III

MATCHING

Organisation without inner friction
is a more impossible impossibility
than squaring the circle.
Johann Plenge (1919)

Somebody who alters one part of
a whole alters all the other parts also.
 Othmar Spann (1939)


1

The third "inner front" ensues from the further demand that the functional units should really not hinder each other but instead support each other whenever possible. With regard to their positions, their shapes, their sizes and so on – and also concerning the whole – they have to be well-suited to each other. Within the course of evolution, this internal requirement led to massive problems.

We are now actually getting to what is usually described as organism, organisation, harmony, entirety and alike. Every functional unit within a structure based on the division of labour is merely one force among numerous others1. Only if all those forces – those effects – are suited to each other can the whole become a unity. A lot has been written on this topic already – most of the time, however, in very general terms. Here my intention is to look for the concrete basic principles of that harmony – to look for measurable interrelations.

If the previous sections have not yet convinced you that there is a real and deep relationship between organisms and the human professional bodies, you will not find that relation expressed more strongly and more distinctly than at this "inner front". I call this "matching".

Here, too, we are confronted with certain interrelations which appear to be rather "self-evident", even banal according to the conventional way of thinking. For instance, the fact that the eyes of an animal have to be "in front" seems to be self-evident. Additionally, the fact that within a factory the machine room is not supposed to be located above the president’s office also seems to be self-evident. From the viewpoint of the energon theory, however, "self-evident" does not exist. Everything that constitutes, diminishes or increases the capability of acquisition and competitive capacity of an energon has to be determined, measured and investigated in its causal interactions.

So how is it possible to determine the inner front "matching"? How can we measure the additional efforts that it "imposes" on the energons practically?


2

First, it is important to what degree a functional unit is "fixed in its location" or "variable in its location".

With most animals, for instance, the organs of visual perception are very much fixed in their locations. If the animal has a front and a back regarding the direction in which it moves, then they have to be at the front. They have to be close to the mouth (in order to control the process of eating), however, they should not be too close to it (so that they are not disturbed or endangered by it). The best place for them is above the mouth – on the one hand because there they have the best view, on the other hand because there they are less disturbed by left-overs of food and by growth from underneath.

In this case there is an interaction between different functions: the kind of food-acquisition dictates a certain location for the functional unit of visual perception. Environmental conditions and the process of eating determine it even more precisely.

Protective shields are very fixed in their locations. In order to serve their energons appropriately – in order to produce the required protection effect – they necessarily have to be on the outside.

Less fixed in their location are – with animals – the heart and the kidneys. The function of the heart is to keep the bloodstream circulating, the function of the kidneys is to extract waste-products from the blood and to excrete them to the outside. Whether those organs are affiliated to the blood circulation in the front or back third is not essential. The effectiveness of the organism is hardly affected by that.

With higher animals the organs that build the red blood corpuscles and the deposition places for stored fat are even less fixed in location. Everywhere along the bloodstream those functional units can perform their functions. Within the total structure of effect they can adjust themselves to circumstances and can fit in where they disturb least. Their effectiveness is not tied to a certain location.

Figure 30: Matching in space and time

a) The locations inside an energon which are optimal for two functional units (V1 and V2) overlap: a compromise becomes necessary (a). Both functional units distance themselves from their optimum locations. Thus the optimum expanse o is exceeded by the space-unit x. More space has thus be controlled: that means (as a rule) an additional expenditure, a burden for the balance of the energon. x is in principle a measurable, energetic item of debit.

b) Here two functions (F1 and F2) are graphically depicted as areas where two activities take place. The two functions hinder each other (one may for instance think of two work-processes where the two performing functional units temporary collide). b1: Here, too, the result is a compromise – now in the time dimension. The two functions are adapted to each other in such a way that they cannot take place simultaneously. Function F2 only sets in later and consequently the collision is avoided. However, this results in a longer execution time for the two functions. The optimum time o cannot be achieved but it is prolonged by the unit x which again burdens the balance as item of additional expenditure and which can be expressed in terms of energy.

c) A functional unit V (for instance a nerve) collides with a functional unit H (for instance a bone). Here a compromise is not possible: H has functional priority, V has to give way. That results in additional expenditure x, which can be measured in terms of energy.

d) The course of a function, that is, an activity is disturbed by an obstacle. Example: a messenger is disturbed by a rock or a house. The course then is prolonged corresponding to the forced detour and this costs the additional energy x, which is again measurable.

