What is Good? - On Holons LO13415

Mnr AM de Lange (AMDELANGE@gold.up.ac.za)
Wed, 30 Apr 1997 14:40:40 GMT+2

Replying to LO13268 --

Dear organlearners,

Winfried Dressler wrote on 17 Apr in LO13268
>
> Stuart Harrow asked:
>
> > A holon is simply an entity which is both complete in itself (e.g. an
> > atom) and a part of a larger complete entity (e.g. a molecule) ...
> > You postulate the existence of a holon and an holarchy .
> > How would you go about proving their existence.
>
> The existence is proved by giving one example - atom, molecule. Another
> one: Try to think of your heart as being a holon in the holorchy
> cell-organ-individuum.
>
> More interesting to me is the question, whether one can give an example of
> a non-holon. This would be a falsification of the postulate: Everything
> that exists exists as a holon embedded in a holarchy.

I think it will be very difficult to give an example of a non-holon. J C
Smuts (Evolution and Holism) the father of holism, never speaks of holons,
but rather of wholes. I think he would have welcomed the term holons.

Nevertheless, he points out that a whole is not merely an entity, but also
its field of interaction surrounding it. This is certainly true of
elementary particles, atoms and molecules, knowledge which emerged long
after Smuts wrote his book. For example, in the quantum chromodynamics of
elementary particales, the field and its minor carriers is now a central
concept. Another example, the most versatile and powerful instrument in
analytical chemistry is the NMR spectrometer. Were it not for the field of
interaction of a molecule, this spectrometer would not have existed.

What is this field of interaction? (See my contribution on commutation.)
Can a non-holon have such a field? If it has one, then does that not make
it a holon? If it does not have one, can it then be ever be detected?

What about humans as holons? Do a human have a field of interaction? I
will soon mail a study on the concept UBUNTU. Keep a look out for it
because in it I will show that ubuntu may emerge a field of interaction
surrounding a human being!

Best wishes

-- 

At de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre for Education University of Pretoria Pretoria, South Africa email: amdelange@gold.up.ac.za

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