INTRODUCTION PART I PART II PART III Page 1 Page 2 PART IV Page 1 Page 2 PART V NOTES Notes 1-8 Notes 9-19 Notes 20-30

     ¹ Alexander and Colomy, "Neostructuralism today," in G. Ritzer (ed.)., Frontiers of Social Theory.

     ² Strictly speaking, a collective or communal holon (cultural or social) does not have a singular agency, will, or consciousness, and thus communal holons do not directly prehend their ancestors, or previous communal holons, in the same way that individual holons do. It is subjectivity that prehends previous subjectivity, but all subjects arise with a context or background of intersubjectivity--and interobjectivity--that in part molds and influences the very nature of subjectivity itself. More accurately, each holon has a subjective dimension that directly prehends its past, but it also has an intersubjective dimension to which subjectivity is always already tetra-meshed and which therefore constrains to some degree the form of the feelings that subjectivity can have in any actual occurrence. This habitual constraint is the form of cultural memory. Likewise, the objective dimensions of any holon are tetra-meshed with interobjective realities that constrain the form of objective behavior, a constraint that appears as social systems memory.

     Philosophers have been arguing for centuries over the similarities and differences between individual and social. Some deny any differences; others deny any similarities. Both are right: there are clearly important similarities as well as crucial differences between individual and social holons--see "On Critics, Integral Institute, My Recent Writing, and Other Matters of Little Consequence" [posted on this site].

     (What is the easiest way to tell the difference between an individual holon and a social or communal holon? The former has a visible physical boundary. An ant is individual holon, an ant colony is a social holon; a human organism is an individual holon, while a family, a club, and an nation are human social holons. Confusing these two is a calamitous fallacy that, among other things, is the very definition of fascism, whether political fascism or ecofascism or values fascism, because the collective is treated as an individual with a single will, value, and intentionality, which enslaves all real individuals to that system and its dominant monad; and this occurs in everything from mere theories, such as Maturana and Varela's autopoiesis, to actual politics, such as Louis XIV's famous L'etat c'est moi, "I am the State," and therefore all people in the State must do as I, its dominant monad, command. Herbert Spencer was one of the first to emphasize this distinction, pointing out that social and individual are contrasted in terms of, respectively: asymmetrical vs. symmetrical, discrete vs. concrete, and sensitive in all its units vs. having a single sensitive center. Whitehead agreed, and called this sensitive center--possessed by an individual and not a social holon--the "regnant nexus" or "dominant monad," and it is that center of subjectivity that does all the prehending, which is why social holons do not prehend their past in the same way that individual holons do. These issues are taken up at length in Excerpt B [soon to be posted], particularly in relation to Maturana and Varela's confusion of social and individual, which was corrected in Niklas Luhmann's influential reformulation of social autopoiesis theory, also discussed in Excerpt B. See also note 3 below.)

     As for collective or communal memory (and specifically cultural memory in this case): notice that the fact that the intersubjective background molds subjectivity does not strictly mean that intersubjective cultural patterns are the deep structures within which subjective patterns arise--although we sometimes use that loose language--but rather that any holon must mesh with pre-existing occasions in all four quadrants or face extinction: we call this "tetra-mesh." Thus, subjective holons that do not tetra-mesh with intersubjective dimensions will not be able to manifest.

     More specifically, the general waves, streams, types (etc.) in all of the quadrants represent the Kosmic habits that have unfolded in those quadrants up to the leading-edge of today's evolutionary unfolding. The deep patterns of the already-laid-down holons in each quadrant help determine the surface features found in any of those holons in any of the quadrants. The relation "deep to surface" therefore stands for the relation of the deep features of any holon in any quadrant to the contents or actions of that holon; it does not stand for the relation of one quadrant to another. Thus, when we say that "subject and object arise within an intersubjective space," that is simply shorthand for the fact that all four quadrants arise together and must priorly mesh in order to manifest. We sometimes give a type of ontological priority to intersubjective and interobjective dimensions because the collective weight of those structures is enormous; moreover, the deep features of the inherited waves in the subjective and objective quadrants originally arose only in interaction with other subjects and objects--that is, arose only in intersubjective and interobjective tetra-meshing--agency is always agency-in-communion--but it is not that one of those quadrants existed prior to the others (such that one could actually arise "within" another one), but that they all arise simultaneously and tetra-evolve in mutual mesh. Thus, the relation "prior to actual" refers to the relation, not between collective quadrants and individual quadrants, but between the deep and surface features in all of the quadrants. A la Sheldrake, the deep features of the already-laid-down holons (including any waves, streams, types of holons) in the various quadrants are "ontologically prior" to any surface features of those holons, which simply means that those deep features are the Kosmic habits inherited from the past and which act as probability waves for actual occasions in those spaces. (The nature of this inheritance is outlined in the main text in more detail.)

