this profound instability in his/ her stance. While it is indeed a better stance than everything that came before it (magical/ tribal, mythical/ ethnocentric, and modernist worldviews), and implicitly assumes it is a better stance because it is being used as a stance, it cannot come out and say that its stance is absolutely better (which it is), and so never examines how that absolute value judgement is made (because absolute values cannot exist in its worldview), and becomes mired in its own instability. Briefly, the reason why the postmodern stance is better than everything that came before it is because it is more inclusive, more whole, contains the possibility for more points of view. Itís a bigger whole, a bigger absolute. If I can say that hey, you believe in your God, you believe in your mountain spirit, and you believe in your invisible hand, and we donít hurt each other and we can all get along, thatís better than saying my God is the absolute, Iím going to kill you for disrespecting my mountain spirit, or everything comes back to the invisible hand. But when postmodernism starts proclaiming ìuniversal skepticism toward metanarrative,î or that there are no absolutes, and starts to attack any claims that absolutes could exist it runs into serious trouble because it cannot account for its own stance, and pathology ensues.
So now we have seen that everything in manifest existence (including conceptions of the unmanifest) may be viewed as a holon. Let us more closely examine its whole/ part nature.
A holon functions not only as a self-preserving whole but also as a part of a larger whole, and in its capacity as a part it must adapt or accommodate itself to other holons (not autopoiesis but allopoiesis; not assimilation but accomodation). The partness aspect of a holon is displayed as its capacity to accommodate, to register other holons, to fit into its existing environment. Even electrons accommodate themselves, for example, to the number of other electrons in an orbital shell; they register, and react to, their environment. This doesnít imply intentionality on the part of the electron, just a capacity to react to surrounding actions. As a whole it remains itself; as a part, it must fit in Ö.
We can just as well think of these two opposed tendencies as a holonís agency and communion. Its agency ñ its self-asserting, self-preserving, assimilating tendencies ñ express its wholeness, its relative autonomy; whereas its communion ñ its participatory, bonding, joining tendencies ñ expresses its partness, its relationship to something larger.
Both of these capacities or tendencies are absolutely crucial and equally important; an excess of either will kill a holon immediately (i.e., destroy its identifying pattern); even a moderate imbalance will lead to a structural deformity (whether weíre talking about the growth of a plant or the growth of the patriarchy). And we have already suggested (in chapter 1) that an imbalance of these two tendencies in any system expresses itself as pathological agency (alienation and repression) or pathological communion (fusion and indissociation).
This primordial polarity runs through all domains of manifest existence, and was archetypally expressed in the Taoist principles of yin (communion) and yang (agency). Koestler: ìOn different levels of inorganic and organic hierarchies, the polarisation of ëparticularisticí [agency] and ëholisticí [communion] forces take different forms, but it is observable on every level.î
(I will have much more to say about these two tendencies when we reach the psychological and political levels of self-organization, and particularly with reference to the male and female value spheres, and to political theories of rights [agency] and responsibilities [communion]).
-- Wilber, Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality, Revised Ed., 2000. p. 49.
This understanding of simultaneous agency and communion as intrinsic to holonic existence is crucial for understanding how holons evolve, develop, and interact. To illustrate this, Wilber draws on the work of Maturana, Varela, Thompson, and Rosch, and their work on autopoiesis (systems self-organization), structural coupling (mutual co-adaptation between systems), and the whole/ part relationship:
That agency is always agency-in-communion is a central feature, as I construe it, of Varelaís enactive paradigm. As I would phrase it, a holonís agency (ìintrinsic self-organizing propertiesî) enacts a worldspace (brings forth a domain of distinctions) and does so relatively autonomously, with the crucial addition that a holonís agency is partly a result of ìstructural couplingsî with the appropriate worldspace (all of which we will be explaining in more detail as we proceed). Agency as agency-in-communion thus explains both relative autonomy and micro/ macro codetermination. As Varela, Thompson, and Rosch put it:
ìThe crucial point here is that we do not retain the notion of an independent, pregiven environment but let it fade into the background in favor of so-called intrinsic factors [agency]. Instead we emphasize that the very notion of what an environment is cannot be separated from what organisms are and what they do. This point has been made quite eloquently by Richard Lewontin: ìThe organism and the environment are not actually separately determined. The environment is not a structure imposed on living beings from the outside but is in fact a creation of those beings Ö.íî
They continue: ìThe key point, then, is that the species brings forth and specifies its own domain of problems to be solved by satisficing; this domain does not exist ëout thereí in an environment that acts as a landing pad for organisms that somehow drop or parachute into the world. Instead, living beings and their environments stand in relation to each other through mutual specification or codetermination. Thus what we describe as environmental regularities are not external features that have been internalized, as representationism and adaptationism both assume. Environmental regularities are the result of a conjoint history, a congruence that unfolds from a long history of codeterminationî (Embodied mind, p. 198).
