Open Integral

In the Postmodern Spirituality blog I pasted a quote from Mark about how he approaches integral theory. He prefers the TFA v. the TOE for the reasons listed in that post. See Mark’s interview here

Here is a similar view I found that was originally posted by Balder in the IN forum where he quotes Henri Bortoft (1985), Counterfeit and Authentic Wholes, pp. 283-286:

Everything we encounter in the world can be said to be either one thing or another, either this or that, either before or after, and so on. Wherever we look, there are different things to be distinguished from one another: this book here, that pen there, the table underneath, and so on. Each thing is outside the other, and all things are separate from one another. But in recognizing the things about us in this way, we, too, are separate from and outside of the things we see. We find ourselves laid out side by side, together with and separate from, the things we recognize. This is the familiar spectator awareness. In the moment of recognizing a thing we stand outside that thing, and in the moment of standing outside that thing we turn into an “I” that knows that thing, for there cannot be an “outside” without the distinction of something being outside some other thing. Thus, the “I” of “I know” arises in the knowing of something in the moment of recognition of the thing known. By virtue of its origin, the “I” that knows is outside what knows.

We cannot know the whole in the way in which we know things because we cannot recognize the whole as a thing. If the whole were available to be recognized in the same way as we recognize the things that surround us, then the whole wouel be counted among those things as one of them. We could point and say, “here is this” and “there is that,” and “that’s the whole over there.” If we had the power of such recognition, we would know the whole in the same way that we know its parts, for the whole itself would simply be numbered among its parts. The whole would be outside its parts in the same way that each part is outside of all other parts. But the whole comes into presence within its parts, and we cannot encounter the whole in the same way that we encounter the parts. We should not thing of the whole as if it were a thing.

Awareness is occupied with things. The whole is absent to awareness because it is not a thing among things. To awareness, the whole is no-thing. The whole that is no-thing is taken as mere nothing, in which case it vanishes. When this loss happens, we are left with a world of things, and the apparent task of putting them together to make a whole. Such an effort disregards the authentic whole.

The other choice is to take the whole to be no-thing but not nothing. This possibility is difficult for awareness, which cannot distinguish the two. Yet, we have an illustration immediately on hand with the experience of reading. We do not take the meaning of a sentence to be a word. The meaning of a sentence is no-word. But evidently this is not the same as nothing, for if it were we could never read! The whole presences within parts, but from the standpoint of awareness that grasps external parts, the whole is an absence. The absence, however, is not the same as nothing. Rather, it is an active absence inasmuch as we do not try to be aware of the whole, as if we could grasp it like a part, but instead let ourselves be open to be moved by the whole…

We cannot separate part and whole into disjointed positions, for they are not two as in common arithmetic. The arithmetic of the whole is not numerical. We do not have part and whole, though the number category of ordinary language will always make it seem so. If we do not separate part and whole into two, we appear to have an alternative of moving in a single direction, either from part to whole or from whole to part. If we start from this position, we must at least insist on moving in both directions at once, so that we have neither the resultant whole as a sum nor the transcendental whole as a dominant authority, but the emergent whole that comes forth into its parts. The character of this emergence is the “unfolding of enfolding,” so that the parts are the place of the whole where it bodies forth into presence. The whole imparts itself; it is accomplished through the parts it fulfills.

We can perhaps do something more to bring out the relationship between whole and part by considering the hologram… If we break the hologram plate into fractions, we do not break the whole. The whole is present in each fraction, but its presence diminishes as the fractioning proceeds. Starting from the other end, with many fractions, we could put the fractions together to build up the totality. As we did so, the whole would emerge; it would come forth more fully as we approached the totality. But we would not be building up the whole. The whole is already present, present in the fractions, coming fully into presence in the totality. The superficial ordering of the fractional parts may be a linear series — this next to that, and so on. But the ordering of the parts with respect to the emergent whole, the essential ordering, is nested and not linear. Thus, the emergence of the whole is orthogonal to the accumulation of parts because it is the coming into presence of the whole that is whole, the whole that is immanent.

This process tells us something significant about the whole in a way that shows us the significance of the parts. If the whole presences within its parts, then a part is a place for the presencing of the whole. If a part is to be an arena in which the whole can be present, it cannot be “any old thing.” Rather, a part is special and not accidental, since it must be such as to let the whole come into presence. This speacialty of the part is particularly important because it shows us the way to the whole. It clearly indicates that the way to the whole is into and through the parts. It is not to be encountered by stepping back to take an overview, for it is not over and above the parts, as if it were some superior, all-encompassing entity. The whole is to be encountered by stepping right into the parts. This is how we enter into the nesting of the whole, and thus move into the whole as we pass through the parts….

I decided to move the comments below to this new post, as it begins a new line of inquiry.

