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THE EMERGEN] PARADIGM: CHANGINGPATTERNS OF THOUGHTAND

By PeterSchwartz and James Ogilvy

April1979

AnalyticalReport Valuesand LifestylesProgram Eert & Afrlce SRI-SaudiArabia XEADOUAFTERS,OFFICES SR|-Europc,Mlddlc RegionalHeadquarters P.O.Box 1871 AND LABORATORlES NLA Tower Riyadh,Saudi Arabia 12l16Addiscombe Rd. Teleohones:69009 rSRl Villat Croydon CROOXT, England 23800,22816 Teleohone:,01681-1751 'ProjectOf fice, ,01 686-5555 MinistrYof Planningt Intcrnrllonrl SR! Cable:SRI INTLRIYADH Offices and Laboratories Cable:SRI INTL EUR Marn Telex: 20326POLYBAU SJ RavenswoodAve Telex:SRI EUR,CROYDON 333 rSRlVillat Menlo Park,CA 94025 946125 PLAN SJ Telephone:,415326-6200 20075 ,Proiect Of f ice r Cable:SRI INTL MPK SRl-ltaly TWX: 910-373-1246 Via Carlo Poma 4 Telecopier. 415 326-5512 20129Milan, ltalY SRI-EartArle r02r Telex: 334463 Telephone:Of fice 71 55 35 RegionalHeadquarters tO2t Office 74 90 536 EdobashiBldg., 9th Floor i02t 46 Home 72 32 11-1, Nihonbashi 1-Chome Telex:33188 Chuo-Ku,TckYo 103' JaPan SRI - FRANCESCHINI SRI-Washington Teleohone:r03r 271-7108 1611N. KentSt Cable:SRIEA, TOKYO SRl-France Arlington, VA 22209 Telex. SRI INTL J28447 10,Rue Bellini Telephone:r 703 524-2053 75782- Paris Cedex 16, France Cable.SRI INTL WDC SRI-lndonesta Telephone:r01 r 55392 31 Telecopier:r703, 524-3479 SRI International r01r 55328 66 PertaminaDiv.- r01r 72753 19 AdvancedTechnologY SRI-NewYork Telex:61 1042 13th Floor,Pertamina Tower 360 LexingtonAve , 21stFloor 8,J1MHThamrin New York,NY 10017 SRl-lberia Jakarta,Indonesia Telephone.'212'661-5313 Orense62 Telephone:353729 Madrid20, Spain 354837 Teleohone:t01 r 455-1057 349286 SRI-Chicago Cable:SRI INTL,MADRID Telex:44331 PERTAJKT 2625Butlerfreld Rd Telex:42604 SRI E Oak Brook, lL 60521 SRf -Ausl ralia/New Zealand Teleohone: 312 887-7730 SRl-Scandinavia 'l'14William St., 21st Floor Humlegardsgatan4 Melbourne,Victoria 300O S-11446 Stockholm,Sweden Australia ,08, SRl-Alaska Telephone. 23 35 65 P.O.Box 2621 MendenhallEuilding Cable:SRISCANDINAVIA G.P.O.Melbourne 30O1 3264th St No 1104 STOCKHOLM Australia Juneau.AK 99801 Telex: 19617SRI S TelePhone:r03r 674 915 Teleghone:,907'586-2658 Telex:AA 35193 SRI-UnitedKingdom 5th Floor SRI-Hawaii 24 BuckinghamGate Crty Bank Building,Suite 805 LondonSWlE 6LB, England 810Richards St. Telephone:r01 r 828-7645 P.O.Box 1232 Honolulu.Hl 96807 SRI-Zurich Telephone:,808,533-3376 Pelikanstrasse37 8001Zurich, Switzerland Telephone:r01 r 21106 36 Cable:SRINTLCH Telex: 55132SRI CH CONTENTS

FOREWORD...

PART I - SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS

2 SUMMARY 2 Introduction...' 2 Patterns and Processesof a 5 The Support for an EmergentPattern 10 Patterns of Change

16 IMPLICATIONS. 16 Mechanismsof Change .'.. 16 The Individual . . 19 Society 20 Politics 27 Scienceand 22 Business 22 lr4anagement..'.. 23 Personnel l r^-!-^a^ 24 MATKEIS 24 Products 25 Regulationand Public Attitudes 25 Goals, 26 A Final Note on ImPlications " ' '

PART II - THE PARADIGM SHIFT IN DEPTH: PROCESS,SUPPORT, AND PATTERN 28 WHAT IS A PARADIGM? 28 TheDefinition'.'.,.. 30 Paradigms,, and 31 THE SUPPORTFOR A PARADIGM SHIFT 31 31 The Current Paradigm 32 The New Physics 34 Chemistry Brain Theory 35 36 Mathematics . ... 39 Biology 42 44 Political Theory 46 46 . . ' 47 Psychology 4B and SpiritualitY 49 The Arts

51 THE CHARACTEzuSTICSOF THE EMERGENTPARADIGM 51 Knowing 54 Ordering 56 Causing From Unity to MultiPlicitYand Back Again J/

59 GLOSSARY

61 BIBLIOGRAPHY 8 Box What is a Hologram? 11 Box Heterarchy

FIGURES

3 1 The Role of Paradigms in Human Affairs 37 2 Forms of CatastroPhe 40 3 Model of Aggressionin Dogs

TABLES

6 1 The Paradigm Shift in Each Area ' 72 z The Support for a ParadigmShift ' 13 3 The Shift in Qualities . .. '

tv FOREWORI)

It's oll o guestion of story. We ore in trouble iust the individual psychological search for singular now becousewe do not hove o good story.We ore . in betweenstories. The OId Story -the occountot "You just how the world come to be ond how wefit into it - An old systemstheory states, c8:r't do point things change together' is not functioning properly, ond we hove not one thing." The is that Ieorned the New Story. The OId Story sustoined When any aspect of our most structures is of that internal framework us /or o long period of .It shoped our emo- altered. the other elements tionql ottitudes, provided us with life purpose, must also adjust. energized oction. It consecrotedsu/fering, inte- gruted , guided educotion. We owoke We find strong evidencethat a number of the under- in the morning ond knew where we were. We pinnings of our basicbeliefs are under challenge'That could onswer the questionsof our chiJdren.We .h"tt""g" is coming from a multifacetedrevolution of could identify crime, punish criminols. Every- the sort that we have experiencedonly a few in thing wos token core o/ becouse the story wos the courseof our civilization's : the there. It did not rnake men good, it did not toke that began more than a century ago and has gathered awoy the poins ond stupiditiesof life, or mokefor momentum ever since involves as great a change as unfoiling wormth in humon ossociotion.But it the Copernican revolution or the emergenceof t}e study did provide o context in which life could function EnlighLnment. We believethat, by a systematic in o meoningful monner. of thl manifestationsof that revolution, it is possible to see the pattern of its dimensions and thereby an- ticipate some of its consequences. Thomas Berry saysit beautifully and we 88ree:we one between stories. In this report we call the stories What follows will attempt to cover a Sreat deal of porodigms or world views, but we are sayingthe same ground, exploring many different areas of human thing: a fundamental shift in basic beliefs and as- thought, , and actility. With such a scope,one sumptions about the of things and the human or two authors run risks of either a lack of depth or a condition is going on. Becausethose beliefs and as- focus on the trivial at the expenseof the significant, or sumptions are among the foundations of human exis- both. We hope we have been guilty of neither' tence, when they change,radical shifts in individual values and societalconditions will follow. This VALS Part I of this report presents a comprehensive sum- report presentsthe evidencefor the thesis that such a mary of the process,the supporting indications, and paradigm shift is under way and exploresthe poten- the pattern of the current paradigm shift; it also covers tial consequencesof that change. the implications for business.Part II recapitulatesthe substance of the analysis in depth' A glossary of Our purpose is to provide a framework for under- important terms and a bibliography of relevant read- standing one of the most potent forces for changein ings follow Part II. our time: a shift in humanity's image of reality and in self. It is so potent becausethose images and beliefs A number of people played an important role as are the foundations from which human values arise. helping to clarify our thinking and communication Every religious, spiritual, cultural, and political sys- *ull at pointing us in useful directions' The authors Paul tem in human history has embeddedwithin it, either want to thank especially Arnold Mitchell, "map" Willis explicitly or implicitly, a of the nature of Hawken, Edward Oshins, Hewitt Crane, Wil- things and what the human role in tlat nature is. It is Harman, Walter Hahn, Jon Mclntire, Alan Tryst, not surprising, for example,to find a parallel between liam Snow, Donald Michael, Marie Spengler,Thomas Klaus the hierarchical structures of monotlteism,'political C. Thomas, Michael Murphy, Sam Keen, and organization based on t}re singular head of state,and Krause. PART I

Summary and Implications STJMMARY

Introduction (2) The essence of our has to do with a new way of thinking about and perceiving the The world is round: a true description of reality, but world and ourselves.We make no claim that we once such a statement would have been false, foolish, as authors have begun to think or perceive in "fish" and heretical. Our beliefs about what is true and real the new manner. It's somewhat like we undergo fundamental shifts from time to time. And trying to describe what it will be like when we when our perceptionof the nature of things shifts,the evolve to walk on land. complex system of human life also shifts. The move- ment toward a global society can begin only when the earth shifts from a limited plane to a whirling sphere. Patterns and Processesof a Paradigm

Copernicus and Galileo took the rnotion of celestial shift bodies out of the realm of the gods and brought it over A civilization's fundamental view of the nature of to the impersonal forces of nature - nature that could things has been called t+'orld view, Zeitgeist, epis- be understood by man. So began an era in which man, leme, and culturol porodigm. As a we will the individual, was ascendant. lVe created a politics adopt the term porodigm. Porodigm is rtsed in two where individual choice was at issue, not the will of SENSES: competing gods or divinely endowed kings. We created a technology applying the comprehensible (1) Paradigm case: an example r re use to teach and predictable forces of nature. We created an eco- basic , which has a metaphorical na- nomic system in which individual effort could lead to ture (e.g.,the father as the paradigm for author- making real rather than perpetually itv). locked in a divinely rationalized economic order. (2) The whole pattern of such metaphors, r'r'hich "map" of a of reality When there are major shifts in the fundamental pat- leads to the internalization belief tern of knowledge and belief, the whole of the human or a system. condition will also change. Such shifts occur very paradigm in the broader senseis the lens through infrequently,the last being the Enlightenment in the A we see . seventeenthand eighteenth centuries. We believe that which another such shift is now in progress, signaling a The role of a paradigm in human affairs is short'n in major change in human values and beliefs.The indi- Figure 1. The interactions are undoubtedly far more cations of such a shift are found in changes occurring complex than shown. However, a simplified model in the shared pattern of over a broad range of can be useful at this point. The model distinguishes human inquiry, thought, and interest. To anticipate three levels: the consequences of a maior shift in the underpin- nings of human values and beliefs, we must first o The actual - this is the world as it is' including identify and understand the patterns of that shift in ourselves. There may be many or only and among the various disciplines. one reality, but whatever they are and hou'ever many there are is encompassed by the actual What follows is difficult material A note of caution: world. and will not make for good light reading. It is difficult - for two : o The abstract this is the level of the paradigm (both formal and common ideas) which organizes (r) We cover many disparate disciplines, many of our understanding of the actual world' which will be unfamiliar. We have labored to make them comprehensible; nevertheless, even o The human - we ourselves;our , be- to expertsin the variortsdisciplines the material liefs, and values. This is the level of the human would be difficult. experience. Flgure 1 The Role of Paradlgms In Human Atfalrs

The actualworld The Actual . Events o Ourselvesand others o Physicaland spiritual world

Common The Abstract (the level of Formaldisciplines understandings (metaphors) the paradigm) o Physics o philosophy o Religion

The Person o o Beliefs The Human e Values The humanexperience To be sure, these levels are not really separable.Hu- the onslaught of new ideas, beginning with the publi- mans are a part of the actual world and abstractions cation of On the Revolution of the Celestiol Spheres are a human artifact. For the moment, however, by Copernicus in 1640. Newton, Bacon, Descartes, separating them this waY is useful. Leibnitz, Voltaire, and others carried on into what "Century became known as the of Genius," the En' This picture of things is a dynamic model.Physics or lightenment, or the Age of - all signifying the philosophy, for example,can uncover new facetsof triumph of the human intellect over the natural order. the actual world or new modelsfor thinking aboutit. The formal disciplinescreate models and metaphors To be sure, the development of the Enlightenment for the way things are. These move out of the formal was far from a smoothly ordered process. It is doubt- disciplineto shapeour commonunderstandings and ful, for example, whether Newton r"'ould have ac- often back again to be applied in a new discipline. cepted what quickly came to be knorvn as the Nerrto- The physicist invents the hologram, the of nian world view. But there r.l'asa broad pattern of which becomesa part of the vernacular'The brain change acrossthe natural sciencesand the humanities theoristcomes to understandthe conceptand seesin that radically altered the existinS common under- the hologram a metaphor for the complex systemof standing of the nature of things. The most familiar brain functions,leading to new avenuesof ' example is the change from considering the earth as the center of the universe to seeing it as one celestial Togetherthese models and metaphorsform a kind of body among many. Ultimately, those new under- atlasof mental maps of the actualworld. They tell us standings were reflected in the human, social, what we know about the nature of things - what is psychological, religious, political, and economic or- real,what may be false,and what to pay attentionto. ders. That era shattered and reformulated Western To some extent the maps are taught in schoolin his- civilization's shared pattern of beliefs. On reflection, tory, ,literature, etc. To some extentthey are that pattern of change may seem like a one-time thing' embedded in our language.To a great extent they But lve shall attempt to demonstrate that such a pat- have become a part of our cultural and social systems. tern of change is under way again in the twentieth We are rarely conscious of them because they are century, the old order having been shattered, at least usually implicit: paradigms tend to surfacemainly at the level of formal disciplines, by discoveries in the when they are changing. and understandings in the humanities'

But formalized knowledge is almost inevitably in- This time, patterns of change have themselves complete;i.e., the physicist describesmolecules, but changed. Among the greatest of the changes is the not living .For the purposesof eachdiscipline, capacity to make just this kind of leap: from a seriesof this incomplete descriptionis usually adequate' thoughts about phenomena on one level to an entirely Where it is not, a new discipline arises,e.g., diffeient level of thought obout those thoughts on the biophysics. In contrast, the ordinary and common first level. Not just more and different thoughts on the paradigmis in a senEecomplete. There are mysterious first level, but a meta-leap to meta- covering the areas,to be sure;but we behaveas if our mentalmaps laws on the first order of generality: thinking about were complete, as if reality were a seamlesswhole. thinking and knowing. Yet we know that there are Sapswhere our ordinary - - the experiencessimply do not fit the more formal So, for example, organic change growth was abstractions.This dissonancebetween human experi- paradigm or pattern for change for an entire epoch of ence and abstraction is an important motivator of science. is the chief ideologue of that epoch' study in the formal disciplines. Nonorganic, mechanical change became the domin- ant pattern for change during the centuries follou'ing In historical terms,until the seventeenthcentury the Galileo and Newton. In place of the acorn becoming Aristotelian model of organic growlh provided for an oak, billiard balls, clocks, and pendulums u'ere Western civilization an internally consistentworld taken as models for the orderliness of the cosmos. view or paradigm. It finally began to crumble under Now the pattern is changing once again. Neither the one, hardly a teleological interpretation of organic growth nor the pl:nes,the current pattern is a fractured - the fragmentsof a causal account of physical mechanism is adequate patternat all more appropriately, ; it is the any longer. And we know it. pattern.The emergentpattern is for the underpinnings of future valuesand beliefs.Its outline paradigmbe- Further, we know that we know it. We know that we is becomingvisible; and, as the future yearsahead, an understand- have accomplished a break from our previous gins to take shapein the interpreting the paradigms. We know that there are such things as ing of that pattern should aid us in and indi- paradigms. Before our era,most people didn't think of mea.ringof various changesat a societal themselves as caught within a paradigm. Having vidual level. never consciously experienced a shift of paradigms, not be per- the very exislence of paradigms could for an EmergentPattern ceived. Now, however, not only do we appear to be on The Support the edge of a new paradigm,but in addition, we know In this section we will summarize those fragments in that there ore paradigms. Precisely thot awarenessis the various disciplines that support the of a major part of the new paradigm, that meta-leap to a self- shift in paradigm. We have selectedthese disciplines stance on all of one's thoughts, and how it reflective because the seems strongest here; however' is, finally, that thought thinks about itself. we found in our searchthat would contradict our thesis. Some of the theories we will cile are con- This appreciation of the importance of the stance or troversial and not universally accepted; some may knower or perceiver, this reflection perspective of the prove to be wrong. This is the perpetual condition at is uniquely modern. Further, this on the reflector, ihe frontier of knowledge. However, it is the whole capacity evident in a kind of meta- reflective pattern we are seeking; and this does not seem to hang awareness is intimately linked to the leaps in the or utty one idea in one . For our purposes it conceptual conlent of scientific and intellectual dis- doesnit really whether the new paradigm in the discontinuities that are part of the new ciplines, physics is more like David Bohm's holomovement' paradigm. i<"g"t Penrose's twistors, or David Finkelstein's quantum . They are all pointing in the same Revolution is a modern pattern of change. So is what iirection. It is that direction, and its Iinks to Bateson calls deutero-learning, that is, meta-learning, directions in other disciplines, we want to identify' or learning to learn. Bateson'scoircept is an attempt to "Aha! the grasp the discontinuity of the experience," to find evidence "revolution" There are areas where we expected private that takes place when one ceases '' and didn't. Chief among these was No to rote-learn more and more casesof a series of equa- area of human concern seems more fraught with con- tions, for example, and suddenly makes a break- fusion and urgency. The theoretical models no longer through to the pattern that not only binds together all lead to an ability to predict or control the economy' It that one has learned, but makes it possible to generate may be true, however, that a new economic paradigm further members of the series. Although the series wiil become evident only after the ' The behavior itself may be continuous, the mastery of the pattern of of the economy may change, and then in retrospect we the series seems to involve a kind of discontinuity, a "discover" will the new paradigm' Necessity may jump hom one level to another - a different order of outrun concePt. abstraction. The in each areawe explored is highlighted In our , there are three different sequential in Table 1.In the following we will briefly summarize patterns: old, current, and emergent. The old pattern those developments' They are covered in greater is the Newtonian paradigm that succeeded the Aris- detail in Part trI' totelian world view. At the common level, the old o At the end of the nineteenth century' pattern is still dominant' And, for many purposes, Physics. physics seemed to be headed toward a kind of Lven in the formal disciplines the old paradigm is still All the fundamental problems seemed valid but in a more limited way. In the formal disci- .l*,lr". From Tourard

Physics Atomistic Quantummechanical N{echanical Holographic Absolutespace and time Relativistic Universality Complementarity 0bjective Indeterminacy Chemistry Equililrrium(static) Non-equilibrium (dynamic) Reductionist Morphogenetic Entropyincreasing "bits" Orderincreasing Brain Theory Localized of Distributed"tuning" of systenl Circuitry model Ilolographicmetaphor Ecology Stableideal Resilience Closedsystems Symbiotic relationship Opensystems "Random" Evolution mutation Diversity Survival and conquest Co-evolution Adaptability Mathematics Continuousfunctions Mappingdiscontinuities Quantitativechange Qualitativechange Philosophy Universaltruth Relationshipsof resemblance Eternalessence Historicalexistence Politics Centralhierarchy Pluralism Authority Legitimacy Necessity Voluntary and inventive Psychology Identity Individual Transactional Conquestover the unconscious Integrationof the unconscious Linguistics Atomistic Structural Religion Monotheistic Polytheistic Transcendence Immanence Consciousness Flierarchical Heterarchical Arts Itepresentational Abstract Stable Fluid