     Thus, various intersubjective or cultural patterns, inherited from the previous moment, are indeed ontologically prior to this moment's subject, and therefore they place palpable constraints on the form of this moment's subject. But this moment's subject also inherits its own individual past as prehension, and thus BOTH the previous subjective and intersubjective patterns are ontologically prior to the present moment's subject. In fact, all four quadrants hand the present an inherited AQAL matrix that is ontologically prior to the present moment's arising (as the prior or inherited past), a past which must be embraced (as tetra-prehensive unification) if the present moment is to harmoniously exist and not face pathology or extinction. (And, of course, each moment, in all four quadrants, nonetheless has a measure of creativity that ontologically transcends anything given to it by the past: this is how 'significant' trumps 'fundamental' in the transcend-and-include nature of each present moment. Thus, e.g., each subjectivity can to some degree rise above its own its own past and its own culture, which is another reason that any subjectivity is not actually "within" the intersubjective field).

     Accordingly, when we say that "the intersubjective field is prior to subject and object," that is simply a shorthand way of emphasizing the importance of all four quadrants: the Lower-Left or intersubjective quadrant is the one that is almost always ignored, misunderstood, or distorted, and therefore we often emphasize the fact that subject and object always arise in conjunction with an intersubjective meshwork. But again, to emphasize the importance of the Lower-Left quadrant is not to deny the equal importance of the other quadrants. As we will see, the extreme privileging of the Lower-Left quadrant is postmodernism's major pathology (a participatory pluralism that callously disrespects realities in the other quadrants). On the other hand, the simultaneous tetra-arising and tetra-causality of all four quadrants and their necessary mutual evolution explains the influence of the past intersubjective dimension on the present subjectivity, but it also explains the influence of the past subjective, objective, and interobjective dimensions on present subjectivity as well. None of those dimensions should be either overlooked or absolutized. (All of these points are elaborated in the main text in more detail; see also note 3.)

     ³ Re: social and cultural prehensions and memory: as indicated in note 2, it is not that a collective holon has an individual agency that can directly prehend the feelings of its past (since collective holons do not have individual agency), but rather that an individual holon becomes a member of the collective holon when its individual behavior follows the organizing rules of the collective and its individual feelings mesh via mutual understanding.

     More technically, this means that an individual holon becomes a member of a social or communal holon when (1) its organismic behavior (UR) meshes with the rules of the interobjective social system (LR), and (2) its individual feelings and prehensions (UL) mesh with the intersubjective cultural background (LL). (In Excerpt B, we will see that cultural meaning [LL] involves semantics in the broadest sense, and social rules [LR] involve syntax in the broadest sense, so that an individual holon becomes a member of a communal holon when it meshes with its collective semantics and syntax, or its cultural and social patterns.)

     The collective or communal holon is not something that exists as a superorganism over and beyond the individual organisms, but rather exists as the patterns that individual members follow in their membership (or the patterns of agency-in-communion). Shared behavioral patterns (and their artifacts) are the "stuff" of social memory (these behavioral patterns can be latent or manifest); and distributed values, shared horizons, and mutual prehensions are the stuff of cultural memory (these mutual prehensions can be conscious, unconscious, or preconscious).

      Thus, when an individual holon shares the syntax (LR) and semantics (LL) of the group, it is a member of the group, and membership is found in the shared patterns and feelings, and not in some superorganism with its own agency above and beyond the individual. (For syntax and semantics, see Excerpt B.)

