PARTE III DE LA PARTE II DE LA PARTE I | |

PARTE II

LA ENTREVISTA CONTINÚA: EL MEME VERDE

Shambhala: La autorización, recojamos la entrevista otra vez en esa punta. Varias cosas están paradas hacia fuera. Verde es ambos el nivel más alto de la primera grada, y la barrera a la segunda grada.

Kilovatio: Sí, eso correcto; sirve muchos papeles. En la cara positiva -- y ésta está muy, muy positivo -- las ayudas del verde la primera grada en una persona se convierten en más sensibles y el cuidar. Póngase verde, como " el uno mismo sensible, " prepara el salto a la segunda grada haciendo el sentido sensible y más compasivo, y lo alista así para las responsabilidades intensas y globales de la segunda grada.

Por ejemplo, tome la noción de la jerarquía. Todos los primeros memes de la grada tienen cierta clase de jerarquías. Las jerarquías rojas se basan en potencia sin procesar y son muy brutales (estos imperios feudales de tribal/ethnic son los opresores peores de la historia, como decíamos anterior, y todos los atrocities modernos supuestos, de Hitler a Stalin, eran realmente regresiones sobre todo a las barbaridades rojas-meme y al sentido tribal ampliado). Las jerarquías azules se basan en la tradición, papeles heredados, sistemas de la casta, etcétera. Las jerarquías anaranjadas son meritocracies, basados en talento e iniciativa individuales.

A un cierto grado, todas estas jerarquías son necesarias de sus propias maneras, en sus propias épocas. Pero por supuesto las jerarquías pueden estar, y están a menudo, abusado. El verde viene tan adentro y pregunta todas las jerarquías -- en hecho, intenta derribar, deshace, deconstruct todas las jerarquías. **time-out** ahora en alguno manera éste ser equivocado, por supuesto, porque verde -- ser uno primero-grada meme -- pensar que su manera ser único correcto manera, y así él no ver que jerarquía ser uno importante ingrediente en otro memes y así que él intentar para destruir o deconstruct cualquier meme que discrepar con él.

Pero las buenas noticias son que, llegando a ser extremadamente sensibles a las jerarquías y a los abusos pueden causar, verde preparan la manera para el salto a la segunda grada. Porque conjetura qué? Con la segunda grada, las jerarquías están detrás. En la segunda grada, la realidad se entiende para ser una serie de jerarquías jerarquizadas (llamo estos " holarchies " integrado por " holons, " y la cuba de tintura y Cowan ellos mismos refieren a la turquesa como holons " el entender "). Póngase verde, haciéndole sensible a los abusos potenciales de jerarquías, le prepara tan para poder manejar jerarquías de la segundo-grada en una manera sensible y que cuida. Porque comienza en la segunda grada, la realidad se entiende para ser holarchical , y así usted tenía mejor ser sensible y que cuidaba bastante para manejar estas realidades jerárquicas con la compasión.

Shambhala: Pero póngase verde, en y por sí mismo, rechaza la segundo-grada y la lucha realmente.

Kilovatio: Sí, eso correcto. El verde odia cualquier cosa segunda grada. (solamente todos los memes de la primero-grada tienen aversión el resto de los memes, así que éste es nada nuevo con verde). Amarillee, por ejemplo, honra y abraza jerarquías jerarquizadas, valores alineados, sistemas de flujo universales, e individualismo fuerte. El verde mira todos esos términos -- universales, graduación, jerarquías, individualismo -- y grita " la opresión! dominación! marginalization! elitism! arrogancia! " etcétera.

En hecho, hay una regla simple sobre esto: siempre que el verde mire amarillo, piensa que está considerando rojo. El verde considera todo amarillo como siendo rojo, malo, y arrogante, y reacciona violentamente a ése. Por supuesto, el verde no puede realmente ayudar a esto; **time-out** puesto que él literal poder no ver amarillo, él poder solamente interpretar amarillo acción en término que él saber, y así que amarillo aparecer para ser ese horrible rojo meme, y verde oscilación en acción para intentar para destruir o deconstruct amarillo dondequiera que él encontrar él.

Shambhala: La autorización, así que ésta está comenzando a tener más sentido. Cuando los críticos verdes leen secciones amarillas en SES, le acusan de ser rojos -- egocéntrico, arrogante, antispiritual, de la dominación, opresivo, controlando, etc.

Kilovatio: Sí, eso correcto, pero otra vez, éste no significa que soy puro y inocente de todo el eso. Él medios justos que hay muchos worldviews de la segundo-grada (y tercero-grada) presentó en SES, y la voluntad verde-meme en cualquier mirada del acontecimiento en ésos y no ve nada solamente el meme rojo.

Shambhala: Mientras que la gente de la segundo-grada que leyó el libro lo amó.

Kilovatio: Bien, no es absolutamente que simple, tampoco, porque alguna gente de la segundo-grada leyó el libro y tenía un montón de desacuerdos teóricos con mí. Pero no fueron encolerizados por los endnotes, ellos no fueron balísticos. Como pone la cuba de tintura dice, sólo el verde sería encolerizado por el polemic. El amarillo no conseguiría determinado una forma trastornada o la otra. Lo leería y diría, " Hmm, interesando. Ahora déjeme ven si convengo o no " en hecho, los muchos del correo a partir de la segunda grada dicha, " amó los endnotes. "

Shambhala: Tan en ese sentido, los endnotes actuaban como tipo de contador de Geiger para el meme verde.

Kilovatio: Pienso así pues, sí.

Shambhala: Es tan básicamente el caso que casi toda su crítica realmente hostil ha venido del meme verde?

Kilovatio: Sí, eso correcto. Pero no estoy diciendo que si usted discrepa con el libro, usted es verde. Estoy diciendo que si usted es verde, usted discrepará con el libro, a menudo en una manera enojada o vitriolic. Y no hay nada que usted puede hacer en estos casos. **time-out** ninguno cantidad objetivo evidencia convencer verde de que amarillo y turquesa worldviews tener cualquier verdad, porque en orden para verde para validar ése, él tener que experimentar uno vertical transformación sentido -- verde sí mismo tener que desarrollar en amarillo y turquesa espacio, y ése probable no suceder por simple leer uno segundo-grada libro, tan en lugar de otro verde azotar hacia fuera en uno segundo-grada libro. Esta es la razón por la cual tener " un diálogo " sobre esto con verde no es muy provechoso, aunque no lo desalentaría ciertamente.

Pero recuerde por favor, la punta es eventual alcanzar hacia fuera al verde e intentar traerlo adelante, o de todos modos tome como postura cómoda e inclusiva como posible e intégrela en un más compasivo abrazan -- pero esto no puede suceder mientras el verde se está llamando turquesa, y por lo tanto esta diferenciación es necesaria antes de que la integración pueda proceder. Los endnotes iniciaron la diferenciación.

