twenty tenets?

Posted October 1st, 2008 by hannahu in ses

I am presently reading SES (in German language) and in the chapter "twenty tenets" I count only 12

could some expert give me a list of the 20?

I haven't got a clue what category to add this to. You are welcome to correct any beginners mistakes in procedure.

Thanks integrally

Hanna

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The 20 or so Tenets

Posted October 1st, 2008 by janine rickard

Hi Hanna,

I think Ken Wilber usually says something like there are "roughly" 20 tenets...this list shows there are 12 or 19.

I answered this because the 20 tenets are one of my most favorite parts of Integral Theory. I love talking theory, so feel free to ask any questions.

Janine

www.integralworld.net/20tenets.html

The Twenty Tenets
(1) Reality as a whole is not composed of things, or processes, but of holons.
Holons display four fundamental capacities:
(2a) self-preservation,
(2b) self-adaptation,
(2c) self-transcendence.
(2d) self-dissolution.
(3) Holons emerge.
(4) Holons emerge holarchically.
(5) Each emergent holon transcends but includes its predecessor.
(6) The lower sets the possibilities of the higer; the higher sets the probabilities of the lower.
(7) "The number of levels which a hierarchy comprises determines whether it is 'shallow' or 'deep'; and the number of holons on any given level we shall call its 'span'" (A. Koestler).
(8) Each successive level of evolution produces greater depth and less span.
(9) Destroy any type of holon, and you will destroy all of the holons above it and none of the holons below it.
(10) Holarchies coevolve.
(11) The micro is in relational exchange with the macro at all levels of its depth.
Evolution has directionality:
(12a) Increasing complexity.
(12b) Increasing differentiation/integration.
(12c) Increasing organisation/structuration.
(12d) Increasing relative autonomy.
(12e) Increasing telos.

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Twenty Tenets....

Posted October 1st, 2008 by Brian Eddy

Hey Hanna (and Janine),

Yes, this is an old one! :-) There was always some confusion - for Ken it was simply an 'approximation' - depending on how you count them. No - its not an editorial error. I've since simply called them the 'Holonic Tenets' (regardless of how many there are).

If you're interested, you might want to read Koestler's original tenets in the appendix of Ghost in the Machine. He had something like 64 'axioms' or generalities.... Wilber distilled these and added some of his own. The 20 (or so..) that Ken works with are much more lucid than Koestler's. Koestler's were confusing (and certainly somewhat outdated in its worldview and language).

Janine - a note about '2d'. I think sometime back, Fred Koffman convinced Ken that this is not correct. I should be 'Self-immanence" (not dissolution). I think if KW were to publish an updated version, you might see this modification.

Brian

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2d musings

Posted October 1st, 2008 by janine rickard in response to Twenty Tenets....

Brian, thanks for this info...this is a very interesting distinction, from dissolution to immanence...there is a certain elegance to the original, in that preservation and adaptation can be seen as a dialectic on the horizontal (ie on the same level), whereas the transcendence-dissoultion axis is vertical...

On the other hand, dissoultion also explains the capacity to regress to a previous level, which supposedly does not actually happen for individual holons.

Immanence implies, to me, Fullness/Completeness while at a level, so that works for me

snip:

Holons display four fundamental capacities:
(2a) self-preservation,
(2b) self-adaptation,
(2c) self-transcendence.
(2d) self-dissolution.

Janine

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Twenty tenets....

Posted October 1st, 2008 by hannahu in response to Twenty Tenets....

Hy Brian and Janine,

Thanks for your helpful answers and the brilliant link to integral.world. net - wow, another integral world within integral worlds (I love the live traffic feed german map and learn that Germany has with 8 % the highest participation after the USA).

On http://www.integralworld.net/edwards13.html there is a table of correspondences between Koestlers and Wilbers tenets. But generally I agree with you, I usually find Wilbers presentations very lucid and easy to follow, and I often have to read the quoted passages from Habermas etc several times before I get them.

Also interesting what you say about "dissolution" being inaccurate - I remember feeling uneasy about it at the time of reading it. Now I (or someone) has to figure out what "Self-Immanence" means in German... Probably "Selbstimmanenz" which leaves you at square one...

no, which leaves you at Wikipedia with a very succinct and precise answer (much less wordy than the english version):

Immanenz (lat. immanere, "remanining within”) is the opposite term of transcendence and means:

in the philosophy of Spinoza God's presence in the world,
with Kant in the view of epistemology remaining within the boundaries of possible experience.

The adjektiv immanent means a quality inherent in the object, which is not derived at through deduction or interpretation.

May all beings be happy

Hanna

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Twenty Tenets....

Posted October 1st, 2008 by Brian Eddy in response to Twenty tenets....

Thanks for the reference to Mark Edwards paper - I was not aware of it. Yes, it's a good table. And note the index in the Koestler column and how there are numerous other principles not included here....from my reading, many of them were not really thought out adequately, and were somewhat difficult to apply. But the current twenty do fine for now.

Re: Immanence and Dissolution. (Note: I just tried to explain what I thought Wilber said - but managed to find his own text on it. It's from an interview located at http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/interviews/interview1220_2.cfm/

KW: Fred's first criticism had to do with the four drives of any holon. In SES, I listed these as agency (horizontal individuation) and communion (horizontal linking), and self-transcendence (vertically moving up) and self-dissolution (vertically moving down). Fred pointed out that the first three drives were, correctly, the healthy version of those drives; but for the fourth drive, I had incorrectly given the pathologicalversion of the descending drive. The healthy downward drive--the drive of the higher to embrace and enfold the lower, which I call agape or compassion, or what might be called self-immanence (the dialectical opposite of self-transcendence)--I actually gave as thanatos, which is not the embrace of the lower by the higher but the dissolution or regression of the higher to the lower. When it came to vertically moving upward, I had correctly given that as Eros or self-transcendence, seeking out higher and wider wholeness. The pathological version of Eros is phobos, which is not the transcendence of the lower but the repression of the lower. But when it came to vertically moving downward, instead of giving the healthy agape--where the higher embraces, enfolds, and "loves" the lower, as a molecule embraces its atoms--I inadvertently gave the pathological thanatos, where the higher merely dissolves into the lower, dies or decomposes (e.g., the molecules dissipate into their constitutive atoms). So the four drives should be agency and communion, and self-transcendence and self-immanence (not self-dissolution).

This is a brilliant criticism, and of the hundreds of thousands of people who went over those ideas, only Fred spotted it. (Incidentally, I still sometimes list the fourth drive as self-dissolution, simply because that is so much easier to understand in an introductory statement. But my actual position should now be clear, thanks to Fred....)

Brian

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eros or phobos, agape or thanatos...what about pathological horizontals?