* As this book goes to press, the American journal, Archives of
General Psychiatry, reports experiments at Tulane University
which suggest the possibility of a chemical cure for schizophrenia
(Gould, D., 'An Antibody in Schizophrenics'.
London: New Scientist, 2.2.1967.)
* Incidentally, even the Don't-Tamper-with-Nature Brigade no longer
seriously objects to chlorine or other antiseptics being put into
tap water.
*Beyond Reductionism -- New Perspectives in the Life Sciences.
The Alpbach Symposium, ed. A. Koestler and J.R. Smythies
(London, 1969). Participants: L. von Bertalanffy, J.S. Bruner,
B. Bruner, V.E. Frankl, F.A. Hayek, H. Hyden, B. Inhelder, S.S. Kety,
P.D. MacLean, D. McNeill, J. Piaget, J.R. Smythies, W.H. Thorpe,
C.H. Waddington, P.A. Weiss. In fairness to the reader it should be
pointed out that the majority of the papers are rather technical.
APPENDIX I
GENERAL PROPERTIES OF OPEN HIERARCHICAL SYSTEMS (O.H.S.)
1. The Janus Effect
1.1 The organism in its structural aspect is not an aggregation of
elementary parts, and in its functional aspects not a chain of
elementary units of behaviour.
1.2 The organism is to be regarded as a multi-levelled hierarchy of
semi-autonomous sub-wholes, branching into sub-wholes of a lower
order, and so on. Sub-wholes on any level of the hierarchy are
referred to as holons.
1.3 Parts and wholes in an absolute sense do not exist in the domain of
life. The concept of the holon is intended to reconcile the atomistic
and holistic approaches.
1.4 Biological holons are self-regulating open systems which display both
the autonomous properties of wholes and the dependent properties of
parts. This dichotomy is present on every level of every type of
hierarchic organisation, and is referred to as the Janus Effect
or Janus principle.
1.5 More generally, the term 'holon' may be applied to any stable
biological or social sub-whole which displays rule-governed behaviour
and/or structural Gestalt-constancy. Thus organelles and homologous
organs are evolutionary holons; morphogenetic fields are ontogenetic
holons; the ethologist's 'fixed action-patterns' and the sub-routines
of acquired skills are behavioural holons; phonemes, morphemes,
words, phrases are linguistic holons; individuals, families, tribes,
nations are social holons.
2. Dissectibility
2.1 Hierarchies are 'dissectible' into their constituent branches,
on which the holons form the nodes; the branching lines represent
the channels of communication and control.
2.2 The number of levels which a hierarchy comprises is a measure of its
'depth', and the number of holons on any given level is called its
'span' (Simon).
3. Rules and Strategies
3.1 Functional holons are governed by fixed sets of rules and display
more or less flexible strategies.
3.2 The rules -- referred to as the system's canon -- determine its
invariant properties, its structural configuration and/or functional
pattern.
3.3 While the canon defines the permissible steps in the holon's activity,
the strategic selection of the actual step among permissible choices
is guided by the contingencies of the environment.
3.4 The canon determines the rules of the game, strategy decides the
course of the game.
3.5 The evolutionary process plays variations on a limited number of
canonical themes. The constraints imposed by the evolutionary canon
are illustrated by the phenomena of homology, homeoplasy, parallelism,
convergence and the loi du balancement.
3.6 In ontogeny, the holons at successive levels represent successive
stages in the development of tissues. At each step in the process
of differentation, the genetic canon imposes further constraints
on the holon's developmental potentials, but it retains sufficient
flexibility to follow one or another alternative developmental
pathway, within the range of its competence, guided by the
contingencies of the environment.
3.7 Structurally, the mature organism is a hierarchy of parts within parts.
Its 'dissectibility' and the relative autonomy of its constituent
holons are demonstrated by transplant surgery.
3.8 Functionally, the behaviour of organisms is governed by 'rules of
the game' which account for its coherence, stability and specific
pattern.
3.9 Skills, whether inborn or acquired, are functional hierarchies,
with sub-skills as holons, governed by sub-rules.
4. Integration and Self-Assertion
4.1 Every holon has the dual tendency to preserve and assert its
individuality as a quasi-autonomous whole; and to function as an
integrated part of an (existing or evolving) larger whole. This
polarity between the Self-Assertive (S-A) and Integrative (INT)
tendencies is inherent in the concept of hierarchic order: and a
universal characteristic of life.
