THE FOUR PROPERTIES OF WHOLE, NATURAL, COMPLEX AND LIVING SYSTEMS

THE FOUR PROPERTIES
OF WHOLE, NATURAL, COMPLEX
AND LIVING SYSTEMS.
(based on handout from Roger Dorris - Jan 05)


1) Systems are integrated wholes whose properties cannot be reduced to
those of smaller units....

If ‘desolate/delight’ is a system then it is a whole and we are the
parts?

These systems are interrelated in reciprocal and mutual
relationships...if we look at a 'part' we can't understand the 'whole'.
-If we just look at/study the cells of the body we can't understand
how the whole human body works.
-If we fixate on one group of people as the problem, will never
understand how the whole field need to function to integrate the
marginalized group or issue they represent.

When I enter the room to begin ‘d/d’ practice, I am a part of a larger
system. By just observing 'me' I can't know the whole field. It helps
me to observe and exchange with others to increase my understanding of
the group-field.

2) Natural systems maintain themselves in a changing environment.
'Despite continual flow-through of matter-energy both from within and
outside the system, open systems maintain their balance. They
self-regulate. This is called 'homeostasis' - the way a system
maintains its functional operational nature. It can be called
'self-stabilizing feedback'. This is how a group-field knows how to
return to it's established ways of being after a disturbance (a death,
fight, arrival of new members, new imput).

What are the established ways of being of the ‘d/d project?

When I'm in the field of the 'Now' and energy and matter are flowing
through me how do I self-regulate? Do I modify my homeostasis and
adapt to a new way of functioning?

Are we, as a group-field, open to changing the homeostasis?

When change is introduced into the system, there will always be some
energy to try and return to its original configuration of relationship
and power dynamics. Homeostasis principal can be positive or negative,
helpful or harmful.

3) Natural systems create themselves in response to the challenge of
the environment.

Is ‘d/d’ always creating itself each time we begin?

Open systems evolve in complexity. When challenged they can fall apart
or adapt by reorganizing around more responsive norms. This can create
a new homeostasis or a 'runaway' system when the deviation is amplified
until the system goes out of control. Example is cancer cells, the
Salem witch trial where hysteria escalated until people were burned at
the stake. War and environmental devastation are also examples of
unchecked deviation-amplifying feedback.

Does the art of improvisation model a form of adaptation in an ever
changing and challenging environment?

If the system handles the changes or continues to survive during the
chaos and moves 'far from equilibrim' then a new way of being is
created. This is called 'emerging properties' or 'novelty'. This is
how evolution happens. Something new emerges. And the system 'self
organizes'.

Emergence is all we've got. So tolerating chaos allows for novelty and
change to happen.

When the group field goes deeply into it's own process and reaches a
state of 'far from equilibrium' - some kind of chaotic and disruptive
activity - it will self-organize around a new way of conducting itself.
For instance after a fight with one's family, lover, friend and it
feels like the whole thing is coming apart. If it holds together there
is always a new sense of the relationship, a new way of accommodating
one another. Often there is deeper intimacy and sense of connection.


4) Natural systems are coordinating interfaces in nature's hierarchy.
Every system is both a whole in it's own right, comprising subsystems,
and simultaneously an integral part of a larger system. This is a
'holon' or 'nested hierarchies' - systems within systems, circuits
within circuits, fields within fields. A system self-generates from
spontaneously adaptive cooperation between parts, in mutual benefit.

Order and differentiation go hand in hand, components diversify as they
coordinate and invent new responses. This is what the phrase 'order
emerges out of chaos' is about.

Also means the seeds of the solution are contained in the field from
which the conflict arose.




A Psychosystemic View of the World
By Larry Graham

Kinship of all things. Each moment of experience draws its content
from its environment. And the environment is in turn shaped by what
has contributed to bringing it forth.

Concrescence process speaks of the smallest units of experience as
actual entities or droplets of experience. They coalesce to form the
universe in all its variety. These units of reality are indeterminate
electrical patterns rather than small particles of matter.

The basic point is that whatever is metaphysically true at one level in
the universe is also true for all other realities in the universe. And
there is room for novelty and mutual influence in the universe.

The struggle for actualizing values becomes a crucial struggle in
determining what the world will actually become. The past, God, and
the subject itself supply value-laden options to be concretely
realized. In its own freedom, the emerging subject struggles to
combine the powerful influence of the past with God's aim and with it's
own aim. In this struggle, the emerging subject chooses what it will
become.

The dimension of 'contextual creativity'.
There is a capacity for self-determinination in the context of multiple
influences. The past world - history and the environment - do not
completely determine the present. Individuals have 'contextual
creativity' - they exist by establishing relative independence within
community. Persons and context create, reflect, and transcend one
another.

Because of multiple realities contending for influence in the universe,
it is recognized that nothing comes into being without struggle,
conflict, and loss. There is a great risk that choices will be made
for the worse rather than for the better. The exact from of the future
cannot be predicted or controlled.

The Organization
First and most basic structure is the actual occasion of experience -
droplets of experience or actual entity.