This essay is a direct follow up to my previous essay “Consciousness and Complexity.” In that essay I asserted that:

By expanding our innate mental abilities to abstract essential details from complex reality—just as the apes did when using numbers rather than actual objects—we can develop clearer understandings of which forms of social ordering are sustainable and which are not. In the context of possessing a wider awareness of others than most contemporary humans have, we can then be much more likely to act with the good of all others in mind. Such a society would likely pass the test I mentioned above. We could then be that creature which is to humans as humans are to great apes.

Here, I will explain my thinking as to why I believe this to be true.

The social organization of primates, including great apes and humans, constitutes a type of complex adaptive system. A system is a group of mutually interacting elements which meet three conditions:

1)      Interconnectedness

2)      Boundedness (having a definite boundary between system and not system)

3)      Emergence

If the system is completely isolated from all else it is said to be a closed system. If it interacts with its environment it is an open system. All primate social systems are open systems. Systems can be further classified as being either simple or complex. A simple system behaves predictably and mechanically: for example, a spring-wound alarm clock. A complex system is one for which system behavior cannot be predicted from knowledge of the characteristics of its individual components: complex behaviors emerge from the behavior of the system’s constituent elements. Emergence, such as consciousness from the interconnectedness of a hundred billion neurons, none of which is conscious individually, is perhaps the greatest scientific miracle of our universe. Systems composed of conscious beings are the ultimate type of complex adaptive systems.

Different kinds of such systems have existed, or exist now. I will evaluate them in ascending order of the cognitive abilities of their constituent organisms. I am doing this to show how the overall emergent properties of each social system vary depending upon the mental abilities of the species.

Great Apes: These primates are intelligent, observant of the actions of other members of their species and the world around them. They can learn from observing other apes behavior, although apes do not teach one another new skills or complex behaviors, and this limits group cooperation. They are emotionally impulsive and selfish, which further limits group cooperation. While culture in the form of shared learned behaviors does exist, the lack of a formal abstract language limits coordinated or complex group actions. While the abilities of a troop of great apes significantly exceeds the sum of their individual abilities, they are clearly limited by their inability to understand the overall benefits of cooperation and sharing, by their limited ability to innovate, and by their inability to share knowledge of their new learning with other members of their band. Little specialization of labor exists.

Homo Erectus: A now-extinct ancestor of humanity. This species is characterized by division of labor, development of relatively sophisticated tools for hunting, control of fire for cooking, warmth, and defense from nocturnal predators. Rudimentary language seems to have been developed, and deliberate teaching of tool-making techniques. Sharing of resources and labor would have been necessary to maintain this level of group organization. This would require increased conscious control over emotional impulsivity. This species clearly exhibited substantially greater emergent complexity than was the case of great apes. The sum of group endeavors was substantially greater than the arithmetic sum of each individual member’s abilities. However, it was still only incrementally greater than that of a corresponding great ape tribe. The increase in net group emergence was only incremental.

The previously glacially slow pace of change in societal complexity accelerated dramatically in the upper Paleolithic period beginning 40,000 to 50,000 years ago. Suddenly, very complex technology for hunting, sewing, cooking etc. appears. Art—both representational and abstract—developed. Substantial regional cultural differences emerge rapidly between geographically separated human bands. Long-distance trade and a complex, differentiated economy develop. Undoubtedly, formal, more or less organized religions developed also in this period.

As there are no physical differences—including brain size—between late Paleolithic humans and early Paleolithic humans, biological evolution cannot account for the great explosion of emergent behaviors and organized social complexity. Most modern anthropologists believe that this explosion of complexity was due to the development of a fully articulated, abstract language, which could refer to tangible objects (“…that cave over there…”), and also to intangible concepts such as beauty, truth, what happens after death, etc.

A consequence of the development of a common language was the construction of a socially constructed reality. Adoption of a common, verbally transmitted, inter-subjective understanding of reality became necessary to participate in tribal activities. This did allow for even greater coordination of group actions, leading to ever more net emergence, and which manifested itself as greater health, wealth and security for the group. Late Paleolithic human social systems were fundamentally different—much more complex, and possessing order of magnitude greater levels of net emergence than their early Paleolithic predecessors.

For all intents and purposes humans with language became the successor species to humans without fully developed language.

The group’s ability to learn and to teach what was learned to others increased massively as did opportunities to think abstractly and to share these abstractions with other members of the group.

In my previous essay, I wrote:

 “Abstraction seems to break the grip of emotional impulsivity.”

The resultant greater ability for abstraction allowed for still better coordinated, cooperative behavior, leading to yet more net emergence.

Humans of the late Paleolithic era appear to have generally understood that they were a part of the natural world and were dependent upon it. After all, that world surrounded them at nearly all times as they moved through it hunting and gathering.

Then we get to the Neolithic revolution beginning about 10,000 years ago. Agriculture is developed. Villages, then town then cities and ultimately, empires emerge during the next five millennia. Language is not enough to coordinate this level of organized social complexity. Writing is invented: abstract, symbolic speech that is visually recorded. Humans, particularly the powerful ones who determine consensual reality, in this period are often isolated from natural reality because they live in cities. Shared understandings of reality no longer represent humans as living amidst nature, and nature becomes something to be used and exploited to gain material wealth for the elites who determine consensual reality.  

