CHAPTER 1: THE PERENNIAL FEUD

Western society has long experienced a deep conflict between the scientific and religious ways of understanding. Science says that the universe began from nothing, and that human beings evolved from primordial matter. Religion says that the universe was created by God, and that at least some human qualities are not the product of evolution.

Today, the conflict between science and religion may not seem as acute as it did when Galileo was forced to recant. Many people accept both worldviews, using science to solve our everyday problems while looking to religion for answers about our ultimate meaning and purpose. Yet the gap remains, and is the source of considerable social friction. In this country, Biblical literalists reject evolutionary theory, and some of them also reject the scientific understanding of disease, refusing to see doctors for even serious medical problems. In other parts of the world, particularly the Middle East, religious Fundamentalism has created rigid societies that flout our Western ideas of civil liberties, and which often go to war against those who don't share their beliefs.

A deeper problem is that neither science nor religion alone—nor a simple belief in both of them—can provide a complete and meaningful account of our existence. The traditional religious definition of God as omniscient, omnipotent and all-compassionate is incompatible with ignorance, injustice and suffering in the world. Science, on the other hand, is unable to explain not only the ultimate question of how or why the universe arose, but the more immediate problem of human consciousness—how our first person experience of the world can be understood in terms of physical and biological processes.

In earlier times, all Western knowledge was unified in Aristotle's Great Chain of Being, in which different forms of life formed a hierarchy, including physical matter, plants and animals, human beings, and God. While the Great Chain has been supplanted by the scientific worldview, science today actually recognizes a hierarchy of its own, including such forms of life as atoms, molecules, cells and organisms. This suggests that if a synthesis of science and religion is possible, it ought to take the form of a modern hierarchy. This hierarchy would include the levels of existence identified by science, but also higher levels, experienced by some human beings as higher states of consciousness, and long considered by mystics as the true basis of religion.

The modern hierarchical worldview, though reminiscent of the Great Chain, has many features distinct from it. For example, in the Great Chain of Being, each level was physically and to some degree functionally separate from every other. In contrast, the modern hierarchy is a nested one, in which each level is composed of those below it, and in turn is part of those above it. Thus scientists recognize that atoms compose molecules, which compose cells, which compose organisms, which in turn may be part of societies. Each of these units is a "holon", that is, an integrated functional unit that is simultaneously part of a larger, more complex functional unit. For this reason, the modern hierarchy is sometime referred to as a holarchy.

A second important distinction between the modern hierarchy or holarchy and the Great Chain is that while the latter was a static structure, created by God, the modern hierarchy is understood to be constantly changing through a process of evolution. Thus it was formed over a period of time, and will be different in the future from what it is today. Still other differences between the traditional and modern hierarchies will become apparent in following chapters as we examine the scientific evidence for hierarchical relationships among atoms, molecules, cells and organisms.

CHAPTER 2: THE LITTLE BANG

The lowest level of existence in the holarchy is usually considered to be physical matter. Atoms were postulated by the ancient Greeks, and for several centuries considered by science to be the fundamental units of matter. In this century, science has discovered still smaller, more fundamental particles. However, atoms make a convenient starting point, as the recognizable properties of holarchy begin with them.

Atoms exhibit, in rudimentary form, three fundamental properties found in higher forms of life: assimilation or growth, illustrated by the capture of an electron; adaptation, in which an atom may lose or gain an electron in response to a change in its immediate environment; and communication, through chemical bonding with other atoms. Through the last process, atoms form molecules and still higher forms of physical existence.

Most molecules, save for very simple ones like water and carbon dioxide, are found only within living cells. Within any cell can in fact be found a hierarchy of increasingly complex molecules, including small molecules, like amino acids; polymers such as proteins; macromolecular complexes consisting of several polymers; and subcellular organelles. Each of these holons is composed of many lower-order holons, and is in turn part of a higher-order holon. Each also has emergent properties, not found in its component holons.

