Martin's Notebook

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Agenda for a New Economy

Agenda for a new economy (2nd edition), is a book written by David Korten, a well known writer, activist and speaker on economic and related social-ecological issues.
Toward a responsible Capitalism

This section of my Wiki notebook will summarize some of the main points relevant to the new economy. It also will contain ideas and links that come up in discussions. Discussions are held here: http://theosnet.ning.com/group/new-economy. The Pages files over there contain more info on the book Agenda for a new economy. One has to become a member of theosophy.net in order to be able to subscribe to the study group. Membership is free. Non-members have read access to the discussion and pages. If you want to contribute to this Wiki, drop me a mail through the contact form here. Prologue Part One: The case for a new economy Chapter one: Looking upstream Chapter two: Modern alchemists and the sport of moneymaking Chapter three: A real-market alternative Chapter nine: Greed is not a virtue; sharing is not a sin
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Prologue: a question of values

Summary
The author refers to the Wall Street meltdown in 2008, and its consequences. There have been a couple of authors (Dean Baker, William Black, Charles Morris, Kevin Phillips and Gary Weiss) who have documented how Wall Street institutions have been corrupted, even before the crash. There is as yet no national conversation on essential questions, such as:
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Are Wall Street institutions so vital for US interest that it justifies the showering them with trillions of dollars at the expense of the tax payer? Is it possible that these institutions are built on an illusion and in reality have detrimental effects on society (economical, social, environmental)? Are there other ways to provide necessary financial services that are more effective and cost less?
David argues for no, yes and yes, respectively. It is all a matter of values we believe the economy should serve. Is the economy to serve a few wealthy people or all of us? Is the goal of economy to make money or to serve life? The way it is now organized is a path to collective suicide (think of the biosphere). New institutions are needed to replace the current ones on Wall Street.
Two schools of economic thought

Market fundamentalism and Keynesianism are the two best known schools of economic thought. David briefly refers to these and calls for an honest public examination of above mentioned questions. He believes that this will lead to "a unifying political consensus that, rather than repair and restrain the Wall Street institutions that have brought down the global economy, we can and should replace them with institutions that serve our real values and are appropriate to the needs and realities of the twenty-first century." He has written the book in the hope "that it may help to provoke and frame such a conversation".
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Part I (Ch. 1-4)

David points to the cause of the economic crisis we are undergoing now: the illusionary belief that money is wealth. It is a mere number created on a balance sheet. Yet we believe it is something with intrinsic value.The major failures of our economic system can be traced back to this misconception of money as wealth. The consequences have now become dire: destruction of the middle class, nature, and the social fabric. Money is not a storehouse of value, but of expectations. Wall Street has been allowed to assume control of our economy and we now see the results of that mistake. The author calls Wall Street an illusion factory, that creates phantom wealth unrelated to real wealth. This is known as "counterfeiting, a form of theft". And the stunning fact is, that it is a legal form of theft, which makes it a perfect crime. When things go wrong, the tax payer has to pay the bill. Our hope lies with Main Street real-world economy, where people produce and exchange goods and services that meet the real needs of families and communities, and where exists a "natural interest in maintaining the health and vitality of their natural environment". This is much in line with the vision of Adam Smith, according to David Korten. A real wealth economy will require a complete "bottom-to-top redesign of our economic assumptions, values, and institutions". (quotes are from the book Agenda for a new economy)
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Chapter one
Chapter 1: looking upstream Summary The phantom-wealth casino economy shows systemic failure, as evidenced by: - an economic crisis caused by a financial system that favors speculation over investment in production of useful goods and services. This causes unpayable debts for governments and the common man, decimates pensions, and causes bubbles in house prices that inevitably burst, with devastating consequences all over the world. - a social crisis of growing inequality between nations and within nations. The rich get richer. The common man's wages fall relative to the cost of living. This undermines our health, communities and the legitimacy of our governments. It erodes social cohesion and feeds violence. - an environmental crisis: climate change, freshwater shortages, soil erosion, depletion of fisheries, created by the dogma of continous growth of consumption. This leads to climate refugees, social breakdown, and reduced capacity of the Earth to support life. David Korten gives six criteria of true economic health: "1. provide every person with the opportunity for a healthy, dignified, and fulfilling life; 2. restore and maintain the vitality of earth's natural systems; 3. nurture the relationships of strong, caring communities; 4. encourage economic cooperation in service to the public interest and democratically determined priorities; 5. allocate resources equitably to socially and environmentally beneficial uses; and 6. root economic power in people- and place-based communities to support the democratic ideal of one-person, one-vote sovereignty." It goes without saying that we, individually, have to take an active part in realizing a healthy culture, that is a precondition to a healthy economy.
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Chapter two
Chapter two: Modern alchemists and the sport of moneymaking Synopsis from the study guide: 'Modern Alchemists and the Sport of Moneymaking, looks at the reality behind Wall Streets illusions and the variety of its methods for making money without the exertion of creating anything of real value in return.' My summary, with some additional comments between brackets: {Since the credit collapse, banks are very reluctant to lend to each other. They don't trust each other. What toxic assets does they other have, they seem to think. A lot of electronic money traffic goes via the central banks. The banks also severely restricted credit (loans) to customers, including business owners.} Business schools do not teach their students the nature of money. Can you believe it? Maybe their teachers don't recognize that "money is only an accounting chit with no existence or intrinsic value outside the human mind". Money is, or has become, a system of power. The more we get dependent on it, the more those who can create money and can decide who gets it can abuse that power to control us. David tells us the story of John Edmunds, a finance professor in the USA. The latter wrote an article in Foreign Policy about the merits of securitization as engine of wealth creation and how production of real goods and services is outdated. He effectively was pleading for creating asset bubbles. Now, mind you, Foreign Policy is a respected magazine. The fact that they published this article shows how much perversion has crept into the minds of economists and financiers. This has become the logic of Wall Street. A highly flawed logic, as the subprime mortgage debacle has shown to all of us. Inflating bubbles always burst. The next one to burst seems to be the debt bubble, whether in the USA or in Europe, or both of these regions. The finance world is out of touch with reality, and this costs us dear. The end of the misery is not in sight. It will wreak more havoc than it already has done. Banks have a right to create money with a keystroke and lend it out at interest. This makes it very profitable for them and makes Wall Street very powerful. This power should be limited, and used with great care. In chapter 7, David does discuss this further. Then follows an important piece titled "from good debt to bad debt" that explains the logic of the debt-based money system. Savings from working people are used to invest in enterprises that contribute to society's pool of real wealth. This assumes that the benefits of this operation are shared equitably among those who contributed to it: savers, entrepreneurs, workers and governments (taxes; they provide infrastructure). Near the end of the 1970s, deregulation (see Ch. 5) caused a transition from a servant system to a predator system, which is devoted to creating phantom wealth instead of real wealth (real products and services).
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Consumer debt
"Money lent comes from an accounting entry, not from savings, and it is used to fund consumption, not production. The debt and the expectations of those who hold it grow exponentially, but actual production does not." {Well, do you own calculations: if you want to understand how fast exponential growth is, start with 1. Double this, you get 2. Double this, you get 4. Double and get 8. Double and you get 16. And so on. After 10 steps we reach 1,024. This is the story of the king and a peasant who played chess together. The peasant won the game and was granted a wish for something as a prize. He asked that each succeeding field of the chessboard be filled with double the amount of grains of wheat than the the preceding one. The king thought this was a very modest request, so he ordered this to be done. Soon, however, the chessboard was filled with so much wheat that the king realized that all the wheat in his country could not fulfill the request of the peasant. And so it is with compound interest. This causes unsustainable bubbles in house prices, assets, etc. The phantom money that results from the above practice has to go somewhere and this causes bubbles and inflation.} {I described the exponential curve in my ebook. it is an insane growth pattern, never observed for long in nature. It is unsustainable. An economy can never grow that fast. It would exceed the resources needed for that very quickly.} "Borrowing for current consumption is bad because it creates no new value and creates debts that can only be rolled over into ever-greater debt that the borrower has no way to repay." As is happening right now. The language of self-deception: speculation is called "investment"; phantom wealth is called "capital". We fool ourselves by our use of language. Wall Street's gain is "a net loss for the rest of society", because their "growing claims on the real wealth of society dilute the claims of others." The social costs of this fall on all of us that have not the money to live "in splendid isolation from the resulting social and environmental breakdown". A wealthy class needs a servant class. The very rich profit from what rests of the world's real wealth. That is the current situation. The author points to an alternative to phantom wealth capitalism: a real market economy (Ch.3).
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Chapter 3: a real-market alternative

The chapter starts with a beautiful quote from Martin Luther King jr.: "Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism but in a higher synthesisthat combines the truths of both. Martin Luther King jr.
Summary
Many people seem to believe that the only alternative to the excesses of capitalism is the repression of communism. This is a false idea. Both systems failed because "they created a concentration of unaccountable power that stifled liberty and creativity for all but a few at the top." The synthesis alluded to is, according to David, a system that "roots power in people and communities of place and unleashes our innate human capacity for cooperation and creativity." Too much centralized power doesn't work well, as history has proven and current events show. A redistribution and decentralization of economic and political power is necessary.
Wall Street versus Main Street.

