Notes 16-35

INTRODUCTION Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 PART II Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 PART III Page 1 Page 2 PART IV Page 1 Page 2 APPENDIX A APPENDIX B NOTES Notes 1-15 Notes 16-35 Notes 36-44 Notes 45-56

     ¹⁶ See Sean Hargens, Intersubjective Musings [posted on this site].

     ¹⁷ The view that a society is "like" an organism is called the "organic" model, credited to Herbert Spencer; the idea that society "is" an organism itself is the "organismic" model, found in theorists such as James Miller and most forms of "living systems" theory. In the text we focus on the organismic model, since it is the strongest form of position #2, just as atomistic individualism is the strongest form of #1.

     ¹⁸ Actually, there are (at least) four different types of parts and wholes--referring to individual holons, social holons, artifacts, and heaps. See note 6. But in almost all instances, I restrict holon to individual and societal occasions; not artifacts and heaps.

     ¹⁹ I am not saying some sort of "Web" or interobjective totality is not there, only that it is a conception that enters the prehensive worldspace of only an extremely small number of organisms--namely, humans at yellow or higher. My criticism of the typical Web-of-Life theories involves several points: (1) virtually all of them subscribe to the myth of the given; (2) they impose that anthropic cognition on other organisms; (3) they collapse Left-Hand occasions into their Right-Hand correlates (subtle reductionism); and then, even within the Right-Hand world (which is now their only world), they commit two further fallacies: (4) they do not see the totality of exteriors as a multiplex of enacted exteriors (or what we will call an "enactive Web"), and (5) they confuse individual and social, resulting in an eco-imperium stance.

      The problem with generating a truly integral ecology is that all of those points are fairly subtle issues, and cannot be adequately explained in bumper-sticker phrases easily conveyed. The sheer simplicity of the "web of life" notion is its greatest virtue. Unfortunately, in the upper reaches of its own announced holarchy, this stance becomes increasingly regressive (greater span is confused with greater depth, and thus, e.g., the physiosphere, which is merely bigger, is confused with a greater depth of being, whereas it is merely the shallowest aspect of being that is embraced in One Taste). See Excerpt E, subheading "The Conperception of the Sensorimotor World," where these topics are pursued at length.

     ²⁰ Original tribal humans (not tribes today but some 200,000 years ago), did not possess a systems view of the world, which is constructed of formal operational and postformal systemic and meta-systemic cognitions; their center of gravity was generally preoperational, which means egocentric cognition still fused with exterior sensorimotor occasions. This egocentric fusion or indissociation, which was "one with" local environs, is often equated with a systems, holistic cognition. See Boomeritis for a playful discussion of this unfortunate confusion.

     ²¹ In the rest of this section, we will especially be focusing on the nature of the cultural intersections (shared signifieds) that constitute a "we," and continue to point out why they cannot be reduced to social intersections of network "its" (shared signifiers). That Luhmann and most other systems theorists continue to try to reduce the Lower Left to the Lower Right is simply to say... well, they are still operating within the cultural habitus of a systems thinking that denies cultural habitus (i.e., a cultural Kosmic habit that denies cultural Kosmic habits, which is not unusual. No absolutist paradigm--from empiricism to postmodern pluralism to systems thinking--can account for its own truth values).

     ²² This can just as well be called a "subagency-in-agency," depending on the level of description. The point is simply that when one compound individual becomes a part or element of another compound individual--i.e., when an individual holon is subsumed in a larger individual holon--the former holon is now a subholon in the new holon, or the new holon can also be described as a superholon that enfolds the former holon. Both of those describe the same process of one holon becoming literally internal to another as a part of a compound.

     ²³ Of course, this collective holon can be looked at from the exterior or from the interior: interobjectivity and intersubjectivity. The main point right now is that this communal network or collective system is, in the LL, an inter-subjectivity, NOT an intra-subjectivity: the cultural nexus has no singular I within which all its member I's are dominated and subsumed; and, in the LR, it is an inter-objectivity, NOT an intra-objectivity: its "parts" exist in networks of mutually interdependent communions and are not simply components, cogs, or limbs of one big superorganism.