The molecules within cells, however, are different in several ways from both their component atoms, on the one hand, and the cell itself, on the other. For one thing, they are not autonomous. While atoms can exist outside of cells as well as within cells, and cells, as we shall see later, can exist outside of organisms as well as within organisms, most molecules can exist only within cells. Holons like atoms or cells are thus called fundamental or autonomous holons, while molecules are called intermediate or social holons.

A second important difference is that while cells and atoms preserve the properties of their component holons, molecules do not. When amino acids join to make a protein, for example, they lose many of their former properties. In a cell, however, amino acids may exist in free form, in which their properties are preserved. Thus a cell can be said to transcend its component holons, while a complex molecule transforms its components. These distinctions, as we shall see later, are found on other levels of existence as well.

Each type of social holon can be said to exist on a distinct stage within its level. Thus amino acids, proteins, macromolecular complexes, and so forth, all exist within the physical level of existence, but each is on a different stage within that level. Each stage exists in one dimension of space or time more than the stage below it. Thus small molecules are a one-dimensional array of atoms. Polymers exist in two or three dimensions. Macromolecular complexes, which function in a dimension of time, are four-dimensional holons. The emergent properties of each stage are the direct result of its existence and functioning in this extra dimension.

Though higher stages have emergent properties not found in lower stages, some fundamental holons can to some extent participate in the properties of a higher stage of which they are members. Thus atoms within a protein molecule can have properties that would be impossible for the same atoms existing autonomously. For this reason, atoms within complex molecules can be said to be a higher form of life than structurally identical atoms that exist unbonded. This is a form of immanence, in which the higher is found in the lower, and is an important principle that will be seen on higher levels of existence.

One of the most important principles of the holarchy is the law of perspective: a holon appears different to observers who stand in different holarchical relationships to it. For example, when an atom captures an electron, that can be considered assimilation from the point of view of the atom, yet adaptation from the point of view of the electron. The same process may also involve communication, if the electron captured belongs to another atom. The law of perspective also provides insight into the difference between structures and processes. Any holon can be considered either a structure or a process, but if it is viewed from by a higher holon, it appears as a structure, while from a lower holon it appears as a process.

The chapter concludes with a discussion of freedom. It is argued that freedom can be understoodin terms of the number of constraints on a holon. Since this number increases moving up the holarchy, higher holons are freer than lower ones.

CHAPTER 3: TRANSLATION, TRANSCRIPTION AND COMPRESSION

Just as the physical level of existence begins with atoms and is completed with cells, the biological level of existence begins with cells and is completed with organisms. Cells are thus the fundamental holons on the biological level, and analogous to atoms on the physical level. Like atoms, cells exhibit assimilation, adaptation and communication, but in more complex ways.

Unlike atoms, however, cells also reproduce, a process that requires the duplication of information in the genome. The genome — a higher stage holon within the cell — has both a deep structure, represented by its total information content, and a surface structure, which is that information actually expressed in any given cell at a given time. The deep structure of the genome is transcribed or copied during reproduction of the cell. The surface structure of the genome is translated or expressed during the process of reproduction of an organism. Thus the deep structure of the genome specifies the physical level of existence -- the nature and organization of molecular components within a cell. The surface structure of the genome specifies the higher stages of the biological level, that is, the tissues and organs of the organism. This distinction between deep and surface structure, and between specification of one level and another is also observed on higher levels of existence.

The social holons that make up the stages of the biological level consist of increasingly complex forms of multicellular organization, such as simple cell units, complex cell units, tissue modules and organs. As with the physical stages, the biological stages exist in progressively higher dimensions of space and time. Thus simple cell units are a one-dimensional array of cells, while more complex cell associations exist in greater dimensions of space. The dimension of time is expressed in the form of cell lineages, which are created by the reproduction of cells, or in the case of the brain, in electrical activity among networks of cells. In addition to functioning in dimensions of space and time, multicellular holons can also experience different dimensions of space and time. This is most clearly illustrated by cells in different parts of the mammalian visual pathway.

The mathematician Gregory Chaitin has introduced the concept of information compression, which clearly applies to genetic information. There is not enough information in the genome to specify every cell interaction in the whole organism; rather, the genome specifies a relatively small number of cell types, and the rules governing their interactions. Hierarchical organization is a consequence of information compression, for it requires less information to specify this kind of organization than that resulting from random or heterogeneous associations of units like cells.

