Harmonizing the Engineering of Society or Work of Art

Wholeness and the implicate order

For Bohm:
"the widespread pervasive distinctions between people (race, nation, family, profession, etc.), which are now preventing mankind from working together for the common good, and indeed, even for survival, have one of the key factors of their origin in a kind of thought that treats things as inherently divided, disconnected, and 'broken up' into yet smaller constituent parts...considered to be essentially independent and self-existent". (8, p. XI)Attempting to live according to the notion that the fragments are really separate is then what leads to the growing series of extremely urgent crises with which society is confronted. "Individually there has developed a widespread feeling of helplessness and despair, in the face of what seems to be an overwhelming mass of disparate social forces, going beyond the control and even the comprehension of the human beings who are caught up in it." (8, p.2) And yet the seeming practicality and convenience of the process of divisive thinking about things supplies man with "an apparent proof of the correctness of his fragmentary self-world view."

Basing his investigations on insights from the current state of physics, Bohm focuses "on the subtle but crucial role of our general formes of thinking in sustaining fragmentation and in defeating our deepest urges toward wholeness or integrity." (8, p.3) He arrives at the conclusion that "our general world view is itself an overall movement of thought, which has to be viable in the sense that the totality of activities that flow out of it are generally in harmony, both in themselves and with regard to the whole existence." (8, p.XII) This view implies that "flow is, in some sense, prior to that of the 'things' that can be seen to form and dissolve in this flow". (8, p.11) Thus the "various patterns that can be abstracted from it have a certain relative autonomy and stability, which is indeed provided for by the universal law of the flowing movement". (8, p.11)

Of special relevance to the question of human and social development, is that the above-mentioned desirable harmony "is seen to be possible only if the world view itself takes part in an unending process of development, evolution, and unfoldment, which fits as part of the universal process that is the ground of all existence." (8, p.XII) This has the merit of grounding the concept of development in movement from which appropriate conceptual and social forms temporarily arise, rather than, as is presently done, starting from some 'thing' (e.g. a society, a community, or a person) which has to be stimulated into a process of movement and change that is then called "development" (under certain conditions).

thought with totality as its content has to be considered as an art form, like poetry, whose function is primarily to give rise to new perception, and to action that is implicit in this perception, rather than to communicate reflective knowledge of 'how everything is'" (8, p.63). There can no more be an ultimate form of such thought (or of any principles or programmes to which it gives rise) than there can be an ultimate poem which would obviate the need for further poetic development.Bohm explores the implications of quantum theory as an indication of "new order". The questions he raises are also relevant to the emergence of any new psychosocial order. He demonstrates that in the past recognition of new patterns of order has involved attention to "similar differences and different similarities" (8, p. 115), namely the "irrelevance of old differences, and the relevance of new differences" (8, p. 141). The radical transformation of understanding brought about by quantum theory, for example, results from recognition of the way in which modes of observation and of theoretical understanding are related to each other. A social science equivalent of this is given in Johan Galtung's demonstration of the impossibility of value-free research (96), although his purpose is to orient research in terms of development-oriented values.

The challenge of Bohm's arguments lies in the manner in which they strike at the very root of the meaning of human and social development. His arguments highlight the extent to which both the physical and social sciences continue to rely on a Cartesian framework (if only in the familiar tabular/matrix presentations characteristic of social science papers) at a time when inherent weaknesses in the thinking behind such frameworks have been demonstrated. His most basic point is that the phenomena such as those which are the preoccupation of "development" (peoples, ideologies, groups, societies) are essentially derivative. "The things that appear to our senses are derivative forms and their true meaning can be seen only when we consider the plenum, in which they are generated and sustained, and into which they must ultimately vanish." (8, p.192) In this light, the basic flaw in present development thinking is the a priori recognition of certain distinct social entities which it now seems desirable to "develop".

It is precisely this conception (as argued on different grounds by the world-system theorists) which reduces development to "sterile" transformative operations and prevents any metamorphoses (to use Bohm's terms). For it is development which precedes and underlies such explicate social entities as a movement from which they have been unfolded: "what is movement" (8, p.203). Metamorphosis thus calls for ways of unfolding new, currently implicate forms from this holomovement, and enfolding into it those which are currently explicate, but are inadequate to the time. This is far removed from mechanistic efforts to "eliminate" undesirable structures and to "build" new ones from their components.


Cognitive systematization

It is to be expected that the pattern of insights and conclusions would be relevant to development in general. Rescher identifies eleven definitive characteristics of systematicity: wholeness, completeness, self-sufficiency, cohesiveness, consonance, architectonic structure, functional unity, functional regularity, functional simplicity, mutual supportinveness, and functional efficacy (91, p.10)
the need for understanding through a unified view of things is as real as any of man's physical cravings, and more powerful than many of them. The above characteristics "are constitutive components of that systemacity through which alone understanding can be achieved". (91, p.29) The point of cognitive systematization in reational terms is that (a) it is the prime vehicle for understanding by making claims intelligible, (b) it authenticates the adequacy of the organization of knowledge, (c) it is a vehicle of cognitive quality control, providing a test of acceptability, and (d) it provides the definitive constituting criterion of knowledge (91, p.29-38). Similar points could be usefully made about the integration of development.

The network model shifts the perspective, as Maruyama also notes, from unidirectional dependency to reciprocal interconnection, abandoning the concept of priority or fundamentality in its arrangement of these. "It replaces such fundamentally by a conception of enmeshment in a unifying web" (91, p.46-47), whereas the Euclidean approach gives priority to derivation from what is better understood or more fundamental.