This is also why the ìunitî of evolution is, basically, a micro/ macro unit, which is to say: almost any holon in existence. ìA full list of units looks rather formidable: DNA short sequences, genes, whole gene families, the cell itself, the species genome, the individual, ëinclusiveí groups of genes that are carried by different individuals, the social group, the actually interbreeding population, the entire species, the ecosystem of interacting species, and the global biosphere. Each unit [holon] harbors modes of coupling and selection constraints [communion], has unique self-organizing qualities [agency], and has its own emergent status with respect to other levels Öî (pp. 192-93).
-- Wilber, Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality, Revised Ed., 2000. p. 560-61.
Here, we are introduced to the notion that a holonís agency actually enacts a worldspace in which it exists. A worldspace is not a pre-given, but is codetermined by the holon and its environment. Put another way, in the case of congnition Ö
Ö same-level relational exchange does not mean that the micro exchanges with a pregiven macro: they co-create each other in emergent worldspaces. What this means will become more obvious as we proceeed. For the moment, note Varela et al.: ìThe key point is that such systems do not operate by representation [of a pregiven world]. Instead of representing an independent world, they enact a world as a domain of distinctions that is inseparable from the structure embodied by the cognitive systemî (or, more generally, by the deep structure or agency of the holon; Embodied mind, p. 140).
-- Wilber, Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality, Revised Ed., 2000. p. 562.
So what we are seeing now is that any holon exists in a worldspace which it co-enacted. We may view this as a holonís intrinsic property of ìtranslationî:
The agency (or regime or code) of any given holon translates the world according to the terms of its code or regime ñ it will recognize, or register, or respond to, only those items that fit its code. An electron, for example, will register numerous other physical forces, but will not register or respond to the meaning of literature, nor will it respond to the sexual advances of a rabbit.
Holons, in other words, do not simply reflect a pregiven world. Rather, according to their capacity, they select, organize, give form to, the multitude of stimuli cascading around them. Their responses never simply ìcorrespondî to something ìout thereî; they register (and thus respond to) only that which fits the coherency of their regime (or code or agency or deep structure). This is what Varela means, for example, when he says holons are not ìheteronomous units operating by a logic of correspondence,î but rather relatively ìautonomous units operating by a logic of coherence.î Holons translate their reality according to the patterns of their agency, their relatively autonomous and coherent deep structures; and stimuli that donít fit the deep structure or regime are simply not registered and might as well not exist (in fact, do not exist, do not disclose themselves, for that holon).
-- Wilber, Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality, Revised Ed., 2000. p. 66-67.
Stimuli, or whole worldspaces, then, may or may not disclose themselves to a particular holon. Hypothetico-deductive reasoning does not exist for a platypus. The taste of chocolate does not exist in the worldspace of a superstring. To summarize thus far:
1) Everything is a holon
2) A holon is simultanously agentive and communal, in that it is its own whole and exists as part of a larger whole.
3) A holon co-enacts its worldspaces with its environment, which defines what it can/ will register, recognize, and respond to.
In what way, then, can we determine and interpret just what and how much exists in a holonís worldspace? Why canít all holons exist in one big worldspace and interact with all other holons? Here, we turn our attention to the notion of levels of holons, or depth.
Owing to the self-transcendent capacity of holons, new holons emerge. First subatomic particles, then atoms, then molecules, then polymers, then cells, and so on. The emergent holons are in some sense novel; they possess properties and qualities that cannot be strictly and totally deduced from their components; and therefore they, and their descriptions, cannot be reduced without remainder to their component parts. ìLevels of organization involve ontologically new entities beyond the elements from which the self-organization process proceeds. There is no absolute deterministic level of description.î As Hofstadter puts it, ìIt is important to realize that the high-level law cannot be stated in the vocabulary of the low-level descriptionî ñ and, he points out, this is true from gas particles to biological speciation, from computer programs to DNA replication, from musical scores to linguistic rules.