Shambhala: Pienso que muchos programas de lectura entendían que esta diferenciación era parte de una integración más grande, en última instancia más inclusivo. La personalización de Charles es probablemente el mundo respetado y admiró a filósofo vivo. Él escribe que " he apreciado enormemente el trabajo de Wilber. Él ha manejado integrar así que muchas cosas, y guardar sus horizontes se abren, donde la mayoría de nuestra cultura guarda el cerrar de ellos abajo. Es trabajo magnífico. "

Kilovatio: Bien, espero ciertamente que es el caso. Pero la punta no es de hecho excluir verde o ninguna onda de la primero-grada, sino distinguirlos e integrar algo. SES hace claramente ambos, como la personalización ve, pero el verde no tendrá ninguno de él, yo está asustado.

Shambhala: Es esto porqué tan muchos críticos han falsificado su posición? Como usted precisa en su resumen de la dinámica espiral, alrededor 20-25% de la población americana es verde, y solamente 2% es segunda grada. Los críticos verdes-meme excederían en número tan enorme la segundo-grada, la derecha?

Kilovatio: La derecha. Pero otra vez, eso no significa que si usted discrepa con mí usted es simplemente primera grada.

Shambhala: Sí, pero él significa que si usted es verde usted discrepará definitivamente, y los críticos del verde exceden en número amarillo por diez a uno.

Kilovatio: Verdad.

Shambhala: Y puesto que el verde no puede considerar literalmente amarillo o la turquesa, torcería y falsificaría necesariamente lo que vio. Cuando los editores de las visiones emparentadas próximas -- Ken Wilber y otros pensadores integrales que conducían hizo una lista de todo el haber publicado y las críticas fijadas de su trabajo, le encontraron que 85% de ellos le criticó para las cosas dijeron nunca realmente. Es decir 85% de las revisiones falsificó su trabajo. Ésta es distorsión en gran parte verde-meme, sí?

Kilovatio: Pienso que es una parte grande de él, sí. Pero una buena parte de ella es también que allí simplemente tanto está escrito el material que es duro para cualquiera, primero o la segunda grada, agarrarla toda exactamente. Realmente no culpo a los críticos aquí. Usted tiene que leer por lo menos 6 o 7 libros para comenzar a conseguir el cuadro entero, y peor, pongo a menudo mis opiniones técnico correctas en endnotes muy largos, obscuros. Ninguna gente de la maravilla tiene un rato duro que calcula fuera de las puntas más finas.

Shambhala: Verdad, pero en gran medida el bulto de su crítica está claramente del meme verde. Usted está enterado de pone el análisis memetic de la cuba de tintura del libro Ken Wilber en el diálogo , que demanda ser una serie de críticas de su trabajo, pero de muchas maneras está simplemente una dosis grande de ataques verdes contra ideas de la segundo-grada. La cuba de tintura misma concluyó áspero que " este libro es en gran parte una serie de ataques verdes-meme típicos contra la segunda grada. Varias de las presentaciones, incluyendo Wright y Kremer, tienen poca relación a las opiniones reales de Wilber. La sección central tuerce gravemente la postura de Wilber en el ' otro del cuerpo, naturaleza, mujer. Este libro es un modelo de cómo tratar a un erudito unfairly. " Usted conviene?

Kilovatio: , solamente él las puntas justas encima de lo que hemos estado hablando. No se gana nada mucho teniendo diversos niveles del ataque del sentido. Hay justo nada ganar aquí.

Shambhala: Cuál es la forma más típica de crítica verde-meme? No apenas de su trabajo, pero en general?

Kilovatio: Toma varias formas. Puesto que la autorización de la verdad para el meme verde es subjectivism y relativism , tenderá para rechazar cualquier cosa que se asemeja a la verdad objetiva, universales, jerarquía, etcétera -- en corto, el verde rechaza no solamente azul y las verdades anaranjadas, rechaza agresivamente verdades de la segundo-grada. Para hacer así pues, utiliza una batería estándar de las herramientas pluralistas del relativism -- deconstruction, la relatividad de todas las demandas de la verdad, la construcción social de todas las realidades, el contextuality de todos los asuntos, ataques contra el marginalization percibido y persecución, etcétera. Una vez más algunas de estas demandas son muy importantes y muy verdad, si es limitado y parcial, y él es solamente cuando demandan ser las únicas verdades en existencia (es decir, cuando las demandas verdes él son el único meme que es realmente verdad), después algunas consecuencias verdaderamente desafortunadas siguen.

Shambhala: Otros sellos de la crítica verde?

Kilovatio: *** TRANSLATION ENDS HERE ***Probably the most famous, and certainly the one that has been commented on the most by critics, is what seems to be a rather pervasive lack of humor. Bless them, but these folks can be so humorless. On the one hand, this is understandable: green sees itself as an important liberator, freeing all the oppressed and marginalized of the world, and so this is SERIOUS business, mister--this is no laughing matter! On the other hand, critics say that it reflects green's self-aggrandizing tendency, which cannot take itself lightly enough to laugh every now and then.

Since there is supposedly no objective truth, then green will often argue on merely subjectivistic grounds--that is, the most common form of green criticism is ad hominen . Whenever you hear ideas attacked because the author of those ideas is supposedly too aggressive, too insensitive, too attacking, too something--with virtually little discussion of the ideas themselves--you are often in the presence of the green meme. Since there is no objective truth, you attack the subject of the writer. That is, you cannot win an argument in green circles by bringing in facts, data, logic, or objective evidence, since "objective truth " is a just cultural construction without reality. Therefore, all you can do to win the argument is aggressively impugn the subject who proposed the ideas you don't like. If you can paint the subject or the author as being a bad person according to implicit green values, then you win.

Shambhala: For example?

KW: For example, if a writer hurts somebody's feelings, or a writer's tone is perceived to be not green-meme enough (not "sensitive " enough according to green's particular values), then green will lash out at the writer for his or her tone. The argument goes like this: "Albert Einstein yelled at his secretary--he's obviously not a very sensitive person--and therefore E does not equal mc2. " Everything he says will be trashed due to a perceived insensitivity, which means, not following green-meme protocol. It's pretty funny, actually, but you have to be a bit careful....

Shambhala: Since you often use humor in your work, have you been attacked for that?

KW: Oh, constantly.

Shambhala: For example?