it ap- solved or close to resolution.The advent of very much a wide-open discipline, but vision quantum and relativity theories in the first pearsto be headedtoward a radicalnew of quarter of this century fractured that closure tf physlcalreality. The old vision conceived - bil- and openedvast new domainsfor experimen- -u1t". as tiny particles like miniature - tation and theorizing. Today physics is still liard balls pushed around by identifiable forces in the unchanging framework of space to more order and from simpler toward more and counted out by fixed units of time. Parti- complex structures.Fluctuations in a system cles were the fundamentallevel of the universe interact, affecting each other and causing out of which everything else could be assem- wholly new structures to arise. The process is bled. We as observerscould stand outside and known as morphogenesis. Strict deterministic objectively study their behavior. causalityis replacedby unpredictable innova- The twentieth century changed all that. First, tion arising morphogeneticallythrough mutu- we discovered that the nature of the observa- ally causalinteractions of fluctuations. To tion processaffects the results.Predictable out- completely understand something then, comes were replaced by indeterminacy and requiresknowing its history, which cannot be probability. On the very small (subatomic) completelyknown from its conditions. scale,one experimentfound particles, another o Broin Theory. The common metaphor for the found waves; and ever more experiments "discover" brain has becometJre computer. Brain cells are seemedto ever more particles. We like the circuits and core of a com- needed complementarywave and particle de. puter. There are bits of information stored at a scriptions for this elusive fundamental level. particular location, retrieved and operated on On the very large scale, we found space and by a network of brain circuitry. Researchby time no longer an absolute background. In- Karl Pribramand otherssuggests tlat instead of stead,our measurementswere determinedby the computer the appropriate metaphor ought the relationship between the observerand the to be the hologram as in physics. Brain func- observed,Finally, this confusing picture ap- tioning and memory are not localized but rather pearsto be headedtoward I new order,which are distributed throughout the brain. Interac- relies on an imageof the complex interconnec- tion takes place not like the flow of current tion of all things;indeed, all things are seento through a circuit but like that of a wave through arise from a dimension the that of universe has a medium. Thus, very complex structures so far remained hidden in our theories. The (thought,rich ,etc.) can arise through relationship of this hidden dimension to our the very denseand complex wave interactions ordinary reality may be analogous to the re- rather than statisticalsumming of information Iationship of real to imaginary (or complex) "bits." numbers. There is a shift in metaphor hom the machine-like universe to the hologram-like o Mothemotics. The primary tool of mailrematics universe (seebox on holograms). has been differential calculus. It is useful in describing phenomena that change smoothly Chemistry. Chemistry has dealt largely with and continuously. However, the actual world relatively simple and stablesubslances. They involves many phenomena - such as the for- aredefined well by equationsdescribing closed mation of crystals- that undergo discontinu- systemsthat tended toward stability (equilib- ous changesfrom one qualitative condition to rium). The secondlaw of thermodynamicssays another.Rene Thom, a French mathematician, that, left to itself, a closed system tends to has developeda new mathematics,which he decay toward disorder(). The problem calls "catastrophetheory." The theory de- is that closedsystems rarely occur in the actual scribes the processby which one form gives world; and new, more complex, more highly way to another. The shift in paradigm is the ordered substancesare produced fro.m less ability to transcend the limits of continuous, highly ordered, simpler substances.Ilya quantitative change to describe discontinuous Prigogine won the Nobel Prize in Chemlstry in and qualitativechange. 7977 for his theory of "dissipative structures." That theory describeshow complex systems o EcoIoEy.The dominant image of an ecosystem evolve in an open environment from less order is that it is stablebecause it is a closedsystem; "in - trom th€ What ls a Hologram? qu€ncy, in which ell wav€s 8r€ step" object. Inlomation can be €licited e.g., a las.r) and then look through the air film by illuminating il with the same laser lighl lowardthe light,you willses an imageol the used in making the hologram. As we do that, in midair,and lhey Holographyis one ot the key conceptsin three pebblessusponded The rippledrce lhis n€w paradigm, yct many peoplo hcve look three-dimensbnal! sur- lens in such a way as ditficutty undersianding what hologrsms cre facr acts as a distoded points taken up by lhe and how they work. The basic principlecan lo locus the light to caused the ripples. Th€ b€ illustratod by a simple analogy of how pGbblesthat havc surfaceis a nature slores infomalion holographi€lly. chaotic-lookingico actually sloraga device. lmagineyou have a shallowpan of watar holographicinformatton the sheotof ic€ and into which three pebblesare droppedsimul- Amuingly, il you take and illuminaleon€ laneously. Each pebble is the sourc. of b{eak il into small Oieces, again see the image of waves spreadingevsnly acrossth6 pan. Tha of thc cirips,you will pobblesprolecled in midair,jusl as waves cross and interccl wilh onc anothor, all lhrec D. carries ell ol the creating a complex patlcm celled an inler- each clll in our bodies genetic informatjonnecassary to make an f€renc€ patlem (Drawing A). lf you now we see the appl€ appear suspended in additional exad coll of our bodies. Holog- midair, looking very three-dimensional and raphy is natur€'s most compact information real. And because holograms have lh€ storagedevice. (Drswing C) property ot total distributedness, illuminating poce hologram will pro- tlt any of ihe original Coherenl | | duce the entiro image ot the 8pple. (Drawing | Ltoht rii; E) t--4 lmaoo lY{" \ or eedt,rec/ \zx1 / ,'^, i'r \ A. c. \\ 6&'le,' t/ quick-froezethe surfaco of lhc watrt in thr pan and litt or.rtthe rcsulling ripplcd short of Hrlography is aclualty I m€thod of l6ns- lce, you are then holdino 8 ccord .f th. l.r. th.totraphy In which lhe wave field ol interferonc€pattcm of lhe wavrs. Thir is e light scti.rad by sn obiect- 8n appl€, say hologram. (Drawing B) - is rrcorded as an inlerferoncepatiom. A lrsrr lighl bcam is aplitinto two comPononts Coherent Light by a half-mirror.Thls allowsparl of tho b€em to continue undislurl,€dwhile parl ol it is a.fl.cl.d ta anothor mirror. Both narrow Roconstruclad Thrre-Dimensonal belms aro sprcad oPcn by lenses.The un- E. lmage of the ,{pple disturbcd bcem, celbd thc referencebeam, errivos at I pholograPhicplate aftor an .v.ntl.sE tlight, rnd deposils fts imprinl on Th€ imporhnt parl of making a hologra- th. film. Th. defloctodbeam, called the phic imageis the interaclionof lhe roference worting bcrm, ancounters the obiecl and beam - a beam that is pure and untouched B. than is rrflectedonto tho film.(Drawing D) ln - with a workingb€am, e b€am that has had a s.nr., the worklng b€rm tells the reter' some experiences.The magniludeot thesc rrrr brrm rboui lts experiencrs wilh thc expericncesis measuredagainst lho reler- tol lf you illuminatelhe shcet of ic. wift r ofecf by crrrling an interfsrenceprttom on ence beam, which serues as e baseline coherent light source (light of lhe samc lra. the tilm thtt slorcs Intormrtion aboul the comparison.

Drvelopodby Rick Ingrasci,M.D. in New Age Magazinc'

I replaced by an i.e., it has no significant interactions with search for essencehas been meaning and nature external forces. Perturbations in the system are attempt to understand the universality of forms damped back toward the stableideal' Of course' of e*ist".tce. Finally, the " re- trere are no truly closed systems.All bound- is replaced by Wittgenstein's givas way to re- aries in actual ecosystemsare arbitra4r' C. S. semblances": identity in a sense Holling has developed ecological models that semblance.Philosophy has become replace the concept of stability with that of re- democratized,with analysisand specialization Now that the silience.lf an ecosystemis adequatelydiverse replacing synthesisand insight' philosophy have and thereexist symbiotic (mutually supportive) -"ty specializedareas of and ever- relationships among the diversespecies, then a beguo ti face up to the complexity world, the disci- system tends to be resilient.The system as a changing nature of the actual by the loosest of whole can survive major perturbations,evolv- pline" is held together only ing toward a new condition even though the family resemblances' may fluctuate numbersof any particularspecies o Psychology. The movementin psychology has a great deal. beln astonishingly rapid. The focus in tradi- tional psychology was on the singular self o The commonly held image of Evolution. attempting to masterthe contrary components is that it occursbecause of two forces: evolution of the ptyih", including the unconscious' The mutation and competition.New pos- random shift ii toward a mora complex interactive by random mutation; sibilities are introduced model. The new paradigm is focused on these are then "tested" and the fittest survive. "chance achieving a harmony of the many dimensions Monod calledthe process and Jacques of the psyche, not the suppressionof any di- The change in paradigm involves necessity." mension. The aim is wholeness rather than The new view of evolutionrecoS- both aspects. identity. The individual psyche, like t}re or- works on individuals with nizes that evolution ganism in an ecosystem,interacts with its material.In this view, the diver- diversegenetic psychologicalenvironment. These transactions - rather than mutation sity among individuals "r" " p".t of its definition of self. Finally, rather - "richness" in the gene pool is the source of than conquering the unconscious,tltere is an Mutation merely adds to the rich- of a species. attempt to integrateunconscious processes into can also change them- ness. But individuals the larger self. selves and/or their environment. More impor- tant than the conquest of one variant over . Politics. The shift in political theory began and another or one species over anolher is their with the breakdown of authoritarian their effect on each other - their ability to adapt to monarchic structuresof power' They drew they from strength of arms or from the one another. Through mutual adaptation authority "divine evolve together. necessityof a higher authority,as in the right" of kings. The shift is away from cen- Au- o Philosophy. Philosophers since the time of tralized hierarchy and toward pluralism' gov- have searched for eternal ' Their thority is basedon legitimacy given by the by a search was for universal ideas that lay behind ur.,"d. Finally, the necessityimposed and the seeming confusion of the world. They higher order is replaced by a voluntary participate' searchedfor the essencethat gavesomething its inventive character.We choose to particular characterand sought to identify the and part of our participation is creating institu- universal forms that unify our use of words and tions of politics such as modern bureauGacies' concepts.Contemporary philosophy has moved o of the nature of far from those ideals. Philosophy now must Linguistics. Our understanding a major change in this account for history and detail rather than the la.,guagehas undergone work of Saussure' permanence of eternity and generality' The century, dating from the Words in themselvesno longer have any intrin- These areasof formalized and abstractdevelopment sic meaning; rather, they are defined by their form the underpinnings of our casefor change.The location in a context.Thus, words are no longer issue for this analysis is how they will impact our seen as "atoms" of meaning. To find meaning, common understandings of the nature of things. In one needs to focus on the complex inter- the next section we explore how these may be trans- relationships that createa linguistic structure. formed into a pattern of belief.

Religion. The shift in the nature of spiritual belief and practice is likely to be among the Patternsof Change most controversial aspectsof our argument. In the following discussion,we attempt to clarify the Historically,an importantshift took placecen- pattern that appearsto be unifying theseseemingly turies ago when empirical science,with its threads.What we seekis the emergentpat- "one disparate focus on the truth," took over the role of tern of our commonunderstanding of the natureof the metaphysicalarbiter from rnonotheisticrelig- actual world. Qualities are brought lo that common ion. As the metaphysicalrole of sciencedi- understandingfrom the more preciseand rigorous minishes, it is not surprising to see religion descriptionsof the formal disciplines.Thus, we make returning to center stage.But we have learned the statement that the world is complex rather than some things along the way. As the physicswe simple.Physics, chemistry, etc., teach us aboutcom- encounter is a function of our perspectives,so plexity in preciseterms. However, what we wish to do ale our gods. The current emphasis on toler- is relate that complexity to other qualities and then to ance(e.g., Vatican II) is indicativeof a new kind explore the implication of that whole pattern.Table 2 i of polytheism. Along with that, then, comes a shows the qualities to be discussedand the disci- I return of the idea of immanence;to know the plines from which they derive. I requires looking within. There is a difficulty of communication that must be Consciousness.The initial focus on the nature noted.Describing a , which is itself a descrip- of consciousnessmore than a century ago rep- tive term, is very difficutt. How do you describeblue resents an imporiant step. It was an acknowl- or big when the meaningful referentsthemselves are edgment of the fact that consciousnessis not changing?Thus, a shift in color from blue towardred merely a blank slate,but that its nature affects is not too difficult, but blue toward big is almost our encounter with the world and ourselves. nonsensical. Not only has there been a shift in the More recently, especially in split-brain re- quality itself,but in its contexlas well. The meaning search,we have discoveredthat there may be a of the new descriptionhas changed.We will describe pluralistic structure to human consciousness, the shifts in quality in sequence;however, their with severalquite different (but partial) systems meaning is found in their whole pattern. Table 3 in the brain. Thus, rather than a hierarchy of shows this shift in qualities,each aspect of which is functions we find a "heterarchy" of guiding discussedbelow. . (Seebox on heterarchy.) From Simple Toword Complex - The task of most Arts. Modern art is a mirror of contemporary knowledgeprocesses has been to reducethat which is consciousness.The fundamentalshift is the re- studied to its elementsand simplest relationships' bellion againstthe conceptof stableform. Thus, Theseare called fundamentals and basiclaws. F : ma once tlre aim was to present reality in a is an example in physics.Larger, more complexen' and form that would endure. Now art abstracts tities are simply the result of adding up the smaller from reality its ever-changing nature. Rather components. If there are differences,they are taken than immortal works resisting the flow of time, care of by averaging. the style is fluid, anticipating the ever- changing world and the evanescentmoods of We can no longertreat the actualr.r'orld as simple'We the artist. have found in physics, chemistry,ecology, linguis'

10 Neurophysiologistshave discov- Heter archy ered that somenets of neuronsare ar- rangedlike su,'itchingmechaflis ms $/ith the formal propertiesof the Voters' paradox. Heterarchicalnervous nets do nothingto destroythe organization The conceptof heterarchyprovides of the nervoussystem of whichthey are an alternativeto the simple opposition a part. Onthe contrary,heterarchical betweenorder andchaos. If hlerarchical nervous nets may be precisel-v$/hat order is rule by oneand anarchy is rule distinguishesan lntelligent system bynone(or by all - it amountstothe same capableof choicesfrom a thoroughly chaos),then heterarchy is rule by some. predictable automaton. The formal definition of hierarchy A fourth exampleof heterarchical describeswhat we refer to lessformally "chain "pecking organizatronmrght be drawn from the- as a of command"or ology: the pol)'theistic pantheon of order",A over B,B over C.C over D.and Olympiandeities. Zeusmay be first soon. Further,the formal definition of amongthe godsand goddessesbut he hierarchy stipulates transitivity of lacksthe omnlpotenceof the monothe- preferenceor command:ifA isover B and istic Lord of Lords. Within a heter- B is over C, then A is over C. The archrcalpantheon, even lhe personifl- distinctivefeature of heterarchyis the cationof power and authority himseJf denial of transitivity. The simplest turnsout tobe onepower among others heterarchicalsyste "choices": m is oneconsisting of Lessthan omrupotent,Zeus acts more three A over B,B over C,and - like a deterrent.Less po$/erful than all surprislngly-coverA. theother gods and goddesses combined, he is nonethelesssufficiently po$/erlul Someexamples will demonstratethe to keep any one god or goddessform drfferencesamong heterarchy,hierar- exercisingpretentions to supremacy. chy,and anarchy. Takethe srmplegame Zeus'slimited pov/eris not necessarily of paper, rock, and scissors. Paper a primitlveversion of a moredeveloped coversrock, rock breaksscissors, scis- monotheidtichierarchy. On the con- sors cut paper. No one choicealways trary,Zeus may be crucialto the main- wlns; no one choicealways loses, The tenanceof the complexityof the pan- has invariant rules. It is not theon,Without him theOlympian order anarchical.yet thereis no fixed hrerar- mightyield to the supremacyof one of chy of one option over both others. the othergods, devolve into the simpler form of monotheism,and from there A second example,the so-called into evenless mysterious hierarchies. Voters' Paradox, has received many In bureaucracy,for example,the aimis treatments, from Condorcetto Lerr"is to constructa hierarchicaltree of deci- Carroll. Onegroup of voters prefersA sion proceduresreducing every deci- over B and B over C. A secondgroup sion to an essentially unintelligent prefersB over C and C over A. A third automaticfunction, prefersC over A and A over B. Whenwe countthe votes,v'e discovera preference From the formal definition of for A over B (groups1 and 3), and a heterachyand the concretecontents of preferencefor B overC (groups I and2), the four examples,the following fea- but not a preferencefor A overC. Groups tures of the heterarchical model 2 and 3 prefer Cover A. Somepolrtical emerge. Heterarchrcalsystems ex- theoristshave concludedthat the very hibit patterns of preferencethat are possibilityof sucha prelerencepattern nontransitive,circular, and complex. reveals an essentialinconsistency or Unlike anarchy,heterarchy defines a lrrationality in the mechanismsof vot- tightty constrainedlimitation on the ing and majorityrule. Arguingfrom a rangeof possiblechoices. Unlike hier- positionthat equatesorder with unam- archy,heterarchy does not yield up all biguoushierarchy, they seethe disorder choicesto oneultimate source ol judg- of anarchyas the only alternativeto the ment, Heterarchyis thus a modelfor hierarchy underminedby the Voters' leadershipthat stopsshort of omnipo- Paradox.A third exarlplewill showwhy tence,and for intelligentchoice anong it is unnecessaryto infer anarchyfrom real optionswhose range stops short of "anything the lack of a clear hterarchv. an anarchic goes."

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:haracleristicsand behaviorof a complex systemare Heterarchy is a shift from the rule by one lo several rot merely the sum of its individual elernents;as rules by some. Today's political syslems of interest ystems.becomemore complex,they developunique groups,interlocking bureaucracies,and multinational lroperties. companies seem to believe that there is a hierarchy of power. Yet they, in fact, operate heterarchically, creating a syslem of mutual constraints and influence. 'rom Hierorchy Toword Heterorchy - We find The whole system goes not where any one interest reterarchyas one of the new conceptsin psychology, lr'ould take it. Rather than merely a compromise or rhilosophy, religion, brain theory, and physics.The averageof all the interests,there is a movement that is ,ld conception of order was hierarchical:there exists unpredictable and different from those of the par- "pecking order," a chain of command,higher- and ticular component interests. ower-orderprinciples, and so on. The emergentorder - s heterarchical.There may be vertical orderings,but From Mechonicol Toword Hologrophic The re- hereare many on a comparablelevel; thereis no one lationshipsamong parts once were found in analogies )erson,, or objectat the top of everything. to simple machinessuch as the lever.For example,an 'here may be many peaks to these pyramids, and actor at one end of a lever can lift an object by a yhich one comesinto and its relationshipto the dou'nward push - a very simple process in n'hich thers depend on the situation. nothing elsehappens. However, if the actualworld is

13 complex and can be ordered heterarchically,then time. Thermodynamics introduced probabilities such.simplemetaphors may be inappropriate.A more to describe the averagebehavior of whol useful metaphormay be the hologram. aggregationssuch as a gas. gave us f, back, but with a concentrationon negativef With the holographicmetaphor come severalimpor- That means that if A causesB, then B provides tant attributes.We find that the imagein the hologram feedbacksignal to A such tbat A changesin a way is createdby a dynomic processof interaction and reduce or limit the magnitude of B. A heating sy differentation.We find that the information is distri- with a thermostat functions that way. Such a systern buted throughout - that at each point information tends toward stability.The new paradigmadds posi. aboutthe whole is containedin the part.In this sense, tive feedback,which meansthat the feedbacksignat everytlring is interconnectedlike a vast network of from B affectsA in a fashion such that A tendst interferencepatterns, having been generatedby the increase B. In the simplest and most negativeforrn samedynamic processand containingthe whole in that is called a vicious circle. Horvever, r+'henit is of the part. mutual benefit for both A and B, then it is like svm. biosis.Both A and B evolveand changetogether, ea From DeterminoteToword Indeterminote- The suc- affecting the other in such a way as to make the d cessof the mechanisticdescription of the actualworld tinction bet'*'eencause and effectmeaningless. gave I strong foundation to the argument for a deter- ministic vierv of the world. If the world consists From Assembly Toward Morphogenesis - Our o wholly of particlesand fields of forcewhose behavior metaphor for change is that of a construction is mathematicallydescribable, then, given sufficiently We have components being assembled according to sophisticatedcomputational abilities, the behaviorof plan with a predictableoutcome. Forms in natu whole aggregationsshould be predictable.Even if seem to evolve in a different lvav. There are no calculationis not possiblein practice,the systemis ponents and plans for waves, plants, or galaxies.Fr still strictly determined. Zwicky used the term morphogenesis to describet evolution of galactic forms out of the primordi Those simplistic notions were laid to rest by Heisen- chaos. It is in the sense of order emerging from di berg'sIndeterminacy Principle, which tellsus that (1) der that we use it here. If a system is complex at a subatomiclevel the future stateof a particleis in composedof diverseelements that interactby mu principle not predictable,and (Z) the act of ex- ally causal and indeterminate processes - and t perimentationto find its statewill itselfdetermine the system is open to external inputs, then it can chsn observedstate. Qualitatively, the implication of this is morphogenetically.A new form, unpredictedby not that there are no causal linkagesbetween past, of its parts, can arise in such a system. The form of present,and future; rather,in complex systemspos- flower cannot be accounted for solely by the form sibilities can be known, but preciseoutcomes cannot its component cells. However, not just any form be predicted.It meansthat ombiguityabout the future possible.The componentsconstrain, but they do is a condition of nature. Not everythingis possible, determine the exact form; hence, a particular kind but among the possibilitieschoices do affectthe ac- rosemay differ in hue, nirmberof petals,and sizef tual outcomes.There is an analogyhere in the shift other rosesof the samekind r.r'hilestill being from the fixed order of divinely endowedkings to the nizable as a rose. voluntary and evolutionaryorder of democracy. The requirements for morphogenesis are diversilf From Lineor Toword Mutuol Couso.lity- The inde- openness,complexity, mutual causality,and i terminacy in nature is mirrored in the evolution of terminacy.When theseconditions exist, we havet causal models. The simplest causalmodel is linear; ingredientsfor qualitativechange. That process that is, a simpleaction leads always to the samepre- be describedreasonably rigorously by ReneThom dictable result: push on a chair and it moves every catastrophetheory.

14 From Objective Toword Perspective - Along with the This acknowledgment of the inescapability of Indeterminacy Principle,. the changes in pattern al- perspective is very different from the attempt to gain ready identified lead us to one final change. Until this by abstracting from all perspectives. century, we were taught to believe that the way to know about the world was to stand outside it some- A further consequence of this shift in our process of how and observe it objectively.We assumed that our knowing is that the concept of reality itself changes. mental processes,our experimental instruments, and There may, indeed, be an ultimate reality. However, our disciplines were neutral. But we've discovered every time we try to discover r+'hat it is, our efforts "absolute" that none of tiese are neutral to the world. Our in- will be partial. Thus we seea shift from the "right" struments and experiments affect the results, espe- truth discovered by the method toward a plur- cially in atomic s1'stemsand human syslems. Our ality of kinds of knowledge explored by a multiplicity culture, language, and world view affect u'hat r+'e of methods. perceive and r,r'hatu'e do not. Finally, the evolution of paradigms in disciplines such as physics shows that The New Melophor - The total pattern of change is the disciplines themselves are not neutral to the someu,hat like a change in melaphor from reality as a world. machine toward reality as a conscious organism. Machines are mechanical and relatively simple. They objectivity is an , is subjectivity the only If are organized hierarchically from components, and We suggest that perspective is a more alternative? they function linearly and predictably. We can stand useful concept. connotes a vierv at a dis- ferspective outside them and study them. tance from a particular focus. Where we look from affects what we see. This means that any one focus of being - say, a human being - is very gives only a partial result; no single dis- A conscious and unpredictable. People behave one way cipline ever gives a complete picture. A whole picture complex way later.When they change, they is an image generated morphogenetically from multi- now and a different internally intercon- ple perspectives. often change suddenly. They are nected, consisting of many complex subsyslems.They Yet knowledge requires more than an image. But if are externally interconnected with other people and knowledge is not merely the sum of objective , the world around them. When people interact they what is it? Following the same logic as above, knowl- affect each aother. Becauseof this complexity of in- edge may require engagement.In linguistics we found teraction, people don't always see the same things; that the meaning of a word comes from its use in they have unique pespectives.In the same r+'ay, the context; similarly, in ecology we must view the or- emergent paradigm of the actual world is complex, ganism in its environment. To know something holographic, heterarchical, indeterminate, mutually requires engagement with it so that it is seen in the causal, morphogenetic, and perspectival. The shift in contexl of our own concerns, and multiple perspec- metaphor is from the machine to the human being. We lives so that we are not blinded bv our own . are like the world we see.

