Systemic Coherence

When something has coherence, all its parts fit together well, forming a unified whole. The concept of coherence is usually deeply related to logic and consistency; it makes sense and feels satisfying.

In physics, coherence refers to a fixed relationship between the phases of waves in a beam of radiation of a single frequency. Two beams of light are coherent when the phase difference between their waves is constant; they are noncoherent if there is a random or changing phase relationship.

This definition essentially means that if everything originates from the same single frequency, it can potentially split into many beams of radiation. It's like a single frequency giving birth to many different waves. If those waves interact with each other in a constant and stable way, we would describe the relationship between those waves as coherent. Observing the original frequency of all waves would likely reveal a very coherent and beautiful pattern.

Music is a perfect example to illustrate the physical property of coherence in the audible spectrum of frequencies.

Consider a final version of a song as a single mother-frequency. It is the sum of all individual waves in different phases. All the instruments and voices come together to create a beautiful and unified whole.

If all the voices and instruments were in the exact same frequency, tone, and phase, we would hear nothing but a single monotone sound.

The more you play with various waves, tonalities, and phases, the more your final piece will be tasteful, colorful, and textured in the language of frequencies. In short, the better and more breathtaking your music will be.

That said, even though creativity is limitless, and we can create an endless arrangement of waves to produce any kind of music, some order and rules must still be respected.

All the waves need to be coherent and in some sort of resonance with each other. Yes, you can break the rules and invent new frequency configurations, but you need to master the existing system first. An artist who can break the rules properly must first be a master of the art and the existing system!

You need to develop an ear and special cognitive skills to play the game outside the established system without losing the overall coherence of your final product.

Musicians who can do this appropriately are often considered mysterious wizards, drug addicts, or born geniuses.

Their music can survive for centuries. The frequency they create is so powerful and appealing that people just can't get enough of it. Its simplicity is mind-blowing.

The music becomes a timeless masterpiece and establishes new rules and ideas of what coherence could look like in an innovation-driven world.

So, coherence is actually flexible, changing, and always evolving. We use our creativity and receptivity to transform what coherence means to us and how it can be created.

We are, in a way, all co-creators of the overall frequency of this world, and its global 'coherence' factor is just a result of how skillfully we play a collective song that is creative enough but does not make our ears bleed at the same time.

It needs to be innovative and surprising enough, but it also needs to be coherent and make sense with what we want to hear and are ready to accept as beautiful and worth listening to.

Systemic Coherence: What Does This Mean?

Let's go back to the original definition of coherence and deconstruct it a bit.

"All of the parts fit together by forming a unified whole."

To know what level of coherence we are talking about, we need to identify what/who the 'parts' are, how exactly they 'fit' together, what we consider the 'whole' to be, and how we evaluate its quality of being 'unified.'

Once we have enough knowledge and wisdom on each of these elements and the real relationships between them, we can start talking about how to possibly create systemic coherence in any context or situation.

In my previous reflection about Inner, Micro, and Macro systems, we talked about three-level systemic thinking and its difference from embodied systemic wisdom. To illustrate the dynamics of establishing coherence, we used very complex examples with macro concepts, discussing industries, sectors, and global change of collective consciousness.

I realize that going so macro might be too complex or far from the interests of some. So, in this contemplation about systemic coherence, I would like to use a simpler system to demonstrate and illustrate better how it works in real life.

Let's use a system that everyone can relate to and easily comprehend based on their own personal experience: the family system.

The Family System

The Inner System is You. (Parts: your body, your mind, your soul, and anything else you might consider to be a part of You).

The Micro System is your Family. (Parts include: You, Mother, Father, other siblings/key characters, OR it could be You, your partner, and your kids, depending on your current situation and what you are trying to understand).

The Macro System is your Community. (Parts: Friends, Co-workers, Neighbors, etc.)

The 'whole' that we want to make coherent is your Family.

So, the original definition of coherence applied to our example would be:

Mother, Father, Kids (parts) fit together by forming a unified Family (whole).

How do we define 'fit' and 'unified' here? What does a 'unified Family' look like? How does a family system where all its members perfectly 'fit together' look?

Relationships and Interconnections

Parts that fit together (you, partner, kids) are mainly about relationships. It's about the intimacy and power dynamics between each part that define how well they 'fit' together. It's the efficiency and coherence of their personal relationships.

