Hey guys,

So, this is a rather nitpicky point, but someone in the office pointed out to me that a rose is not a holon. It's an artifact, I guess, 'cause a rosebush is a holon. So, there's that. Anyway, it doesn't effect the major points here, but I felt silly when it was pointed out to me, and now y'all can feel silly, too.

Yotam

yotam,

you're absolutely right! it is nitpicky. is 'controller' an artifact? is 'seeker' an artifact?

ok! you are 'noreplytoralpher' now, tell me what you do.

ralph

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that person in your office hasn't seen dutch rose farms, where the roses don't grow on bushes, they grow individually straight out of the ground.

how about a mushroom. ask them if that's a holon.

 

later,

gene

i finally saw the 4Q x 3 = lake video. cool!

the three ways that the 4 quad model can be used is what? how? who?  iow, it's

1)  "looking at" (what)       e.g. a lake      a 4 quad ontology

2) "looking with" (how)      e.g. a microscope (UR)      a 4 quad methodology (different method for each quad)

3) "looking from" (who)      e.g. me                       some other -ology (as i recall)

my comment the other week about the difference between mark edwards and ken wilber mentioned "looking at" and "looking through".  my "looking through" was meant the same way as the "looking from" above, e.g. i am looking through (or from) my 4 quads at another 4 quad holon.

later,

gene

 

 

gene,

i was unable to watch this video. i have an apple i-book, evidently without the necessary software or hardware. but i'd like to pursue this anyway.

a lake is not a holon, is it? so it doesn't have four quadrants. for those who insist, it has four quadrivia, right? but if we pursue this, we're getting away from aqal. not my cup of tea.

to call it a social holon would undermine what ken originally intended, i.e. the communal aspect of a holon. for example, a water molecule might fall as rain into the lake, at which point the lake becomes an important constituent of its LQs. but so is the sun, and when its rays have sufficiently excited this particular water molecule, it will become a water vapor molecule and say bye bye to the lake.

on the other hand, does the lake serve as a morphogenetic field for its inhabitants?

a rose may have four quadrants, but they're fused, as they are for any holon who hasn't yet ascended to the altitude of orange. for this reason, it seems to me, she essentially can only take a single perspective. there is no essential distinction in her 'mind' between I, We and It. it's all iwet. when she feels thirsty, it would never occur to her that someone else she can experience 'we' with might not feel thirsty under similar circumstances. the same for an amber fundamentalist. if you or i are not careful, she quickly labels us 'not we', with all the potential consequences that can imply. i guess we can only truly become a person, once we have ascended to orange, but this does sound like a harsh attitude to take towards those of less altitude than orange.

by the same token, it seems that a rose or an amber fundamentalist would conflate the four quadrants of any holon, even if they were well differentiated--or even dissociated.

still puzzled

---

i've been holding off feeling silly until i get answers to the following:

is a cell a holon?

is my liver a holon?

answer those yes and no (with a good explanation) then i'll feel silly about the rose.

here's another one:

if a human is a holon, then what is the superholon of which the human is a part (a subholon)?

 

later,

gene

a lake is not a holon, is it?

no, it's not. you've now forced me to reveal to the world that i have a very short attention span and i'll have to watch the video again to understand what the point was about the lake :o)  i'll bet he didn't say the lake was a holon.  but the title of the piece implies that . . .

 

later,

gene

i think it does us good to feel silly from time to time. of course, how others feel about that is another question.

ok. a living cell is a holon. if it's a liver cell, then, of course, it's a subholon of a liver, which is also a holon and definitely a subholon of some organism.

when we get to humans, we're at the leading edge of evolution. as the guru and the pandit intimated in their last dialogue, we can't see beyond. we can sense that the holon we are in this moment will, if all goes well, be transcended and included in the holon of the next moment, so we're subholons of the holons to come. put another way, we're subholons in this moment, because we're incomplete. we're lacking in some way, and we sense that lack.

and where is this all headed? where are eros and agape, with help from agency and communion, taking us? ultimately, to Spirit, wouldn't you say?

---

a living cell is a holon. if it's a liver cell, then, of course, it's a subholon of a liver, which is also a holon and definitely a subholon of some organism.

if this is true then i'd say a rose is a holon, because it's an organ of the rose bush.

later,

gene

just to complete the chart from the 4q x 3 = lake video

the three ways that the 4 quad model can be used, and if used in only one of these aspects it will be incomplete, is what, how, and who  iow, it's

1)  "looking at" (what--ontology)       e.g. a lake, or any phenomena 

2) "looking with" (how--methodology for each quadrant)     e.g. a microscope (UR)   

3) "looking from" (who--epistemology)      e.g. me

the focus of this is how it applies to perceiving any phenomena.  these aspects of the 4 quads are co-arising.  he refers to a lake as a social holon. 

later,

gene

still haven't watched the video, but you know by now that's not going to stop me.

