The Ghost in the Machine (12 page)
potential of holons to behave as parts
of a more complex whole. The other side of the story reveals, instead of
co-operation, competition between the parts of the whole, reflecting the
self-assertive
tendency of holons on every level. Even plants, which
are mostly green and not 'red in tooth and claw', compete for light,
water and soil. Animal species compete with each other for ecological
niches, predator and prey compete for survival, and within each species
there is competition for territory, food, mates and dominance.
There is also a less obvious competition between holons
within
the organism in times of stress, when the exposed or traumarised parts
tend to assert themselves to the detriment of the whole. The pathology
of hierarchic disorder will be discussed in
Part
Three
.
Under normal conditions, however, when the organism or body social is
functioning steadily, the integrative and self-assertive tendencies are
in a state of dynamic equilibrium -- symbolised by Janus Patulcius, the
'Opener', with a key in his left hand, and Janus Clusius, the 'Closer',
jealous guardian of the gate, with a staff in his right.
To sum up, stable inorganic systems, from atoms to galaxies, display
hierarchic order; the atom itself, formerly thought of as an indivisible
unit, is a holon, and the rules which govern the interactions of
sub-nuclear particles are not the same rules that govern the interactions
between atoms as wholes.
The living organism is not a mosaic aggregate of elementary
physico-chemical processes, but a hierarchy of parts within parts, in
which each holon, from the sub-cellular organelles upward, is a closely
integrated structure, equipped with self-regulatory devices, and enjoys a
degree of self-government. Transplant surgery and experimental embryology
provide striking illustrations for the autonomy of organismic holons.
The integrative powers of life are manifested in the phenomena
of symbiosis between organelles, in the varied forms of partnership
within the same species or between different species; in the phenomena
of regeneration, in lower species, of complete individuals from their
fragments; in the re-formation of scrambled embryonic organs, etc. The
self-assertive tendency is equally ubiquitous in the competitive struggle
for life.
V
TRIGGERS AND FILTERS
All the time the Guard was looking at her, first through a telescope,Triggers
then through a microscope, and then through an opera-glass. At last
he said, 'You're travelling the wrong way . . .'
Through the Looking-Glass
You turn a switch or push a button on a machine, and this simple,
effortless gesture releases the coordinated action of hundreds of
wheels, pistons, levers, vacuum tubes or what have you. Such
trigger
mechanisms
, where a relatively simple command or signal releases
extremely complex, pre-set action-patterns, are a favourite device
in biological and social organisation. By this means the organism
(or body social) is able to reap the full benefits of the autonomous,
self-regulating character of its subdivisions -- its holons -- on lower
levels. When the Cabinet decides to raise the Bank Rate from six per
cent to seven per cent, or to send troops to a trouble-spot in the East,
the decision is worded in brief, laconic terms, which merely imply, but
do not specify, the intricate sequence of actions that will follow. The
decision triggers various department heads and experts into activity;
these will provide the first set of more specific instructions, and so
on, down along the branching hierarchy to the terminal units -- bank
clerks or paratroopers. At each step on its downward journey, the signal
releases pre-set action-patterns which transform the implicit message
into explicit terms, from the general into the particular. We have seen
analogous processes at work in the production of articulate speech: the
non-verbal, inarticulate intent of conveying a message triggers off the
phrase-structuring mechanisms, which in turn bring the rules of syntax
into play, and so on, down to the spelling out of the individual phonemes.