15 IMPLICATIONS

for man's ,a new of principles In this sectionwe want to draw out the implications of the basis society, the entirely new phenomena of t):e multi-facet'edrevolution summarizedin the pre- for ordering ,.i".,"" and its handmaiden technology' r ious section. We will first briefly examine certain empirical new vistasof possibility for human- rnechanisms of change. Then we will apply those new language, idea of progressitself' Over the span of mechanismsto individuals, society,politics, science kind, ani th-e these forces translatedthe abstractre- and technology,and finally business'With respectto two centuries into a concreteone' Similar forces will btisiness,we are interestedboth in the direct impacts volution the current largely intellectual revolution and in those impacts that arise from changesin the translate an aclual human transformation' other categoriesof imPact. into

We can expectthat new belief s1'stemswill integrate be- or. .r.t.r".,tunderstandings rt'ith more traditional will liefsand leadto valuechanges' New melaphors con- permit approachingold problemsafresh' Nevv issues ceptswili permit a similarreexamination of old New as well ai opening new avenuesof inquiry' attention Mechanisms of Change categoriesu.ti .tl"t of evidencewill permit been excluded or largely The foregoing analysissuggests that there is a com- ir "ip".,t of life that have languagewill permit dis- mon patlernLf de.'"lopment in diverse areasof in- ignored in the past. New unnameableideas' New or- quiry. That pattern can be called a shift in paradigm' .I.arr" about heretofore will permit a diversity of new the lvolution of new conceptualmaps, a changein g"niri.,g principles systems'New expecta- world view, or other similar phrases'We must now Io.-, of structurein human will motivatenew actions'The addressthe question of how such a conceptualand tions and constraints leadto ne'"t'' formal revolution translates into effects on human new science,of course,will imPact' lives. which will have their own these not possible to say preciselyhow long We suggest that it is not much of an exaggerationto It is forces*lil take to make concretethe intellectual consid*eithis change akin in kind, diversity' and alreadyin progress'It will certainlybe magnitude to the emergenceof the Enlightenmentin- transformation The heart of lessthantheseveralcenturiesoftheEnlightenment. the seventeenthand eighteenthcenturies' of the For one thing, we are not at the beginning the Enlightenmentwas the idea that man's "right but probably somewhere closer to the would result from the applicationof reason"to revolution, where'the effectsof the formal disciplines the human, spiritual, and natural order' Ratherthan -iap"i",, common understandingare likely to be-rapid being in the ha.,dsof God alone,man was by dint of on the The processis also facilitated by a capable of pulling himself up toward and exte.tsive' his intellect and information revolu- the present,the revolution worldwide .orrrrn,rni.ution some higher state'As in in contemporary is associated tion, the high levels of was multifaceted.The Enlightenment to changeborn of Galileo' New- advancedsocieties, and the motive with such namesas Bacon,Descartes' It is' dissatisfactionsand problems of our era' ton, Wesley,Voltaire, Rousseau,Locke, Hume' Kant' the -Smith. thai less than three decades rootsthe Enlightenmentwas a f ".hupr, indicative and Adam At its War II' when coioni- and few would ;*ot;O irom the end of World profound intellectualtransformation, idea' to the death political' and utir- ,topped being an acceptable deny that our presenteconomic, social, ours of ce.,tur^ies-oldcolonial empires' Furlhermore' tecinological trder are a direct result of that trans- is becomingaccustomed to rapid there were other factorsat work is a time that formation. To be sure, that this intellectual Enlighten- change.These sug!est as well, but the pattern that we label the im' ,"uol"utionwill have its profound and multifold ment shatteredand reformulatednearly every aspect society fu, -ore rapidly than many people of human existence.Out of that comple;<-of changes ;;.i;-"" might expect' emergednew definitions of meaning,a new senseof

16 Individual havior is the subpersonality, while the self that is The watching is a much larger self encompassing that pattern At the level of the individual, this shifting particular subpersonality. The process of withdraw- occur may have a number of effects, which can ing control from that subpersonality to the larger, through several mechanisms. To those people for more complex self is the processof disidentification' r,r'hom personal change is already a part of life, the i.e., no longer identifying with the narrow interests of cmergent pattern will provide new maps, models, the subpersonality. nrelaphors, and qualities. Another mechanism is the has an implicit image of educational system, which The process of self-knowledge involved with the em- of individual development. It can be ex- the goals ergent paradigm is akin to this model. It entails, first, the the desirable qualities to pected that definition of the recognition of the many dimensions of the self; will be As Le developed through education enriched. rather than the simple hierarchicalmodel of a sup- become people change, they, in turn, may models for reme self, we see a larger, more complcx community systems shift on the basis of others. Finally, as belief of selves. There is, for example, the instance of the pattern, can expect still more perva- the emergent we scientist who, by his or her ability to strip away the sive changes to occur. filters of , can uncover a remarkable new insight' However, that same scientist, because of his or her include The qualities of knowing, we have suggested, security needs, might behave with an almost unbe- and the need for perspective, a quality of receptivity lievable degree of bias when faced with the con- partiality engagement, and a recognition of the of tradictory results of a colleague.In one instance, it is Knowing paradigm, which "scientist" knowledge. in the current the subpersonality that is dominant, while an world "hurt holds that we are dealing with objective in the other it may be the little child'" The being understood through a neutral instrumentality, psychological process in the individual that corres- pat- - requires no knowledge of self. In the emergent ponds to the knort'ledgeprocess is disidentification does tern, knowing anything at all about the world teing both the scientist and the larger, more complex require knowledge of self. That is, knowing requires: community; denying neither and accepting both' In o loci our An identification of the multiple of terms of the VALS typology, this can be seen as locations perspective, i.e., the psychological movement toward the Integrated stage. from which we view and interpret the u'orld. o which we An understanding of the process by Such a model of the psyche requires that we confront - we affect participate in the world i.e., how anew the problem of ethical judgments. Hovv can we - vvhich others and the world around us deal u,ith good and evil? By acknowledging the mul- facilitates the qualities of receptivity and en- tiple selves, have we slipped into an ethical abyss? gagement. Erich Neumann, in his remarkable little book Depth o partial A definition of the boundaries of our Psychology ond o New Ethic, deals with this question reason- knowledge, i.e., not overextending the most eloquently: able application of any set of understandings. In the new ethical situalion, ego-consciousness Some contemporary psychotherapeutic modes, such becomesthe locus of responsibilityfor a psychological various oI states as psychosynthesis,use a model that can be helpful, Leagueof Nations,to which Sroups belong,primitive and prehumanas well as differen- The idea is that we behaveas if we were composed of tiatedand modern,and in which atheisticand reli- a set of subpersonalities.Each subpersonality has gious, instincliveand spiritual,destructive and some particular which identifiable characteristics, constructiveelements are represenledin varying come to dominate our behavior in a particular situa- degreesand coexistwith eachother. tion; i.e., we behave as if we were only this sr.rbper- sonality. The reader will undoubtedly recognize the All theseSrgups of forcesmust be taken into consider- feeling of being aware that you are behaving in some ation.since here. as in the collectivelife of nations' way that you don't like. The self controlling the be- suppressionor repressionleads to hostilereactions

17 which dieturb the life of the whole community and trivial; but most individuals do mature, havipg keep it in a state of continual unrest. worked through their childish fantasies.One can ex- pect that, as a result, people will undergo more he' The principal requirement of the new elhic is not that divergent changesin the major as- "good," quent and more the individual should be but that he should be pects of their lives (e.g.,careers, lifestyles). Fur.her, - psychologically autonomous that is to say, healthy this diversity and unpredictability may tend to pro- produclive, and yet at the same time not psycho- and duce obviousinconsistencies in people'slives - for logically infectious. And the aulonomy of the ethical living conventionallyin most respects,but personality means essentiallythat the assimilation example, in some particular aspect. and use of the negativeforces to be found in every psy- very unconventionally become chic system takes place as far aspossible consciously, Cultivating that Iimited eccentricitymay tho within the processof self-realization.In fact, the cen- norm. tral happening in the processof individualion is pre- cisely the way in which the ego takes part in this There are two second-orderconsequences of these transformation of the personality, by acting, suffer- behavioralchanges. First, interpersonalcommunica- ing, shaping and being overwhelmedat the sametime' tion may becomemore difficult. Though presumably Under the old ethic, it was a frequent,if not a regular, people's "ethical" the qualities of reflection will enhance abil- occurrence that a strong personality did not ity to communicate,the gulf betweenindividuals may live out his own negative drives, but projected them to widen. If we becomemore diverse,sharing our forcibly on to the weak spots in the environment, so tend will take greater effort, as that the negative suppressedand repressedcontents experience of the world for an American and had to work themselves out by compensation in hie today it takes considerableeffort immediate surroundings (the family or the ), a Japaneseto trulY communicate. "repressor" without the personalityhaving the slight- est notion of his moral responsibility for these A second consequencehas been suggestedby |on phenomena. Mclntire. In this increasinglyambiguous social milieu, we are likely to seean increasingreliance on formality in manners and style, which becomesa Perhaps This leads us, then, to another emergent attribute of shortcutway to communicatecomplex ideas' In that individuals. The psychological model we are de- an analogycan be drawn to medieval Japan' not scribing here is heterarchicaland decentralized.As society,a very rich and complex inner life n'as noted earlier, complex systemsthat have these prop- masked but was communicatedby a set of highly The erties tend to change morphogenetically'Such a stylized gestures,, dress,and language' change process will tend to produce more diverse ideal was to say a greatdeal with a minimum of effort' personalitytypes among individualsand lesspredic- tability within any one individual.The diversity will The new physicsleads us lessdirectly to furthercon- the come from the complex interplay of the various di- ,"q.r"t."i for the individual.The consequencesof find' mensionsof self,reaching some new accommodation new physics are indirect, not only becausethe among them, rather than repressionto conform to a ings of the physicists are far away from our everyday limited set of socially defined norms' Perhaps the concerns; more profoundly, the new physics chal' complexity of the VALS typology,with its peak in the lenges our commonsenseconcepts of consequence new Integrated level is, in part, a manifestationof this and individuality. So when we ask how the the new processalready at work at the unconsciouslevel. physicshas consequencesfor the individual, physicsanswers with findingsthat challengethe very That same reduction or repressionwill also decrease terms of the question. individual predictability.As amongthe community of causal nations, there is a continuing processof negotiation Of course,a person is not an atom, and the not be among the various "selves," leading to new condi- efficacyof one person'sshoving another will tions. To be sure,the first expressionsof this multi- altered in the least by even tlie most fundamental But the plicity in an individual are likely to be infantile and revolution in the physics of microparticles'

18 way we think about causality and individuality - the a middle-class and upper-middle-class society. (-fhere paradigmatic models wq employ in our imaginative are many exceptions, of course; we are not a fully reconstructions of the order of things - are heavily homogeneous society). As people begin to discover influenced by the physics of the last four centuries, their own internal sources of differentiation, old and And as we think, so do we act. new differences are likely to arise in their relation- ships to others. This will only add to the ethnic, cul- We stress these caveats against inferring simple tural, and gender identification that has begun to causal consequences of the new physics because,fol- grow in recent years. At its extremes this process of lowing the old paradigm, we might be inclined to differentiation may produce more of the sorl we regard physics as providing the most basic causal have seen arise recently. In the vast middle, however, account of everything. According io Bacon and De- it is more likely to take the form of some conscious scartes,the best method of understanding anything is associationwith others in a'*'ay that distinguishesthe to analyze it into its smallestparts, understand their group from the perceived historic norm. Various behaviors, then reconstruct the behavior of the r+'hole forums for this behavior could include religion, inter- as a sum of the behaviors of its atomic elements. The est groups, unusual adventures, and so on. All express assumptionsguiding the practiceof Baconianscience the same underlying desire to reinforce the self-image also served a metaphysical role, guaranteeing to of uniqueness. physics the role of ultimate arbiter of reality. The new physics challenges precisely the analy.tic, atomistic The current revolution in architecture is indicative of approach at the heart of the Baconian method. It this movement toward diversity and expression of therefore challenges the very assumption that would human qualities. The skylines of American cities for take the smallest atomic elements as the most basic the last several decades have been the result of a constituents of our . The new physics particular design philosophy. It emphasized a rigid abdicates the metaphysical throne occupied by the set of ideals best captured by the simple lines of the old physics. By vindicating over , the vertical boxes of Mies van der Rohe. The new design new physics suggests that the theory of atoms - turns ar+'ayfrom rigid ideals altogether, but not to- physics itself - can no Ionger serve as the theory of ward the extreme of without principle. ultimate reality. Rather, it attempts to draw from a wide reservoir of design tools, including our past, existing designs, Metaphysicians and theologians of every school will new materials and construction methods. and ideal undoubtedly find much to ponder and debate in the visions of human possibility. Newsweek writer "The new physics. That debate and its secular repercus- Douglas Davis put it this way recently: moder- sions will almost certainly have a profound effect on nist masters believed they were building an entirely the spiritual life of humankind. If alienation was the ner+'society - clean, rational, efficient. Now for the consequenceof perceiving the universe as a machine, first time in decades,the architect is allowing himself perhaps comfort will be the result of perceiving the to play a more limited - a more human role." universe as a vast network, Iike a living organism of which we are a part, there being in each of us an That diversity which can be a positive force in design impression of that boundless whole, which in turn may have its negative consequencesas well. Perhaps bears the mark of our singular existence. the least significant, but annoying nevertheless,will be the conflicts that arise as neighborhoods and com- munities that have come to expect a bland kind of Society homogeneity in design are assaultedby this new di- The diversitysuggested at the individual level will be versity. More important will be the conflicts that arise mirrored at a social level. The past severaldecades out of the new diversity itself, and the conflict of the have been a time of rapid homogenizationin this new order with the old. That conflict arisesnot merely country.Regional, cultural, and economicdifferences because of differing interests, but out of a different have diminished as economicprosperity has made us view of reality itself. The kinds of social troubles

19 being posed againstthe essociatedwith the differencesof the 1960s of its expertise,as well as system' are perhaps indicative of the difficulties of coping excessof a rigidly hierarchical ruith this kind of conflict. The entire fabric of a per- son'sexistence is sometimesat stake;hence the inten- Politics sity of the struggle.Current issuesover homosexual of this revolution are a and women's are a further indication of this The political implications individual and socialtransforma' difficulty. To a true believer,homosexuality is evil public mirror of the the tool we have createdto mediate itself.To many others,it is merelya matterof a choice iior,r. Politics is amongpeople' As was notedin the that is little more -ladenthan careerpreference' the relationships political theorysection, the basicchange in the nature a move from authority derived In the long run, the emergentparadigm may produce of politics has been - transcendentorder to legitimacy an enhancedcapacity to copewith such conflicts from natural or association' evento celebratethe diversitythat is their basis ln the grantedby voluntary short run, however,it is far morelikely that the forces "system" giant public and privateinstitutions for conflict will be more powerful.\{e can expectat The of the hierarchybased on natural leastthe next couple of decadesto be a time of social has largely replaced are treatedas legitimatebe' turbulence and confusion,although to be sure,there order. The part of their contemporary will be periods of relative calm. The major social causethey are there;and though their original institutions, such as the family, are alreadyundergo- function is to survive' even Both recenttax re' ing profound change;and in the face of this newly functions have becomeobsolete' liability awards againstcorpors' emeigent force, there is every reasonto believe that volts and the huge of the legitimating the foundationsof our socialexistence will be rocked tions can be seenas reassertions our suggestionsabout per- still further. It would not be surprisingto see many power of free citizens.If and decentralizationhave people retreatingto smallerlife worlds - peopletry- sonal and social plurality this emergentpolitical ing to caryeout tolerablespaces in what must seeman any merit, then we can expect here is not betu'eenthe inireasingly alien, complex, and confusing social force to grow' The division left but betweenthose of either system. An aspectof the movement toward voluntary traditional right and who would use centralizedinstitu' simplicity can be seen as consistentwith this the right or ieft public, to carry out their social'eco' phenomenon. tions, privare or nomic, technological,or politicalgoals and thosen'ho as much authority as possiblefrom On a more positive note, one can see increasing would withdraw To someextent this division acknowledgmentof the partiality of knowledge and those sameinstitutions. the two elites discussedin an the need foi engagement.'Professionalismis founded is a characteristicof i on the notion tliat the professionalstands at the top of earlier VALS rePort. I his field, masterof all he surveys.Yet in our complex institutionstends to work toward world the professionalcomes to cover a shrinking The scaleof today's I The samesolution to a.socisl domain "t ih" need for specializationSrows' Further, nationalhomogeneity. i in urban Boston the more seniorand hencetheoretically more adepthe problem is implemented 1nd.l:tt'l and historic with the practiceof his disci- i.ito.,a despiie the geographic -differ'l gets,the less engaged over; rarely encesbetween the two areas;supermarkets all flin" he usually ii. fne medical fund-raiser display almost identical arra)'s"l qtil i""t " patient;the collegepresident has no time to the country explanationfor today's-Politicat; result, we see the rise of the paraprofes- ducts.One possible teach.As a back.thel in , and now climate is that people are trying to push sional, first in medicine, then "big of the system" that has encroacheol spreading to other areas.The movementtoward boundaries from every direction' As the forces.oll p".uptof"isionals seemsconsistent with the emergent on their lives "beside" socialdifferentiation gror't" thev canDel view. Poro connotesin its originalform both personaland to the mo-t'e-mentt]ttt,lll "against." Thus, this movementcan -beseen as expected to add strength and to taketnal to use the strength evident. In its early stagesthis is likely workin! with the existing system I I I 20 I I place big and form of a kind of simplistic localism and see a shift toward small but smart in of toward the political system. In the end a new balance dumb. will be struck. How long that will take is unclear. Miniaturization in the computer industry is both an Several aspects of the emergent paradigm may contri- example of and a stimulant toward decentralization in bute loward accelerating that new balance. As the science and technology. Advances in microcircuitry "smart already growing a\^'arenessof our interconnectedness let terminals" take over more of the tasks that and hence interdependence increases,we can expect used to be performed by centralized management in- two parallel developments. One will focus on the fr-rrmationsystems. The new Distributed Systems ap- need to span arbitrary boundaries to solve critical proach to information processing permits other in- problems. The development of regional special dis- dustries to move from a model of hierarchically cen- tricts for environment, sewage,rvater, and transporta- tralized command tolvard heterarchical communica- tion is an example.The secondis an internalizinginto tion. That movement facilitates a fr.rrtherproliferation decisions of those aspectsthat have long been consi- and development of nevr' (and old) technologies' In dered externals and hence ignored. Recent moves to different geographical locations and in fields as vari- constrain industrial pollution are examples of this ous as mining and education, the resourcesof a single process. Learning to both recognize and comprehend corporation can support the in-place development of the multiplicity of perspectives, rather than merely technologies adapted to unique conditions. As we interests involved in most major decisions,may aid us face limitations on our natural resources, it makes in reaching speedy and equitable decisions. Until sense to forego the sometimes wasteful imposition of these compensating forces become significant, how- uniform procedures in favor of support for indigenous ever, we are likely to see paraly'sisand division in the technologi cal resourcefulness. political system increasefor some time to come. That paralysis can only contribute to a further erosion of Information processing provides the most dramatic legitimacy and to greater cynicism as the political example of miniaturization leading to decentraliza- system remains ineffective in solving the many prob- tion, bul the computing revolution is not an isolated lems of our society. The central institutions of power, case. Other scientific advances have generated whether U.S. or corporate presidents, have already technologies that reflect a trend toward smaller rather had their real power greatly diminished by the com- than bigger as an ini.lex of progress. For example, plexity of the system. Now, almost as a matter of , scientific research led to new methods of steel pro- when people withdraw their support, the balance of duction that no longer require giant Bessemer con- power can be expected to shift again toward the indi- verters for maximum efficiencY. vidual. Within science itself the new paradigm finds support in the form of a new sense about the nature of scien- Science and Technology tific research and discovery. Whereas the old paradigm stresseda continuous approach tor'l'ard ob- Until very recently, the most remarkable achieve- jective truths quite independent of the human mind, ments of science and technology were big and bigger: the new paradigm reflects a reciprocal involvement tall buildings, awesomebridges, bigger planes, giant between the knower and the known, the importance lankers, and a vast s1'stemof interstate highways' Yet of the knower's perspective, and consequently a a recent SRI report indicates lhat large-scale likelihood of sharp discontinuitiesbetween scientific technological projects (LSTPs) are becoming in- truths. The scope of this change is suggested in the creasingly difficult to launch. This is no accident. title of 's influential book The Structure Like the dinosaurs, LSTPs are from an of Scientific . This new sense about the evolutionary alteration in the ecology of modern soci- nature of scientific progress amounts to a Reformation ety. Their sheer size seems to be less an asset than a in rt'hat had'been the Holy Scientific Empire. One liability in our changing environment, in which we recent philosopher of science goes so far as to suggest

2'| anarchy as the most fruitful guide for scientific re- guiding the researchat the edgesof our ignorance search.Try.anything, says Paul Feyerabendin his themselveschanging. bookAgoinst Method.The conceptof paradigmshifts opensup the possibilityof an almost limitlessprolif- eration of researchprograms based on widely differ- Business i ing assumptions. As individuals, society, government, science, and technology adapt to the emergent world view, the Scientificresearch, of course,takes money. A limited impacts on businessare likely to be extensiveandi economywill no more support just any hare-brained profound. It is the thesisof this report that the intel.l proposalthin a limited ecologywill supportjust any lectualrevolution we arein the midst of is oneof t-he; mutant species.So the matter of human choice be- most potent current forcesfor shaping the future. comesall the more important.If the ner.r'paradigm of societaland businessenvironment. We canspeculate' knowing challengesthe simpleassumption of a clear here on the characterof the impact of that forceon dichotomy betweenthe subjectiveand the objective, business.It is likely, however,that we will not foresee then the old ideal of disinterestedscience comes into even some of the most significantof those impacts.. question. All knowledge is ultimately interested Taking to heartthe conceptof mutual causality,many knowledge,however much we may agreeto condemn of the impacts will be a result of the responseof, the individual researcherwho fudges his resultsin businessto theseemergent qualities. Obviously, there' the interestsof making his experimentcome out right. will be many surprisingand unpredictableaspects to The interestsof humanity in general are at stakein that response. what is to count as "objective" knowledge.Likewise, the interestsof humanity in general are at stakein "lf Management contestinga "technologicalimperative" that says, it con be done,do it!" In placeof disinterestedscience The changingpicture of causalitymay haveone of the and the old technological imperative, the new most interestingimpacts on corporatelife' The paradigm suggestsa scienceas if people really mat- executiveat every level is the basic model for corpo" tered, and an increasingpreoccupation with approp- rate life. In the model of the executive there is an riate technology. implied commandand controlhierarchy. That control is the exerciseof hypotheticalpower, both insideand Many of the trends mentionedso far are dramatically outsidethe corporation,Yet if one were to askseniot, evident in the realm of health care. In place of the executiveswhether they feel powerful, most wouldj "no." top-down, doctor-to-patient,expert-to-object manner probably reply More and more a complexof, of current medicii're,the new direction emphasizes constraintsrestrains the dimensionsof their control.Ifl the active role of the patient in preventionand heal- power is the ability to carryout intention.,i.e.,.having' ing. New and widely differing modalitiesof response your intentions realized,then power is an increas'i to illness need not all be quackery. To the contrary, ingly elusivephenomenon. Perhaps.we might do ber-i pro-i even some of the experts are beginning to acknowl- ter"to speakof impacts.A decision may indeed edgethat the guiding assumptionsbehind millions of duce quite noticeableresults, but these often have dollars of cancerresearch may have been mistaken, little to do with what was intended.Rather than con'; namely, the old paradigm assumptionof a single trol or power, it may be more useful in the emergent. causethat might be conqueredwith the discoveryof a conlextto focuson the conceptof influence.Influence single drug. This " bullet" approachto connotesa multiplicity of causesfor an1'desired the cure of cancermay give way to a holistic health effect.The successfulexecutive may be the one who model involving the recognition of a multiplicity of has the sensitivity to identify that multiplicity of causal conditions from nutrition and air quality to forces,and then, like the adeptat aikido, helpsguide charactertypes and levels of stress.At this point, of those forcesinto a more desirableoutcome' The old or resistingthose' course,no one knows. For our purposesit -isenough paradigm focuseson suPpressing to note that no one knows, and that the assumptions ior.", io ac.o-plish the aim of control. In a simpler