     ²⁴ This is why one of the basic patterns discovered by systems thinking is that higher levels are both more complex (in the sense of more highly differentiated) but also simpler in functional ways, more unified and more integrated (in their healthy forms). As Laszlo puts it, "The emergence of a higher-level system is a simplification of system functioning. However, once a new hierarchical [holarchical] level has emerged, systems on the new level tend to become increasingly more complex"--until that, too, is simplified in functioning with the emergence of a senior level. How does this simplification in the midst of increasing complexity occur? Many agencies are taken up in one agency (agency-in-superagency), which is a more complex holon but now more integrated and thus simpler in its functioning, as when Daisy walks across the room. Daisy is massively more complex than are any of her cells, but the simplicity of her functioning--as when she decides to get up and walk across the room and 100% of her cells and molecules move with her--is astonishing. It would be literally impossible for that to happen if the cells themselves had to arrange to do that. Thus, more complex form, simpler functioning.

     ²⁵ I have been mentioning these three different axes (inside/outside, interior/exterior, internal/external) for a long time. See, e.g., the endnote in SES (note 25 for ch. 4). Needless to say, this present treatment supersedes previous statements.

     ²⁶ The inside/outside axis of indigenous perspectives simply demarcates boundaries wherever they are found in the different phenomenological worlds. The internal/external axis indicates one type of relationship between those worlds--namely, the relationship of learning, development, or evolutionary unfolding and enfolding--where something is not simply inside a holon's boundary but essential to its definition, a definition (identity, agency, pattern) that represents the Kosmic habits or stable patterns of that holon that allow it to persist in spacetime.

      The internal/external boundary can be stated in UR terms as those elements inside the organism that follow the autopoietic regime or agency of the organism and thus are also internal to it (e.g., my liver is internal, a swallowed rock is not); in UL terms, those elements in my I-space that follow my will and intentionality (e.g., my owned anger does, my depression does not). In other words, what is inside a compound individual is simply anything inside the boundary of the compound individual; what is internal is anything following the agency of the dominant monad of the compound individual. External, conversely, is anything not following the agency of the dominant monad.

     The internal/external axis is not merely theoretical. Like inside/outside and interior/exterior, it can be seen and felt. In phenomenological prehension, it often manifests, among other things, as the interior feeling of will or intentionality, such that internality and intentionality go hand-in-hand. The holon's moment of creative freedom extends to those (sub)holons internal to the agency or intentionality of the dominant monad of the compound individual: when Daisy decides to walk across the room, the holons inside the boundary of her compound individuality (a compound individuality defined by the internality or agency of the dominant monad in her compound individuality) all walk across the room with her. Outside agents (e.g., parasites) that manage to get inside the boundary of the compound individual move when that boundary moves, but otherwise remain external to the regnant nexus of the dominant monad, and hence external to the compound individuality.

     In some cases, however, such as a virus that inserts itself into the nucleic acid of the cell (which is part of the dominant monad of the cell), the outside-external invader actually becomes internal to the cell--the invading virus inserts itself into the internality code of the cell by literally entering the RNA or DNA of the cell, which then begins obeying the viral regnant nexus, usually by beginning to manufacture the proteins dictated by the viral dominant monad (which are replicants or clones of the virus itself). In that case, the virus has become both inside and internal to the cell, and hence the cell's very identity is altered. Something outside and external has become both inside and internal, and the cell, as such, is no longer itself--it's "will" is no longer its own because its internality is no longer its own.

     ²⁷ Holographic metaphors particularly attempt and express a green-meme connectivity. The holographic metaphor says that "each part contains the whole," but that is actually not true in real holograms. The smaller the part of a hologram that you look at, the blurrier the whole becomes: it's really "each part contains a blurred-whole." But that metaphor is unfortunately used, e.g., to represent a type of nondual (or holistic) reality or mysticism. But mystical one-in-many is established via an intersection with infinity, not by blurring the boundaries of the finite. In the direct realization of nondual suchness, the whole of the infinite is 100% in each and every finite thing, not in a blurry way but in a radically total and immediate way. The very essence of many-one is missed by the holographic metaphor; and when it comes to finite things, their boundaries are in many important ways discrete and importantly asymmetrical, which is not captured by the holographic metaphor, either. As an actual representation, model, or map of reality, the holographic image misses many of the central features of both the finite and the infinite. As an actual model, the holographic representation works for a small number of information storage processes, which do indeed incorporate a blurry reproduction of information within its modules; as a metaphor, it is poorly suited for the jobs usually assigned it (and finds its major use, as suggested, in green-meme belief systems uncomfortable with hierarchies).