CHAPTER 4: THE MIND'S EYE

The mental level of existence begins with organisms, and includes increasingly more complex societies of organisms. The informational holon in the organism is the brain, which plays the same role on its level as the genome does in the cell. Like the genome, the brain has both a deep structure, its hard-wired anatomy, and a surface structure, represented by new ways of connecting neurons within the deep structure. Also like the genome, the deep structure of the brain organizes and controls the activities of its fundamental holon (the physiological functions of the organism), while the surface structure allows the holon to interact in different ways with other, similar holons, and thus create higher, social holons — that is, societies.

Societies can be both heterogeneous, as in the case of ecosystems, and homogenous, made up of a single type of organism. The most complex societies are those composed of humans, and only these societies form the higher stages on the mental level. While other types of societies have some emergent properties, mentality generally is found only in the societies of humans and other primates. This mentality is a property of the society, not the individual organism; the latter participates in it, just as holons on lower levels of existence participate in the properties of the social holons they are part of.

All our thoughts, ideas and other intellectual activities can thus be understood as a form of perception or experience; they are what we see when we look at our social groups. Because we must look above ourselves in the holarchy to see these groups, our experience of mental activity is fundamentally different from our experience of lower holons — other people, organisms, and objects. We experience thinking as being an inner or subjective activity, because we are within or below the social holons which actually manifest this activity. This contrasts with our experience of other people, organisms and inanimate objects in the world. These holons are below or outside of us, and we experience them as outer or objective to us.

The most distinguishing feature of the mental properties of human beings is five-dimensional experience, which is directly related to our participation in a very high stage of the mental level of existence. We perceive the world in three dimensions of space and two dimensions of time. The first dimension of time, which is also experienced by lower organisms such as mammals and birds, is the basis of behavior patterns, which all these higher organisms both perform and recognize, and which form the communicative basis of their social interactions. The second dimension of time, signficantly developed only in humans and perhaps some other primates, allows us to remember other people, organisms and objects, and thus create a permanent world that continues to exist when we are not actually experiencing it.

CHAPTER 5: UNSEEN DIMENSIONS

While science is beginning to understand the functional basis of mind in terms of physical and biological processes, the first person, direct experience aspect of consciousness — the so-called hard problem — remains as mysterious as ever. Traditionally, theories of consciousness have been either dualistic, proposing that consciousness and body are distinct types of things, or monistic, insisting they are the same type of thing. Both dualistic and monistic theories have serious problems, and in recent years several hybrid theories have been proposed, each of which has some of the features of both dualism and monism. These theories include David Chalmers' property dualism; functionalism, based on the premise that the mind, like a computer, is the result of the operation of algorithms; the idea that the brain tunes into consciousness, like a radio; quantum theories of consciousness; and various forms of idealism. All of these theories may contribute to our understanding of consciousness, but all of them fail to solve the hard problem of consciousness.

Studies in cognitive science have demonstrated that human beings are conscious of only a tiny proportion of all the information impinging on them from moment to moment. This work is consistent with the mystical view that consciousness derives from a higher level of existence, of which we ordinarily experience only fleeting glimpses. If this is so, we would not expect to be able to explain consciousness in terms of physical or biological processes. Consciousness can be understood only by experiencing it in its fullest form, the subject of the next chapter.

CHAPTER 6: THE UNTHINKABLE

Higher states of consciousness have been reported by people in many cultures and ages. Though higher consciousness can't be studied scientifically in the usual sense, it can be validated by considering those aspects of the experience that have been reported again and again by different individuals using similar methods. By this criterion, several characteristics of higher consciousness can be considered genuine visions of reality, including nondualism; absence of thought; transcendence of space and time; expansion of awareness; and contact with an enormous source of energy. These experiences are consistent with identification with a higher form of existence that bears much the same relationship to the human organism as the latter does to its cells.

