How, without remaking people, without selecting the smartest, most honest and noble, without motivating the masses by some ideology, using the principle of self-organization, can new social structures be created, and even more so, built on cooperation, honesty and harmonious relations? How do we solve the problem of destructiveness and violence in today’s states, which are increasingly generating crises and gridlock?
Over the past few years I have had a lot of debates on this and related topics. And with a variety of categories of people: from dream humanists to narrow professionals.
As it turned out, the stumbling block is the principle of unstructured management and self-organization. With each category you have to find a different way to explain what it is, from the simplest examples, like the Belousov-Jabotinsky reaction, to the idea of cellular automata and neural networks.
The principle of self-organization и Non-structural management
I will try to explain why an interaction environment with given properties is able to provide the desired result regardless of the presence of such properties in the elements.
I think the simplest example for the layman is the organism. The cells that make up a human being and the cells that make up a worm are practically identical in their properties (and each of these cells is quite an independent organism, as cancer patients unfortunately know).
Now let’s ask a simple question: how, with the same properties of the elements, it is possible to have such different systems in their characteristics and capabilities, one of which is completely dependent on rain and circumstances, the other can cause these rains.
So, the difference between human cells and worm cells is that they are in different systems. Simply put, the same cell, depending on the properties of the environment in which it is located, acquires a certain function. And the cells themselves simply consume the environment they are given and perform their functions in the body simply by virtue of their natural properties.
Now let’s move on from analogies to society. If the organism, through which the cell carries out its functions, was formed historically as a result of evolution, then society is similarly formed historically. Moreover, if we move away from the vulgar theory of natural selection (let’s leave the criticism of Darwinists for another case), we will see some archetypal programs, according to which all biosystems develop.
In this connection, what is happening to civilization is more properly compared to the formation of a child in the womb than to the evolution of a worm into a man (which, by the way, never happens).
So, as soon as the corresponding interaction environment is formed, which has properties that “determine” the functionality of participants (elements), they begin to interact according to these properties (parameters) of the environment and generate new qualities, while remaining just “cells” on average, though more specialized (function forms an organ, and being forms consciousness).
Naturally, this environment itself is shaped by people’s civilizational activities. In particular, the desire for maximum communicability (which from language and printing evolved to computers and the Internet) and for maximum potentiality (which, among other things, is understood as scientific and technological progress).
After building an effective interaction environment, it was found that its properties are capable of generating certain functions by themselves with the mediated participation of “elements”, which, in fact, is what almost all Internet projects are built on. By communicating on Facebook, we create its content and capitalization, not at all out of a desire to enrich Zuckerberg. This is a clear example of when the properties of the interaction medium determines the properties of the elements.
Constructive and destructive
Now it remains to answer the question of what should be the properties of the interaction environment that will support the process of human self-organization to increase the level of harmony and the potential of civilization.
The answer is quite prosaic. To do this, it is necessary to create an environment of interaction that summarizes the potential of self-organization, in the first approximation – the “constructiveness” of individual participants – and does not summarize their destructive potential (the desire to exist at the expense of others).
The interaction environment, which has a defense mechanism against destruction, automatically begins to generate a construct. This happens because the way of existence through constructiveness (collective creation) is so much more effective than the way of existence through destruction (parasitization and robbery) that the social structures built on this principle very quickly break far ahead and become independent of the destructors.
Naturally, the question arises: why is it often easier and more profitable to rob and steal, to cheat and parasitize than to create and be honest?
I have written several articles on this subject, but in brief, the bottom line is that “attics stick out lonely and basements are connected by passages,” and in order to engage in constructive activity, that very environment of interaction must be ready. One of the stages is the emergence of articulate speech (and kayak to all the mighty Neanderthals, from the organized homo sapiens).
At the present stage it is a new environment of interaction (super communicativeness, availability of knowledge of previous generations and intellectual amplifiers, giving birth to new languages-mechanisms of interaction).
And now we see how small groups of innovators, taking advantage of these achievements, are beginning to overtake the mighty states (which create thousands of teams and starve their populations to death to obtain similar results) in their potential and effectiveness.
A virtual corporation
What does it look like in practice, from the perspective of the “cell” (which, incidentally, ends up with a dramatically increased capacity for survival and evolution).
In the eyes of an ordinary citizen it looks very prosaic: there are certain conditions for cooperation and exchange (transactions), when you can find something that you lack, to cooperate and, giving in return what you have, to get what you want.
And the system works in such a way that it is almost impossible to cheat (everything is in plain sight), and successful cooperation can be secured simply through the continuation of this activity, without the organization of special firms or a system of hierarchical relationships.
Of course, someone will say that the same thing seems to be happening now, although about the impossibility of cheating and the lack of organizations it is not clear.
Indeed, until recently, all this could only be realized if the “elements” themselves, that is, people, had some unique qualities, such as crystal honesty. However, the Internet and blockchain are making significant adjustments to this process.
If you want to understand how all this can happen and what a “Virtual Corporation” is – please, I have written quite a lot on this topic –[1].
Antidestruction
And the last thing that stresses everyone out is the organizational disruptor. The question I’m asked is: What if someone wants to use all this technology and interaction environment to enslave others?
At a short distance and for small groups, this is solved quite easily (no one will act to their own detriment).
But what about the powerful organized structures, which parasitize and control through destruction (an apparatus of violence) as their initial goal?
Now, when the necessary qualities of this interaction environment are only being formed (historically), this issue has quite certain solutions.
And the analysis shows that either they will be implemented in this environment, or simply there will be nothing; that is, there will be no anthill – just like our civilization. How do you imagine the birth and survival of a child whose initial organs all work for some kind of pathology? It simply will not “come to life”-which, unfortunately, is not impossible; many civilizations have already perished in this way.[2]
Sergey Lachinyan
