More musings on mereology, levels, octaves and whatnot

One of the implications of the recent quotes is that members of a set, i.e., objects that are members of a larger class, are not only defined by the endo-structural relations of that class but also continue to evolve on their own. This reminds me of a previous discussion relating this to levels of development, how each lower level (holon or object) within a higher-level structure (level or object) not only retains its autonomy but itself continues to evolve. So part of an 'integral' view would be not so much how a particular higher level object oversees and subsumes all lower levels within its purview but rather how it recognizes that previous levels continued to grow within it, not just laterally but vertically as well. And how it integrates those 'octaves.' See for example this post and following on Goddard's work, and it's relation to spiral dynamics (not 'integral' trademarked).


In mereological terms, each member of the 'set' has an excess that cannot be completely defined by the set or even any subsets, for the so-called empty set is within it as well as the set in which it is a member. This cannot be explained by the MHC, whose math requires that members of the set are fixed, as it were, to their roles in that set so that they can be totally subsumed in the very definition of a higher level set. I.e., they don't 'grow' but are more like the unchanging Platonic forms, replete with fixed essences, that are the very basis of the MHC and it math.

Also recall this post on Luhmann, how he thought the various parts or levels of the human being are separate systems that, while structurally coupled, are nevertheless operationally closed from each other. That is, those independent systems continue to develop on their own while being part of the larger human being.

Which reminds me of Levin's 'bodies,' and my theory about them being a reiterative spiral process of development. To put it in Goddard's or spiral dynamics (not SDi) terms, so-called levels recur in the next tier, coming to the conscious fore again after their temporary subsumption into the background. However while SD and Goddard see them reoccurring in linear sequence, I see them re-emerging in reverse or mirror sequence. For example, with Levin's bodies the ego-logical body is the last stage of the 1st tier and the fulcrum around which what came before and after reflect. Level 2, the pre-personal body, reemerges as a reconstructed transpersonal body at level 4. The primordial body of level 1 reemerges as the reconstructed ontological body at level 5. I.e., the 'lower bodies' have been developing the entire time, but the early phases of level 3 pushed awareness of that development into the background. The last phase of level 3 allowed an opening into awareness of the prior bodies heretofore hidden development back into the foreground.

Now how this process goes on from here I don't know, as I'm guessing that there will be another twist in the reiterative spiral, one which will likely again change its mathematical formula, since the math is part of this embodied process and not an unchanging archetype. Levin noted that stages 1-3 were linear, stages 4-5 were not. What's next? That's the thing with iteration; something novel emerges that cannot be predicted from what came before.