Engineering Society

From European Organisation for Sustainability - Wiki

The concept of a holon forms one of the central ideas proposed for forming a (proto-)technate.

Contents 1 Holons 1.1 Characteristic of Holons and Holonic Systems 1.2 The Advantages of Holonic Systems 1.3 Disadvantages of Holonic System 2 A Holonic Structure for a Future Technate 3 Control and Direction in the Holoarchy 4 Roles of Directors 5 Goals 6 Example Implementation 6.1 One community example 6.1.1 Personal within the community 6.1.2 Groups within the community 6.1.3 Projects 6.1.4 Cooperation and communications between the projects 6.2 A Multiple Community Example 6.2.1 The Communities 6.2.2 Zones 6.3 A Technate Level Example 6.4 A Technate Level Network Example 6.5 A Sequence Example 7 Human Nature 8 An Overview of Some Aspects of Human Nature 9 Environmental Design and Human Nature 10 References

Holons

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 within 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. We can study each component as a separate entity; however, we can break down each component further - into molecules, atoms, and ultimately to quarks. This decomposition of cells forms a characteristic of 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 engineers have used in Distributed Artificial Intelligence and even the humble sub routine in a program.

Characteristic of Holons and Holonic Systems

In addition to the part-whole characteristic, holons have a number of other characteristics:

01 Each holon can function autonomously. This 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.

02 Holons naturally form distributed systems. This comes from the autonomous attribute.

03 Each 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.

04 Although 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 did not result from 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.

The Advantages of Holonic Systems

Holons have characteristics that make them particularly well suited for complex and/or dis­tributed systems. Some reasons follow:

• Scalability. As each holon has the property of being au­tonomous, it can function with little or no knowledge of other holons. Thus, we can add additional holons to the system, de­pending on the system in question, without affecting the oper­ation of the previously existing holons. As we add additional holons to the system, a coherent organisation will tend to form naturally, such as a hierarchy where higher-lev­el, more abstract holons manage lower-level, more detail-ori­ented holons. Consider, as another example, any plant or ani­mal, which starts as one cell, but which divides and grows to many cells, forming organs along the way.

• Robustness. Robustness also results from the autonomous na­ture of a holon. Just as we can add holons, we can also re­move them without, in general, affecting the functioning of other holons or the system as a whole. For example: human body can lose many cells without even noticing it. It can even survive the loss of a substantial por­tion of the body, such as a limb.

• Simplicity of control. As each holon has a simple, usually singular, task to accomplish, it only needs a simple control mechanism, which we can understand more easily when compared to a centralised control system.

Disadvantages of Holonic System

Distributed and autonomous holons, for all their advantages, also have some disadvantages compared to centralised mechanisms.

• Tragedy of the commons. The autonomous attribute can lead holons to consume shared resources without consideration for others, and end up taking more than their fair share. This could limit the ability of other holons to work, and may even bring an end to the common resources. Example: a farmer allowing his cow to eat all the common grass, preventing other farmers from grazing their cattle.

• Losing their way. We can see another problem with the autonomous attribute. Autonomous holons could conduct activi­ties that do not contribute to the overall goal of the system. They could even conduct activities that have a contrary nature to the overall goal. Cancer cells would form an example of holons that have gone out of control and became a danger to the sys­tem as a whole.

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; preferably, the other farmers communicate with the offending farmer, so that they resolve the issues locally and quickly.

We may, however, have difficulty understanding the cause for the latter deficiency, since we have 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.

A Holonic Structure for a Future Technate

We propose the fol­lowing holoarchy:

• 1. Individuals
• 2. Groups
• 3. Zones
• 4. Areas
• 5. Sectors
• 6. Technate

The proposed structure forms the founda­tions for a technate.

Individuals form the basic building blocks of societies, and each individual has their own goals and objectives as well as skills and interests. Any social structure should take this into account. The 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 task orientated 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. Each individual also has membership of a sequence relevant to their skill and interests.

Groups maintain goals and run projects. The goals of any group should have compatible with the overall goals of the technate. Likewise, the projects within the group should contribute, in some way, to the group and thus to the imple­mentation of the overall goal of the technate.