-- Wilber, Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality, Revised Ed., 2000. p. 54.
We see now that holons in shared worldspaces may interact with one another, and that new holons may emerge from this interaction.
ìThe number of levels which a hierarchy comprises determines whether it is ëshallowí or ëdeepí; and the number of holons on any given level we shall call its ëspan.íî
For this example, let us arbitrarily assign atoms a depth of three (they contain as components at least two other levels). We can imagine a time, early in the universe, when there were only atoms and not yet molecules. Atoms had a small depth (3) but an enormous span, stretching, we presume, throughout the existent universe and numbering in the megazillions (thus, depth = 3, span = zillions). When molecules first emerged, they had a greater depth, a depth of four, but initially a very small span (presumably in the hundreds, or whatever, and then growing rapidly).
This again recognizes a crucial distinction found in any holarchy ñ the vertical dimension and the horizontal dimension. The greater the vertical dimension of a holon (the more levels it contains), then the greater the depth of that holon; and the more holons on that level, the wider its span.
This is important, because it points out that it is not merely population size that establishes order of richness (or order of qualitative emergence), but rather depth. And we will see that one of the greatest confusions in general ecological or new-paradigm theories (whether ìpopî or ìseriousî) is that they often mistake great span for great depth.
-- Wilber, Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality, Revised Ed., 2000. p. 64.
We now have a way to refer to a holonís relative commonness and inclusiveness, or highness and lowness in a holarchy: depth and span. Beluga whales, for example, have more depth than carrots (they ìcontainî more of the Kosmos, in that they are more complex, having nervous systems, spinal chords, and social structures), and in this special sense, we may view them as more ìsignificant.î Atoms have less depth (contain less of the universe) than carrots, but are contained in more aspects of the universe, so in this special sense, we may view them as more ìfundamental.î Phytoplankton is more fundamental than a human being, and a human being is more significant.
Knowing all this, we may now examine the notion of a holonís manifestation in the individual-subjective realm. Please note that the individual-subjective quadrant is also referred to as the ìUpper Leftî or ìULî quadrant, an arbitrary location, as the quadrants could have been placed in any orientation, but are referred to in this way for efficiency and consistency.
As I already briefly suggested, to the extent that we recognize that holons have an interior, and to the extent that all holons exist by virtue of relational exchange with same-depth holons, then to say that a group of holons share a common physical space (which everybody accepts) is also to say that they share a common interior space.
"Worldview" is too pan-psychic and suggests that, for example, cells share a developed cognitive map of the external world, which is a bit much (although Varela's biological cognition comes close, and I am comfortable with the way he presents it). But for most purposes, I will adopt the more general term "worldspace," which means the sum total of stimuli that can be responded to (i.e., that have actual meaning or impact or registration). This cannot be determined by a mere empirical analysis of action systems, because we all already exist in the same physical universe, so physical parameters alone cannot explain the differences. Worldspaces are a priori to physical parameters (but not ultimately a priori to awareness, as we will see).
In other words, worldspace, as I use the term, does not have the ordinary panpsychic connotations or implications. Typical panpsychism confuses consciousness with a particular level of consciousness (perception or intention or feeling) and then is forced to push that "consciousness" all the way down. I am completely uninterested in that approach. Do atoms possess an actual prehension (Whitehead) or perception (Leibniz)? I don't know; that seems a bit much. But they do possess depth, and therefore they do share a common depth. And a common depth is a worldspace, a worldspace created/ disclosed by a particular degree of shared depth ....
I earlier noted that a sign is any aspect of reality that represents another, to another. So that all holons, existing by virtue of a network of relationships with other holons - all holons are signs. That is, the regime of any holon translates only a particular range of signs (it registers only a circumscribed band of stimuli); the band of common translatable signs is a holon's worldspace. (I will in a moment add the crucial qualification that the meaning of "registerable signs" therefore implies that the signs are in fact codetermined by the registration, and that codetermination is what I mean by a worldspace proper.)