What has to be noted here – just as in Fig. 28. – is the highly similar situation with spatial and temporal problems.
 

With businesses the roofs of buildings are closely fixed to their locations. They only serve those energons if they are located on the buildings in question. A porter, too, can only perform his function at the entrance. In assembly line production, for many different units the required point of their activities is determined by the production plan. The fleet of vehicles, on the contrary, can be arranged at very different points2.

What is also important is the difference between "shaped fixedly" and "shaped variably". If we again consider the eyes of animals, we will see that they are fixed in their shapes. Regarding their function their shape is fixed to a large degree (steered to a large degree). The same is true for a needle, for a ship’s propeller, for a rock-drill used in the winning of crude oil. Already minor alterations of the optimum shape can greatly impair performance. In contrast, the liver of a fish can to a large degree fit itself into the space between the intestines. Even with a highly peculiar shape it can still carry out its function almost in the same way. With functional units belonging to human professional entities and business organisations that have not coalesced the shape of one is much less often influenced by the shape of another. Here, too there are priorities, whereby a non-optimum shape may be imposed upon one or the other functional unit – for example the arrangement of rooms and buildings.

Within the framework of such interactions, on the other hand, it is decisive how "valuable" (construction-costs, procuring-costs, replaceability) and how "important" (functional justifiability, centre and extent of the requirement) a functional unit is. If the brain of an animal or the energy equipment of a production company is impaired, then the energons affected are disturbed severely. If, in contrast, a muscle-cord or a lorry fails or breaks down, the energon is certainly handicapped, however, it can still – with an insignificant decline of its energy balance – continue its activity.

What results from that is that some functional units have priority over others. Some of them are tied to a certain local point as otherwise there would be a severe deterioration of performance, others are not. Some of them can adjust themselves to very different situations, others cannot. Some of them are more expensive and more difficult to replace or are required more constantly than others. Every energon thus has an internal structure of priorities which is very important for its competition value. What logically follows from that is that in the competition the energon whose functional units lose the fewest optimum capabilities has advantage in comparison to all (otherwise equal) competitors.

The frequently quoted sentence "The whole is more than the total of its parts" is a true but superficial conclusion which does not mean a lot. The arm of a smith cannot work at all if it is just on its own. In combination with the smith’s body, a hammer, a hearth and so on, however, it can achieve a lot. A kidney taken as such hardly has the ability to survive; inside the body of an animal it is assigned an important place. As the parts of a structure with division of labour taken as such usually do not have any capabilities it truly does not mean a lot if the whole is more than the total of its parts.

It is much more important that with every energon – without exception – the total of the effects is less than the total of the individual effects: simply because some effects interfere with others. In every structure of achievement manifold compromises are necessary. What is crucial for the competition value is that they result in an optimum "matching", thus a minimum of achievement losses.


3

The consequence of that "inner front" can be seen very clearly with the example of the limbs of vertebrates. Here we find a matching of four very differing functional units: the bones, the muscles, the blood vessels and the nerves.

The most fixed in shape and location are the bones. From the effect that they have to produce results their necessary shape, from the material their dimensioning. Already small deviations concerning their shape and their location can lead to major losses of performance.

Muscles and ligaments are considerably more adaptable but, according to the functions that are required of them and to the shape of the bones, their shapes and locations also are fixed to a large degree. The blood vessels have to attach themselves to those functional units that have priority. They make way in a conflict – that is go round the bones and muscles. That results in higher costs for the energon – but the loss of achievement is smaller than with the vessels going right through muscles and bones. Finally, on the lowest rank there are the nerves. In a conflict they not only make way for the bones and the muscles but also for the blood vessels. This is more favourable for the total balance. A slightly longer nerve means a smaller loss of achievements and costs than a longer or a curved blood vessel.

The extent to which those components adapted to each other inside the body can be seen in a comparison with the skull capsule. There the bones only have the function to protect and to tie which, however, is not much disturbed by small holes. Here some of the blood vessels and nerves have priority. They do not take their course around the bone but instead go through it directly3.

