I have a "part 2" to my letter too.  Just some footnotes, really, to what I said above.

1. I found it interesting that Wilber mentioned 25 level-dimensions of being, since Tarthang Tulku suggests that there are 27 possible T-S-K configurations that any individual (holon) may inhabit and embody.  I'm not sure how much overlap there is, but it may be something to explore at a later date.

2. While Integral has a new form of calculus, TSK has its own geometry.  I have also been exploring some of the correspondences between them, since TSK also builds its geometry out of sentient occasions in space and time.  Below is an example of a TSK geometric figure.  The center is the "zero-point" of Great Time-Space-Knowledge, and the cones represent cones of knowledge unfolding in time.  Interestingly, the placement of cones and "fields" in this figure mirrors, to some extent, the AQAL matrix and its lines of Eros:

Best wishes,

Balder

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May the boundless knowledge that time presents and space allows illuminate the native perspectives of your original face.

Hi Balder,

Wow, great figure... while staring at it, I feel my mind changing perspective all the time, and my eyes going all over the place...

I think this would be an excellent time to start a new, separate thread. This could be either on TSK in relation to AQAL, or about alternative integral theories in general. Since you brought up the subject, I would like to leave that up to you. It looks like the possible scope of such a discussion deserves a thread of its own! Not to mention that it would be kind of inpolite to Ken to let a discussion of one of hist chapters focus on an alternative theory.

I would like to continue discussions focussed on Chapter 1 as well in parallel, in this thread.

If you agree, I'm looking forward to meet you in the new thread. Everybody else interested in following and/or participating are also welcome, of course.

I will dive into your posts tomorrow.


Peter
 

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"All nations should be like Amsterdam" -- Ken Wilber

Hi, Peter,

I agree that it would be a good idea to continue this discussion on another thread.  I will copy my recent posts over to it, once I set it up.  I'm also interested in further discussion more focused on Ch. 1, and will continue to follow and maybe contribute to conversations on this thread.

Best wishes,

B.

P.S. I moved the discussion to the following thread:

http://multiplex.integralinstitute.org/Public/cs/forums/thread/933.aspx

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May the boundless knowledge that time presents and space allows illuminate the native perspectives of your original face.

Hello,

I am very glad to be able to meet with all of you on this forum. 

My question/observation is on quadrivium and quadrants. The footnote on this in Chapter 1 explains the difference in terms of “looked at from” vs. “viewed through”. It shows a fundamental difference between artifact and sentient being.

While the distinction is useful, I feel it is important to remember the difference as one of degree.  This means a chair, or any “artifact” has an interior point of view, it is just a boring low level one.

In the quadrant map even quarks have a point of view. 

In “One Taste” Ken Wilber, does a first person view of stages of consciousness. A chair’s “viewed through” perspective might just be push-pull, push-pull, and relatively fundamental but is still a “viewed through” perspective.

I think that remembering this would help answer some of the questions I have read in this thread.

 

Am I way off base here?

 

Bliss and Emptiness,

Jack   

Hi All,

First of all, thank you all so much for developing this very lively thread. Do keep it up!

This is also a friendly and loving reminder to all us here in this thread to stay as close as possible to the IS book chapters (this one is specifically for Chapter 1 on IMP) and still discuss all other cool things that could potentially be in another thread. It might help make this thread flow and grow better. Thanks All for such gracious presence here at ISC

Also, (guess what friends?), I am so excited that we are very near to having Live Calls with Ken which some of you will actually get to be on and others can listen to live on-line.  In case you weren't aware, he does check in here and he noticed some things that he is looking forward to discussing, clarifying and straightening out.  This is most AWESOME!!! As soon as we have firm details we will announce how you could potentially take part in or listen live to these groundbreaking study sessions with Ken Wilber.

I can't wait!

Now, please continue the thread and don't forget, May The Next Line You Write Be From Your Highest Self...

Deep Bow to You All,

Nomali @ ISC

 

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Nomali


~Save the Earth- it's the only planet with Chocolate.

Hi, Jack,

Some friends and I discussed this question on IN in a thread on "Integral Panpsychism" or Pan-semiotics.  As I understand the issue, an artifact differs from a sentient holon in that it lacks a dominant monad, an organizing center of consciousness.  The atoms or molecules of a chair may indeed be understood as sentient holons, capable of quadratically registering and responding to their environment, but the chair itself is not a sentient holon and cannot also adopt perspectives, as a chair.

Best wishes,

Balder

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May the boundless knowledge that time presents and space allows illuminate the native perspectives of your original face.

Hi,

This has been a really intriguing discussion to follow, although I have to admit some of it has gone beyond my understanding. So now I had to grab the chance to participate.

Regarding the definition of an artifact, as I've understood it Wilber uses the term to denote holons lacking intentionality or interiority (see e.g. the excerpts from volume 2). As for holons lacking a dominant monad, that definition is used for social holons.

But I do agree with Balder that the chair cannot indeed take perspectives as it lacks interiority as a holon although its subholons may possess interiority and thus be able perspectives.

Peace,
  Janne

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Janne Asmala
janne.asmala@gmail.com

perera:

Also, (guess what friends?), I am so excited that we are very near to having Live Calls with Ken which some of you will actually get to be on and others can listen to live on-line.  In case you weren't aware, he does check in here and he noticed some things that he is looking forward to discussing, clarifying and straightening out. 

I can imagine that Ken is itching to offer some comments, and this would be very welcome. My lower self has earned a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, and is used to working with the level of abstractions in AQAL, but still it has trouble piecing everything together.

