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

Part III. THE CRUCIAL IMPORTANCE OF HERMENEUTICS: What Is a "We"? (page 2)

Nexus-Agency

     Does a nexus have agency? Does a system or collective holon have agency? Although the following will apply generically to cultural and social holons, we will focus in this section on the specific contours of intersubjective networks or "we's."

     When it comes to a cultural nexus, does a "we" have agency? When it is said that "this we has a life of its own," what exactly does that mean?

     As with whether a society is an "organism" or not, whether it has "agency" or not depends on how you define terms. We saw that a society is like an organism in some ways and not like an organism in other ways--and the same is true with agency. If by agency you mean intentional action in general, then yes, collective holons have agency. A group of men building a log cabin, wolves hunting in a pack, geese flying together--those are all group activities coordinated around a single goal, and hence they are collective (sociocultural) holons displaying agency.

     If by agency you mean a single intentionality, sensitive center, or dominant "I," then no, collective holons do not have agency, in my opinion.

     I use "agency" in the former and more general sense, as the pattern or regime governing or regulating the action of any holon.³⁷ In this general sense, holons in all four quadrants have agency, which is part of their defining patterns (i.e., the agency of an actual occasion can be viewed from four perspective-dimensions).

     That said, the importance differences between the quadrants need also to be factored into any discussion of agency. Right-Hand holons, for example, have agency only in the exterior sense of mass-energy impacts and registrations (where they follow physical laws, habits, rules, and regulations, including those of physical causality, morphic resonance, formative causation, chaos and complexity dynamics--all of which are exterior form-mass-energy registrations). Left-Hand holons involve consciousness and intentionality proper (i.e., agency as intentionality originates in the first-person spaces of free will but can be viewed from a third-person stance of determinism; when we refer to agency in the exterior or Right-Hand quadrants, it is the exterior correlates of interior intentionality that are meant.)

     Most importantly, individual holons (or compound individuals) have something resembling Whitehead's dominant monad or Spencer's sensitive center--a singular agency in some important ways (which shows up in the UL as a prehensive-I, whose exterior form in the UR is Varela's autopoietic regime of an individual organism). A nexus (cultural or social) has no such compound individual sitting on top of its exchanges and engulfing them.

     But, if we are very careful, we can refer to nexus-agency (or network-agency or systems-agency). This nexus-agency is what "has a life of its own"--which means, a life governed by its own history, habits, and patterns. Nexus-agency is not determined by the individuals that are inside the nexus, but by the intersections (of the individuals) that are internal to the nexus.³⁸

     Now, here is a simple semantic decision. We saw that Whitehead correctly pointed out that a compound individual has something like a dominant monad, whereas a society does not. Whitehead sometimes used the term "regnant nexus" as synonymous with "dominant monad," so that a society did not possess a regnant nexus, either. But to my ears, "regnant nexus" as a term sounds just fine for a society, system, or collective holon, because a "nexus" is not really the same as a "monad," and thus a collective holon can plausibly have a set of governing rules but not a dominant-I. The rules of chess, for example, are the regnant nexus or governing rules of that social interaction. In other words--and again, if we are very careful--I think it is fine to refer to the nexus-agency of a societal holon or system as a regnant nexus or governing network (which is not, of course, a governing individual or dominant monad).

     We will be discussing examples of this nexus-agency in both cultural and social holons--this network that has a life of its own--a life that is indeed something of a regnant nexus or governing pattern, not because it subsumes its members but because it subsumes its own past in the present intersections of its members. There is no dominant monad (no super-I or social superagency) required to do this (in either cultural networks or social systems); but neither can this nexus be reduced to nothing but the interactions of isolated individuals. This "we" has a life of its own because it has a yesterday in the space of our touching each other, a karma of our togetherness.

     A nexus, in short, is a fusion of horizons, not a fusion of individuals. It is the meeting place of all agencies-in-a-communion, not a superagency swallowing all its agencies.

     But these network horizons ("nexus") do indeed influence or govern ("regnant") the intersections arising within their probability waves. What influence do these compound networks have on me as a compound individual? What influence does this "we" that-has-a-life-of-its-own exert on me, who is a member of this network? ³⁹ What is the "regnant" power that this "we" has over its member "I's"?