     ²⁸ The phenomenology of the I-space is, needless to say, an enormously rich and complex topic. In this introductory overview, I am taking several shortcuts. The I-space itself, upon introspection or intro-apprehension in phaneroscopy (see below), is composed of (at least) a proximate-I and a distal-I/me, the former being first-person singular subjective, the latter, first-person singular objective. There is also, upon guided phaneroscopy, an I-I or anterior-I. There is, further, a host of interior objects (interior second persons, if communicated with, and interior third persons, if not). Interior artifacts (images, symbols, signs, visions) are interior third-person objects. There are also interior subjects (or mini-first-person entities) and subpersonalities, as well as repressed subjectivities and repressed/dissociated first-person impulses, desires, drives. Preconscious subjects and objects can be accessed by phaneroscopy; repressed subjects and objects cannot (not, i.e., without a therapeutic lowering of the repression barrier).

      All of that I am simplifying, in the main text, as "the" I-space, where I am also simplistically equating the "I" and "the self" (whereas many aspects of the self are unconscious or preconscious). As I said, this is an enormously complex and fertile field of phenomenological investigation, and my comments in the text are meant only as a quick introductory overview.

     ²⁹ As indicated in the previous note, the interior phenomenology of the I-space is enormously rich and complex, and I am taking several liberties of simplification in this introduction. At the least, we need to further distinguish between the conscious and unconscious aspects of the psyche, each of which has several functional wholes (each of which has agency or internality codes). For example, an egoic impulse of anger that is repressed is external to the will of the ego--is not internal to the conscious ego--but is still internal to the psyche. Neurosis is basically a confusion of inside/outside occasions, all of which are still internal to the psyche. Psychosis, on the other hand, is a confusion of internal and external, or an actual breakdown the self/not-self boundaries.

     That is, neurosis is a confusion of inside/outside, psychosis is a confusion of internal/external. Psychosis is akin to the example of a virus that actually takes over the DNA of a cell and changes its internality codes so much that the cell is no longer itself. With neurosis, the self-boundary is intact, but invaders get inside the boundary (introjects), or something inside the boundary is repressed (and thus appears outside the ego but is still inside and internal to the psyche) or is projected (and thus appears outside of the ego and outside of the psyche but is still internal to the psyche, or is still actually following the agency of the psyche , even when projected onto others "out there"). With psychosis, however, the agency of the psyche itself is damaged, its internality codes are broken, and the self-boundary itself is corrupted. Borderline is the position between psychosis and neurosis, where the self-boundary is still forming but not yet stabilized.

      Again, a rich and fruitful topic for further elaborations--the reconceptualization of psychopathology within an AQAL matrix of indigenous perspectives.

     ³⁰ See note 26.

     ³¹ All systems as such are self-organizing, and they are self-organizing because their members are sentient beings with intentionality. You didn't really think that matter simply winds itself up, did you?

     ³² Leibniz tried to work this out with his notion of "compossibility," but that was a monological attempt to think it through in third-person terms....

      The advantage of a world built of perspectives is that it is not necessary for us to specify the contents of those perspectives in order to gain a bit of understanding. I really don't know exactly what the content of feeling or prehension of a bacterium is, and I find most guesses about that to be less than compelling. But it does seem to me that if a bacterium has some sort of prehension (and I believe it does), and if that bacterium is aware of another bacterium in any fashion whatsoever, then that is one sentient being aware of a second sentient being: which is to say, a first person aware of a second person. Whatever else is going on, it is in a relationship of first- and second-person, and I don't have to know what else is going on in order to know that. Thus, I can build a universe of perspectives without having to understand their contents; accordingly, if I use perspectives instead of feelings, awareness, consciousness, or perceptions (which don't exist anyway), I can build a third-person map of first and second and third persons (sentient beings) that is more adequate to those occasions (i.e., AQAL). It's still a map, but a less distorting one.

