Janus (45 page)

 

 

HIERARCHIC ORDER AND FEEDBACK CONTROL

 

The most obvious example of interlocking hierarchies is the sensory-motor
system. The sensory hierarchy processes information and transmits it in a
steady upward flow, some of which reaches the conscious ego at the apex;
the ego makes decisions which are spelt out by the downward stream of
impulses in the motor hierarchy. But the apex is not the only point
of contact between the two systems;
they are connected by entwining
networks on various lower levels
. The network on the lowest level
consists of reflexes like the patellary. They are short-cuts between the
ascending and descending flow, like loops connecting opposite traffic
streams on a motor highway. On the next higher level are the networks of
sensory-motor skills and habits, such as touch-typing or driving a car,
which do not require the attention of the highest centres -- unless
some disturbance throws them out of gear. But let a little dog amble
across the icy road in front of the driver, and he will have to make a
'top level' decision whether to slam on the brake, risking the safety
of his passengers, or run over the dog. It is at this level, when the
pros and cons are precariously balanced that the subjective experience
of free choice and moral responsibility arises.

 

 

But the ordinary routines of existence do not require such moral decisions,
and not even much conscious attention. They operate by means of feedback
loops, and loops-within-loops, which form the multilevelled, reticulate
networks between the input and output hierarchies. So long as all goes
well and no dog crosses the road, the strategy of riding a bicycle or
driving a car can be left to the automatic pilot in the nervous system
-- the cybernetic helmsman. But one must beware of using the principle
of feedback control as a magic formula. The concept of feedback without
the concept of hierarchic order is like the grin without the cat. All
skilled routines follow a pre-set pattern according to certain rules of
the game. These are fixed, but permit continual adjustments to variable
environmental conditions.
Feedback can only operate within the limits
set by the rules
-- by the canon of the skill. The part which feedback
plays is to report back on every step in the progress of the operation,
whether it is over-shooting or falling short of the mark, how to keep
it on an even keel, when to intensify the pace and when to stop. But
it cannot alter the intrinsic pattern of the skill. To quote Paul Weiss
^[17]
at the Hixon Symposium:

 

The structure of the input does not produce the structure of the
output, but merely modifies intrinsic nervous activities, which have
a structural organization of their own.

 

One of the vital differences between the S-R and SOHO concepts is that
according to the former, the environment determines behaviour, whereas
according to the latter, feedback from the environment merely guides or
corrects or stabilizes pre-existing patterns of behaviour.

 

 

Moreover, the cross-traffic between the sensory and motor hierarchies works
both ways. The input guides the output and keeps it on an even keel;
but motor activity in its turn guides perception. The eye must scan; its
motions, large and small -- drift, flicker, tremor -- are indispensable
to vision; an image stabilized on the retina disintegrates into
darkness.
^[18]
Similarly with audition: if you try to recall a tune,
what do you do? You hum it. Stimuli and responses have been swallowed
up by feedback loops within loops, along which impulses run in circles
like kittens chasing their tails.

 

 

A HIERARCHY OF ENVIRONMENTS

 

Let us carry this inquiry into the meaning of current terminology a step
further, and ask just what that convenient word 'environment' is meant to
signify. When I am driving my car, the environment in contact with my right
foot is the accelerator pedal, its elastic resistance to pressure provides
a tactile feedback which helps keeping the speed of the car steady.
The same applies to the 'feel' of the wheel under my hands. But my eyes
encompass a much larger environment than my feet and hands; they determine
the overall strategy of driving. The hierarchically organized creature
that I am is in fact functioning in a hierarchy of environments, guided
by a hierarchy of feedbacks.

 

 

One advantage of this operational interpretation is that the hierarchy of
environments can be extended indefinitely. When the chess-player stares at
the board in front of him, trying to visualize various situations three moves
ahead, he is guided by feedbacks from imagined environments. Most of our
thinking, planning and creating operates in such imaginary environments.
But -- to quote Bartlett
^[19]
-- 'all our perceptions are
inferential constructs', coloured by imagination, and so the difference
is merely one of degrees. The hierarchy is open-ended at the top.

 

 

MECHANIZATION AND FREEDOM

 

A skilled activity, such as writing a letter, branches into sub-skills
which, on successively lower levels of the hierarchy, become increasingly
mechanized, stereotyped and predictable. The choice of subjects to be
discussed in a letter is vast; the next step, phrasing, still offers a
great number of alternatives, but is more restricted by the rules of
grammar, the limits of one's vocabulary, etc.; the rules of spelling
are fixed, with no leeway for flexible strategies, and lastly, the
muscle contractions which depress the typewriter keys are entirely
automacized. Thus
a sub-skill or behavioural holon on the (n) level
of the hierarchy has more degrees of freedom
(a larger variety of
alternative strategic choices permitted by the canon)
than a holon on
the (n-1) level
.

 

 

However, all skills tend with increasing mastery and practice to become
automatized routines. While acquiring a skill we must concentrate on
every detail of what we are doing; then learning begins to condense into
habit as steam condenses into drops; with increasing practice we read,
write, type, drive 'automatically' or 'mechanically'. Thus we are all the
time transforming 'mental' into 'mechanical' activities. In unexpected
contingencies, however, the process can be reversed. Driving along a
familiar road is an automatized routine; but when that little dog crosses
the road, a strategic choice has to be made which is beyond the competence
of automatized routine, for which the automatic pilot in my nervous system
has not been programmed, and the decision must be referred to higher
quarters. The
shift of control
of an on-going activity from one level
to a higher level of the hierarchy -- from 'mechanical' to 'mindful'
behaviour -- seems to be the essence of conscious decision-making and
of the subjective experience of free will.