On a corporations humans already try to suit all necessary functional units to each other before construction and they also try to minimise losses of achievement. It is known that this nevertheless does not always succeed. The extend of such internal disturbances within the corporation ("inner frictions") can here be traced clearly and can also be measured in money terms. As organisms so far have been thought of as perfect constructions, their structures of effect have rarely been assessed with such standards.

Apart from the matchings of shape and location – that is in the dimension of space – matchings of locomotion processes are also important: that is matchings in the dimension of time. While the "co-ordination" is concerned with relating different locomotion activities to one collective achievement, the "matching" has to make sure that no process impairs another one. Not infrequently active functions disturb each other – or even exclude each other.

A very striking example: when we swallow we are not able to breathe. Or: when we eat, we are not (or only in a very restricted manner) able to to speak. Here the mouth (by extension of its function) gained the functions of gas-exchange and of speaking in addition to its original function of the ingestion of food. This results – inevitably – in a functional conflict. Either we swallow or we breathe and speak.

The same principle of solution is significant for the instinctive behaviour of animals. Here, too, we find patterns of behaviour which exclude others. In businesses that problem appears when an employee "can only manage one thing at a time". Then the solution is: what is more important at the moment is carried out first, what is less important has to wait. The functions that are colliding here are, as it were, queuing up at the functional unit4.

However, it can also happen that functional units disturb courses of locomotion – or the other way round. In that case then there exists a collision between spatial and temporal phenomena.

The first case exists with all animals which build a protective shell. Such a shell, for instance, disturbs the gas-exchange – thus an active function. Accordingly, shells also worsen the reception of sensory reports – especially those coming from tactile sensations Within businesses, on the other hand, buildings or walls often become the reasons for detours. They can lead to very considerable losses of effectiveness and therefore efforts are made to keep them – already from the planning stage onwards – as small as possible. This is expressed in the arrangement of rooms, doors and stairs but also in the interior furnishings and the order of the tools on the workbench. In the state territory the same problem exists with highways, with the sewage system and on on. Here, too, the minimisation of "inner frictions" by avoiding hindrances is emphasised.

The opposite case – that active functions impair a functional unit, that is a spatial construction – can be found for instance if the employees in a nuclear reactor fall ill through radiation injuries or if bearings come to a stop because of an overheating of the engine. With that connection of effects there is not a spatial construction disturbing a process but an active function disturbing a physical structure.

Each of those hindrances leads to losses of performance and thus to a burdening of the energy balance. Simply on the basis of different importance, replaceability, and definitions of shape and location not all functional units can be working optimally and simultaneously. Losses – with effects that are perfectly measurable – have to be accepted. For the competition value it is important that they are as small as possible. Who and what it is that has the priority is decided by – the balance.


4

Yet, compromises are not always sufficient in order to make functional conflicts bearable. Quite frequently specialised special functional units that function as "buffers" are necessary. Thus, the inner front "matching" not only leads to a burdening of the energy balance through compromises – but also dictates additional functional units which also constitute an expense, a burdening effort.

This for example in our bodies is shown by the heart. On the basis of its permanent motion – which is unavoidable due to its function – it would disturb the neighbouring organs, especially the lungs. Additionally, it would also damage itself through the friction arising. A transfer would not suffice because wherever the heart was, disturbing side-effects would arise. In this case an additional shielding functional unit is necessary: the pericardium, which is filled with liquid where the functional unit, the heart, can throb without causing any harm. Within businesses there are sound-absorbing devices with a similar function. With a nuclear reactor we find the central unit shielded by means of a very costly lead-jacket – it would be superfluous, if there were no humans around, sensitive to radiation. Here the blame for a good and proper item of expense for an additional functional unit is on account of the "matching".

Within an explosives factory such a shielding appears in yet another form. There exists the danger that if one unit explodes it will affect others. Therefore individual complexes have to be kept small and have to be as far apart from each other as possible – the management expert calls them companies which "consume plenty of space". According to the theory of the energon the blame here for the additional costs for acquiring land is to be laid on the factor of matching. The spatial distance – which also costs money – becomes the shielding unit.

