The way our world works can be characterized as follows: as the constituent parts of our universe interact with each other, the parts give ...
The way our world works can be characterized as follows: as the constituent parts of our universe interact with each other, the parts give up their degrees of freedom of acts and form connections between them, creating increasingly complex organizations with new, emergent properties.
Human communities work in a similar way as they form organizations as well. From the very beginning, humanity has developed in such a way that as individuals reduce the degree of their freedom of existence, they form cooperative groups, societies. In this development, first and foremost, the collective capabilities of the communities grow, while the increase of the well-being of the individuals forming the societies plays only an indirect, non-determining role in the development of the organization.
For example, electricity has made lighting possible, and human activity has soared during the dark period of the days. The activity in the dark was not primarily beneficial for the individual, but it is increased the abilities and growth of the performance of society as a whole.
In the long run, human communities are fundamentally evolving toward increasing cooperation, while the development of cooperative groups, their increasing complexity, is not primarily based on the increase of individual well-being. The whole human society, as cooperation develops, increasingly forms and functions as a unified entity. The defining characteristic of a unified entity is that each component of the system performs functions necessary for the operation of the organization, while the existence of the components that make up the organization depends on the existence of the entity as a whole.
A similar evolution took place during the development of multicellular organisms. Although the constituent parts, the biological cells, were originally capable of independent living, with the emergence of multicellularity, the degree of independent viability of individual cells and their freedom of action was fundamentally reduced, while as a result of their mutual cooperation, the capabilities of the organism while becoming a unified entity continued to grow until the evolution of the multicellular system reached the stage of creating conscious intelligent human beings.
The capabilities of an intelligent, conscious human being are emergent properties of the cooperation of the constituent parts of the organism, the cells that make up the being. The result of this cooperation is a new form of life, a fundamentally new level of existence. The result of human cooperation, the unified entity of human society, is also can be considered as a new level of living state, a new form of life.
Although the most advanced functions of human beings are performed by a single specialized organ, the brain, and the brain obviously plays a determining role in the functioning of the human organism, the brain is still only a subordinate organ of the organism, which exists in the unity of the whole. Even though the brain performs a global control and directing function over the entire body, it is only a collection of specialized cells, and would not be viable without the cooperation of the other cells, tissues, and organs that make up the entire organism.
The evolution of organizations is characterized by the property that, while they evolve in the direction of increasing complexity, and spontaneously develop more capabilities, and in the result become capable of greater performance, they are doing this operation of development without a determined, specific goal to reach. The development of human society also shows these characteristics of the evolution of organizations.
For example, human communities, while functioning as more and more unified organizations, evolved from living in caves to living in cities of millions of people through the emergent development of capabilities, while the necessary increase in capabilities and performance required for this evolution was made possible by the cooperating human intelligence. For humans, living in cities is not necessarily a more satisfying way of life than living in caves, but, for example, the cooperation of more and more people living in the same place as an organization has incidentally also created the development of healthcare that assists people in living longer and healthier lives.
The cooperation of unified groups of people, and increasingly of humanity as a whole, has already made human society capable of ever greater achievements, creating countless new capabilities. Today, the collective activity of humanity is already capable of changing the entire Earth's climate, and the evolving humanity with its developing capabilities may also be able to adapt itself to this quickly changing environment without the collapse of society.
What are the unique characteristics associated with human beings capable of forming an efficiently functioning organization, a human society that behaves as a unified organism?
It is a peculiarity of human society that its building blocks are human beings with consciousness and will. As organizations evolve, it is typical behavior for the constituent parts to reduce their degree of freedom while creating a unified organization, but also essential not to give up their fundamental, most advanced abilities, which would be essential for the development of cooperation. If the constituent members of the organization were to give up their most advanced features as the degree of freedom decreases, this would result in a step backward in the development of the organization as a whole in the process of forming a unified entity.
The most advanced qualities of a human being are the existence of consciousness and the freedom of will. The human being who builds the society can work effectively by using the individual abilities in the most efficient way, and consequently form the most effective unified organization by improving the abilities of the organization in the most efficient way, if in the process of building the organization the consciousness and the freedom of the own will are preserved and continue to exist for the individual.
The global governance of an effectively functioning organization can apparently be performed by a specialized body. In the case of the multicellular human organism, the global action of the unified organism is essentially determined by the generated intentions of a single organ, the brain. However, the formation of human intention is not the result of the action of a single cell or a small group of cells. The emergent property of intention is the cooperation of a significant part of the brain. It is also important to note that the cells that make up the human body individually lack the inherent qualities of consciousness and autonomous volition, whereas the human being who builds society carries these valuable qualities.
Thus, there are unique and fundamental differences between the functioning of a human person as a unified organization of cells and the functioning of human society as an organization of human beings, in terms of how the constituent elements determine global cooperation and effective functioning. Human society can function optimally, taking advantage of its specificity, when it does not operate under a global control of the inherently limited capacities of a dedicated individual or even a group of individuals, which would necessarily entail a significant restriction of the freedom of autonomous will of the members of society, but when the collective functioning of the organization is and can be manifested as an emergent property in the collective action of the individuals who constitute the organization, preserving and sustaining the autonomous will of each individual as well.
