Integration laws

The following set of universal laws of integration has been proposed:

1. The condition of being integrated is a reference to an integrated whole, rather than to integration of parts; or to a unitary whole, rather than a unified whole.

2. Integration is a condition which exists only in terms of energy potentials distributed within a unitary whole in accordance with laws of energy behaviour. Action follows in the integrated energy field of the whole when, and only when, conditions ultimately traceable to environment place the field in a state of imbalance.

3. The whole conditions or regulates the expenditure of energy, or the work done, by the parts. The work of a whole is exclusively done by the parts; the whole as such does no work, for its influence is purely regulatory.

4. Wholes evolve as wholes. Integration is therefore as complete at the beginning of the life of an organism as it is at any other time during its history. Development is a process of preserving integration while it becomes structurally more complicated, and is not a process of building up integration.

5. Any whole is constantly renewing itself through a transposition process. The identity and integration of the whole is preserved while the parts change.

6. The evolution of the whole can be described as an exchange process going on between the properties of homogeneity and heterogeneity.

7. The activity of a part within a whole, no matter what the conditions, obeys the law of least action.

8. All of the available potential energy of the whole will be expended in the direction of maintaining its integration or current condition in the presence of external disturbances.

9. There is not a one-to-one correlation between a particular external stimulus or disturbance and the response of the affected whole. The whole responds relationally to a total situation; that is, to one disturbance in relation to other disturbances.