Wall Street type of economy refers to "institutions of big finance and the captive corporations that serve them". Their location can be anywhere in the world. The name is a symbol of a world of pure finance "using money to make money by whatever means for people who have money". Producing real goods and services is only a byproduct of this activity. "Financial speculation, corporate-asset stripping, predatory lending, risk shifting, leveraging, and debt-pyramid creation" form the core business of Wall Street. It does not create real wealth for society, as discussed in the previous chapter. Main Street refers to the world of local businesses and working people "engaged in producing real goods and services to provide a livelihood for themselves, their families, and their communities". It is more varied in its values and priorities. Its enterprises are varied: from family businesses to cooperatives and locally owned corporations. Most of these businesses function "within a framework of community values and interests that moderate the drive for profit". Community service is a value committed to by many Main Street business owners. This orientation distinguishes Main Street from Wall Street. David mentions the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) whose members are engaged in building the New Economy.
Corporations
The problem with the corporate charter (the publicly traded limited liability corporation) is well known:
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it "creates the legal capacity to amass under unified management the power of virtually unlimited financial capital". The shareholders are exempted from liability beyond the amount of their investment. The real economic power in the USA resides with Wall Street institutions that buy and sell corporations as mere commodities. Any consideration of social or environmental nature is punished by a hostile takeover or "a revolt of institutional shareholders". The result of all this is a global "capitalist economy destructive of both life and the human soul".
Freedom to commit fraud

David explains that the term free market "is a code word for an unregulated market that allows the rich to consume and monopolize resources for personal gain free from accountability for the broader social and environmental consequences." Financial rogues and speculators profit from "subsidies, the abuse of monopoly power, and financial fraud". This increases inequality between people. Costs are externalized to society. David's conclusion is that markets work best "within the framework of a caring community. The stronger the relations of mutual trust and caring, the more the market becomes self-policing".
The market alternative

Capitalism is not synonymous with markets and private ownership. David refers to the influential work of Adam Smith "Inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations". Smith articulates the democratic ideal of "a self-organizing economy that creates an equitable and socially optimal allocation of society's productive resources through the interaction of small buyers and sellers making decisions based on their individual needs, interests, and abilities." Pages 49-50 of David's book detail some of the conditions of efficient market allocation. These conditions deal with the size of the influence of the sellers and buyers, distribution of income and ownership (no extremes), completeness of information (no trade secrets), incorporation of all costs into the sale price, balanced trade between countries, savings to be invested in the creation of productive capital. This refers to Main Street economy, rather than Wall Street! The latter represents a narrow class interest. Table 3.1 summarizes the above discussion. See p. 51 of the book.
Rules make the difference

When a market economy lacks proper rules, a framework that provides the context for daily decision making, one gets capitalism. In the latter, liberty is being misused to concentrate economic power, monopolize resources and maximize the profits of the already rich. Costs are passed to the taxpayer. Wall Street is like a cancer that should be eliminated. It drains society's energies and produces very little of value. Adam Smith stresses the need for government interference in such cases of misuse of liberty, in his book The theory of moral sentiments. Main Street market economy facilitates "decentralized economic self-organization to optimize the use of local resources to meet local needs.
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Panentheism Philosophy of panentheism: spiritual process philosophy

Panentheism as a belief system deals with the idea of immanent and transcendent Divinity. It comprises about all religions, especially the mystical parts or formulations of these. In my view, it is compatible with true science (not narrow scientism) as shown in my ebook (see archives) and articles. I see spirituality, philosophy and science as three aspects of Life, which is a whole. Our concentration on parts has made us lose sight of the inherent relations between these aspects. In my spiritual process philosophy, I show the interconnection of these aspects. We have a lot of ground to cover, and I would like to invite all truly holistic thinkers to join me in formulating a wholesome philosophy of life. Some good ideas can be drawn from the works of Spinoza, Leibnitz, Neo-Platonism, Boehme, Whitehead, Peirce, and other philosophers like Sri Aurobindo, Vitvan and J.G. Bennett. Synthesis is the keyword here, where ideas are compared and contrasted and integration is the result.
Topics
Oneness of Life Matter and Spirit
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Spirit and matter: a false dichotomy

In the 17th century, Descartes formulated a strong dichotomy between mind and matter. The body came to be seen as a mechanical device, while mind, or spirit, was seen as something entirely separate from matter. Our current society still suffers from this outdated view of life. Since mind is so elusive, we tend to believe that in reality all is matter and mind simply is an epiphenomenon, that is, a product of matter.
What is matter?
One has to pose a question here: what is this matter that produces minds? Already in the beginning of the 20th century, there has been the discovery of the fact that matter is concreted energy. Quantum physicists have shown this. Think of the atom-bomb if you doubt this statement. Matter is converted into energy in nuclear plants. Later experiments have shown that photons can exchange information faster than the speed of light. The famous Alain Aspect experiment, which has been repeated by others, shows this amazing fact. No explanation for this phenomenon exists currently.
Science in turmoil
So, science is a bit in turmoil nowadays. Astronomers are also doubting Big Bang theories. There simply is too much evidence that things don't add up. The moral of the story is that we don't understand what matter is, how gravity comes about, and how the mind comes to be. We, as an academic community, have been sloppy in our thinking. Ignoring the first given fact of life, our own experience of self, self-consciousness, we are left empty-handed, so to speak.
An Ancient vision of life

Blessed will be the day that the scientific community will start embracing a life-affirmative vision of the world. Where struggle for life will be a minor part of our world vision and cooperation as a natural fact of life will be seen as an all-important part of our understanding of life. When the universe is seen and experienced as alive, instead as a lifeless machine to be manipulated. The Ancients had such a vision. This vision was replaced by the mechanistic vision which itself is becoming outdated by modern research findings. It's time to reconsider our outlook on life! The Ancients believed that there is no dead matter. There is a substantial aspect to life, and this is tied to form, in manifestation. Form is a principle of individuation. It is tied to specific characteristics, a selection (or limit) from countless possibilities for manifestation. Substance can potentially express all kinds of qualities. This has to do with evolution, a vast topic again. Eastern philosophy carries a lot of insights about this, something I will discuss later, together with some Western philosophers and mystics.
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Oneness of Life
All life is One. That is to say, all life is the unique expression from the Field of all possibilities. I am not saying that all life is identical in a narrow sense. That would make us clones or copies of one pattern. Rather, I am saying that there are countless patterns or characteristics or possibilities or variations inherent in the "universal fractal" that we, as individuals and as a people, are part of. Consider this: how can there be synergies and harmonies when life-forms have nothing in common? Impossible! Look around you. You will notice structure and order in this universe. How does our well functioning body and psychological functions come about? Whence our mathematical ability? Whence our artistic sense? Ponder about this deeply. If all is well with you, you will feel a sense of awe and amazement. No scientist or philosopher has ever been able to comprehend the phenomenon of life. Those who suggest that chemical reactions explain everything simply have been lying to you, or, possibly, have such a narrow mindset that they cannot appreciate the impossibility of what they are stating. Many people are suspecting that our current educational practice has misinformed them about the nature of life. In addition, they feel they have been brain-washed into buying into a belief about competition, struggle for life, endless economic growth, etc. In my series beyond_reductionism you can find basic arguments that demolish simple reductionism. You see, science has not yet found a way to include qualities in her descriptive framework. It's all about quantity, quantitative science. Qualia are a complete riddle to scientists, including psychologists, precisely because of their non-quantitative aspects. Our experience of daily life puts these qualia in the center. Dismissing this experience means to dismiss our experience of life and our sense of self. The conclusion must be that current science denies the very faculty (powers of abstraction, reasoning, etc.) that has given birth to scientific formulations. How ironic! In the section matter_and_spirit I will sketch a different view of matter and spirit than is usual in our current sciences.
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Symbols in religion and mysticism

Christos Heaven and Hell Sin Grace
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Christos
When Father and Mother, spirit (or Reality) and illusion (or maya), Brahma (or Purusha) and Prakriti (or Nature) join, their union produces the Son. In the Christian scheme they give the spiritual or primordial Son the name of Christos; in the Egyptian scheme Osiris and Isis (or her twin sister Nephthys - the more recondite side of Isis) produce their son Horus, the spiritual Sun, physically the Sun or the Light-Bringer; and so similarly in the different schemes that the ancient world has handed down to us. (Slightly abbreviated from De Purucker's Fundamentals of the esoteric philosophy) The Christos is a spiritual-divine Force that can manifest in everyone, in principle, especially in people that have developed spiritual qualities of consciousness. There are many mysteries associated with it. See also Alvin Boyd Kuhn's The Lost Light , an interpretation of ancient scriptures, Gerald Massey's lectures and James Morgan Pryse's writings on the restoration of the New Testament for more information on the solar God mythos. The astrological key to the Christ story in the New Testament is applied and explained in the above mentioned books. Psychologically speaking (this is another key), the Christos force works through the spiritual vehicles of the composite human being. This is a profound subject matter, which is dealt with concisely in my ebook. See the articles section.
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Grace
What is the Grace of God? Who or What is God? These questions lead us deep into ontological questions. For a starter, I would like to point to the intricate monadology, sketched in my ebook. Similar ideas can be found in Proclus' Theology of Plato and other writings of his. When one thinks things through, one will see that Grace involves issues of karma. What you sow is what you reap. And not only that: collective karma plays a role too, since the individual is embedded in the larger human family. As such, Grace can be seen as a kind of reward from the spiritual-divine spheres for the uplifting work one is doing for one's sisters and brothers. I have written about this in my article on the esoteric background of the seven Sacraments, which you can find a link to in the articles section.
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Heaven and Hell

"In the Father's house there are many mansions". The Christian Bible alludes here to the many spheres of being that exist in our solar system, from hellish types of spheres to highly spiritual spheres. Indian philosophy knows these too, as talas and lokas. Buddhist philosophy likewise portrays several spheres in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Other philosophies, like the Greek Neo-Platonism, and religions, like Islam, contain the same notions. Roman Catholicism preserves some notion of Purgatory, besides Heaven and Hell. In it, souls of the dead are purified before they can enter Heaven. A common experience of people on Earth is that we can make life into a hell, or we can create a good atmosphere around us. Which of these is it that we want?
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Sin
The notion of sin is a moral one. It is usually associated with a religious belief system. There it means transgressing a law, given by God, or a God. The connotation of sin is a disturbed harmony, in one's relation to (a) God, others, self, and sometimes including one's natural environment. Eastern religions have a more impersonal view of sin. The law of karma (action, and the results thereof) deals with all kinds of actions. Disturbances will somehow be corrected, by self or by other means. Philosophical discussion In Jewish religion there is the notion of sin as missing the mark. It is like missing the target, doing something that misses the point. Another angle on this, is the notion of evil, which can be seen as a result of conflict of wills, that is so prominent in current society. Extremists of all sorts are misguided and blinded by their views, hating those who differ in some respect from them.
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Introduction
This wiki is the personal notebook of Martin Euser, psychologist and spiritual philosopher. It deals with many topics pertaining to society in evolution and in transition. The left panel shows a tree of topics. The original homepage of this site is here. You will find a search form for the entire site there. Chrome users may have to right-click on external links and choose to open these in a separate window. The aim is to offer food for thought and tools to empower the individual within his or her community. With the add/remove button on the bottom left of each page, you can create your own PDF book of selected pages from this wiki. If you want to comment or like to see material added to this wiki, please use the contact-form and I will see if I can fit it into the wiki.
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Agents of change
The following list contains organizations that strive for social justice and sustainable economies. If you know of an organization that you think should be on this list please let me know through my contact-form.
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Transition towns Do it yourself A handbook for changing our world issues around fresh water and meat production Peta article Avaaz. This is a ten million+ member organization that addresses urgent issues worldwide through various actions. Network of Spiritual Progressives. Currently, they have half a million members. They promote a new bottom-line for our economy that includes caring, ethical and ecological sensitivity. David Korten. David is a well-known author and lecturer on social-economic matters. good stewardship/ecospirituality in the churches (the greening of religion) Reflections on Occupy Wall Street movement becoming involved in Slow Food (organization website) Fair Trade products participate in LETSystems to promote local currencies and local trade. Sustainable banking (put your savings on a green bank, one that invests in ethically responsible projects, that promote practices of sustainability, fair business, etc. Food Matters: a natural approach to preventing and healing diseases. Life styles of health and sustainability (LOHAS) Houses for the homeless California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture The Natural Step framework is the foundation for many sustainability programs in the United States and around the world. Solutions for Business, Solutions for Communities, Case Studies. William McDonough & Michael Braungart (Waste is food; cradle to cradle principle) Greenpeace http://www.amnesty.org Amnesty international
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Reflections on the Occupy Movement