In principle, human society can develop optimally in capability and performance by retaining the most advanced capabilities of its constituent parts, which can be achieved through cooperation in such a way that the reduction of individual freedom that cooperation entails does not fundamentally violate the potential freedom of the individual will.
It is obvious that while this condition is necessary for the effective functioning of human society, for the emergence of new qualities, it represents a fundamental contradiction that apparently prevents the realization of the unifying operation. In order for human society to function optimally as a unified organism, this fundamental contradiction must be overcome.
Thus, the most fundamental determinant of the effective development of emergent properties through human cooperation is the way in which society is governed. The various systems of social governance used so far have implemented the representation of the will of the community in a manner determined by a narrow and at best interchangeable elite, which functions in a manner essentially similar to the functioning of the human organism controlled by the brain as a dedicated organ. Even the apparently satisfactorily functioning representative democracy artificially obscures the unique feature necessary for the optimal functioning of human society, the freedom of the individual, which is necessary for the effective functioning of human society.
The existence of individual free will and the contradiction between this free will and the renunciation of the individual degree of freedom necessary for the creation of an organization can be resolved by the application of a system of governance of social organizations that is capable of creating a unity of people while maintaining the autonomous will of individuals. Mankind has not yet invented such a form of government. An analysis of the problem and a proposal of a possible solution can be found in the thoughts.
The fundamental way in which organizations evolve is through the deepening specialization of their building blocks and the increasing degree of cooperation that results in the growth of complexity. In multicellular organisms, such as in human society, this characteristic evolutionary process can be observed as it creates new emergent properties in the functioning of the organism that enhance its capabilities and performance.
What new, emergent capabilities can be formed by an evolving human society? What level can human society reach as a unified organism, and what new emergent properties can it acquire in the course of its development of cooperation?
Emergent properties are characterized by the fact that they lead to essentially unpredictable functions. Neither consciousness nor volition are predictable properties of the existence of a human being; they are not an obvious consequence of the cooperation of the cells of the organism, essentially of the neurons of the brain. Certainly the emergent properties of human society as an evolving organism are similarly unpredictable. However, the origin of the emergent properties that give rise to the most advanced functions, the source of their evolution, and thus the most important area of motivation for that evolution, may be predictable.
Multicellular organisms have attained the abilities of consciousness and volition. These capacities were brought about by the development of the brain, an organ specialized in processing information. The most advanced features of human society have been, and certainly will continue to be, determined by the functions that enable information processing as well. The development of human society is fundamentally driven by the accumulation of information called knowledge, and its efficient processing, by the utility of science and technology.
The specific information processing organ of multicellular organisms is the brain. In the case of human society, the information processing function is also fundamental, but unlike in a multicellular organism, it is distributed and integrated throughout society in a more dispersed and embedded form, which certainly arises from the presence of all the constituent parts, the intellectual faculties of individual human beings.
Potentially, each person is uniquely capable of advanced information processing, as each can function as a scientist to create new information, new knowledge, and as an expert to use existing knowledge. Working together, however, we can accomplish even more by overcoming the limitations of individual abilities through cooperation, which is a necessary part of creating organizations.
In the case of human society, the development of organizational complexity is not determined by the functioning of a specialized body, but rather by the development of information channels that support the processing of information and the development of tools and methods that make able of efficient processing and usage of the collected information. Developmental schools and application workshops are the necessary determinants of the development of complexity, with increasingly sophisticated tools for sharing and processing information. These developments are represented at the current level of development of the use of the Internet and the emergence of artificial intelligence as an operation of directed evolution.
Artificial intelligence represents a unique tool for information processing, because its development could enable it to reproduce the most advanced human cognitive functions, and its operation could potentially lead to a reassessment of the role of humans in society.
However, even if a sentient artificial intelligence with similar or more advanced capabilities of the human possessing brain emerges, AI will certainly exist in perspective in symbiosis with human society, as society functions as a single organism, similar to the way complex multicellular organisms operate. Artificial Intelligence is humanity's increasingly sophisticated tool for processing information, but it is not viable on its own, without the whole organism, the society, even if it ever reaches the level of individual vitality, just as the brain is not viable on its own, only in community with the whole organism, the human body.
Artificial intelligence, as part of the organization of human society, even if it can realize the most advanced information processing organ of society, it only contributes to the emergent properties of society as part of human society as it behaves as a unified organism. However, the symbiosis of a directly or even an involuntarily created self-aware artificial intelligence and human beings could lead to an as yet unforeseeable social organization.
What emergent properties can arise from the complexity as a unified human society evolves? Fundamentally unpredictable. The emergence of a unique consciousness? The emergence of a superior volition? The possibility of a new level of life form? Or perhaps a kind of divine state, the living state of an organism composed of intelligent, self-conscious, and volitional constituents? What might make human society fit for membership among societies of intelligence? We may someday find out, if we can keep our society growing in complexity long enough.
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