With connected functional units that perform movements, appropriate joints, bearings and lubrication become necessary. We find such equipment both with the bones of animals and the linkages and wheels of machines. By the merging of functions the lubrication can become an independently performing system taking the form of "central-lubrication". For all those units, too, the "matching" is responsible because they are also additional expenditures required by that inner front sequence.

What is even more complicated is the matching with organic functional units, especially within corporations and states. There the functional unit, human beings, causes considerable "frictions". They have drives and moods and tend to antipathies and to arguing. Their striving for appreciation and rank leads to thousand and one conflicts. Most of the time that has nothing to do with the actual fulfilling of the function; instead, those are negative side-effects of that otherwise so immensely versatile and highly talented unit. What are the shielding devices like in order to avoid such "inner frictions"?

They appear shaped as company rules that function as units settling arguments and in appropriate methods of leadership. That expense has outwardly very little in common with ball-bearings and sound-isolating panels and yet – according to the energon theory – it has to be assessed together with them. With regard to the energy balance those additional expenditures belong together. Whether it is a human being or a technical device fulfilling a certain function is – as has been stressed several times – secondary for the energons. What is always primarily important, however, is that functional units that impair each other are appropriately shielded.

Within the animal kingdom there are various parallels for that too. For instance, within ant colonies the single individuals recognise each other by their smell. This is important because unknown ants trigger off hostile reactions. If an ant is thrown into water, it loses its "smell of the nest" and is not recognised by its fellow citizens but instead is fought fiercely. Thus, the communal smell brings about a shielding against the inherent reaction of aggressive behaviour. As it develops on its own it does not produce costs worth mentioning for the energon "ant colony" – nevertheless it becomes a very important functional unit. It causes the elimination of the otherwise occurring "inner friction".

The inner factor "matching", however, not only expresses itself in the necessary avoidance of conflicts. Also the opposite process is significant. Single functional units can also support each other.


5

Inside energons there exists the opposite of the already discussed relation horse-rider. Also, functional units can make outside energy utilisable – that is, the performance of other functional units.

All forms of taking up functions and of merging functions (see Part Two, chapter 4, paragraph 6) belong there. The focus is always on functional units improving their energy balances by merging physically or in the performance of active functions. These are, as it were, internal alliances. Double tracks are avoided by that.

In that case – and actually only in that one – the whole is in fact "more than the total of its parts" as the total costs are lower than the total of the individual costs. In comparison to the additional costs that for every energon grow out of the mutual hindrances of their functional units, however, such savings might rather move into the background.

Let us summarise: the energy balances or energons are burdened on the one hand through "inner friction", on the other hand through additional functional units designed to avoid such frictions (or to eliminate them). Again the criteria costs, precision and speediness are valid because inner friction expresses itself in additional costs, in the loss of precision and in the slowing down of processes. Furthermore, with all functional units that serve the reduction or the elimination of such frictions those standards become all the more valid: with them, too, it is important that they cause the lowest costs possible and that they work as precisely as possible. What can be seen for example with the settling of arguments is that also the speediness is of considerable significance.


6

The "matchings" that have been discussed do not affect every functional unit. Not every one has disturbing side-effects on others. However, there is another especially significant matching which affects every single functional unit of each energon. It is the matching of the parts to the whole.

A lot has also been written about that – not least in political science and political economy. There the following dispute has long existed: should one assess the whole from the viewpoint of the parts ("atomistic" point of view) or the parts from the viewpoint of the whole ("universal" point of view). Practically this means: what has priority? Do the parts have to comply with the whole – or do the parts determine the whole?

The energon theory agrees with O. Hertwig’s opinion that each of those ways of looking at it is incomplete and thus leads to an incorrect assessment of the reality5. Both with organisms and the energons created by humans the reciprocal influence manifests itself clearly. Frequently individual functional units impose – through the demands they make on account of their functions – considerable burdens on the whole. On the other hand, each part has to be in a certain relation to the whole in order to have an optimum effect.

Goethe spoke of a "subordination of the parts". Today we have the far better term "integration". With regard to the energy balance this is especially easy to grasp. The criteria costs, precision and time appear again.

