Janus (9 page)

 

 

Nobody, not even computer designers, thinks all the time in terms
of abstractive hierarchies. Emotion colours most of our perceptions,
and there are indications that our emotive reactions also involve a
hierarchy of levels -- including archaic structures in the brain which
are phylogenetically much older than the structures concerned with
abstract conceptualizations. One might speculate that in the formation
of 'spotlight memories' these older levels in the hierarchy play a
dominant part.

 

 

There are some further considerations in favour of such a hypothesis.
First, from the neurophysiologist's point of view, they receive strong
support from the Papez-MacLean theory of emotions.* Second, from the
standpoint of the communication-theorist, abstractive memory generalizes
and schematizes, while spotlight memory particularizes and concretizes --
which is a much more primitive method of storing information.** Third,
from the standpoint of the psychologist, abstractive memory would
be related to insightful learning and spotlight memory to a process
resembling imprinting. But imprinting in Konrad Lorenz's geese is
restricted to a critical period of a few hours, and apparently results in
a very coarse and vague imprint. On the human level, imprinting may take
the form of eidetic imagery. According to Jaensch
^[22]
and
Kluever
^[23]
, a considerable proportion of children have the
eidetic faculty -- they are able to 'project' a photographically accurate,
coloured image of a previously fixated picture onto a blank screen and
to repeat this after long intervals, sometimes even years. Penfield
and Roberts'
^[24]
experiments, evoking what is claimed to be
total recall of past scenes by electrical stimulation of the patient's
temporal lobes, may be a related phenomenon.

 

* See above, Prologue.
** The term 'information' in modern communication-theory is used in
a more general sense than in common parlance. Information includes
anything from the colour and taste of an apple to the Ninth Symphony
of Beethoven. Irrelevant inputs convey no information and are called
'noise' -- on the analogy of a noisy telephone line.

 

But though apparently quite common in children, eidetic memory tends to
vanish with the onset of puberty, and is rare among adults. Children and
primitives live in a world of visual imagery. In William Golding's novel
The Inheritors
, the author makes his Neanderthalers say, instead of
'I have thought of something,' 'I have a picture in my head.' The eidetic
child's way of 'imprinting' pictures on the mind may represent a
phylogenetically and ontogenetically earlier form of memory formation --
which is lost when abstractive, conceptual thinking becomes dominant.

 

 

To sum up, abstractive memory, operating through multiple interlocking
hierarchies, strips down the input to bare essentials according to each
hierarchy's criteria of relevance. Recalling the experience requires
dressing it up again. This is made possible, up to a point, by the
cooperation of the hierarchies concerned, each of which contributes
those aspects it has deemed worth preserving. The process is comparable
to the superimposition of colour-plates in printing. Added to this are
'spotlight' memories of vivid details which may include fragments of
eidetic imagery, and carry a strong emotive charge. The results of this
exercise in re-creating the past is a kind of collage, with glass eyes
and a strand of genuine hair stuck on to the hazy, schematized picture.

 

 

 

15

 

 

When the centipede was asked in which precise order it moved its hundred
legs, it became paralysed and starved to death because it had never thought
of this problem before and had left its legs to look after themselves.
When an intent is formed at that top level of the hierarchy which we
call the conscious self -- an intent such as tying one's shoelaces or
lighting a cigarette -- it does not directly activate the contractions of
individual muscles, but triggers off a coordinated pattern of impulses --
functional holons -- which activates sub-patterns, and so on. But this
can only be done one step at a time; the top echelons in the hierarchy
do not normally have direct dealings with the lowly ones, and vice
versa. Brigadiers do not concentrate their attention on individual
soldiers; if they did, the operation would go haywire. Signals must
be transmitted by 'regulation channels' as the army calls them, i.e.,
step by step up or down the levels of the hierarchy.

 

 

This statement may sound trivial, but ignoring it carries penalties of
various kinds. The short-circuiting of intermediary levels by focusing
conscious attention on activities which otherwise proceed automatically,
usually ends in the centipede's predicament -- reflected in symptoms that
range from the awkward condition we call 'self-conscious' behaviour to
disorders such as impotence, stuttering or spastic colons. Viktor Frankl,
the founder of 'logotherapy', coined the term 'hyper-reflection' for
disorders of this type.
^[25]

 

 

On the other hand, the ancient practices of Hatha Yoga and some derivative
techniques at present much in vogue aim at deliberate control of visceral
and neural processes (including the alpha waves of the brain), through
meditation aided by biofeedback gadgets. But under normal conditions,
the 'one-step rule' holds in all types of hierarchies -- from ontogeny
and phylogeny to social institutions and the processing of the sensory
input on its step-wise ascent from the receptor organs to consciousness.

 

 

 

16

 

 

I have repeatedly referred to the 'apex' of the hierarchy. Some hierarchies
do indeed have a well-defined apex or peak, and a definite bottom level --
e.g., a small business enterprise with a single proprietor and a stable
work force. But the grand holarchies of existence -- whether social,
biological or cosmological -- tend to be 'open-ended' in one or both
directions. A laboratory chemist, analysing a chemical compound, is
engaged in a stepwise operation, where the apex of his tree -- the sample
to be analysed -- is on the molecular level of the hierarchy, branching
into chemical radicals, branching into atoms. For his particular purpose
this hierarchy of a limited number of levels is sufficient. But from a
broader point of view, which takes into account sub-atomic processes, what
appears to the chemist as a complete tree turns out to be merely a branch
of a more comprehensive hierarchy. Just as holons are, by definition,
sub-wholes, so all branches of a hierarchy are sub-hierarchies, and
whether you treat them as 'wholes' or 'parts' depends on the task in hand.
The chemist need not bother about the so-called elementary particles
which, as somebody remarked, have a disconcerting tendency not to remain
elementary for very long, and seem to consist ultimately -- or penultimately
-- of patterns of energy-concentration or stresses in the universal foam
of space-time. Our laboratory chemist can safely ignore these surrealistic
developments in modern quantum physics; but he must not forget -- under
the penalty of mental dehydration -- that his tidy little hierarchic
tree extends only through a very limited number of levels in the great
open-ended hierarchies of being.