     As an "I," I am especially constrained in my intersubjective dimensions in this sense: when I am a member of any hermeneutic circle (or cultural holon), those aspects of my I that enter the hermeneutic circle--those "intersections"-- are powerfully constrained by the previous kosmic habits of that circle. That which enters a "we" is, by definition, that which you and I understand and share (not necessarily agree on, but share). Something of me that you do not understand, see, or hear is not a part of the we-horizon. Accordingly, to the extent that I want to be seen, heard, and understood by you--that is, to be in a relation of actual resonance with you--then my interactions with you categorically must mesh with those items that can arise in that we-space. My interactions, my intersections, my transactions in this we-space are thus powerfully governed by the patterns, structures, habits, and history of this particular we--are powerfully governed by the nexus-agency of this we.

     My present intersections can transcend past intersections to some degree but must also include them (and thus past culture stands to present culture as yesterday's I stands to today's I, in the moment-to-moment tetrahension by which all events endure). In other words, this present cultural circle or cultural holon must transcend and include its previous cultural holons, holons that are now internal to the present cultural holon and are hence part of the history that helps determine its internality code, agency, patterns, rules, structures, or identity--in short, what is internal to that we and what is external to that we.

     Remember that the definition of "internal" was "anything that followed the agency of a holon"? We can now easily apply that definition to systems or collective holons. Because a collective holon has nexus-agency, anything following that nexus-agency is internal to that collective holon--and what follows the nexus-agency of any network are the interactions of the members of the network. Because no compound individual obeys the nexus-agency of any system (a compound individual possesses relatively autonomous elements that are external to any system), the only thing that is internal to a collective system is the sum total of interactions of the compound individuals who are members, partners, or participants in the system or network.⁴⁰ This is as true for gas molecules as for wolves, as true for coral reefs as for democracies, as true for weather systems as for traffic patterns.

     Just as the history of "I" helps define the internality code (or the "true self") of an individual holon, so does the history of a "we" lay the patterns that help define the border of the "we" (inside of which is us, outside of which is them). Each culture has a history, as kosmic habit, that each new culture must transcend and include (on pain of pathology). If previous culture is not transcended, nothing new is introduced into the circle; the culture is fixated to its past, frozen in its yesterday. And if previous culture is not included, there is dissociation, repression, cultural forgetting--and we all know what we are doomed to do if we forget the past.⁴¹

     Moment to moment in the hermeneutic circle, the past cultural network becomes internal to the present cultural network. The ways that you and I touched each other yesterday are enfolded into our touching today; you and I enter this hermeneutic circle today governed in part by all the ways that we have ever entered it, which means the kosmic habits of our "we" are carried in this circle, in this custom of our togetherness, the habits of our hearts.

     Correlatively, the present culture is in some ways external to the past--namely, in its novel, creative, or transcending ways, the present culture is external to, or goes beyond and cannot be fully captured by, its own yesterday. In the moment-to-moment "quadratic-prehension" or "tetra-hension" of all actual occasions, the intersubjective dimension enfolds its own history via the tetrahension of its members--and thus proceeds the karma-and-creativity that is inherent in all quadrants or manifest dimensions of holons. Each present culture or nexus transcends-and-includes the previous moment's nexus, as you and I tetra-hend in communion.

     The network or nexus of intersections does not directly control compound individuals but rather exerts its control on the system of exchanges of compound individuals. (This means, to put in the third-person terms of AQAL metatheory: the probability of finding a particular type of interaction between you and me is governed in part by the past history of interactions that is now internal to this nexus, the nexus whose boundary defines or demarcates the phenomenological space inside the hermeneutic circle--the boundary that we both recognize when we both use the word "we." The probability waves of our individual responses are modulated when they enter a phenomenological space of intersections that have themselves deposited kosmic habits of their own togetherness--much as, say, light waves are bent in the Earth's gravitational field--except that culture is a field of feelings and shared interiors, not merely shared exteriors or social intersections. Put differently, yesterday's communal holon is a subholon in today's communal holon; yesterday's nexus is internal to today's. You and I are not internal to today's communal holon, yesterday's communal holon is. Of course, the story immediately becomes complicated because a compound individual is, in part, an internalization of various cultural nexuses--and so goes that particular version of the infinite hall of mirrors. We will return to this socialization process later.)