Rescher notes (91, p.58-59) basic weakness in the latter approach was however demonstrated by Kurt Goedel (92), who showed both that the consistency of any formal axionatic system can never be proved, and that the deductive axiomatization of any such system was inherently incomplete. There are therefore always "true" statements in a given domain that cannot be derived from the chosen axioms. It would seem that this too has important implications for the limitations of development programmes elaborated on the basis of pre-determined sets of principles in some "declaration" or "world plan of action", especially since Rescher indicates the possibility of a breakdown of deductivism in the factual sciences as well (91, p.176).

Rescher also provides a valuable analysis of the limits to cognitive systematization. He identifies three possibilities: incompletability, inconsequence (or disconnectedness, compartrnentalization), and inconsistency (or incoherence). With regard to the first, he notes that it is unrealistic to expect either attainment of a completed and final state of factual knowledge, or a condition in which all questions are answered. "Accordingly, we have little alternative but to take the humbling view that the incompleteness of our information entails its incorrectness, as well" (91, p.152-3). In a more highly developed future, fundamental errors will be perceived in present formulations and programmes - as we can already detect in the development strategies of past decades.

Furthermore, Rescher notes, gaps in the knowledge attainable at any time might in practice block realization of any underlying interconnectedness. This issue of compartrnentalization is of course of crucial importance in the design of interdisciplinary development programmes, for which no adequate methodology has yet emerged, partly because of separative behaviour characteristic of disciplines.
It is the very drive toward completeness that enjoins the toleration of inconsistency upon us. But rather than implying no system at all, any inconsistency-embracing world picture involves the toleration of ungainly systems of deficient systemacity (91, p.176-7). It is a question of degree.

Health (of Man and Environment) and space-time

As has been noted on many occasions, the concept of health is intimately related to that of wholeness. As broadly defined by the World Health Organization, it encompasses the physical, psychological and spiritual well-being of the individual and is thus central to the concept of human and social development. It is therefore valuable to explore the evolution in the concept of health, as a form of integration, and as throwing light on the implications of such integration for an understanding of development.

This question has been admirably discussed by Larry Dossey (95), a physician, in the light of the conceptual implications of theoretical breakthroughs in 20th century physics, and notably as a result of the work of David Bohm (see above). The shortcomings of the current health care system are increasingly perceived as rooted in the conceptual framework that supports medical theory and practice. As the physicist Fritjof Capra states in introducing Dossey's work: "The crisis in medicine, then, is essentially a crisis of perception, and hence it is inextricably linked to a much larger social and cultural crisis....which derives from the fact that we are trying to apply the concepts of an outdated world view - the mechanistic world view of Cartesian-Newtonian science - to a reality that can no longer be understood in terms of these concepts." (95, p.VIII)

To describe the globally interconnected world, in which biological, psychological, social, and environmental phenomena are all interdependent, Dossey explores the implications of quantum physics as "the most accurate description we have ever discovered of the physical world" (95, p. l26).

Given the disturbing innovation of such physics, whereby the behaviour and subjectivity of the observer is necessarily incorporated into any understanding of the results of observation, he points out the weakness in the argument that such theoretical breakthroughs are only of significance to the abstract world of nuclear physics. He cites the physicist E Wigner who states: "The recognition that physical objects and spiritual values have a very similar kind of reality....is the only known point of view which is consistent with quantum mechanics" (123 ??, p.192). Dossey points out that the relevance of such supposedly sub-atomic preoccupations to macroscopic phenomena is also demonstrated by Bell's theorem as noted by the physicist H S Stapp: "The most important thing about Bell's theorem is that it puts the dilemma posed by quantum phenomena clearly into the realm of macroscopic phenomena....it shows that our ordinary ideas about the world are somehow profoundly deficient even on the macroscopic level" (124, p.1303). The theorem can be described as stating: "If the statistical predictions of quantum theory are true, an objective universe is incompatible with the law of local causes", which requires that events occur at a speed not exceeding that of light (124, p.1303).

This theorem has been substantiated by experiments which show that simultaneous changes in non-causally linked distant systems can occur when a change in one takes place. In some sense, as yet not understood, all "objects" thus constitute an indivisible whole, in contrast to the prevailing notion of an external, fixed, objective world of separate things. Furthermore, the theorem shows that the ordinary idea of an objective world unaffected by consciousness lies in opposition not only to quantum theory but to facts established by experiment.

In addition to the implications of quantum mechanics, Dossey draws attention to those from the logical limitations highlighted by the theorems of Godel (92), Turing and Church, and Tarski. These collectively demonstrate the inherent limitations of any symbolic language which purports to describe the world unambiguously but is also called upon to make self-referential statements about itself as part of that world. They show that no precise language can be universal and that no scientific system is complete. Any language used to describe health and development, must necessarily suffer from similar limitations.

In the light of these considerations, Dossey points out that if our ordinary view of life, death, health and disease rests solidly on seventeenth-century physics (and on the logic on which it is based), and if this physics has now been partially abandoned in favour of a more accurate description of nature, then:
"an inescapable question occurs: must not our definitions of life, death, health, and disease themselves changes? To refuse to face the consequences to these areas is to favor dogma over an evolving knowledge....We have nothing to lose by a reexamination of fundamental assumptions of our models of health; on the contrary, we face the extraordinary possibility of fashioning a system that emphasizes life instead of death, and unity and oneness instead of fragmentation, darkness, and isolation." (95, p.141-2)

"Connected as we are to all other bodies, comprised as we are of an unending flux of event themselves occurring in spacetime, we regard ourselves not as bodies fixed in time at particular points, but as eternally changing patterns for which precise descriptive terms seem utterly inappropritae." (95, p.l 42-9)


Reference:Complexification of Integration, Integrative Working Group B of the Goals, Processes and Indicators of Development (GPID) project of the Human and Social Development Programme of the United Nations University (UNU).
http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs80s/83deval7.php#72