The S-A tendencies are the dynamic expression of the holon's
wholeness, the INT tendencies of its partness.
4.2 An analogous polarity is found in the interplay of cohesive and
separative forces in stable inorganic systems, from atoms to galaxies.
4.3 The most general manifestation of the INT tendencies is the reversal
of the Second Law of Thermodynamics in open systems feeding on
negative entropy (Schrödinger), and the evolutionary trend towards
'spontaneously developing states of greater heterogeneity and
complexity' (Herrick).
4.4 Its specific manifestations on different levels range from the symbiosis
of organelles and colonial animals, through the cohesive forces in herds
and flocks, to the integrative bonds in insect states and Primate
societies. The complementary manifestations of the S-A tendencies are
competition, individualism, and the separative forces of tribalism,
nationalism, etc.
4.5 In ontogeny, the polarity is reflected in the docility and
determination of growing tissues.
4.6 In adult behaviour, the self-assertive tendency of functional
holons is reflected in the stubbornness of instinct rituals (fixed
action-patterns), of acquired habits (handwriting, spoken accent),
and in the stereotyped routines of thought; the integrative tendency
is reflected in flexible adaptations, improvisations, and creative
acts which initiate new forms of behaviour.
4.7 Under conditions of stress, the S-A tendency is manifested in the
aggressive-defensive, adrenergic type of emotions, the INT tendency
in the self-transcending (participatory, identificatory) type of
emotions.
4.8 In social behaviour, the canon of a social holon represents not only
constraints imposed on its actions, but also embodies maxims of
conduct, moral imperatives and systems of value.
5. Triggers and Scanners
5.1 Output hierarchies generally operate on the trigger-release principle,
where a relatively simple, implicit or coded signal releases complex,
pre-set mechanisms.
5.2 In phylogeny, a favourable gene-mutation may, through homeorhesis
(Waddington) affect the development of a whole organ in a harmonious
way.
5.3 In ontogeny, chemical triggers (enzymes, inducers, hormones) release
the genetic potentials of differentiating tissues.
5.4 In instinctive behaviour, sign-releasers of a simple kind trigger off
Innate Releasive Mechanisms (Lorenz).
5.5 In the performance of learnt skills, including verbal skills,
a generalised implicit command is spelled out in explicit terms
on successive lower echelons which, once triggered into action,
activate their sub-units in the appropriate strategic order, guided
by feedbacks.
5.6 A holon on the n level of an output-hierarchy is represented on the
(n+1) level as a unit, and triggered into action as a unit. A holon,
in other words, is a system of relata which is represented on the
next higher level as a relatum.
5.7 In social hierarchies (military, administrative), the same principles
apply.
5.8 Input hierarchies operate on the reverse principle; instead of
triggers, they are equipped with 'filter'-type devices (scanners,
'resonators', classifiers) which strip the input of noise, abstract
and digest its relevant contents, according to that particular
hierarchy's criteria of relevance. 'Filters' operate on every echelon
through which the flow of information must pass on its ascent from
periphery to centre, in social hierarchies and in the nervous system.
5.9 Triggers convert coded signals into complex output patterns. Filters
convert complex input patterns into coded signals. The former
may be compared to digital-to--analogue converters, the latter to
analogue-to-digital converters (Miller, Pribram et al.).
5.10 In perceptual hierarchies, filtering devices range from habituation
and the efferent control of receptors, through the constancy
phenomena, to pattern-recognition in space or time, and to the
decoding of linguistic and other forms of meaning.
5.11 Output hierarchies spell, concretise, particularise. Input
hierarchies digest, abstract, generalise.
6. Arborisation and Reticulatlon
6.1 Hierarchies can be regarded as 'vertically' arborising structures
whose branches interlock with those of other hierarchies at a
multiplicity of levels and form 'horizontal' networks: arborisation
and reticulation are complementary principles in the architecture
of organisms and societies.
6.2 Conscious experience is enriched by the co-operation of several
perceptual hierarchies in different sense-modalities, and within
the same sense-modality.
6.3 Abstractive memories are stored in skeletonised form, stripped
of irrelevant detail, according to the criteria of relevance of each
perceptual hierarchy.