Summary: Membership

     You and I are in a we when our intersections are internal to it, which, very simply, is the definition of membership. Individual holons are members of a particular network, system, or communal holon when their intersections follow the nexus-agency of that holon.

     While flying, a goose is a member of the flock when he follows the V-formation, and is an outsider when he does not (at which point, he can be ostracized or even attacked; he has broken the circle of we). The V-formation is not itself another goose; it is not an organism; it does not have an "I" or dominant monad; there is no controlling center that commands each goose instantaneously. The V-formation is not a compound individual but a compound network, which does, however, have a defining pattern or regnant nexus; in this case, the actual structure or shape of the V-formation itself, which is a social system of interlinked behavior (LR), whose cultural correlate (LL) is a harmonic empathy (or a feeling of flying-together with other sentient beings that each goose clearly recognizes as being members of its own group). I suspect that violating that feeling is registered just as sharply by each goose as is violating a behavioral pattern, a feeling whose broken form is likely a type of uncomfort or stress, and whose positive form, to put it perhaps a bit strongly (but not much), is the simple joy of flying together. (And if you don't believe that geese have any feelings at all, please skip to the next example, you insensitive slob, you.)

     The V-formation, then, has a set of social-behavioral rules and a set of cultural-pattern meanings that define it. (We refer to the cultural and social dimensions together as a societal, collective, or communal holon or network, a "we/its"). While flying, each goose is a member of the societal holon if his intersections with the other geese follow those rules and patterns. If his intersections mesh with (are internal to) the V-formation, then he is following the "law" or regnant nexus of the group--he is "inside" the V-formation when his intersections are internal to it. If not, he is outlawed, or no longer a member of the flock. And nonmembers or outsiders, in most animal communal holons, are dealt with unpleasantly.

     What is internal to the communal holon in this case is the sum total of intersections (both interior and exterior) that each goose recognizes as necessary for the V-formation (both shared rules and shared feeling-meanings). These rules and regulations for creating a V-formation are carried in the sum total of the geese (including their collective prehensions, their genetic inheritance, and very likely a morphic field), but phenomenologically can be found in none of the geese individually (you just can't get a good V-formation going with one goose).

     Quadratically, then, we have the following in a calculus of primordial perspectives (or perspectives indigenous to all sentient beings): in the UR, we find the behavior of each individual goose as he attempts to mesh his behavior with the behavior of the group or social system ( LR). The social system itself, which can be seen in the actual shape or design of the V-formation as a whole, consists of the autopoietic information and objective communication networks between the geese (a la Luhmann) that together constitute (or are internal to) the social formation of the V. That social system (the interobjective or inter-exterior nexus) is the network of behavioral interactions between the geese as they go through the process of social learning and systems-behavioral modification in order to produce and maintain the social holon expressed in the V-formation. This behavioral network particularly includes communication in its third-person aspects (systems of artifacts, signifiers, data bits, calls, and signals).

     In the UL, each goose has an interior prehension, proto-feeling, or proto-experience, a sensitive or sentient registration of his or her interior as well as exterior. If a goose could speak, she would say "I" (all geese have buddhanature or primordial awareness, as do all sentient beings; but "proto-experience" will do). When two or more geese are together, they resonate with each other, sense each other, their prehensions overlap to some degree: this set of mutual prehensions is their inter-interiority, the cultural "we" that is the inside-interior or cultural correlate ( LL) of the social system of behavioral "its" seen in the V-formation ( LR).

     (Which is why communal or societal holons are referred to as "we/its," realizing, of course, that every occasion is actually an "I/it/we/its," at the minimum. Context will determine if either the cultural or social dimension is being highlighted; but in the last analysis, the way you can tell which is meant is that the cultural dimensions can authentically be described only in first-person plural terms--we, us--a knowledge by acquaintance; whereas the social dimensions can be adequately described in third-person plural terms--they, them, its.)

