Notes 36-44

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

     ³⁶ At the same time, "logocentrism" marked the slide from intersubjectivity to interobjectivity that came to define so much of the shallowness that was postmodernism. "Logocentrism," as defined by Derrida, did not mean a reliance on logos or logic or rationality (as so many new-paradigm advocates seem to believe). Rather, for Derrida, "logocentrism" means a reliance on spoken logos instead of written logos--and written logos is the real word of which spoken logos is a corruption--i.e., to overcome logocentrism is to embrace the written word, not the spoken word. As we will see in later excerpts, this was the beginning of the slide from zone #2 to zone #4 in postmodernism, which meant a slide away from studying and interpreting interiors (and signifieds) and into a denial of signifieds and a reliance on a third-person study of third-person signifiers, at which point, as several authorities noted, it became indistinguishable from heterogeneous systems theory, both of which lacked interiors altogether.

     ³⁷ "Agency" is therefore not possessed by heaps or artifacts, neither of which have intentionality or self-defining or autopoietic patterns.

     ³⁸ The nexus-agency enfolds as internal not the agentic but the inter-agentic events of its past and present members. It is this nexus-agency that transcends-and-includes its predecessors, in both cultural and social systems--e.g., one cultural "we" transcends-and-includes its previous "we's," thus continually building up this "life of its own." In a sense, a collective holon has a life of its own, but not a mind of its own.

     Again, where to draw the line between individual holon and collective holon is a slippery endeavor; what is assured is both that they are similar (e.g., both are holons) and different (e.g., dominant monad). I am using phrases like "has a life of its own but not a mind of its own" to indicate aspects of that slippery relationship: "mind of its own" implies individual intentionality and an I-space, whereas "life of its own" is looser, more amorphous, as befitting communal holons--which is not to say that the control the communal can exert is weak or ineffective; it is sometimes extremely efficient and inescapable. Individuals born into a social order are landed in a sea of communal contexts that exert enormous control over how they think, what they think, how they feel, what they feel, categories of justness, rightness, and truth (see, e.g., Mary Douglas, not to mention Durkheim). But those collective or communal nexus-agencies govern, as we will continue to see, not holons but only the intersections of holons with other holons (i.e., nexus-agencies do not govern all spaces in all holons in all quadrants).

     The relationships are complex. One of the tasks of an AQAL sociology is to trace the many ways that cultural nexuses, which govern the intersections of individuals, become internalized in individuals, where "internal" is meant in exactly the way we have been defining it: "something is internal to a holon when it is following the agency of that holon." In the process of socialization, this means: aspects of the nexus-agencies of the society, governing the we-spaces or the intersections of individuals in that society, become an internalized aspect of the agency or I-space of the individual being socialized. In other words, a network-agency is internalized as part of the individual's agency. Or, the internality codes of a compound network become part of the internality codes of a compound individual: the regnant-nexuses of various "we's" become part of the individual's dominant-monad internality codes defining the self/not-self boundary. (E.g., if the public we-space condemns homosexuality, individuals socialized in that space will internalize that judgment, such that those aspects of the nexus-agency have become an internalized part of the dominant monad's superego. If the individual happens to be homosexual, then the outlawed behavior in the public sphere or we-space becomes a repressed element in the I-space.)

     Still, the I-space is not merely the product of the we-space (or no individual would ever be able to escape his or her upbringing); nor is the we-space itself merely the product of a we-space: the we-space is not in all ways a relativistic and arbitrary learning mechanism set entirely in local contexts, for there are context-transcending validity claims built into the calculus of indigenous perspectives (or else we would never even be able to claim otherwise. The very claim that all truth is culturally relative, the claim that there are no context-transcending claims, is a context-transcending claim).

     One of the tentative conclusions emerging from an AQAL sociology is that the agency or regnant nexus of a holon (individual or collective) is the embedded unconscious of that holon. For discussions of the embedded unconscious, as one of five general types of unconscious processes, see The Atman Project (CW2), Transformations of Consciousness (CW4), and Integral Psychology (CW4). Tracing these elaborate interactions in the process of socialization and internalization is one of the most fruitful areas for an integral or AQAL sociology.

     ³⁹ Theoretically, of course, we would situate the power of a nexus-agency somewhere between that of superagency, on the one hand, and "heap agency" or "no agency," on the other (e.g., somewhere between the power that Daisy has over all of her molecules--almost total--and the power that a pile of leaves has over each leaf--which is none). What that actually means is explored in the text.

     ⁴⁰ A holon is inside a system of other holons when that holon's interactions with those holons are internal to that system (which technically means, a holon is a member of--is inside--a system or network when its inter-holonic exchanges follow--or are internal to--the patterns, rules, codes, or nexus-agency of that system; and a holon is outside that system when its interactions do not follow--or are external to--the nexus-agency of the system).

