Holons as a locus of awareness

[rltruthseeker]

Holons as a locus of perception.

The following is an outline for the idea of holons as a “locus of perception”

Holons are whole/parts. They reflect an ontological relationship, and shouldn’t be seen as “things in themselves” (have you ever seen a holon? Or did you see a holonic relationship?).This doesn’t mean we can’t realize that through causal inference that we live in a pre-given world of perception. Whole/part relationships reflect a fundamental nature of languaged perception and in this sense can be seen as an epistemology or mereology. By comparing two or more different “things” or perceptions, we come to know the relationship between objects and can differentiate them from other things. This colored patch as opposed to that colored patch, “this” sound as opposed to “that” sound, this size versus that size.  By seeing different distinctions, we can compare and contrast the world around us, as well as seeing “macro” versus “micro” views as well as fragmenting and organizing our otherwise whole Reality through conceptual mental containers of “things.”

[rltruthseeker]

The Apollo complex is the attachment to the verbal rational mind as reality.

"As the person with an Oedipus complex remains unconsciously attached to the body and it's pleasure principle, so the person with an Appollo complex remains unconsciously attached to the mind and its reality principle. (Reality" here means "Institutional, rational, verbal reality," which although conventionally real enouh, is nevertheless only an intermediate state on the path to Atman; that is merel a description of Reality itself, and thus, if clung to, eventually and ultimately prevents the discovery of that actual Realtity)" - Wilber talks about this and his own struggles with the verbal analytical mind in meditation.

The Vishnu complex is the focus on subtler and subtler experiences in medition.

"the experiences of the subtle realm can be (and usually are) quite extraordinary, awesome, profound..For the Vishnu complex is precisely the difficulty in moving from subtle soul to causal spirit. The subtle experiences are so blissful, so awesome, so profound, so salutary, that one never wants to leave, never to let go, but rather to bathe forever in their archetypal glory and immortal release--and thereis the Vishnu complex. If the Apollo complex is the bane of beginning meditators, the Vishnu complex is the great seducer of intermediate practioners."

These can be difficulties for the long term meditation student in gradual awakening, but there can also be spontaneous awakening that bypasses these.

[Christophe]

Apollo Complex, eh. This Ken Wilber dude does seem to have a sense of humor.

Tell me, what Wilber books are these quotes from? It's early stuff, ain't it? Pre-Wilber 5, right?

[rltruthseeker]

It's from the anthology "The Simple Feeling of Being" (One of Ken Wilber's best books) and the selection is from Alan Watts, Tao: The Water course way.

It's pre-Wilber 5...but I think it's still relevant.

He goes on to describe his experience of the subtle realms based on Karpal Singh's work...as well as his immersion in archetype, to deity, to yidam (the Buddhist term and istaveda (the Hindu term) meditation. He's really an experienced meditator in his own right and has experienced his own "one taste" of awakening...

...but I think that lately he's fallen back into the Apollo complex. :(

[rltruthseeker]

I like this old stuff. The latest terminology of aqal and wilber 5 is so awkward and non-intuitive as to be positively obscure.

The imposition becomes habitual and automated and then recedes into the background where reality is unconsciously constructed; it becomes 'pre-given'

We can expand the boudary of who we are when we love. Love is about redrawing the boundary of the self to include the 'other.' We can also evict items that we dislike from the boundary and place them in our shadow; a blind spot that contains all of our otherness.

By refusing to acknowledge the shadow aspects, for whatever reason, these aspects control people from behind the scenes, unconsciously, and they often succumb to these hidden forces from there own personality. You cannot manage what you don't see. Blind fear of the shadow content allows it more control over the person.

I really like what you say...and yes, I think all maps are constructs...they are not "given" in reality but that we super-impose them. The ego is like a filtering device, and it in a sense "filters" what we want to see, or how we see the world.... and yes, I think it becomes automated. Even when people are aware of the idea of shadows...they still usually can't see their own...or their unconscious self-contracting.

In a sense all maps are constructs, and concepts are just mental containers....which allow us to organize our sensory experience. But yes.... I think we can always "redraw" the map, and let love in...

[rltruthseeker]

Let me clarify... I think the idea of holons are useful, but that they don't really exist. I think though they are a really good way of organizing information.

Wilber in Sex, God, Ecology essentially translates "things" to holons...and thus all "things" now have whole/part relationships. In his holonic model he does this for for everyhing, from sentences to atoms, to time, etc.

"Reality is not composed of things or processes; it is not composed of atoms or quarks; it is not composed of wholes nor does it have any parts. Rather, it is composed of whole/parts, or holons.