The Occupy movement can be seen as a signal to society at large that things can not continue as they have done for the past decades. The financial crisis seems to have sparked it. There is an important question to be asked (and answered) in this context. What is the goal, or goals, of this movement? It seems that a variety of individuals and groups is participating in it, and each of them may have somewhat different goals and ideas about how to reach those goals. Broadly speaking, all of them want a fairer world, with equal opportunities for everybody and a society that can fulfill the needs of its members. One of the best thinkers on this subject matter I have found on the internet is Dr. Jeff Eisen. He describes in his Omnius Manifesto how the accounting practices of companies should be changed to reflect the contribution they make to society or destruction they cause to the social sphere and ecological domain. This manifesto must go viral, so if you resonate with its ideas, please send it to your family, friends, co-workers, and any organization that works with sustainable ideas. In addition, the New Economy working group has defined nine action clusters that need to be worked on. This group works together with David Korten, who is a well-known author and lecturer on social-economic matters. His book on multi-national corporations is well-known. He also published a book named Agenda for a New Economy. Much food for thought.
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Self-help basics
The following texts are for educational purposes. They are not meant to replace any therapy you might need. The text is focused on general principles. You can apply these to your own life situation. I will deal concisely with the following topics:
q q q q q q
motivation and emotion perception and belief intellect (reasoning, learning, skills) visualization decision (will and intuition) boundary issues (assertivity)
Notions from The Work (Byron Katie, cognitive therapy related) will be incorporated too. Once you grasp the basic idea of how polarities are working in the mind, at once a whole field of possibilities for change and growth becomes available to you. Constructive or destructive decisions, positive or negative emotions: all these are examples of polar forces at work. A lot of ground is covered here.
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Visualization
In visualization, we use the power of imagination. This is a powerful faculty of the human mind to create or form images. These images have a dynamic, creative power. Humans act under influence of this power, so it is important to exercise and control this faculty in order to be able to conduct our affairs creatively and properly.
Ideal models
One technique to help accomplish this is that of ideal models. (See Roberto Assagioli, Psychosynthesis, p. 166 seq., see especially pp. 170-171; quotes refer to these pages) This concerns the use of imagination to create mentally and emotionally, and then express this image outwardly by act. It is important to realize that within each of us there are already a lot of models at work that prevent us to recognize our true nature. These models vary from projections of others on us what they like us to be, to our beliefs of what we are or should like to be or should like to appear to others. It will pay off to go through the section on perception and belief and test your self-knowledge. The Byron Katie videos and links will assist you in that and help you to "debunk" these false models and beliefs.
Qualities
Now on to the technique of ideal models. Here, you visualize yourself as possessing the qualities you need to develop. You focus on a specific quality or small group of qualities or abilities which you need in order to become a more harmonious person. This needs some self-reflection first. If you're stuck in this reflection or got no clue, it might be advisable to get some assistance from a qualified therapist, preferably trained in psychosynthesis. So, you visualize yourself "in possession of this particular quality or actively using that particular psychological function. The visualization should be as vivid and alive as possible." You see yourself in a definite situation where you put the needed quality into action. You can imagine that you play successfully a certain role, e.g., the role of a husband or wife, or father, or mother, or professional, or a social role. This is a kind of psychodrama play technique in imagination. You do this with eyes closed, sitting on a chair. Do not lay down, that would make you too passive. You need to do an active evocation of images. This exercise can be done often,s ay once a day, but we generally want to keep it short, vivid and intense. You live the model (or role) in imagination and then play the role in reality. Do not care about the results. Be somewhat detached. Some day you will succeed. This is a very useful technique, if done with the proper attitude. It can be extended or modified over time to include other qualities you want to develop. You build the blueprint of what you want to be, in accordance with your possibilities.
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In case of intense fear or phobias for performing certain actions which you need to do, it will be better to consult a therapist. The above applies to qualities and situations you can handle yourself. It is self-help. Implied in the above is the wise use of will in the form of intent. Wayne Dyer speaks about it in his free audio on intent as a universal field (unlock the power of intention).
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Psychological boundary
Every organism has a boundary around it. Whether it is a cell, a plant, an animal or even a planet, they all have a boundary around them that protects them and filters out harmful influences. Besides having an outer skin, humans also have a psychological boundary around them, which regulates which influences can enter and which not.
Filters
Think of it as a membrane that has "pores" or doors in it, which can be closed or narrowed to only allow certain influences inside your mind. You can also think of these pores as filters that allow certain frequencies or vibes to enter your system, and keep others out. This way you can control psychological influences. It is a matter of giving or not giving value to those influences. More of this will be dealt with in the section that deals with emotion, belief and perception. If you are too open to the outside world, you basically let others control your behavior and reactions. That is not a healthy situation. You will have problems with asserting who you are and what you want. You then suffer from identity problems and feel overwhelmed by others.
Assertivity
You must be able to say no to others at a certain point, in order to maintain your integrity and self-respect. Otherwise other people may start using you for their ends, or they may think you're a wussy. You also must be able to hear no from others. A related concept is that of codependence. You will have to learn from life, through experience and observation, what works well for you in interacting with people. In case of a poor boundary and inability to make decisions, follow an assertivity class or get some therapy to get this situation handled.
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Decision making
All organisms have the ability to make decisions, conscious or unconscious. From a single cell organism that avoids acid environments all the way up to humans who can consciously choose to act for a greater purpose. Think about that for a while. This ability is a defining characteristic of life. From instinctual reactions to conscious, self-aware participation in society, there is a whole gamut of decision making. We are concerned here with that part of decision making which is guided by the self-aware mind. An oft repeated decision forms into a habit. One gets used to doing certain things in certain ways in certain circumstances.
Constructive or destructive decisions

The point that matters here is whether your decisions are constructive or destructive. This requires the ability to discriminate between constructive and destructive action. That ability develops with your life experience, which gives you feedback on your actions. You have to be able to observe the results of your actions. The good news is: you have this ability! Some call it observing ego, others call it being aware of your motives and actions. This observational ability is crucial in changing bad habits. When one catches oneself in the act of doing something stupid or unhealthy, then it is possible to pause for a while and decide to change this habit by substituting a healthy expression for the destructive one.
Conscience
Your conscience is involved in making important decisions. It tells you whether the decision you are about to take is a healthy one or not. Do you listen to the still voice within? Conscience is something that works with ideas and rules that you've been raised with. An important example is that of the "golden rule": don't do to others what you don't want them to do unto you. That looks like a very sensible rule to me.
Intuition
Another aspect to decision making is your knowledge of the world, your worldly wisdom, having "street-smarts" or a down-to-earth form of intuition. In other words, your experience with people and the world counts heavily too when taking decisions. I believe in a balanced approach. Both ethical considerations and life experience are important in making or taking decisions. If you neglect one or the other of these ( or are lacking in one of these)
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you are bound to make bad decisions. An important note is that bad decisions are better than taking no decisions at all. Why? Because one can learn from these decisions what works and what doesn't. One needs to observe and reflect on the effects of one's decisions. Also, when one grows older, one's brain circuits mature. One gets capable of delaying gratification, especially from the age of sixteen and older. So, then there is more room for consideration of the situation one is in. One can then learn to see each situation as a learning opportunity. This diminishes any fear one experiences in social situations.
Will
The topic of decision making is connected to that of will. Will is taken here as a directive principle in the human mind. Decision making and the use of will have to do with freedom. You have a choice in making decisions, hence a certain amount of freedom. Using that freedom wisely is a mark of a mature human being. A deeper introduction into the topic of will, decision and creativity can be found in my article on the creative process.
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Intellect
While emotions have a lot to do with your motives and drives in life, intellectual function usually is associated with learning new skills, education, and culture. An overlap with emotion exists, however, in the beliefs you hold.
Right brain - left brain

There is also an experiential component to intellectual function, which involves more of a right brain (RB) processing than study does. The latter especially involves the left brain (LB), which is excellent in analyzing things, organizing stuff and storing facts. It calculates probabilities, while RB is more associative, artistic, holistic, and seeing possibilities of a situation. Non-verbal cues, like gesture and tone of voice seem to involve RB function too.
Goals
Your intellect wants to control your world. It sets goals (more of a LB function) and plots ways to realize these goals. An important thing to realize is, that you do not control others. Example: you cannot force someone to love you. Using force (your personal will) egotistically, infringes on the boundaries of others. It leads to suffering on all sides, perhaps most of all on your side. Co-dependency is an example of partners infringing on each other's boundaries. Usually one of the partners is dominant and the other submissive. Not the healthiest type of relationships! If you feel kind of lost, you need to reorientate yourself, find a sense of direction. This may involve a bit of study on your side to get a perspective on things. You can then start organizing (LB) your way towards goals you set for yourself. If necessary, sit down and write down your needs and goals. If you do have clear goals, but get stuck in realizing them, you probably need more experience in how to handle situations and deal with people. Some work on your "creative abilities" (RB) is needed: take an acting class (improvisation), get to meet new people, talk to others about your goals and ask them for ideas and how they deal with situations, etc.
Beliefs
Last, but not least: your beliefs about the world, people, yourself, will heavily influence how you live your life, and how you perceive actions from others and yourself. More on that in the section on perception and belief.
From:
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Motivation and emotion