A unified whole (Family) is about how well a system interacts with other systems in the open field and how efficiently it exchanges energy and resources with the macro system it is embedded in, in our case, the Community.

If a family gives to the community less than it takes from it, we cannot talk about a unified and coherent whole.

If a family's output in the system is lower than its input from the community, it creates scarcity in the community and, by consequence, in the family as well. This is where protectionism and greed are born. This is where conflict and competition for resources with other families make sense.

If the family is not properly connected to the community and the larger macro system around them, they cannot survive and evolve. They cannot be part of a unified whole. They are an isolated micro system cut off from the macro system.

To ensure your family (micro system) is coherent, resilient, and ultimately happy, you need to make sure it is properly and intimately connected to the community (macro system) you are in.

The Parts that Fit Together

This has more to do with relationships and interconnections inside your micro system (family). It's about the efficiency and coherence of relational dynamics between each sovereign, but interdependent part of it, each member of the family system.

The thing is, you have no power or control over any part of your family system except for your own self. The only part you are responsible and accountable for in the family system is You.

You might live under the illusion that you have ultimate power over your partner or your kids, but if you are honest with yourself, you know this is untrue. Your partner or kids might be scared of you and might need you to ensure their own survival.

They might make you believe you have some sort of authority, control, or power over them. But, you also know there are times when others simply don't care what you think and do whatever they want, no matter the consequences.

No single person in this world can be prevented from taking back their personal power, freedoms, and energies from any system. This is why your partner and your kids can reject and abandon you if you fail to care for and make the entire family system coherent; you will become a threat to their survival.

If any member of your family fears for their physical or psychological survival, they will take their power back and will not care about the illusory 'control' you think you have over them.

Understanding that you will never have ultimate power over other human beings, even your own kids, you start caring more about the quality of your relationships with them than the power you hold in the family system.

Your goal is not to control and exercise the power of your weak authority over your partner or kids, but to ensure that your relationships with them make your entire family more coherent, more creative, and more powerful.

You cannot change or influence any of the other sovereign parts. Each family member has the unconditional choice and power of free will. The only thing you can do is work on the relationships with other independent parts and their interconnections within the unified whole of your family and your wider community.

Example

Imagine you love your kids very much, but the relationship with your partner is so-so.

You understand that the family system needs all of you to be a unified whole.

If your partner contributes nothing to the family system, it is straightforward—you might consider ending the relationship because they take more from the family than they give. But in real life, it's never that simple. Usually, your partner does contribute something, and this is where it becomes more complicated. This is where power dynamics peak. We start manipulating and abusing each other to compare our impact and personal significance in the family system.

We become foolish, using our personal energies to fight each other instead of fostering authentic relationships and nurturing our personal connections.

If you love your kids but have a so-so relationship with your partner, you should not use your relationship with your kids to overpower your partner. You need to fix your relationship with your partner. You must ensure that the power dynamics and intimacy level with your partner are coherent with what the entire family system needs.

To make the kids happy and the entire family system healthy and coherent, we need to ensure that all relationships are based on love, care, and respect, not control or authority.

When each family member owns their personal power and free will, they will be part of the family out of pure authentic desire, not need or survival strategy.

Systemic Performance and Unified Wholes

The quality and depth of our relationships with other independent parts in the micro system define our systemic performance level and how well we fit together to form something beautiful and powerful as a whole.

A unified whole means realizing that our family is not an isolated system. Our family is part of a community to which it belongs, deeply interconnected and mutually interdependent. If we cut our family off from the community or take more from it than we give, each member of our family will eventually suffer.

Our community is also part of a bigger system. There are many different communities sharing the resources of Earth. The same logic applies: if your community contributes less to the planet or humanity than it takes, your community will not evolve and will disappear. It will not have access to the unlimited resources of the whole. If you don't 'feed' the bigger system abundantly, you cannot expect to continue 'eating' abundantly from it.

To some extent, it is the responsibility of each of us to ensure our inner system is coherent with our family, our community, and global humanity, which we share our collective journey with.

The only logical and coherent way to take that responsibility wisely is to repair and regenerate our personal relationships with other independent parts in the systems we belong to.