We can also go the other way, and see that cells group together with other cells to become organs. Organs, in turn, form parts of the human body. Here, we see that holonic organisation also supports composition as well.The word "holon’’ comes from the Greek "holos,'' meaning 'whole', and "-on,'' meaning 'part'. The word aptly captures the duality of entities which are at once single, distinct entities, and at the same time parts of a more comprehensive whole. For example, a cell in your body falls under the holon category. Cell exists as a distinct, living entity; it has inputs, outputs, and a distinct cell wall defining its interface with the rest of the world. A cell, however, consists of smaller and more fundamental parts, such as RNA, DNA, mitochondria etc. Each component can be studied as a separate entity; however, each component can be broken down further - into molecules, atoms, and ultimately to quarks. This decomposition of cells is characteristic for a holonic organisation.
We can also go the other way, and see that cells group together with other cells to become organs. Organs, in turn, form parts of the human body. Here, we see that holonic organisation also supports composition as well.
We can find many other examples of this part-whole relationship in the world around us. Ants, for example, exhibit such characteristics. We can study ants as separate entities in their own rights; but, they also form parts of a society. Trees and forests as well as people and cities form other examples. More artificial examples would include agents that have been used in Distributed Artificial Intelligence and even the humble sub routine in a program.
In addition to the part-whole characteristic, holons have a number of other characteristics:
01Each holon can function autonomously. It means that each holon carries out its own activities without the direction of other holons; yet, it still forms a part of, and contributes to, the overall functioning of a larger system.
02Holons naturally form distributed systems. This comes on from the autonomous attribute.
03Each holon has a simple, singular task to perform and concentrates exclusively on that task. The system accomplishes larger scale tasks through the combination of a number of holons, either through combining them together to form a larger holon, or through cooperation or competition between holons.
04Although holons function autonomously, their interaction with other holons may yield complex flows of information in order to achieve each interacting holon’s goals. Therefore, a holon must process and respond to in-bound data from external sources, as well as provide other holons with requested information.
05
As holons interact, the sum of their actions could become greater than the action of the individual holon. Some examples could include ant hills, where a number of ants cooperate to construct a mound, yet no single ant would have the capability to achieve the construction individually. The construction of cities forms another example. The shapes of many of the world's cities were not the result of centralised planning. Nonetheless, the organisation and interaction of a number of people and organisations has resulted in some of the most spectacular cities on Earth, such as San Francisco, New York, Rome, and others.
Holons are particularly well suited for complex and/or distributed systems. Some reasons follow:
Distributed and autonomous holons, for all their advantages, also have some disadvantages compared to centralised mechanisms.
The root cause of the first deficiency we can usually attribute to a lack of negative feedback in the holon’s operation. For example, if the farmer knew a priori of the impact the cow would have on the field, and therefore other farmers, he would take steps to alleviate the problem before it got out of hand. The farmer would need a bigger picture to achieve this insight. However, this leads to one possible solution, where a higher-level holon could administer lower-level holons. Not an ideal situation. It is preferred that the other farmers communicate with the offending farmer, so that issues are resolved locally and quickly.
We may, however, have diffculty understanding the cause for the latter deficiency, since there is a number of issues to consider. For instance, simple miscommunication or misunderstanding may result in an erroneous interpretation of the holon's goal. Indeed, scientists have traced most causes of genetic defects that, in a sense, we can consider as miscommunication in genetic programming of the cell. We could see another cause as the autonomous nature of the holon, which could deliberately decide to change its own goals. The "bait-and-switch’’ manoeuvre that con-artists and other petty criminals use exemplify this.
Peak oil could mean that future societies need to localise to reduce energy consumption, as future societies may well have less energy available than present-day societies. Climate change could mean that future societies may need a high level of cooperation to handle an increasingly hostile world. This could mean a social structure that has both the characteristic of being composed of parts and the characteristic of networking. This would represent a different form of organisation from our current national, centralised system. Holons represent a different approach towards governing systems that has the characteristic of being composed of parts. Thus, a holonic structure represents a potentially viable form for future society.
As a means of allowing this organisation, we propose the following holoarchy:
The author intends the proposed structure to form the foundations for a technate/proto-technate; but, as an experiment, it should also form the structure of NET. Thus, the top holon becomes not only the technate/proto-technate, but also NET.
Individuals form the basic building blocks of societies, and each individual has his/her own goals and objectives as well as skills and interests. Any social structure should take this into account. The author hopes that the holonic structure would allow people to utilise their interests and skills to achieve their own desires in such a way as to contribute to the whole structure.
To achieve this, individuals form interest groups, such as research, medical, and food production. Individuals who have skills and interests in common with a specific group could choose to join that group. However, not all groups would have specialised interests; some groups would have a more mixed membership. This would depend on the size of the group and the number of members (e.g., in the case of members of NET residing in a single town).
