Symbiotic artifacts

Continuing this post,  according to Zimmerman on Edwards on artifacts, we're seeing more of the symbiotic relationship mentioned in the feature article.

"I didn't put into the essay my hunch that the real thing about artifacts is not whether they have interiority or not but how we draw our holonic boundaries around them. Artifacts, by their nature of endowed complexity are those things that are best studied as part of the holonic system that includes the source of their complexity. There are better and worse ways of drawing holonic boundaries. Drawing a boundary just around the artifact and studying just it is a poor way to study it. Drawing a boundary around the artifact and the sentient being that created it is better. Let's draw a boundary around an axe. It's a holon with a very low level of interior development. That doesn't get us very far to understanding axes. Now let's draw our holonic boundary around the axe and its human user. We now can study this human-axe holon as a single coherent holon, and as a sentient active cultural entity. We can then place it within a holarchy that outlines the stages of tool use starting with birds using twigs to catch ants all the way up to humans using computers to write speculative essays on Integral theory. […] Consequently, artifacts are really best seen (and more coherently seen from an Integral theory perspective) as part of the behavioural dimension of the holon – the exterior of the holon. […] This way of seeing artifacts as part of the exterior dimension of holons ties in beautifully with Vygotskian ideas about tools, language development and the mediation of interiority through social means.”