22 possible. behavior so as to realize those objectives. world, that mav have been Now, influencing zation's control in favor of influ- the results through skill. and sensitivity will be the Having already abandoned process what prediction? Donald Michael, in his book Sallmark of success. The is much more like ence, of to Plon ond Plonning to Leorn, suggests facilitation than command. On Leorning that planning ought to be conceived of as learning, means "error embracing." Michael As the process and structure of management have which in his terms suggeststhat become more sophisticated and complex, one of the (along with Phillip H. Murvis) \s1, developments has been the growing reliance on the compelenlperson is one rvho designshis or her equally complex information systems as an aid to activitiesto providethe moxinrumomount of leedbock -"nug"-"nt. These information systems, whether aboutwhat is happeningin orderto detectand respond they report on the external world (e.g., market sur- to errors.Competence, then, is measurednot by skill in in veys) or the internal u'orkings of the company (e.g., avoiding errorsbut by skill in detectingthem and so thal all can con- inventory control), all serve an objectifying function. acting on that informationopenly r+'herethey are and where they In the theoretical ideal, that information is trans- tinue lo learn about might go - aboutu'hat kind of u'orld we havecreated formed by the rnethods of management science into for ourselvesand u'hatwe might do towardrecreating action decisions. The unique role of the manager be- it. (p. 317) gins to diminish. It is still true that tl-rereal successin "error to corporate life comes not from narrow adherence to Specifically, embracing" means an openness prescribed procedure, but from a variety of other, a multiplicity of interpretations and theories, as in the more traditional skills. Indicative of the current emergent paradigm. Furthermore, a good manager is direction of management, however, senior manage- one who facilitates error embracing in olhers and in ment is increasingly coming from the ranks of the structure of the organization. accounlants and lawyers. We are suggesting that the qualities of management Many of today's businesseswere founded by entrep- consistent with the new paradigm involve three maior reneurs. Part of their genius was a way of knowing the shifts: from control to influence, from prediction to world that was consistent with the emergent ambiguity, and from scientific management to entre- paradigm of knowledge. Most of all, they were so preneurship. Influence entails the delicate orchestra- engaged with the world that they had the capacity to tion of a community of forces to produce action. Plan- sense a potential opportunity, yet had the perspective ning as learning requires a tolerance for error and to be able to exploit the opportunity. The history of multiple interpretations. Entrepreneurship requires professionalization of management has been an engagement with the world of the supplier, the cus- attempt to transfer to the organization the necessary tomer, the politician, the production floor, and so. An qualities of the genius entrepreneur. In times of appropriate metaphor is the steersmanfloating down- smooth grou'th and a stable environment, profes- river on a raft. In the smooth water, there are opportu- sional managers may have been successful. If, how- nities for real control and the steersmancan stand tall ever, the years ahead are as turbulent as appears and survey the situation. In the rapids, the degree of likely, then perhaps the challenge will be to shift the control is diminished - the white water will not be entrepreneurial qualities back to the individuals resisted. The task of the steersman then is to be in rather than to the system. This is no small challenge, touch with the water to sense its sudden twists. If we because it appears that large organizations tend to are in the rapids, then a new kind of executive is punish just the sort of deviance (and often early fail- needed. ure) that makes an entrepreneur.

One of the critical functions of management is plan- !ersonnel ning. In the old management paradigm, planning The diversitythat is likely to affectsociety and poli- required prediction and'control: predicting future tics is alsolikely to be reflecledin the structureof the conditions and objectives and controlling the organi- work force.The difficultiesof integratingminorities

23 and women are indicative of the problem. There will Markets certainly be a.heightened need to focus on interper- sonal relationships and improving communication. Probably the major impact implied by the shiftins paradigm \\'ithout that, diversity will almost certainly result in is a movementtoward market differential conflict. Again, it is worth noting that the gap to be tion and volatility. Fewermarkets will be susceptible just bridged here is not one of slight attitudinal differ- to mass appeals.Indeed, such a mass appealls narrov\rmarket ences, but often of differing perceptions of reality most likely to drive away the seg- ments.Further, these consumers are lesslikell'to itself. For example, in a conflict situation, because of dis- play the kind of product loyalty that has been differing world views people r.r'illoften pay attention an important factor in the past. to quite different elements. Hence, they may draw radically different pictures of the situation. A more It is important to point out that there is a danger complete picture can be found in the diversity of the s[ this phenomenon:mass markets are two, rather than in the supremacy of the ,,right" one exaggerating nol "r+'rong" over the one. a thing of the past.This paradigmshift is likely to become manifest last in those consumersrn'ho are Incentive structures will need to reflect this emergent most susceptibleto massappeals. However, the shift diversity. More money and a limited set of benefits is likely to be visible soonerin thosesmaller markets have long been a nearly universal set of incentives. that set the fashionsand trendsthat form the basisof However, in a diverse rt'ork force, some people will mass markets.Thus, for quite different reasons,mar- want to trade time for money; some r.r'illaccept high keting strategymust be sensitiveto this deeperdi- risk for high rer+'ards;others will want security above mension of change,no matter which segmentsarr all else; still others will want interesting people to sought. work with and opportunities for learning or personal growth. At best, the situation will be confusing and Products will require flexibility and inventiveness on the part of management. The product implications of new scielrc€8nd technology are multifold; far more detailed analysis If our morphogenetic model of changeis valid, simple would be required to spell them out. Instead, u'e will career ladders may be less desirable to many workers. focus on several needs that are already evident and are They are likely to undergo rather sudden changes of being responded to in a manner consistent u'ith the career directions surprising even to themselves. As new paradigm. These will provide examples of the people permit the internally diverse psyche to evolve, product opportunities associated with the neu' different drives and interests are likely to become paradigm. dominant at different times in their lives. Such shifts may be as minor as moving from biology to chemistry One of the central features of our time is the growing on the part of a scientist. More often, they will be feeling people have that they exert vanishingll' small shifts of the magnitude of movement from a profes- degrees of control over their own lives. We have al' sional, technical, or managerial. specialty to some- ready noted the overwhelming role that a massively thing radically different, such as managing a complex and expertise-oriented health care system hardware store or becoming a carpenter. This be- plays. We can add to that the role that media such as havior is not the same as that of the person who has television play in delivering a selective,predigested been frustrated in a particular career and has long picture of the world to a mass audience. In both in- harbored a secret desire to do something else. Often it stances there are opposing commercial ventures will be the person who has enjoyed successin a career under way, the primary appeal of which is resistance who will change, because the aspects of psyche against the homogenizing, individual-diminishing motivating that career may have played themselves forces of the existing system. One of these r.r'ehave out. alreadv mentioned - the holistic health care movF

24 means of ment. Giving the rising dissatisfaction with *re costs owners. Regulation is the by which the rest the abuses of that independent and effectiveness of the .health care industry, there the system constrains view based on r+,ould already be strong support for a movement away power. A more sophisticated will be and mutually causal nature of from industrialized health care. The new paradigm the interconnectedness provides both a deep motive toward selfhood, leading complex systems. As has been observed in politics, "we io*'".d self-care, and a many-dimensional conception get the leaders we deserve," so it may be that we we deserve. Such a view of self that permits complementary roles for mind, get the business system and are bodl', and spirit. Health care thal facilitates the self would hold that companies both shape To get the business and acknowledges that disease is often much more shaped by their environment. more means than than a collection of biological malfunctions repre- system we want may require subtle institutions whose sents both a historic redirection and an important the direct regulatory assault on imagined. opPortunitY. real porver may be less than

the do- A second emerging area is personalized information This same view, however, may also extend be- systems. This includes such diverse products as the main of the regulation. As interconnectedness hardware of calculators and home computers and the comes more apparent, the role of the business system software of specialty journals and neu'sletlers.As the in structuring society may also become more evident. complexity of the r.r'orldincreases, comprehending it Areas that are likely to be questioned are some famil- becomes more difficult. One of tlre few assurancesof iar ones such as scale of business, competitiveness, validity will be availing oneself of a catholicity of and so on, and some new areassuch as the allocation perspectives. Active participation in an information of capital, location decisions, constraints on private net of multiple media may begin to challenge the innovations, compensation structures, and others. passive receptor quality of television and such mass The means by which such issues are confronted may journals as Time and Newsweek. One company, for be more in the direction of incentives and disincen- example, is already marketing a computer telecon- tives than a regulation Per se. ferencing service. Sophisticated information systems tailored to the individual and small business are Goals likely to be growing markets as people try to perceive holds that the world as a holographic net rather than accepting There is an image of corporate goals which to the twin the one-dimensional version of reality presented by corporations have an unwavering devotion is some lhe mass media. gods of growth and profit. Although there truth to that image, it also contains a pernicious . In fact, corporations pursue multiple goals in addition innovation, Regulation and Public Attitudes to growth and profit, including survival, maintaining a reputation, opportunities for em- One of today's favorite business is that, as the ployees, and so on. However, these other goals are public comes to understand the costs of regulation, usually justified in the name of growth and profit. somehow those regulations will, for the most part, vanish. There is nothing to support that myth. How- As reflection and self-awarenesson the part of indi- ever, support can be found in the emergent paradigm viduals is associatedwith the new paradigm, simi- for a shift in the nature of regulations. This arises larly, reflection on purposes and balancing among a because of two changes in the public view of business. community of goals is the direction of corporate change. Thus, it is likely that profit and growth will The existing regulatory strategyis based on the notion migrate from the top of a hierarchy of goals into a that businesses are powerful, independent entities more complex relationship of a heterarchicalsort: two motivated almost entirelv bv the self-interest of their goals among others in a mutually reinforcing s1'stem.

25 A Final Note on Implications consciouslyprobe each of the disciplines ourselves, testing them not only intellectually but far more In the consideration of implications, it is easy to fall rigorously againstthe metric of our own experienceof into the trap of thinking in the old paradigm to de- the world. We would not be very concernedwith any scribe the nature and consequences of the emergent apparentsequence of the disciplines;we would sp perspective. In this sense, the style of this report is prehend the pattern in the complex interplay of the much more consistent with the old view than the new. diversethemes of the variousdisciplines. Finally, ws We have presented objective data in a variety of disci- would studythe changethat resultsfrom introducing "hard" "soft." plines that range from to We have, on I new contextual force into a complex interactive the basis of that data, deduced a pattern with discer- system.That change would be expectedto arise nible characteristics. Finally, in a step-by-step linear through the morphogeneticevolution of elementsof fashion, we have applied those characteristicslo a the systemmutually affectingeach other. number of areas of interest. Such an approach is comfortable, relatively undemanding, and probably It is alrvaysdifficult to imaginethe kind of changethis appropriate to a first attempt at depicting the overall report describes.The implication of this difficultyis process.It may be instructive, however, to imagine for that we will almost inevitably fail to see importantj a moment hou'this enterprise might be approached in consequences.The shift may occur in surprisingj the way of the neu' paradigm. ways, far more rapidly (or slowly) than we imagine,I and with unanticipatedconsequences far more sig-| To comprehend the evidence of a shift, we would nificant than any we have foreseen. I I I

26 PART II

The Paradigm Shift in Depth: Process' Support, and Pattern WHAT IS A PARADIGM?

The Definition system,we may acceptthe lever or the voodoo doll as the properexperimentalmechanism for understand. A paridigm is, broadly construed, the set of those ing causalefficacv. beliefs, , assumptions, givens, or fundamentals Though Kuhn has given remarkable currency to 01s that order and provide coherence to our picture of concept of a paradigm, the basic insights have been what is and how it n'orks. These beliefs are like our around since the German philosopher Immanuel map of reality. They are not the reality itself, but the Kant. Kuhn's essay came as a surprise to the Anglg. directions \A,euse to find our 11'a)'across the terrain. American only becausethe paradigm of dis- continuous paradigm shifts was part of a Europe4l to assembling the evi- Most of this report is devoted tradition that, though two centuries old, was largely of the emergenceof a new dence for and implications unfamiliar to English-speakingscientists' To put the The present discus- paradigm in \\'esterncivilization. point as paracioxicallyas paradigm shifts sometimes of intellectual history sion summariz.estrr'o centuries demand, a paradigm shift rt'asnecessary before these have the concepts of paradigm and that led up to scientists could understand the concept of a paradiSm paradigm shift. or a paradigm shift. The paradox is created by the fact that the old Anglo-American paradigm of has been During the past decade the term porodigm amounts to the view that there are no such things as "the bandied about in a number of disciplines.When used paradigms; the only things of interest are facts'" in the phrase porcrdigm shift, it often carries a refer- The empiricist has a lacit theory of consciousness; ence to Thomas Kuhn's influential book The Structure that mind is a mirror of the world and knowledge is an of Scientific Revolutions (1962).Kuhn revolutionized undistorted representation or picturing of things ar progress by our common understanding of scientific they really are. Recent advancesin a number of differ' u'hat pointing out an important distinction between ent disciplines,however, have presenled anomalies or '*'hich he called normol science, Srows by gradual problems apparently insoluble within the old additions to our fund of knowledge, and revo'lution- paradigm. With the passing of the empiricisl ory science, marked by discontinuous breakthroughs paradigm of the mind as a passive medium' more and that seem to demand a lt'hole new perspective on, or more scientists have begun to take seriously wh the map of, the data. depends on some continental philosophers have knor'r'nall alonS: a shared acceptance of a given paradigm among namely, hor.r'we see things determines much of n' community of scientists; revolutionary science we see. requires a shift of paradigms. Kant was the first to argue the importance of ou and understanding ou Kuhn's use of porodigm is, as he later acknowledged, subiective modes of seeing philosophers had s ambiguous. On the one hand, the word means experience. Where previous "exemplary receiving impressionsf experiment," or a set of procedures that the mind as a blank tablet Kant describedconsciousness as every member of the scientific community learns to the outside world, chaotic impressions'T accept as definitive of ' On the other active ordering of otherwise "the order of the worl hand, porodigm has a much broader use associated order we experience is not through a transparent pane with one's entire belief system or map of reality: the passively received as we experienceis verl lenses,as it n'ere,through which one seeseverything' llass; i.,.rtead,the order .much ordering performed by I Thus, a paradigm shift may mean either an alteration f'unction of an activity of that we experiencethe someort in the set of exemplary experiments defining the edu- mind. To the extent perspectives,we are inclined cation of a scientist, or it may mean an alteration in from our individual the world's order' According the shared consciousness of a culture - or both' think of that order as the sameorder becau Clearly, the two meanings are not unrelated, for a Kant,however, we experience order experience using the st given set of exemplary experiments contributes to our all rational creatures - i'e., according to a sha general sense and understanding of the orderliness of intrinsic categories the universe. And, depending on our general belief paradigm.

28 they are missed by someone, as in madness, or humor, Hegel, another German philosopher, was the first to o, *h"n a TV studio receives bottles of aspirin in the appreciate the fundamentally different paradigms plot calls for the in the history of consciousness' H,is mail because the soap opera's manifested "headaches." heroine to have account of a dialectical movement through different world views was a profound statement of the concept Lavoisier discovered oxygen, he radically re- of paradigm shifts. Marx and his followers took up the When our understanding of phenomena as seemingly dialectical interpretation of paradigm shifts, but re- vised combustion, and rusting (oxi- jected Hegel's characterization of the dominant disparateas breathing, Prior to Lavoisier's discovery, some of those paradigm as Spirit or spirit-of-the-times (Zeitgeist)' dation). phenomena were described in terms of the addition or ihe Marxisl materialist interpretation of history of a hypothetical substance called placed more emphasis on economics than on intel- subtraction phlogiston. Though Lavoisier's discoveriesrequired a lecttral historY' wholesale replacement of phlogiston chemistry, many of his colleagues were as confused about the signifi- Early in the twentieth century, thinkers from several cance of his discoveries as were the sympathetic fans disciplines spawned a new area of inquiry now about the proper significance of the heroine's known as the of knowledge. This relatively Lavoisier's colleagues admired his dili- new discipline might be characterizedas the study of headaches. discovering this new substance called oxy- the evolution and propagation of ideas and gence in ultimately rejected his accounts of the differ- : Why do some ideas take hold in their len, but of oxidation becausehe had failed to disciplines and some fail independent of whether lnt phenomena what was happening to the phlogiston while they are judged to be right? In this approach ideas are tell ihem transfers of oxygen were taking place' Like studied not in terms of their rightness in a scientific all these fans, they didn't quite get the point; sense,but in terms of their influence. Sociologists of the sympathetic the relevant information but placed it in knorn'ledge study the politics of intellectual move- they received frame. ments, from the to the history of lhe wrong utopian movements: What sorts of social conditions paradigms in our perception spawn the beliefs found in millenial cults? What kind Sensitivity to the role of tool in problem solving' Once we of world view renders individuals most susceptibleto can be an important problems cannot be solved within authoritarian movements? In each case, the focus of knor,,r,that ai our paradigm, then it is sometimes interest is the ability of a given paradigm to mold the the frame of a current problem by reframing its terms' thoughts, perceptions, and opinions of those who possible to solve a French sergeantwho was ordered by share it. bne thinks of the his commanding officer to clear the rabble from a crowded ,q.,".", and to shoot if necessary'His prob- More recently, the has prolif- "the lem: apparently either shoot rabble" or disobey erated into disciplines like Ethnomethodology - a orders. He solved this apparently insoluble dilemma quasi-anthropological study of the way contemporary "Mesdames by reframing the terms of the problem' et ethnic groups manifest fundamentally different "I N,lonsieurs,';he addressed the crowd, have been paradigms - and Frame Analysis - the study of the instructed to fire upon the rabble, but since I see many behavioral cues we give that instruct others on which lau,-abiding citizens in front of me, I would ask that paradigm is appropriate for interpreting our actions. you leave tte square so that my men can fire upon the General and continuing work on arti- rabble without injuring any innocent bystanders"' ficial have contributed to an awarenessof "this subtleties thal communicate mind sets such as is "this "once have been used for the general con- a joke," is serious." Just as upon a time" Other terms that earlier,Zeitgeist' puts us inlo a fictional frame, so a dog's baring of cept of a paradigm include, as noted ' This fangs may mark a shift of frame from play to fight. We rvorld view', pottern of culture, and Michel accomplish these mini-paradigm shifts so uncon- last concept is especially interesting' philosopher of his- sciously that we become aware of them only when Foucault, a contemporary French

29 r "on tory, coined the term to mean epistemic domains. In volutionary discontinuity the way toward real - this case,tle term refers mainly to the structures em- ity," for the destinationitself even the idea of r bedded in the language within which the human sci- singular destination- is in question. ences (e.9., sociology, ) are expressed. Language, according to Foucault, unlike the mathe- Once we have several times altered the criteria fq matics of physics,* is itself not neutral. It is a mirror of what counts as reality, the old connotationsof $ the contemporary consciousness and so conditions, termreolity must fall away.We can no longerthink c links, and shapesthe study of human affairs. realityas somethingthat remainsr'r'hat it is no matte r,r'hatpeople think aboutit. A roseb1' any othernam Whether it is called a paradigm or a world view or is still a rose,but an atomby anothername may not b something else,there is a widely held conviction that what peopleused to think they were namingby otom behind the seeming chaosand conflict in intellectual We can no longerthink of realityas trtterlvindepen life there is a pattern, even if temporary. Although dent of human cognition. understandingof it evolvesand shifts with time, that pattern, like a map, is central to underslanding how Certainly,the commonsenseusage of reolity retain change takes place in a society, especially when there its sense,Thinking somethingor stating an opinio: are rapid and deep changesin progress.As we explore doesnot necessarilymake it so. We checkour opip the terrain more carefully, our maps inevitably ions againstreality. But the publicly shareCreality w change. \4/hat appeared to be an island becomes a use to check our privateopinions is nol unchangiq peninsula attached to a continent. As our interests as \^,eonce thought. Instead, the sharedparadigms fs changd and our abilities to map increase,the nature of what countsas realityshift from time to time'Parts 6 our maps changes, becoming richer and more com- an old reality take on new roles as our pe;ceptiond plex. Instead of the solid earth beneath our feet, we reality itself alters.Think of the history of the sud find floating plates colliding with earth-rending and from direct objectof in sun cults to a slightl; mountain-building force. less central role in the colorful narrativesof Gre{ mythology; from the chief body in heavers rhar ri Paradigms, Reality, and Truth volve about the earth to the center of a solar systemil which the earth is but one of several satellites.Ar{ possible paradigm without It is to talk about shifts finally the sun becomes the focus of hopes as a possl facing talk, for instance, as certain implications. Some ble source of energy. These changes alcompanl if it were a new method for ap- only a question of epochal shifts according to which the ull-;nate horl Kuhn's dis- proaching closer to the truth. It is as if zon of human experience is experienced first reliSl tinction between normal science and revolutionary ously, then scientifically or astronomically, and || - and the discon- science between the continuous nally ecologically. - tinuous ivere a merely methodological distinction. I But the implications of Kuhn's thesis are much more Just as the individual changes an opiniot *'henl make break- radical. The point is not only that we does not check with reality, so from time to ttnl reality, but that there throughs in the representationof entire civilizations change their paradig:rs for t{ are fundamental alterations in what counts as reality. concept of reality itself. The difference tetween { So it will merely methodological not do to think of individual's altering an opinion and a ci;ilizationl differences continuity and re- between cumulative altering its paradigm is that the civilization c{ paradigm against realitl' since il.l 'Strictly hardly check its speoking certoin humon-derived since molhemotics hos precisely the paradigm that determines r'r'hatis to slruclures embedded n,ithin it, it is not o purely neutrol medium I o/ expression:i.e., il colors whot con be soid or computed. takenas reality. I I I 30 I THE ST]PPORTFOR A PARADIGM SHIFT

In this section we will explore a number of different opening wedge in challenging the Newtonian disciplines and areas.of inquiry into the nature of paradigm. In the Newtonian view, the world is com- things. Our approach is to examine the history of posed of two fundamentalthings: matterand energy ideas and to focus on the frontier developmentsin existing in the void of absolutespace and time. The : each.What we seekare sharedpatterns of changeand basicequation of Newtonianphysics, F ma,* can be common thr'eadsof ideas.In someinstances there will reduced to these fundamental parameters:m, the be clear anomaliesthat may requirea new paradigm mass,is the measureof matter;o, tie acceleration,is for their resolution.In other areasthe threadsand the variation over time of the rate of movement of patternswill be found in the evolution of ideas. matter through space;F, the force, is linked to the energy required to acceleratethe mass' By under- standingthe laws that governthese basic quantities, Physics we can understandoll of the physical universe. One of the most basic constructs of human life is what we believe about the nature of physical reality. What Matteris composedof very small particles(atoms and is real and what is not? By what mechanisms does subatomicparticles like electronsand protons),which reality function? What are its constituents? These interactthrough such forcesas gravitationand mag- questions have occupied physical scientists and netism. They are assembledinto larger and larger metaphysicians for thousands of years. How they collectionsuntil we find our ordinary world and ul- answer the questions has a profound effect on human timately the cosmic scaleof planets,stars, and exislence. It is one thing to believe that the night sky galaxies.The motionof eachpiece is governedby the is a roof overhead strewn with lights slowly spinning predictable interactionsof gravitational and elec- by and that your fate unlo eternity is in the hands of tromagnetic forces,In most respects,the current spiritual forces beyond your mastery. It is quite a paradigm is capturedby the image of billiard balls different thing to see the same night sky as reaching colliding on a table.Indeed, in most collegephysics off into infinite depth punctuated by distant stars coursesatomic interactionsare modeled in the labo- - around which spin other worlds and to see in that ratory by collisionsof macroscopicobjects of the bil- field of stars a rocket on its way to the moon. One liard ball sort.Thermodynamics, and the concept of perception of reality leads to a sense of a comfortable entropy in particular,complicate this picture by but limited world over which you have little control making most eventsirreversible, i.e., simply reversing but of which you are the center. The other is a vision the order of events may not take you back to your of an empty and intrinsically meaningless universe original conditions.Nevertheless, it is fair to say that over which we are able to exert a certain mastery eventhis amendedview can be calledmechanistic in through science and technology. What we believe to that the analogiesused to understandthe dynamics be possible, especially scientifically and technologi- are simple mechanicalmetaphors. cally, is very much a function of our view of reality. That view has evolved with time, and our under- led to the suppositionthat if we standing appears to be in the midst of another step This view, of course, and velocity of all the parti- forward. knew the location,mass, cles in the universeat any given instant, we could predict the futureby the laws of physics.In turn, this The Current Paradigm paradigm supporteda deterministicmetaphysics. In its mostextreme form, this view held thatsince we are Our current view of the physical vvorlddates mainly composedonly of matterand energy,the behaviorof from the seventeenthcentury and the work of Sir Isaac which is governed by the known laws of physics, Newton; hence it is usually called the Newtonian human fate is simply the inevitable result of the world view. Of course,there have been substantial modificationssince then, especiallythe development of thermodynamicsin the early nineteenlhcentury. 'More accuralely, Newlon's equation described force as equal to the Seen from the present,thermodynamics was the rate of change of momentum, i.e., F : dp/dt.

