The future of society
I had the biggest Eureka moment ever today in Econ. And to think, I said nothing comes of that class.
So I was thinking to myself last night as I walked home from the Avenue about the nature of self-preservation and how it ties into existence. I don't remember how it came about, but I recall contemplating the popsci doomsday scenario of superiorly intelligent creations overtaking their human creators and becoming the dominant inhabitants of this planet. I came to the conclusion that that will never happen, for this reason: in order for a single being or comparatively small group of them to overthrow humanity it would require an immense amount of resources. That line of action would be far less efficient than, say, the modification of itself to accomodate the scenario.
This line of thinking reveals two fundamentally different methods of attaining self-preservation; that of modifying the self, and that of modifying the environment. Extending this further, we can see that the efficiency of each method varies with the population size or density. With smaller groups or an individual, it is less costly to modify the self (note that this is how evoluton initially works, albeit usually in a somewhat trial-and-error fashion), while in large numbers, it is easier to modify the environment rather than each individual. I then saw that this relates directly to how different forms of life have become dominant on Earth. Humans are far from the most capable creatures on the planet as far as self-preservation goes. The reason we've been so successful, novel use of weapons aside, is largely because we've been able to completely overtake and shape the planet to our needs instead.
Looking closely enough, one will see that there are two principal sets of conflicting needs in man. First, and usually strongest, is the need for self-preservation through serving the self. Following this need, man is rewarded for attaining food, items, money in the common-day, etc. His aggressive nature is put to use in order to protect him or his property and to attain things in his environment. Consider a purely selfish state of existence.
Now analyze the other, conflicting drive. The social drive. The need to network within a group as an extension of the above. Here man is rewarded for contributions to the whole and his aggresiveness used to protect and uphold the group. This selfless system has become a secondary mechanism which has in time largely taken the forefront in our society.
Today in Econ we discussed the much-popularized NBA fight that occurred over the weekend. While watching and thinking "what a bunch of fucking dumbasses", I came to a sudden realization. The observation of drive number one taking full charge and absolutely dismissing drive number two smacked me in the face with the obvious answer. In order for humanity to prosper it must abandon the first method of self-preservation and embrace the second. We have become too dependent on society to ever survive on the old mechanism alone, and all it serves at this point in history is to encumber us with the need to slaughter our own. It is this drive that will kill us off in due time by its very nature. It will cause society to collapse, yet, on its own, it will not preserve the species. Thus, the conflict becomes our undoing. Granted, lacking this quality means that if we were ever reduced and dismantled as a society to a great enough extent, we would become extinct. However, it is my belief that at this point our chances of survival are far, far greater as a communal being rather than a mesh of conflicting individuals.
Be careful not to confuse what I speak of with an assimilated, undifferentiated society a la more science fiction doom. The only quality that should be eliminated is the individual's need to preserve himself over all others. This translates to the drop off of aggressive tendency and violence yet leaves innovation, invention, novelty, and genius untouched. Not only that, but defining ourselves in this new light opens the door for a true, logical system of morality because it gives life the definite purpose of preserving itself through the group. Indeed, with an overriding goal, right and wrong (rather, conducive and detrimental) can be correctly defined by reason rather than assumption and logic may prevail. The meaning of life as self-preservation is, of course, in the spirit of life itself, which makes use of the most incredible things (read: everything you are) in order to maintain its existence itself. I believe I may have been wrong in saying that, because it arose spontaneousy, life cannot have an inherent purpose. It may have done so, but it has had to persevere in order to not be destroyed spontaneously as it came. Life may still have purpose, as far as la raison d'etere is concerned. We are the movers. We are life. We must ensure our future by all means necessary for as long as our parent, the universe, permits us.
Even more intriguing is the possibility for our society to become so tightly-bound that it gains emergent properties of its own. For every system, when the elements of that system and their interactions break a certain threshold of complexity such that new and novel properties emerge from the whole, entirely different from those produced of each individual, that is emergence. It can be seen (or, rather, not seen) in life as a series of chemical interactions. It can be seen in consciousness as a set of cellular interactions. It can be seen in chemistry as the interactions of subatomic particles. Given enough complexity and enough interactivity, society may itself develop a sort of "consciousness" of its own. Granted, we may not see it individually, any more than each neuron sees a thought, but from a grand perspective, it is a rather exciting concept.
So, ideally, we as a group need to drop the baggage of our individualistic drives in order to truly evolve and grow as a species. That's my preliminary conclusion, anyway. I'm sure there will become more to this idea as it develops.
