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]

Our worldviews can be described as holonic, inasmuch as we are “part of a whole” background context of information, sometimes that which we aren’t even aware of. Our “separate” sense of “self” is the ego, or the “I” thought. It holds in ideas of who we are, and what we consider emotionally and empathically consider “part of us” versus that which we see as “not apart of us.” This conceptual boundary is purely mental, and can be expanded and dissolved. We can think of it as a balloon or bubble. It can be thought of as a permeable membrane, that lets in ideas that we accept, and keeps out ideas that we don’t consider “a part of us.” We can expand this identity.

[rltruthseeker]

There are in a sense, “larger” or more encompassing identities. These span from “egocentric, to ethnocentric, to worldcentric, to kosmocentric.” Nor is the sense of self simply egocentric, or ethnocentric, or worldcentric, or kosmocentric.”There are different abilities, such as aesthetics, mathematical ability, emotional understanding, spiritual intelligence, etc, that can be graphed in different ways depending on who’s scale or type of measurement we’re using. And even that would probably differ depending on cultural conditions, social situations, etc.

[rltruthseeker]

When two people or more come together, when they start sharing or talking about their interests or non interests start to become apparent to each other. They then share a “resonance” or common shared identity, based on mutual interests, shared personality, social interests, common goals, etc. Think of it as two flashlights or “rings” overlapping. This does not mean that their individual identity is “subsumed” by a larger one. Every person doesn’t agree with someone “100%.” Perhaps on certain issues, but not as a whole personality. If the person doesn’t want to find common interests or a shared identity with another person, then they can in a sense “move away” from the other person, and start to empathically move away from the other person. This produces strain or tension in the relationship, and the person can start to project their own “connotations” or erroneous ideas on the other person…instead of meeting them individually. This also happens when a person projects their own shadow, or guilt upon the other person. This is known in Gestalt psychology. The things that we can’t tolerate in ourselves becomes the things we can’t tolerate in others.

[rltruthseeker]

This model allows room for growth, or “hierarchy”, which can be thought of as more as a “holorachy.” Our worldviews, which is how we see the world, can in a sense “grow” or expand, based upon the structures of our beliefs, and also upon our awareness. In a sense beliefs are “tentpoles” which hold up the canvas of our worldview. Two people can each think of their worldview as “larger.” (or perhaps maybe they shouldn’t). It is by engaging in dialogical relationships with people that we come to see that maybe our own perspectives in some ways wasn’t as large as we had hoped, or in some ways we ourselves were unaware, as well as seeing the potential of others. Mutual respect and honor, as well as learning each other’s personalities can result in creative fun and can allow a sense of creative engagement to flourish and open up possibilities of both individual and collective growth.
A person’s worth isn’t dependent on their worldview, but how they see their individual self worth may be.

[rltruthseeker]

This model facilitates transformation (expansion of the boundary), translation (moving around the” perimeter” , or levels) of the boundary, and also the subtle causal, and nondual experiences that can temporarily (or in the case of nondual, permanently) remove the boundaries of our self, and subject/object duality. These type of experiences (while they are associated with mediation, they are not strictly confined to meditation) can in a sense “shake up the self” and provide the person undergoing them, that their conceptual constructs of self were illusionary and without any validity. A person can in a sense after meditative experience, have their conceptual construct of self come back, but they then realize that their beliefs are somehow illusionary, and then their sense of identity grows larger and in a sense “increases” their consciousness. There sense of boundaries are seen through as transparent, and that is taken into account, and a more fully authentic and free flowing existence can become to be more and more embraced. Transrational qualities are embodied more and more within the individuals life and outlook, and fear and guilt become less and less because they are seen for the self-contractive nature that they are.

[rltruthseeker]

[rltruthseeker]

[rltruthseeker]

lol. :)

[Edward theurj Berge]

One of the best expositions of holonic AQAL is Mark Edwards' 7-part series called "Through AQAL Eyes" in the reading room at Integral World. Check it out.

You can also get Edwards' summary of the series in this little essay. I highly recommend the series though for all the myriad details.

[rltruthseeker]

Thanks theurj, I'll definitely check out those links. :)
I think this model can work with a Wilber type IV and V model...but it can also move away from them.

Thanks smarty, I appreciate your diagram :)

[rltruthseeker]

Listen to this...one of my favorite early Wilber quotes.

“Who am I?” The query has probably tormented humankind since the dawn of civilization, and remains today one of the most vexing of all questions. Answers have been offered which range from the sacred to the profane, the complex to the simple, the scientific to the romantic, the political to the individual. But instead of examining the multitude of answer’s to this question, let’s look instead at a very specific and basic process which occurs when a person asks, and then answers, the question, “Who am I? What is my real self? What is my fundamental identity?”

When someone asks, “Who are you?” and you proceed to give a reasonable, honest, and more or less detailed answer, what in fact, are you doing? What goes on in your head as you do this? In one sense you are describing your self as you have come to know it, including in your description most of the pertinent facts, both good and bad, worthy and worthless, scientific and poetic, philosophic and religious, that you understand as fundamental to your identity. You might, for example, think that “I am a unique person, a being endowed with certain potentials; I am a kind but sometimes cruel, loving but sometimes hostile; I am a father and lawyer, I enjoy fishing and basketball…” And so your list of feelings and thoughts might proceed.

Yet there is an even more basic process underlying the whole procedure of establishing an identity. Something very simple happens when you answer the question, “Who are you?” When you are describing or explaining or even just inwardly feeling your “self,” what you are actually doing, whether you know it or not, is drawing a mental line or boundary across the whole field of your experience, and everything inside of that boundary you are feeling or calling you “self,” while everything outside of that boundary you are feel to be “not self.” You self-identity, in other words, depends entirely upon where you draw the boundary line.

You are a human and not a chair, and you know that because you consciously or unconsciously draw a boundary line between humans and chairs, and are able to recognize your identity with the former. You may be a very tall human instead of a short one; and so you draw a mental line between tallness and shortness, and thus identify yourself as “tall.” You come to feel that “I am not this and not that” by drawing a boundary line between “this” and “that” and then recognizing your identity with “this” and your nonidentity with “that.”

So when you say “my self,” you draw a boundary line between what Is you and what is not you. When you answer the question, “Who are you?,” you simply describe what’s on the inside of that line. The so-called identity crisis occurs when you can’t decide how or where to draw the line. In short, “Who are you?” means “Where do you draw the boundary?”

All answers to the question, “Who am I?” stem precisely from this basic procedure of drawing a boundary line between self and not-self. Once the general boundary lines have been drawn up, the answers to that question may become very complex-scientific, theological, economic—or they may remain most simple and unarticulated. But any possible answer depends on first drawing the boundary line.

The most interesting thing about this boundary line is that it can and frequently does shift. It can be redrawn. In a sense the person can remap her soul and find territories she never thought possible, attainable, or even desirable. As we have seen, the most radical re-mapping or shifting of the boundary line occurs in experiences of the supreme identity, for here the person expands her self-identity to include the entire universe. We might even say that she loses the boundary line altogether, for when she is identified with the “one harmonious whole” there is no longer any outside or inside and so nowhere to draw the line.”

-Ken Wilber No Boundary and The Simple Feeling of Being.

[Christophe]

Question:

What is the 'Apollo Complex' and what is the 'Vishnu Complex'?

Thanks.