Hi Sid - A couple of quick points, (on your previous 2 posts)

 

Firstly, AQAL and the Integral method is a framework and map of inclusion. So when KW says that systems theory is located in the LR quadrant of the map he means, rightly defined systems theory is located in the LR quadrant which looks at organizational structure from a collective, 3^rd person, exterior perspective of holons. If incorrectly defined a researcher or school of thought may indeed let all phenomena fall into their particular bucket and you get what Ken is struggling against, reductionism and flatland. Which is defining all kinds of stuff, or reducing the intrinsic worth of things by a false or incomplete analysis. When you try to rightly define systems theory into narrow and broad, or hard and soft perspectives you are using the Integral methodology as it should be used. Differentiating between what is an exterior measureable perspective, and what is an interior interpretive perspective, etc.

 

Secondly, You are exactly right when you refer to the ‘class of holons’. Ken is quite clear that he means the family of holons, if destroyed, destroy’s all the holons above it. You refer to ‘class of holons’, and Ken refers to ‘type of holon’, where class and type both relate to the entire family. He says, “If we destroyed, for example, all the molecules in the universe, we would also destroy all of the cells in the universe, but atoms …would still exist…” (Wilber, SES @ tenet 9)

 

You are also right in differentiating between, random parts as piles and a holon as a cohesive phenomena. Ken also does this in referring to these random piles as ‘heaps’. I’ll get back to you on that clarification because it is tricky. We have holons, phenomena, artifacts, heaps, and things, all of which has their own particular nuance. If anyone reading this can help clarify these points on heaps, etc, it would be helpful.

 

We could also use some clarification on what Ken means by pre-givens and whether holons are part of an origin structure of pre-givens. Ken discusses this, I believe, in his discussion on Post-Metaphysics in Integral Spirituality.

 

Jim

 

ps I've given away my copies of BHOE so I am using SES as my reference, until I get another copy.

btw a good quick definition of holarchy and in part, holons, is by Elisabet Sahtouris in an audio clip at Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabet_Sahtouris - scroll to bottom of page and click on Podcast interview with Elisabet Sahtouris October 2007 under external links.

Jim, thanks this is interesting

Ken's SES version of tenet 9 in SES differs from the version given in  Brief History of Everything -- I agree with the SES version

The list of phenomena that you give (holons, artifacts, heaps, things) is very helpful, but as you say we need some help in clarifying Ken's use of these terms as well as Ken's 'pre-givens'

I'm looking forward to the arrival of my copy of SES ....

Will continue with my comments on some of the other tenets later today

Sid

 

… continued …

Tenet 3 Holons emerge

Tenet 4 Holons emerge holarchically

Tenet 5 Each emergent holon transcends but includes its predecessors

These 3 tenets relating to the emergence of holons is much the same as the idea of the emergence of systems. The only difference is that instead of using the word ‘holarchy’ systems thinking normally uses the word ‘hierarchy’,  but it carries the same meaning that Ken gives to ‘holarchy’, i.e., it’s not the same meaning found, for example, in the usual discourse of organizations. I actually prefer ‘holarchy’ because it avoids the possibility of confusing the systems meaning of hierarchy with the meaning found in organizational discourse

It might be worth quoting extensively from Checkland (STSP) on emergence and hierarchy.  

It is the concept of organized complexity which became the subject matter of the new discipline ‘systems’and the general model of organized complexity is that there exists a hierarchy of levels of organization, each more complex than the one below, a level being characterized by emergent properties which do not exist at the lower level. Indeed more than the fact that they ‘do not exist’ at the lower level, emergent properties are meaningless in the language appropriate at the lower level….

Hierarchy theory is concerned with the fundamental differences between one level of complexity and another. The ultimate aim must be to provide both an account of the relationships between different levels and an account of how observed hierarchies come to be formed: what generates the levels, what separates them, what links them? … [it is] built upon the fact that emergent properties associated with a set of [interconnected] elements at one level in a hierarchy are associated with what we may look upon as constraints upon the degree of freedom of the elements

Regarding the constraints, Ken seems to be saying much the same in tenet 6, which I’ll discuss next time.

Till then …

Sid

continued ...

Tenet 6

Systems exist within systems and also include systems. In this hierarchy of systems the starting place is the system-in-focus. Systems which are included within this Systems within this hierarchy are referred  to as: (a) the system (in focus); (b) those systems which the system-in-focus includes are the sub-systems; and (c) the system of which the system in focus is an element is the supra-system. 