Groups work at a local leave of a community. One community may have several groups handling, for example, power production, building maintenance, food production, education. Members appoint people to a group based on their technical expertise. So, for example, electrical engineers would appoint people to a building management group that requires someone with electrical expertise. Other experts would appoint others as needed. The electrical engineers would then work on electrical projects within the group.

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 having a composition of individu­als, however, areas have a composition 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, have compatibility with the goals of the technate. 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 the technate but on a larger scale.

Groups form areas as and when needed. Some areas may become permanent but other can come and go in connection with a given project. For example, a number of groups may form an area when they need to construct some communications infrastructure between two or more communities. Once build, the communities may have no more common projects so they dissolve the area. Alternative, the area may become a permanent structure to coordinate common projects such as maintenance of the common infrastructure.

Each group will appoint members to an area that they belong to.

Again, like areas, sectors form the next level up in the holoarchy and run larger projects. Areas compose sectors. Areas form sectors, again, as and when needed. They also can become permanent structures.

The technate 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 main goals. The technate forms the only designed permanent structure.

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.

Control and Direction in the Holoarchy

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 (such as ensuring projects follow goals and setting of common standards)

• 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 have 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. Each functional sequence represents a technical area. 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, if one exists. 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.

If we think of holons as cells, organs etc. then we can think of the hierarchy of sequences as a skeletal framework that give the structure to the whole.

Roles of Directors

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

Goals become the most import attribute of the above structure. Goals give direction and purpose to the system as a whole.

The technate has 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 projects 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.

Example Implementation

One community example

A single small community has the following task areas:

• Building
• Agriculture
• Energy
• Waste management

Personal within the community

• 2 electrical engineers (members of the Sequence of Technology)
• 3 agriculturalists (members of the Sequence of agriculture)
• 1 carpenter (member of the Sequence of Architecture)

Groups within the community

Buildings group:

1 electrical engineer 1 carpenter

Agricultural group :

1 electrical engineer 3 agriculturalists

Projects

With in the Buildings group the members have two projects

• Energy / electrical distribution - 1 electrical engineer

This project maintains and updates the power generators and electrical distribution within the buildings

• Building maintenance - 1 carpenter

This project maintains the buildings

Within the agricultural group, the agriculturalists have three projects

• Food production / farming - 2 agriculturalists

This project produces the food for the community

• Algae project - 1 agriculturalist

This research project looks at growing algae both for food and energy

• Engineering support - electrical engineer

This project manages the electrical systems used in agriculture outside the buildings

Cooperation and communications between the projects

Both the electrical engineers keep each other informed and cooperate when they have problems.

The building, food production and algae projects also inform the energy project on their needs and problems.

A Simple community

The diagram shows groups within a community, each group running its own project. The members of each group also have membership of a sequence.

• Black - groups
• Red - projects
• Green - Sequence of Agriculture
• Blue - Sequence of Technology
• Orange - Sequence of Architecture

The lines represent communication and cooperation.

A Multiple Community Example

This example presents aspects of inter-community cooperation and the formation of zones. Each community has the capacity to produce the food and energy it requires as well as waste management but makes additional gains through cooperating with other communities.

The Communities

Community A

Has excess energy production capacity do to its physical location so acts as a energy farm.

Community B

Has a good location for growing. In addition to basic food stuff it also grows some more luxury crops such as strawberries and spices.

Community C

Has taken on extra manufacturing and produces clothe items for distribution to all three communities. This requires some extra energy from the energy farm and some raw material (in the form of cotton) which each community contributes to.

Zones

In addition to groups each community also contributes to the formation of a zone for clothes production, luxury food production and energy production.

• Black - zone level
• Purple - communities
• Red - projects

The lines represent communications and cooperation

Three communities join up to form a zone. Each community runs its own projects internally but they also contribute to projects between them. The zone runs projects to manufacture clothes, grow luxury food and provide additional energy. Community C produces clothes, which it distributes to all three communities. Community A produces extra energy for community C to use in manufacturing. Community B produces spices and strawberries for consumption in all three communities. In this way, each community gains something from helping the other communities.

A Technate Level Example

This example looks at just one aspect of the technate level; transport infrastructure.

The lower levels form higher levels in the holonic structure and different parts of the structure can come and go as needed. However, the top level of the technate has a permanent status but the lower levels still drive the projects. The transport infrastructure forms a set of such projects.