     This is another way of saying that all four quadrants arise together in tetra-evolution. Treating the social holon as an individual organism--i.e., as a superorganism with a single agency or regnant nexus--is, as indicated in note 2, the central philosophy of fascism, whether it appears in Marxism, ecotheories, Gaia paradigms, Goddess mythology, or systems theory. This confusion of individual and social holons is found in theorists from Francisco Varela to David Bohm, but has been clearly corrected by such important theorists as Niklas Luhmann, Jürgen Habermas, and Erich Jantsch. We will return to this crucial topic in Excerpt B.

     ⁴ Sheldrake, The Presence of the Past.

     ⁵ That is, both the UR and LR have morphic forms and fields. The UL (subjective feelings) and the LL (mutual prehensions) do not have morphic fields in themselves, because "morphic field" is a third-person description of various realities, but UL and LL are first-person and second-person realities, known only in an I or thou/we language and by direct experience. But when UL and LL realities are looked at in objective, third-person terms, then you get the UR and LR, which indeed appear as various exterior forms (individual forms or morphic units [UR] and collective forms or social systems [LR]) and the related fields of those individual and collective forms (including individual [UR] and collective [LR] morphogenetic fields). Note that, in my view, these various fields include not only morphic or morphogenetic fields, as described by Sheldrake, but also various energy fields (gross energy, subtle energy, and causal energy, as we will see in Excerpt D, "Subtle Energy"--where I will further suggest that the various morphic fields are actually subtle energy fields; but whatever we decide about that issue, the point is that both morphic fields and energy fields are Right-Hand phenomena, appearing in both UR and LR, or the exterior forms and fields of both individual and social holons).

      With regard to Sheldrake, the point is that both individual and social holons (UR and LR) have morphic (or morphogenetic) fields. Each morphic unit has individual morphogenetic fields that relate its present individual state to its previous individual states. The collective dimensions of that formative causation or structural inheritance are the morphogenetic fields and systems found in the Lower Right, but both individual morphic fields and collective morphic fields influence the present unfolding of morphic units.

     Again, it is not simply that the collective fields mold the individual, but that that individual's past fields also mold the individual (which can mold the collective), which is to say--as always--that the quadrants tetra-evolve.

     Thus, we do not privilege the interobjective morphogenetic field as being ontologically prior to the present object, because there are also individual objective morphogenetic fields that are equally prior to the present object: the objective dimensions of any holon must mesh with both objective and interobjective inheritance--in fact, an AQAL inheritance. But precisely because it is the interobjective dimensions of this inheritance that are almost always overlooked--by objective science, by intersubjective postmodernism, by LL pluralism, and by UL phenomenology--we therefore give a strong emphasis to the incredibly powerful influence of interobjective fields, structures, and systems on the forms of individual development. As we will see in the main text, the great contributions of inquiries ranging from developmental structuralism to ecological sciences to chaos and complexity theories is that they focused on this incredibly important interobjective dimension.

     Finally, as mentioned, the Upper-Right quadrant is the home not only of gross forms and energy, but of subtle forms and energies and causal forms and energies. See Excerpt D: "Subtle Energy."

     ⁶ The fact that many of the deep features in all four quadrants are collectively inherited confuses some people, because the upper quadrants are supposed to be merely individual, not collective, so how could the upper quadrants have collective forms? Put differently, any time I find a collectively inherited form, isn't that a lower quadrant entity?

      No, not at all. The upper quadrants simply represent that which exists in any individual holon (e.g., prehensive feelings in the UL and morphic forms, mass, and energy in the UR); it does not exclude the fact that the deep features of those individual occasions are often collectively inherited.

     For example, take Stan Grof's Basic Perinatal Matrices. According to Grof, all human beings universally go through four stages of the birth process (whose details needn't concern us). Does this mean that the four BPMs belong to the lower or collective quadrants, since everybody has them? No. When an infant is going through the birth process, many of those events involve what is happening only to a specific individual--the infant has various sensations, perceptions, feelings, and impulses as it goes through the organic stages of the birth process. Those processes do not primarily involve mutual understanding, shared values, second-person perceptions, and so on. Rather, the four BPMs are exterior (or third-person) descriptions of what is happening behaviorally to an individual infant (the UR) and its subjective feelings, sensations, perceptions, and so on (in the UL). The fact that the deep features or stages of those processes are collectively inherited does not mean a collective experience is therefore occurring (although it sometimes does, in which case those involve tapping into the other quadrants: the mother and neonate exchange intimate feelings, for example, which is a LL phenomenon). We all collectively inherit ten toes, but when I feel my toes, this does not mean that I am necessarily having a collective or shared experience with you (unless you are feeling your toes and for some bizarre reason we are talking about what it feels like to feel toes.)