Likewise, if a holon is to enter a deeper worldspace, it will have to transform, not merely translate, and this transformation opens it to an entirely deeper and wider range of signs: a new world, a new worldspace, within which it will then translate according to its own regime, or basic self-organizing principles, in structual coupling (agency-in-communion).
With reference to Varela's enactive problematic, a holon's agency enacts a worldspace (brings forth a domain of distinctions), and does so relatively autonomously, with the added understanding that a holon's agency is partly a result of its historical "structural couplings" with the appropriate milieu. Agency as agency-in-communion thus enacts a worldspace codetermined by subject and object.
Varela, Thompson, and Rosch: "Emergent states [are] constrained by a history of coupling with an appropriate world. By enriching our account to include this dimension of structural coupling [codetermining communion], we can begin to appreciate the capacity of a complex system to enact a world .... The result is that over time this coupling selects or enacts from a world of randomness a domain of distinctions. In other words, on the basis of its autonomy the system selects or enacts a domain of signifiance" (Embodied mind, pp. 151, 155-56).
Thus, as I earlier mentioned, a worldspace is not simply pregiven and then merely represented via a correspondence of agency with its allegedly separable communions (other agencies). Rather, the coherency of its agency (autonomy), structurally coupled with other communing agencies, enacts a worldspace mutually codetermined. Using a cellular automata (named Bittorio) for example: "We can say that a minimal kind of interpretation is involved, where interpretation is understood widely to mean the enactment of a domain of distinctions out of a background. Thus Bittorio, on the basis of its autonomy (closure), performs an interpretation in the sense that it selects or brings forth a domain of significance out of the background of its random milieu .... These regularities constitute what we would call Bittorio's world [worldspace]. It should be apparent that this world is not pregiven and then recovered through a representation .... Bittorio provides, then, a paradigm for how closure [agency] and coupling [communion] suffice to bring forth a world of relevance [a worldspace] for a system [a holon]" (p. 155).
-- Wilber, Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality, Revised Ed., 2000. p. 568-69.
We see now the first mention of consciousness in relation to the enactive problematic. This establishes that we will not take the conventional route of defining consciousness as any particular form of consciousness (prehension, irritability, sensation, perception, intention, etc.): if we did, then consciousness would be an emergent quality which arises at a certain depth. Wilber also makes the point of nothing that anything that possesses depth (which is everything) exists in a worldspace of other things at the same depth.
My own claim, however, is that the distinction interior/ exterior is not an emergent quality, but rather exists from the first moment a boundary is drawn; exists, that is, from the moment of creation. What most panpsychists mean by consciousness or mind is not what I mean by consciousness, which is depth. Because consciousenss is depth, it is itself literally unqualifiable. It is depth, not any particular, qualifiable level of depth (such as sensation or impulse or perception or intention) - those are all forms of consciousness, not consciousness as such.
In other words, depth isn't a quality, like sensation or impulse or idea, but a relationship (or opening) among holons. Thus, I have never been satisfied with any of the pan psychical theories, because they qualify depth with particular manifestations of depth (such as sensations or feelings or intentions), and these do not exist throughout the holarchy of being, but emerge only at particular levels of depth, whereas depth itself is present from the start (or wherever there is a boundary). I am a pan-depthist, not a pan-psychist, since the psyche itself emerges only at a particular level of depth.
This is why I keep saying that I don't really care how far down the reader wishes to push "consciousness," and why I'm not really concered with whether plants have sensations, etc., because by "consciousness" most people mean some favorite form of consciousness (sensations or intentions or desire, etc.), and none of those go all the way down. But depth goes all the way down, and depth is unqualifiable.
-- Wilber, Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality, Revised Ed., 2000. p. 566-67.
This is a profound notion which I had trouble comprehending, and it is only through continuous contemplation over several months (with of course less formalized consideration over several years) that I am comfortable, both rationally and intuitively (or experientially) with this notion. A natural question to ask, however, is why viewing consciousness as an emergent quality presents us with serious difficulties. Wilber explains:
This is why I think it is such a terrible mistake to view consciousness as an emergent quality, instead of seeing it as depth, itself unqualifiable. If we think that consciousness is a specific quality, then we have only two major choices in how to situate it: (1) define the quality that consciousness is supposed to be (feeling, intention, perception, or whatever) and then push that quality all the way down to atoms. This is the standard panpsychic approach, which I find unacceptable (even though, for convenience, I sometimes resort to that terminology). But even less acceptable is: (2) define consciousness as an emergent quality, and then pick the point in evolution that we think it is supposed to have jumped out and emerged (and haggle endlessly over terms: Do apes have self-consciousness or just rudimentary consciousness? Do the shrimp we boil for dinner really have feelings?).