     ³³ I use "historic-hermeneutic" in a significantly different sense than it is typically used, where the "historic" mode (which demands interpretation) is distinguished as a higher level of evolution than the rest of "nature" (which can be known objectively or empirically): animals have nature, humans have nature plus history. But for AQAL metatheory, there is not history and nature as two different levels, with history higher than nature, but rather two different levels of history-nature. "History" requiring interpretation is simply the interior (LH) dimensions of all holons, and "nature" as empirically observed is simply the exterior (RH) dimensions of all holons--all the way up, all the way down.

     Most hermeneuticists see hermeneutics emerging only with linguistic domains, and therefore only with humans, where it is contrasted with lower levels found only in "nature." That's not a very felicitous way to get at the indigenous perspectives operative in those modes, although it does capture at least one important distinction: there are indeed some sort of levels involved. For AQAL metatheory, they are different levels of history-nature, with human history-nature emerging at more complex levels of evolution than, say, the history-nature of wolves. Wolves have interiors that can only be interpreted, as well as exteriors than can be seen, and thus they are simply operating at a different wavelength of history-nature. They are not without their culture and its history, because wolves live in a circle of we, as do all sentient beings.

     ³⁴ The reason I don't call it "quadratic prehension"--well, sometimes I do, but only for convenience, as often noted--is that technically prehension is operating only in the UL. Only a subject prehends, or only the first-person singular dimension of a holon prehends, and that is the UL. The UR is the exterior form or correlate (not referent) of this prehension; and the LL and LR are the patterns, systems, and intersections of those subjects (e.g., a "we" is not a single prehension of a single I but the shared prehensions of member I's linked by similar signification and/or tele-prehensions; this is why neither a we nor an its can perceive). Thus, technically, the phrase "quadratic prehension" doesn't quite work, although it is helpfully suggestive. But the other 3 quadrants have qualities and karma that cannot be reduced to prehension itself. And, of course, for me, these four dimensions are not separate, but are four dimensions of each event, which is why the other quadrants cannot be built up from prehensions, which is what Whiteheadians generally attempt to do.

     ³⁵ The study of we's is the study of culture. What is internal to any cultural holon is the present and past of this "we" carried as an intersubjective nexus meshed with each member I and carried in the sum of all I's, but not merely as the sum of all I's.

     Again, a "transaction" (such as buying and selling) is a fairly good analogy. The act of buying or selling something--"the sale"--is the communal occasion. Each time one person sells something, at least one other person has bought something. The transaction called "the sale" cannot be reduced to either member nor the sum of two members; nor is it the sum of the actions of two members, since those two actions or intersections (as the actual parts, components, or ingredients of the sale) are defined only in a specific relationship to each other (if I take those two actions and merely add them together, they do not add up to a sale, because they are actions that are meaningful only when coordinated within a larger context that is not the sum of its parts). The "sale," then, is not reducible to either or both members (or compound individuals), nor can it be reduced to the sum of its parts (or intersections)--in other words, a system can be reduced to neither its partners nor its parts. Only the parts as regulated by a nexus-agency not reducible to, nor derivable from, its parts can confer a systems status.

     At the same time, the compound network cannot exist and does not exist outside of, or apart from, the compound individuals who are its members. The system is not elsewhere; the system is carried in the sum total of its members, even though it cannot be reduced to the sum total of its members. This "we/its" has a life of its own, a life that cannot be deduced from (nor reduced to) that of its members but which exists nowhere else except in the interactions of the sum total of its members. This is why the communal is not itself a compound individual but a dimensionality of compound individuals--namely, the dimensionality of their being-together, which cannot be reduced to them but exists nowhere else. A system is a convention of sentient beings, not itself a sentient being, and is composed of their intersections, but not merely their intersections: a system has emergent properties (as all holons do) that cannot be found in any permutations and combinations of its parts.