6.4 Vivid details of quasi-eidetic clarity are stored owing to their
emotive relevance.
6.5 The impoverishment of experience in memory is counteracted to some
extent by the co-operation in recall of different perceptual
hierarchies with different criteria of relevance.
6.6 In sensory-motor co-ordination, local reflexes are shortcuts on the
lowest level, like loops connecting traffic streams moving in opposite
directions on a highway.
6.7 Skilled sensory-motor routines operate on higher levels through
networks of proprioceptive and exteroceptive feedback loops within
loops, which function as servo-mechanisms and keep the rider on his
bicycle in a state of self-regulating, kinetic homeostasis.
6.8 While in S-R theory the contingendes of environment determine
behaviour, in O.H.S. theory they merely guide, correct and stabilise
pre-existing patterns of behaviour (P. Weiss).
6.9 While sensory feedbacks guide motor activities, perception in its
turn is dependent on these activities, such as the various scanning
motions of the eye, or the humming of a tune in aid of its auditory
recall. The perceptual and motor hierarchies are so intimately
co-operating on every level that to draw a categorical distinction
between 'stimuli' and 'responses' becomes meaningless; they have
become 'aspects of feedback loops' (Miller, Pribram et al.).
6.10 Organisms and societies operate in a hierarchy of environments,
from the local environment of each holon to the 'total field',
which may include imaginary environments derived from extrapolation
in space and time.
7. Regulation Channels
7.1 The higher echelons in a hierarchy are not normally in direct
communication with lowly ones, and vice versa; signals are transmitted
through 'regulation channels', one step at a time, up or down.
7.2 The pesudo-explanations of verbal behaviour and other human skills
as the manipulation of words, or the chaining of operants, leaves
a void between the apex of the hierarchy and its terminal branches,
between thinking and spelling.
7.3 The short-circuiting of intermediary levels by directing conscious
attention at processes which otherwise function automatically, tends
to cause disturbances ranging from awkwardness to psychosomatic
disorders.
8. Mechanisation and Freedom
8.1 Holons on successively higher levels of the hierarchy show
increasingly complex, more flexible and less predictable patterns
of activity, while on successive lower levels we find increasingly
mechanised, stereotyped and predictable patterns.
8.2 All skills, whether innate or acquired, tend with increasing practice
to become automatised routines. This process can be described as
the continual transformation of 'mental' into 'mechanical' activities.
8.3 Other things being equal, a monotonous enviroment facilitates
mechanisation.
8.4 Conversely, new or unexpected contingencies require decisions to be
referred to higher levels of the hierarchy, an upward shift of
controls from 'mechanical' to 'mindful' activities.
8.5 Each upward shift is reflected by a more vivid and precise
consciousness of the ongoing activity; and, since the variety of
alternative choices increases with the increasing complexity on
higher levels, each upward shift is accompanied by the subjective
experience of freedom of decision.
8.6 The hierarchic approach replaces dualistic theories by a serialistic
hypothesis in which 'mental' and 'mechanical' appear as relative
attributes of a unitary process, the dominance of one or the other
depending on changes in the level of control of ongoing operations.
8.7 Consciousness appears as an +emergent+ quality in phylogeny and
ontogeny, which, from primitive beginnings, evolves towards more
complex and precise states. It is the highest manifestation of
the Integrative Tendency (4.3) to extract order out of disorder,
and information out of noise.
8.8 The self can never be completely represented in its own awareness,
nor can its actions be completely predicted by any conceivable
information-processing device. Both attempts lead to infinite regress.
9. Equilibrium and Disorder
9.1 An organism or society is said to be in dynamic equilibrium if the
S-A and INT tendendes of its holons counterbalance each other.
9.2 The term 'equilibrium' in a hierarchic system does not refer to
relations between parts on the same level, but to the relation
between part and whole (the whole being represented by the agency
which controls the part from the next higher level).
9.3 Organisms live by transactions with their environment. Under
normal conditions, the stresses set up in the holons involved in
the transaction are of a transitory nature, and equilibrium will be
restored on its completion.
9.4 If the challenge to the organism exceeds a critical limit, the balance
may be upset, the over-excited holon may tend to get out of control,
and to assert itself to the detriment of the whole, or monopolise its
functions -- whether the holon be an organ, a cognitive structure
(idée fixe), an individual, or a social group. The same may happen
if the co-ordinative powers of the whole are so weakened that it is
no longer able to control its parts (Child).