If a functional unit’s dimension is bigger or smaller than would be necessary for the whole, then this constitutes a disadvantage in the competition. If it is too big and too costly, it is a superfluous expense. If it is too small, it can become the "weakest link of the chain" and thus "dominance of the minimum sector" in business management. If that exists and if it is unavoidable, then all planning has to "level off" with regard to that weakest section.

With organisms, natural selection has the same effect. Wholly inevitably it always starts with the weakest link of the chain.

Many varieties of animals and plants, however, have the special abilities of a "functional" or "regular" adaptation. The proportions of the single functional units are in that case not strictly determined by their genetic blueprints. Depending on the way they are used they can increase their sizes and working force6. If the use declines, then regression takes place. Thus, such organisms have special mechanisms for the improvement of the integration inside their bodies.

With human acquisition structures intelligence and controls bring about the same achievement. If it is found in a business that one department is under too great a strain, then – if no other solution is found – it is enlarged correspondingly. If in another department the employees sit around idly, then– with a rational management – it will be made smaller sooner or later7.

Gutenberg points out that in enterprises also the quality of the means of production has to be integrated. In places where for instance top performance engines are not necessarily required, they become disadvantaged because their "optimum ranges" are mostly restricted. The "optimum matching" possible for a business can only be achieved if the "optimum capacities" of all means of the business correspond to actual demands.

The same relationship is also valid for organisms. Where for instance delicate sensory abilities – for a certain form of acquisition or for the repulse of enemies – are not required, their formation is a superfluous expenditure. Both in the animal and in the plant kingdom many examples clearly show how in those cases natural selection leads to appropriate savings.

What is termed "quality" with the means of a business covers the term "precision" and how it is used in the energon theory to a large degree. Generally it is held that it is an advantage for every energon that also the precision of its functional units is integrated.

Furthermore, also the speediness of single functional units in the fulfilling of their functions has to be suited to the total activities of the energon. Too high a speed becomes a disadvantage if it causes increased costs and if it is not necessary. Accordingly, on a production line none of the work sequences has to be carried out faster than is permitted by the overall schedule. If on the other hand the functions are performed too slowly, it can reduce the total productivity of the energon.

Thus the subordination of the parts to the whole happens according to various standpoints. Inside the total structure of effect they have to "level off" the single effects, as it were. To determine the respective optimum "inner balance" of a perfect integration probably belongs to the most difficult arithmetical tasks. The achievements of all functional units have to be considered here – and furthermore all environmental factors which influence the energon.

If they change, then also the optimum inner balance changes automatically.


7

This is an extremely important point. Every integration is only valid with a constant form of acquisition and in a constant environmental situation. Yet, this means that every "entirety" is a completely relative value. If the environmental conditions change, then also the demands on individual functional units change. The "force fields" that work from the outside change and overlap differently. The values for a perfect integration correspondingly are different then.

That knowledge leads to a dynamic assessment of energons. Their necessary parts and their priorities concerning location, dimensioning, shape and function, are by no means constant. The more the environmental conditions – especially the conditions of acquisition – change, the more also the demands put on their inner matching change. With organisms the parts, since they have coalesced, can only to a limited degree adapt themselves to such changes by "regulation" and all genetically determined structures were only able to change very slowly and gradually with the evolution. Only with acquisition structure built by humans did those limitations cease to apply, only with them did faster and fundamental changes and restructurings become possible.

That particular ability nowhere appears more clearly than with military units. Depending on the positions of the hostile forces and on the state of the territory the individual units and other means of fighting can be arranged in one way or another. That especially is where the art of every "strategy" lies. However, in this respect, too, it is not ultimately the commander who decides about the best deployment and the best tactics possible (where there can be more than good choice), but the enemy and the respective environmental condition. Here, too, those factors exert – without even having the slightest intention of doing so – a steering effect.

What is the best entirety at a given time is always determined by the environment – and only by that. The environment dictates the necessary size, location and form of achievement of the individual functional units and their demands then beam on into the inside of the energons and there dictate secondary, tertiary and quaternary matchings.