KW: In an essay defending mysticism, I noted that one of the most common attacks on the reality of mysticism--one of the most common ways to dismiss mysticism entirely--is to simply equate it with schizophrenia. Then I said something like, "Zen Master Hakuin left behind him 83 fully enlightened students, who altogether organized and revitalized Japanese Zen. 83 floridly hallucinating schizophrenics couldn't organize a trip to the toilet, let along Japanese Zen. " I was publicly flogged by a very green theorist who accused me of insulting schizophrenics everywhere. But I took a poll of schizophrenics: 45% of them laughed out loud when they read that, and 55% of them hallucinated that they laughed out loud, but none of them were offended.

Shambhala: I'm laughing out loud, so I wonder if I'm really laughing or merely hallucinating.

KW: Believe me, there's no difference.

Shambhala: Right. As for ad hominen attacks, you were severely criticized by green critics for the tone of the endnotes.

KW: Well, that was expected. That was sort of the whole point--to set off the Geiger counter. But I was surprised at the extent of it. When a critic focused on the tone, every single idea in the book was judged to be wrong because of the tone, period. This is of course how green argues, but it was quite an eye opener, and I botched a lot of my responses until I got used to this.

Shambhala: Knowing that now, would you have toned down the notes so as to get a better hearing?

KW: No, because even the slightest perceived insult or bad tone would be seized on to avoid the conceptual issues in the book. As I said, I felt that, for better or worse, this was the only way I could go with this. Besides, second-tier readers usually loved the tone--it expressed their own exasperation and irritation with the excesses of the green meme--and I was ultimately writing the book for them.

Shambhala: The green meme used to say that you were arrogant. Now we hear that you are too competitive.

KW: Me? Competitive? Competitive ! Five bucks says I'm the least competitive person in the room!

Shambhala: [Laughing] Actually, the most common ad hominen criticism as of late is that you are a very controlling person. You have tried to build a huge and encompassing system because psychologically you want to control everything and everybody.

KW: Yes, I've heard that, but only from critics who have never met me, which suggests to me that these critics are simply projecting their own shadow onto me. Because the people who know me don't say that I am competitive or controlling.

Shambhala: What do they say that you are?

KW: Borderline psychotic.

Shambhala: [Laughing] Okay, you say that just because somebody disagrees with you doesn't mean that they are green meme. So the test question would be, did you get any negative criticism from second-tier readers, criticism that you have acknowledged as being fair and accurate, and criticism that poked some big holes in your arguments?

KW: Oh, definitely, lots of it. I got some very helpful negative but constructive criticism from second tier (virtually all of which has been incorporated into my subsequent books). These criticisms especially helped me work out the ideas on levels and lines (or waves and streams), states and structures, uneven development, the nature of the self, the exact nature and contributions of postmodernism, and so on.

Shambhala: Why haven't we seen those reviews?

KW: Because, as you say, green far outnumbers second tier, and green controls most of the academic press, so most of what you see printed and posted about me is green-meme reactions. Second-tier criticism is out there, you just have to look for it. And much of it, of course, is sent directly to me.

Shambhala: Want to give us any examples?

KW: Sure. I'll give you two very interesting examples, both from Fred Kofman. Fred was Peter Senge's main collaborator at MIT when they developed their business model of the learning organization. He is widely regarded as a genius, but his heart is bigger than his brain, if that's possible.

THE FOUR DRIVES OF ALL HOLONS

KW: Fred's first criticism had to do with the four drives of any holon. In SES, I listed these as agency (horizontal individuation) and communion (horizontal linking), and self-transcendence (vertically moving up) and self-dissolution (vertically moving down). Fred pointed out that the first three drives were, correctly, the healthy version of those drives; but for the fourth drive, I had incorrectly given the pathological version of the descending drive. The healthy downward drive--the drive of the higher to embrace and enfold the lower, which I call agape or compassion, or what might be called self-immanence (the dialectical opposite of self-transcendence)--I actually gave as thanatos , which is not the embrace of the lower by the higher but the dissolution or regression of the higher to the lower. When it came to vertically moving upward, I had correctly given that as Eros or self-transcendence, seeking out higher and wider wholeness. The pathological version of Eros is phobos, which is not the transcendence of the lower but the repression of the lower. But when it came to vertically moving downward, instead of giving the healthy agape--where the higher embraces, enfolds, and "loves " the lower, as a molecule embraces its atoms--I inadvertently gave the pathological thanatos, where the higher merely dissolves into the lower, dies or decomposes (e.g., the molecules dissipate into their constitutive atoms). So the four drives should be agency and communion, and self-transcendence and self-immanence (not self-dissolution).

This is a brilliant criticism, and of the hundreds of thousands of people who went over those ideas, only Fred spotted it. (Incidentally, I still sometimes list the fourth drive as self-dissolution, simply because that is so much easier to understand in an introductory statement. But my actual position should now be clear, thanks to Fred....)

HOLONS, ARTIFACTS, AND HEAPS

KW: Here's another item Fred spotted. This isn't so much an error as an omission, but a huge one, which led to an enormous amount of confusion. The only two entities I discussed in SES were individual holons and social holons. I neglected to discuss two other important entities: artifacts and heaps. I have discussed these entities in other books (e.g., Integral Psychology ), but it was a serious omission in SES.

Briefly: individual holons are holons with a subjective interior (prehension, awareness, consciousness); they have a defining pattern (code, agency, regime) that emerges spontaneously from within (autopoietic); and they have four drives (agency, communion, eros, agape). Examples of individual holons (or compound individuals) include quarks, atoms, molecules, cells, organisms....

Social holons emerge when individual holons commune; they also have a defining pattern (agency or regime), but they do not have a subjective consciousness; instead, they have distributed or intersubjective consciousness. Examples include galaxies, planets, crystals, ecosystems, families, tribes, communities.... Both individual and social are holons, and they both follow the twenty tenets. Actually, individual and social holons are not different entities, but different aspects of all holons, since all holons have an interior and an exterior in singular and plural forms (the four quadrants), but they are indeed different aspects that cannot be merely equated.

Now, artifacts are any products made by an individual or social holon. A bird's nest, an anthill, a automobile, a house, a piece of clothing, an airplane, the internet--these are all artifacts. An artifact's defining pattern does not come from itself, but rather is imposed or imprinted on it by the agency or intelligence of an individual or social holon.

The all-important question when trying to understand artifacts is: what level of consciousness (in a holon) produced the artifact? For example, when we do anthropology and archeology, we are in effect looking at a series of human artifacts--houses, weapons, clothing, written documents--which are all that is left of a previous civilization, and we attempt to deduce the nature, type, and level of consciousness of that civilization by looking at the artifacts that it produced. I did this, for example, in Up from Eden , although I think Jean Gebser is the all-time genius of this particular endeavor.