     In short, many of the deep features in all four quadrants are collectively inherited; when those forms are experienced individually, we have the upper quadrants; when shared, the lower quadrants. (For further discussion of this theme, see notes 9 and 10.)

     ⁷ In humans, we call the sum total of those habits, inherited as potentials ready to emerge as actuals, the ground unconscious (see Atman Project, CW2, and Transformations of Consciousness, CW4). The ground unconscious also includes any involutionary givens (see note 26 below). The ground unconscious can thus be accounted for without recourse to Platonic givens or fixed archetypes. See in particular the endnotes in Integral Psychology dealing with a post-metaphysical approach to these issues, endnotes gathered together in "On the Nature of a Post-Metaphysical Spirituality," posted on this site.

     Incidentally, one of those endnotes gathered together was edited to comply with contextual necessities; one critic went ballistic and claimed I was altering the original meaning of this note, which is preposterous if the original context is taken into account: ug, critics! (:-)

     The same critic suggested that, because I allowed the Scott Warren et al. essay to appear in "Wilber Watch"--and because that essay explicitly endorsed the perennial philosophy notion of levels of consciousness--then I actually did endorse the notion of a universal perennial philosophy. But the Warren essay endorses only gross, subtle, causal, and nondual "levels," which are actually the four great states/realms, and I have always said that the only thing I supported about any "perennial philosophy" was the existence of 3 or 4 major states of consciousness (namely: gross, subtle, causal, and nondual, identified with waking, dreaming, sleeping, and ever-present nondual; and indeed all human beings universally possess those four major states, which is why that part along of any "perennial philosophy" is indeed perennial or universal for all human beings, but that is the extent)--see, for example, note 16 for chap. 4 in A Theory of Everything, where I repeat this point again. Therefore, the editors of Wilber Watch accepted the Warren piece as a very general summary of a spectrum of consciousness, without it necessarily endorsing any particular version of a Great Chain of Being with pregiven levels or structures, which I categorically deny and have denied for over twenty years, which is why I have rejected the perennial philosophy for twenty years.

     But then, I have long ago given up having critics accurately represent my position before criticizing it; that is not really what criticism is about in the postmodern university, where criticism has come to be primarily the expression of what is true for the critic (not true for the position being criticized). Thus, in today's criticism, the critic uses a particular book or essay to express what that book sets in motion in the critic; the critic's response is thus primarily a cataloging of the critic's egoic feelings, sentiments, and thoughts as the critic reads a particular piece--it has almost nothing to do with the piece itself or its actual contents, which are largely irrelevant to the display of the responses of the critic. It took me almost a decade to realize this and to cease trying to engage in factual or evidentiary discourse with critics, and respond instead to the feelings of the critic, where the only acceptable response to is thank them for sharing their swell sentiments (:-). If, on the other hand, you attempt to correct their misrepresentations, this is taken to mean that you are condemning their feelings, and thus you are taken to be a terribly insensitive fellow, following the "great chain of being nasty," which is the only sin recognized by the mean green meme. Accordingly, a type of interpretive play, acknowledging and honoring the egoic feelings and desires of the critic, is the main arena in which criticism operates today, and this requires, shall we say, some getting used to....

     ⁸ See, e.g., Bausch, The Emerging Consensus in Social Systems Theory, and Intro to CW3. There is, however, a semantic confusion that needs to be addressed. Sometime a distinction is made between "organization" and "structure," where "organization" means "pattern" and "structure" is used in the narrower sense as the material components of the organized pattern. Thus, Maturana and Varela say, for example, that a cell has "a closed organization and an open structure." The organization or the dynamic pattern of the cell is closed because it is autopoietically maintained and resists all change; but the structure is open because the actual material components of the cell are changed constantly. That is quite true; but many theorists (and virtually all structuralists) use "structure" to mean the "organization" or the pattern itself, and not the material components. I am following that more standard usage. Thus, "structure" means the organized dynamic pattern that is autopoietically maintained and resists change, and "components" mean the material components.