I think this has partly to do with the proper definitions of terms being all over the place.
I fully understand that this is unavoidable at this time, and that something like a book that would explain the technicalities of the theory would become outmoded shortly after its release. Maybe you guys could consider offering some online platform that contains technical definitions for people that like to study the map of the Prison in some more detail? That would be easier to keep it up to date. Could be a group thing as well, something like a wiki as I proposed earlier in the Chapter 2 thread.

We could start this outside of I-I as well, but I would prefer to see it on a site that I expect to be around for longer than one year.

Thanks,

Peter

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"All nations should be like Amsterdam" -- Ken Wilber

Hi, Janne,

Yes, this is one area where I'd like more clarity.  I remember at one of the dialogues at a meet-up at Ken Wilber's house, there was some confusion about where to draw the line between holons and heaps, for instance. 

Concerning "dominant monads," I did take a leap when I claimed the defining feature of artifacts is the lack of a dominant monad.  I have usually only heard Wilber apply the term to "compound individuals," contrasting them to systems or communal holons of various sorts -- societies, weather cycles, even crystals.  Perhaps what distinguishes artifacts as a category unto themselves is that their order is imposed from outside, by another or other holons.

What do you think?

Best wishes,

B.

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May the boundless knowledge that time presents and space allows illuminate the native perspectives of your original face.

Hello Janne, Balder,

I have been listening to the CD's of Ken's Integral Operating System while driving home. They are entitled Going Further, and that's exactly what they do. (The last track of the CD's alone justified the purchase of IOS for me, and then I'm not even mentioning the DVD and the booklet.)

The CD's contain recordings of a teleclass, and include discussions on the differences between sentient holons, collective holons, heaps and artifacts (as well as a load of other stuff).

A very short rundown of the holon/heap/artifact distinction would be something like this:

A sentient holon is a compound individual that has "I", "we" and "it" perspectives. Examples: a goose, a blind watch maker, a molecule, my cat.

An artifact is anything created by a holon. Examples: a chair, a poem, this post, an ant hill, or a watch. An artifact has no "I" nor a "we" perspective, just "it" perspectives. It consists of holons.

A collective holon (or social holon) has "we" and "it" perspectives. It does not have an "I" perspective. Instead of having a dominant monad, it is said to be having a dominant mode of discourse.  It consists of a collective of holons (members) exchanging artifacts. Examples are a flock of geese, a society, a school of fish, a crystal. You are a member of your society, not a part of it.

A heap is a more or less random collection of holons (not created with a purpose). Examples: a rock, a pool. Just "it" perspectives.

There's much more to be said about this; this summary merely covers the basics . Also, there exist other types besides these four, but the above are the ones you would encounter in the majority of cases.

Peter

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"All nations should be like Amsterdam" -- Ken Wilber

Hi,

Balder, I really appreciate the way you use first names and small phrases like "What do you think?" It might not be a big deal to you but I think it does wonders in creating a sense of community here. At least I felt immediately welcome and included by your comments.

As for what distinguishes artifacts from other holons, I think we'd need to clarify what we mean by "imposing order" upon a holon. Two immediate candidate definitions I see are:

1. Imposing order means creating a holon
2. Imposing order means controlling the (re)actions of the holon

If we use the first definition it's clear that we can "impose order" from outside on artifacts as well as other types of holons. E.g. by burning carbon I create carbon-dioxide - an individual holon.

And the same applies to the second definition. We can push around a chair or a person.

So let's try another one; What separates artifacts from other holons is that an artifact can have order imposed upon it (by either definition) solely by another or other holons, i.e. a chair cannot initiate an action in any way as a holon. This seems to be another way of saying that artifacts lack intentionality (interiority).

How's that?

Cheers,
  Janne

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Janne Asmala
janne.asmala@gmail.com

Hi Peter,

Thanks for setting that straight and neat timing with the post by the way. I should've figured to check out IOS myself...

One additional comment relevant to the discussion might be the following quote I found from excerpt D; "The four quadrants are dimensions of an individual sentient holon, and an artifact is not a sentient holon."

Janne

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Janne Asmala
janne.asmala@gmail.com

Hi Peter,

thanks for the distinction between sentient holon/artifacts, etc. I haven't posted to this discussion but I have been following along, and these distinctions are helpful to me for this thread and other topics.

so - Thanks!

Sue

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And right there was everything I knew and I could not say what that was. - Natalie Goldberg

Balder, thanks!  So it is the dominant monad, an organizing center of consciousness that separates the sentient beings from the artifacts.  Would a molecule be considered the “dominant monad” as it is composed of  atoms, which are composed of quarks, which are composed of … and so on down?  Or is a nervous system implied?

Bliss and Emptiness,

Jack

P.S. Or I could just go read the thread.

Hi, Peter,

Thanks for the helpful information from the IOS kit.  I may have to splurge and get that before long.

The notion that a heap has even "it" perspectives seems strange to me.  I may be misunderstanding what is meant here, but I wouldn't expect a heap, in itself, to have any perspectives available to it.  I can see that a heap is something that can be viewed or encountered by other holons exclusively as an "it," but not that the heap itself may take any type of perspective.

Given the supposed inseparability of the quadrants in any perspective-taking occasion, I would expect that any time you can take a perspective (however primitive), you would necessarily have subjectivity of some sort available to you (even mere prehension).  The atoms and molecules of a body of water may possess this rudimentary prehension and interiority, but is this interiority available to the lake as a whole?  I don't think so; that's what makes it a heap.  How, then, can a heap have any perspectives available to it?

I hope my questions haven't muddied the water for all of you!

Best wishes,

Balder

P.S.  Janne, I'm happy to hear you felt welcomed by my comments.  The welcoming wasn't deliberate, but it was intended, if you get what I'm saying.

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May the boundless knowledge that time presents and space allows illuminate the native perspectives of your original face.