Anyway, a social holon is a group of individual holons plus artifacts. When we look at individual or social holons, we try to determine their average level of consciousness (or more precisely, their overall psychograph or sociograph, which contain many different levels, lines, and states). But when we look at artifacts, we try to determine level of consciousness that produced the artifact. The artifact itself does not have an interior consciousness, although it is composed of holons that do have consciousness (e.g., a gun does not have consciousness, but it is composed of crystals, molecules, and atoms, all of which are holons with interior prehension [this is explained in greater detail below]). The gun itself was conceived by an individual holon at the level of formal operational cognition (e.g., Samuel Colt), and it was produced by a social holon at the industrial level, which had an average cultural level of egoic-rational, or orange (although the gun itself was mostly used by individuals at lower levels of development--mostly red and blue). Anyway, you can see that tracking individual holons, social holons, and their artifacts is part of an integral approach to understanding cultures and their development.

Shambhala: And a heap?

KW: A heap is just a random pile. A pile of sand, a water puddle, a bunch of dead leaves--these are heaps. They have no interior consciousness, they do not follow the twenty tenets, and they have no enduring, defining pattern. And they are not artifacts, because they are not the product of individual or social agency or intelligence.

Anyway, those are the four basic types of entities in existence. There are a few others, such as byproducts and hybrids, but those are the basic four. In SES I only dealt with individual and social holons, and this confused many people, because artifacts and heaps didn't fit the twenty tenets [see below]. Anyway, Fred Kofman has written a superb essay, based on many hours of discussion with me, called "Holons, Heaps, and Artifacts (and Their Corresponding Hierarchies), " which will soon be posted on Frank Visser's website (www.worldofkenwilber.com).

WHOLE, PART, AND HIERARCHY

Shambhala: This really could cause a lot of confusion.

KW: Yes. Particularly with regard to the notion of "whole " and "part. " Because with each of those four entities--individual holons, social holons, artifacts, and heaps--we find that "whole " and "part " mean something entirely different . And I would say that about 90% of the confusion in the field of systems theory, eco-philosophy, holism, transpersonalism, and attempted "integral " approaches is that they badly confuse all four of these.

Shambhala: Give us a few examples of each.

KW: Okay. Start with individual holons. A "holon, " of course, in the broadest sense , simply means "any whole that is a part of another whole. " In the very loosest sense, then, all four of those entities--individuals, communities, artifacts, and heaps--can be called "holons. " But the word means something entirely different in each case (so much so that I often restrict the word "holon " to just the first two entities, as we will see; but in any event, these very real differences need to be honored.)

With individual holons--for example, atoms to molecules to cells to organisms--each junior holon is a constitutive part or element of its senior holon. A whole atom is literally a part of a whole molecule; a whole molecule is a literal part of a whole cell, and so on. In this case, as Whitehead pointed out, the senior holon subsumes the junior holon, and then the junior holon is to some degree subservient to the senior holon. That is, the regime of the senior holon supervenes the regime of the junior. When an organism, such as a dog, decides to get up and walk over to the tree, all of the atoms in the dog obey--they all move over to the tree. The junior holons retain a certain amount of relative autonomy or agency, but that agency is to some degree subsumed in the agency of the higher holon (what Whitehead called the dominant monad or regnant nexus). Likewise, a hierarchy of individual holons is a nested hierarchy or holarchy where each junior or fundamental holon is a constituent part or element of the more senior or significant holon, and is relatively subsumed by the senior's regnant nexus.

But with social holons, things are quite different. This is particularly where many holistic theorists and ecophilosophers get confused, I think. First of all, individual holons are not so much parts of social holons as they are members of social holons. If I, as an individual holon, were merely a constitutive part of a social holon, such as United States, then I would be subsumed by the State. The State would have total control over me, and I should obey the dictates of the State, I should be subsumed by the State, since I am nothing but a mere part of the larger whole, the State. But if I am instead a member of the State, then I retain certain rights that the State cannot arbitrarily usurp. I am not a mindless cog in the state machinery, a mere part of the big clock, meant to do nothing other than the "greater whole " of the State commands.

And that's just the start. The State does not have a locus of subjective consciousness; it has, at best, an intersubjective matrix of consciousness. And most important, the State or social holon does not transcend and include individual holons (that would make the individual holon a constituent part of the social holon, whereas it is actually a member of the social holon); rather, each successive level of social holons transcends and includes the previous levels of social holons . For example, the laws of orange civilizations, such as the Western Enlightenment, rest upon--or transcend and include--the legal foundations of the previous, blue civilizations, such as Roman Law. So "transcend and include " is still always the case for holons, but "transcend and include " means something quite different in individual and social holons--and it especially means that social holons do not transcend and include individual holons: social holons transcend and include social holons, and individual holons transcend and include individual holons, and confusing those two produces various disasters.

The ecotheorists almost always miss these elemental distinctions. They thus create holarchies that badly mix categories. For example, here is a typical eco-holarchy: atoms are parts of molecules, which are parts of cells, which are parts of organisms, which are parts of ecosystems, which are parts of the biosphere, which is part of the universe. But that hierarchy horribly confuses individual and social holons, and thus it makes individual holons subservient parts of social holons, instead of correlative members of social holons, and thus it ends up extremely reductionistic and totalitarian, privileging the biosphere as the regnant nexus or dominant monad, which is a very twisted ontology. The word "eco-fascist " is often applied to this unhappy result (although "eco-communist " is a bit closer, but both forms of totalitarianism rest on a confusion of individual and social holons.)

This does not mean that the biosphere is not important or that it has no rights--as a fundamental social holon it is extremely important and it definitely has rights, but the rights of social holons are derived, not from the fact that they subordinate their members as being mere parts of the whole, but that they are correlative aspects of all holons and thus are necessary to the wellbeing of holons in general [see below]. But individual holons are associates or members of a social holon, not subservient parts that are reduced to insignificance for the greater glory of the whole. Society at any level (from crystals to ecosystems to the State) is definitely not a bigger organism, a Leviathan, since any organism--as an individual holon--has the right to subordinate its junior holons, whereas in social holons that is only true for tyrannical dictatorships (or pathological hierarchies). Even at lower levels of human development, such as red, where dictatorships are the normal and natural form of governance, when individual and social are equated in an excessive fashion, the dictatorships go from relatively benign to absolutely tyrannical--and all of that pathology comes from equating, or trying to equate, individual and social holons.

Shambhala : Huge difference.

KW : Yes.

Shambhala: So "whole " and "part, " as well as "hierarchy, " mean something very different in individual and social holons.

KW: That's right, and we really need to honor those profound differences. The same three words also mean something quite different for artifacts. Again, in a very general sense, you can say that any given artifact (such as a spoke on a bicycle wheel) is a whole that is part of another whole (the whole wheel), which in turn is part of a yet larger whole (the entire bicycle), and so on. As I said, in the most general sense, you can refer to all four entities--individual holons, social holons, artifacts, and heaps--as "holons, " since they are all whole/parts.

