The 10 axioms of Society
Posters
The resource relationships chart
Alien Musings
Complex dynamic systems follow their own fundamental rules due to their very nature. See The 10 axioms of Life where they are expressed in the general sense.
For a more interactive demonstration of nonlinear relationships see the CauseF program.
Examples of what all this means on a practical level are in Don't read this ....
Human activity systems are a subset of Life, and the same rules hold overall although here they can be expressed in a more specific form.
The main difference between dynamic systems in general and their human version is the ability of humans to abstract. That is to say, they possess an internal system (the mind) which is capable of representing input from the senses (the source of which is the reality, the systems surrounding them).
Since the mind is subject to the same rules that govern systems in general, what the mind contains in the end becomes a function of how well or otherwise the processes were going through their paces.
Limitations due to a paucity of resources (energy in the form of nutrition as well as data), lack of affinity between representative clusters or too much of it, the sheer processing space available (how many neurons are available for the processes), and therefore how the output fares within the feedback loops weaving between the members of a society (for example, how acceptable a statement is to others), they all combine to produce an overall result.
All nonlinear systems, including the human version (see also A guide to an enigma), operate within their existent parameters drawing on their resources. Should these parameters reach their respective boundary conditions the system will enter another state. In terms of human societies this could mean a collapse of established norms, a dissolution of frameworks, or civil war. What happens next cannot be foreseen because the erstwhile patterns have disappeared - references no longer exist.
The factors mentioned before are subject to change, and they do not apply to the same degree for every type of input nor output. While there are different functional scenarios within a society at any time, just as there are different scenarios even within each person, the effects of affinity and to what extent they are able to induce change, together with the feedback loops occurring within the overall system, they all combine to produce a result that defines the entire society.
The success or otherwise of a society can be defined along the specific factors as they pertain to that society's situatedness, and is ultimately dependent on the potential of its neighbourhood. As in life generally, the laws of thermodynamics hold in the end.
Those fundamental rules are -
1. A society is a self-declared human activity system displaying an organised framework that is designed to maintain the reality of those declarations.
2. The framework is a function of the resources - material and cognitive - available to its members.
3. Its members contribute to the overall standard through their individual abilities derived from their resources.
4. The rise and fall of those abilities define the system.
5. New members, whether emerging locally or imported, become defined through their education deemed necessary and/or their compared standards sourced from somewhere else.
6. Problematic situations are those which fall outside the perceived framework used for the society's definition.
7. The measures taken to address them reflect the nature of the situation as much as that of the society.
8. Success or otherwise is a function of the synchronicity between the situational reality and its perceived counterpart.
9. The definition of success and/or failure changes in tandem with the combined functional integrity of a society's members.
10. The ultimate determinant of a society's nature is a product of the perception by its dominant members and the social horizon attained by all of them.
All this can be expressed in a less technical form, summarising the above:
• At the heart of a society lies its identity. How its members see themselves has resulted from their common perceptions about their situatedness within their given environment. The more closely that perception tallies with their actual nature, the more successful the society will be in maintaining its identity. Conversely, mismatches need to be reinterpreted to provide the concept of identity in any case, making room for even less realistic interpretations. Loss of identity leads to disharmony and dysfunction, on an individual as well as societal level.
• Society regenerates through its young, and their education has to fit within the time span available. Whatever it takes to maintain society, the effort has to be made by the adults who are the result of education. Some of the young may require less resources, others more. Nevertheless, there is a limit to how many resources a society can afford to spend on the less capable, because its adults are needed to maintain society, not its failures.
• If additional adults are imported from the outside, it matters how well these are adapted to the needs of their host. If further resources are needed to improve their standards, the same ultimate limitations apply. If their insufficient standards are not improved, the overall quality of society will be diminished.
• Similar considerations apply to mindsets. If such cognitive frameworks belong to primitive and/or outdated scenarios, disregarding their negative influence will render the society incapable of addressing its current needs. On the other hand, mindsets that are more conducive to a well-functioning society, whether local or imported, will have a positive effect on the rest. It becomes a matter of which has greater influence overall.
• At the core of a society defining its viability and resilience lies its ability to adapt. It relates to changing environmental conditions per se as well as to changing conditions due to greater competition. If a society's overall mindset has rendered it incapable of adapting either way it will have compromised its standards. The quality of standards is instrumental in defining, recognising, and addressing any problems.
• Fundamental to the survival of a society are functions related to each member's capacity in terms of operating one's body, the ability to eat, to procreate, and to possess a healthy mind. Falling short in any one of those areas is a form of decay, and not being able to address such shortcomings accelerates the degenerative process.
In principle those rules apply to any life form. Humans are no exception, although a higher complexity can temporarily hide the effects of disregarding them. To interpret the unseen as non-existent however is delusional.
Here is how Austrian Jugendstil artist Richard Teschner interpreted the cycle through the human perspective.
The resource relationships chart
Whatever happens in a society, it comes at a cost. The costs draw on resources, and whatever ideological and/or emotional attributes may be assigned to some initiative, it is the availability of resources that ultimately determines how sustainable the society turns out to be. It also applies to government.