9.5 The opposite type of disorder occurs when the power of the whole
over its parts erodes their autonomy and individuality. This may
lead to a regression of the INT tendencies from mature forms of
social integration to primitive forms of identification, and to the
quasi-hypnotic phenomena of group-psychology.
9.6 The process of identification may arouse vicarious emotions of the
aggressive type.
9.7 The rules of conduct of a social holon are not reducible to the
rules of conduct of its members.
9.8 The egotism of the social holon feeds on the altruism of its members.
10. Regeneration
10.1 Critical challenges to an organism or society can produce
degenerative or regenerative effects.
10.2 The regenerative potential of organisms and societies manifests
itself in fluctuations from the highest level of integration
down to earlier, more primitive levels, and up again to a new,
modified pattern. Processes of this type seem to play a major part in
biological and mental evolution, and are symbolised in the universal
death-and-rebirth motive in mythology.
N.B. The concept of the Holon, and of the Open Hierarchic System,
attempts to reconcile atomism and holism. Some of the propositions
listed above may appear trivial, some rest on incomplete evidence,
others will need correcting and qualifying. They are merely intended
to provide a basis for discussion among kindred spirits in both
cultures, in search of an alternative to the robot image of man.
The controversial issues discussed in Part Three of this volume were
not included in this list.
APPENDIX II
ON NOT FLOGGING DEAD HORSES*
* See pp. 4, 9, 202, etc.
The initials S.P.C.D.H. stand for 'Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Dead Horses'. It is a secret society with international ramifications
and with a considerable influence on the intellectual climate of our
time. I must mention a few examples of its activities.
The German Government during the war killed six million civilians in its
death factories. This was at first kept secret; when the facts seeped
through, the S.P.C.D.H. took the line that to keep harping on them
and bringing those responsible to trial was unfair and in bad taste --
flogging a dead horse.
The Soviet Government, during the years of Stalin's rule, committed
barbarities on an equal scale, though in a different style. If you tried
to call public attention to them in the progressive circles of the West,
you were denounced as a cold warrior, slanderer and maniac. When the
facts were officially admitted by Stalin's successor, the issue was
instantly classified by the S.P.C.D.H. as a dead horse, although it went
on ravaging other countries from Peking to Berlin.
English insularism, class distinctions, social snobbery, trial-by-accent,
are all declared to be dead horses, and the inane neighings that fill
the air must be emanating from ghosts. The same applies to American
dollar-worship, materialism, conformism. You can continue the list as
a parlour game.
In the Sciences, the S.P.C.D.H. is particularly active. We are constantly
assured that the crudely mechanistic nineteenth-century conceptions in
biology, medicine, psychology are dead, and yet one constantly comes
up against them in the columns of textbooks, technical journals, and in
lecture rooms. In all this, Behaviourist psychology occupies a strategic
key-position. This is the case not only in the United States, where the
Watson-Hull-Skinner tradition is still immensely powerful and keeps
an invisible stranglehold (by 'negative reinforcements') on academic
psychology. In England, Behaviourism has entered into an alliance with
logical positivism and linguistic philosophy; but perhaps its most ominous
influence is on clinical psychiatry. 'Behaviour therapy', as practised for
instance at Maudsley Hospital, is symptom-therapy in its crudest form,
based on Pavlovian and Skinnerian conditioning. The philosophy behind
it is summed up in the slogan of our leading Behavioural therapist,
H.J. Eysenck:* 'There is no neurosis underlying the symptoms, only
the symptom itself.' (In a memorable attack on Eysenck, Kathleen Nott
remarked that 'a symptom is always of something', and pointed out
the preposterous implications of the slogan. [1])
* Professor in Psychology in the University of London, and Director
of the Psychological Department at the Institute of psychiatry
(Maudsley and Bethlehem Royal Hospitals).