But there is such a huge different between the first two and the last two, I often technically reserve "holon " for the first two, although the context will indicate what is actually meant. Sometimes, for simple introductory statements, I refer to everything that exists as a "holon, " since that is true in the loose sense. Or sometimes I refer to the first two as "sentient holons " and the last two as "insentient holons. " But in any event these important differences should be kept in mind--after all, do you want to be treated like an artifact?

Shambhala: That's how systems theory treats you.

KW: Exactly. So let's return to these important differences. We were discussing the bicycle as an artifact. Neither the spoke nor the wheel nor the bicycle has an actual interior with prehension or consciousness; they are all insentient holons (although they contain sentient holons that do have interiors, such as molecules and atoms). Nor do they have a defining pattern that arose from within; that is, unlike sentient holons (individual or social), the form or pattern of an artifact is not autopoietic, it is allopoetic--it is not self-made, it is other-made, because its form is imposed on it by another. Nor do these artifacts have the four drives of all sentient holons, because their drives are again imprinted on them by the drives and agencies of sentient holons (individual or social). For all these reasons, artifacts are insentient holons, not sentient holons.

Shambhala: Sentient holons are the basic "building blocks " of the Kosmos. It is sentient holons that follow the twenty tenets.

KW: Yes. Sentient holons are the basic building blocks of the Kosmos, if we can put it rather mechanically. More precisely, sentient holons are the fundamental ontological events of existence. That is, atoms, molecules, cells, and organisms (and their interior holonic correlates, prehension to impulse to symbols to concepts....), are the actual occasions upon which all subsequent occasions are built. The entire Kosmos is composed of sentient holons. It contains many insentient holons, of course (artifacts and heaps), but its "bricks " are sentient holons, all the way up, all the way down. Artifacts, although very important to this process, are the products of this process, not the elements of it. You can take away almost any artifact (such as an anthill or an automobile), and the holons that made the artifact can still find ways to survive. But if you take away the junior holons of a senior holon--take away atoms and molecules and cells--and no higher holons can survive at all. That is why I say that reality is fundamentally composed of holons (which is tenet #1). Of course, everything that exists is a holon in the general sense (it is an individual holon, a social holon, an artifact, a heap, or a hybrid), but the fundamental occasions that are the basic building blocks are sentient holons.

Shambhala: So only sentient holons follow the twenty tenets.

KW: Only sentient holons follow all of the twenty tenets, yes.

Shambhala: But artifacts, as you say, can also exist as "parts " and "wholes, " its just that artifacts have no interiors themselves.

KW: Yes, that's right. Once again, the three words "whole, " "part, " and "hierarchy " can apply to individual holons, social holons, artifacts, and heaps--but they mean something very different in each case, and we have to keep these differences in mind or we will commit all sorts of severe category errors, and these errors have grave and unfortunate consequences when pressed into social action and policy.

Shambhala: So we were talking about how artifacts can be wholes and parts, and the related type of hierarchy in this case.

KW: Yes, a whole spoke is part of a whole wheel, which is part of a whole bicycle, and so on. Here "part " means something like a component or piece of the whole. But unlike individual holons (where their junior holons are also a type of component or constituent of the senior), the parts of artifacts are not enfolded from within but assembled from without . Individual holons emerge or come into being with a development that is envelopment (higher holons emerge, via eros, and then reach down and embrace their juniors, via agape--they transcend and include in a rather literal sense, just as molecules transcend and include atoms). But with artifacts, the individual pieces are assembled from without by the intelligence or agency of an individual or social holon (e.g., a bird's nest is often built by one bird--it is the artifact of an individual holon, whereas an anthill is often built by an ant colony--it is an artifact of a social holon).

So "part " in this case means a piece or component of the whole artifact, assembled from without. And the corresponding hierarchy is not a naturally growing hierarchy but an artificial hierarchy, one that is made by assembling parts into increasingly larger artificial systems. The artifactory system or insentient holon "transcends and includes " its parts, not because of its own inherent eros, but because of the eros of the sentient holon that produced it.

Shambhala: Another big difference.

KW: Yes. Neither individual nor social artifacts have interiors, consciousness, or self-imposed agency; their form, pattern, and function is the product of an individual or social holon, imposed from without. Confusing these has truly hideous consequences, because then mere artifacts are put on the same level as conscious beings. Systems theory does this all the time, as you noted. And Fred Kofman, widely regarded as one of the foremost experts on systems theory, has himself pointed this out. Systems theory treats a human being as a mere part of a social system, just like trucks, towns, airplanes, and so on. This confuses both individual and social, AND holons and artifacts. This in effect completely erases consciousness from the calculations of the systems theorists--in other words, as I have long maintained, systems theory pretends to treat "the whole of reality, " but it really just treats the right-hand quadrants, and reduces all interiors to mere parts in an exterior system, a system that does not differentiate between individual holons, social holons, and artifacts. This is the essence of flatland.

Shambhala: That reductionism is so common place. In fact, one is hard pressed to find somebody who doesn't do that!

KW: True, and this is what so alarmed Fred Kofman. Because he had spent so much time at MIT, working with systems theorists like Peter Senge and others, he was well aware that something horrible was going on, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Then he ran across the distinctions between individual holons, social holons, artifacts, and heaps--I write about these in Integral Psychology , for example, drawing on Leibniz, Whitehead, Hartshorne, David Ray Griffin, among others--and Fred immediately noticed that I did not mention any of this in SES. He was thus primed to spot that unfortunate omission.

Shambhala: Let's briefly finish up with heaps.

KW: Heaps, yes--again, you can use the words "whole, " "part, " and "hierarchy " with reference to heaps, but the meanings are almost completely different. A rock, for example, is a heap. There is no enduring or defining pattern to a rock--its particular shape and form is accidental; it is not self-fashioned (like individual or social holons) nor other-fashioned (i.e., its pattern is not intentionally imposed on it by the intelligence of an other, which would make it an artifact). But you can, if you want, point to a section of a rock and say "that part of the rock. " So heaps have what you might call "facets " or "aspects " that are "parts " of the "whole, " but these parts are just mere locations in space, without any significant order or pattern. And the hierarchy ( "the whole rock transcends and includes the parts of the rock ") is likewise an insignificant or largely accidental hierarchy.

Shambhala: But the rock contains sentient holons.

KW: Yes, the rock contains both individual holons, such as quarks, atoms, and molecules, and social holons, such as crystals, all of which have prehension or rudimentary consciousness. But the rock itself has no interior of its own, and thus it has no consciousness of its own.

Here, let me write down a summary of all this [the following is a long summary I wrote, and it can be skipped by those who have little interest in such details, and one can go directly to the beginning of Part III, "The Cultural Creatives and the Integral Culture "].

