Join Corey deVos for this fun, fascinating, and far-reaching exploration of one of the essential cornerstones of integral theory — holons, or the apparently endless series of “part/wholes” that fundamentally compose reality as we know it.
Accompanied by music, imagery, and animation, this presentation will not only help you better understand what a holon actually is (and what it isn’t!) but also how this understanding can radically deepen your appreciation for the natural world, and for all of the other holonic intelligences that exist alongside us on this planet.
This is the story of the universe itself. These holons give rise to the entire “great chain” of evolutionary emergence, a legacy of incremental wholeness that runs from the very first subatomic particles to emerge after the Big Bang, all the way to your own integral mind, right now in this moment.
We should note that, while Corey emphasizes the most rigorous definition of “holons” (any whole/part that possesses its own interior), the word “holon” is also often used generically to describe any kind of whole/part we see in nature. For example, “letters, words, and sentences” — none of which actually have interiors of their own, but are rather describing a nested series of whole/parts that human beings use to communicate their interiors to each other. It is totally okay to use the word “holon” for these kinds of non-sentient components, but we should remember that “true holons” also possess their own interior realities, as Corey explains in the video.