     Notice that in all cases, the holon or compound individual itself (in its totality or wholeness) is external to any system (one of Luhmann's major points); but it is inside a system if its intersections are internal to the system--or follow the regnant nexus of the system--and it is outside the system when they do not. In the former case, it is outside and external; in the latter, inside and external. This is what Luhmann means when he says that individuals are external to the social system of which they are members.

     ⁴¹ The study of culture is the study of we's and their history. These kosmic habits are carried in the tetrahensions of the actual occasions that are members of the particular hermeneutic circle. The stronger the habit, the greater the probability of finding that type of intersubjective exchange in that particular nexus in AQAL matrix. The older the cultural habit, the more deeply embedded it is in that particular nexus. This can be healthy (as in various forms of solidarity [see below]) as well as unhealthy or disturbed (calcified, rigid, thanatotic, impossible to transcend).

     As with any holon (individual or communal) in the transcend-and-include dynamic, the more that "creativity" and "transcendence" approaches zero, the more causality appears. Today is a repetition of yesterday, with little variation. If the transcend part in any nexus is minimal, then those aspects of any culture settle into tradition (which, as we saw, is not necessarily bad. Healthy traditions are the foundations of any culture--a stable language, for example; or, exteriorly, a stable ecosystem). A healthy tradition (or system) does not often change, but it can change, within limits, if selection pressures require it; an unhealthy tradition not only does not change, it cannot change, and is thus doomed to extinction with next earthquake in the AQAL landscape. In an unhealthy tradition (or system), the next pocket of spacetime turbulence in the AQAL cascade will damage or collapse its cultural boundaries, disrupt or destroy its social autopoiesis, set individuals loose on their own in a riot of social disarray, and a regression to lower levels of sociocultural intersections will likely occur--in humans, perhaps from blue to red, for example--and societies will, when they recover, slowly start to tetra-evolve from that lower altitude in AQAL space.

     Because of tetra-enaction, any of the kosmic habits developed by an individual in a culture will influence the intersections of other members, and vice versa. The quadrants tetra-evolve, and thus a profound kosmic habit in one will reverberate or be expressed in all four dimensions. If the "purple" holon is a kosmic habit in individuals that is approximately 50,000 years old, then it is a cultural habit as well in all the intersections of "purple" holons. It is not that the individual habit came first and the nexus habit later; they tetra-arise and tetra-evolve. As we will continue to see, tracing tetra-enaction (or "simultracking") is a primary meta-paradigm of Integral Methodological Pluralism.

     ⁴² Every "we" has a history, a history that can be traced in its own first-person plural terms (of historic-hermeneutics), but a history that is also nestled in other dimensions of being-in-the-world--a quadratic history, if you will, or tetra-fields of kosmic karmas. Each of those quadratic occasions (I, we, it, its) leaves traces in the Kosmos; each of them contributes to (informs and constrains) the present tetra-occasion, which must transcend-and-include its tetra-past or cease to exist. The V-formation as a social unit (LR) must have an objective survival advantage (which it does, as human males discovered when they started flying bombing missions during WWII: all of bombers flew in V-formations because it makes it harder for predators--enemy fighter planes, in this case--to get at them). But the V-formation must also mesh with individual prehensions (UL), genetic dispositions (UR), and cultural history (LL), or it simply falls apart.

     ⁴³ On the technicalities of validity claims: We start with an actual occasion embedded in the complex fabric of what is; looked at in first-person singular, we see a pressure exerted on that dimension to align itself adequately with its own interiors, a selection pressure of truthfulness, violating which, the interior holon faces extinction (e.g., repression, alienation, projection). Looked at in third-person singular, we see a pressure exerted on the holon for objective survival--the necessity to match the organism's cognitive maps with the exterior world (a validity claim of truth), failing which, the organism faces physical extinction. Looked at in first-person plural terms, we see meaning and appropriateness, or the necessity to mesh one's interiors with the interiors of other members in one's collective, failing which, my interiors are outlawed from mutual resonance with others (the selection pressure of rightness). Looked at in third-person plural terms, we see functional fit, the selection pressure to mesh one's exteriors with other exteriors or face extinction.

     Those are not a tetra-identity thesis--the most we can say is "tetra-interaction" and "tetra-enaction," because these perspectives are not exhaustive or definitive. Because of critical integralism, perspectives bring forth worlds, not just reflect them. Therefore, each perspective on the same thing brings forth different things. Hence, four native perspectives on the same occasion generates four semi-different occasions: endlessly. Welcome to the hall of mirrors known as the reflexive universe.