But consciousness is not an emergent quality, because the Left-Hand dimension does not emerge from the Right-Hand dimension. That is, the interior does not emerge from the exterior; obviously, they both emerge together, hand in hand, with the first boundary creating a unvierse, from the very first differentiation of the Kosmos into an inside and an outside (which is, at the first boundary, an interior and an exterior). The Left-Hand dimension does not emerge from the Right-Hand dimension, but rather goes with it, as the within, the interior of the exterior, at every stage. It is the interior depth of every stage, and not something that surprisingly pops out at some bizarre stage down the line. Forms of consciousness do indeed emerge (as forms of matter do), but consciousness itself is simply alongside all along, as the interior of whatever form is there (from the moment of creation). Because the surfaces are surfaces of depth, forms are forms of consciousness, and the interior and exterior, as the Buddhists have it, are coemergent from the start, and not something leaping into being somewhere down the road.
Put differently, consciousness is the openness (or Emptiness) of the holonís regime ñ an openness itself that is not an emergent quality, but what allows qulities to emerge (as the various regimes and worldspaces).
-- Wilber, Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality, Revised Ed., 2000. p. 575-76.
I want to emphasize that forms of consciousness do emerge, just like forms of matter, but consciousness, or interiority, is present from the start, as we have seen that all holons, and thus all forms of manifest existence, enact/ co-enact worldspaces, or ìpoints-of-view.î
Returning, then, to your original query:
But if you did then I would like to propose a test with something like "Ghost".
Something that is made up would not have an individual-objective right? Such as the concept/word of ghost. It certainly is a thought, and features in most cultures... but the science related to ghosts are tenious and it would be hard to argue that it can be described by the hard-sciences. UNLESS, me thinking about ghost or someone making a horror flick with a ghost theme creates the action potential along the axon and the technology behind the movie projector is included in the individual-objective quadrant. But that would be really stretching it.
On the other hand, anything (specific) that physically exist but is yet unknown or yet un-imagined would not have a subjective aspect - at least to human beings.
ìGhostsî likely do not exist and cannot be identified via current conventional scientific practices (hypothesis-testing, hypothetico-deductive reasoning) and instruments, but the idea of ìghostî does exist (and, research tell us, they emerge from magical/ mythic modes of cognition). ìGhostî is a concept, and a concept is a holon that exists in a conceptual space. This is how the ìghostî concept manifests in the four quadrants (these examples are by no means exhaustive):
Collective-subjective [LL]:
Cultural beliefs (which, again, stem from magical/ mythic cognition and linger), or the shared cultural worldspace. Also, the word ìghostî itself, as language requires mutual interpretation of shared meaning, which is a part of that shared worldspace.
Collective-objective [LR]:
Socio-economic systems which use the notion of ghost to create fear/ excitement/ education and generate financial gain: movies, books, psychics, exorcists, debunkers, etc.
Individual-objective [UR]:
The firing of neurons, secretion of hormones, and the general processing which occurs when a complex neocortex is present.
Individual-subjective: [UL]:
The ìpoint-of-viewî of the holon itself, which determines what it will register, recognize, or respond to. The concept of ìghostî exists in a conceptual worldspace and interacts with other concepts, like ìgods,î ìdeath,î ìancestors,î and ìnon-existence,î to name a very few. The concept of ìghostî cannot get hit by a car (though the concept of a ghost getting hit by a car can exist), nor can it feel hungry (though the concept of a ghost feeling hungry can exist). These stimuli do not disclose themselves to it, and from its point of view, they donít exist.
I hope now that it is clear how any holon manifests in the UL quadrant and enacts/ co-enacts its own worldspace, or ìhas a point of view.î
Thus ends the appetizer. If you wish to discuss this any further, I would be more than glad to do so. Onto the main course Ö.