Holarchy
Holarchy
Wilber's View
Holons don't exist in isolation — they organize into holarchies: nested series of increasing wholes, where each new holon "transcends but includes" the ones below it (cells contain molecules but not vice versa; organisms contain cells but not vice versa). This is hierarchy in a strict, technical sense — not domination, but the simple asymmetric fact that the higher embraces the lower and adds something new, not the reverse. See dominator-vs-growth-hierarchy for what happens when this gets confused with, or corrupted into, domination.
Wilber attaches precise machinery to this idea: a holon's depth is how many prior levels it contains (an atom has some depth; a cell, built from molecules built from atoms, has more); its span is how many instances of it exist. As evolution proceeds, depth increases while span necessarily decreases — there will always be fewer cells in the universe than molecules, fewer molecules than atoms, simply because the higher is composed of the lower. He also distinguishes translation (change within a level — rearranging furniture on a floor) from transformation (change of level — moving to a new floor entirely), and treats holarchies as fundamentally coevolutionary: no holon evolves alone, only a holon-plus-its-environment does.
In Sex, Ecology, Spirituality
"Holons emerge holarchically… organisms contain cells, but not vice versa…"
4. Holons emerge holarchically. That is, as a series of increasing whole/parts. Organisms contain cells, but not vice versa; cells contain molecules, but not vice versa; molecules contain atoms, but not vice versa. And it is that not vice versa, at each stage, that constitutes unavoidable asymmetry and nested hierarchy (holarchy). Each deeper or higher holon embraces its junior predecessors and then adds its own new and more encompassing pattern or wholeness—the new code or canon or morphic field or agency that will define this as a whole and not merely a heap (as Aristotle clearly spotted). This is Whitehead's famous dictum: "The many become one and are increased by one."
— Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, Book 1: The Pattern That Connects (tenet 4)
"The number of levels which a hierarchy comprises determines whether it is 'shallow' or 'deep'…"
"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.'" For this example, let us arbitrarily assign atoms a depth of three (they contain as components at least two other levels). We can imagine a time, early in the universe, when there were only atoms and not yet molecules. Atoms had a small depth (3) but an enormous span… When molecules first emerged, they had a greater depth, a depth of four, but initially a very small span.
— Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, Book 1: The Pattern That Connects (tenet 7)
"Each successive level of evolution produces GREATER depth and LESS span."
The greater the depth of a holon, the more precarious is its existence, since its existence depends also on the existence of a whole series of other holons internal to it. And since the lower holons are components of the higher, there physically cannot be more numbers of the higher than there are numbers of components. Thus, for example, the number of molecules in the universe will always be less than the number of atoms in the universe.
— Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, Book 1: The Pattern That Connects (tenet 8)
"Changes in the horizontal dimension I will call translation, and changes in the vertical dimension I will call transformation."
Agency and communion (or self-preservation and self-accommodation) refer to changes in the horizontal dimension; self-transcendence and self-dissolution refer to changes in the vertical dimension. So we can introduce a few more simple definitions: changes in the horizontal dimension I will call translation, and changes in the vertical dimension I will call transformation.
We can use our simple analogy of the three-story building to summarize all of these definitions. Each of the three main floors is a deep structure; the furniture, chairs, and tables on each floor are the surface structures. Rearranging the furniture on any given floor is translation; changing floors is transformation.
— Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, Book 1: The Pattern That Connects (following tenet 8)
"Holarchies coevolve."
Holons do not evolve alone, because there are no alone holons (there are only fields within fields within fields). This principle is often referred to as coevolution, which simply means that the "unit" of evolution is not an isolated holon (individual molecule or plant or animal) but a holon plus its inseparable environment. Evolution, that is, is ecological in the broadest sense.
— Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, Book 1: The Pattern That Connects (tenet 10)
See Also
- holons — the underlying units that holarchies are made of
- dominator-vs-growth-hierarchy — Wilber's defense of holarchy against critics who conflate it with domination
- great-chain-of-being — the traditional holarchy of matter/life/mind (/spirit)
