Elements, parts and holons

For example, see Edwards' ILR article at this link on the types of holarchies. A relevant excerpt:

"In the developmental holarchy earlier stages of development are not simply transcended and replaced by later stages, but they also integrate and embrace those earlier aspects of development. Consequently, developmental needs and capacities continue to provide information, knowledge and developmental input throughout the lifespan of the individual or group. In the ecological holarchy smaller ecological networks are not simply overtaken and controlled by larger networks. The functioning of local communities also continues to play a crucial role in the functioning of the larger ecological web and the bigger ecological systems ignore more local information at their peril…. Similarly in governance holarchies, we find this process of non-equivalent multi-directionality between levels. Good use of power and good governance is best regarded as multidirectional in that information and influence flows smoothly within and between all levels of the holarchy."

I also intimated that different holarchies can be contained in any given holonic individual, using Bryant's differences between the parts of a human being, being an ecological holarchy, and the elements might be more akin to a transcend and include developmental holarchy. I haven't thought this through quite yet but working on it, like this post:


The answer to my conundrum is addressed in Chapter 5 of TDOO. In 5.2 he discusses the intensional and extensional relations of Badiou's set theory. In the former elements of the set are ordered in a particular way, whereas in the latter the elements can be related in multiple ways. I.e., elements in the latter are not defined by their relations whereas they are in the former. He relates this to his exo- and endo-relations respectively. So a particular suobject can be composed of smaller parts with their own substances, but their relations to the larger suobject are exo-relations. Whereas the organization of the endo-relations between those smaller parts is what is undecomposable in the larger suobject, what is particular to that suobject's substance. Hence the endo-relations themselves are not another suobject with substance but what make the larger suobject unique. 

Hence per above indeed our biological parts are independent of our thoughts and they irritate each other via structural coupling. Thus the parts are not holons if by that we mean they are completely enveloped and subsumed within the higher order thoughts. But each biological part is a holon in that its endo-relations are indeed completely subsumed and organized within it. Hence Bryant's strange mereology. Given this twist we'd have to, as Balder suggests, create different categories of, and names for, holons with these distinctions if we are to continue to use the holon concept.