This is true of atoms, cells, symbols, ideas. They can be understood neither as things nor processes, neither as whole nor parts, but only as simultaneous whole/parts...Before an atom is an atom, it is a holon. Before a cell is a cell, it is a holon. Before an idea is an idea, it is a holon. All of them are whole that exists in other wholes, and thus they are whole/parts, or holons, first and foremost (long before any "particular characteristics" are singled out by us.) -pg 41-41 SES


Thus he says reality "turtles all the way down" and "all the way up." So when he says "long before any particular characteristics are singled out") he is talking about how peception works. That's what I'm trying to show and show how perception works. I think it also moves it closer to epistemology, and I think that both people with postmodernistic leanings and mystical leanings can get behind that. The observer isn't separate from the observed.

I think a lot of integralists have confused "the map" instead of actually walking the territory.

There are not "8 zones of Reality"... There is just Reality, which can be visually represented as eight "different domains" when in fact, they are never apart. The Eight zones or four quadrants are just different ways of "slicing up the pie" of reality. Those who feel they are hampered by Wilber's models don't really see through that model... You can always choose any model that allows you to organize your experience...but yes, it is indeed "constricted" by "objective" things.

Reality isn't really composed of "circles within circles"...that's just a useful way of organizing information.

I respect Wilber...nor am I intent on bashing him, but I do think he has been at times partial.

[Christophe]

What's wrong with the Holon? I always liked the concept. It's a reminiscence to Arthur Koestler, the poor guy. Why change it?

Besides, Sloterdijk has got a roughly comparable Ontology. He describes Spheres as the natural habitation space of human beings. For example we are born from the womb into a new sphere, the Life World. Or something like that. Spheres are loosely connected to the ideas of Bachelards "Poetry of Space" and Heidegger's being-in-the-world. I always thought Holons to be something similar to that.

Picture: Bubbles (1887) after Millais by G.H. Every

[Balder]

I think Marty will probably tell you that monad is a better term than holon. Everyone knows that a toucan is a monad, not a holon.

[rltruthseeker]

Thanks for the picture Christophe. :)

Yes, I think your right Balder, monads are a better term...because biological systems have their own agency (based upon structural-functionalism")

Monad (Greek philosophy) a term meaning "unit" used variously by ancient philosophers from the Pythagoreans to Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus to signify a variety of entities from a genus to God.

We can call it a "thing" or unit, or entity or bird, or species, or toucan...or brightly colored patches in front of other brightly colored patches that seem to move about in space and time... different names have different connotations...
but it still refers to the same "thing" ...

Of course I do believe that different "spheres" or ways of being can intersect...hopefully without killing each other, lol.

[Balder]

Hi, RL, sorry; I'm trying to coax Marty to confirm my suspicion that he went by the name "Toucan" on the old IPS forum over on Gaia. Toucan used to argue that "holon" was a horrible, incoherent, useless concept and that "monad" was much better. I disagreed with Toucan; I told him I think "holon" is a decent concept, and makes explicit what turned out to be implicit in Toucan's definition of monad, anyway...

[rltruthseeker]

lol. I like the idea of holons. :) I got the idea you were trying to lure someone out when you first posted it as a "non-sequitor" the first time....but I don't know who Toucan was. Weird bird, lol. :)

[Edward theurj Berge]

The world we see is a matter of how we connect the dots and thereby draw the boundaries. They are utterly arbitrary.

And Lakoff & Johnson, among other cogscipragos, would disagree about arbitrariness, saying our categories (and perceptions) are inherent to our physiological strutures and environmental interactions. Hence they are indeed partly constructed and not a "direct" 1-on-1, pre-given representational perception. But also we are perceiving "the world that is there" (Mead), so we are not totally constructing what we perceive and categorize. Aka, PM enaction. So even the holon construct itself has a basis in "reality," but like a good postmetaphysician we might say it is not a "thing in itself."

[rltruthseeker]

I don't think it's utterly arbitrary either.

I also like to think of holons as contexts and also because of the nature of languaged perception. Contexts can be a locus of attention, or where we place our attention...because as Wilber says perceptual meaning is "context dependent"...and because their are tons of contexts, there are different ways of looking at something...
I think our own subjectivity, or the way we understand something, is vitally important, and I think we can look at something, but from a slightly different locus of awareness or context...

When we are talking about Identity though, the mystics and sages would say there is a "knowing" that doesn't depend on language...where the boundaries of our self and others falls away...and we realize our Identity with everyone and everything. Different words in different cultures are used for the same experience...
and yes, there are physical correlates (that is one context) as well as seeing it in other ways. I think the exterior approaches will always be important.

A mystic would never confuse any concept though with the Self (which is pure consciousness which is self-aware).