Individual Holons

Consciousness --Yes; all individual holons are sentient holons; they possess subjective prehension, impulse, feeling, images, symbols, concepts..., as one moves up the great holarchy of increasing care, compassion, and consciousness.

Whole and Part --With individual holons, "part " means a constitutive element or an enfolded ingredient or an organic component of the senior whole. Thus, a whole atom is a part (a constituent) of a whole molecule, a whole molecule is a constituent part of a cell, and so on.

Agency --The agency, pattern, or regime of an individual holon is autopoietic, or self-imposed. Of course, all sentient holons have four quadrants, so any individual holon is molded by its environment, the social system, and its background culture (they do not "co-evolve, " they "tetra-evolve "). But the defining pattern of an individual holon is dynamically and autonomously self-maintained (which is the agency or active identity of the holon). When a junior individual holon becomes a constituent of a senior individual holon, the agency of the junior is subsumed by the senior; that is, the junior maintains a relative autonomy (the molecule is still a molecule), but its activity and function are to some degree determined by the agency of the senior holon (e.g., when a cell moves, all its molecules move with it). As tenet #6 puts it, "The lower sets the possibilities of the higher; the higher sets the probabilities of the lower. "

Hierarchy --Individual holons exist in nested hierarchies or holarchies of other individual holons (e.g., quarks to atoms to molecules to cells to organisms....), where each junior holon is a constituent element or an organic component of the senior holon. This is why tenet #9 is true: "Destroy any type of holon and you will destroy all of the holons above it and none of the holons below it. " Destroy all molecules in the universe, and you will destroy all cells and organisms, but you will not destroy atoms or quarks. This simple rule allows us to establish what is "higher " and "lower " in any hierarchy (this is where green starts to get nervous). This rule applies to all hierarchies in any of the quadrants, since they are all fundamentally composed in part of individual holons.

(Incidentally, this is also where we get the definition of "fundamental " and "significant ": the lower a holon, the more fundamental it is, since it is an ingredient or constituent element of so many other holons [e.g., atoms are parts of molecules and cells and organisms, all of which depend up the more fundamental atom for existence]; but the higher a holon, the more significant it is, since it signifies or contains so many other holons [e.g., a cell contains or actually embraces molecules, atoms, and quarks within its own being, whereas atoms only embrace quarks. Thus, a cell is less fundamental but more significant than an atom; an atom is less significant but more fundamental. One of the great problems with so many eco-theories and "new paradigms " is that they mistake fundamental for significant....])

Size --Generally speaking, individual holons get bigger and bigger, because each senior holon literally enfolds or embraces (transcends and includes) its juniors--thus cells are bigger than molecules which are bigger than atoms. But we need to be careful here, because physical size really only applies to the Right-Hand or exterior aspects of holons. On the interior domains, each senior holon is "bigger " in the sense of more inclusive, more expansive. Thus, a concept is not literally bigger than a symbol, but a concept contains many more referents than does a symbol. Likewise a rule contains many concepts, and formal operational contains many rules. Each interior senior holon transcends and includes its juniors and is thus "bigger " in the sense of being more inclusive and more embracing and more transcendentally expansive.

Thus, with individual holons, each senior holon is "bigger, " either in the physical sense of larger, or in the interior sense of being more inclusive and more expansive. Nowhere is this more clearly seen than in a holon's sense of self-identity, which over the entire course of evolution can expand from egocentric to ethnocentric to worldcentric to theocentric (or pneumocentric or Kosmocentric)--an identity that has expanded from a single isolated entity to an identity with literally everything in the entire Kosmos.

Social Holons

Consciousness --Yes; social holons are sentient holons; but they possess consciousness as intersubjective or distributed; there is no central subject of awareness. Groups have no subjective prehension or single agency, simply because their "parts " are members, not subservient elements. (There is, for example, a "group ego, " but that ego is not a single entity that controls all the members in the group in the same way that my ego controls the voluntary movement of my arms. The group ego--or intersubjective consciousness, or cultural background, or Lower-Left quadrant--exerts its influence in more diffuse and subtle ways, creating a background or intersubjective space in which individual subjects and objects arise, but within which individual subjects are relatively free to move as they like. Put differently, the regnant nexi of individual and social holons are different in degree and in kind.)

Whole and Part --Social holons contain individual holons, artifacts, and heaps, but the individual holons are "parts " of a society, not as constituent elements of the whole, but as members of the whole. That is, for individual holons, "part " means ingredient or constituent element; but for social holons, "part " means member, co-partner, fellow, participant.

The difference is obvious, but to spell it out: constituent elements have their agency subsumed by senior individual holons, but members retain a much larger degree of relative autonomy within the social holon. For example, when I raise my arm, 100% of the cells in my arm move upward. My will, as dominant monad, subsumes and overrides the will of the cells. When I move my arm, no cell can decide not to move with it. But there is no society where 100% of its members do exactly what the leader of the society says. Even in a powerful dictatorship, you can choose to disagree with the regime; you might get shot, but you can disagree. The reason is that social holons do not have a single dominant monad or regnant nexus (because they possess no single subject of consciousness, only an intersubjective distribution), and therefore the leader, ruler, king, president, or governing body has intrinsically limited powers. In fact, we generally condemn societies where one person or one ruling body attempts to dominate and control the society, because what that really means is that the controlling person is trying to treat the social holon as if it were an individual holon ... and the ruler its autocratic dominant monad ( "L'etat, c'est moi "-- "I am the State "--is the archetypal formula for totalitarian oppression, and that oppression comes precisely from treating social holons as if they were individual holons.)

Now that confusion of individual and social holons is quite common with systems theory and most forms of eco-theories. They construct their nested hierarchies by treating individual and social holons as if they were on the same ontological axis, with one being simply bigger than the other, failing to realize the significant ontological divide between them. Thus the typical eco/systems theory holarchy is: an atom is part of a molecule which is part of a cell which is part of an organism which is part of an ecosystem which is part of the biosphere which is part of the universe. Total nightmare.

The first half of that holarchy is of individual holons; the second half is of social holons. "Whole " and "part " mean something very different in both of them (namely, constituent element with its agency largely subsumed by the senior, versus member whose agency is a co-partner with other members in society). To make any individual holon--from a cell to a wolf to an ape to a human--a constituent "part " of a social holon is to make it merely a mindless cog in a machine that robs its of its relative autonomy. It is not only that this would be a morally reprehensible act, it is an ontological impossibility as well (although dictators--political or ecological--never cease trying).