Life on earth may be evolving into such a higher-level holon. Higher consciousness does not seem to be an emergent property, however, because more than one level of existence above the one we are ordinarily familiar with has been reported by some mystics. This observation, together with others, suggests that consciousness may have always existed. In this view, the amount of consciousness that any holon has depends on high in the hierarchy it is, that is, how close to full consciousness it has evolved.

CHAPTER 7: THE LAYER OF THE LAW

The discussion of the previous chapters is summarized in about ten principles of holarchical organization. These include organization into two basic classes of holons, fundamental and social; the three universal properties of assimilation, adaptation and communication; different degrees of dimensionality found in different stages on every level; participation of lower stages of existence in the properties of higher stages; differences in perspective by different levels of existence; and asymmetric relationships between higher and lower levels of existence. The most important of these principles, which is really a meta-rule, is analogy: a holon on any level of existence has a corresponding holon on other levels of existence, and the properties of such correspondents have many analogies. The existence of these analogies allows us to obtain insights into our evolutionary past, as well as provides suggestions as to the form evolution may take in the future.

We human beings, like other forms of life, are situated in a particular place in the holarchy, which determines what we can know and how we can know it. However, we have the possibility of experiencing higher and perhaps lower levels of existence as well. This fact has led some authors, such as Ken Wilber and Alan Coombs, to draw a distinction between levels of existence, structures of consciousness associated with those levels, and states of consciousness that humans may experience. A more unified view of levels, structures and states is proposed.

CHAPTER 8: THE INFORMATION GAP

The modern understanding of holarchy is that it is not a static arrangement like the Great Chain of Being, but is undergoing a process of evolution. From a holarchical point of view, three different kinds of evolutionary change can be identified at each level of existence. Diversification or translation is the evolution of different kinds of holons at the same stage. Transformation is the evolution of higher stages from lower stages on the same level. Transcendence is the evolution of a new, higher level of existence from a lower one.

A complete evolutionary theory should be able to define these three processes in terms of a single unifying principle. The discussion in earlier chapters suggested that there is a close correlation between holarchical development and information. Therefore, we might define diversification — where there is no vertical movement in the holarchy — as a process in which the quality, but not quantity of information increases. Information in an organism, in turn, can be defined as its total number of genes. For example, the evolution of one species of bird from another is a diversification process. During this evolution, there is a change or mutation in a relatively few genes, but the total quantity of genetic information in the two species is virtually identical.

Transformation and transcendence, which do involve vertical movement in the holarchy, should be definable as processes in which the quantity of information does increase. However, if information is defined as the number of genes, this definition does not always hold true. Our own species provides perhaps the best known example. We human beings are a higher form of life than other primates, yet we have virtually no more genetic information than the latter. Indeed, about 98% of our genes are the same as those, for example, of a chimpanzee. Therefore, the evolutionary differences between our species and other primates can't be attributed simply to differences in the amount of genetic information. Indeed, these differences suggest that there must be some source of information other than genetic available to our species during development as well as evolution.

While the information in the genome can't be used to distinguish the degree of evolution of different organisms, the information in the brain may. As discussed in earlier chapters, the brain plays the same role in the organism as the gene does in the cell. There is a strong correlation between the size and complexity of the brain and the degree of evolution as conventionally considered. While we are not yet able to obtain a precise, meaningful measurement of the amount of information in the brain, in theory this should be possible, perhaps relating it to the total number of interneuronal connections. With the availability of such a measurement, we should be able to use it to compare the degree of evolution of different organisms.

Thus diversification can be defined as a change in the quality but not quantity of information, while transformation can be defined as a change in the quantity of information. When comparing the evolution of unicellular organisms, for example, prokaryotes and eukaryotes, information can be defined as the total number of genes. When comparing evolution of organisms, however, information must be defined in terms of the organization of the brain.

Transcendence, finally, is associated with a change in the organization of information. Each level of existence has an informational holon associated with it, and thus evolution of every new level is accompanied by the creation of a new informational holon. For the cell, this holon is the genome; for the organism, the brain; and for a postulated evolving higher level of existence, this information holon is made up of a centralized site of information storage created by human societies. The evolution of each of these informational holons appears to follow certain common principles, in particular, the existence of a transitional stage in which both information and function are combined in a single type of holon.

