its articles like this with a comments section like this that makes hive a fantastic place to be. keep up the great work everybody. Its a pleasure to muse on these glorious outrageous mind blowing speculations.
Ken Wilber talks about Holonization. You ever read any of his stuff? He refers to everything in terms of the holon which is like a 'whole' made up of parts but that is also a part of a bigger whole, or at least has that potential. So a holon is both whole and made up of many parts, and has potential to dissolve in to its parts or to transcend in to being a part in a bigger whole. He talks about evolution in terms of long periods of sideways action until a sudden mega event in which something like 5% of the parts of a holon adopt a new mutated dynamic which is enough to tip the balance on all the other parts. At this point, as radical change sweeps through the parts, the holon itself is in flux and will either fail to operate, thus breaking down in to its individual parts (which are all holons in their own right) or it transcends in to novel emergence which reveals new and previously untested properties of its own. So a wristwatch is made up of lots of little holonic parts each performing their duties. It can be reduced in to its separate parts but only when they are all put together will they tell the time. One person with a watch can tell the time but only if it catches on and other people agree on the time will the community be able to use this tech to co-ordinate. This ability to co-ordinate creates emergent properties that few could predict or expect, and even more potential properties are revealed if the neighbouring communities adopt the same tech etc. At the moment, if we use this sort of theory of the patterning of evolutionary progress, we could say that we are in the process of holonizing as a planet/race/global society. Each holonic part (our nations, our currencies, our digital communities etc.) are all expressing the tenets of holons which include their horizontal capacities - a holons own individual agency alongside its communion with its holonic peers (horizontal parts of a greater holon) and vertical capacities - the constant balancing act of keeping all of its smaller parts in healthy working order, while adequately performing its function as a small part of a greater holon while all the while any potential revolution can threaten to pull them down to dissolve in to their parts or to transcend and evolve new emergent properties, either as a radical or in accordance with other radicals which may be part of an even greater transcendance.
It feels to me like we're deep in the melting pot of a cataclysmic event that will either lead to dissolution of various structures within our current holarchy, or to a successful emergent evolution of our global society in to a radical global society and potentially a radical interplanetary species. Its nice to imagine that other species on other planets in other galaxies might be going through similar leaps at similar times, like different monkeys attempting to use tools at the same time on opposite sides of an ocean. If this is the case then we might stand a chance of becoming part of a rich and diverse galactic federation someday. Ken Wilber also refers to emergent evolution as quantum evolution because of the disparity between the seeming liklihood of failure versus the apparent success and diversity of evolution in nature as we witness it here on Earth. Most random mutations in biology are lethal, and yet seemingly biological organisms have time and again managed to develop many non-lethal mutations all in accordance with each other in a relatively short time period to evolve highly complex and previously unseen traits which in my view, amount to more than just mere competition, but to a vibrant and creative display of the brilliance of a quantum intelligent natural holarchy. Who's to say that we wont come out of this distressing period of revolutionary turmoil as a radiant cosmic global intelligence ready to express ourselves anew in this coming age of aquarius? Ive got my money on optimism