Now social holons, from ecosystems to the State, for example, are indeed sentient holons, and as sentient holons, they have certain rights (all sentient wholes have agency and all agency has natural rights , just as all communions have natural responsibilities , and all sentient holons have both agency and communion, or both rights and responsibilities; see Brief History ). Among other things, the State has the right to curtail the rights of its individual holons or members, if those individual rights so threaten the welfare of other individual holons that it threatens the very existence of the State. And the State, by whatever name, is not a superfluous entity that we would do well without. All sentient holons have four quadrants, and the sociocultural quadrants (LL and LR), which include political dimensions, are unavoidable. What is avoidable is having the State exercise too many rights over individuals, on the one hand, or having individuals exercise so many individual rights that the communions and fabric of society come unraveled. How to draw this delicate line--between State right and individual right--is the ongoing saga of political action. But what we do not want to do, in any case, is confuse individual and social holons and treat them as the same type of entity (one being merely bigger than the other, instead of being different in kind), because that results in fascism (too much State or social agency) or communism (too much social communion), whether that be political fascism or eco-fascism, the latter resulting from treating individual holons as if they were only parts in the web-of-life, instead of members in extensive social holons.

Agency --The agency, regime, pattern, or form of a social holon is also self-generated, self-fashioned, self-imposed, autopoietic (although again, all holons are influenced by all four quadrants). The agency of a social holon is simply the set of guiding patterns to which all individual members subscribe, with this subscription defining membership . (There are, of course, levels of culture and therefore levels of membership. Social membership is defined by following the behavioral patterns of the physical aspects of members of the social system or LR quadrant; cultural membership is defined by sharing the intersubjective level of mutual understanding that defines the particular hermeneutic circle in the LL; for a discussion of this idea, see Fred Kofman's essay, op. cit. In this essay I will treat social and cultural together.)

This membership can be simple, as with a crystal lattice (which is a social holon of individual ions, and all of the ions in the crystal follow the crystal's pattern, although they also retain some degree of relative autonomy), or quite complex, as with the modern State and its multifarious bureaucracies (among other patterns). An individual holon is deemed a member of a social holon when the individual holon follows the basic patterns, agency, or rules that define the social holon. Thus, if an ion breaks away from the crystal lattice and goes its own way, it is no longer a member of the crystal--the only thing that has changed is that the ion is now moving largely under its own discretion and is no longer curtailing some of its autonomy in order to share in the communions of the social holon. Since all holons are agency-in-communion, the ion will sooner or later re-enter some sort of social holon. Likewise, a human being is a member of a particular society as long as she is following the patterns that define that particular whole. If she ceases following the rules or laws, she is "outlawed "--either forcibly removed from the society or put into self-exile. Likewise, I am a member of card game if I follow the rules of the game; if I break the rules, I'm out of the game, or no longer a member of that social holon (see SES).

Thus, we have individual holons that are constituent parts of higher individual holons (e.g., cells that are constituent parts of organisms) and individual holons that are members of social holons (e.g., a prokaryotic cell is a member of the social holon of Gaia)--in both cases, the individual holon curtails some of its freedom or agency in order to participate in the other holons (either the higher individual holon or the wider social holon). But these curtailments of agency in individual holons and in social holons are different in both degree and kind. In degree , because when an individual holon is subsumed by a senior individual holon, its agency unavoidably and in principle is largely subsumed by the senior (not totally subsumed, because all holons retain their own wholeness or a degree of relative autonomy, much as a cell in an organism still has considerable degrees of freedom to "do its own thing. " But the right of the senior holon trumps in all cases the right of the junior holons, and the locus of control shifts inexorably to the senior holon, which is now the dominant monad or regnant nexus). In kind , because individual holons do indeed possess a dominant monad (or a nexus of dominant monads) because they possess a subjective center of consciousness, whereas social holons, because they do not possess a subjective prehension, do not in principle have a dominant monad (except where tyranny is attempted, tyranny in all cases being defined as the equating of social holons with individual holons). This is one of the many reasons that it is a travesty to refer to organisms as if they were mere "parts " of the great web of life, whereas they are rather co-members in that social holon.

Hierarchy --All holons "transcend and include, " which is what establishes natural hierarchy or holarchy, as Whitehead so often pointed out. This is true from the macro scale (e.g., the Great Nest of Being, where spirit transcends and includes soul, which transcends and includes mind, which transcends and includes body, which transcends and includes matter), to the meso scale (e.g., developmental psychologists have found that each stage of development transcends and includes the previous stages), to the micro scale (e.g., Whitehead's notion of prehension means that the subjective whole of one moment becomes an objective part of the next moment's subjective whole-- "the many become one and are increased by one. " In other words, Whitehead's prehension, where the subject of one moment becomes the object of the subject of the next--that is, this present moment transcends and includes the previous moment--is the very microstructure of the fundamentally hierarchical nature of reality--transcend and include. [The green meme, of course, focuses on Whitehead's "dynamical process " terms and ignores his insistence on the hierarchical nature of reality. This is another one of those little self-tests you can use: if you didn't happen to notice that Whitehead's view is hierarchical, then you are probably trying to read him through the green meme.] Incidentally, I have heard critics say that I disagree with Whitehead's process thought--and that my system is "static " (huh?)--simply because I have been critical of what I believe are certain limitations in Whitehead's view. But I have always said that I agree with almost all of Whitehead's basic analysis of prehension, of actual occasions, of the compound individual, of dynamic process, of the intrinsically hierarchical nature of reality, and so on--and I have stated this agreement going all the way back to Up from Eden . But I have criticized Whitehead due to his monological, or at best partial-dialogical stance, pointing out that the fundamental holons of reality are not just in an I-it relationship--or subject-object--but rather are in a four-quadrant relationship--subject, object, intersubjective, interobjective, and the later two cannot be reduced to the former two, which Whitehead does. This quadratic process is much more dialogical and dialectical than Whitehead. See Integral Psychology for extensive discussion of Whitehead, and see endnote 3 in the Intro to CW8, posted on this site, for a discussion between Day Ray Griffin and myself on this topic.)

To return to the main topic. Here is where people often get confused: a social holon does not transcend and include individual holons; rather, a social holon transcends and includes the previous social holons in its own line of development. Thus, an orange culture transcends and includes the fundamentals of a blue culture, which transcends and includes the fundamentals of a red culture, and so on (via what is called "social learning mechanisms "). Likewise, any particular ecosystem does not transcend and include its members, such a worms and rabbits and trees; it transcends and includes the fundamental relationships of the previous ecosystem in that niche (in other words, the interior and the exterior of the individual and the social tetra-evolve . But individual holons are not constituent parts of ecosystems, they are members of ecosystems that "co-evolve "--or more accurately, "tetra-evolve ").

In short, and at all levels, the senior social holon subsumes the junior social holon as a constituent element of its higher structure (but does not subsume its individual holons, since they are members , not elements). This is why Niklas Luhmann, arguably the world's greatest social systems theorist, points out that human beings are not parts of the social system, since partness and membership are different in kind.