In systems language the supra-system constrains – it is the environment of – the system in focus. Ken’s language is less precise: the higher sets the probabilities of the lower. I personally find the language of  probabilities a bit confusing. Ken clearly is not talking about mathematical probability, so what does it really mean. (If someone could give me an example it would help).

The idea of the lower (sub-systems) setting the possibilities of the higher is clearer. Atoms of hydrogen can only be combined with atoms of oxygen in a limited number of ways. These limited and specific numbers of ways constitute the range of possibilities of these combinations, or relationships between the different classes of atoms.

I find the language of Tenet 7 very confusing. It seems that here Ken is using the word holarchy to describe a thing; a thing that has the characteristics of shallowness, depth and span. It is, in my view, better to understand holarchy as a characteristic of systems, ie, it is simply a word which means that systems exist within systems. In that case the depth of a specific system is the amount of levels of sub-, sub-sub-, etc. systems contained within that system. The width of a system is the number of sub-systems (at one level down) contained in the system.

If we adopt this framework we can more precisely talk about the depth of the holarchy (or, hierarchy) of a specific system.

Sid

A quick note on holarchies/hierarchies.

Peter Checkland in Systems Thinking, Systems Practice defines hierachy as follows:
The principle according to which entities meaningfully treatred as wholes are built up of smaller entities which are themselves wholes ...and so on.

I think that this would serve as a useful definition of holarchy

Sid

At last my copy of SES has arrived and a quick reading of chapter 1 "The Web of Life" confirms my assessment (see the first posting in this discussion series) that Ken's view of systems theories is circumscribed by what is familiar to US readers on the matter.

A summary of his main sources are General Systems Theory (Bertalannfy & Weiss), cybernetics (Weiner), autopoetic system theory (Maturana & Varella), dynamic systems theory (Shaw, Abraham). These are have all come to be known by the British and European systems community as  'hard systems thinking',  and I agree with Ken that they belong to the LR quadrant.

However, there are two other major schools  systems thinking known as 'soft' and 'critical' systems thinking, that the systems community in the US seems to largely ignore or be ignoratn of. These are more appropriately located in the LL quadrant. Therefore Ken's critique of systems thinking is inappropriate if these schools are taken into consideration.

Once I've read and absorbed the rest of Ken's understanding of holons as set out in SES, I'll revisit my comments on holons as these were based on Ken's summaries in some of his other books.

Since Ken is such a stimulating thinker, I'm looking forward to reading SES: in particular to get to grips with Ken's understanding of 'holons'.

Sid  Luckett 

In his chapter "The Pattern that Connects", Ken puts forward some ideas regarding holons that require close scrutiny. The first two of these are:

a) Before an atom is an atom, it is a holon. Before a cell is a cell it is a holon. Before an idea is an idea it is a holon

b) Reality is not composed of things or processes it is composed of holons ... clearly some things exist and some processes exist, but they are each and all holons. Therefore we can examine what holons have in common ... 

I'll be offering a critique of these ideas in the next few postings

Sid Luckett

The first of Ken's propositions that I want to examine is: Before an idea is an idea it is a holon.

This is a logically problematic claim, precisely because a holon is an idea.

Therefore combining these two propositions: 
(i) before an idea is an idea it is a holon, and
(ii) a holon is an idea

We are lead to conclude:
(iii) before a holon is a holon it is a holon.

This is circular reasoning and the problem wit circular reasoning is that it is essentially meaningless. The only way out of this circularity is to claim that a holon is not an idea at all ... it is something beyond an idea. Once we make that claim we are in the realm of pure metaphysics, which I don't think Ken wants to assert about holons.

Critique of the next of the two statements about holons involves a more complex argument and is the subject of a separate discussion forum on Science, Order and the Kosmos

Sid Luckett

hi sid and jim,

i'd like to quickly jump in again. sid, what strikes me about your posts is the critical attitude you're taking to SES, as if you're afraid you might unwittingly accept something that's less than the truth. well, as wilber himself has said, none of it is TRUE, so why not relax and enjoy the partial truths, partial falsehoods he has to offer us?

yes! a holon is an idea, and an idea is a holon, but they are obviously not the same thing, as would follow from form op. my understanding is that ideas are to be associated with the LQs and not the RQs, whereas holons include both. so an idea, strictly speaking, is not a holon, but there's so much to be gained by looking at it as if it were a holon, why not do so, keeping in mind it's not a genuine holon, which is just a construct of our finite minds, anyway?

