Page 22 ~ That a company is a holon is reflected in what the employees, shareholders, and customers seek from their interrelationship. What they seek is also ambivalent. The employee wants challenge; but he also wants to be unique and seeks recognition to prove his uniqueness. The shareholder wants security of and growth in his investment; but he also wants high dividends. The customer wants a high-quality product that will satisfy his needs; but he also wants low prices. We shall deal more precisely with these polarities later, but for the moment let us recognize that it is through the product that the first set of needs (challenge, growth, and quality) may be satisfied, while it is through organization that the second set may be satisfied. Let us know, therefore, give our attention to the product.
Take for example a roughly cut, wedge-shaped piece of wood. Now let us ask ourselves whether this is a product. Most people, if they were asked this, would say no, because it is useless and no one would want it. If they are pressed, however, someone will likely seize on its shape and suggest that it could be used as a doorstop, and that if it were somewhere where there was plenty of wind and doors, indeed it could be a product. Dime stores sell rubber ones only slightly more elegant than our wedge of wood, and they are products. Let us consider this example for a moment and ask ourselves at what point the wedge of wood changed its character from a useless object to a product. It was when an idea was introduced.
A product is an idea in a form. In the case of the doorstop, the material out of which the form is made is not very important –it can be of wood, metal, rubber or plastic, but the idea is constant: a wedge-shaped something that can be pushed under a door.
March 19th, 2020 ~ This reminds me of the self and body and whether they exist inherently from their own side or not. Whether they are empty or not. Can we find a body that doesn’t stay the same and yet can still be called the label “my” body? How can something change and yet still be the same to qualify as something existing independently? How can a “self” change yet still be something that exists from it’s own side? When we say own side, we mean independently coming into being, arising and ceasing to exist–with no help or relation from something other than itself.
So, that doorstop isn’t a doorstop until it is called a label, in this case doorstop. Until it is a mind object. Going back to the body, if we take a hand or a finger off the body, is it still a body? How about an arm, leg or foot? When does body stop being a body? When the life is gone? Was it ever a body? When does the wood become a doorstop? Can it then stop being a doorstop after initially becoming a doorstop? It is the idea that makes these things so. It is the mind that comes up with “idea.” But it is really not a door stop. It is only a door stop because we think it is.
Before the label, there is the base, which is a phenomenon with certain characteristics. So the doorstop is a phenomenon with the characteristics such as wood fiber and shape. From this basis, we then call it a label–doorstop. In Chinese, it would be something else. Even this base doesn’t exist from its own side or exist independently. It is empty, as is everything else. Just like products, ideas and forms. They exist because of our minds.