The ghost in the machine
The Ghost in the Machine is a work in philosophical psychology published in 1967. The title is a phrase coined by the Oxford philosopher Gilbert Ryle to describe the Cartesian dualist account of the mind–body relationship. Koestler shares with Ryle the view that the mind of a person is not an independent non-material entity, temporarily inhabiting and governing the body. One of the book's central concepts is that as the human brain evolved, it retained and built upon earlier, more primitive brain structures. The work attempts to explain humanity's tendency towards self-destruction in terms of brain structure, philosophies, and its overarching, cyclical political–historical dynamics, reaching the height of its potential in the nuclear arms arena. Note: Although he appropriated Ryle's phrase for his title and shared some of his views, Koestler had a pretty low opinion of Ryle himself -- he dismissed him as a 'snickering' Oxford don with no knowledge of any of the sciences that would have given his ideas more weight. Ryle nevertheless had the philosopher's gift for analogy, and used a number of metaphors for the mind-body problem, all of which could have supplied titles: they included 'the sealed signal box', 'the two parallel theatres' and 'the horse in the locomotive'.
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- Melville "Bartlby the Scrivener" & Ramsey "When We Are No More: how Digital Memory Is Shaping Our Future"
Down "Brilliant Beacons: a History of the American Lighthouse"
Koestler "Darkness Before Noon" & "The Invisible Writing" & "The Ghost in the Machine"
John Gardner - anything really but October light and the sunlight dialogs in particular.
- The holon represents a way to overcome the dichotomy between parts and wholes, as well as a way to account for both the self-assertive and the integrative tendencies of organisms.[1] The term was coined by Arthur Koestler in The Ghost in the Machine (1967).
- See Arthur Koestler's book "The Ghost in the Machine" published in 1967. Koestler coined the word "holon". A holon is a whole functional and structural unit while at the same time a part of a larger whole, which is itself a part of an even larger whole. Koestler sees life as a hierarchy of holons. For example, a mitochondrion is a structural and functional unit with its own code of instructions while being a part of a cell, which is another holon, which is part of an organism, another holon, which is part of a social group, yet another holon.
It occurred to me that consciousness may also be a hierarchy of holons. A whole can only be known from a "holistic" perspective. Any attempt to reduce it to parts to understand the whole destroys the character of the whole. This may help explain why reductionist science has had little success in explaining consciousness.
- Would we then be parts of the jewel attempting to understand its own nature, and if this is correct, finding our own substructure?
I am reminded of Arthur Koestler's theory of holarchy, put forth in "Ghost in the Machine".
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