But how is it to be explained that while Behaviourism is still floating
like a dense smog over the landscape, so many scientists of the younger
generation, who are almost stifled by it, keep pretending that the sky
is blue, and Behaviourism a matter of the past? Partly, I think, for the
reasons mentioned earlier on (p. 4): though they honestly believe that
they have outgrown the sterile orthodoxy of their elders, its terminology
and jargon have got into their bloodstream, and they cannot get away from
thinking in terms of stimulus, response, conditioning, reinforcement,
operants, and so on. Sidney Hook once wrote that 'Aristotle projected
the grammar of the Greek language on the cosmos', and it is hardly an
exaggeration to say that Pavlov, Watson and Skinner achieved a similar
feat when they injected their reflex-philosophy into the sciences
of life. Academics, brought up in that tradition, may reject the more
obvious absurdities of Watson and Skinner, but nevertheless continue to
employ their terminology and methodology, and thus remain unconsciously
tied to the axioms implied in them.
A personal experience -- one among many, and of a quite harmless sort
-- may serve as an illustration. When the American edition of The
Act of Creation was published, Professor George A. Miller of Harvard
University wrote an article-review about it in that excellent monthly,
the Scientific American. It went on for nine columns, so there could
be no misunderstanding due to shortage of space. It is not my intention
to bore the reader by answering Miller's criticism of the theory proposed
in the book -- which would be out of place here; I am only concerned with
his attitude to Behaviourism. This attitude is known, from his books and
writings, as one of almost passionate rejection of Skinner, S-R theory,
and the flat-earth approach in general. And yet, after referring to the
attack on the Behaviourist position in The Act of Creation, Miller
continued (his italics):
Attacks on stimulus-response theories (which represent modern
associationism) are of course nothing new. When one attacks strict
stimulus-respome Behaviourism these days, one is on the side of the
big battalions. Yet Koestler writes as though it were still the 1930s
and Behaviourism were in its prime. In 1964 most psychologists who
still work in this tradition have introduced hypothetical mechanisms
to mediate between stimulus and response. They think they are
working on exactly the kind of processes Koestler calls bisociation;
they are sure to be angered by Koestler's sarcastic misrepresentation
of the current situation, and I cannot say that I blame them. [2]
Now I mentioned earlier on (p. 23) that the 'hypothetical mechanism' which
the Behaviourists introduced 'to mediate between stimulus and response'
are (as the term itself betrays) no more than face-saving devices. Even
Behaviourists had to admit that the same stimulus S (e.g., the fall of
an apple) may produce a variety of different responses (e.g., the theory
of universal gravity); and that there must be something happening in
the person's head between the S and the R, which they had left out of
account. So they decided to call that something -- which should be the
principal concern of any psychology worth its name -- 'hypothetical
mechanisms' (or 'intervening variables'); and then promptly swept it
under the carpet so that they might return, with a clean conscience,
to their rat experiments. It was a naively transparent manceuvre of
evasion, and Professor Miller is of course fully aware of this. In
his most thought-provoking book (which I have repeatedly quoted [3])
there is no mention whatsoever of 'hypothetical mechanisms which mediate
between S and R', because he rejects the whole S-R concept with justified
scorn as an anachronism (p. 101n.). He is not only 'on the side of the
winning battalions', but even a sort of battalion commander. Two columns
after rising to the defence of Behaviourism against my 'sarcastic
misrepresentations' he declares that, as regards the philosophical
background 'I can admire Koestler's courageous attempt to clean out what
obviously seem to him the Augean Stables of psychology. I share most of
his prejudices and approve most of his aims.' Yet another column further
down, at the end of the article, he concludes that perhaps, after all,
the Behaviourists today are right (dead horses in Augean Stables?).
I have mentioned this episode because it beautifully exemplifies that
ambivalence I have been talking about. Behaviourism was the milk which
this generation of scientists imbibed in their cradle; and even if it
was bottle-fed and made of dry powder, you may criticise your mum, but
if a stranger does it, beware. Dissident Catholics, Marxists, Freudians,
are liable to the same deep-rooted ambivalence. They may be doubters or
rebels, but when the faith which they have abandoned is attacked from
outside, they must rise to its defence; and as a last resort they will
pretend that it is dead anyway, and not worth bothering about. Hence
the S.P.C.D.H.
A Jesuit priest, whom I much admire, was once taken to task about the
temperature and other conditions in Hell. He obviously resented these
crude remarks, but replied with a sweet smile that though Hell exists,
it is kept permanently empty by a loving God; so why revive this outdated
controversy? . . . Yet millions and millions of believers have lived,
loved and died poisoned by mortal fear of everlasting Hell.