The groups in the communities drive the need for a transport structure to enable people to move from place to place. Each community would have a group that maintains and manages the local transport hub. However, transport systems need an A to B and the transport group can manage transport within a community but to move from community to community or urbanate to urbanate a number of transport groups can join together to form a transport zone. However, the system can have other complexities such as deciding the most efficient ways to interconnect each community. For that a we would need a technate level holistic over view.

At the technate level, we can maintain a long distance network that transports people between major hubs in larger groupings of urbanates. We can then divide the thechnate into specific sectors which maintain a transport network between the major hubs of smaller urbanate groupings within each sector. Sectors can then have area networks with their own zone networks.

For example, the technate could plan and maintain hi-speed monorail networks for the major routs between, say western Europe and eastern Europe. Within those sectors, more hi-speed mono rails could link smaller groupings of urbanates. Between major urbanates groupings we could have and area level autonomous transport systems that transports people from major urbanates groupings to smaller urbanates groupings. At the zone level we could find projects that maintain the link from one urbanate to another and within each urbanate we could have a group level project that plans and maintains cycle tracks.

An Example Transport Network

• black - main transport branches maintained and planed at the technate level
• blue - sector level transport network
• orange - area level network

Zones (not shown) would manage each individual track between two urbanates and groups (not shown), the transport structure within an urbanate.

Advanced Transport Systems Ltd. www.atsltd.co.uk

ULTra forms a possible example of a zone level autonomous transport system.

http://www.transfuture.net/

Hi-speed monorails form an example of a possible technate and sector level transport system.

A Technate Level Network Example

Not all projects need to have a physical attribute. People can work on some projects regardless of their geographical location. Software projects such as games or operating systems form such an example. For such projects we may see technate level projects forming as needed where people come together over a computer network and work on a project with no lower level holons such as sectors or groups.

A computer game forms an example of a project that could lie on the technate level. People can work on the project form any location.

Alternatively, we could also see groups, zones, areas and sectors forming even if the project doesn't have a geographical nature. For example, if we wrote an operating system such as Linux we could have the operating system project as a whole located at the technate level. However, we could see "group" level projects forming such as a group that works on network drives. They could team up with other group that handle, say, screen drivers or display drivers, to form an zone that dealt with driver projects as a whole. Other groups may form to handle user interfaces or application software as needed.

A Sequence Example

This example looks at a zone level sequence.

A number of communities have come together to form a zone to manage a set of common projects. They have elected a board of directors for the zone for a five year term. The board has three members:

• Electrical Engineer - Director of the Zone Sequence of Technology
• Agriculturalist - Director of the Zone Sequence of Agriculture
• Architect - Director of the Zone Sequence of Architecture.

The board then elected the Agriculturalist as Zone Director.

The directors have decided to implement a forum, archive and wiki for each project within their zone on their local servers. The forum enables members working on zone level projects to send open messages to other members and the wiki enables them to work on common documents. The archive forms the location for all official and approved documents.

In addition, the directors send out a newsletter to keep each zone member and members of the underlying group informed of what each project currently works on.

The forum, archive and wiki remains open for all members of the zone and groups as well as any other member of the technate to review the projects within the zone. The forum has a open section for people not in the zone to comment on projects within their area of expertise. So, for example, other architects can comment on the zone's architecture projects.

When members of the zone or groups start a new zone level project they post it on the wiki. The directors review the project but have no say on how it runs. However, if they notice that the project does not contribute to the goal of the technate, if, for example, it duplicates unnecessary work conducted elsewhere, the directors can stop the project.

Human Nature

The scientific research over the last few decades tends to support the idea that human begins do have a nature that has a genetic origin but also the environment does influence our behaviour thus human behaviour results from both nature and nurture through the complex interaction of them both.

Human nature includes some positive behaviour patters; humans have a curious nature and cooperate to help each other for example. It also has some less desirable attributes such as the use of violence. The design present here does not aim to alter human nature but instead aims to work within the bounds human nature and through environment design encourage some behaviour patterns and discourage others.

An Overview of Some Aspects of Human Nature

Human Nature

Environmental Design and Human Nature

References

Holon (philosophy) http://www.panarchy.org/koestler/holon.1969.html

VISA (credit card) http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/165359563.html

Distributed computing http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/130675/computer-science/168849/Distributed-computing

Emergence 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