---

Hi Ralph,

Sorry that it seems that I'm being defensive. I probaly haven't communicated my critique of Ken's ideas of holons very well.

Your point really raises the issue of the kind of discourse that we're engaged in. You seem to be advocating a popular magazine style versus a rigorous academic discourse, which I take Ken to be engaged in (in SES) 

Within an academic discourse  it would be quite sloppy to say that an 'idea is a holon'. Are all  ideas holons? If so what meaning can we attach to the specific idea of a 'holon'? If all ideas are holons then the idea of holon is an empty concept. What is a 'genuine holon' as opposed to a 'holon'? Let's assume that there is such a thing as a 'genuine holon'. One would have to define that characteristics of a 'genuine holon' to enable speech about such a thing. Otherwise it's something hidden in your matchbox to which others would have no access.

I have now read quite a bit of SES, which sets out a very rigorous academic argument for holons and the applications of the concept of holon. Quite unlike the discourse of 'A Brief History' and undersatndably so. The latter, it seems, is an attempt to popularize the idea of holons and because it is written in a popular (magazine style) discourse it inevitably has to treat ideas pretty loosely.

I hope that by next week I'll be in a position to comment on holons based on my understanding of SES.

My provisional assessment is that the idea of a holon is very similar to the idea of a system -- and therefore Ken's critique of systems is difficult to understand.    

  

Ralph, another way into the discourses is to make the difference between 'discursive logic' (analytical/deductive) and 'metaphorical' (pictorial/inductive). In order to avoid confusion one has to be clear about the discourse one is involved in. My comments are using 'discursive logic'.

hi sidney,

i agree, it's important that we keep distinctions like that between discursive logic and metaphor in mind. obviously, when we talk about ideas as if they were holons, we're venturing out on the more metaphorical end of that pole.

we can go in the other, more technical direction as well, which wilber has shown he can do as well, the disadvantage being, imo, that we then lose the 50,000 ft. high view. in this case, for example, we could point out that ideas are artefacts made by holons at a prescribed level of human development, and then carefully dilineate the holon-like qualities that ideas thereby inherit. while this might be a worthwhile task for some expert in the field of holon theory, say, for the rest of us, i believe, it would probably be a waste of our valuable time, even though we would be interested in whatever conclusions of value the expert might come to.

---

Ralph, yep I agree that we are venturing into metaphor when we talk about ideas as if they were holons. Where I disagree with you is that the metaphorical mode gives a better (50000 ft) vantage point. In my view, the two modes are simply different discourses with different strengths and weaknesses.

As I pointed out above, I'm fully aware that Ken can do the 'technical' thing (which he does very well in SES and in Integral Psychology, for example). It is this ability of his that attracts me to his works. But this doesn't mean that he can't be wrong! And, I think that he is wrong in the comparison that he makes between holons and systems.  

My endeavor here, through this discussion, is to encourage debate, in the discoursive reasoning mode, about Ken's idea of holons. If, at this point of time, you regard this mode of discussion to be a waste of your time, that's your decision and one which I respect. Clearly the 'technical' mode is not for everybody. Obviously you're welcome to observe the process and take note of whatever transpires.

Finally, I do want to say that I've welcomed your contributions thus far .. they have given me food for thought (a metaphor) ... in the discursive mode!

Sidney:

Regarding the relationship of ideas to holons and how this relates to systems:

it would seem to me that any given idea would fit more or less felicitously in one holon, and yet, to varying degrees it would also touch other holons.

it would seem to me that it is meaningless to talk of the substance of a holon until the holon has been inhabited by an idea.

it would seem to me that a collection of ideas inhabiting one or more holons matures into a system, but the system can only meaningfully be recognized when the ideas are married into the holons.

and it would seem to me that holons alone are a priori structures the totality of which make up the universe.

How about this metaphor: holons in their entirety are the Universal Operating System representing pure Potential application. Ideas combined make up systems which are the software that is loaded and resides in various caches (individual holons) when applications are running.

Your thoughts?

hi sidney and schalk,

i forgot to mention previously that susanne cook-greuter goes into some of the more technical aspects of holons in her aqal, vol.1, issue 3 article on aq as a scanning and mapping device. the question of the relation of ideas to holons easily fits in here.

---