     ⁴⁴Overview: The Inside/Outside and the Internal/External of a We

     When it comes to a collective or communal nexus (a system of holons), what is internal to that nexus are any holons' intersections following its patterns. The patterns of this regnant nexus are the kosmic habits of all the past we's whose intersections are enfolded in the present we. That nexus-agency represents the probability wave of finding a particular type of holonic interaction in a particular phenomenological space in the AQAL matrix of indigenous perspectives. The older the habit, the greater the probability. What is external to a sociocultural nexus is anything that does not follow the agency of that particular nexus.

     We noted that members of a system or network are inside yet external to the system (their intersections are internal to the nexus, their individuality is not). This is true for both cultural and social systems. Generally, whenever a compound individual is forced to be internal to a nexus, the result is fascism of one sort or another.

     A sentient being (a sentient holon) is inside many social and ecological systems, but is internal only to its own higher self. (Sentient beings are inside and external to systems, but inside and internal to Spirit--and Spirit, as the Self of all selves, is external to all manifestation but all manifestation is internal to Spirit--i.e., Spirit transcends all and includes all--at which point "inside" and "outside lose all meaning in the nondual suchness that only alone is. We will explore these important issues in later excerpts.)

     You and I are inside the "we" but external to it (because you and I are not controlled by the we, only our intersubjective occasions are). A "foreigner," on the other hand, is both external and outside the "we"--just like the undigested meat in a previous example--no slur on foreigners, of course (and we are all foreigners to other's "we"--a fact that can, fortunately, be remedied by increasing the circle of mutual understanding, or those inside the "we"--and the final result might very well be, for a compound individual, an "I-I" that transcends all I's, a "We" that includes all sentient beings as partners, and an "It" that is all of radiant manifestation).

     In short, compound individuals that are members of a cultural nexus are inside the nexus but external to it; their intersections or inter-subjective occasions are inside and internal to the nexus; and the intersections with all third-persons not yet sharing a circle of understanding (he/she/they/them) are outside and external to that we. Such a "foreigner" or "other" becomes an "us" or a "we"--or a member of our hermeneutic circle--when our intersections with the foreigner reciprocally follow the patterns of the nexus-agency of that particular circle or "we" (which itself is continually growing, evolving, and transcending-and-including itself as it lays down kosmic karma). As usual, we are inside a circle of membership when our exchanges are internal to that circle's nexus-agency.

     Notice that here we are still primarily discussing the interiors of you and I, as well as the interiors of a "foreigner" or "other" (including the new neighbor who speaks no English). We are not primarily discussing exteriors, or what can be "seen" of the "other" in the sensorimotor world. We are talking about feelings, awareness, identity, values, and mutual understanding in the phenomenologically interior worlds of I, we, and other: when it comes to a "we," you and I are inside and external to the we, which means our compound individuals are inside the hermeneutic circle but only our communication (or intersections in the broadest sense, including tele-prehensions) are internal to this circle or nexus. A "foreigner's" interiors, on the other hand, are both outside and external to the cultural nexus.

     Overall communication, of course, refers to an exchange (and/or tele-prehension) of signs, and all signs have an (exterior) signifier as well as an (interior) signified. We are here primarily discussing the signifieds, whose circle of exchange follows the nexus-agency of the particular hermeneutic-cultural circle of we (while, exteriorly, the circle of exchanged signifiers follows any social-system-nexus of which it is a link, including ecological and social systems, as we will see). The next-door foreigner's exterior and our (your and my) exteriors belong to many of the same social systems (the local ecosystem, for example), which means that our circle of sensorimotor (signifier) links are regulated by the nexus-agency of those systems. On the exterior (or Right-Hand) dimensions, the exteriors of all three of us are inside the local ecosystem but external to it (our exterior exchanges or intersections, however, are internal to the ecosystem).

      Thus, compound individuals or organisms are inside an ecosystem when their exterior intersections are internal to the ecosystem--that is, when their interobjective exchanges are governed by the nexus-agency of the ecological network--and they are outside an ecosystem when their interobjective exchanges are not governed by that particular system. At no point are organisms internal to an ecosystem; only their communications or interobjective interactions are. Thus, an organism is inside but external to an ecosystem when the organism's interobjectivity is internal to the regnant nexus of the ecosystem, and the organism is outside and external to the ecosystem when it is not. The only thing that is inside and internal to the ecosystem is the previous moment of the ecosystem--which itself is composed not of individuals but of communication between them: what is inside and internal to this moment's system is not organisms but the system of the previous moment (i.e., the dynamic system or "its" of this present moment becomes internal to the "its" of the next moment of tetrahension; present ecosystems transcend-and-include yesterday's ecosystems, not individuals).

     This view, as we will see, allows us to include both autopoietic and systems perspectives in ecology--and then further couple those approaches with the interior or cultural side of ecological systems, the result of which is what seems to be a genuinely integral ecology. But in this excerpt we are primarily discussing the interior side of this nexus: not a system of third-person plural "its" but a culture of first-person plural "we."