In the performance of manual skills we follow the same procedure: my
conscious ego, at the apex of the hierarchy, gives out the laconic order:
'Light cigarette', and leaves it to the lower echelons in my nervous
system to fill in the details by sending out a pattern of impulses,
which activate sub-centres, which control the contractions of single
muscles. This spelling-out process, from intention to execution,
is rather like operating a series of combination locks, on different
levels, in descending order. Every holon in the motor hierarchy has like
a government department -- its rule-governed patterns for co-ordinating
the motions of limbs, joints, muscles, according to the level which it
occupies in the hierarchy; thus the command 'Light cigarette' does not
have to specify what each of my finger muscles is supposed to do to strike
a match. It merely has to trigger the appropriate centres into action,
which will spell out the implicitly 'coded' command in explicit terms
by activating their own sub-units in the appropriate strategic order,
guided by local feedbacks. Generally speaking,
a holon on the
n
level of the hierarchy is represented on the
n +
1
level as a unit and triggered off as a unit
.*
* Or, to put it differently: the holon is a system of relations whichLike all our previous generalisations, this, too, is meant to apply
is represented on the next higher level as a unit, i.e., a relatum.
to all types of hierarchies -- including, for instance, the hierarchic
sequence of embryonic development. This starts with a rather remarkable
kind of trigger action: pricking the unfertilised egg of a virgin frog
with a fine platinum needle is sufficient to initiate the growth of that
egg into a normal adult frog. It has been shown that even in higher
mammals like rabbits and sheep, simple mechanical or chemical stimuli
can produce the same effect. Sexual reproduction is indispensable for
creating variety; for mere propagation a simple trigger releaser will do.
The trigger is, of course, normally a sperm. The genetic code of the
fertilised egg is said to contain the 'blueprint' of the future adult,
but it would be more correct to say that it embodies a set of rules or
instructions for manufacturing it. The rules are laid down in a chemical
code, which comprises four letters: A, G, C and T (the initials stand for
chemical substances whose long names are irrelevant to our purpose). The
'words' which these letters form on the long spirals of chromosomes in the
cell nucleus contain the instructions which the cell has to follow. One
of the main tasks of an embryonic cell is the manufacture of proteins
required for growth. There are thousands of different proteins, but
they are all made of the same building blocks: twenty different kinds of
amino-acids, put together in different combinations; and each amino-acid
corresponds to a 'word' of three letters in the genetic code. Thus the
instructions of the implicit four-letter alphabet are 'spelled out' in the
twenty-letter alphabet of amino-acids, which provides all the necessary
combinations for the thousands of proteins which make an organism.
The differentiation of structures and their shaping into form in the
growing embryo is a stepwise affair which has been compared to the way a
sculptor carves a statue out of a piece of wood -- but also to the child's
acquisition of articulate and coherent speech. At each successive step,
from the fertilised egg to the finished product, the overall instructions
contained in the four-letter alphabet of the genetic code are first
roughed in, then sketched in, and finally spelt out in elaborate detail;
and each step is initiated by biochemical triggers (enzymes, inducers,
hormones, and other catalysts).
How to Build a Nest
I shall have more to say about hierarchic order in embryonic development
in
Chapter IX
; for the moment let us turn to the
instinctive activities of the adult animal.* The growing organism is
governed by its genetic code: in the adult organism a different type of
code takes over, located in the nervous system. It incorporates the fixed
'rules of the game' which control the stereotyped rituals of courting,
mating, duelling, and the much more flexible skills of building nests,
hives or webs. Each of these skills can again be hierarchically
'dissected' into subskills, that is, functional holons, down to the
level of 'fixed action-patterns' -- to use Konrad Lorenz' term. In all
these activities the trigger principle plays a dominant and conspicuous
role. The triggers are certain stimulus patterns in the environment
-- sights, smells, sounds, which the ethologist calls 'releasers'
or 'sign-releasers'. Thus, for instance, the nuptial colours of the
stickleback (a freshwater fish) are blue eyes and a red under-belly;
and any object, regardless of its shape, that is red underneath, when
brought near the territory of a male stickleback will act as a releaser
for attack. The stickleback has five different methods of threatening and
attacking, each triggered by a slightly different releaser. Similarly,
animal species which engage in ritual tournaments -- where the adversary
acknowledging defeat is spared -- have each a limited repertory of
fighting moves, rather like the lunges, thrusts and ripostes of fencers.