31 working out of the trajectories of the particles of in the perspective of the observer'The resultss1 which we are composed. particular observationare a function of the relati scale and velocity of the observingand observed51 Embedded within the mechanistic view of the world tems. Space and time, the absolute background are three basic assumptions. The first is that there is a human affairs, lose aspectsof their differenceto the "basi most fundamental level. of reality (i.e., the basic come the space-time continuum, and nou building blocks) composed of the smallest particles building blocks" of matter and energy famous equat and the complete set of forces that govern them' Once mere reflections of each other in the : we find that fundamental level and the lavn'sthat gov- E mc2. ern it, the world will be predictable. Second is the dorn'nfurth assumption that the laws that govern matter and en- The objectivity of the observerbroke Indeterminac ergy on the very small scale must be similar, and rt'ith Heisenberg's discovery of the submicrs- hopefully identical, to those that apply on the very Principle. The central idea was that at the - mert large scale. The governing laws thus should be uni- scopic level any act of measurement even - the thing bei versal, so that u'e ought to be able to build a picture of looking r+'ith light rays disturbs mathematicia planets moving about the sun out of an understanding studied. More recently, the Russian theory,uncet of the particles of r+'hich matter is composed. Finally, Kalmagaroffhas shown that,at leastin but there is the assumption that \{'e, &s observers,can be tainty applied not only to atomic particles to tlr isolated from the experiments and the world we are macroscopic domain of ordinary events. "objective" studying to produce an description. All of these basic assumptions are now being challenged by Thus, our old and enduringpicture of physicalrealit theoretical and experimental findings. is breaking down. We have particles that refuse behave as simple particles, domains that refuseto The notion of a fundamental level of reality is being reduced one into the other, and laws that appll'on challenged in several ways. The searchfor the elusive scale but not another. Most important' vve can n most fundamental particle continues to uncover ever longer leave ourselves out of the equations: what more particles. Rather than a simple billiard ball do affects the results. structure, a far more complex ecology of subatomic structures seems to be emerging in which a single Such profoundrifts in our world view canbe resolve particle observed in different ways transforms into a in one of two ways.One is the accumulationof sma variety of new particles. The very notion of particle advancesthat lead to patchesin the cracks \'luch begins to break down, to be replaced by far more physics in the last half-centuryhas been devoted complex descriptions of field interactions. This in patching the old paradigm - without much succe turn leads to a breakdown of simple models of causal- A second way is to accept the cracks as indications ity. If billiard balls no longer collide in predictable fundamental flaws in that world view. This approac patterns, then the direct causal linkages are less ap- implies the need for a radical restructuring of the so parent. There appears to be a complex of mutually that occurred when we moved from a geocertric to interacting causes leading to a particular outcome. heliocentric view or from the mechanical ur:iverse Newton to the relativistic universe of Einsiein' the first Einstein's theory of relativity was one of current leading edge seems to favor this mo:e radi paradigm in major steps in the direction of a new way. physics. But after setting out the theory, Einstein spent the rest of his life in an unsuccessful quest for description of the the pinciples that would unify our The New Physics very large r.r'iththat of [he very small. The goal was to return to the of a universal model as in the Our emergentpicture of realityis found in tte cu Dav Newtonian paradigrr,. However, it was Eipstein him- work of such physicistsas David Bohn, self who closed the door on universality by bringing Finkelstein,G. F. Chew, RogerPenrose, and )ohn

32 is that not only can Bell. They are making more rigorous what was only An important aspect of this theory but the entire reality hinted at by their predecessorssuch as Bohr, Heisen- the part be found in the entirety, major can also be found in the part' David Bohm, who has berg, and even Einstein, each of whom made "A puts it this way: total contributions to twentieth-century physics and yet explicitly adopted this view, sense, in each remained dissatisfied with the picture of reality that o.ie. is-contained in some implicit paradigm is region of space and time." This enfolding of all of resulted. One foundation of the emergent "implicate the order," known as Bell's Theorem, after John Bell, its r""hty into each point he calls "No reality' Our ordi- originator. The theorem states, theory of reality anottrer name for the nonmanifest dimension into its compatible with quantum theory can requirespatially nary reality is the unfolding of that "explicate" - molecules, and so on' separated events to be independent." In other words, forms atoms, "explicate Bohm, of course, was it is a misconception to seethe universe as made up of This is the order." reality' Planck, the independenl separate parts. Rather, it must be seen as not the first to seethis dual view of Heisenberg described an interconnected network, an indivisible rt'hole. For father of quantum theory, and even see it in the many purposes, such as dealing with the world of it, but less rigorously. One can ancient Greece, who normal human perception, it is useful to consider philosophy of A.tut"goras in "homoeomery"' Ilya Prigogine them as separate, but that does not make them so. ialled it The chemist description also Though their interactions on this level are usually and others have suggested that this poets and mystics' immeasurably small, all events are interconnected. corresponds to the vision of many

dimension of David Bohm makes the distinction between manifest This picture of a complex implicate the very large scale and nonmanifest orders. The manifest order of parti- reality has not yet been applied to and galaxiesbehave cles is what we observe under ordinary conditions. of the cosmos: Why is it that stars the resolu- The nonmanifest order - the fundamental network of as they do? We may find in this approach as black holes interconnections - is a domain like the interference tion oi such strange cosmic phenomena generally, the patterns in a hologram. Holography, conceived math- and the curvature of space. More is leading to- ematically by Dennis Gabor, who won the Nobel Prize theoretical r'r'ork of David Finkelstein a mathematical for his discovery, is a lenslessmethod of ward a more rigorous description in "coherent" which may lead that uses the light of a laser beam reflect- formalism he calls Quantum Logic, way in which our ing off the object to be photographed (see box on toward a precise model for the holograms).The image of reality we are novn'building ordinary reality is generated. toward is in some ways like a hologram. In this view, particles are the result of an underlying structure of The universality that Einstein sought may thus again interference patterns. Thus, particles are really the be restored,but there is no necessaryreason to believe visible tip of a very complex, vibrating domain of so. The situation is at least as likely to be as Rene interference patterns; so that u'hen we observe them Thom, the French mathematician, suggests: in some ways, they appear to be wavelike, u'hile in independentof the other forms of observation they display particle-like To eachpartial system,relatively we assigna Iocal model that accounts behavior. Also, every time we interact with particles, environment, "interfere" qualitativelyand, in the bestcases, quantitatively for its including by observing them, we in new behavior.But vr'ecannot hope, a priori, to integrateall ways, hence new particles are found. But in the theselocal modelsinto a globalsystem. It it were pos- paradigm, particles can no longer be considered mere sible to make such a synthesis,man could justifiably are interconnected in Bell's points of matter; and they saythat he knew the ultimatenature of reality,for there sense in that they have the same origin, the hidden could exisl no betterglobal model' For myself,I think domain of nonmanifest reality that we are now only that this would be extravagantpretension; the era of beginning to explore. Whether we come to call this grand cosmic synthesisended, very probably,with thatanybody nonmanifest reality another dimension, another level, !".,".a1relativity, and it is most doubtful to attempt or another aspect of reality, it is a discovery new to will restartit, nor would it seemto be useful Western science. to do so.

33 ,{nother characteristic results from t}re complex, net- possible to carry out such chemical processes for like picture of.causality that is emerging: we are a part some time, their nature has been mysterious. The of the net. What we do affects the other parts, includ- existing chemical thermodynamics describe ing what we wish to study. This means that any de- adequately how, in a relatively simple polymerization scription of reality must always be partial. We may be reaction, there can be a movement hom a staiionary able to experience the world as it is, but when we try state of low polymer density t.oanother stationaa state to describe it we arbitrarily isolate ourselvesand that of higher polymer density. However, in more ccnplex which we would describe. We always lose something reactions, the possibilities are more extersive. in the process of establishing those boundaries. Prigogine's theory describes how in such a rtaction Hence, no description, model, or theory is ever com- the creation of a new substance (a fluctuation in the plete. What is required is a multiplicity of such solution) leads to an increasing rate of polymel.zation perspectives, each of r+'hich enriches and comple- and more complexity through feedback amcrg the ments the others. newly evolving structures.

Prigogine can be The new physics, if confirmed, provides us with a A biological example taken from iue very lim:ted in radical revision of our image of physical reality. The helpful. Insects such as termites exhibit, especially old view u'as captured by the image of little bits of the kinds of behaviors they can animals- Yet, matter floating in space and interacting by forces. The compared to man and the higher termiies are entirety of existence could be built out of such bits employing only such simple behaviors s'rch as and forces. In both principle and practice, we, as hu- able to build complex and large structures, tons' They firsl erect mans, could stand somehow objectively outside to nests that can weigh several become arch:s and predict and even control the behavior of this material pillars, which are connected to "holographic" The work of co:struc- universe. The emergent view sees the then closed to become walls. be uncoori-nated interconnection of all things. The new physics uncov- tion begins with what appears to swarm aro-nd on ers a ne$' nonmanifest aspect to reality, in which and random behavior. The termites little of matter is the tip of the hidden iceberg. No theory is their construction surface depositing l.les they also give a considered most fundamental: each theory describes building material. To that material the piles of mater::l gets only a portion of a larger, interconnected reality. Fi- slight scent. When one of intensity of sce:t than nally, \'e are part of that reality, not somehou'discon- large enough to have a higher behavior of the termil.s near nected from it, the piles around it, the that pile changes. They start adding material to the Chemistry pile to build first a pillar and then an arch.

In 7977 Ilya Prigogine was awarded the Nobel Prize in This process can be described mathematically in sev- Chemistry for his theory of dissipative structures.His eral equations, which account for both the nndom ground-breaking work has moved us much closer to behavior of insects and their coalescence toward a an understanding of an age-old question: How can a new order. In chemical terms, the random b.havior new order (e.g.,chemical structures) emerge out of an corresponds to a homogeneous solution in eluilib- apparently chaotic, homogeneous old order? rium. From a slightly larger pile or a slightll'higher Prigogine has shown in chemistry (and to some extent concentration, a pillar can begin to appear. Tl'e fluc- in biology) that fluctuations in a system are not tuation is being amplified. The new order appears merely random errors or deviations from the signifi- through the accretion and assembly of such Luctua- cant average: rather, such fluctuations can be the tions. source of a new order. Classical chemical thermodynamics dals pr:rarily - Prigogine's theory was developed to describe very with equilibrium structures structures thei have complex chemical reactions such as the forming of persisted for a long time in an isolated sls';m' A polymers that go into plastics. Though it has been chemical solution in a beaker that has sat for i while

34 with and a crystal are examples of such equilibrium struc- the computer.In this model, which is associated activity is tures. However, there are few (if any) truly isolated the behaviorist , mental through a systems in reality. Interactions with outside environ- the result of electrical impulses moving neuron (a brain ments can introduce new material, energy, or ideas (in neural network in linear sequences.A from pre- the human world), which become fluctuations in the cell) is stimulated electrically by impulses sendsan elec- equilibrium state leading to a new order. Fluctuations vious cells in the sequenceand in turn "on" in the binary in equilibrium chemistry are deviations that become trical impulse (the equivalent of appropriate damped toward a statistical average. In Prigogine's mechanismof a computer)to stimulate with such a model, fluctuations become the essential element neurons downstream. The problem describe,let alone leading to dynamics, chanSe, and evolution. mechanicalmodel is that it cannot explain,such common mental functions as memory or learning. The key notion here for the history of ideas is that difference (fluctuation) produces change. Differentia- For a long time the theory was that somewherein the tion arises from mutually causal processes.Termites brain there were physical memory traces called en- scceler- build piles that attract more termites, which grams,u'hich representedthe location and substance differences leading ates the growth and amplifies the of -"-o.y, as magneticpatterns represent music on a mor- to a new structure. This process can be called pieceof rlcording tape.If one cuts a pieceout of the (heterogeneous) phogenetic, in that new and different iape,there will be a gap in the music.Similarly, that structures arise out of the old structure through a th""ry said that cutting a piece out of the brain ought relies on complex process that amplifies deviation. It to removesomething learned. Karl Lashley,a pioneer reciprocal causality (positive feedback) and interac- in brain research,did just that with animals for 30 not tions with the surrounding environment. It does years.The anomaly in the experimentswas that he rely on a hierarchy of simple causes and determined iorrnd that he could not selectively destroywhat had effects, but rather on a hierarchy of multiple causes beenlearned, That model of mentalfunctioning relies theory, and unpredictable innovations. In systems on the idea,believed to be true then, that brain cells "law variety," Gordon Ashby devised the of requisite are sensitiveonly to on-off signals.Hence, informa- for which shows why this sort of diversity is needed tion couldbe built up only out of sucha limited code' evolution. In the last15 years, Karl Pribramand othersuncovered Out of what appears to be an undifferentiated and two other aspectsof the nature of brain cells' First, static situation, a deviation - if large enough and brain cells are sensitivenot only to the exislenceor replicated elsewhere in the system - can lead to a nonexistenceof a pulse(on-off), they arealso sensitive dynamic and different order. In this way, the infusion to the rateof changeof the pulse or its frequency'This of new ideas into an old culture can lead to social enormously increasesthe amount of information a change, so that Prigogine's chemical model provides a pulsecan ."try. Second,they identifiedthe function of metaphor for the kind of societal change *tis report is " fin" fiber network linking brain cells in parallel in about. The frontiers of knowledge represent the fluc- addition to their normal sequential linkage' Thus a tuations in the solution. When there are enough of wave,like a light wave, can be propagatedinside the them and they are large enough, a r,r'hole new order brain. A complex wave can carry a great deal of in- can arise. formation (seebox on hclograms)'Those waves in turn can interfereto produce an even more complex pattern, leading to the distribution of functions Brain Theory ihroughout the biain' Thus, the simple notion of cells locatedin a single The last two decadeshave been an especiallyrich firing in sequenceand memory with the subtlety period for increasing our understandingof the cellJar location,which cannotcope phenomena'gives way biological basis for mental functioning.The analogy and richnessof human mental field of thought built for understanding the brain in recent years has been to a more complex model of a

35 out of the interactionsand interplay of waves moving often attribute the quality of to it, some- through and.distributedthroughout the neural struc- times going so far as to call it a . The ture of the brain. primary mathematicaltool for the past tlree centuries has been differential calculus.The main constraintin Pribram has shifted the analogy from the computer to applying differential calculus is that the phenomena t}le hologram. Information is distributed throughout it describesmust changesmoothly and continuously. the brain, henceremoving a piece of brain eliminates In many instances,even somewhat rough and discon- little information.Furthermore, the density of infor- tinuous phenomenacan be approximatedby differ- mation can be much greatertlan under the simpler ential equations.However, there are many more model becausea complex interferencepattern can be phenomenathat undergosudden and apparentlyun- decomposedinto I very large number of bits of predictable changes to a qualitatively nert' order. information. Through the lens of differential calculus such phenomenaappear chaotic. Yet, as Thom pointsout The similarity of Pribram'sbrain model to Bohm's in the introductionto his book,the world is obviously quantum physical model has led to a great deal of not chaos.Regularity of form is evident every-u'here: interesting speculation.Perhaps altered states of con- in the similarity of eachof the endlesssuccession of sciousness are differentlevels and kinds of vibratory wavesbreaking on the shore,the cellular structuresof patterns in the brain, as in the different brain wave an organism,and so on. Discontinuouschange, ac- patterns measuredby an EEG.In such statesit may be cording to Thom, can be treatedas the successionof possibleto be in direct contactwith the underlying forms- one structuregiving way to another.This is a vibratory strucfure of the universe as described by shift from quantitative to qualitative change. Thom Bohm. If so, perhapsthat may provide a model for has been particularly successfulat applf ing his how various psychic phenomenacould occur. theoryto biologicalproblems, especially cell growth in embryos. There is alsoa link here to the morphogeneticmodel of change proposedby Prigogine.How do new Thom has derivedseven elementary forms of sudden thoughts arise?Perhaps, as new chemical structures changeor morphogenesis- how one conditiongives "catas- arisein complexchemical reactions, existing patterns riseto a wholly new one.These forms he calls may "catastrophe interactin a complexbut orderedway to produce trophes," thus the name theory'."The - new and unpredictablepatterns or thoughts new sevenare shown in Figure 2. Only the fold and the ideas literally bubbling up out of the old. cusp cen be drawn in their entirety.The othersentail Mathematics morethan threedimensions and hencecannol be rep- resentedon a flat surface.The theory itself is not very If the ideas presentedin the previous few sections complex,though its proof is very difficult. (Thebasic were amenableonly to the imprecisesort of descrip- ideahas been widely accepted,though the pmof that tion used in this report,they would lack a greatdeal. theseseven are the only possiblecatastrophes is still Fortunately, new matlematical ideas have recently controversial.)Essentially it statesthat if a processis emerged which permit a far more rigorous matle- controlled by some functional relationship (called maticaltreatment. They arein themselvesa paradigm maximizing or minimizing functions) of up to four break in mathematics.These ideas are best repre- factorsand its behaviorvaries along no more thantwo sented in the "catastrophetheory" work of Rene dimensions,then the descripticnof all poss:blebe- Thom, describedin his much heralded book Struct- havioraloutcomes of a processcan be representedby urol Stobility ond Morphogenesis. one of the sevencatastrophes. (ln theory, more com- plex phenomenacan be built out of assemblagesof In most areasof science(and now even in analy'tic theseelements,) The simplest catastrophe,the fold, philosophy),the principal tool of descriptionis some has one control dimensionand one behaviordimen- formal model, usually mathematical.{f- the model sion; the cusp catastropheadds another control di- works well in its primary test of prediction, scientists mensionand so on up to the parabolic catastrophe,

36 Flgure2 Formsof CatastroPhe

SWALLOWTAIL FOLD

(f > I U (D

UMBILIC HYPERBOLICUMBILIC ELLIPTIC

I

37 Flgure 2 Forms of Catastrophe(continued) \\\\h\\\\\hh

38 which has the maximum of four control dimensions of the process of evolution has itself evolved since and two behavior dimensions. Darwin and today is different in several important respects. Similarly, our understanding of the nature of An application developed by E. C. Zeeman will help ecosystems has been extended from a static equilib- clarify the power of this new tool. If a dog is angered rium view toward one of ecological evolution, which or enraged, it will usually attack. Conversely, if it is more closely corresponds to the ever-changing frightened, it will usually retreat. However, if it is character of the natural world. both enraged and frightened, as in the normal case,it may suddenly shift its behavior from fight to flight or Though much progress has been made since Darwin, the reverse. This can be described by a cusp catas- the commonly held image of the evolutionary process trophe (see Figure 3). If a dog is enraged and then is almost unchanged. In this view evolution occurs increasingly frightened, its behavior r,r'ill follor,r' a becauseof trvo factors: (1) random mutations of genes, path along the upper ("attack") srtrface tou'ard the u'hich introduce new characteristics into an or- edge of the cusp. When it reaches the edge, the next ganism; (2) interactions with the environment that increment of fear will push the enraged dog over the naturally select those genes most favorable to survi- "chance edge to the lower surface and it will suddenly begin to val. |acques Monod called this process and retreat. If, however, the dog is at first frightened and necessity." There is here I very simple causal model' then successively angered, it will begin by retreating. New characteristicsarise by chance. They are tried in But its behavior will move along the lower surface the real world, and if they make the species in some toward the fold in the cusp. At that point its anger will way more successful, the population of organisms be sufficient to overcome the fear and its behavior will with those characteristics tends to expand at the ex- jump to the upper surface, where it will turn and pense of those without them. attack. As was suggested earlier, such models are useful in that they provide insight into behavior. They Several developments in recent years led to some im- are not. however, theories of behavior that have portant changes in that slmple model, pushing us , despite claims to the contrary. toward a more subtle and complex model. The ex- perimental work of Theodosius Dobzhansky in the The historic significance of catastrophe theory is, rgeor led to one such development. The old model first, in its shift from continuous to discontinuous implied that all the organisms in a given population phenomena and, second, in its ability to describe have almost the same genetic structure; mutation of a qualitative change, The power of catastrophetheory is gene lhen introduces a vector for change. Dobzhansky its potential generalizability. As earlier sections have discovered that the genetic variation among individu- shown, there are new classes of theories in a r+'ide als is actually quite great' Thus, a population can be "pool" variety of disciplines, each of which entail complex conceived of as possessing a large of genes, and suddenly changing structural phenomena. with any individual having some particular subset' Catastrophe theory may be a tool that will lead to a The evolutionary forces hom the environment act, more precise description of mental phenomena in then on a very diverse set of genetic characteristics Pribram's brain theory, or how physical structures already in existence. Mutation merely increases the arise from the underlying vibratory pattern in Bohm's richness of the gene pool in relatively minor ways. Far quantum model. These other developments might more important is the diversity of individuals. have remained in the class of interesting but not use- ful speculations without the availability of the tool of The second concept that modifies the common image catastrophe theory. of evolution is that of the interaction of the individual organism with the real world' That organism can be Biology called a phenotype (the assembly of genetic charac- teristics that biologically define an individual) in that In two subdisciplinesof biology, aspectsof the emer- it possessesa specific set of characteristics(hair color, gent paradigm are visible at the frontiers. The model skin tone, etc.) due to its genetic makeup. Earlier