I believe that the ultimate effects of ratomorphic philosophy are no less
pernicious, though it acts in more indirect and devious ways. I shall
conclude with another quotation from v. Bertalanffy, with whose views
on this subject I strongly sympathise:
Let us face the fact: a large part of modern psychology is a sterile
and pompous scholasticism which, with the blinkers of preconceived
notions or superstitions, doesn't see the obvious; which covers the
triviality of its results and ideas with a preposterous language
bearing no resemblance to normal English or sound theory, and which
provides modern society with the techniques for the progressive
stultification of mankind. It has been justly said that American
positivist philosophy -- and the same even more applies to psychology
-- has achieved the rare feat of being both extremely boring and
frivolous in its unconcern with human issues.
Basic for interpretation of animal and human behaviour was the
stimulus-response scheme. So far as it is not innate or instinctive,
behaviour is said to be shaped by outside influences that have met
the organism in the past: classical conditioning after Pavlov,
reinforcement after Skinner, early childhood experience after
Freud. Hence training, education and human life in general are
essentially responses to outside conditions: beginning in early
childhood with toilet training and other manipulations whereby
socially acceptable behaviour is gratified, undesirable behaviour
blocked; continuing with education which is best carried through
according to Skinnerian principles of reinforcement of correct
responses and by means of teaching machines; and ending in adult
man where affluent society makes everybody happy conditioning him,
in a strictly scientific manner, by the mass media into the perfect
consumer. Hypothetical mechanisms, intervening variables, auxiliary
hypotheses have been introduced -- without changing the basic concepts
or general outlook. But what we need are not some hypothetical
mechanisms better to explain some aberrations of the behaviour of
the laboratory rat; what we need is a new conception of man.
I don't care a jot whether Professor A, B or C have modified
Watson, Hull and Freud here and there and have replaced their blunt
statements by more qualified and sophisticated circumlocutions. I
do care a lot that the spirit is still all-pervading in our society;
reducing man to the lower aspects of his animal nature, manipulating
him into a feeble-minded automaton of consumption or a marionette of
political power, systematically stultifying him by a perverse system
of education, in short, dehumanising him ever farther by means of
a sophisticated psychological technology.
It is the expressed or implicit contention that there is no essential
difference between rat and man which makes American psychology so
profoundly disturbing. When the intellectual élite, the thinkers
and leaders, see in man nothing but an overgrown rat, then it is
time to be alarmed. [4]
REFERENCES
PREFACE
1. Hardy (1965).
2. Thorpe (1966A).
3. Lorenz (1966).
PART ONE: ORDER
I. THE POVERTY OF PSYCHOLOGY
1. Watson (1913) pp. 158-67.
2. Watson (1928) p. 6.
3. Loc. cit.
4. Burt (1962) p. 229.
5. Skinner (1953) pp. 30-1.
6. Harlow (1953) pp. 23-32.
7. Skinner (1953) p. 150.
8. Hull (1943) p. 56.
9. Skinner (1953) pp. 108-9.
10. Skinner (1938) p. 22.
11. Watson (1928) p. 6.
12. Skinner (1938) p. 21.
13. Ibid, p. 62.
14. Skinner (1953) p. 65.
15. Chomsky (1959).
16. Skinner (1957) p. 163.
17. Ibid, p. 438.
18. Ibid, p. 439.
18a. Ibid, p. 150.
19. Ibid, p. 206.
19a. Watson (1928) pp. 198 ff.
20. Skinner (1953) p. 252.
21. Watson (1928) pp. 3-6.
22. Sherrington (1906) p. 8.
23. Herrick (1961) pp. 253-4.
24. Watson (1928) p. 11.
II. THE CHAIN OF WORDS AND THE TREE OF LANGUAGE
1. Calvin, ed. (1961).
2. Op. cit., pp. 376-8.
3. Skinner, quoted by Chomsky (1959) p. 548.
4. Liberman, Cooper et al. (1965).
5. Lashley (1951) p. 116.
6. McNeill (1966).
7. Brown (1965).
8. McNeill, op. cit.
9. Ibid.
10. Quoted by Lashley (1951) p. 117.
11. Popper (1959) p. 280.
12. James (1890) Vol. I, p. 253.
13. Skinner (1957).
14. Miller (1964A).
III. THE HOLON