* Most activities which we call 'instinctive' are in fact partlyW.H. Thorpe has made a detailed analysis of the functional holons
acquired, or modified, by early learning.
which enter into the nest-building activity of the long-tailed tit. He
enumerated fourteen different action-patterns (such as 'searching' and
'collecting' building materials; 'weaving', 'pressing', 'trampling',
'lining', etc.), each of them consisting of simpler patterns, and
triggered by at least eighteen different releasers. Instead of endlessly
watching rats endlessly pressing the bar in the Skinner box, students
of psychology would be well advised to study Thorpe's description,
of which the following is a much abbreviated version.
The tit uses four different building materials: moss, spider's silk,
lichens and feathers, each of which has a different function and requires
a different kind of skilled manipulation. The activity starts with the
search for a convenient site, a branch which forks in the right way. When
the site is found, moss is collected and placed on the fork. Most of it
falls off, but the bird persists until a few pieces have stuck. When this
stage is reached, the bird switches from collecting moss to collecting
spider's silk, which is rubbed on the moss until it sticks, then stretched
and used for binding. These activities continue until a platform has
taken shape. Now the bird switches back to moss and starts constructing
the cup around it, fast by 'sidewise weaving', later by 'vertical weaving'
in a sitting position, steadily rotating its body as the curved rim of the
cup begins to take shape. At this stage, new action-patterns make their
appearance: 'breast-pressing' and 'trampling' with the feet. When the cup
is about one-third complete, the bird starts collecting the third building
material, lichens. These are used to cover the outside only of the nest,
'by stretching out over the rim from inside the nest and by hanging on
the outside in various more or less acrobatic attitudes'. When the cup
is about two-thirds completed, the building routine is changed in such
a way as to leave a neat entrance-hole at the most convenient point of
approach. The wall around the hole is strengthened, the dome of the nest
completed, and now the furnishing can begin, using the fourth building
material, feathers. Thorpe comments:
So much for simplicity! But perhaps the most significant point of allBy comparing this description with Watson's description of how Patou
is the evidence provided that the bird must have some 'conception' of
what the completed nest should look like, and some sort of'conception'
that the addition of a piece of moss or lichen here and here will be
a step towards the 'ideal' pattern, and that other pieces there and
there would detract from it. . . . Its actions are directional and it
'knows when to stop' . . . . [1]
makes a gown ('Has he a picture in his mind? He has not'), or with
Skinner's method of conditioning pigeons, one gets an idea of the contrast
between the flat-earth view of Behaviourism and living reality. Where,
for instance, is the indispensable 'reinforcement' -- the stick and
the carrot which, according to the Behaviourist, would be required at
each step to make the bird persist in activities that include thirteen
different types of construction jobs? And yet the tit persists, without
any reward, until it has finished the nest. And how could it be maintained
that the tit is 'controlled by the contingencies of the environment' when
it has to search the environment, now for moss, now for spider's silk,
now for lichen and feathers; yet, however varied the 'contingencies of
environment', it succeeds in building the same kind of nest? Or, take
as another example, the common spider, who will suspend its web from
three, four or more points of attachment, according to the lie of the
land, but will always arrive at the same familiar symmetrical pattern,
where the radial threads bisect the laterals at equal angles, according
to the fixed canon of rules which controls its activities. How to apply
these rules to a particular environment -- whether to make a pentagonal
or hexagonal web is a matter of flexible strategy.
All instinctive activities consist of hierarchies of sub-skills -- in
the spider's case the judging of angles and weaving of the thread --
controlled by fixed rules and guided by adaptable strategies. It is
this dual characteristic which justifies us in calling a sub-skill a
'functional holon'. As such, it also has the various other characteristics
of holons previously discussed. A skill can be exercised in the
service of some larger activity and as part of it; but virtually
any skill can also become a habit which brooks no interference and
may be pursued for its own sake. In the first case, the functional
holon serves the
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