In a sense, humanity goes insane at this point—it decouples from natural reality.

Finally the Industrial Revolution occurs. Humans flocked to cities, which transformed their cultural and religious values to focus upon the human centered and constructed version of reality only, and in the process forgot the importance of the natural world. Vast new emergence occurred. But there was a “serpent” in this new industrial Eden. The newly emergent “wealth” was predicated upon ever more rapid consumption of fossil energy resources, but those resources are finite quantities and this expansion was not sustainable. Even so, the population has grown exponentially to a level which cannot be kept alive without fossil energy.

And worse, industrial civilization has so damaged the biosphere and altered the climate, that the planet’s future ability to sustain humans will be far less than it was prior to the Industrial Revolution.

But, you ask, surely an intelligent and rational species such as humanity can comprehend the trap into which it has placed itself, and take coordinated and decisive action to avert doom? Alas, the consensual reality which nearly all humans have come to share is one in which the natural world is considered an inexhaustible source of raw materials from which “wealth” can be produced. The power of our ruling class is intimately tied to the perpetuation of this exploitative system. The lesser degrees of wealth and comfort which most of us possess are wholly dependent upon our participation in it—and support of its continuation. Even for the poorest humans, the desire to obtain wealth and security from it is their greatest goal.

And so, as our existential crises intensify, we do not act decisively, simply because we want to get more while keeping what we have. Real change will cause us to lose our “wealth”, even though avoiding this change will in a slightly longer term cause us to lose our lives. Rationality is defeated by emotional impulsivity and selfishness—just as was the case for the great apes. Meanwhile utter doom for our species approaches at an accelerating rate…

Or does it? Clearly it must for some, indeed most of the people who are alive now—but not necessarily for all of us.

Recall how homo sapiens effectively became its own successor species by the invention of language.
 
Language facilitated social emergence orders of magnitude greater than could exist without it. This was beneficial to humanity individually and collectively, as health and security were maximized. The new net emergence could be sustained because humans,  as subsistence hunter and gatherers, had to exist in relative harmony with the natural world.

It was only when we forgot nature, and our place in it, that this balance was upset. So clearly, we must re-acquire our ancestor’s intimate awareness of the natural world, and of our place in it.

However, we need to see not just a tribal band, but all of humanity as comprising our group. I don’t say this to be altruistic: the larger the group, the greater the degree of net emergence and therefore, the greater our survivability. We need all of our minds working together on this.

At the same time, we must consciously understand that we are a part of and are dependent upon the entire web of life on our planet. This means that we cannot create emergence in forms which are destructive to the web of life that sustains us.

This understanding must be universally taught to everyone. It must be a foundational, integral aspect of our culture, of our species interpretation of reality.  Globally organized humanity must always act defensively to prevent any violation of this basic reality of our existence.

In saying this, I do not believe that we should return to being Paleolithic hunter-gatherers, abandoning the organized social complexity developed over the past ten thousand years. I am not opposed to advanced technology, or to the existence of large human aggregations—our towns and cities.

What I advocate instead is fundamental transformation of ourselves.

All human organization and activity must be consistent with ecological sustainability. We must develop a culture based upon a greater degree of abstraction: one based upon understanding the nature of the universe, and enjoying life while learning.  If we do this, then we will value abstract goods such as new knowledge, poetry, art and music, and political innovation towards truly representational forms of government, over a false and environmentally destructive drive for material acquisition.

My hope is that all of the knowledge of our age can be preserved for future generations. Knowing what is coming upon us, I have proposed, for example; placing microwave reflectors (ultra-thin wire mesh, basically) in geosynchronous orbit and using ground based microwave technology to distribute renewably-produced energy around the world as needed. This is existent technology. This setup would also provide for a global internet to continue to exist and link all of humanity into a densely-interconnected whole.  Its backbone would be sun powered and 23,400 miles above Earth’s equator. Once established it could easily function for a thousand years without maintenance while humanity sorted out its affairs below. Everyone would benefit from, and be dependent upon, the global sharing of energy and information that this would make possible.  Shrinking away from technology at this point would be foolish in the utmost extreme!

A human society such as this would be capable of orders of magnitude greater emergent wealth than today’s humanity possesses. And it would be quality wealth: health, happiness, knowledge and well-being, instead of the materialistic “wealth” which consists of ever-growing heaps of cheap plastic crap from Wall Mart!

Such a planetary species would truly be a far superior and worthy successor to its doomed present-day predecessor. It would be easily able to pass the impulsive greed test which all other primate species have failed. Indeed it would be an emergence of a new, sustainable, and humane (vs. “human”) culture.

So I say to all of you: You can work to make this goal your reality, or you can go down with the proverbial ship. The iceberg is just ahead, and we are roaring toward it at flank speed.

Choose.

In a future essay I will have more to say about how we may realize this transformative agenda.