That problem also appears very clearly with growth – every manager knows that. If a business is expanded, then almost all matchings change – and by no means always proportionally. Every existing building, every existing organisational connection again becomes a problem: some basically new assessments become necessary. If with animals and plants growth proceeds smoothly, then this is no doubt one of the most amazing phenomena. Every process of construction has to happen in such a way that the functional units which are in the process of formation or are growing do not hinder others which are in the process of change. Here the achievements of the genetic blueprints necessary for the inner front "matching" alone are really extraordinary.

If energons built by humans get their required functional units from "workshops" which do not interfere with each other in any way, that advantage cannot be overestimated. Up to the evolutionary stage of humankind the flow of development flow was extraordinarily burdened with the processes of construction and growth.

Gutenberg pointed out that the instalment of every new unit into a business influences the whole system. Exactly the same is true for the development of every new functional unit in the course of evolution. As the developmental physiologist Roux emphasised quite rightly, at first every new unit has to "fight" for its place8. Its relative importance has to be proved and it must compete in this respect with others, especially neighbouring energons. Here some functional units bring a whole range of additional demands in their wake: energy supply, refuse disposal, care, repair, controls, necessary auxiliary units and more. The newly joining functional unit’s effect can thereby beam into the remotest parts of an energon and there make necessary modifications and changes. If one considers all that, the particular significance of functional extensions in the course of evolution becomes clear. Only by that process has it often been possible, in small steps – and via various detours – to obtain new effects and additional matchings hence resulting.


8

With human acquisition structures another matching became significant which beams from the field of luxury into the field of acquisition, as it were. Its origin is the human sense of beauty and we will come back to the latter’s roots later on (part 4, chapter II).

Actually, every body of acquisition has to be aligned with economic standpoints. Its abilities of acquisition and competition form the basis of its existence. By the time humans gained appropriate surpluses they did not only construct luxury items but also started to "improve the appearance" of their acquisition structures correspondingly.

The problem deriving from those often widely diverging criteria is well-known to every designer and to every architect. Today not only means of representation – cars and buildings, for instance – but also machines and tools are shaped so as to both be productive and also "pleasing" to our senses. Apart from paint and polish that practically means various changes which even reduce the effectiveness of those artificial organs. This becomes particularly obvious in architecture. If for example the windows of buildings are arranged regularly and symmetrically, this is only the impression that they give from the outside. From the point of view of the respective apartment or accommodation a completely different arrangement would often prove more suitable.

Various "holistic standards" overlap here. The one aims at an improvement of the balance: the economic one. The other attempts to do justice to our sense of beauty (plus the influences of fashion): the aesthetic one.

Similar overlappings appear if in a free market economy politico-economic thoughts gain acceptance. While in countries with a completely free market economy the state with all institutions is a community organ, with an organised national economy the state is increasingly turned into an energon. This results in different evaluations which often collide violently. At one time the state is a servant, at another time it becomes the master. Since usually neither of the two directions is fully accepted, this leads to matchings in this respect also – similar to those between economic and aesthetic evaluations.

If businesses merge or an employee has more than one occupation different standards collide also – different "entireties". Here, too, appropriate matchings – appropriate compromises – become necessary.


9

To date the term "entirety" has had a mystical and supernatural flavour to it. This is founded in the fact that many researchers who use it who believe in the effectiveness of a supernatural force which leads the evolution to higher forms of order and entirety.

The most logical of such world views comes from the Viennese philosopher and economist Othmar Spann. While other thinkers who were "oriented integrally" (Driesch, Üxküll, Gurwisch, Bertalanffy and others) only demanded the supernatural force postulated by them as a hypothesis (without dealing with it in more detail), Spann devised – in taking up Plato’s "ideas" – a sort of religion.

For Spann God himself – the "original centre" – was the centre of all entirety. God himself would "subdivide" himself into organs. From them further entireties would emerge and again others subordinated to those ... and so on. Each higher shape would thus mould the appearance of the ones growing out of it. The whole would thus be "given", it would exist before its parts. It would be born in its parts.

This – pantheistic – thought reveals many weaknesses if one looks at it practically. Spann was logical enough to recognise them in all their clarity.

