🔼: [[💡 Integral Theory]] ##### Holons [Wikipedia Link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holon_(philosophy)) Holons are "whole/parts" — the building blocks of the universe (all-that-is). The Cosmos is composed of holons; there is no part that is not a whole, and no whole which is not a part. If you look at your hand — your **whole** hand — you’ll notice it’s made of **parts**. Four fingers, a thumb, a palm, etc. Look at one of them, your **whole** finger, and it too is made of **parts**, and so is any one of those parts. This also goes in the other direction. Those parts make up your whole finger, which is part of your whole hand, which is part of your whole arm, and so on. You yourself are a part of your household, your neighborhood, state, nation, species, and so on. Parts go all the way down *and* all the way up. Atoms build organelles, organelles build cells, cells build life, life builds ecosystems. Everything is a holon. Am I a whole or a part? A separate self or am I connected? Am I a wave or the ocean? It's not a matter of whether something is part or whole (that's [[💡 Black-and-White Thinking|Black and White Thinking]]), everything is both part *and* whole. Eastern thought likes to say that each of us are like waves who forget they are really the ocean, but we’re both. I like to change metaphors and say we're more like pieces in an unfathomably large jigsaw puzzle. Buddhists might agree and say the lines that divide one piece from another are an illusion, but I don't think that's true. The lines between the pieces mean each of us has a unique and important role to play, and that without us the puzzle is not complete. ###### See also - [[Emergence]] [^1]: [[Sex, Ecology, Spirituality]]