Developing a Context Emerging Thoughts by Bob Debold
Developing a Context The concept of "holon" was introduced by Arthur Koestler to refer to an entity that is itself a whole and simultaneously a part of some other whole. It is a combination between the Greek word 'holos' meaning whole and the word 'hierarchy'. It is a hierarchically organized structure of units or entities that are called holons. If one looks at things and processes that actually exist, it becomes obvious that they are not merely wholes, rather they are parts of something else. It just might be that everything is a whole/part—a holon. Each holon could be regarded as either a whole or as a part depending on how one looks at it. A Holon will look as a whole to those parts beneath it in the hierarchy, but it will look as a part to the wholes above it. So, a holarchy is then a whole that is also a structure of parts that are in themselves wholes.
In any developmental or growth sequence, as a more encompassing stage or holon emerges, it includes the capacities and patterns and functions of the previous stage (i.e., of the previous holons), and then adds its own unique (and more encompassing) capacities. This process can be described as unfolding-enfolding. In that sense, and that sense only, can the new and more encompassing holon be said to be of greater level or higher in the hierarchy. Whatever the value of the previous stage, the new stage has all of that plus something extra (more integrative capacity, for example), and that "something extra" means "extra value" relative to the previous (and less encompassing) stage. This crucial definition of a "higher stage" was first introduced in the West by Aristotle and in the East by Shankara and Lieh-Tzu.
Holonic organization has inherent stability of long term structure. The holonic structure enables the construction of very complex systems that are efficient in the use of resources, highly resilient to disturbances (both internal and external), and adaptable to changes in the environment in which they exist. All these characteristics can be observed in biological and social systems. The stability of holons and holarchies stems from holons being self-reliant units, which have a degree of independence and handle circumstances and problems on their particular level of existence without asking higher level holons for assistance. Holons can also receive instruction from and, to a certain extent, be controlled by higher level holons. The self-reliant characteristic ensures that holons are stable and able to survive disturbances. The subordination to higher level holons ensures the effective operation of the larger whole.
A MetapatternEven our own humanness cannot escape this structure. No man is an island- he is a holon. A Janus-faced entity who, looking inward, sees himself as a self-contained unique whole, looking outward as a dependent part. His self-assertive tendency is the dynamic manifestation of his unique wholeness, his autonomy and independence as a holon. Its equally universal antagonist, the integrative tendency, expresses his dependence on the larger whole to which he belongs: his 'part-ness'. Arthur Koestler[AKoes]
The idea of a holarchy is constitutive of the metapattern of evolution.
Concentric circles can be a universal metaphor for the unfolding-enfolding of a holarchy.
The process of evolution may be described as differentiation of structure and integration of function. The more differentiated and specialized the parts, the more elaborate co-ordination is needed to create a well-balanced whole. The ultimate criterion of the value of a functional whole is the degree of its internal harmony or integratedness, whether the "functional whole" is a biological species or a civilization or an individual. A whole is defined by the pattern of relations between its parts, not by the sum of its parts; and a civilization is not defined by the sum of its science, technology, art and social organization, but by the total pattern which they form, and the degree of harmonious integration in that pattern.
Some ExamplesAn initial set of examples can be found at:
Thoughts to Ponder
- Self OrganizationSt. Thomas Aquinas was probably the most influential Christian thinker of the pre-Rennaisance era. He constructed logical proofs of the existence of God. One of these proofs referred to God as the ultimate organizer or designer. The argument was that everything had to be organized and this called for an organizer. In turn, the organizer had to be organized and so on back the original organizer who had to have existed from eternity: this was God. If something is organized we tend to feel that an outside influence must have organized it at some time. The prevailing thinking at the time of Aquinas was one that perceived God as "not letting go" of his creations.
Nevertheless human thought was progressing relentlessly and with the ensuing theories of evolutional decent taking root, [Charles Darwin (1868)] and the ecclesiastical stranglehold on western culture diminishing, a major social metafluctuation took place. The result was the fostering of confusing paradoxes and marked the development of the beginning of secular totalitarianism. The ensuing secularism has consumed Western philosophy and religion for over 100 years. The Urantia Book speaks directly to this "problem".[ub1] Even though western thought was racing ahead with tremendous new inventions and concepts, the prospect of an open and interconnected universe was barely a cloud on the horizon. We were understanding the material basis of the Cosmos but no longer the Kosmos as a whole.
A century had to pass before the the flatland of the industrial-rational ideology was to be questioned. The relatively short period of time between the middle of the 1960’s and the beginning of the 1970’s, was a time when the now ingrained "traditional" social, political and spiritual structures became questioned as never before, and occupy a position in history (western history) much like the Darwinian metafluctuation 100 years earlier.
What was being reshaped or recoded, was a profound concern for self-determination and self-organization, for openness and plasticity of structures and for their freedom to evolve on their own. Even though the in-place structures resisted and persisted, mental and spiritual structures changed; the world was no longer the same.
The look from space at the blue and white orb (remember the Whole Earth Catalog) floating in space seemingly by itself, gave this metafluctuation a major push. The rising consciousness of an indivisible unity with nature- even our existence as an integral aspect of nature- was much unlike the Darwinian view of "blind" and random selection. The new thinking was that the esoteric notion of a living ecosystem was an immensely practical notion. Shortly thereafter the Gaia hypothesis took the scene front and center. We were beginning, albeit in a very small way, to integrate the big picture with the commonality of man. The western view of reality was beginning to change.
Science began realizing that the scope of space and time had opened to immense proportions- both micro- and macroscopically. The British Nobel laureate P.A.M. Dirac, stipulated a correlation between these cosmos by numbers of the order of 1040. In this tremendously extended time-space continuum, interconnections and patterns emerged which appear with great frequency and gave for the first time a scientific basis to the idea that evolution is open and interconnected at many irreducible levels.
The one-sided application of Darwinian principle of natural selection as being "blind" produced all kinds of nonsense, especially in a secular world. In came the idea of a self-organizing system.
However, the concept of a self-organizing system has changed over time. In the early days it was defined as a system which changes its basic structure as a function of its experience and environment. The term appears to have been used first by Farley and Clark of Lincoln Laboratory in l954 in their paper in the Transactions of the Institute of Radio Engineers, Professional Group on Information Theory. (Marshall C. Yovits, 1962, Preface) However, it is important to note that an organism does not organize itself independent of its environment. Von Foerster persuasively argued that only organisms and their environments taken together organize themselves. (Von Foerster, 1960). Ashby redefined a self-organizing system to be not an organism that changes its structure as a function of its experience and environment but rather the system consisting of the organism and environment taken together. (Ashby, 1960)
The concept of a self-organizing system is important because it now seems that biological, sociobiological, and sociocultural systems are evolutional and are linked by homologous principles (i.e., principles of common origin). We seem to be all connected by a multilevel reality, where man is not "higher" than other organisms, rather that we live simultaneously at more levels than life forms that appeared earlier in evolution.
What this new paradigm related to evolution has caused, is a belief that man is dynamically connected with an unfolding universe (both micro- and macro). In a world which is creating itself, these self organizing dynamics are being identified with mind—the Divine mind. God can be seen not only as a creator, but as the Mind of the universe, and this Mind occurs at many levels of self-organization
Koestler, Arthur, Insight and Outlook London, 1949 (return)
This document under construction, send comments to: Bob Debold, (6/97)