Contributions to Self Clarity, Wholeness, & Health

5 WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

Structure, change, and tendency are not only present in all levels of scale and organization but are exemplified in all of them as well. Not only does a human community have structures in it, but it is itself a structure. Changes are the same kind of thing whether they happen to molecules or human bodies or international relations. Tendencies are the same kind of thing whether they are the tendencies of molecules or of human bodies or of international relations. Thus, holistic and mechanistic causality are brought under the same principles, principles that not only apply at all levels but bring all levels together under these same principles. And there is no gulf between the topics of physics and chemistry and those of psychology and ethics, but all are just variant applications of the same principles.

The necessary properties of these elements (the alternatives being contradictory) constitute the core of nature — the necessities of nature. When the argument is followed through persistently, one discovers a considerable list of these necessary properties of structure, change, and tendency.

Then when these necessities of nature are applied to the analysis of humanly important topics such as ethics, we see, for example, that ethical standards are not only necessary foundations for a viable community but are also rooted in patterns in the foundations of nature in general.