     A compound individual is a member of a collective or group when its intersections with others in that group are following the rules or defining patterns of the group, which are whatever it is that makes that group an actual group or functional whole--whether a V-formation, or a values group, a philosophical group, a group of friends, a national group, a coral reef, an ant colony, a wolf pack, and so on. These rules (or regnant nexus) are intuitively (i.e., pre-reflexively) known by each member, even if in a rudimentary and proto-experiential fashion, because moving within their groove, within their kosmic habit, makes me an "insider" or "in-law"; falling out of that collective groove, or violating those togetherness codes, makes me an "outsider" or "outlaw"--and the feedback from groups, at almost any level, is usually immediate and obvious.⁴² Socially and behaviorally, breaking the togetherness codes is a survival risk to the group as a whole; culturally and prehensively, it is no fun.

      Each particular V-formation (each communal holon or "we/its") has a specific life of its own--and this "life of its own" is indeed what makes communal holons so interesting. On the one hand, all geese V-formations share certain general similarities (or deep structures as we are using that term, namely, the probability space of finding a certain occasion in the AQAL matrix); these deep features are carried in (among many other places) the sum total of genetic makeup of the geese, in various morphic fields, and in any social institutions that might surround and support them. The most obvious deep structure is the actual morphic form or pattern of the V-formation itself, which appears universally wherever geese appear--Hindu geese have it, Muslim geese have it, shamanic geese have it. But each specific V-formation, each actual we/its, also has a character all its own, a set of surface features found nowhere else. Each V-formation, at some point, had to actually get started--a group of geese who had never flown together had to assemble and begin the social learning process of doing so, no matter whether instinctually primed or not--and there is accordingly embedded in each particular V-flock the history, the kosmic karma, of this specific we/its as it unfolded. We summarize this by saying that internal to any we/its are all the previous we/its in this particular stream. This flock has a history, including when Bob the cluck flew into Marge, and George the nitwit slammed into a wall during take off. (You just know that happened, yes?)

     Thus, looked at through an integral calculus of indigenous perspectives, for each individual goose (each actual occasion or actual holon), there is an enacted prehension that is embraced in culture, embodied in nature, and embedded in social networks. Enacted, embraced, embodied, embedded: the same actual occasion reflected through its own native perspectives.

     Now, for the insensitive and prehensively challenged, a human example. Actually, we can refer to the earlier example of chess and quickly review it in light of what we have discussed. The summary is simple: the rules of chess, developed over its long history, are its regnant nexus--the regime, pattern, or nexus-agency of the game. You and I are inside or "in" a game of chess, not when everything about you and me follows the rules of chess, but when our interactions in this game follow the rules of chess. If you or I break the rules, we are "out" of the game. Thus, you and I are in a game of chess (i.e., we are members or players of this particular game) when our interactions are internal to (or follow the patterns of) the regnant nexus of chess.

     Why do we play chess? Because it's fun. Just like flying together.

      Cultural anthropology, in its many forms, is an investigation of the governing patterns and regularities in inter-individual interactions in culture: a look at cultural networks. Generally, cultural anthropology--which the dictionary defines as "the scientific study of culture"--attempts to look at these networks from a third-person stance, and when it does so, it moves within the event horizons of zone #2 (the outsides of the interiors), which we will return to in the next excerpt. Some forms of cultural studies, however, rely more on hermeneutics (such as ethnomethodology and interpretive anthropology), and thus move within zone #1. Needless to say, an integral anthropology would include both, but we first want to explore the dimensions of each of these zones individually before we look to their possible synthesis.

     (If you glace at fig. 3, notice that there are actually four major methodologies dealing with communal holons--the insides and outsides of the exteriors and interiors--and we will see that "cultural anthropology" and "cultural studies"--and history and sociology--have all been involved in various sorts of acrimonious disputes between those major methodologies. We will return to these disputes and attempt to sort them out; in the meantime, it is the insides of the interiors of these networks that we are feeling our way into....)

The Demands of Our Togetherness

     "We's" are the "units" of culture. The study of the history of "we's" as kosmic habits is the study of a culture and its history.

      We have been looking at the example of our friendship, where you and I share a mini-culture in our togetherness. But often individuals are simply born into we's that already exist, which means that, for each compound individual, there must be, from the start, a tetra-mesh and tetra-adaptation, or the compound individual faces, shall we say, erasure from the matrix. I am born into various we/its, landed squarely in the midst of their intersections; hence, from the start, my exchanges with others in any network must mesh (or learn to mesh) with the regnant nexus of that network, or else there will be no decoding mechanism at the receiving end for the messages sent through that network--there will be no way for me to decode the exterior signals and signifiers that I am receiving and unfold them into interior meanings and signifieds: the entire sociocultural network will be all Greek to me.

