I googled "cut a hologram in half", and this is the first result- Which I find fascinating. Another property of cutting a hologram in half is that each half will be 1/2 the resolution of the original whole. Which to me seems to parallel and illustrate the difference between an individual and the society in which they participate. For instance - take a 10" square holographic photo and cut it up into 100 1" squares, and each piece contains the entire image at 1/100 the resolution of the original whole. The same thing happens in a society. Take a society of 100 individuals and each individual represents 1/100 of the whole- at 1/100 resolution. It makes a difference when discussing groups of individuals. Is a group succesful because of succesful individuals, or is the individual succesful because of the succesful group? It's both at the same time. Ain't it?
...I say that it is both at the same time. Because IF a society is unsuccessful, it is unsuccessful when individuals fail. And people should consider that. When a person steals and does the wrong thing it may look like the thief benefits. But they can't. In the Big Picture the whole of society suffers from the act of the person within it.
Your analogy is weak. Whereas each of the 100 1 sq inch holograms are equal, each member of a group of 100 people is anything but. Individuals are responsible for almost every positive thing that has taken place in the human sphere whereas groups are responsible for almost every single negative. Nietzsche said it best... “In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.”
I glad you are here Impermanence, and thanks for the reply. Yes, I need some help fleshing out the analogy. In the context of how the very big things relate to the very small things, I think it's a fair analogy. But you are right it breaks down working in the opposite direction. It isn't a perfect analogy.
Being that there is an equal amount of good and bad in everything, you have to accept both. When you ramp up human activity to where economies of scale kick-in, the benefits can truly be incredible [take food production, for example], but the other side is the massive negatives the very same processes insure [for example, look at the horrendous health issues created by corporate control of the food industry]. It is probably the rate of change that does not allow our species sufficient time to adapt. This is apparent in the political sphere where legislators are falling further and further behind the pace of technological change that is shaping all of our lives.
Reminds me of fractals. Need to eat me a double handful of these to really get into this conversation! Aghhh..... There was once a time long ago. Don't know if it'd be good for me to take that ride anymore.
Notice the property of each peice of a hologram containing the entire picture- in a society without theft, there are no thieves. But if just one individual chooses to steal, now all of that society lives in a society that steals and has stuff stolen from them. The entire picture changes with the changing of a part of it. So it is like a hologram in that aspect.
Just because one person steals does not mean that anybody else will steal. If you use our own society as an example, stealing has been sanctioned as almost every institution has accepted stealing and fraud as acceptable methods to achieve financial goals.
Right, but it only takes one thief in a society to have a society where theft occurs. It nobody in a group had stolen before then the action of one person in the group stealing would redefine that group. The actions of the individual affect the Big Picture.
i'm afraid the analogy is doa. people are nothing like holograms. the whole exists within each part of the hologram, though in a diluted form. the individual, however, exists separate from the group and has its own identity. though the whole is altered by any imperfection in any of its parts in both instances, the degree to which it is degraded is more sever within human society. the group within human society tends to cater to its lowest common denominator, an increasingly downward spiral. within the hologram the equality of the majority will dilute the negative influence of a few degraded parts.
The above post reminds me of an album title called finding beauty in negative spaces. And it is true that the contrast of opposites makes things pop. A good and dynamic black and white photograph or piece of artwork stands out specifically because of the contrast