39 Flgure 3 Model of AggresslonIn Dogs

BEHAVIOR qI IFIFAr:F AVOIDING CATASTROPHE

FLIGHT CATASTROPHE

RETREATING

BEHAVIOR

40 evolutionary theory dealt with changeat a level in a Consider, for example, fishing in the Great Lakes. statistical fashion. However, the forces of the envi- There were problems even before the massive intro- ronment act on whole organisms, not genes. When duction of pollutants. Before 1930,a variety of species that view is taken, a somewhat different picture wereintensively fished. This, of course,led to a rapid emerges of the interactive role of environment and decline in their population. When fishing pressure organism.Some organisms,especially man, can eased,the theory would suggest,the fish should have modify their environmentsor moveto new ones.They comeback. Yet their decline continued.The particu- can becomeadapted in particularways to their envi- lar ecos5'stemhad been shifted from a stableequilib-' - ronment (e.g.,grow strongerfrom use of muscles). rium domainto a collapsingcondition. Though it had Adapting to environmental stress then becomes an beenstable, the systemwas not very resilient in that it underlying force for evolution. Though particular could not recoverfrom a large disturbance.Resilience adaptationsare not transmittedfrom one generation is a new concept,then, counterposedto stability' to the next,adaptability becomes a meta-characteristic in that sense. Resilienceresults from a combinationof adequatedi- versity(heterogeneity), mutually supportiverelation- Conrad Waddington, the evolutionarybiologist, re- ships(symbiosis), and open subsystemsthat arecapa- cently put it this way: ble of sudden to new regimes.Thus, a survivableecosystem is not necessarilyone that is in lerms of the selection of Once r,r'econsider evolution - oneswith only small phenotypes which are produced by the deveiopment of stable.Highly stablesystems a sample of genes dra'"r'nfrom a large gene pool, under fluctuations- tend to have narrow and often shrink- the influence of an environment v''hich is both selected ing domains of stability. Sudden perturbationscan by the organism and then selectsthe organism, we find push them over a threshold toward extinction or a that biological evolution, ourselves forced to conclude new state.This was the casewith the closed'highly al the subhuman level, is a matter of interlocking even Lakes' Up to a point, the seriesof open-ended, cybernetic,or circular processes.* stablesystem of the Great impact of fishing was tolerable;but beyond that, in In other words, biological systems evolve through concert with new predators (the lamprey), com- pushed complex, mutually causal processes. The question of petitors(the alewife),and pollutants,fishing how species evolve from one qualitative condition to the formerly stable system toward extinction. another can best be seen in the theory of ecology. Holling uses the example of the budworm to de- In understandingecosystems, we again find that the monstratet}le conceptof resilience. common image is at variancewith contemporary There have been six outbreaks of the spruce budworm findings. Our cumentimage is that an ecosystemhas since the early 1700s (Baskerville, 1971), and between some optimal stable condition. If a properly func- the outbreaks the budworm has been an exceedingly tioning ecosystemis disturbed,forces from within the rare species.When the outbreaks occur there is a major system will act to return the system to its optimal destruction of balsam fir in all the mature forests, leav' stablestate. The obviousexample is the predatorand ing only the less susceptible spruce, lhe nonsusceptible the prey. The predatoroverfeeds and its food supply white birch, and a dense regeneration of fir and spruce' suffer less damage and more diminishes. Then its numbers in turn diminish, at The more immature stands fir survives. Between outbreaks, the young balsam leastlocally. Somemove on, some starve,and so on, grow, together with spruce and birch, to form dense allowing the prey to flourishagain. The cycle is then itands in which the spruce and birch, in particular, Un- repeatedendlessly around that stableoptimum. suffer from crowding. This process evolves to produce fortunately, that image does not always match the stands of mature and overmature trees with fir a pre- reality. dominant feature.

This is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for the of an outbreak; outbreaks occur only when 'See and l{addington in t}re Bibliography.The quote is appearance )antsch dry years from p. 15. there is also a sequence of unusually [We]-

41 lington, 1952). Until this sequence occurs, it is argued of truth, Plato's Diologues introduced the ldeas or (l''lorris, 19.63)that various natural enemies with lim- Forms representingthe common characteristicsof all ited numerical responses maintain the budworm membersof a given kind. Whether one was talking populations around a low equilibrium. If a sequenceof abouthorses or aboutjustice, the standardfor what it dry years occurs when there are mature stands of fir, the is to be a horse,or what it is to be just, was presumed populations rapidly increase and escapethe budworm to be a unifying Ideaor universolheld in commonby control by predators and parasites. Their continued all particularhorses, or by all instancesof iustice.The increase eventually causes enough tree mortality to philosopherwas to gain accessto those force a collapse of the populations and the reinstate- task of the first' the eter- ment of control around the lower equilibrium. In brief, eternalForms, for then he would know, between outbreaks the fir tends to be favored in compe- nal standardsof an unchanging Truth; second,the tition with spruce and birch, whereas during an out- essencesbehind historical existence;and third, the break spruce and birch are favored becausethey are less unifying formulasfor all classesof thingsand . susceptible to budr+'orm attack. This interplay with the budworm thus maintains the spruce and birch, r'r'hich All that has changed,in three ways that *e might otherwise r,r'ouldbe excluded through competition. The call: fir persists because of its regenerative powers and the interplay of forest growth rates and climatic conditions o From Eternity to History that determine the timing of budworm outbreaks.If we . From Essentialismto view tle budworm only in relation to its associated o From Forms to Family Resemblances' predators and parasites,we might argue that it is highly unstable in the sensethat populations fluctuate widely. to History - The sense of almost in- But these very fluctuations are essential features that From Eternity \\'asvirtu' maintain persistenceof the budworm, together with its evitable progressthat we take for granted natural enemies and its host and associatedtrees. By so ally unknown to the ancients.Certainly, there were fluctuating, successive generations of forests are re- cyclesof growth and decay,but the standardsof per' placed, assuring a continued food supply for future fection - the Forms- wereunchanging and thought generations of budworm and the persistenceof the sys- to be the same for everyone everywhere' Of course, * tem. there were hereticalexceptions, but not until the nineteenth century did mainstream philcsophers The old biological paradigm concentrated on the roles fully appreciatethe import of historicalcharge in the "chance of and necessity"in evolutionand of stability structureof rationalityitself. Though Vico ar-dHerder in ecosystems.In the new paradigm,both evolution had begun to order history in distinct epochs,at the and survival are a function of interactingdiversity, end of the eighteenthcentury could fluctuation,adaptability, openness, and resilience. still accept Aristotle's list of the funiamental Ecosystemsevolve through the complex of mutually categoriesof cognition'But the importanceof subjec- causalprocesses. Indeed, current studiesof speciesin tive perspectivewas appreciatedby Kant. His con' major nature preserves tend to confirm this non- tribution to the theory of knowledge consistedin equilibrium view of ecosystems.In those preserves, showing that the forms manifestin experiencederive which are not very large, evolution seemsto be at a from subjective consciousness,not from some Sreal standstill and the very survival of the affectedspecies blueprint in the sky, not from some distantrealm ol is in doubt. Platonic Forms. Kant accountedfor our perceptual agreementsby appealingto universally sharedsub' Philosophy jective categoriesin place of the objectivePlatonit Forms. As statedearlier, in a senseit was Kant whc The word philosophy derives from Greek roots first realizedthe importanceof a paradigmas a way ol meaningthe of wisdom.Philosophers were those seeingthat determineswhot is seen' who soughtafter eternal truths. As eternalstandards But Kant still thought himself to be uncoiering an '/ontsch ond Woddington, pp. 8O-87 eternalparadigm, albeit within human consciousness

42 It was Hegel who first appreciatedthe importance of the works of Heideggerand Sartre,means that our acts paradigm "conversions shiftsor, in hii phrase, of con- and our achievements- our relationshipsin the his- sciousness."For Hegel, history is more than a torical present - do more to determine our sequenceof events.History shows us an evolution in than do any indwelling essences.We do not find the very consciousnessthat participates in those ourselves;we creote our lives hom the little we can "rag events,e.g., from Athenian culture to Christiancul- find in the and bone shop of the heart." ture, from religioussuperstition to the rationalistEn- lightenment. We cannot assume,as Kant did. that Like history conceivedas progress,individual lives modern consciousnessobeys the samerules observed may produce noveltiesundreamt of when time was "moving and classifiedby Aristotle. viewed as the image and poor copy of eter- nity." Existentialismis thus a microcosmicexpres- WhereasHegel historicizedKant's eternalparadigm sion of the macrocosmicperspectivism revealed in into the lumberingmovement of a World Spirit, Marx historical conversionsof consciousness.fust as an- and Nietzschefurther radicalizedthe fall from eternal cient,consciousness may differ from modern con- Forms. Hegel saw differencesof consciousness sciousness,so my childhood consciousnessis not a breakingdown into broad epochs;Marx saw similar fixed essencedetermining my adult existence.Exis- differenceswithin the sameepoch: "class conscious- tenceprecedes essence. I will makemyself who I am. ness" is a way of seeingthings - a paradigm.The perspectiveof the ruling classis such that it can see FromForms to Fomily Resemblonces- Of the several somethings but must remainblind to others;likewise functions served by Platonic Forms, one remained ..false for the proletariat.Hence the phrase conscious- unchallengedas late as t}le twentieth century. Kant ness,"or what GunnarMyrdal, in his analysisof good underminedthe objectivity of the Forms by finding "selective Christian slave owners, calls objectivity." formal structureswithin subjective consciousness. For Nietzschethis shatteringof a universalorder ex- Hegel and his more radical followers challengedthe tends beyond epochs (Hegel)and classes(Marx) to eternalstability of the Formsby drawing attentionto evensmaller groups, even to individual perspectives. conversionsof consciousnessin collectivehistory as His so-calledperspectivism ushers in the movement well as in individual biography. But Ludwig known as Existentialism. Wittgensteindealt the final blow to the platonic paradigmby questioningthe universolity ostensibly From Essentiolismto Existentiolism - Whereasplato provided by the Forms. pointed toward abstract Ideas that stand apart from their physical instances,Aristotle questionedthe Thougha strongodor of Socraticirony hangsover the separability of form from matter. He stressedin- relevantdialogues, Plato's more orthodoxinterpreters dwelling essences.Like the Forms, however, these takehim to haveintended the Forms as universalsin unchangingessences give characteristicform to their the sensethat eachForm unified a classof particulars respectivematerial instances.The paradigm caseis by specifyingone thing they all had in common.The organic growth, e.g., from acorn to oak; or, as the Form of Rednesswould be the unifying elementheld ,,plant words from The Fontosticksput it, a carrot,get in commonby all red things; the Form of Man would a camot,not a brusselsprout." be the one thing sharedby all men; and so on. Two thrngs could be said to resemble one another by As the singer,a father,goes on to lament,children are partakingof the sameForm. Although many phi- less predictable.Unlike acorns or carrots,children losophersdisagreed over the precise definition of cannot be counted on to replicate their parents.De- a given Form, say the Form of ,most accepted spite obvious biological inheritances,human charac- enough of the Platonic argument to grant that some ter does not seem to follow from indwelling eternal sort of universals,whether objective or subjective, essences;instead, in the words of the fundamental eternalor historical,must be availableto unify the "Existence axiom of Existentialism, precedeses- many usesof the same word or concept.Hon' could sence."This saying,found in variousformulations in we understandone another if there wasn't some

43 Instead,tle work single meaning of friendship, for example, some climb an orderedhierarchy of Ideas. single reference for the many uses of tho word friend? of philosophers has become more modest and more closelytied to the manifestmultiplicity evidentto the \\'ittgenstein iook a different tack. Instead of assum- senses.Modern philosophy has surrenderedits ing that there hod to be a single element, known or quasi-theological aspirationsof findi ng eternaltruths. unknown but nonetheless common to all uses of the the fabled same word or concept, he argued that the several uses One seeks the key to the universe, when one retainsan image of a single word might be tied together by nothing philosophers'stone, only of knowledge as sealedby a single lock. Now lan- stronger than a series of what he called fomily re' a vast multiplicity of semblonces.Every game, for example, might resemble guagesare regardedas holding philosopherstrained in some other in some respects,but there seemsto tanglesto be unraveledby analysishas replaced be no single feature shared by all games. Rather than logic and linguistics.Patient specializationhas appeal to a uniff ing Form to find the meaning of a grand synthesis.Professional Ratherthan seekgen- rvord. we do better to look at the several uses to which pushedaside inspired insight. philosophersrest content a u'ord may be put. Those uses may resemble one eral truths, conternporary A philosopheris another; indeed, they may revolve around one or sev- with exposingspecific confusions. "paradigm for understanding eral cases."But paradigm casesprovide a more likely to build a repulation use adverbsthan for any- much looser unity to a class - as different from the the deep structureof the of professional Forms as resemblance is different from identity. No thing as grandas wisdom. Consequently, disciplines,has become longer need trvo things share the some element to philosophy,like many other studies rightfully claim membership in the same class; now decentralizedinto a variety of specialized resembJonceto relevant or related paradigm cases is held togetherby the loosestof family resemblances' presidingover a sufficient. One might say that class membership has No longerthe handmaid of like the Platonic been democratized from the fiat of the Forms. hierarchyof disciplines,philosophy, Forms,has been democratized. Philosophy *as once regarded as the handmaid of theology. In the hands of defenders of the faith, phi- Political Theory losophy could boast its accessto ultimate truths. The Political power, according to Max Weber, rests with Platonic-Christian tradition presented the universe as those who have a monopoly on the legitimate use of an ordered hierarchy. The dominion of the Lord of violence within I commonwealth' The question Lords stood as a model for secular Ideas of ldeas. Plato arises: by what authority do political leaders claim wrote of a realm of Ideas or Forms providing a kind of legitimacy in their exercise of power? The question of eternal blueprint in the sky for all earthly things, from legitimacy yields a series of answers demonstrating tables and chairs to and justice. The task of the the shift of paradigms. philosopher was to move beyond the many things evident to the senses;he was to ascend a stairway of One might be inclined to consider brute force as the But brute abstraction to reach the ldeas. ]ust as the Idea of cir- first answer to the question of legitimacy' cularity would provide a unified standard of perfec- force need not claim legitimacy, only the strergth to "legitimate" tion for many imperfect circles, so every other class or have its way, or not' Primitive conquest kind would be unified by an Idea to which the mind of or association does not become politics, strictly the philosopher rvould find access. speaking, until leaders can claim legitimacy for their authority, The divine right of kings, for example, was If monotheistic theology provided a paradigm for an early and elegant - even if currently unconvinc- Platonic-Christian philosophy, Wittgenstein's family ing - answer to the question of legitimacy' The tra- resemblances provide a comparably influential and dition of noturol right follows divine right as closely opposed paradigm for contemporary philosophy. No as Aristotle's immandnt essencesfollow Plato's trans- longer does one hear of vast systems designed to cendent Forms. Legitimacy derived from natural right

M rests on a real and eternal order in the nature of aspectof tacit contracts,we experiencethe invented things, while divine right appeals to a transcedent institutions of politics once sgain as parts of a fixed order for legitimacy. And, just as eternal essences order of nature.This relapseinto the old paradigm is gave way to historical existencein philosophy, so in not solely a matter of "forgetfulness." As the institu- political theory statutoryfiats for all time gaveway to tions grow and bureaucraciesbecome entrenched, the a common-law tradition in which there is a recogni- inventive and vol;r,.. y origins become ossified or tion of a history of growing and slowly altering petrified like living growth turned to stone.Although earthly precedents,such as the series of paradigm this is not the placeto attemptthe grand solution to casesin which the courtshave been called on to alter the problem of institutionalossification, we note the precedents for the proper definition of equal oppor- problem to account for the otherwise confusing ap- tunity and .The timelessorder of gods, pearanceof a mix of paradigmsin contemporarypoli- monarchs, and patriarchsis democratized.The tics. The ancientparadigm of down-from-the-topau- paradigm of down-from-the-topauthority yields to an thority has been challengedby a relationalparadigm order in which legitimacyderives from participation, featuring voluntary associationin invented institu- representation,and consentof the governed. tions. Becausefreely evolving historiesof human re- lationshipsmay collectivelyinvenl different institu- Though political theory hardly bears a perfect corre- tions, liberal politics is inherently pluralistic. Once spondence with political fact, it is nonethelesswortl liberated from the uniformity of nature, human his- noting hop sharply the ideals of liberal democracy tories may evolve in several (though not all) and Marxism alike differ from the dominantconcepts directions,Both individualistic and collectivistic of authority prior to the age of revolution.Until the societieshave their strengthsand weaknesses.What time of Rousseau.the universewas divided into Earth we gain in individual we lose in capacityfor and Heaven, or sublunary and celestial (Aristotle),or long-rangeplanning, and versa for socialist the realm of Becomingand the realm of Being[Plato). societies.The attempt to settle the matter of which In each case,the blueprint of the "higher" was fixed societyis "better" may be as foolish as the attemptto and only darkly evidentin the "lower." To legitimate resolve,once and for all, the relative merits of team authority wasto turn one'sback on ih" Io*u, and,like sportsover individual competition.|ust as there are a priest or oracle,seek authoritative counselfrom on severalgames related by family resemblances,and no high. All that has changed.Now the universeis one Form of the PerfectGame, so political organiza- divided, not betweenthe lower and the higher,but tions proliferate. If these organizations ossify, we between the natural order whose laws are fixed and a sometimesforget that their plurality is an index of historical order whose laws are subjectto human freedom. We are then inclined to revert to the old freedom. We are making up the order as we go along. paradigm and aspire to the Platonic Form of a Perfect Therefore, the sourcesof political legitimacy cannot Politics that would homogenize all our bothersome be traced to any singular origin, whether a divine differences. authority or a natural order. Instead, legitimacy derives from the tacit contractsforged in relationships That searchfor a PerfectPolitics is associatedwith the among the governed.Politics is like a gamethat sim- forces for centralizationand .The ply does not exist unlessenough peopleare playing contemporary decentralistthrust, along with the ac- by the rules. The voluntary and inventive characterof tive resistanceto entrenchedauthority in its current games replacesthe necessaryand fixed order of the form of the tax revolt, may representa new attempt to cosmcsas the dominantparadigm for postrevolution- recreatethe voluntary and participatory nature of the ary politics - at least according to theory. new political paradigm.The shift in paradigmis from politics that rest on a staticideal ()based.on In fact, the ancient paradigm of down-from-the-top some necessaryorder found in the nature of things authority persistsin dictatorshipsand totalitarianre- toward a politics based on voluntary associationin gimes. More subtly, when we forget the voluntary evolving forms.