We are now going to have a look at the energetic part of the psychological processes within humans. Which are the motives that drive you on in life? Which emotions and feelings do you experience often? Is it fear? Anger? Love? Hatred? How often do we pause to observe what we are thinking and doing? Which are the undercurrents in our psychological functions? Are you living in survival mode or do you live a fulfilling life? What is the role of beliefs, or world vision you hold, on your life? Time for some soul searching! We will especially look at the so-called "negative emotions" of fear/anxiety and anger and what these mean.
Anger
What is anger? It certainly has an energetic component. It also carries meaning: you are angry about something that happened or is happening or what someone is doing to you personally. Anger is a signal,or alert, that your psyche gives to you that something needs to be done about the situation you're in. It usually is a reaction to someone or something hurting you, or a sign that you have deeply felt unfulfilled needs. Anger is not identical to aggression - see below. Anger is a neutral energy. It stimulates you to take a decision on something. Now, if you remain passive to the signal your body or part of your psyche is giving you, what will happen? You most likely will start feeling depressed and sad. That's the consequence of not taking a decision to act on the feeling of anger. Again, anger is not aggression. The latter is a destructive way of using energy to accomplish one's goals. It goes without saying that infringing on the rights of others will backfire on you. You will only hurt others and they will likely try to hurt you in return, possibly leading to a vicious cycle of violence. No, you need to take a positive turn: learn to assert your needs. Find out what these are. Write them down if necessary. Find ways of positive expression of your energy. Learn to think in win-win ways. Love and friendship are not scarce goods. They are in principle abundant. It's only a matter of tuning in to your deeper nature: the spirit within. Learn to cooperate with others, the competition stuff is a win-lose deal. Hurt is something you feel when someone outside of you does or says something which goes against your wish, needs, or beliefs about others and yourself. So, your boundary is involved in this, as a shield you can use against negative energy, and your beliefs are involved. The latter will be dealt with in a separate note. At this point we can say that assertiveness fosters well-being, because working constructively and patiently with others and with/on yourself is bound to give positive results. It takes patience, delayed gratification, and some sense of direction. The latter is dealt with in the section on intellect.
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Fear/anxiety
Note: in this section we do not deal with phobias and severe anxiety disorders. That is best dealt with in therapy. In today's world, many people are literally filled with fear. It may be fear of losing their job, house, partner or fear of losing their identity in a world of migrants and a globalizing economy. There is so much to be afraid of.. The question in all of this is: does one allow oneself to suffer needlessly over things that happen and resort to the stance of hopelessness, helplessness, worry and regret, or possibly even worse, allow oneself to regress to impulsive behaviour, or does one take the decision to actually do what is needed and right in the given situation? The latter decision can be called courage. The appropriate response to an actual loss is grief. It takes time to grieve. After a certain period, however, it is time to go on with life. That is an expression of courage. There is a beautiful story in the Bhagavad Gita, where Lord Krishna has a dialogue with Arjuna, who his facing his enemies on the battlefield. Those enemies can be taken as the elements or propensities one has to deal with in one's own psyche. Arjuna has to face his dark side, his shadow, and do what is right. That is courage. If you do what is right in a given situation, your self-confidence will grow, because you then act in accordance with your deepest values. You feel whole. It makes for a well-integrated personality. In order to see what is right to do in a given situation, one has to use one's observational ability. Some intuition and conscience is necessary. This is being dealt with in the section on decision making. To conclude this section, I like to point out to the scientifically inclined readers, that all the dynamic energies dealt with here, have polar aspects. Energies can be used constructively or destructively. Also, one can act on signals or not act. There are many connections to the principles that I have outlined in my note on process philosophy. It may open new fields of knowledge when these connections are patiently and diligently studied.
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Perception and belief

Today, it is increasingly being recognized that "we are (and become) what we think". Long ago, Gautama Buddha said something to that effect. After him, the famous emperor-philosopher Marcus Aurelius said the same thing. And today, many respectable leaders in the consciousness movement are stating the same thing. The deep reason behind this statement has been explained at length in my ebook, in the second article, sections three and four, on thinking and changing one's thought-pattern. So, if you want to dive into this, here is your opportunity. Here, I want to deal briefly with perception and beliefs. Perception is taken to comprise all the phases from sensory input to processing in the brain (the interpretation of data). Here we encounter the perceptive filters that are called beliefs. What are beliefs? They are ideas we have about the world we live in, about people we meet, about friends, family and lovers, about work, etc. These particular ideas are usually strongly charged with emotions. They hold important meaning to us. The point is: do these beliefs hold us hostage, or are we flexible enough to inquire into our beliefs and modify them, if necessary? You know, almost all of us are plagued from time to time with cognitive distortions. Luckily, there is free self-help available on the web today. I am referring to The Work, formulated by Byron Katie, which is especially suited to deal with these distortions in the cognitive process. Things like jealousy, resentment, aging, suffering, and many more, can be inquired by her four questions method, which involves turning around questions. (See the use of polarities here?) On Youtube one can find many videosamples that illustrate her method. Main page of Byron Katie: Where would you be without your story? Note that there is also a work on the web coaching application for almost free there.
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Philosophy of life
A new integrative paradigm for science and spirituality
In the following page, you will find the beginnings of a powerful new paradigm for a scientific-spiritual view of life. Research is beginning to find evidence for this new paradigm. The basic principles of this paradigm are set forth in my article on process-philosophy. Application of these principles to the human mind, or psyche, can be found in my article on the threefold gunas (qualities) expressing themselves in the human psyche. Another example of application is provided by my article on creation philosophy, where the cycle of manifesting thought is being discussed. My latest essay on this paradigm is titled "Culture wars - Three perspectives on the world today". Links: (Chrome users may have to right-click and open in separate window) beyond_reductionism: Life scientists discussing the limitations of reductionism The development of a spiritual process-philosophy The threefold gunas in the human psyche (research of polarity and control hierarchy) Philosophy and psychology of creation (use of will and visualization) Culture wars - Three perspectives on the world today Darwin's survival of the fittest under scrutiny. Cooperation between living beings is common in nature. The esoteric background of the seven Sacraments My ebook on integrative spirituality
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Ruminations on spirituality and belief (beyond dogmas)

Introduction
In this note, I will give some personal reflections on the phenomenon of religion, spirituality and belief. It is not a full-fledged analysis, but a quick survey of some important points concerning this domain of life. To begin this rumination, I will say something about my point of departure. In my opinion, it is impossible to say much sensible about religion, without having taken a starting point. My world view has a spiritual basis. This has come about by my own life experiences and also by a prolonged study of philosophy, science, and religion. So, I take it for granted that there is more to this world than meets our senses. This stands to reason: did you ever ask yourself where your aesthetic sense or ability comes from? The deep sense of wonder, awe, or appreciation of natural beauty. In this connection, one could ask: what is a feeling? Questions such as these have occupied philosophers for millennia, and have led to aesthetic philosophy, process philosophy, and a whole lot more. Yet, nobody seems to know how this aesthetic sense works precisely. This problem has everything to do with the qualia problem, which turns out to be a very hard problem indeed. The materialistic world view cannot offer solutions. Feeling, love, altruism, appreciation, mathematical genius, etc., all defy our understanding, and certainly that of the physicalist (1). Taking a spiritual point of view is not gratuit. Its not a free lunch, if one takes the matter seriously. There are many questions in this regard one has to ponder, if one wants to develop ones understanding of life.
Some examples of questions:

q q q q q q q q q
does there exist a soul for the human being? If so, how does it interact with the visible world? is this soul immortal or does it perish at some point in time? what is the goal or purpose of life (if any)? is there a God? does hell or heaven exist? what happens after death? why do people and animals have to suffer? is struggle for life necessary? What about cooperation between organisms? is there order to this universe, and if so, how does it come about? can there be other levels of being, many of us are not aware of (but some of us are)?
This is just a short sample of questions. Many more can be formulated, for example, in the ethical domain, but also in the social and psychological domains. How does one go about reflecting this type of questions? One way is to take resort to sacred scripture. Related to this is studying philosophical works on religion and spirituality.
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This is all very well, provided that one takes the trouble of contemplating the material offered in these scriptures and commentaries. If one is contented with a literal interpretation of sacred scripture, one incurs the risk of rigidity of opinion, being unable to cope with the problems that face our world today. One only needs to think of the questions of climate change, genetic modification, euthanasia, abortion, unstable economic systems, and many other examples, to grasp this fact. Besides this, societies change in the course of time, and old formulations of belief may have to be adapted to be of use any longer. Humanity is slowly waking up to these facts. It will have to. Its simply a matter of survival. Then there is the matter of the perceived incompatibility of religion and science. For historical reasons, a divide has resulted between religious views (especially orthodox ones) and scientific views on life. You see, orthodoxy produces artificial boundaries between these two activities of the human being. The dogmas of the church could no longer satisfy the inquiring mind of the scientist and philosopher. That is entirely understandable. After all, if the earth exists much longer than, say, 6,000 years, then theres a serious problem with a literal explanation of the Christian Bible. And what about evolution theory? Nowadays, the Vatican has already made concessions in this regard. Yes, it says,there is evolution, but God has created the human soul. Smart move or the beginning of the end of orthodox Roman Catholicism? What you see here is that orthodoxy, what some have called the blue, authoritarian, meme (2), has to give way to new memes (3), some of which have a more holistic character. In my opinion, its a slow, but sure process. As to religion, philosophy and science, one could say, that these offer different angles or perspectives on the world. Religion is concerned with questions of finality (whereto), philosophy with the why, and science with the how. There is no reason why these three perspectives cannot supplement each other, and form a synergy. Indeed, my own philosophical work pertains to the confluence of spirituality and science.(4) I will move now to the next point of consideration:
Diversity of belief systems

Simple observation of human societies teaches us that there is a multitude of religions, belief systems, etc. This should be a serious point of reflection. Immediately the question arises: since there are so many differences between belief systems, which one is right? Can it be that perhaps none is right? Or, to think in a post-modern way, is it all relative: animism is equally valid and valuable as Christianity or Buddhism? Is it simply a matter of different memes and evolution of memes? And, very poignantly: are scientists and the scientific enterprise impregnated with belief as well?(5) In the post-modern era, many today take their refuge to secular humanism, which generally is concerned with this life, here and now. This, to me, seems a bit too simple a solution for the philosopher to take. It seems to be a form of materialist philosophy, and thus will have difficulty with dealing consistently with the deeper questions of life, such as qualia, consciousness, conscience, etc. There is, however, something as religious humanism too. It seems clear from these observations, that there is in fact little basis for feelings of superiority for religious believers. Why would Islam be superior to Christianity, or vice versa? Why would Buddhism be a better philosophy than Druidry? And so on. A little modesty and tolerance would suit people here. Can they give good philosophical arguments why their belief is better than other beliefs? I hardly think so.
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Postmodernism negates itself

This is not to fall into the trap of extreme post-modernism: all is but relative, no view is better than another. This leads to nihilism. If we apply the logic of extreme post-modernism to itself, than post-modernism itself is but a view, not better than any other. It negates itself! What, then, should be ones attitude in these matters? Personally, I like the position that Socrates takes in Platos dialogues. He says: I know that I am ignorant of the true nature of things; I know that I dont know, whereas others think that they know how things are. A modest position indeed! And here we come to my next point: there have been many mystics, or generally speaking, wise men and women, who had illuminating experiences in their life. These were deep experiences of unity with God, Nature, or Universe, whatever one wants to call it. They sometimes tried to write about it. Some founded a new religion or philosophy. It is to some of these mystics, and to certain philosophers, that I turn for study and contemplation. I will name some of them, to give an impression of the range of ideas and philosophies they cover. First of all, I mention Neo-Platonism, which, in my opinion, is one of the finest systems of philosophy developed in our world. Especially Proclus must be mentioned. Then, Subba Rao, a somewhat idiosyncratic follower of Advaita-Vedanta. His lectures and writings contain some real gems. Many others could be named, such as the enigmatic Jacob Boehme, whose main books I have scanned and edited, the eminent theosopher Gottfried de Purucker, who has introduced the notion of relativity in theosophical literature, and later thinkers such as J.G. Bennett, who introduced many new ideas in the spiritual-philosophic field. Lately I have become interested in the work of Stafford Beer, a management cybernetician. His fractal, viable, model deals with matters of decision and control. Process-philosophers such as Alfred North Whitehead and Arthur Young must be mentioned too here. Some info on the latter can be found in my ebook.(4)
Process philosophy and spirituality