 

 

The same applies at the other end of the scale to the astronomer
faced with the wheels -- within -- wheels display of solar systems,
galaxies, galactic clusters and the possibility of parallel universes
in hyper-space.

 

 

 

By way of a summary, I would like to call the reader's attention to
Appendix I
, 'Beyond Atomism and Holism --
The Concept of the Holon'. This is the edited text of a paper read
at the Alpbach Symposium which attempts to put into concise form the
characteristic properties of open hierarchic systems discussed in this
chapter (and also some other properties, still to be discussed).

 

 

 

 

 

II

 

 

BEYOND EROS AND THANATOS

 

 

 

1

 

 

One further universal characteristic of holarchic order which remains
to be discussed is of such basic importance that it deserves a chapter
to itself.

 

 

The holons which constitute a living organism or a social body are, as we
have seen, Janus-like entities: the face turned towards the higher levels
in the holarchy is that of a subordinate part in a larger system; the face
turned towards the lower levels shows a quasi-autonomous whole in its own
right.

 

 

This implies that every holon is possessed of two opposite tendencies
or potentials: an
integrative tendency
to function as part of
the larger whole, and a
self-assertive tendency
to preserve its
individual autonomy.

 

 

The most obvious manifestation of this basic polarity is found in social
holarchies. Here the autonomy of the constituent holons is jealousy guarded
and asserted on every level -- from the rights of the individual to those
of clan or tribe, from administrative departments to local governments,
from ethnic minorities to sovereign nations. Every social holon has a
built-in tendency to preserve and defend its corporate identity. This
self-assertive tendency
is indispensable for maintaining the individuality
of holons on all levels, and of the hierarchy as a whole. Without it,
the social structure would dissolve into an amorphous jelly or degenerate
into a monolithic tyranny. History provides many examples of both.

 

 

At the same time the holon is dependent on, and must function as an
integrated part of the larger system which contains it: its
integrative
or self-transcending tendency
, resulting from the holon's partness, must
keep its self-assertive tendency in check. Under favourable conditions,
the two basic tendencies --
self-assertion and integration
-- are
more or less equally balanced, and the holon lives in a kind of dynamic
equilibrium within the whole -- the two faces of Janus complement each
other. Under unfavourable conditions the equilibrium is upset, with
dire consequences.

 

 

We thus arrive at a basic polarity between the
self-assertive tendency
and the
integrative tendency
of holons on every level, and, as we shall
see, in every type of hierarchic system. This polarity is a fundamental
feature of the present theory and one of its leitmotifs. It is not a
product of metaphysical speculation, but is in fact
implied
in the
model of the multi-levelled holarchy, because the stability of the model
depends on the equilibration of the dual aspects of its holons, as wholes
and as parts. This polarity or
coincidencia oppositorum
is present
in varying degrees in all manifestations of life. Its philosophical
implications will be discussed in later chapters; for the time being let
us note that
the self-assertive tendency is the dynamic expression of
the holon's wholeness, its integrative tendency the dynamic expression
of its partness
.*

 

* For 'integrative tendency' I shall occasionally use as synonymous:
'participatory' or 'self-transcending' tendency.

 

As far as the holons in social hierarchies are concerned, the polarity is
obvious -- shouting at us from the headlines of the daily newspaper.
But in less obvious ways the dichotomy of self-assertion versus
integration is ubiquitous in biology, psychology, ecology and wherever
we find complex hierarchic systems -- which is practically everywhere
around us. To paraphrase Gertrude Stein again: a whole is a part is a
whole. Each sub-whole is a 'sub' and a 'whole'. In the living animal or
plant, as in the body social, each part must assert its individuality,
for otherwise the organism would lose its articulation and disintegrate;
but at the same time the part must submit to the demands of the whole --
which is not always a smooth process.

 

 

We have seen earlier on that each part of the living creature, from
complex organs down to the organelles inside the cell, has its intrinsic
rhythm and pattern of activity, governed by its own built-in code of
rules, which makes it function as a quasi-independent unit. On the other
hand, these autonomous activities of the holon are released, inhibited
and modified by controls on higher levels of the hierarchy which act on
the holon's integrative potential and make it function as a subordinate
part. In a healthy organism as in a healthy society, the two tendencies
are in equilibrium on every level of the hierarchy. But when exposed to
stress, the self-asserting tendency of the affected part of the organism
or society may get out of hand -- i.e., the part will tend to escape
the restraining controls of the whole. This can lead to pathological
changes -- such as malignant growths with an untrammelled proliferation
of tissues which have escaped genetic restraint. On a less extreme level,
virtually 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 wide range of mental disorders in which some subordinate
part in the cognitive hierarchy exerts a tyrannical rule over the whole,
or in which some chunks of the personality seem to have 'split off' and
lead a quasi-independent existence. The most frequent aberrations of the
human mind are due to the obsessional pursuit of some part-truth, treated
as if it were the whole truth -- a holon masquerading as the whole.