CHAPTER 9: DARWINISM EVOLVING

Darwinism is the most widely accepted theory of evolution within the scientific community. However, it has been heavily criticized, not simply by Biblical literalists who reject all evidence of evolution, but by some scientists who argue that some kinds of evolutionary change could not have occurred by random mutation and natural selection. Nevertheless, the theory is supported by a large body of evidence, and clearly accounts for at least some kinds of evolution. So even if Darwinism is not a complete theory of evolution, it would have to be a major part of any such theory.

The holarchical view of existence implies that holons and the processes they take part in on one level of existence are analogous to holons and processes on other levels. To the extent that random mutation and natural selection account for evolution on one level, therefore, they should also be evident on other levels. In other words, Darwinian evolution should occur throughout the holarchy.

In order to demonstrate that this is indeed so, two critical points discussed in earlier chapters need to be kept in mind: 1) each level of existence has its own informational holon associated with it; and 2) each informational holon has both a deep structure and a surface structure. What is commonly referred to as Darwinian or biological evolution involves changes in the deep structure of the genome. However, analogous evolutionary processes can occur involving changes in either the surface structure of the genome, or in either the deep structure or the surface structure of the brain. Changes in the surface structure of the genome would result in the expression of different combinations of proteins by cells, and could allow them to associate with one another more easily. This type of process could have played a major role in the evolution of multicellular organisms. Changes in the surface structure of the brain are known to be an evolutionary process, usually called cultural evolution. Changes in the deep structure of the brain are exemplified by the creation of Artificial Intelligence, and are predicted to play a major role in the creation of a higher level of existence. In addition to these evolutionary changes on the biological and mental levels of existence, still other, analogous evolutionary processes may occur on still higher levels of existence.

The resulting view of Darwinism is a much broader theory, in which random variation and natural selection occur on multiple stages and levels of existence. This view incorporates not only so-called biological and cultural evolution into a single framework, but proposes the existence of other Darwinian processes both in the past and in the future. Taken together, these processes can create an enormous amount of variety at all levels of existence. However, it is open to question whether they can account for transformational and transcendent evolution, involving an increase in information.

CHAPTER 10: SELECTION WITH DIRECTION

In recent years, a group of scientists dissatisfied with Darwinism as a complete explanation of evolution have proposed another kind of theory or theories. Generally called self-organizing or complexity theories, these are intended to explain how large evolutionary changes can occur relatively quickly, instead of by the slow, gradual process of mutation and selection. Several different self-organizing theories have been proposed, including dissipative structures, cellular automata and autocatalysis. Each of these theories may explain some evolutionary changes, but each has serious limitations that suggest it can't be a general explanation of evolution. Most significant, none of these theories appears capable of explaining transcendence, that is, the evolution of new levels of existence.

The existence of self-organizing processes, however, is not incompatible with Darwinian ones. The two may be combined in a variety of ways to produce evolutionary changes that either type of process alone could not support.. Thus a more general theory incorporating both Darwinism and self-organization may be possible. This theory, like Darwinism, has random variation and natural selection as its basis, but both variation and selection are now interpreted in a much more liberal fashion.

CHAPTER 11: THE INVISIBLE HAND

One of the most radical and controversial evolutionary theories to be proposed is Rupert Sheldrake's morphic fields. Sheldrake has hypothesized that every form of existence has associated with it an invisible field of information, that may grow, change and evolve in parallel with the visible form. Sheldrake argues that these fields can guide the evolution of similar forms, by a process he calls morphic resonance. This would make it easier, once a new evolutionary variant is established, for similar forms to follow it. Morphic fields might also offer new insights into the processes of development, learning, and perhaps so-called psychic phenomena.