Spiritual synthesis: connecting views and ideas There are many points of agreements in the writings of the mystics and process-philosophers I mentioned. Their works provide an opportunity for synergies. Their work can be a great help to answer questions of the type I posed in the introduction to this essay. Indeed, a whole body of work exists that can be used in dealing with these questions. There is a lot of developmental work left, however, to come to these synergies, necessary to deal with ever new questions in a changing world. You see, developing a spiritual, integrative, philosophy of life takes time. It must be a consistent philosophy, capable of answering a good many questions. It must be uplifting and offer a path of development. It should be of relevance to our current society, yet have components that are timeless. The enterprise of reframing the old philosophies, among which theosophical ones, is worthy of participating in. It is something that our perplexed and unstable world needs. Notes: (1) Alfred Russell Wallace, the co-founder of evolution theory, clearly sensed the problems these qualia pose for evolution theory. (2) Clare Graves, Don Beck, and Chris Cowan: spiral dynamics.
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(3) The phrasing of the term meme seems to stem from Richard Dawkins. (4) See my ebook, blogs and notes on this point. (5) Yes, they are. See the writings of Feyerabend (and others) and ponder about the consequences of this fact. Tags: belief, science, spirituality, synthesis
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Religion, spirituality and psychology

Note: in this wiki notebook reflections, religion and spirituality have everything to do with daily life, as you will understand when browsing and studying the many topics dealt with.
Subtopics
dogmas under scrutiny,musings on religion and spirituality (blog posting) perception_and_belief, limiting beliefs - you see what you belief spirituality, experience of the Divine, Mysticism panentheism, immanent and transcendent Divinity. Comprising about all religions, especially the mystical parts or formulations of these. Compatible with true science as shown in my ebook (see archives) and articles. psychology of the spirit, pneumatology,Vitvan, monadic model (ebook), objective idealism symbols used in religious texts. Several keys for explanation of symbols exist. Some examples will be given. self_help, concise manual Links: philosophy_of_life, archives, articles External links: The hidden meaning of the Sacraments Threefold gunas in the human psyche (research of polarity and control hierarchy) My ebook on spiritual science and psychology
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Spirituality and Mysticism

Spirituality is a large topic. This section will focus on Mysticism. In my archives, you will find a large collection of books from Jacob Boehme, a famous Christian mystic. I might write a little more about his ideas and experience of the Divine at some future point. For the moment, enjoy the subtle spiritual flow permeating his writings, while reading these.
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Archives: Perennial philosophy, Gnosis, Boehme, Kabbalah, Neo-Platonism
The pagan origin of Christianity

List of Alvin Boyd Kuhn writings and Gerald Massey Lectures The most important of Kuhn's writings are "The lost light" and "Shadow of the third century". Tom Harpur has based his book "The pagan Christ" to a considerable degree on the content of these books. Part one of James Morgan Pryse's book on the restoration of the New Testament Astonishing research on the background of the gospels. (Hint: ancient Greek mystery plays involved). My Jacob Boehme page Free downloadable books in searchable textformat! All larger books of Boehme available (in English).
The Neo-Platonic School

The Enneads by Plotinus; The theology of Plato, and, The commentary on the Timaeus by Proclus; G.R.S. Mead on the Orphic theology
Esoteric philosophy
Fundamentals of the esoteric philosophy by G. de Purucker: a remarkable sketch of the basics of true esoterism. The Eastern method of gradual unfoldment of teachings is employed throughout this book. Free download! Thanks goes to Eldon Tucker. Be sure to read my introduction to this book first! Html-version with figures.
Kabbalah
Alan Bain's Keys to Kabbalah Original research on the Golden Dawn style Kabbalah. Includes Tarot pictures, 21 stages and 32 paths of wisdom, culminating in Alan's diagram called "Jacob's ladder".
Integrative philosophy
My ebook on integrative spirituality and holistic science
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Contains an experience based philosophy of life plus pages on Vitvan's Gnosis, discussion of Arthur Young's process model and an intro to J.G. Bennett's systematics (Fourth Way extension)
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Articles and notes

Here you can find a growing collection of articles on a diversity of topics: beyond_reductionism: Life scientists discussing the limitations of reductionism On the development of a spiritual process-philosophy The threefold gunas in the human psyche (research of polarity and control hierarchy) Philosophy and psychology of creation (use of will and visualization) Culture wars - Three perspectives on the world today Darwin's survival of the fittest under scrutiny. Cooperation between living beings is common in nature. The esoteric background of the seven Sacraments Sketches the true meaning of the Sacraments as pertaining to the Mystery Schools of the Ancient World.
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Blog and forum

My new blog and forum discussions at www.theosophy.net See left panel at that page for links! You can become a member of this organization and participate in discussions! Also see Agents of Change for a list of important organizations that are striving for social justice and sustainable economy.
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Ecology, economy, and sustainability

In the following, you will find links to organizations that provide alternative ways of economy, and work from a deeper understanding of how to proceed toward an ecological balance. See also reflections_on_the_occupy_movement for more links.
Links
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New Economics Institute (or E.F. Schumacher Society) develops new indices for well-being, sustainability, etc. Centre for Alternative Technology is concerned with our carbon footprint Transition towns Do it yourself A handbook for changing our world issues around fresh water and meat production Peta article good stewardship/ecospirituality in the churches (the greening of religion) becoming involved in Slow Food (organization website) buy Fair Trade products participate in LETSystems to promote local currencies and local trade. Sustainable banking (put your savings on a green bank, one that invests in ethically responsible projects, that promote practices of sustainability, fair business, etc. Food Matters: a natural approach to preventing and healing diseases. Life styles of health and sustainability (LOHAS) Houses for the homeless California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture The Natural Step framework is the foundation for many sustainability programs in the United States and around the world. Solutions for Business, Solutions for Communities, Case Studies. William McDonough & Michael Braungart (Waste is food; cradle to cradle principle)
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Beyond reductionism
This page will be dedicated especially to the limitations of reductionism. Reductionism is the belief that all phenomena can be reduced to states of matter. Wikipedia on reductionism In 1968, there was a symposion in Alpbach, Switzerland, where many of the finest researchers on the area of biology, psycholinguistics, and other areas, assembled to discuss the state of affairs of the life sciences at that point of time. I have written some blog posts on this topic, titled "Beyond reductionism". These are incorporated in this wiki, as follows: Piaget and Inhelder, part 1 Piaget and Inhelder, part 2 Paul Weiss on reductionism, part 1 Paul Weiss on reductionism, part 2 Paul Weiss on reductionism, part 3 Paul Weiss on reductionism, part 4 Paul Weiss on reductionism, part 5 (Under construction.)
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Paul Weiss on reductionism, part one

The living system: determinism stratified Paul A. Weiss* Rockefeller University, New York * In references to the author's publications in the text, abbreviated to "P.W." A summary of Weiss's main points, as far as relevant to the purpose of this wiki, follows. Emphasis is largely mine. This is a long article, from which I retain the headings of the sections, and add a few for easier reading. The summary is split in five parts, and comprises the first half of Weiss's article.
Introduction
Need for the systems concept Weiss stresses the need for the scientist to periodically step back from his detailed work and have a look at what others in science are doing in order to retain a sense of perspective and proportions. His conclusions and postulates are derived from pragmatic insights acquired from the study of living organisms. He wants to contribute to the marriage of inductive experimental fact-finding and theoretical speculations to bring forth something fruitful. His prime object here is to document that a number of basic controversies about the nature of organisms and living processes, (e.g., reductionism versus holism), readily vanish in the light of realistic studies of the actual phenomena, described in language uncontaminated by preconceptions. In this light (1) the principle of hierarchic order in living nature reveals itself as a demonstrable descriptive fact, regardless of the philosophical connotations that it may carry. and (2) there is a compelling necessity to accept organic entities as systems which are subject to network dynamics, rather than as bundles of micro-precisely programmed linear chain reactions. A strictly mechanistic, machine-like, notion of the nature of living organisms presupposes a high degree of precision in the spatial and chronological program according to which the innumerable concurrent component chains are composed and arrayed to keep the bunch of separate processes from falling apart when faced with the fortuitous fluctuations of the outer world.
Animal behaviour: systems dynamics

Jacques Loeb (1918) explained animal behaviour in terms of concatenated reflex sequences, and particularly his proposition of tropisms as paradigms of a precise cause-effect machine principle in organisms, epitomizes that kind of mechanistic preconception. His thesis had two serious flaws. Firstly, that brand of naively mechanistic thinking already had become outdated in physics; secondly, studies of the actual behavior of animals in goal-directed or other forms of directional performances showed none of the presumed stereotypism in the manner in which animals attained their objectives. True, the beginning and end of a behavioral act could often be unequivocally correlated with a vectorial cue from the environment; but the execution of the given act was found to be so variable and indeed unique in detail, from case to case and from instance to instance, that it was gratuitous to maintain that the attainment of essentially the same result regardless of the variety of
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approaches is simply the blind outcome of a chain of seriated steps appropriately pre-designed by evolution to lead to that end. So, organisms are not puppets operated by environmental strings; moreover, the analogy is meaningless, because the "environment" that pulls the strings of puppets in proper order is often another organism with his brain. Weiss' detailed study of the movements and tracks of butterflies assuming resting postures prompted him to disavow the reflex chain theory of animal orientation as unrealistic. He proposed in its stead a general systems theory of animal behavior. (P.W. 1925). The basic tenets of the paper seem to have been largely borne out by later developments. That conceptual framework is set forth here.
Analytic thinking - an abstraction