4= uniqueness of tures of Ianguage that reflect the Linguistics . dramatic The paradiSm shift in linguistics is more philoso- ,f-t.r ift" more gradual evolution observedin breakthroughdates from oni "* politiclaltheory. The Consciousness de Saussureat the end of the evidence in itself ih" *o.t of Ferdinand Recent attention to consciousness is Prior to Saussure'linguists had for con- nineteenth century. ;i;t;tf, in paradigms' When the Paradigm with deriving etymologies: (tobulo roso)' con- been mainly-ttt" preoccupied sciousness was a tlant< tablet of rvords' As for the origins of than contents they traced ttirto.i"s ;;i;;;""tt seemed less interesting of prehistoryencouraged Now' however' we theiirst words,the obscurity recorded on its passive surface' occasionallyby speculationson that consciousness is a silencebroken only have become aware of the fact "bow-*ow that primitive words more like a the hyiothesis": not-iigfrf some passive medium but is instead resemblances kinds of gainedtheir meani.,gsf'om sound-alike selective filter that allows only certain thel'named' e'g'' the bark v is al- Io the nonlinguisticintities information to enter awareness'Consciousness all that' ":t take in every- of a dog. Saussurechanged ways partial or perspectival: we.d" portion of the avail- tf,irrg, Uut only a p,"p'og.r"-med between consciousness is In place of one-to-onecorrespondences able information. Furthermore' a word and are words and r,r'hatthey named, or between plural in the sense that several consciousnesses how words different ways at the its historical roots, Saussureshowed often processing information in context derived their meaning from their relational same time. Rot (in German) meanslhe within an entire l".tgt,""ge' "sounds not becauseeither of consciousness same as red (in E.tgilttt-), Both the partiality and the plurality red, ot becausethey have a common order of social sys- like" the color "." -unii"st in the -"t'o"t'-ic sounds like or names red; both order of individual root that somehow ;;;t ; well as in the microcosmic both play similar roles or are used practitioners of sociol- meanred because brains. In the social order' the ,"rp".ii"" linguistic and behavioral "faise.consciousness"'by similarly in their .rV .f knowledge speak of would put it' the use of red is so entrenched in a contexts.As Wittgenstein which they mean a mind-set that resemblesthe use of rot' Their usesfit into relational that it-cannot see things hom ;j;;; ;;; of thinking Those structures are similar' despite dif- chargeof partiality is' of structures. Itoth". ioint of ,,i"'"i rnit terms - Germanon the one ferencesin the linguistic course,mutual;eachpointofviewdeclaresopposed other' Saussurethus posits the hand, English on ihu perspectivesguilty of falseconsciousness' "arbitrariiess of the sign": the spoken sound or writ- with respect to its ten shape of a word is arbitrary of single minds' there is lo- Similarly, within the workings *"".rirrg. What determinesmeaning of a word rationality tradition that regardslinear-deductive Structural relations constitute the is a cation in a conlext. way to think; and anothertradition its meaningfrom asthe only correct meaningof a term;i.e', a word draws wholes rather than stressesthe intuitiu" g'"'p of its relafionship to other elements of a linguistic suggests(1) analysisinto parts.Recent brain research suchas a sentenceor a phrase'The otomism differently sbucture, two halves of the brain function and built up secondary rela- that the tlat began v,'ith terms in the serviceof both analyticand a structurolism (not better o, *orrlj tions airong the terms now yields to and (2) the entire arbitrary' holistic consciousness(Ornstein); for which tf,e physical form of the terms is bits locatedin brain storesinformation, not in discrete primary' Thus' we seein linguistics The relationsare in a distributedfashion (Pribram)' paradigm shift in rp".ifi" cells, but a phenomenon similai to the are different states it Cjth", researchsuggests that there physics.The particleis no longer an isolatedatom; different conscionr.,"rr"i"hich are qualitatively by a complex of relationships with of i", U""r, replaced (Tart) and that thesemay be arrange.d deeper' even less visible from each other other particles a.td with a like the electromagnetic from its ir, ,o-" sort of ,p""tt'*' ieality. Similarly, the word draws its meaning struc- spectrum (Wilber)' interactions wiih other words and the deeper

46 to the classic paradigm of a The neurophysiology of the brain thus provides a formed in some respects struggling for control' Freud's kind of microcosmic hologram for the macrocosmic single inner steersman influences on behavior study of consciousness in social systems. In both or- o*i dir"ouery of unconscious chink in the armor of con- ders, the old hierarchies - based on claims to a single already op".rld a large "objective" "correct" and consciousness - have scious self-control' given way to acknowledgments of a plurality of dif- analogousto the simple ferentiated, partial, and possibly complemenlary con- The singular self is, perhaps, It is not surprisingthat sciousnesses. Neurophysiologist Warren McCulloch causesof Newtonian-physics. having adopted this mechanical suggests the term heterorchy to describe such sys- psychology, on behavioral and experimental temi, in which several principles (orchoi) combine in -"t"pho.,-iocused psychology ignores subjective processing information' Although the displacement directions. Traditional claimingthat only that which is objective of hierarchy often provokes fears of anarchy, the point experience, - - is subiectto meaningful study' is that there is a middle ground. It is not necessaryto i.e., behavior "anything entire subjectivecontents of the mind choose between goes" (anarchy), and fal- Along with the unconscious,to be treatedas a barbarian ling back on the old paradigm of one highest principle is buried the (hierarchy); instead, a heterarchy processesinforma- in need of taming' tion according to several guiding principles on a par a proliferationof psychologies with one another. Recentyears have seen that abandonthe classicalmodel of singular selfhood more decentralizedmodels' Jung was the If all work and no play makes fack a dull boy, so all in favor of ego-psychologyby speaking of a play and no work makes |ill a dumb bunny' Similarly, first to challenge - unconscious scripts or the exclusive cultivation of analytic ability leaves one multiplicity of of which might take control given blind to the synthetic workings of whole systems, programs,any one cues. while the exclusive cultivation of tle larger vision the appropriate may leave one blind to specifics. Though we are here ('IA) uses game theory to de' straying beyond the specifics of consciousness re- TransactionalAnalysis players in our relationships search, we can hardly find a better example of the scribe the way we shift In place of archetypes workings of analytic and synthetic consciousnesses with othersand with ourselves' manifest in Greek mythology' than that presented by the contrast between Keynes- modeled on the roles the self as a triumvirate includ- ian and Marxist economics, respectively. Marxism TA adopts a model of adult, and a child' Each assumesa offers an integrated vision of the entire sociocultural ing a parent,an by its title, and behaves ac- system, but never quite reaches the finer points of peispective suggested predictable preferences'Rather than microeconomic pricing theory. Keynes and Samuel- cotdi.tg to its the self is in control, TA seeks to son tell us all we want to know about the dynamics of asking whether incoherentbehavior by asking supply and demand, but leave us in need of a undeitand apparently "economics in which behaviors'and how Schumacher to remind us of an as if which self is in control to one another' The approach people really mattered." the severalselves relate is at once perspectivaland relational'

Psychology Psychosynthesis,another school of contemporary divides the self into a multiplicity The paradigmshift in contemporarypsychology takes therapy,similarly Again,the attemptis to articulate the ftrm of a challengeto the age-oldmetaphor of the of ,.riiur.onalities. "captain not merely as a part of the self but as self or psyche as a singular of the ship"' eu.h p".sonality fairly complete personality with Freud, the father of modern psychology,likened the a self-containei and persPective' ego to a charioteer trying to control the contrary its own wishes of two horses:the instinctualdemands of the efforts of theseand other contempor- id, and the socially responsiblerestraints of the The therapeutic are increasingly oriented toward a supereSo.Though Freud'sego-psychology thus con- ary psychologies

t7 of self-expectationsand expectations of others "field t}eory" of psychic disturbances'Rather than role in affecting performance,and on the improvement regarding piychoses and neuroses as somehow lo- of p"rfo.m"nce levelthrough enhancingself-image' separate,atomistic psyches,the newer ..i.d *lthin On the sociallevel researchfindings arebuttressing sspects of com- therapies stress the transpersonal the intuitive wisdom that one of the most important Information theory contributes a model society is its vision of itself munication. characteristicsof any "or- of selfhood as an open rather than a closed system' and its future, what Boulding (196a) calls i.e.,as engagedin a contextwhich suppliespart of the ganizing images."The validity of the self-fulfiliing "self." image appearsto meaning of The locus of mental health is no i.oph"& and the self-realizing longer the individual, or even the family, but a net- grow steadilYin confirmation' woik extending to community and culture' Modern psychology thul manifeststhe significant featuresof Religion and SPiritualitY ifr" .r"* it is a field theory that stressesthe faradigm' "As above,so below," goesback to the decentralizationof psyche into a multiplicity of The statement, Vedic tradition and survives in the West selves,each maintaining its own perspectiveon an ancient Gnostic and Hermetic cults' Needlessto experience that is ever subject to differing inter- through the r"V, ifttt" cults and their alchemical descendants pretations. to the itl"" ""l"yed only heretical statu-snext "rt"blith-"nt' In the hierarchical Thus, we see a movement from a relatively simple' Platonic-bhristian "above" and ' what is mechanisticparadigm limited by a needfor objectiv- order of "below'" radically from what is To claim ity toward " *o." subtle, complex, and relational diff"., is blasphemy.The cosmic hierarchy had a paradigm. Willis Harman has suggestedthat this oth".*ise in its proper place;and image of the human pi".u fo. each a.td pui each th"ngJl""ds to a very different The Holy there was room at the top for only one' psyche: that Roman Empire was I living expression of Monotheism and nodern of the individual human being pyramidal cormic order' (a) The potentialities od hoc hipoth- greater, in extent and diversity' than we ,.i".r." both do away with apparently are far but super- ordinariiy imagine them to be, and far greaterthan eses,from Ptolemaic epicyclesto colorful is uneeces- currently in-vogue models of man would lead us to fluous gods and goddesses'Polytheism wonen as think possible. sary to"" c,tltrr.e that regardsall men-and copiesof the sameForm of Man' a Forrr casl (b) A far greaterportion of significant human experi- imierfect is of a single God' ence than we ordinarily feel or assumeto be so in the image comprised of unconsciousprocesses This includes Empire' there has beena not only the sort of repressedmemories and mes- Since the fall of the Roman first' LeeRe- sagesfamiliar to us through psychotherapy'It in- ;;"Jy erosion of theological auster^ity: "the sects' clJdes also wisdom of the body" and those for-Jtio., spawneda proliferation of Protestar:l further mysterious realms of experiencewe refer to with lhet ,eligious fre"dom in the New World "" Accessto such words as and "' liberalizel the questionof belief' Now our spiituality is apparently facili- in the sense these unconscious processes it-"",fti"g shoi of poly'theistic,not only variety of factors' including atten- but in the tated by a wide "free that different cults woiship different gods' to feelingsand ,inner attention' tion sensethatsomeoftheincreasinglypopulalbelie| association,"hypnosis, sensory deprivation' hal- systemsare explicitly poll'theistic' lucinogenicand psychedelicdrugs' and others' pro- poll-theism (c) Included in thesepartly or largely unconscious From the perspectiveof the old paradigm' internalized expecta- pa:adigm' cessesare self-expectations' is the .r-,rr" of thu heathen;within the new of the self and limitations of p3rspec' tions of others,images polytheism is a spiritual manifestation of the self, and images of the future' which play a a p-urality l"it*. That is, polytheismacknowledges predominantrole in limiting or enhancingactuali- exceliences of divine p"rrp".iiues, stances'and zation of one's capacities'These tehd to be self- demonstratesthe important disiinction fulfilling. Much recentresearch has focusedon the Polytheisrn

€ retween relational and pernicious tions between polytheism and the new paradigm: elativism. Polytheism is not omnitheism: it is not the pluralism, perspectivism,tolerance, and the mirror- asethat oll is permitted. Only some - but more than ing of the macrocosmin the microcosm adds up to a Ine - are sacred.The distinction is important. With- pattern showing why those who worry about 'ut it the first step away from the monotheistic genocide also object to pesticides.A consciousness raradigm looks like a step out onto a slippery slope that thinks it can do away with pests in the name of hat leads into the depths of an insipid relativism agricultural perfection may be tempted to do away "You levoid of any standardswhatever: like what you with certain people in the name of human perfection. ike, I like what I like." As polytheism demonstrates, But the problem is deeperthan a question of which "pests" "wrong rerspectivismneed not slide into that slough. There organismsare or who arethe people." re many ways up to Mt. Olympus, and room at the The problem concernsour paradigm for perfection:an op for more than one; but the top is still quite differ- austereorder or a rich ecology?It is a choicebetween nt hom sealevel in its intensitiesof excellence.The learning to live with plurality and otherness,or tatement "As above, so below" is not a leveling attempting to eradicate differences by regimenting aanifesto,not a denial of distinctions.The point is uniform adherenceto a single ideal Form. ather to acknowledge the humon characterof what- ver is sacred for humans. In their dramas and in- The Arts rigues the polytheistic sanctify human life by The paradigm shift is nowhere more evident than in iving it themselves,but on a level toward which the arts, both in the content of particular arts and in rortals can only aspire. the politics, so to speak,of the art world, The esthetic principles and movementsthat guide the art world aro n addition to perspectivismand the manifestationof "As shapedby and help shapethe intellectual revolutions acred macrocosmin human microcosm in above, discussed earlier. is an across-the-board o below," polytheism demonstratesa third featureor battle against establishedforms, and against the in- orollary of the new paradigm, namely, a kind of stitutions that would educateand pass iudgment on cologically sensitive tolerancefor difference which, aspiring artists.It is not a denial of the greatnessand gain, is not equivalent to "Anything goes." Histori- enduring of the works of Shakespeare,Rem- ally, the most vicious religious wars have been brandt, or Bach. The nature of the art we createis a rught by monotheistic cultures for whom total con- reflection of our times as theirs was of their own uest (reflecting a total intolerancefor difference)was periods in history. te only satisfactory solution. Polytheistic cultures ray trade the dream of perpetual peacefor occasional The sonataform that dominatedmusical composition order skirmishes,but at leastthey are not perpetually in the eighteenthand nineteenthcenturies flourished :mpted into wars to end all wars. in the relatively stablecontext of courtly patronage' The strict progressionsof tonal changesand return to leadsto spirit as some- lonotheism an image of the the tonic or home key reflectedthe aristocraticorder row "out there." We imperfect humans may be of the context.When composerslike Mahler, Wagner, by that spirit, but not the spirit or part ouched we are and Stravinski began to monkey with odd tonalities, ,f along with a it. It is therefore not surprising that, their audienceswere moved to riot' Finally, Schoen- away from the mechanical uni- urning objectified, berg abandonedthe entireconcept of a tonic or central erse, there is a turning to inner spiritual sources. might re- 'his key around which harmonic progressions focus on immanence is found both in the expe- *roiu" ", around a fixed center' Today the different and in the that focus on iential schools and genres of music are so varied one can the route aeditation as to the divine. hardly imagine t}e scorecard'much less follow the score. o summary, the contemporary revival of polytheism ; not to be dismissed as a regressionto prescientific Similarly with literature:there was a time not too long uperstition. A closer look revealssystematic connec- ago when there were relatively few cenhal works of

49 literature.Their unquestioned greatnessestablished a water Arc), and the desert (Michael Heizer's excava- corrunon fund'of images to which the literate could tions in the Mojave). allude with confidence that their readersor hearers could draw from the same well. All that has changed, In 1969 Samuel Beckett, the Irish playwright and as any collegeteacher can tell. The fund of imagesin a poet, was awarded the Nobel Prize. His best-k'rown freshman English class is an utterly unpredictable work is Woiting for Godot, a play in which literally mix drawn from the Bible and Bob Dylan, Mark Twain nothing happens;Godot never shows up' Th: two and SesameStreet, Kurt Vonnegut,Milton, and yes- main charactersdon't even know why they arewait- terday's newspaper. And any of the above may be ing for him. It is not reachingtoo far to draw a paiallel - missing from any individual's repertoire.Nor is this with Heisenberg'sIndeterminacy Principle man diffusion restricted to freshmen. Among seasoned stumbling along in a world guided only by the acci- professionalsone finds a proliferationof cults, little dents of probability rather than by lransce-dent magazines,and specializedsocieties, any one of meanings.Both the form and the contentof this mas- which may worship literary deities altogetherdiffer- terwork of twentieth-centuryliterature are a ma-rifes- ent hom any other. Is it any wonder, then, that an tation of the breakdown of the old paradigm. aspiring author or poet can feel free to 8o it on his or her own, invent new forms, or experiment with It would be a mistake to regard oll the odd devel- formlessness?The sonnet has gone the way of the opments in the art world as faddish manifestati:nsof sonata.Rhymes, like tonic cadences,are almost em- the far-out for the far-out's sake.Though surell'there barrassingin a world t}lat doesnot permit such simple is enoughtomfoolery to keepTom Wolfe busy (c' The i: fact, closures.No longer atomic and self-contained,the PointeJWord), current changesin the srts are, :n the boundariesof what counts as poem and song,like the very much of a piece with changestaking place point boundaries of our lives. trail off into an indefinite brolder culture, and are significant as such.The distance . . . is not simply that we see new forms emerginl' but that the very concept of stable Form in gener:l has As for the plastic arts, painting and sculpture, con- given way to an explosion of happenings,inver'-ions, sider Cristo's "Running Fence" trailing off into the ind events of ephemeral and ambiguous crea'ivity' sea.Far beyond any attempts at simple representation, Processis replacing substance,free form is rep'acing has broken the boundariesof the Form, the very dimensions of time and spa:e are twentieth-centuryart jraw- canvas,the frame,even t}te museum. Like theaterthat straining against works which, like Escher's e clear breaksout of t}reproscenium and goesinto the streets, ings, leave us wondering whether there is artists abandonthe studio and museum for the streets diiferencebetween up and down. As above,so ielow, (wall painting),the oce€ut(Peter Hutchinson's under- but which is which?

50 TFIE CHARACTERISTICSOF THE EMERGENTPARADIGM

The approach of this report until now has been analy- plines tell us about the nature of things, not on how tic. In this section we will attempt to syrthesize a those disciplines themselvesare to be conducted. pattern underlying the disparateelements presented in the previous section. That pattern is what orders In the various disciplines covered in the previous our deepestbelief structures,and those structuresan- section,we discovereda number of characteristics,as swer the questions: shown earlier in Table 3. Before covering these in o How do we klow somethingis true? What is the detail,.a brief summary of the pattern of characteris- nature of the knowledgeprocess? tics may be useful: o Knowing- Historicsllythere has existed a tension o How is the world put together, i.e., what is the betweenthe subjective/active(solipsist) modes and the order (or possible order) of things? obiective/passive(empiricist) modes of knowing'The o Why do things happenas they do, i.e.,r+'hat is the emergent mode is toward perspective/receptive, nature of causation? acknou'ledging the role and place of the observer, yet keeping some useful distance.This leadsto a processof Such concerns lie behind many aspectsof ordinary knowledge that is more interpretive, inevitably am- experience.An examplemay help. Let us supposea biguous, and partial. The process has rules, but they are corporatepresident makesa decisionto buy another rules for engagement rather than for objectifying. company. Further, let's suppose that some of his o Ordering - The old ordering principles are atomistic, employeesat some organizationaldistance from the mechanical, and hierarchical. The image of the holo- decision view it as a real blunder. Using a simple gram is a central one to the new view, connoting the mechanical model of causalityin trying to com- complex network of interconnections among events prehend this "foolish" act, they might attribute cer- and the containment of the entire order within a par- tain motives to the president.Perhaps he has some ticular one. Alongside is the heterarchical' decen- The change self-interestat stake.Or maybehe's inept. Or perhaps tralized, and many-dimensional structure. - that is, innovative struc- some advisorshave misledhim. And so on. A deeper process is morphogenetic tures arise out of fluctualions in the old order. investigation of the reality often leads-toa different conclusion.The simple motivesimputed hom a dis- o Causing - Cause and effect has been considered a tance rarely match the complex of causesacting at the relatively simple one-to-one process. The movement in Iocus of decision. Most often a presidentmakes a the new.view is from the simple to the more complex, hom unidirec- choice for a variety of reasons,often involving trade- from single agents to multiple sources, determinate or probabilistic out- offs among conflicting goals.A simple causalmodel tional to mutual, from comes to innovation, and from control to influence. in this instanceleads not only to a wrong conclusion "unpack" but to mistrust as well. Action basedon simple causal In this section we will try to and clarify models may be basedon a naive desirefor certainty.A these somewhat cryptic summariesby focusing s€pa- more thorough and subtlemoiiel consideringthe con- rately on each of three domains of concern.We con- straintson the decisionmay lead to greatertolerance, clude this section with a note on a theme that cuts to greater appreciation of ambiguity; on the other acrossall three domains. hand, it can also lead to paralysis and indecision based on uncertainty. Knowing In what follows we are not concernedwith the issues of knowing, ordering, and causing in a scientificor Our interest in the nature of knowledge arises not philosophic sense.We are not, for example,very from philosophic concerns,as in ,but much concerned with the scientific standardsof from the fact that human choice and action depend, to proof. Rather, we €Ireconcerned with an understand- a great extent, on what the person choosingor acting ing of how the developments analyzed earlier can knows. The main issues are what counts as knowl- - enrich and illuminate the ordinary world of human edgeand how somethingcomes to be knowledge affairs. We wish to focus on what those manv disci- questionsof substanceand process,respectively'

5r later,chemistry served as the idral image The historical tendency has been to assumethat in the Physicsand, In those domains, at least until re- nature of things there is some singular, ultimate truth' of Lowledge. seemedpossible to erect a unifiel reduc- That truth may be as cosmic as the origin of the uni- cently, it view. However, the attempt tr explain verse or as mundane as the level of air pollution that tionist world phenomena(e'8', biologicalsystems) causesdisease. According to the old paradigm,we more complex more than the sum of their par: caused conceived of science and other knowledge processes as nothing controversy.Even now in phlsics and as taking us evercloser in an asymptotic fashionto the continuing "truth." as Bohm and Prigoginehave so :legantly one The measureof successwas how close chemistry, we must speakof an ecologrof parti- we could come to that asymptote of ultimate truth' demonstiated, clesand new formsthat transcendtheir cor::onents' was remarkablysuccessful i' sorting This assumptionof ultimate truth is analogousto the partsand their relationships;in this:?spect it reductionistassumption of science.That view held out the por+'erfuland useful conceptua.tool' As (andfor manystill holds)that, if properlyunderstood, has been a perceptionnow becomesmore subtle,v': needto anything can be divided into parts whose behavior our the limits of that conceptualtool n aiding a.ri .raturewill determine the behavior of the lr'hole' understand explorationsinto the nature of lings' Reduction proceedsuntil we reach the so-calledmost our further fundamental subatomic particles' As noted earlier, does all of this tell us about the humin condi- however, that fundamental level increasinglyappears What tion of knowing?Perhaps at the root of the clangeis a to be an insubstantialfoundation on which to build a "one the extreme of the truth" dr;covered world view. In physics,the fundamentalparticle may shift from "one method" toward a plurality oi kinds of turn out to be a chimera,to be replacedby a complex by the exploredby a multiplicity of aF:roaches' ecology of particles in which the act of searching knowledge real-lifesituation we will f:rd multi- influences what is found. In almoslevery ple truths, eachrevealed by a different pers;ectiveor This is not to deny that there nay be an The basic flaw in the view that ultimate building upp.o""h. truth. It is simply to saythat for hunan needs blocks can be found is also evident elsewhere'Nearly ,ritim"t" many truths and many ways ol knowing two centuriesago there began a quest to reducethe there are kind of knowledgeis spiritualkrowledge' functioning of all organisms, especially human them. One spiritualtraditions of humarkindrep- physiology, to ttt" level of complex chemical and and the diverse routesto that knowledge'Anlrher kind physical structures and processes'This attempt in- resentmany is that of the natural orderre:resented d"t"d a debateas to the possibility of such a reduc- of knowledge diversity of sciences'Still anothe kind is tion. The last vestiges of that debate still continue in by the of the human condition, reveaid by sci- brain research.The main issues were laid to rest by knowledge our own experiencesof ours:lvesand Claude Bernard in the mid-nineteenth century when ence,artland Within these and other drmains of he identified the domains of relevanceof biochemis- our fellows. there exist, of course, a mul*'nlicityof try on t}re one hand and physiology on the other' To knowledge It is central, however, that ore form of the extent that an organ in the body, for example'has perspecties. or method or perspective can:ot be re- certain localizableprocesses (e.g', digestion) these inowledge inlo another.We will not explain Gr'i through may be reduced to their chemical and ultimately duced nor will God reveal the workings lf a com' physical elements.However, since theseorgans also science, Each form of knowledge,method, rr perspec' have functions that cannot be reduced to inorganic puter. h", a contribution to make toward undir'standing chemical activity, their nature and behavior cannot be iirre wisdom. understood entirely in biochemical terms' Com- and plementarity replaces'conflict; and plurality among plurality of knowledgeis especiallyirmortant ir ihe "tplanaiory aims of physiology and biochemistry This choices of life' The debatrover na requires a corresponding plurality of concepts and the day-to-day policy servesas an illustra:onof thr methods. tional Lnurgy-