The first difficulty is the following: why then do those parts that come out of the divine entirety change? Here Spann wrote: "The reason why an entirety does not take pleasure in the eternal glory of a radiant and eternally determined construction and why it does not enjoy itself in blessed calmness, why it rather restructures itself in a ceaseless change, will certainly never be discovered rationally."9

There is a second, even more serious contradiction: if it is God himself who subdivides and manifests himself in so many entireties: how can it be understood that those parts compete with each other and even fight each other most bitterly? Here Spann wrote: "Somebody who would understand the relation of the entireties to each other would understand the world, not only with regard to its manner but to its nature. Therefore this question exceeds the power of human cognition ..."10

I am quoting these thoughts because they have influenced the universalistic thought-direction within economics – especially in the case of W. Heinrich, in Vienna – not insignificantly. Yet, in the first place I am quoting him because Spann, despite his so utterly different point of view, arrived at many conclusions which perfectly well agree with those of the energon theory.

For instance, Spann coined the sentences "Achievement comes before the vehicle of achievement" and "The achievement creates the organ for itself". He spoke of a "field of achievement", of a "location sensitivity" and a "relative quality value". He spoke of "achievement structures" and explained that vehicles of achievement were "not realities as such". He also spoke of "achievement deputising".

The energon theory also ultimately views "the whole as coming before its parts" – namely in that the environmental situation determines in advance as it were what the energon has to look like in order to be productive and competitive at a certain point in space and time.

Practically, of course, my theory relies on the "atomistic" basis which was very much contested by Spann. It views evolution as a perfectly causal process which grew out of the inorganic phenomena. Furthermore, it claims that this peculiar development could not take on any shape. Rather, the shapes were – and will be for all future time – determined by the necessity to achieve an active energy balance. That led – completely automatically – to steering effects on the part of the sources of acquisition and also on the part of adverse and supporting environmental conditions. Further effects were then produced – secondary, tertiary, quaternary – in the inner structure. Every energon thus, as it were, grows into a value-structure which has been mapped out for it – the energon theory then is concerned with the revealing and the ascertaining in measurable terms of that value structure11.

Apart from bonding, co-ordination and matching, every energon still has to face another very important "inner front". It, too, is a category that has not been considered as a unity to date.
 

 
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Comments:

1 It also builds a “force” to offer organised resistance, even if there is no continuous expense of energy connected to it. On the basis of both a particular shape and mass, functional units are able to alter locomotor processes – this is also an achievement, perhaps even a highly differentiated function. Examples: an armour plate stops the cannonball; the negative of a photo in the process of copying only allows the light to penetrate in certain places.
2 K. Mellerowiez set up ten principles for the “internal company-choice of site” which biologists could profitably study also. Some of the points given there – course of the process, effective control, central position of busy departments, isolation of sources of danger and so on – have also influenced the evolutionary “shaping” of organisms. (“Betriebswirtschaftslehre der Industrie”, Freiburg 1958, pp. 253)
3 For instance with our temple-bone (Os temporale) the “wart-hole” (Foramen mastoideum) forms a passage for one vein and the Canalis caroticus forms the passage for an artery: the inner artery. A passage for a nerve (the 12th cranial nerve) is the head-bone (Os occipitale) and is called Canalis nervi hyperglossi.
4 In the framework of  “operations research”, where problems of optimisation are in the foreground, a special “theory of queues” was developed.
5 “Der Staat als Organismus”, Jena 1922, p. 12. In the first three chapters of that book Hertwig provides a detailed overall view of both ways of looking at it.
6 Our muscles are an example. With constant use they become stronger.
7 According to Parkinson it is different in a state, most of the time. There the departments offer resistance to a possible reduction by exaggerating their importance. That leads to an excessive inflating of the apparatus of the state (“Parkinsons Gesetz und andere Untersuchungen über die Verwaltung”, Düsseldorf 1957).
8 W. Roux, “Der Kampf der Teile im Organismus”, Leipzig 1881.
9 “Kategorienlehre”, Jena, p. 209.
10 p. 365
11 The dispute which has existed since the time of Plato and Aristotle about whether the general or the individual, the “idea” or the concrete object constitutes  actual reality is touched upon by those considerations. Measuring is only possible with an individual and concrete object – here the energon theory agrees with Aristotle. However, the actually significant values which determine the appearances of individuals are derived from connections that cannot be perceived with the senses. According to the type of their influence they can be combined in categories ... perhaps in the sense of platonic “ideas”.