To Weiss, the Universe presents itself as an cohesive continuum. However, most of us are used to looking at it as a patchwork of discrete fragments. This habit stems partly from a biological heritage, which makes focusing on 'things', such as prey, enemies, or obstacles, a vital necessity; our cultural tradition plays a role too; and curiosity, which draws our attention and interest to limited 'objects'. These can be:
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well-delineated patterns in our visual field; repetitive arrays of sounds in bird song, melody or human language; processes of patterned regularity, such as waves.
Their reiterative appearance in relatively constant and durable form makes them the focus of our attention; we give these a name, while the rest is simply "background". These named processes and patterns are mentally dissected out because we happen to be especially interested in these 'things' or have drawn our attention.They cannot be said to be truly isolated or "isolable" from the rest. [See Whyte, 1949] The process through which we have come to treat a 'cluster of properties, called "parts", as ideally isolated, is mostly empirical'. We think that 'objects' are independent of their environment, but this is our perception. The latter refers to the limited powers of discrimination of the observer and his instruments; Also, in speaking of "independence from the environment", we must allow that 'since "environment" is ubiquitous, we cannot test, hence never discount, "dependencies" upon any of the features of the cosmic environment which are universal'. Weiss mentions temperature or radiation as cases in point. Independence is not absolute, for all those putatively independent entities are interconnected by the common environmental matrix, in which they lie embedded. Those so-called discrete items, form part and parcel of each other's environment.
Summary
we have a habit of atomizing the Universe mentally into isolated parts. But we do also see connections between isolated items, and then sort those we deem "relevant" from "negligible" ones; this obviously lets the judgment of the describer (or of statistics) intrude into purportedly "objective" descriptions of properties of 'objects'.
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Tags: Weiss, analysis, biology, cells, hierarchical, organization, perception, stratification, subsystems, suprasystems, synthesis, systems
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Paul Weiss on reductionism, part two

From analysis to synthesis
By looking from single objects to their interrelations with others, one reverses his direction from analysis to synthesis. By doing this, one discovers simple rules which describe the interrelations between such entities and keep one's basic conviction that those entities can be regarded as having primarily an isolated existence of their own, and becoming just secondarily coupled, depending on "circumstances". "Circumstances", however, is merely a substitute term for "environment". This is a deliberate abstraction, but one which has brought science tremendous success over the last two millennia. We have learned that if a finite series of modifications of an entity A is regularly associated with a correlated series of modification in another entity B, a rule can be established from which all future correlations between the two can be extrapolated without further experience. We then proceed to study A in its relation to C, and C again in its relation to B", and so in serial order, "to learn how different parts of the Universe, erstwhile mentally dissected and separated, hang actually together. This artificial, but fruitful method of analysis, adhering to the atomistic concept of Democrit, can thus be partly reversed by putting two and two together - either physically or mentally in our imagination linking by way of consecutive synthesis such coupled pairs into complex chains and cross braces, constructing compound real or ideal structures, the way a child builds bridges with an erector set. The point is this: biological thinking entails the idea that, given time, it will succeed in describing and comprehending, by the consistent application of this synthetic method, all that is within the Universe in entities and properties and processes that are knowable to us, including the phenomena of life. Modern physics has already departed from such a micromechanistic, naive picture of the outer world, but we are concerned not with physics but with living organisms. On the basis of empirical investigation, we can assert that the mere reversal of our prior analytic dissection of the Universe by putting the pieces together again, whether in reality or just in our minds, can yield no complete explanation of the behavior of even the most elementary living system
The living organism: a system

Life is process. A living system is no more adequately characterized by an inventory of its material constituents, such as molecules, than the life of a city is described by the list of names and numbers in a telephone book. Only by virtue of their ordered interactions do molecules become partners in the living process; in other words, through their behavior. This involves vast numbers of disparate compounds,so all living phenomena consist of group behaviour, which offers aspects not evident in the members of the group when observed singly. This fact is generally put aside by referring to living systems as "complex"; but the term "complex" need imply no more than a haphazard conglomeration, whereas in the living system we find distinctive orderliness of the complexes. While there could be an infinite number of possible interactions and combinations among its constituent units in a mere complex, in the living system only an extremely restricted selection from that grab-bag of opportunities for chemical processes is being realized at any one moment - a selection which can be understood solely in its bearing on the concerted harmonious performance of a task by the complex as a whole.
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This is the feature that distinguishes the living system from a dead body, or a functional process from a list of parts involved in a process, or a sentence from an alphabet, or in biological terms, ecology from taxonomy. The rules of order which rigorously restrain componental interactions in such co-ordinated fashion as to yield a harmonious group performance of the collective can only be recognized, appreciated and properly described once we have raised our sights from the element to the collective system. This means passing to a higher level of conceptualization.
Hierarchy of wholes and parts

The mention of "levels" brings Weiss to the fundamental distinction between atomistic, micro-mechanistic terms of explanations on the one hand, and hierarchical concepts of organization on the other. The difference is that the latter imply some sort of discontinuity encountered as one crosses interfaces between lower and higher orders of magnitude. In the former approach one tries to reduce all phenomena to the properties of ultimate elements in their various combinations; that view is based on the premise of a continuity of gradations all the way up from the single elements to infinite numbers of them. To decide which one of these two contrasting views of nature represents the reality of biological phenomena is not to be left to a priori conviction, but is a matter of empirical study. If co-ordinated group performances of a high order of regularity can be proven to be the blind resultant of a multitude of concurrent linear bundles of chain reactions minutely pre-set in spatial distribution and pre-scheduled in duration and sequence, then the former theory could hold sway. If not, then systems theory would have to be granted a primary role for the treatment of organized systems; for the systems concept is the expression of the experience that there are patterned processes which owe their typical configuration not to a prearranged, absolutely stereotyped, mosaic of single-tracked component performances, but rather to the fact that the component activities have many degrees of freedom, but submit to the ordering restraints exerted upon them by the integral activity of the "whole" in its patterned systems dynamics. Weiss has put his finger on the sore spot which has hurt the protagonists of analytical-reductionist orthodoxy for a long time: the concept of wholeness. The reductionists have refused to look beyond their ultimate and most extreme abstraction, namely, the presumption of truly "isolated" elements in nature. They ask: what else could there be in the universe other than elements and interactions?. Weiss answers: The interaction between a positive and a negative electric charge, or between the earth and a falling stone, can certainly be described, at least in first approximation, without paying attention to what happens in the rest of the universe. And if one watches a multitude of stones falling to earth, the total result can still be represented as the sum of all the individual events. But there is also another class of interactions, which of necessity escapes the elementarian observer in his preoccupation with the smallest samples, because they pertain to properties peculiar to larger samples only of the universe, ignored in the communitive process which led to the concept of elements in the first place. It is in that latter class that the empirical dichotomy arises between simple conglomerates and the type of ordered complexes which we designate as systems. In other words, systems are products of our experience with nature, and not mental constructs, and whoever without being privy to that primary practical experience would try to abrogate them, could do so only by arrogation. Tags: Weiss, analysis, hierarchical, levels, organization, perception, synthesis, systems
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Paul Weiss on reductionism, part three

Reductionism and holism
Weiss next tries to define basic criteria that mark a complex of parts for designation as a system. First, however, he talks about the controversy in biology between "reductionism" and "holism". The former finds its advocates in the field of "molecular biology". The latter term can be used to imply a deliberate self-limitation of viewpoint and research to molecular interactions in living systems. That is a pertinent and legitimate use of the term. If, however, molecular biologists were to assume the attitude of a benevolent absolutism, claiming a monopoly for the explanation of all phenomena in living systems, and indeed were issuing injunctions against the use of other than molecular principles in the description of biological systems, this would obviously show a lack of practical experience with, or disregard of, the evidence for supra-molecular order in living systems. The term "molecular biology" was coined almost simultaneously by Astbury (1951) and Weiss*; it was to indicate, on the scale of orders of magnitude, the lowest level of investigation relevant to the advancement of biological knowledge. But nothing in the nomenclature insinuated that it should assume the role of pars pro toto.[the part usurping the role of the whole, editor.] * Weiss proposed a hierarchical system of order according to functional principles in common to living organisms: Molecular, Cellular, Genetic, Developmental, Regulatory and Group and Environmental Biology (see, for instance, P.W. 1952). It is one thing not to see the forest for the trees, but then to go on to deny the reality of the forest is a more serious matter; for it is not just a case of myopia, but one of self-inflicted blindness. In using the phrase "The whole is more than the sum of its parts", the term "more" is often taken as a term referring to numbers. However, a living cell does not have more content, mass or volume than is constituted by the total mass of molecules which it comprises. Weiss has shown in an article (P.W. 1967) that the "more" (than the sum of parts) in the above tenet does not at all refer to any measurable quantity in the observed systems themselves; it refers solely to the necessity for the observer to supplement the sum of statements that can be made about the separate parts by any such additional statements as will be needed to describe the collective behavior of the parts, when in an organized group. In going through this upgrading process, the observer is in effect only restoring information content that has been lost on the way down in the progressive analysis of the unitary universe into abstracted elements. Weiss' neutral account may reconcile reductionism and holism. The reductionist moves from the top down, gaining precision of information about fragments as he descends, but losing information content about the larger orders he leaves behind; the other proceeds in the opposite direction, from below, trying to retrieve the lost information content by reconstruction, but recognizes early in the ascent that that information is not forthcoming unless he has already had it on record in the first place. The difference between the two processes, determined largely also by historical traditions, is not unlike that between two individuals looking at the same object through a telescope from opposite ends.
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System operationally defined

Weiss then proposes an epistemologically neutral (pragmatic) definition of a system: it is a rather circumscribed complex of relatively bounded phenomena, which, within those bounds, retains a relatively stationary pattern of structure in space or of sequential configuration in time in spite of a high degree of variability in the details of distribution and interrelations among its constituent units of lower order. The system maintains its configuration and integral operation in a rather constant environment, and it responds to alterations of the environment by an adaptive redirection of its componental processes in such a manner as to counter the external change in the direction of optimum preservation of its systemic integrity. He then gives a simple formula to set a system in relation to the sum of its components by an inequality, which boils down to: A complex is a system if the variance of the features of the whole collective is significantly less than the sum of variances of its constituents; So, the basic characteristic of a system is its essential invariance beyond the much more variant flux and fluctuations of its elements or constituents. By implication this signifies that the elements are subject to restraints of their degrees of freedom so as to yield a resultant in the direction of maintaining the optimum stability of the collective. The terms "co-ordination", "control", and the like, are merely synonymous labels for this principle. To summarize, a major aspect of a system is that while the state and pattern of the whole can be defined as known, the detailed states and pathways of the components not only are so erratic as to defy definition, but even if one could trace them, would prove to be so unique and non-recurrent that they would be devoid of scientific interest. This is the opposite of a machine, in which the structure of the product depends crucially on strictly predefined operations of the parts. In the system, the structure of the whole determines the operation of the parts; in the machine, it is the operation of the parts which determines the outcome. Weiss points out that even the machine owes the coordinated functional arrangement of its parts to a systems operation - the brain of its designer.
Comment
Biological systems show homeostasis: they try to keep (and restore) a state of equilibrium. The organism as a whole restrains the freedom of its components. A component gone wild (out of bounds) can cause the organism to die. The same applies to ecosystems. Humanity has to be a good steward to the world it lives in. Tags: Weiss, analysis, definition, hierarchical, levels, organization, part, synthesis, systems, whole
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Paul Weiss on reductionism, part four

