Mechanism describes how reality works, proceeds,
holism describes how (a) reality is.
For any consciousness to exist, both holistic and a mechanistic view need to be present.
The ‘I’ status requires an acting (mechanical) personality (holistic view of the differentiating experience during a lifetime) . Psychosis occurs when one of these is take away.
These are my views on how they coexist. I do not see that one is an obstruction to the other.
And how do you know how a reality is? What is your criteria and evidence?
I’d broadly agree; indeed, I think this outline of Xiong Shili’s position makes a great deal of sense:
Given that he wrote at the height of modernism, it is reasonable to suggest that Xiong Shili’s view of scientific phenomenalism is equivalent to what we would presently describe as mechanism, whereas his principle of creativity and, more broadly, his metaphysical conception of the universe, is strongly holistic.
Naturally, this system only works if one’s holistic conception is based off data gathered from known mechanistic operations. Xiong Shili was warning against scientists engaging in excessive metaphysical speculation, which is a worthy topic. But we also need to guard against metaphysicians trying to shoe-horn their holistic framework into the study of ontological reality and thereby introduce all sorts of crazy errors. When either situation arises, there are bound to be problems.
It’s interesting that you contrast mechanism with holism, whereas Wiki contrasts mechanism with vitalism. It would be interesting to compare mechanism, vitalism, and holism with respect to philosophy of mind - i.e. mind/body dualism. Any thoughts?
I agree that the ability to understand the world in a variety of ways is beneficial. I don’t think there is one correct or true way to understand the world.
It could be that vitalism is what we perceive when we look between the holistic and mechanical point of departure. If this true and if this word designates a coherent theater of operation observation, It is bound to be the most complex and dynamic view.
If I would look for a real-world manifestation of vitalism, electricity seems an appropriate example.
I use ‘reality’ as a word for that which is certain to anyone who may read it. Certain is in it’s turn a word for real. I accept that language is an self-referential tool with unreliable foundations. So I don’t question the concept behind the word, I only question definitions of what the word refers to. So I know what is real because I have given the word real to what I know.
Indeed.
I wonder if this is true, through. Can not, when a proper holistic view is formed, mechanism be deduced from it? For example, when one understands the body as a whole, this understanding could suggests functions that would not be apparent when only the parts are considered. So, likewise, a holistic view of the universe might suggest functions which are hidden from a purely mechanistic view. The way to describe these functions in physical working would be mechanistic.
Carefully placing one foot on that slippery slope, my view is that holism can only describe being, whereas mechanism describes becoming.
That is a very common issue. The “mechanic” doesn’t see the true effect of the part, thus presumes the wrong role it actually plays, then decides to change it, not realizing its truer function to the higher whole.
Religions have that problem along with thousands of other things. A religion plays a role is society. One can discern A role that it plays and presume that such is the only role, but do they actually see the “whole picture”, the “Holy See”?
A flower grows colors and it can be seen that in so doing, it causes better propagation, but is that really the higher or only function?
The mechanic sees a bolt or some other part of a car and sees a particular concern as its “probable” purpose, then decides that it isn’t necessary, but what else was its purpose?
A god like entity instantaneously moves two men out of their world and into a large white room that seems to extend to infinity.
“You may go back to your own world and continue your lives as soon as you answer me this!.. Correctly!” The god like entity says. He places a basket full of fruit and a fruit fly in front of the two men. “Which one is physically more complex?”
The entity gives the men the ability to make any tool appear for their use in answering the question. They are also given all eternity as well.
The average person, being that they are not a computer scientist, would probably say the fruit fly is more complex.
Obviously size is no measure for complexity. In fact the question of how complex an object is, is so complex that a cube with a piece missing off the corner is more complex than the whole cube, and the question of whether a human is more complex than a virus is unknowable without incredible knowledge and calculation that would seem near impossible to obtain. This of course goes against intuition.
The two men are now in a predicament in which they may never return home. Luckily for them, they are both experts in logic and the tools of science. Using various tools and instruments, one of the men decides to start analyzing and documenting the fly atom by atom so he can optimize the information and compare it with the optimized information of the fruit basket to see which one requires more information to describe.
The other man, being more of a holist, tries to find the shortest route to the answer. He wants to figure out how much he can ignore. The holist usually tries to find tricks or shortcuts to understand a complex system. So, he gives both the fruit basket and the fruit fly an once-over and discovers a second fruit fly within the fruit basket. “Eureka!” He exclaims. He imagines a thing being less complex than that very same thing plus another separate thing and with a puff of smoke, the man returns back to his original time and place.
The poor man using the instruments does not take account of what’s in the fruit basket until after a googol to a googolplex number of years of analyzing the fruit fly. (He’s got quite a tunnel vision.)
In this I tried to express a holist method of understanding. It’s a general thing and a relative thing. The man using the instruments ignored anything lesser than an atom. The man who was more of a holist might have ended up using the same technique had he not discovered the second fly. Also, both techniques may not workout as well if they were using poor logic.
It would seem to me that the human brain is generally a sufficient enough processor, whether geared to a more holist approach to understanding or not, for executing an action that would represent understanding any objective thing. It’s a Matter of time. (A processor with a small critical set of operations can execute any program that a much larger processor with its more elaborate set of operations can.)
Thanks csolver. I sort of get what you are saying, I think. Notwithstanding, this is about the most difficult sentence I’ve read since I went through the defense case in the lawsuit against the Tar-house Conniver.
You can replace that sentence with:
He imagines a ‘fly’ being less complex than a ‘fly plus a fruit basket’. So the god like entity sees what the man imagines and returns him back to his own world because he answered the question correctly.
fly < (fly + separate thing)
I need to learn to write weird stuff better.
Yes, but there’s also a charm in writing impenetrable sentences.
Do you know Heidegger?
Reading about Heidegger I think I can see where you are coming from in your post.
That post I made earlier is more on the objective side of holism, but it seems you’re more interested on the subjective side.
One thing to keep in mind is that anything that you sense has a corresponding physical structure within your brain. If I have some kind of fear, this shows up as a specific objective thing within my brain.
In your post, you seem to be asking if the resulting sensation (sense of being) from having a holistic view of the universe can give certain information about a thing that a mechanistic view can’t.
And an answer to that question might be a hard pill to swallow…
There seems to be good evidence and good reason to believe these actions, the man carried out, can ALL be describe mechanistically, through and through.
Jacob,
Thanks for this post. I totally agree with your OP. My perspective has always been that, behind the divisions of theory lie divisions of individual psyches. (Gospel of James). There are many types of holism. Perhaps my children will be able to witness a classification of organisms according to genomes that will be as important as Mendelev’s periodic table of elements. Such a classification would not be bare mechanism; it would be a comprehension of relationships, a holism of the organic that, sooner or later, must be wed to the holism of material cycles and recurrences–nothing abstract here. Until we are able to be inclusive in these ways, our exclusivity will render us insane or warring, which is just another form of insanity.
Ah! You are still noble.
Pyramids were built with this spirit of trust.
But an ode to the future is all we can bring,
as the horizon collapses we stand harmless.
But is wholeness not a mechanism of itself?
The uncarved block vs. the woodgrain. We’re sealed in that block and denied to see it.