my understanding from SES is that a social holon, also called a collective holon, is simply the LQ aspect of a holon, such as you or i or a molecule. i suppose a lake could be considered to be the social holon of a fish living in the lake, but what if there were also frogs or turtles living in the lake. what would the fish be able to make of their comings and goings? wouldn't that be outside its 'we', its LLQ?

from the perspective of a fish, it seems to me that we can only include those holons within the lake that don't go beyond that of the holon of the fish developmentally. that would include most of the subholons of a frog or turtle, but not the holon 'frog' or the holon 'turtle' itself.

if you feel sorry for the fish, consider a poor water molecule, who could not relate to any holons beyond the molecules making up each of the inhabitants of the lake.

still, i can see where, for practical purposes, one might want to gloss over these technicalities and consider the lake as the social holon of its inhabitants.

in this vein, ken begins 'integral spirituality' noting that until recent times the social holon of a human holon quite often was not more than a small village and its immediate environs--where magenta and red would feel most comfortable, i guess. much too big a topic to get into now, although i think it's where we need to go, if we really want to understand the significance of this concept. incidentally, i read your latest contribution to 'aqal for beginners'. it reminded me of being a youngster, and, then, the tears came. i think we would want to fit that in here, too.

what was the quote from emerson? who you are, that you see? is this 'the epistemology of the knowing human being', the ontology being what is revealed?

in steve paulsen's interview for npr of ken wilber, ken talks of meditation technologies, i believe. is that an example of a methodology? in this case, for looking at zone 1? isn't this also intertwined with the other two?

about a rose being an organ of a rose bush, that's my feeling, too. in a similar way, i think 'controller' and 'seeker' are subholons of our minds. it's important to keep in mind here that we're talking about the map, which is pointing to the territory, but isn't itself the territory.

i don't want to hog your attention, gene, nor close the door to anyone else who might want to join in, but i definitely enjoy corresponding with you.

ralph

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yschachter:

Hey guys,

So, this is a rather nitpicky point, but someone in the office pointed out to me that a rose is not a holon. It's an artifact, I guess, 'cause a rosebush is a holon. So, there's that. Anyway, it doesn't effect the major points here, but I felt silly when it was pointed out to me, and now y'all can feel silly, too.

Yotam

Whoops! Hey, that's, er, um, right.

I wonder if aliens are observing us and interested in perhaps cutting off our hands and giving them as Valentines day gifts to their females?

(Or is it more like our nails and hair since they will grow back. In fact that's an interesting point: Is that beautiful red "bloomin" thing just the bush's hair and nails? eeooww gross! And by the way, hey, is that where my hair went!?)

I am obvioulsy just kidding. I love those nitpicky but important points.

But does tha answer the question about the iWet seminar?

If I am talking about your perspective of a rose I will use a rose. If I am talking about the rose's perspective of itself I will use an entire rose bush.

Please pardon the dirt on the floor and the big hole left out in the garden.

Peace, Tim

---

What you see is what you get, What you get is what you see,
Don't see it? Don't get it. Don't get it? Don't see it.
What you see is what you get.

gene,

when i began a thread in the integral critics forum on integral math, yotam suggested i check out the discussions on the 1st chapter of IS that are taking place at ISC. this looks like another reason to do so.

the first footnote in that chapter distinguishes between the 'view through' (quadrants) and the 'view from' (quadrivia). i'm finding this very difficult to reconcile with what you've posted here and in #1731.

??

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the first footnote in that chapter distinguishes between the 'view through' (quadrants) and the 'view from' (quadrivia). i'm finding this very difficult to reconcile with what you've posted here and in #1731. ??

should i go somewhere else to read something, or can you clarify the above?

 

later,

gene

I differ with Ralph here (though I'd hardly characterize myself as a noreplytoralpher). I say a liver is not, in fact, a holon. A holon is a whole that is part of another whole, and a liver is not a whole.

"But," of course you respond, "it's a whole liver!"

And I say phooey. There's something about self-sustainability that a liver lacks, because it needs to be in the context of a human body, which transcends and includes it.

And you say "But look at you! You'd die without the civilization you so desperately cling to! Take away the Kwiki-marts and Burgerhuts and you'd starve!"

And I say phooey again. I may be unable to get by without a little help from my friends, but this is a product of nurture, rather than nature. My dependence is not inherent to me the way it is to a liver.

And you'd say something else, and then I'd say something else. But I imagine the gist of my intuited difference is clear by now, no?

Oooh. ooh. I think I got it. Livers only evolved in the context of things that already transcluded them. They were never the top holon. Cells and people were. You can reply again that we developed in the context of tribes or some such, which transcluded us, but then we get to the difference between social holons and individual holons.

All of this, of course, applies equally well to roses as livers - even dutch ones, whose roots are surely removed before they're sold. I do hereby propose once more that we all feel silly. Except for Ralph, who is far to serious about his silliness.

The sad part of all this is, the next time I'm giving or recieving a rose, I'll be thinking about livers instead of hearts, which is entirely inappropriate. "My darling, this flower is a token of my appreciation for how you cleanse the toxins from my life."