52 problems of a single-mindedview of knowledge.The suggestsneither the universalityof objectivity nor the participants in that debatebase their views on differ- personal bias of subjectivitY. ent assumptions,methods, criteria, values, and data, interacting them in a complex fashion to arrive at The discipline of hermeneuticsprovides a good anal- positions that they considerto be basedon the "ob- ogy. is the discipline of interpretive jective facts." The complexity of those interactionsfor principles used in biblical studies.Unlike literary each participant is key to understandingthe ac- critics, biblical scholarsseek the meaning of a pro- rimonious tone of the debate.Each participantview- found revelationfor human experience.Like scien- ing an opposingposition almost inevitably imputes a tists, they seeka rigorousmethod to avoid the abyssof simple set of motivesto the opponent.The oil com- personal subjectivity. A carefully worked out set of panies see the public interestgroups as only naive, principles of interpretation (rather than factual unrealistic,and elitist.Public interestgroups see the determination)has emergedover the centuries,but oil companies as only trying to fill their coffersr.r'ith theseprinciples will not lead to the one truth for all undeservedwealth. Both seethe politicians and bu- observersfor all time. The results are a bit like the reaucratsas obstructionistsmerely trying to savetheir results of rules in sports:the rules allow us to make jobs.The technicianswould like to reducethe issueto sure we're playing the same game; they do not pro- an engineeringproblem arld wish that the politicians duce the perfectfootball or basketballgame, or dictate and the public would leavethem alone to come up who wins. with an engineeringsolution. Each participant fails to see the perspectivalnature of the debate.From where This perspectival quality is also associatedwith the he or she sits,each participant "sees" a differentsitu- inevitablepartiality of any description,which implies ation. From each different perspectivea different set somedegree of ambiguityin our stateof knowledgeof of methodsseems required to illuminate the situation anything. More careful study will not induce that and results in different conclusions.Each view is ambiguityor uncertaintyto go away.Rather, given the equally complex - not merely self-interest- and natureof our times,study in depth usually increases usually "right" from its point of view. our uncertainty. Simplicity and its attendantcertainty exist only at the superficiallevel and perhapsat the The first step out of this apparent dilemma is to rec- level of ultimate truths. In the vast domain in ognize that each perspectivegives only a partial and between, where we find ourselvesmost of the time, hence an ambiguousview. Beforeany resolutioncan ambiguity and uncertainty are inherent qualities of even begin,the participantsin the debatemust accept knowledge. There may occasionallyappear to be a the genuinenessand uniquenessof the multiple temporary solution, but each successivecycle of perspectives.If that first step is possible,the partici- questions will almost inevitably produce as many pantsmay be ableto move on to a mutual engagement new questionsas answers, in greater depth with their diversity of views. This interactionin turn may lead to a realisticset of com- The state of being associatedwith objectivity is pas- promisesthat takesinto accountnot only the diversity sivity. It has the senseof detachmentand distanceand of inlerestsbut the diversity of perspectivesas well. henceno motive force.Intellectually it is the domain of theory. At the other extreme,with subjectivity we But if we let go of the apparently firm foundation of associateactivity or doing. It is the domain of prac- rbjective fact verified by rigorousmethod, do we not tice. As we have resolvedthe conflict betweenobjec- run the risk of a subjectiveand chaotic disorder?This tive and subjective through the concept of perspec- iension between objective and subjectivecan often be tive, so now the tensionbetween activity and passiv- resolved in favor of perspective.Objective connotes ity is resolvedthrough the conceptof receptivity.This :lislancefrom the object of study; subjectiveconnotes stateinvolves an activedimension of preparation- of r personal view. Perspectiveborrows from both, being able to receive- and a passivedimension of lefining a personal view from some distance.It openness- of being unblinded by bias.Similarly, the

53 apparent conflict between theory and practice is re- can be viewed as being merely an aggregatio: of the sol','ed in favor of engagement or involvement while levels beneath it. Thus, things may be related io each retaining some detachment. other as either equals - i.e., on the same level - or as building blocks - lower levels of comporents to The nature of knowledge and the process of knowing higher levels of wholes. Given such an orlering, are changing. In the multiple selves of psychology, in things change either by disassembly and rea::;embly the value of differentiation in ecology, and in the or by addition and deletion. diversity of religions we seethe advantage and neces- sity of a plurality of perspectives. In the multiple A very different model of relationship appear: in the levels of physics and the role of the observer we see physics of David Bohm. There we noted how a: entire lhe necessity of acknowledging the partiality of all order can be enfolded into the local order. \'r: used descriptions. In the holographic metaphor for the the example of the hologram; let us call this tl,: holo- brain, we find a need for perspective rather than the graphic order. A more familiar example - the .rowth "in ,,out historic dualism of here" and there" of the of a human child - may help illuminate the n:-ure of mechanical model of the brain. And the linguists tell this ordering principle. The basic question i;: How us now that meaning comes from location in a con- can very complex, large-scale orders be co::ained text, so that to know meaning requires engagement. within much smaller and apparently simpler :rders? These, tlen, are the emergent qualities of knowledge A child at birth is an extremely complex org:nism, and knowing: perspectival, multiple, receptive, par- vastly larger than the sperm and ovum pre:ent at tial, and engaged. conception. However, encoded in the invisibl-r small and relatively simple structure of the DNA in *-:etwo Ordering parent cells was all the information necessar).-o pro- duce that very complex and relatively large org.inism. There is an apparent order to things. Understanding And making small changes at the chemical l:'.relof the nature of that order or creating new orders DNA can produce very large changes in the org:nism. requiressome understandingof the principles of or- Finally, that same information remains encode: in the dering, i.e., what kinds of order are possible?We DNA contained within every cell of the livi:g and generally draw our lessonsof order from nature. It is growing organism. The holographic order he; this not surprising, therefore,that as our understandingof implicate-explicate quality, where informatior about the natural world increases,we often uncover new the entire order is contained in each location ryithin kinds of order. the order.

The issueof ordering has at least two aspects: Another way of seeing the relationships of tie new ordering is the o What kinds of structures and relationships concept of interconnectedness.,r- river among their elementsare possible? delta provides a useful analogy. It is not possble to predict the flow in any one branch of the netvork of o What are the processesby which an order streams in a delta from the flow in t}te mainst-am of changes? the river. The flow in any branch depends in r com- plex r+'ayon flows in all the other branches. If trr: flow At the risk of oversimplifying,the currentview canbe in one branch is restricted, the flor.r' all thr _.thers captured in a few concepts. It says that almost all will change - some up and some even dora: - to - structures whether biological, physical, organiza- adapt to this new condition. Similarly, in ar order tional, or informational - tend to be hierarchical. where the ordering information is distr-.uted There exists a pyramidal order with an apex at which throughout, there is a kind of interconnecirdness "supreme sits the commander," transmitting orders such that a change in any one aspect will resut in a down through the ranks.At each level thereis a simi- network of changes as the other aspects adapt :o the lar top-down command relationship with all the new condition. As we saw in the discussion ol:volu- lower levels.The inverseis alsotrue in that eachlevel tion, when we cdnceive of a gene pool of g:netic

II * I I information distributed throughout a population, it is The concept of hierarchy can be enriched still further the network of relationships among its many or- to encompass Warren McCulloch's concept of ganisms and the environment that produces evolu- heterarchy - that is, overlapping or multiple hierar- tion. In the brain theory of Karl Pribram we find again chies. A familiar example may help illuminate this the network of information distributed throughout the concept, originally developed to describe neural pro- brain rather than tied only to a single cellular loca- cessesin the brain. Most people belong to a heterar-i tion. The metaphor for the new order is the pond with chical system; i.e., we may view a given situationl' "' its traceries of ripples rather than the edifice of con- from the perspective of seveial hierarchies: the family, ' crete and steel with a place for everything and every- the community, the company, the nation, the religion, thing in its place. the species, etc. Each hierarchy will have a different set of ordering principles, some of which are com- As we have pointed out, hierarchy has been the rule of plementary and reinforcing, while others are con- structure. Further, the ordering principle has fol- flicting. Sorting them out may sometimes require a lowed a narrow conception of hierarchy. What is Solomon-like wisdom when the conflicts are real and above commands what is below. What is below de- deep. Nevertheless,we do it all the time. We serve, as termines the capacities of what is above. In his elegant it were, several masters simultaneously. "nothing book /onus, Arthur Koestler calls this the but" view, as in the notion that a human being is the "nothing but" the assemblageof physical and chemi- Heterarchy can be viewed as a decentralization of ideal cal systems of the organism. Koestler enriches the very concept of structure itself. The original, move- concept of hierarchy and renames his version as notion of decentralization was the centrifugal seat holarchy. The essential shift is torvard a new concept ment of political power irom some centralized to remote of each element in a hierarchy/holarchy. Each ele- down through a specified hierarchy and oul "both be more ment has the independent properties of wholes areas. In complex systems, however, it may in and the dependent properties of parts." Each organ in meaningful to speak of decentralized hierarchies than one the body is composed of cells and chemicals, but its the heterarchic,/holarchic sense.Thus, rather cen- behavior is not solely a function of its constituents. It single peak of power, there are several or many is akin to a also functions as part of a larger system that helps ters with overlapping domains. This shift movement from the single-peaked paternal order of guide its behavior. The )anus concept suggests that "organ" fraternal each shows a different face looking up than the omniscient father to a more complex looking down.* ordering among co-equal siblings'

Anyone who has worked in a large organization will be familiar with holarchy. Take a group of people and Human feelings provide a good analogy for this kind assemble them at random and chaos will be the result. of decentralization. When we play with our children, Assign them to some functional task, as in I depart- we may actually feel childlike - witness the father ment, and the behavior of the group now becomes with his children's toys after the children have gone coherent - or so one hopes! Their behavior becomes to bed. Moments later we may turn to reading a not only more than the sum of the individual be- spiritual verse and our feelings may be loft1', even haviors, but it is also - at least to some extent - holy. At another time, grief over the death of a loved independent of the wishes of the management above one may overwhelm everything else. In each instance, it. Outside of the military, it is rare to see a successful in the life of one person a different hierarchy of val- imposition of hierarchy where there exists a natural ues, beliefs and behaviors is dominant for the mo- holarchv. ment. Each is one of the many dimensions of the human experience. For one person to have childlike, holy, grief-stricken, and innumerable other feelings 'ln with Roman mythology, Janus was a two-faced god associated requires a decentralizing of the self via heterarchical doorways and gates. The month of )anuary is named after him because it looks both back on the old vear and ahead to the new. ordering of information. Our picture of structure has become quite complex: a universe. Thus, what appears to be order is sinply the 'holarchic, holographic, and heterarchic order. One local and temporary result of a probability d.stribu- more question must be considered: How do such tion. In time this order will change toward nndom- complex structures change? They may change in ness, as is dictated by the nature of entropy. small adaptive and familiar ways - by incremental additions and subtractions. They may also collapse. Cybernetics provides the third class of mod:ls and However, as Prigogine and Thom have shor.r'nin opens the way for the fourth. Cybernetic moorls per- -he chemistry and mathematics, complex systems can mit feedback from effectsto causes;hor+'ever. pri- also undergo qualitative rather than quantitative mary focus is on negative feedback.As the malnitude change. Often it appears as if a new order were born of of an effect grows, it provides some feedbaci to the chaos. This evolution of a new form or structure out of cause in order to diminish the future effect. Tle ther- the old is called morphogenesis. Cellular growth dis- mostat is the classic model of a negative fr,:dback plays morphogenetic change. The birth of the United loop. If air cools below the thermostat sett:-tg,the States from the disarray of the colonies was a kind of therrnostat fires up the heater. When the air warms morphogenetic transformation. The psychological beyond the desired temperature,the thermostir reacts "normal" changes that occur u'hen a person suddenly by turning off the heater. Eventually, heater ard ther- moves to a behavioral domain of internal rationality mostat reach a stable limited cycle of off-on rround but external insanity is often morphogenetic strategy the desired temperature. This condition. called for coping rvith apparently irreconcilable conflicts. As homeostasis, is the result of negative fer'lback was noted earlier, morphogenesis requires differ- causality. entiation and fluctuation, two conditions found in heterarchical systems rather than in hierarchical In addition to negative feedback, the new nrrtually structures. causal models incorporate positive feedback which acts on the cause to reinforce or amplify the eiect. In We thus have a new picture how things can be of this case, difference grows rather than dimnishes' ordered. From physics and brain theory we discover Maruyama develops the example of the evoluionary the mysterious quality of a holographic order. From interaction between the protective coloratior,in cer- psychology, political theory, philosophy, and the arts tain moths and the predatory behavior of certan birds emerge the concepts of holarchy and heterarchy to to demonstrate this concept. Discovering the necha- replace rigid hierarchy. In chemistry, mathematics, nisms of that interaction is an informative e;ercise' and biology we uncover the morphogenetic model of "obvious" The solution is that a predator, a :ird in change. this case, eats more of those rnoths whose prriection is poorer. Hence, each generation of moth hal a pro- Causing portion of better-camouflaged moths. Simpr:? Not given rate oi:hange The issueof causalityhas to do with questionsof why quite. Such a model ra'illpredict a mothr things happen as they do. Maruyama has identified and a growing moth population as more -'scape is that tht moths three blassesof existingcausal models. The evidence the birds. What happens in fact ther popu- now suggeststhat we are openinga new fourth class change more quickly than predicted and rntst of causal models,which can be called complex, lation stays stable. Something else be mutually causalmodels. happening.

The first classof modelsis the most ancientand most When we observe the birds of each generairtn, rve familiar. Thesemodels focus on singular causesin a find the answer. Some of the birds are better atie than "smarte:' linear and mechanicalsequence. Push the rock and it others to find hidden moths. These birds moves. Pushing it again producesthe same result. have an advantage over their fellor+'birds, ani even- Quite simple. The second class is the probabilistic tually they tend to dominate. This acceleraeslhe world of equilibrium thermodynamics.Randomness change in the moth, which keepsthe moth poprlation and homogeneity are the ultimate condition of the stable despite bet[er moth-finding b1' the bird: Thus'

56 both species are evolving together or co-evolving. them.The hardierones sul.\ t\_. . They are each other's ' tttt'trvsing cause and effect. The bird is a ance of the next generetltrrr.i.' the rssist- better hunter and the moth a better hider. Thev share a a-nd modify the chenric,,t the dosago mutually t,rl].'..]J,r^,*ur" causal relationship. duceseven greater resist,rtttr"r.\\\l{tl\\\n, which pi- ,,t,' greatertechnologicsl eff.[t ",.'i l\est. Greatorand The system of the bird and the moth is relativelv simple and predictable. Both natural and sociai .;.:"Tl"x'J;I3l'31;l;lil,'1.:li,$,;*.j;:T:l,,TI phenomena, whether they are ecosystems or bureau- trolled, man or pest or tr.rtl.ll.l, ., tr.r is being con_ cratic structures, tend to manifest behaviors of very sive adaptation ralhr_rrt6,.rr, *'r\\ l\l\\.ess of succes- much more complex syslems; and mutual causality in comes the model of solutions nrrrl,,nir'."\,,1*r'rr be- complex systems tends to produce unpredictable re- processes. lt\Ir-.\-activecattsal sults. When viewed this way, it is not surprising that government economic policy often produces effects We find similarphenorrror16 nl 16,.1.. that are unwanted, unanticipated, and sometimes vorce, for exampl€, n1ar,, lt\\tuan scalo. ,r,-..',.ttll't,'',.,,, Di- even the opposite of what was intended. Simple llrle-understood";;lli]',,11,-:::: * comproxof -rausesin complex, mutually causal systems tend to atedwith other major .h,,,,*,,_'lll'\\ \lr\-('rrceis associ- have t\ s\Iilr little efficacy in producing the desired effects. as careers,religions, lo.nrt,r,,"' aspectsof life Such a simple cause can be associated, for example, with a paternalistic causality. Father or president 5:I:il:""ililTr'*'l;1,,1,\,::,1:lii:'yitr":fi (nows best 'i,1,::i),\1 :i: by virtue of age or election. He acts and achievea new functionnl telationships to he system carries out his 'amilies will. Unfortunately, neither '";' nor societies seem to function that way. H'ff :l ":I :J ;'ii : ff j,:":': i Jl:;,X'JI; j,l: lather than a paternal structure, llI, II, 'raternal we can speak of a structure: a fraternity of causes and effects nteracting in a complex, mutually causal fashion - *,iiliiJ:i 3,',ff:f:',,]'li,: ll:l:),., r h e r essons or rll changing together.Rather than being characterized " ry isolated points L',','' of cause and effect, the behavior l]ffi"i ;""il: l:: +f,' I ll,:-','i..il iI * i.:t'fi ,X; elationships appear much more like a field or a :' retwork. ff:: ilJ:: :ff ::*:1 I''i' xl;,,il: t.l,.:' i:l:'"";'J ::ill of change.If 'he we reflecton rhlr ,:i:,\l:\\.r\\ling structure nature of the change process in complex, mutu- will almost certainlyfind it n ,l;",,,,..r1'causality,we lly causal systems is morphogenetic. These systems our own experiencethap llrr,',.'.*t'a\'\rrnsentation of -'nd to produce the needed fluctuations 'rr\\\\\ which, subtlemodel. *)...'ient and lcss rrough positive feedback,tend to grow in magnitude nd frequency. What is critical is that, unlike in the imple unidirectional model of causalitv. here everv- ring changes " together, more or less in harmony. if It i 1 rI i "i t1 te system is resilient, such a process tends to be il:1 Yi'TJltI nooth and continuous (though not necessarilyslow). There appearsto be ow resilience means high resistance and often frac- getherthose appa."",ir'Tillllll),11,,**i rhat knits ro- rring or collapse. Furthermore, since change feeds {\si\\.ts ergent maps of reality. W,,,'*,,,,".t of our em- lck ori itself, even the causes t( .\\ themselves change. from unity to multinli^ir., ,."' { shift in fo<:us hus, vvhen we speak of producing a particular seek.the;"";;;;J;;.r,,i,rl'nil.l..,,ro \r.eno longer range in our environment, t:" we a,renot unaffected bv for the one cause.This d.'s',1]]] :ro longer lo"ok re results: we change too. humankind but empharir,,* tr,"l..-.ris:-1 the unit1, oi inlerconnectedar many tu,,,,i*. *ll intimatoly !e example of pesticides provides a familiar case. iit,..: 'e tvrannYor11 ",,'f spray chemicals on agricultural pests to control f :n rftfr.the i:.l'l:L:"ll'"",I There was a time when the affairs of humankind. simplistic certainty and affirmation of unity? How "Ours especially in Western civilization, were guided by a many times has the cry been repeated, is the set of unifying principles. In the confident unity of the one right way," whether the domain be scientific, religious order was found the basis for our values, political, economic, or religious? sources of meaning, and even social and political or- ders. Over the past ten centuries we have moved away Perhaps we have a childlike need for a paternal au- from the religious roots of our present order as we thority to inform us of the nature of things. Once it have become increasingly secularized. However, was the One God. Now we have sought to replacethat there appears to be in the human psyche a deep desire lofty figure witl secular authorities (politicians' sci- for unity (along with individuation), reflected in the entists, etc.).Unfortunately, while the One God could powerful urges torvard love, spirit, and association be experiential, our secular authorities have become with others in common bond (e.g., family). As we far more obscure and remote. We have come to equate became a secular civiliz-ation,we seem to have turned the necessity of a comprehensible natural and social our quest for spiritual unity toward a search for secu- order, handed down by our authorities, with the basis lar unity. To find that secular unity may be a naive for meaning: if there is no order, then there is no "peren- hope. There mav be one religious truth, the meaning. nial philosophy" as Aldous Huxley called it, that lies behind all our diverse religions. Perhaps each is the One of the qualities of rnatut'ationjn the individual is unique cultural expression of that one truth by a par- the ability to exercisd independent judgrnent in com- ticular people. However, what may be ultimately un- plex and ambiguous situations. Our analysis suEgests itary in the spiritual domain may still be multiple in that over the last century our endeavor to explore and the secular experience of humankind. map the natural and human universe has led us to see more ambiguous, complex, and multiple orders lo the As we have attempted to substitute secular unity for nature of things. Perhaps this reflects a maturat.on of spiritual unity, we have also absorbed some of the humankind in its ability to transcend a naive and mundane problems of the older rigid religious struc- childish kind of unity. More and more, \ e are tures. The history of religion is rife with these prob- acknor+'ledging the subtlety and complexity oi our- lems: rigidity, exclusivism, conflict, and an all-too- selves and the world of which we are a part. That frequent focus on t}le trivial rather than the exalted. growing realization may also be a reason for what We see these same issuesconfronted in the domain of appears to be a current spiritual renaissanceof d:verse '.:nity, ordinary existence - in the struggle against en- and great proportions. It seemsmore likely thal trenched orthodoxy. How many political and scien- if it is to be found at all, will be found in spi:itual tific insights have been branded as heresy? How many pursuits rather than in the messy world of ph-;sics, conflicts have been engendered by that quest for a politics, and the human psyche.

58 GLOSSARY

1. Catastrophe A mathematical description of a sudden and,/or radical changein form, or a similar qualitative changein condition; relatesto the theories of Rene Thom. 2. Dissipativestructures A term invented by Ilya Prigogine to describe complex chemical structuresundergoing the processof chemical change. 3. Entropy In thermody'namics,a measureof energythat is expendedin a physical system but does no useful work and tends to decreasethe organizationalorder of the system. 4. Essence An Aristotelian idea that everything has some characteristic quality which gives it form and definesits essentialnature. 5. Wittgenstein'sphilosophical concept that describeshow a word relatesto a class of examples or paradigm cases. "essence" "idea;" 6. Form From Plato,the term is similar to and it denotesthe eternal and universal quality that distinguishes one thing hom another and defines the characteristicscom- mon to all elementsof its kind. 7. Heterarchy An ordering of things in which there is no single peak or leadingelement, and which elementis dominantat a given time dependson the total situation; often used in contrastto hierarchy. 8. Hierarchy An ordering of things in which one elementis superior to all others and only that element is generally on top. 9. Holarchy A concept invented by Arthur Koestler to describe the be- havior of elements in a hierarchical system, in which that behavior is partly a function of their own individual nature and partly a function of the nature of the whole system. 10. Hologram (holographic) A three-dimensionalphotograph createdby the interference pattern of two laser beams. 11. Idea See Form. 12. Immanence A philosophical and theological term denoting that the Spirit dwells within all beings and things. 13. Indeterminacy principle A principle formulated by Werner Heisenberg,which states that at a subatomiclevel the outcomesof physical processes are not predictable. 14, Interference pattern A term in physics describingthe bands of light and dark that result from the interaction of light waves. l5.. The philosophical discipline that deals with the ultimate nature of things.

59 16. Morphogenesis The evolution of form or order out of apparent disorder. 17. Mutual causalitv A relationship between two things in which they mutually affect each other, causing change in both, as in symbiosis. 18. Paradigm The set of fundamental beliefs, axioms, and assumptions that order and provide coherence to our perception of what is and how it works; a basic world view; also, example cases and metaphors. 19. Quantum theory A theory in physics that postulates energy to consist of discrete units (quanta),which exhibit characteristicsof both particles and r.l'aves;similarly, particles of matter are also characterized by an associated wave function. The theory implies that no subatomic event is independent of other such events and that no sequenceof such events is strictly predictable. 20. Reductionism An idea that the nature of reality can be understood by comprehending the nature of its constituent parts. 21. Relativity Einstein's theory that space and time are not absolute and distinct quantities, but rather their measurement is a func- tion of the relationship of the observer and the observed.

60 BIBLIOGRAPHY

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