     No compound individual--no bacterium, no ant, no geese, no ape--can long survive in those circumstances, because survival is not merely an UR organism enduring in time, but a tetra-occasion unfolding in the AQAL matrix of primordial perspectives. The native perspectives available to all holons are not simply perspectives on the same event but enacted dimensions of any event, dimensions that must co-existence with the rest of the universe or face, as we were saying, erasure. Each quadrant is both an expression of a holon's native dimensions of being-in-the-world and a demand-claim that those dimensions do in fact fit or mesh with the rest of existence.

     Thus, to look at it in third-person terms, each primordial perspective embodies an implicit validity claim. Perspectives are not static but are perspectives-in-action, and those actions must mesh with other actions in the Kosmos. The actual existence of any holon, top to bottom, is an implicit claim on the part of its existence that its existence can indeed exist: that its being-in-the-world is adequately nestled in endless networks of other beings in the world. If it is not adequately nestled--in all four quadrants (truth, truthfulness, meaning, and fit)--then turbulence in the AQAL ocean will sink its claims. One way to summarize that is by saying that there are selection pressures (or validity claims) in all four quadrants, whose technicalities I will pursue in an endnote.⁴³ The simpler point is that there are demands placed on us by virtue of our togetherness, demands that we resonate adequately with others with whom we share a Kosmos. Those validity claims are a measure of the honesty that any holon brings to its existence in the world of its togetherness.

      When I am born into a society, I am landed in a labyrinth of already-existing networks, individuals, cultural and social holons--a plethora of "I's" and "you's" and "we's" and "its"--and the tetra-selection pressures from those perspectives slam down on me from day one. Yet those are not merely selection pressures besieging me from without, but calls from within to awaken my own indigenous perspectives and begin to inhabit them with consciousness, care, resonance, and radiance. That society can often cripple these native potentials and blind my own perspectives is no secret. What is less often realized or appreciated is the positive side of all of those demands: the miracle of our togetherness circles as they call forth from us those extraordinary potentials that neither you nor I would ever find in ourselves without each other: the beauty and radiance that each of us is because of the other. That is the ultimate secret of these circles of we's, these togetherness dances without which the heart of the Kosmos could never beat a single beat, and would have no reason to do so, even if it could.

Compound We's

     The many ways we touch extend indefinitely, with each "we" nestled in other "we's," involving other nexus-agencies (which may themselves involve different waves, streams, states, and types). This is where the phenomenological tracking of "we's" becomes a four-dimensional chess-game nightmare, only worse. For this presentation, let me flatten it out a bit and give a quick topological fly-by (I will reserve a more technical treatment for an endnote).⁴⁴

     A communal system is indeed a holon (or a whole that functions in relation to other wholes). It is not an individual holon (or compound individual), but a communal holon (or compound network). As a holon, the agency of this communal holon, like all agency, is an agency-in-communion, which means, in this case, a nexus-agency that is in communion with other nexus-agencies (which occurs via the compound individuals that are members of both nexuses). This occurs as the involved compound individuals tetrahend their overlapping worlds moment-to-moment. Put simply, each "we" exists in networks of relationships with other "we's."

     These different "we's" overlap and intersect in any number of ways--standing next to each other, including each other, excluding each other, subsets of another, encompassing others, enveloping others, at war with others, at peace with others, and so on. As complex as those relationships are in the real world, there are two essential points that seem to hold in all cases: a "we" never subsumes, includes, or governs individual holons but rather their inter-holonic exchanges or intersections; and there is no fundamental "we" of which other we's are constructed (just as there is no fundamental individual holon or "I" of which all other I's are constructed--it's turtles all the way down, and therefore inter-turtles all the way down).

     The point is that a "we" can grow and expand (can transcend-and-include), but in actuality this never involves the subjugation of individuals but simply the governing of their intersections by the nexus of which they are partners or members. A "we" can therefore expand to include a membership with all sentient beings, yet without subjugating any of them--that is, without subsuming them in a superagency of a really big organism.