Size --This is what really confuses everybody: the higher you go on a holarchy, you find that individual holons get bigger , but social holons get smaller . The reason is simple: since each senior individual holon transcends and includes its juniors, there will always be fewer senior holons than junior holons (e.g., there will always be fewer cells than molecules, fewer molecules than atoms, fewer atoms than quarks. There will always be fewer humans than mammals, fewer mammals than insects, fewer insects than bacteria, fewer bacteria than molecules....). Because there are fewer of the higher holons, then when those higher holons get together to form social holons, those social holons will be smaller (i.e., smaller than the social holons of the junior levels). The fewer holons you have at a convention, the smaller the convention.

Thus, when plentiful atoms get together, the result is galaxies. When atoms evolve into molecules, and molecules get together, the result is planets (which are much smaller than galaxies). When cells evolve out of molecules, and cells get together to form the first living ecosystems, those ecosystems are much smaller than the planet on which they occur. When multicellular organisms evolve out of cells, and they get together to form, say, bands or tribes, those tribes are much smaller than the ecosystems around them. And so on. The individual holons get bigger, the social holons get smaller. (This is tenet #8, "Each successive level of evolution produces greater depth and less span. " The greater depth is more inclusive and more expansive--egocentric to ethnocentric to worldcentric--but the number of holons that actually reach that greater depth becomes less and less.)

Here's the real problem: if you confuse individual holons and social holons, and then you start constructing your holarchies based on bigger size , you actually create holarchies that are regressive and reductionistic, that contain less and less depth! And then you recommend that people regress for their salvation! Oy vey.

For example, we have seen that the typical eco/systems theory hierarchy is: atoms to molecules to cells to organisms to ecosystems to biosphere to cosmos. That hierarchy muddles all four quadrants, confuses individual and social holons, reduces individual holons to mere parts or cogs in a flatland web-of-life, erases interior holarchies altogether, and ends up reducing all holons to "parts " of the physical cosmos. Yikes.

When it comes to individual holons, their depth or interior identities expand and evolve--eventually moving from egocentric to ethnocentric to worldcentric to Kosmocentric--but the number of individuals (the span) who actually reach those higher levels of development becomes fewer and fewer. Thus, by the time we get to humans--who can indeed have an experience of Kosmic consciousness--the number of humans (the span) who consciously and stably reach that deeper or higher level is very small--as we saw, less than 0.5% reach turquoise, which is the first level where there is the beginning of a conscious realization that "I am one with the Kosmos. " Thus, human identity goes from an identity merely with the self or the isolated organism, to an identity with the family, to an identity with the tribe or local community, to the nation, to humans of all nations, to all living beings, to all holons everywhere. That is the holarchy of the interior identity of individual holons . ( "All living beings " does not mean a social holon of all those who realize that high level of identity, it is merely the extent of expansion of the identity of the individual holon.)

Because the number of people who reach those higher stages become fewer and fewer, then when those senior holons gather together, their social holons become smaller and smaller. For example, as we have seen, 40% of the population makes it to blue, 30% makes it to orange, 20% makes it to green, and less than 2% makes it to second tier (and even less to third tier). This is why traditionally, for those who wished to pursue the higher levels of consciousness expansion, individuals gathered together in small circles or sanghas, microcommunities of the like-spirited, where they became members of a greater-depthed social holon, away from the masses (of blue and orange and green), who not only would not understand their pursuits, but would do whatever they could to destroy them, as history has unfortunately born witness all too often.

Is this elitist? God lord, I hope so. But it is an elitism to which all are invited . Everybody has the capacity or the potential to evolve to very highest waves of being and consciousness. "Greater depth, less span " does not mean that there is an inherent limit to the number of people who can develop into the higher realms, because all the higher realms are potentials that are actually present in the human holon. It does mean that, for practical purposes, fewer individuals make it to the higher levels, simply because you have to pass through the lower on the way to the higher, and many individuals settle in at a particular level based on their desires, karmic or otherwise. But that does not mean that you cannot evolve as high as your capacity and intentionality will take you.

The central point is simply that, in constructing one's holarchies, it is important to list individual holons and social holons, not with the latter sitting on top of the former and subsuming it, but with both individual and social holons as correlative aspects of sentient holons at each and every level of development. This, of course, is what the four quadrants do--the top two quadrants are individual, and the bottom two quadrants are the correlative social forms of individuals at each and every stage of evolution.

Artifacts

Consciousness --No; artifacts are insentient holons. Artifacts, as artifacts, possess no interiors and no consciousness, they do not follow the twenty tenets. But they do contain individual holons (e.g., atoms, molecules) and social holons (crystals, polymers) that do contain prehensions or proto-consciousness.

Whole and Part --In a very loose sense, we can say that the whole artifact has parts, in the sense of, say, the components of a stereo system, or even a piece of pie. But these parts are assembled from without, not grown from within. Since the artifact has no self-imposed agency, it has no self-generated wholeness that of itself organizes the component parts. The whole and part relation, in other words, is artificial and insentient.

Agency --The pattern, structure and function of an artifact is imposed on it, or is the product of, the agency of an individual or social holon. Levels of consciousness produce levels of artifacts. All sentient holons produce artifacts to one degree or another, because the agency of a holon impacts its environment one way or another.

Hierarchy --Artifacts, because they do have a type of whole/part structure, have a type of hierarchy (a spoke is part of a wheel which is part of a bicycle). But again, it is a hierarchy created from without, not enfolded from within; it is a hierarchy bereft of consciousness; its structure and function are given to it by sentient holons; it obeys behavioral patterns of the social system within which it is moved by sentient holons, and it is "part " of the social system to the degree it is moved within those patterns.

Heaps

Consciousness --No; heaps are insentent holons. Heaps contain sentient holons that have consciousness, but heaps as heaps have no interiors, no agency, and no prehension.

Whole and Part --Again, in a very loose sense, we can say that a rock has parts to it, where "part " simply means a feature or aspect, but not anything that is intrinsic to the rock itself. The shape of the rock or sand pile is merely accidental or random, as are its "parts. "

Agency --A heap has no agency, intrinsic pattern or form. Unlike an artifact, whose pattern is imposed on it by the intentionality of a sentient holon, a heap has no intelligent pattern or design.

Hierarchy --Only in the loosest sense that the whole pile is bigger than any of its random parts. But there is no subsuming of agencies, no membership, no functional pattern.

Individual holons, social holons, artifacts, and heaps--only as holistic philosophies, systems theory, eco-philosophies, and attempted "integrative " approaches take these entities into account, can we begin to move toward genuinely integral maps and models and performances of the radiant Kosmos....

PART I | PART II | PART III