Groups maintain goals and monitor projects. The goals of any group should be compatibile with the overall goals of the technocracy. Likewise, the projects within the group should contribute, in some way, to the group and thus to the implementation of technocracy.
Some projects, of course, may turn out to be too large for a single group to undertake (e.g., repairing the Golden Gate bridge or the construction of an airplane). To deal with this, groups can form areas, where areas act in similar ways to groups. Instead of being composed of individuals, however, areas are comprised of groups (think of a consortium or standards organisation, like OSI, OMG, and ANSI). Areas cooperate with each other to fulfil the goals defined for each area. Those goals, like the goals of groups, are compatibile with the goals of technocracy. And, of course, the projects run within areas will have similarity to the projects of groups in that they would also contribute to the goals of technocracy but on a larger scale.
Again, like areas, sectors form the next level up in the holoarchy and run larger projects. Areas compose sectors.
The technate/proto-technate or NET forms the final layer of the holoarchy. This layer runs large scale projects over the whole operational area of the technate and has goals in accordance with technocracy's goals.
Thus, the whole system becomes a gestalt - one composed of individual, goal orientated parts that use projects to achieve their goals. As each part lines up with other parts in the holoarchy, through cooperation, the system achieves the overall goals of the technate.
As each group, area, or sector can act autonomously, the system has the potential to develop some problems, as noted above. Some of the holons could end up repeating work that other holons have conducted and other holons could conduct work that does not contribute to the whole.
To prevent such problems, we propose a hierarchical structure that lays on top of the holoarchy. This overlapping structure would have the following goals:
1. Maintain direction of the system
2. Act as a communications channel to facilitate cooperation between holons
3. Ensure efficient utilisation of resources, thus preventing unnecessary repetition of work
The proposed structure would follow the classic Technocracy, Inc. sequence structure with a board at the top which acts to direct the whole system. A number of functional sequences would then form under the board, with the director of each sequence being represented on the board. For example, the structure could have functional sequences for health, research, manufacturing, mining, recycling, energy, transportation and space.
Each sequence would have a sub-sequence for each sector. So, for example, the Sequence of Research would have a number of Sector Sequences of Research below it. Each sector sequence would then have area sub-sequences below it, and the area sequences would have group sub-sequences below it. Each sequence at each level would have a director. For example, the Sequences of Research would have a Director of the Sequence of Research and the various sector research sequences would have various Directors of Sector Sequences of Research and so on for areas and groups. We can see this as being analogous to a commercial company in present-day economic systems, where you have a Chief Technology Officer, Director of Research, with individual project directors below them.
This means that an individual would have membership both in a group and a sequence and, hopefully, will actively participate in a project.
Directors of each sequence have overall responsibility of ensuring that each holon contributes to the overall goal of technocracy. Thus, the directors at each level have to approve each project, and can cancel a project if that project has wandered away from the goals of technocracy. The director can also cancel a project if it is in conflict with another project; for example, if two holons attempted to do the same project. However, once a project has started, and so long as it remains compatible with the goals of technocracy, the director has no control over the project in keeping with the autonomous nature of the holon.
Each project would have a project manager. The project manager has the administrative responsibility of running the project, including the allocation of resources, time schedule, etc. The manager runs the project without any interference of the directors as long as the project remains within the goals.
For projects that involve cooperation or coordination between a number of holons, the holon director has the responsibility of ensuring communication with other holons. For example, within an area the Area Director must ensure that all holons have adequate communications in order to allow them to conduct their projects. Thus, the sequences act as a communications channel for each holon.
Goals become the most import attribute of the above structure. Goals give direction and purpose to the system as a whole.
Technocrats have the following top level goal:
The highest standard of living for the longest time possible.
To achieve this goal, sequences and holons may have other goals, but those other goals must contribute to the overall goal. For example, the Sequence of Research could have the goal of conducting an energy survey and may run one or more project to achieve that goal. However, the goal of the energy survey also contributes to the overall goal of technocracy in that it determines the the kind and quantity of resources available and the energy required to build a sustainable society that has a high standard of living.
http://www.panarchy.org/koestler/holon.1969.html
http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/165359563.html
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/130675/computer-science/168849/Distributed-computing
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/185731/emergence
Agent Based Manufacturing: Advances in the Holonic Approach. S M Deen (Ed). ISBN 3540440690
Beyond Business Process Reengineering: Towards the Holonic Enterprise. Patrick McHugh. ISBN 0471950874
Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software. Steven Johnson. ISBN 0140287752
Emergence: From Chaos to Order. John H. Holland. ISBN 0192862111
The Emergence of Everything: How the World Became Complex. Harold J. Morowitz. ISBN 019513513X
An Introduction to Multi-agent Systems. Michael J. Wooldridge. ISBN 047149691X
Multi-agent Systems: Introduction to Distributed Artificial Intelligence. Jacques Ferber. ISBN 0201360489
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