Hierarchy: a biological necessity
To stress the need for viewing living organisms as hierarchically ordered systems, ponder the following facts. The average cell in the human body consists of about eighty per cent of water and for the rest contains about 10^5 macromolecules [^ is symbol for exponent, editor]. The human brain alone contains about 10^10 cells, hence about 10^15 (1,000,000,000,000,000) macromolecules (give or take one order of magnitude). Could you actually believe that such an enormous number of elements, shuffled around as we have demonstrated in our cell studies, could ever guarantee to you your sense of identity and constancy in life without this constancy being insured by a superordinated principle of integration? Each nerve cell in the brain receives an average of 10^4 connections from other brain cells, and in addition, although the cells themselves retain their individuality, their macro-molecular contingent is renewed about 10^4 times in a lifetime (P.W. 1969a). In short, every cell of your brain actually harbors and has to deal with approximately 10^9 macromolecules during its life. But there is more. The brain loses, on the average, about 10^3 cells per day, so that the brain cell population is decimated during the life span by about 10^7 cells, expunging 10^11 conducting cross linkages. Despite this ceaseless change of detail in that large population of elements, our basic patterns of behavior, our memories, our sense of integral existence as an individual, have retained throughout their unitary continuity of pattern. When one looks at biology exclusively from the molecular end, one might feel satisfied by calculating that a contingent at any one time of 10^15 brain molecules in intercommunication could numerically account for any conceivable number of resultant functional manifestations by their mass. However, this misses the real problem. It is redundant to confirm that which we already know to happen; what scientists have to explain, is not that it happens, but why it happens just the way it does. 'And this is exactly where the above molecular computation fails abysmally, for it ignores the crucial fact that contrary to that "conceivable" infinite number and variety of possible kaleidoscopic constellations and combinations, the real brain processes, taken as a whole, retain their overall patterns.'
The brain
This example has taken us up to one of the highest levels of organismic organization - the brain. Erwin Schrdinger wrestled with the same issue in his lecture series on What Is Life? (1945): the contrast between the degrees of potential freedom among trillions of molecules making up the brain on the one hand and on the other hand, the perseverance in an essentially invariant pattern of the functions of our nervous system, our thoughts, our ideas, our memories (and as for the whole body, of our structure and the harmonious physiological co-operation of all our parts). He was forced to conclude that every conscious mind that has ever felt or said 'I' .. is the person, if any, who controls the 'motion of the atoms' according to the laws of nature." Let us forget the implied brain-mind dualism, for the emphasis lies on the word "control" 'the subordination of the blind play of atoms and molecules to an overall regulatory control system with features of continuity and relative invariability of pattern; in short, the postulation of a systems principle'.
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Subsystems
The integral systems operation, of the body as a whole, or of the brain within it, deals not directly with the molecules, but only through the agency of intermediate subordinate sub-systems, ranged in a hierarchical scale of orders of magnitude (see the description of hierarchical order in cells below). Each sub-system dominates its own subordinate smaller parts within its own domain, restraining their degrees of freedom according to its own integral portion of the overall pattern, much like its own degrees of freedom have been restrained by the pattern of activities of the higher system of which it is a part and participant.* * Gerard (1958) and Koestler (1967) have endowed systems and subsystems of this description with symbolic names, (Gerard: "orgs", Koestler: "holons"). Weiss fears that such terms might be naively misconstrued for labels of disembodied super-agencies conceived as something that might after all somehow some day materialize, distilled off and separable from the conservative dynamics, whose special rules those terms aim at categorizing. The history of science shows the conceptual hazards inherent in raising adjectives to the rank of nouns; particularly, in the description of living phenomena, where the temptation to personify nouns is ever present.
Invariance
This picture of the organism is the lesson learned from biological study: the organism is composed of cells, which are composed of organelles, which are in turn composed of macro-molecular complexes, down to the macromolecules and smaller molecules, which are the link to inorganic nature. The principle is valid for the single cell as much as for the multicellular community of the higher animal, and for the latter's development as much as for its homeostatic maintenance of physiological equilibrium in later life. On each one of the planes or levels of this systemic hierarchy, we encounter the same type of descriptive rule summarized in the inequality formula outlined earlier; namely, that any one of the particular complexes that show that high degree of constancy and unity that marks them as systems loses that aspect of invariance the more we concentrate our attention on smaller samples of its content. So, at each level of descent, we recognize entities like organs, cells, organelles, macromolecules; or brain functions, as expressed in concepts, thoughts, sentences, words, symbols, but whose methodical behavior on that level cannot be ascribed to any fixity of regularities in the behavior of the units of next lower order; knowing the properties of intermediary entities would not permit us to describe by sheer additive reconstruction the behavioral features of their next superordinate level in precise and specific terms. "The whole is more than the sum of its parts" is translated by Weiss into a mandate for action: a call for spelling out the irreducible minimum of supplementary information that is required beyond the information derivable from the knowledge of the ideally separated parts in order to yield a complete and meaningful description of the ordered behavior of the collective. The reference to hierarchically ordered systems in terms of "levels" has to do with our habit of thinking in spatial imagery. In our imagination, we visualize the system as a whole on one plane; we then dissect it mentally or physically into its components, which we display on another, a lower, plane. Yet, in reality, the system and its parts are co-extensive and congruous, that nothing need be presumed to have been disrupted or lost in the dissection process except the pattern or orderly
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relations among the parts. The "level" we are speaking of signifies the level of attention of an observer whose interest has been attracted by certain regularities of pattern prevailing at that level, as he scans across the range of orders of magnitude. The observer finds constancies on every level. It does not matter whether one uses a visual image or verbiage as a model of hierarchic structure as long as one realizes that this model is a simplified artifact reflecting the inadequacy of our faculty for visualizing abstract concepts. They all become equivalent, whether one prefers the layered structure intimated by the term "level" or Arthur Koestler's tree scheme of reanastomosing arborizations or Weiss' own preference for "inscribed domains". The latter refers to a simple figure of his showing concentric circles which have in the center the label gene, then chromosome, nucleus, cytoplasm, tissue, organism with connections between all the circles (interactive relations among hierarchically ordered subsystems of an organism). The whole is embedded in an environment.
Summary
So, the patterns mentioned by Weiss, are non-reducible to the components of the system. The finely tuned dynamics of a cell require sophisticated control-"mechanisms". The global correlations between cell-groups in the human brain are unexplainable to the reductionist neuro-scientist. The need for something like an "information-field" as an originator of patterns is evident here. The brightest scientists already acknowledge this; others are still in the closet regarding this inevitable conclusion. The Nobel-prize winner, physicist Gerard 't Hooft also has started to muse about the holographic nature of our universe. Readers who are interested in these things may enjoy reading Michael Talbot's book "The Holographic Universe". Tags: control, hierarchy, levels, non-reductive, organism, organization, pattern, subsystem, supersystem
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Paul Weiss on reductionism, part five

Open systems
Weiss mentions here his use of escape clauses as "to all intents and purposes", "relatively bounded", "relatively constant", "essential" in relation to the issue of the non-existence of wholly autonomous, tightly bounded, systems of any order of magnitude and complexity. He mentions the emphasis placed by Bertalanffy (1945) on "open systems". True to his concept of the primacy of continuity and interrelatedness throughout the Universe, he must consider all systems as "open" - ideally and theoretically. Basically, all systems must be expected to be open somewhere somehow. For practical purposes, we might close them by empirical boundaries, subject to amendment.
Systems - theoretically founded

Having presented the case for the hierarchical organization of living systems in assertive form, Weiss comes to document those assertions in the form of a few illustrative examples, presented in two parts: a brief theoretical one and a more elaborate concrete one dealing with the living cell. On the theoretical side, there is a strictly logical test for the identification of a system. It rests on the nature of the interrelations between the units conceived of atomistically, through primary abstraction, as isolated, separate and autonomous. Weiss then points to his previous discussion of analysis and synthesis (see the erector set analogy). The synthetic insight, explaining things by addition, would apply only for those particular cases in which our original primary abstraction has been empirically validated, that is, on the premise that the abstracted entities have actually been proved to be relatively autonomous. The fundamental distinction of a system is that this premise definitely does not apply as far as the relations among its constituents are concerned. Let us assume, for instance, a triplet of units, A, B, and C, each of which depends for its very existence upon interactions with, or contributions from, the other two. Then, obviously, we could not achieve a step-wise assembly of this triplet, the way we did before by first joining A to B and then adding C; for in the absence of C, neither A nor B could have been formed, existed or survived. In short, the coexistence and co-operation of all three is indispensable for the existence and operation of any one of them.
Empirical studies
Weiss mentions that in empirical studies, processes in living systems present themselves as just such networks of mutually interdependent tributaries to the integral operation of the whole group. Examples of systems of this type of "physical wholeness" can be represented by inorganic analogies. A self-supporting arch is one example. One could never close an arch by piling loose stones upon one another because they start to slip off at the curvature. In other words, an arch as a self-supporting structure can only exist in its entirety or not at all. Human imagination has found ways of building arches piece by piece, by help of cements or of a scaffolding. But those are contrivances of a living system, the resourceful human brain, enabling a system to be synthesized from parts, a feat which could never have been accomplished without such help from another system: System begets system.
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Example
This conclusion leads to an example in living systems, namely, the reproduction of the macromolecules in the living cell. Although commonly referred to as "synthesis", this process is radically different from what goes under the same name in inorganic chemistry. In the latter, for example, if chlorine and hydrogen are brought together, they will combine to hydrochloric acid, even if none of the end product has been present before. By contrast, the assembly of simple constituents into complex macromolecules in organic systems always requires the presence of a ready-made model of the product or, at any rate, a template of the same high degree of specificity, to guide the proper order of assemblage. The best known case is the transcription of genes or sequence of DNA parts into a corresponding sequence of ribonucleic acid (RNA), the orderly array of which is then translated into a corresponding serial pattern of amino acids in the formation of a protein. 'Although this copying process of patterns and its various derivative manifestations, such as the highly specific catalysis of further macromolecular species through the enzymatic action of proteins, is often referred to by verbs with the anthropomorphic prefix "self-", these processes are no more "self-engendered than an arch can be self-building; for in order to occur at all, they require the specific co-operation of their own terminal products - the enzyme systems which, being indispensable prerequisites for all the links in the metabolic chains, including those for their own formation, thus close the circle of interdependent component processes to a coherent integrated system. Only the integral totality of such a system could with some justification be called "self-contained", "self-perpetuating", and "self-sustaining".'
Comment
Note the strong argument against a simple reductionism here: the enzyme systems which are necessary for their own production. Another strong point of Weiss is his criticism of the use of the prefix "self-". Terms like "self-engendered" are indeed anthropomorphic and hide the biologist's ignorance about the control of the process of synthesis. It actually is a very funny term, and the same goes for "self-organization". So, the biologist sees himself forced to use terms that one associates with consciousness! Or .. is this "self" another term to state a tautology? Tags: abstraction, anthropomorphic, coherent, foundation, interdependent, open, self-organization, systems
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Piaget and Inhelder (beyond reductionism), part 1