In just reading the comments by Mark to Edward’s recent post – I don’t believe there is a collective monad, or whatever you want to call it. A collective makes decisions through a complex process of conscious, semi-conscious and unconscious agreements, conflicts, compromises, understandings, accomodations, etc.

I suddenly thought of NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming) which teaches that much of our communication is non-verbal. Some recent work has discovered the importance of micro-expressions in communication (especially uncovering lying). Any well trained NLPer knows about micro-expressions (and micro, micro-expressions). Interestingly only around one in a thousand can see micro-expressions. I happen to be one of them and to me they stick out like a blush. The point is this, much of the agreement making in collectives occurs at this micro level. People situate themselves within ‘groupthink’ by a set of subtle signals. Furthermore, as basic group dynamics tells us, people have a range of subtext motives for situating themselves in certain positions.

In short, there is a surface dynamic and layers of sub-surface dynamic. Much of the consensus action happens at the sub-surface level in such a way as it appears the collective has a mind of its own.

I would suggest that a skilled person could enter into any collective, analyse the dynamic and consciously alter the ‘groupthink’. I’ve done this myself in small groups. It takes more time in large groups. The first step is to decide who the surface and sub-surface leaders are. And here it is absolutely essential to work out who the real leaders are because they may not be the nominated surface leaders. To give you a very crude example, the real leader may be a quiet female to whom the dominant males are consciously or unconsciously attracted to. If she signals her disapproval using non-verbal means the dominant males will change their behaviour until she signals her approval. But it can be much more subtle than that (she may be reflecting off another person for a nonsexual subtext reason, leading to third or fourth generation dynamics).

Ray

Edward Berge:

I’ve cut an pasted my last comments on the topic from the forum, as I’m trying to get a discussion going in there:

RE: Holacracy
Posted By: Edward Berge on 07-16-2006 9:08 am
Posts: 5 EDIT POST

Here is some of what Mark says on social holons from his printed work at Integral World. From “Through AQAL Eyes,” Part 5, Section 6:Wilber is so suspicious of collective consciousness and social agency that he ends up defining it as a “set of governing rules” and a exterior “network” of “rules” similar he means to the rules of chess, I assume. The regnant nexus then becomes the “rules of social interaction”.  

Ken Quote: “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). (Excerpt C, ¶ 390)

In defining collective agency as a set of rules Wilber turns the collectives capacity for systemic-agency and self-organisation into the aggregate of individuals’ intentions to follow rules. This results in a decapitated collective holon whose agency is derivative of individual intention.

Ken Quote: All systems as such are self-organizing, and they are self-organizing because their members are sentient beings with intentionality. (Excerpt C, ¶ Note 31)

Here we have social agency defined by individuals’ internalisation of governing rules. This is a reductionist understanding of a social holon. The defining pattern of a social holon engaged in activity (such as a game of chess) is characterised by its own levels of meaning, activity, experience, and roles that are not reducible to the internal worlds, experiences or feelings of the individuals engaged in that activity. Wilber’s derivative view of collective agency reflects the weaknesses in his holonic theory. He explains the agency of a collective holon is terms of individuals’ internalisations because his collective holons occupy the bottom two quadrants and individual holons the upper two (see figure 3). When represented like this, collective holons have an agency that is individualistic in essence (and individual holons have a communality that is about the intersections of individuals).

RE: Holacracy
Posted By: Edward Berge on 07-16-2006 9:18 am
Posts: 5 EDIT POST

I stand corrected. I found the following in a Google search at http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do?contentType=Article&hdAction=lnkhtml&contentId=1502555Title: The integral holon: A holonomic approach to organisational change and transformation  

Author(s): Mark G. Edwards

Journal: Journal of Organizational Change Management

ISSN: 0953-4814

Year: Jun 2005 Volume: 18 Issue: 3 Page: 269 – 288

DOI: 10.1108/09534810510599425

Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Abstract: Purpose – Over the past two decades there has been a growing recognition of the need to develop integrative approaches to understanding and explaining organisational change. One of the barriers to achieving this has been the lack of an integrative theoretical framework that can cope with the multiple demands of researching and explaining organisational change across diverse domains. To meet this challenge a holonomic framework for the study of organisational change is proposed. The purpose of the paper is to demonstrate the suitability of the holon construct as the basis for a multilevel and multi-paradigm framework for the study of organisational change.

Design/methodology/approach – Arthur Koestler’s holon construct and the developmental principles of Ken Wilber’s AQAL framework are used as foundations for developing the framework. To this end theory building techniques are used to describe how the holon construct can accommodate the essential explanatory characteristics of ten paradigms commonly used in organisational studies.

Findings – The holonomic framework described here possesses significant integrative capacity by demonstrating its ability to incorporate multiple concepts from a diversity of organisational fields.

Originality/value – It has the potential to contribute significantly to the integrative investigation of change across many levels and domains of organisational activity.

Keywords: Continuing development, Organizational change

Article Type: Conceptual paper

Article URL: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/09534810510599425