Very few scientists take Sheldrake's theory seriously, however, and in fact it has several major problems. One problem is that the nature of these fields is very obscure. They have been described as containing information but not energy, but the very close association of these two phenomena makes it uncertain whether information can be transferred from one form of existence to another without energy. A second problem is that there is very little evidence for these fields. While the postulated effects of these fields on learning makes direct tests of the theory possible, since the effects of time and space on morphic resonance are unknown, negative results can be dismissed. Finally, morphic fields do not appear capable of explaining major evolutionary transitions, the kind that both Darwinism and self-organizing theories have difficulty with. They would seem to act primarily as a conservative force, one that would establish and preserve forms of life that evolved by other means, rather than act as a creative force that could result in the emergence of new forms of life. Thus even if the existence of these fields could be established, many of the most difficult evolutionary problems would remain unexplained.

CHAPTER 12: THE BLIND WATCH'S MAKER?

In an earlier chapter, evidence for a higher state or states of consciousness was discussed. If this state is nonemergent, that is, exists prior to other forms of life, it might be capable of acting as an evolutionary force, that is, in guiding the development of new forms of life. In fact, some mystics have long proposed that evolution is a return to the highest state of existence; that matter, after being created by consciousness, evolves back to its origins. Life, in this view, is a two-fold process: involution, or creation of the lower by the higher; followed by evolution of the lower to the higher.

There is no evidence for the mystic view of involution and evolution that would satisfy a scientist. However, both processes do occur in nature, whenever a multicellular organism reproduces. First a lower form of life, a single cell, is created; this is an involutionary process. This cell then develops, or evolves, into a similar multicellular organism. The development of the cell is guided by the information in its genes, and also by certain influences from the parent organism.

Could evolution on earth be understood as a kind of reproduction, by which a higher form of life created a lower form capable of developing into another higher form? Darwinian evolution is conventionally considered to be a blind process, in which, unlike development, the outcome is largely a matter of chance. To the extent that self-organizing processes take place, however, some aspects of evolution might have been inevitable, the lower forms having from the beginning the potential to evolve into the higher. Furthermore, the process of selection acts as a guiding force, in that it seems to ensure that higher, holarchical organization emerges.

So in a very general sense, evolution and development may have some parallels. The lowest forms of existence may in some sense be said to have had the potential from the beginning to evolve into higher forms. While the process of evolution takes place over a far longer period of time than biological development, and appears to involve a much greater role for chance, the emergence of holarchically higher forms of life may have been inevitable.

CHAPTER 13: THE PLANETARY HOLON

The holarchical view of existence, together with the reality of evolution, implies that humanity is not the end point of life. A higher level of existence, transcending and including all of life on earth, would seem to be the next possible evolutionary change. Is such a new level of existence actually emerging now? Many major transitions now occurring on earth are consistent this possibility, in that they exhibit principles found in the prior evolution of lower levels of existence. These changes include a reorganization of civilization such that there is both more centralization together with more room for individual autonomy; development of a new means of creating, storing, transferring and compressing information; and major efforts to improve efficiency of energy utilization.

If a higher level of existence is evolving, what will be the future of the human race? Many people believe that a major increase in consciousness is occurring, in which individual humans will become identified with this higher level. Yet there is very little evidence that this is anything more than wishful thinking. The realization of higher consciousness has always been available to anyone, yet the enormous difficulty of the process has historically restricted enlightenment to a very few individuals. Furthermore, examination of how lower levels of existence have evolved suggests that a widespread increase in human consciousness might not even be compatible with evolution of a higher level of existence. Every level of existence incorporates the preceding level. When cells came into existence, atoms did not disappear; they are required to compose the cell. Likewise, cells did not become extinct with the emergence of organisms. In the same manner, the human race may be necessary for the creation of a planetary holon. That is, individual human beings in their ordinary consciousness may be the cells or atoms of this higher holon.

Nevertheless, if a higher level of existence is emerging, it will be accompanied by profound changes on earth impacting all individuals. The number of other species on earth, currently declining at a rate unprecedented since prehistoric times, may be greatly reduced as the human holon becomes the near-exclusive fundamental component of the planetary holon. As civilization becomes more complex, so will mentality. Perhaps most people on earth will attain the rational mode that emerged with Western civilization, and many people may realize the kind of creativity that historically has been restricted to only a small number of individuals.

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