In this series of postings, I will summarize and quote parts of some books that deal with the problems of reductionism. The first book that draw my attention, was the famous book "Beyond reductionism", New perspectives in the life sciences, which is a report from the Alpbach Symposium held in 1968. Participants were, among others, Arthur Koestler [holons!], J.R. Smythies, Ludwig von Bertalanffy [systems theory], Paul Weiss, Jean Piaget[developmental psychology], Paul Maclean [three functional brains idea], W.H. Thorpe, Viktor Frankl. The book breathes a fresh atmosphere. It is a lively report of the thoughts and research of many great scientists, especially from the biology, psychology and linguistic departments. One can also see how current academia have diverged from this line of thought, in favor of a more reductionist paradigm (as evidenced by molecular biology, and especially neuropsychology). There are many problems facing the reductionist paradigm. I will deal with some of these in this series of postings. The first article concerns the lecture of Jean Piaget and Brbel Inhelder (University of Geneva), titled The gaps in empiricism. I will quote from a section of this long lecture. First there is an intro on behaviorism, which I will skip. Then, an enlightening part on empiricism and mathematics follows (all emphasis is mine):
Empiricism and mathematics

In so far as empiricism seeks to limit knowledge to that of observable features, the problem it has failed to solve is the existence of mathematics, and this problem becomes particularly acute when it comes to explaining psychologically how the subject discovers or constructs logico-mathematical structures. Classical empiricism, as argued by Herbert Spencer for example, considered that we derive mathematical concepts by means of abstraction from physical objects: certain Soviet schools of thought share this view, though it is in fact not consistent with the theory of dialectics. In contrast to this attitude, contemporary logical empiricism has well understood the difference between physics, on the one hand, and logic and mathematics, on the other, but instead of seeking a possible common source of knowledge in these respective fields it has maintained that there are two entirely different sources. It has thus aimed at reducing physical knowledge to experience alone (the root of synthetic judgments) and logico-mathematical knowledge to language alone (whose general syntactic and semantic features pertain to analytical judgments). This view poses several problems. Firstly, from the linguistic point of view, while Bloomfield's positivism (and even earlier Watson's behaviorism) aimed at reducing all thought and, in particular, logic to a mere product of language, Chomsky's transformational structuralism reverts to the rationalist tradition of grammar and logic (in doing this, as we have just seen, he exaggerates to the point where he regards basic structures as innate). In the second place, the great logician Quine was able to show the impossibility of defending a radical dualism of analytic and synthetic judgments (this "dogma" of logical empiricism, as Quine amusingly termed it). Moreover, a collective study by our Centre for Genetic Epistemology has been able to verify Quine's objections experimentally by finding numerous intermediaries between the analytic and synthetic poles.
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Finally, psychogenetically, it is obvious that the roots of the logico-mathematical structures must go far deeper than language and must extend to the general coordination of actions found at the elementary behavior levels, and even to sensory-motor intelligence; sensory-motor schemes already include order of movements, embedding of a sub-scheme into a total scheme and establishing correspondences. The basic arguments of logical empiricism are thus shown today to be refuted in all the linguistic, logical and psychological areas where one might have hoped to prove them. As far as the connections between logico-mathematical structures and physical reality are concerned, the situation seems just as clear. It became clarified through experimental analyses of the nature of experience itself. While empiricists aimed at reducing everything to experience, and were thus obliged to explain what they meant by "experience", they have simply forgotten to prove their interpretation experimentally. In other words, we have been given no systematic experimental study on what experience actually is. From our prolonged and careful studies of the development of experience and of the roles which it plays in both physical and logico-mathematical knowledge, the following facts emerge. It is perfectly true that logico-mathematical knowledge begins with a phase in which the child needs experience because it cannot reason along deductive lines. There is an epistemological parallel: Egyptian geometry was based on land-measuring, which paved the way for the empirical discovery of the relationship between the sides of a right-angled triangle with sides of 3, 4 and 5 units, which constitutes a special case of Pythagoras' theorem. Similarly, the child at the preoperatory level (before 7-8 years) needs to make sure by actually handling objects that 3+2=2+3 or that A=C if A=B and B = C (when he cannot see A and C together). But logico-mathematical experience which precedes deductive elaboration is not of the same type as physical experience. The latter bears directly on, and obtains its information from, objects as such by means of abstraction"direct" abstraction which consists of retaining the interesting properties of the object in question by separating them from others which are ignored. For example, if one side of a rubber ball is coated with flour, the child discovers fairly early on that the further the ball drops in height the more it flattens out when it hits the ground (as indicated by the mark on the floor). He also discovers at a later age (10-11) that the more this ball flattens out the higher it bounces up; a younger child thinks it is the other way round. This is therefore a physical experience because it leads to knowledge which is derived from the objects themselves. By contrast, in the case of logico-mathematical experience, the child also acts on the objects, but the knowledge which he gains from the experience is not derived from these objects: it is derived from the action bearing on the objects, which is not the same thing at all. In order to find out that 3+2=2+3, he needs to introduce a certain order into the objects he is handling (pebbles, marbles, etc.), putting down first three and then two or first two and then three. He needs to put these objects together in different ways2, 3 or 5. What he discovers is that the total remains the same whatever the order; in other words, that the product of the action of bringing together is independent of the action of ordering. If there is in fact (at this level) an experimental discovery, it is not relevant to the properties of the objects. Here the discovery stems from the subject's actions and manipulations and this is why later, when these actions are interiorized into operations (interiorized reversible actions belonging to a structure), handling becomes superfluous and the subject can combine these operations by means of a purely deductive procedure and he knows that there is no risk of them being proved wrong by contradictory
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physical experiences. Thus the actual properties of the objects are not relevant to such logical mathematical discoveries. By contrast, it is just these properties which are relevant whenas in one of our recent experimentsthe child is asked questions about how the behaviour of pebbles (which stay where you put them) differs from that of drops of water. The method of abstraction peculiar to logico-mathematical structures is therefore different from that in elementary physical experiences. The former can be called a "reflective abstraction", because, when the child slowly progresses from material actions to interiorized operations (by "superior" we mean both "more complex" and "chronologically later") the results of the abstractions carried out on an inferior level are reflected on a superior one. This term is also appropriate because the structures of the inferior level will be reorganized on the next one since the child can now reflect on his own thought processes. At the same time this reflection enriches the structures that are already present. For example, primitive societies and children are already aware of the one-to-one correspondence, but it needed Cantor to discover the general operations of establishing relationships by means of "reflective abstraction" and he needed a second reflective abstraction in order to establish a relationship between the series 1,2,3 and 2, 4, 6 and thus to discover transfinite numbers. In this light we understand why mathematics, which at its outset has been shown to stem from the general coordination of actions of handling (and thus from neurological coordinations and, if we go even further back, from organic self-regulations), succeeds in constantly engendering new constructions. These constructions must of necessity have a certain form. In other words, mathematical thought builds structures which are quite different from the simple verbal tautologies in which logical empiricism would have us believe. Tags: Piaget, abstraction, empiricism, logical, mathematics, physicalism, positivism, reductionism, reflective, refutation
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Piaget and Inhelder (beyond reductionism), part 2

No pure experience possible
There is a second difference between physical experience and logico-mathematical experience or deduction. Whilst the latter, proceeding by means of reflective abstractions, leads to progressive purification (whose final stages are today those of the formalization peculiar to "pure" mathematics), physical experience is always a sort of "mixture". There is in fact no "pure" experience in the sense of a simple recording of external factors, without endogenous activity on the part of the subject. All physical experience results from actions on objects, for without actions modifying objects the latter would remain inaccessible even to our perception (since perception itself supposes a series of activities such as establishing relationships, etc.). If this is so, the actions which enable us to experiment on objects will always be dependent on the general coordinations outside of which they would lose all coherence. This means that physical experience is always indissociable from the logico-mathematical "framework"3 which is necessary for its "structuralization" This logico-mathematical device is in no way restricted to translating the experience into formal languageas if it were possible to have on the one side, the experience itself and, on the other, its verbal translation. [footnote 3. Establishing relationships or logical classes, functions, counting and measuring, etc.] This brings us back to the central argument of empiricism: that all knowledge should be related as closely as possible to observable facts.
Going beyond what is observable

In reality, in every fieldfrom physics to psychology, sociology or linguisticsthe essence of scientific knowledge consists in going beyond what is observable in order to relate it to subjacent structures. Firstly, logico-mathematical structures must go outside the scope of what is observable, i.e. what is furnished by physical experience in the broad sense (including biological, psychological experience, etc.). Infinity, continuity, logical necessity, the hierarchy of constructions and of reflective abstractions are all unobservable realities according to the empiricist, and if they had to be attributed to the simple powers of a "language", this language would have the surprising property of being infinitely richer than that which it describes. Secondly, in physics we might just be justified in regarding as observable features the repeatable relations which functional analysis strives to translate into "laws", but on examination of the actual work of scientistsand not the philosophical statements to which they so often limit themselveswe have to recognize that their systematic and unceasing need to discover why things happen forces them to break through the barriers of the observable. In these last decades, measurement has become a problem and researchers have often sought to identify the structures before attempting measurement. To take just one classical example, no one would dispute that the very widespread success of the application of the group structures in physics means that physicists also subordinate what is observable to systems or models which are not. Present-day achievements of structuralism in biology also provide an example of this and almost all the social sciences are proceeding along the same lines.
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To sum up, the innumerable problems continually being raised by the nature of mathematics and its application to experimental science have moved us further away from, rather than towards, the empiricist ideal of scientific knowledge. [This ends Piaget for the moment.] Tags: Inhelder, Piaget, abstraction, empiricism, logical, mathematics, physicalism, positivism, reductionism, reflective, refutation
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Martin's Notebook

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Agenda for a New Economy

Toward a responsible Capitalism

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Prologue: a question of values

Two schools of economic thought

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Part I (Ch. 1-4)

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Chapter 3: a real-market alternative

Wall Street versus Main Street.

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Freedom to commit fraud

The market alternative

Rules make the difference

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Panentheism Philosophy of panentheism: spiritual process philosophy

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Spirit and matter: a false dichotomy

An Ancient vision of life

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Symbols in religion and mysticism

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Heaven and Hell

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Reflections on the Occupy Movement

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