A community of intelligent, self-conscious and emotionally driven individuals, such as the human society, is certainly the most complex, th...
A community of intelligent, self-conscious and emotionally driven individuals, such as the human society, is certainly the most complex, the most complicated, the most difficult to understand, the least controllable and the least manageable of all known systems.
Yet, the complex system of human society is functional and can operate more efficiently than any other complex system known to us. Not only is human society capable of self-regulation, but it is also capable of growing its complexity, while being able to use and transform its environment in increasingly sophisticated ways through the knowledge society accumulates.
How does the complex system of human society sustain? How can it operate so efficiently?
Human society is a hierarchical organization based on the distribution of activities. It differs from all other similarly organized structures on Earth in its ability to adapt efficiently and flexibly to many different and continuously changing environmental conditions by the accumulation of knowledge, which can create exponential progress.
At the top of the hierarchy of multiple levels of organization of human society are those persons whose role is to control the functioning of the system, to determine the goals of society, to hold the power to lead the community.
A surprising feature of the progressively functioning society is that the apparent control of the complex system is exercised by those of its members who do not necessarily have the capabilities that are beneficial to society. Acquiring and maintaining social power does not require the knowledge and skills necessary to increase the flexibility and complexity of society. The skills needed for social power are not necessarily correlated and are often counterproductive to the progression of society.
The contradiction between the progression of society and at least the ineffective governance is demonstrated by the operation of dictatorships, and the seemingly successful practice of sortition, as a method of governance. (Sortition involves a few randomly and casually selected members of society making decisions together, usually effectively and successfully, regarding the governance of society.)
The difficulty of managing human society comes from the deeply-rooted evolutionary heritage of human nature, which is a constant societal obstacle that is difficult to circumvent. However, human society works, even progresses despite the frequent problems it faces, and despite the occasional setbacks.
Although human society, which also carries the functions of life, is generally unable to avoid or prevent difficulties, still it can solve them by the help of human intelligence. How is it possible for a society to survive, or even progress, despite the generally inept, often counterproductive, constantly changing, and mostly self-appointed leadership?
Puzzled by this phenomenon and looking for the possible causes, there are people who think that society is being governed from behind the scenes by certain hiding individuals - people who have the necessary influence on the known leaders of society - in a non-public way.
The supposed hidden power, the secretly working governance, while presumably using the resources of society to achieve their own personal objectives, must also be capable of directing the processes of human society in a way that will result in the experienced and undoubtedly working development of the complex human society.
The political, economic, and possibly other non-public or unknown actors, those who are supposed to possess the hidden power, and hence, who are supposed to have the most influence on the functioning of society, must have the intellectual ability and capacity to perform such a complex operation.
However, it is at least rather difficult to imagine from the hypothetical actors that they are possessing this level of skills. It does not seem that the individuals attributed to the holders of hidden power possess any special intellectual potential with which they could manage a complex system of human society with the effectiveness that is actually experienced. It is unlikely that a human being, or even a secretive group of human beings, could do this.
(Managing human society is not project management, because there is no concrete, well defined, specific project to manage, just an organization of a complex system to sustain and operate in a progressive way.)
Instead of the control of a hidden human power with the necessary intellectual capacity, it would be rather more conceivable to assume the guidance of a supernatural - divine - will. However, the certainty of divine providence does not seem to be verifiable due to the inherent supernatural nature of the assumption.
If the possibility of the existence of a hidden power does not seem to be a convincing explanation or a justifiable hypothesis for the observable nature of the functioning of human society, then we must continue to search for a more naturally operating and plausibly justifiable force that governs society.
The functioning of human society is undoubtedly based on the cooperation of its members. Cooperation built on the intelligent capabilities of the members of human society forms the most complex structure and system known.
But human cooperation is not a system which is fundamentally organized at a global level and in a generic way. In the course of its functioning, human society apparently creates and adapts to the changing circumstances a set of continuously shaped and globally prevailing rules of operation, a set of laws, the framework of functioning, which apply to society as a whole or apply to specific levels. However, within this framework, and sometimes even transgressing it, people of society make their own decisions, autonomously and directly, and by this way, people develop forms of local interaction, a system of collaboration. Human society is fundamentally shaped by the cooperation of its members in direct interaction with each other, and forming a complex dynamic system in this way.
Complex, dynamic systems are characterized by the feature that even if they are functioning in the framework of general laws, still their actual functioning is based on interactions at the local level, and these local interactions create generally unpredictable new global system-level properties. Such arising properties of complex systems are called emergent properties. Complex, dynamic systems are generally characterized by emergent behavior. We can see many examples of this in nature.
Human society is the most complex dynamic system known. As such, locally based cooperative action based on direct interaction necessarily produces global emergent properties, global behaviors, which are causally unpredictable considering the direct inference and general laws.
The functioning of the human society based on its members in direct contact with each other utilizing the necessity and obligation of mutual cooperation, results in emergent properties, which can be manifested in the self-organizing formation of society, and sometimes can even be interpreted as progress. The background power which appears to govern society is apparently the emergent properties of the complex, dynamic, locally cooperating society.
These emergent behaviors can be, and are utilized by the society leaders to use society to manage in order to achieve their personal goals, and thus make it appear as if the emergent property were intended actions. However, this is only an illusion.
It is obvious that only by experiencing emergent behaviors, but without knowing the inherent operating laws of complex dynamic systems, we might conclude that someone is deliberately shaping the higher-level behavior of society in a planned way.
The Occam's razor method of understanding the world suggests that the rules of operation that exist in reality are probably those which require fewer presuppositions. Emergent behavior obviously is based on fewer presuppositions than the assumption of a secret and mysterious group of beings with powerful knowledge and influence to consciously control society. A mysteriously evolved behavior that seems purposeful from certain perspectives, that is easy to recognize, but not easy to understand, is the functioning of society producing emergent properties.
But Occam's razor is a method based on observation, and it is not necessarily a strict rule. What else can support the hypothesis of emergent properties explaining the functioning of society as opposed to the intentional control of a hidden power?
Emergent properties obviously do not have a predetermined purpose, only have specific character appearing at a higher level of organization. This is exactly the kind of behavior we see in human society. Because the leaders of society are able to use emergent social behavior, it looks as if there is an intentionality of the events of society appearing at the higher level, yet, a purposefully organized, globally occurring, coherent chain of events formed from these behaviors is not recognizable as it would be the characteristic actions of a consciously operating hidden power.
We do not see a sequential series of events in the operation of human society that are purposefully coordinated. What we can see are incidental forms of global behavior, which is characteristic of the emergent property.
Another reason to support goalless emergent behavior is that, while the complexity of human society based on intelligence and accumulated knowledge is constantly increasing, human society is evolving much more slowly in terms of goals. Of course, progress in terms of goals can be recognized, for example, we now live in a society that is more humane in its implementation of cooperation than before, and we hope that this process will continue, but this change is not driven by the hidden background power, nor is it the result of emergent properties that operate without purpose and enabling self-organization, but rather by the functioning of the actual elite of society, which can occasionally achieve results that are actually useful for the progress of society.
Society has a demonstrable capacity to progress over historical time. It is therefore important for the development of society that its governance, even by replacing the currently used methods, must be optimally efficient. The right governance makes it possible to reach the level of development of human society necessary to join human civilization to the community of galactic species.
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