Janus by Arthur Koestler Read Free Book Online Page B

society without holarchic structuring
would be as chaotic as the random motions of gas molecules colliding and
rebounding in all directions.*
     
* However, the situation is somewhat obscured by the fact that complex
     societies are structured by several interlocking hierarchies --
     see below, section 12.
     
     
Not quite as obvious at first glance is the hierarchic organization of our
skilled activities. The skill of driving a motor-car does not consist in
the conscious activation of individual muscles by the driver's brain, but
in the triggering of sub-routines like accelerating, braking, steering,
changing gears, etc., each of which represents a quasi-autonomous pattern
of activities -- a behavioural holon which is so self-reliant that once
you have mastered the skill of driving a particular car, you can drive
any car.
     
     
Or, take the skill of communicating ideas by speech. The sequence of
operations starts at the apex of the hierarchy with the intention of
conveying the idea or message. But that idea is as often as not of a
pre-verbal nature; it may be a visual image, a feeling, a vague impression.
We are familiar with the frustrating experience of knowing what we want
to say, but not knowing how to express it; and this refers not only to
the search for the right word, but preceding that, to the structuring of
the intended message and arranging it in a sequential order; processing
it according to the laws of grammar and syntax; and lastly, activating
coordinated patterns of muscle contractions in the tongue and vocal
chords. Thus speaking involves the stepwise concretization, elaboration
and articulation of originally inarticulate mental contents. Although
these operations follow each other very fast and to a large extent
automatically, so that we are not consciously aware of them, they
nevertheless require a succession of different activities on different
levels of the mental hierarchy. And each of these levels has its own laws:
the laws of enunciation, the rules of grammar and syntax, the canons of
semantics, etc.
     
     
From the listener's point of view the sequence of operations is reversed.
It starts at the lowest level -- the perceptual skills of recognizing
phonemes (speech sounds) in the air-vibrations reaching the ear-drums,
amalgamating them into morphemes (syllables, prefixes, etc.) and so forth,
through words and sentences, finally reconstituting the speaker's message
at the apex of the hierarchy.
     
     
Let us note that nowhere on the upward or downward journey through
the linguistic holarchy do we encounter hard and indivisible 'atoms of
language'. Each of the entities on various levels -- phonemes, morphemes,
words, sentences -- is a whoJe relative to its parts, and a subordinate
part of a more complex entity on the next higher level. For instance,
a morpheme like /men/ is a linguistic holon which can be put to many
uses -- menace, mental, mention, mentor, etc.; and which particular
meaning it will assume depends on the context on the higher level.
     
     
Psycholinguists use the branching tree as a convenient model for this
step-by-step process of spelling out an implicit thought in explicit
terms, of converting the potentialities of an amorphous idea into the
actual motion-patterns of the vocal chords. This remarkable process has
been compared to ontogenesis -- the development of the embryo; first,
there is the fertilized egg, which contains all the potentialities
defining the finished product, the 'idea', as it were, of the future
individual: these potentials are then 'spelt out' in successive stages
of differentiation. It may also be compared to the process by which a
military action is carried out: the order 'Eighth Army will advance in
the direction of Tobruk', issued from the apex of the hierarchy by the
general in command is concretized, articulated and spelt out in more
detail at each of the successive lower echelons.
     
     
Generally speaking, the performance of any purposeful action,