So I was thinking to myself last night as I walked home from the Avenue about the nature of self-preservation and how it ties into existence. I don't remember how it came about, but I recall contemplating the popsci doomsday scenario of superiorly intelligent creations overtaking their human creators and becoming the dominant inhabitants of this planet. I came to the conclusion that that will never happen, for this reason: in order for a single being or comparatively small group of them to overthrow humanity it would require an immense amount of resources. That line of action would be far less efficient than, say, the modification of itself to accomodate the scenario.
This line of thinking reveals two fundamentally different methods of attaining self-preservation; that of modifying the self, and that of modifying the environment. Extending this further, we can see that the efficiency of each method varies with the population size or density. With smaller groups or an individual, it is less costly to modify the self (note that this is how evoluton initially works, albeit usually in a somewhat trial-and-error fashion), while in large numbers, it is easier to modify the environment rather than each individual. I then saw that this relates directly to how different forms of life have become dominant on Earth. Humans are far from the most capable creatures on the planet as far as self-preservation goes. The reason we've been so successful, novel use of weapons aside, is largely because we've been able to completely overtake and shape the planet to our needs instead.
Looking closely enough, one will see that there are two principal sets of conflicting needs in man. First, and usually strongest, is the need for self-preservation through serving the self. Following this need, man is rewarded for attaining food, items, money in the common-day, etc. His aggressive nature is put to use in order to protect him or his property and to attain things in his environment. Consider a purely selfish state of existence.
Now analyze the other, conflicting drive. The social drive. The need to network within a group as an extension of the above. Here man is rewarded for contributions to the whole and his aggresiveness used to protect and uphold the group. This selfless system has become a secondary mechanism which has in time largely taken the forefront in our society.
Today in Econ we discussed the much-popularized NBA fight that occurred over the weekend. While watching and thinking "what a bunch of fucking dumbasses", I came to a sudden realization. The observation of drive number one taking full charge and absolutely dismissing drive number two smacked me in the face with the obvious answer. In order for humanity to prosper it must abandon the first method of self-preservation and embrace the second. We have become too dependent on society to ever survive on the old mechanism alone, and all it serves at this point in history is to encumber us with the need to slaughter our own. It is this drive that will kill us off in due time by its very nature. It will cause society to collapse, yet, on its own, it will not preserve the species. Thus, the conflict becomes our undoing. Granted, lacking this quality means that if we were ever reduced and dismantled as a society to a great enough extent, we would become extinct. However, it is my belief that at this point our chances of survival are far, far greater as a communal being rather than a mesh of conflicting individuals.
Be careful not to confuse what I speak of with an assimilated, undifferentiated society a la more science fiction doom. The only quality that should be eliminated is the individual's need to preserve himself over all others. This translates to the drop off of aggressive tendency and violence yet leaves innovation, invention, novelty, and genius untouched. Not only that, but defining ourselves in this new light opens the door for a true, logical system of morality because it gives life the definite purpose of preserving itself through the group. Indeed, with an overriding goal, right and wrong (rather, conducive and detrimental) can be correctly defined by reason rather than assumption and logic may prevail. The meaning of life as self-preservation is, of course, in the spirit of life itself, which makes use of the most incredible things (read: everything you are) in order to maintain its existence itself. I believe I may have been wrong in saying that, because it arose spontaneousy, life cannot have an inherent purpose. It may have done so, but it has had to persevere in order to not be destroyed spontaneously as it came. Life may still have purpose, as far as la raison d'etere is concerned. We are the movers. We are life. We must ensure our future by all means necessary for as long as our parent, the universe, permits us.
Even more intriguing is the possibility for our society to become so tightly-bound that it gains emergent properties of its own. For every system, when the elements of that system and their interactions break a certain threshold of complexity such that new and novel properties emerge from the whole, entirely different from those produced of each individual, that is emergence. It can be seen (or, rather, not seen) in life as a series of chemical interactions. It can be seen in consciousness as a set of cellular interactions. It can be seen in chemistry as the interactions of subatomic particles. Given enough complexity and enough interactivity, society may itself develop a sort of "consciousness" of its own. Granted, we may not see it individually, any more than each neuron sees a thought, but from a grand perspective, it is a rather exciting concept.
So, ideally, we as a group need to drop the baggage of our individualistic drives in order to truly evolve and grow as a species. That's my preliminary conclusion, anyway. I'm sure there will become more to this idea as it develops.
posted by Mike at
2:45 PM
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