To illustrate the relationship between government rules and the rest of the population, here is a schematic depiction of those relationships, expressed through a sustainability quotient. How authoritarian or otherwise a government is, and how obedient or otherwise the population proves to be, are arguably one of the major determinants influencing a society's sustainability. Especially in advanced nations their greater complexity requires more rules governing their infrastructure in any case, and it matters how well this is understood by the people. The accompanying chart allows comparisons to be made between the range of effective authority and to what degree the population can be expected to fall into line.
Both ranges are between 0.1 and 1.0 (no government is completely nonchalant, nor are people completely careless about their own preferences). The more despotic a government, the more resources will be spent on enforcing its rule, and equally those resources
become an ever greater burden the less the population obeys the rules. On the other hand, the more compliant the citizenry, the less resources are needed to keep the people in line.
Select a value for Government control (GC) and move horizontally across to the assumed value for the corresponding Population obedience (PO). Read off the value GC/PO at the intersection (if no value shown interpolate between its neighbours). While the numbers themselves are essentially meaningless, it is their changing value across the intersections which demonstrates the control vs obedience relationships. They are to be understood as scalars. Hence the chart represents a schematic diagram of relationships.
Note the intersections denoted by '1.00'. If the government runs neither a deficit nor a surplus, any combination resulting in a value larger than 1.00 will drive the nation towards a deficit, whereas any value lower than 1.00 will result in a surplus. If there is already a deficit, higher values will exacerbate the debt, lower values will ameliorate the balance sheet. The same applies in reverse should there be a surplus to begin with. Note again that the results do not say anything about the subjective significance of rules or the people's behaviour. If a despotic government is able to sustain the expenditure necessary to enforce its authority, under these auspices the nation will be sustainable - at least for as long as the citizens remain obedient.
Equally, should a government not care one way or another about rules of whatever kind, and if the people are similarly careless about their own behaviour, the expenditure will be minimal. Should the overall budget be commensurate the costs associated with the maintenance of existing standards will not be met, and the society will degrade to a level at which the expenditure is equal to the costs needed to meet the lower standards. However, move either GC towards 1.0 or PO towards 0.1 and the resulting costs may well exceed the budget meant to maintain if not improve the general standard. That also applies to any demographics within a society who decide to disengage with the existing infrastructure and therefore see rules as an imposition rather than a necessity.
Not surprisingly, if government controls become stricter then the GC/PO values move towards their maximum, and the same happens if the population's compliance decreases.
It also points to the delusional nature of dictators. As they tighten their control over the people to serve their ego, the escalating burden on resources places their societies in an ever more precarious state. Shortcomings everywhere makes themselves felt until a tipping point is reached: the society collapses. It is only a matter of time.
This resource relationship chart presents values in terms of the broad functional relationship between rules and their effects on society. If more tangible figures are required, we would need some form of a flow diagram representing entities in terms of their incoming and outgoing money flows, and they would have to be updated on a continuing basis. For example, we could have a broad category of 'restaurants' and showing what they spend on food (money going to the category 'butchers', 'vegetable sellers', and so on) and what they receive from 'customers' (which could be further distinguished by city or suburb). For it to be useful such a diagram would have to be rather complex, but it would represent the state of the economic system and could be used for what-if scenarios (what happens if a certain tax is changed, what happens if the price of pork goes up or down).
Since the activities within the system would be represented in terms of their actual values, what effect government rules have would find some repercussion among such a depiction. Needless to say, the costs of running this kind of representation would be considerable and demonstrates the difference between a content-based model and a function-based one. Both tell about the system, and both versions need to be true to their type - functionalities need to be identified correctly for one, the numbers need to be accurate for the other; yet both reflect reality.
How would an intelligent non-human species describe us? Assuming they have the ability to get to our planet but do not interact with us, they would observe our behaviour in terms of manifest patterns; similar to us observing another life form on Earth. Alien Musings is an attempt to present such an observation in the form of a report to take home let's say. There are certain aspects worth mentioning:
The analysis would be entirely objective and non-judgmental; it has to be. If we enter another society there is a risk the observation could turn out be somewhat tainted given our situatedness within our own culture with its values and priorities. Objectivity is possible but it requires an effort. The greater the difference between us and another species however, the less the risk (we would hardly watch grasshoppers and debate the righteousness of their actions). The cultural distance between an alien and humans would be considerable and therefore it would not be difficult for them to remain objective.
Being passive observers, aliens would be able to recognise the broad patterns of our behaviour in terms of the effects they produce here and there. They would be less aware of the planning and debates preceding them since they are hidden from their view.
The report would have to withstand a critical perusal which means the reason why this or that conclusion had been reached must be explained. It can be achieved in two ways. A redescription of the steps leading to a conclusion, and/or couching the progress in terms of simulated questions and answers. We do that too, whether in fiction and even in nonfiction, in order to convey how a particular stance had been arrived at (that goes especially for plays where the audience is witness to an explanatory repartee by the actors). Alien Musings uses both.
Some historical detail. The text was written in 1986 but subsequently left aside as other projects took over (see the CV > Summary of the most relevant events). Nevertheless, the descriptions are as relevant as ever. Indeed, since human behaviour has not changed in principle it could have been written a thousand years ago and still be to the point.
What aliens would do with such knowledge is another matter.
© Martin Wurzinger - see Terms of Use