     It is the higher-"I" dimension in a holon that subsumes lesser "I's," with each higher-"I" identity or agency resulting in a wider "we" membership or communion--but the "we" never transcends or subjugates any "I"--that, again, is fascism of one sort or another. The only time a "we" attempts to subjugate individuals is when somebody thinks that a social holon is itself an organism or superorganism. This imperium or leviathan view, as suggested, tends to be the basis of fascism--political fascism, eco-fascism, social fascism (which we will address in the next excerpt). Even in such cases of pathology, however, a fascist system still only subjugates the intersections of its members, not the individuality of its members.

     In other words, no society can or does transcend individuals. No society, group, system, culture, nexus, network, or collective can or does transcend-and-include its members. Societies transcend-and-include their own past; what is internal to a culture is the previous moment's culture, not you and me. No group can transcend an individual; an individual can only transcend himself. A group can only transcend itself. Compound individuals transcend-and-include their previous states; compound networks transcend-and-include their previous states; but compound networks do not transcend-and-include compound individuals. No society transcends and includes individuals. Again, individuals are partners, not parts, of any nexus. (What is part of a nexus is the previous moment's nexus, and thus, even in pathological systems, it is intersections, not individuals, that are oppressed.) Individuals are never subsumed; previous cultures are. Horizons are fused; sentient beings are not.

     A sentient being or compound individual 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 God--and God, as the Self of all selves, is external to all manifestation but all manifestation is internal to God--i.e., Spirit transcends all and includes all.)

     Failure to understand the difference between expanding an identity that is "I" and expanding a circle that is "we" leads to most of the problems encountered in eco-theories, in my opinion. Even a theorist as sophisticated as Arne Naess (the founder of deep ecology)--who advances a conception of what he calls " a hierarchy of gestalts of identity" (by which he basically means, a holarchy of self-identity)--fails to conceptualize this in any adequate fashion, as he himself frankly acknowledges. Naess realizes that expanding an "I" or self-identity means a wider circle of identity with others, eventually including all sentient beings; and this expanding circle of identity is crucial to genuinely ecological consciousness. But the relation of this expanding "I" to the expanding "we" eludes Naess: "From the identification process stems unity, and since the unity is of a gestalt character, the wholeness is attained. Very abstract and vague! The widening and deepening of the individual selves somehow [his italics] never makes them into one 'mass.' How to work this out in a fairly precise way I do not know." No eco-theorist that I am aware of has succeeded where Naess failed.

     The relation of an expanding "I" (which transcends and subsumes its own lesser identities until it realizes an I-identity or Self-identity with Spirit) leads to an expanding circle of "we" (a "we" that can include inside its circle of care all sentient beings), such that individual horizons become fused (or become intersections inside ever-wider circles of care), but individuals themselves don't become "one mass" (or internal to a really big organism). As an individual "I" becomes higher/deeper, the circle of "we" becomes larger/wider--but at no point does an particular I subsume other I's, nor at any point does a we swallow individual I's (at no point does a Gaia subsume individuals in an imperium agency). "One Taste" does not mean "one mass" or "one organism" or "one leviathan," but a direct realization that my I is Spirit, my We is all sentient beings, and my It is the entire manifest universe. In other words, higher I's (that transcend-and-include lesser I's), greater we's (that transcend-and-include lesser we's), and wider its (that transcend-and-include lesser its).

     The "one mass" or "Gaia superorganism" view of ecological consciousness usually stems from a leviathan or imperium metatheory, which is what causes most of the intractable problems. If, instead, we simply follow the indigenous phenomenology of all four quadrants, allowing each to arise in the space of its own nativity, the relationships become more transparent: higher I's, greater we's, and wider its--until every I is Buddha, every We is Sangha, and every It is Dharma--and none of them melt down, but rather find themselves as the exuberant expressions of a nondual Spirit that is the groundless Ground of each. Spirit is not I nor we nor it, but the empty fullness in which they all appear as expressions of the unqualifiable Suchness of this and every moment, a moment endlessly refracted in the primordial perspectives of its own becoming and honored in an integral embrace that bows to the radiance of each.