 

 

The tendency towards the progressive mechanization of skills has its
positive side: it conforms to the principle of parsimony. If I could
not hit the keys of the typewriter 'automatically' I could not attend
to meaning. On the negative side, mechanization, like rigor mortis,
affects first the extremities -- the lower subordinate branches of the
hierarchy, but it also tends to spread upward. If a skill is practised
in the same unvarying conditions, following the same unvarying course,
it tends to degenerate into stereotyped routine and its degrees of
freedom freeze up. Monotony accelerates enslavement to habit; and if
mechanization spreads to the apex of the hierarchy, the result is the
rigid pedant, Bergson's
homme automate
. As von Bertalanffy wrote,
'organisms
are not
machines, but they can to a certain extent
become
machines, congeal into machines'. [20]

 

 

Vice versa, a variable environment demands flexible behaviour and reverses
the trend towards mechanization. However, the challenge of the environment
may exceed a critical limit where it can no longer be met by customary
routines, however flexible -- because the traditional 'rules of the game'
are no longer adequate to cope with the situation. Then a crisis arises.
The outcome is either a breakdown of behaviour -- or alternatively the
emergence of new forms of behaviour, of original solutions. They have
been observed throughout the animal kingdom, from insects onward, through
rats to chimpanzees, and point to the existence of unsuspected potentials
in the living organism, which are inhibited or dormant in the normal
routines of existence, and only make their appearance in exceptional
circumstances. They foreshadow the phenomena of human creativity which
must remain incomprehensible to the S-R theorist, but appear in a new
light when approached from the hierarchic point of view.

 

 

SELF-ASSERTION AND INTEGRATION

 

The holons which constitute an organismic or social hierarchy are
Janus-faced entities: facing upward, toward the apex, they function as
dependent parts of a larger whole; facing downward, as autonomous wholes
in their own right. 'Autonomy' in this context means that organelles,
cells, muscles, neurons, organs, all have their intrinsic rhythm and
pattern, often manifested spontaneously without external stimulation, and
that they tend to persist in and assert their characteristic pattern of
activity. This
self-assertive tendency
is a fundamental and universal
characteristic of holons, manifested on every level of every type of
hierarchy: in the regulative properties of the morphogenetic field,
defying transplantation and experimental mutilation; in the stubbornness
of instinct rituals, acquired habits, tribal traditions and social
customs; and even in a person's handwriting, which he can modify but not
sufficiently to fool the expert. Without this self-assertive tendency
of their parts, organisms and societies would lose their articulation
and stability.

 

 

The opposite aspect of the holon is its
integrative tendency
to
function as an integral part of an existing or evolving larger whole.
Its manifestations are equally ubiquitous, from the 'docility' of the
embryonic tissues, through the symbiosis of organelles in the cell,
to the various forms of cohesive bonds, from flock to insect state and
human tribe.

 

 

We thus arrive at a polarity between the self-assertive and the
integrative tendency of holons on every level.
This polarity is of
fundamental importance to the SOHO concept. It is in fact implied in
the model of the multilevelled hierarchy, because the stability of the
hierarchy depends on the equilibration of the two opposite tendencies
of its holons. Empirically the postulated polarity can be traced in
all phenomena of life; in its theoretical aspect it is not derived from
any metaphysical dualism, but may rather be regarded as an application
of Newton's Third Law of Motion (action and reaction) to hierarchic
systems. We may even extend the polarity into inanimate nature: wherever
there is a relatively stable dynamic system, from atoms to galaxies,
stability is maintained by the equilibration of opposite forces, one
of which may be centrifugal or separative or inertial, and the other
a centripetal or attractive or cohesive force, which keep the parts in
their place in the larger whole, and hold it together.

«attractors»

 

Perhaps the most fertile field of application of the SOHO schema is the
study of emotions and emotional disorders on the individual and social
scale. Under conditions of stress, the affected part of an organism
may become overstimulated and tend to escape the restraining control
of the whole.
^[21]
This can lead to pathological changes of
an irreversible nature, such as malignant growths with untranimelled
proliferation of tissues that have escaped from genetic restraint. On a
less extreme level, practically any organ or function may get temporarily
and partially out of control. In rage and panic the sympathico-adrenal
apparatus takes over from the higher centres which normally coordinate
behaviour; when sex is aroused the gonads seem to take over from
the brain. The
idée fixe
, the obsession of the crank,
are cognitive holons running riot. There is a whole gamut of mental
disorders in which some subordinate part of the mental hierarchy exerts
its tyrannical rule over the whole, from the insidious domination of
'repressed' complexes to the major psychoses, in which large chunks of
the personality seem to have 'split off' and lead a quasi-independent
existence. Aberrations of the human mind are frequently due to the
obsessional pursuit of some part-truth, treated as if it were the
whole truth
-- of a holon masquerading as a whole.

 

 

If we turn from organismic to
social hierarchies
, we again find that under
nonnal conditions the holons (clans, tribes, nations, social classes,
professional groups) live in a kind of dynamic equilibrium with their
natural and social environment. However, under conditions of stress, when
tensions exceed a critical limit, some social holon may get over-excited
and tend to assert itself to the detriment of the whole, just like an
over-excited organ. It should be noted that the canon which defines
the identity and lends coherence to social holons (its laws, language,
traditions, rules of conduct, systems of belief) represents not merely
negative constraints imposed on its actions, but also positive precepts,
maxims and moral imperatives.

 

 

The single individual constitutes the apex of the organismic hierarchy,
and at the same time the lowest unit of the social hierarchy. Looking
inward, he sees himself as a self-contained, unique whole, looking
outward as a dependent part. No man is an island, he is a holon. His