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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   26370 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 25, 2023

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On the surface, what differentiates humans from the stigmergic organization of ants is the influence of culture on behavior. Ants release pheromones, which are involuntary excretions determined by the genetic coding of the ant within its environment. These pheromones coordinate the behavior of the colony.

Humans, on the other hand, are influenced by their culture, their religion, and their art. Let's take the recent episode over the reaction to the Canadian parliament giving a standing ovation to the Ukrainian SS volunteer:

The universal condemnation and political fallout was not coordinated by a conspiracy. The reaction to the scandal was self-organized. On the other hand, the self-organized reaction to the scandal was directed by public consensus and perception of the Second World War. Contrary to the ant which releases its pheromones to coordinate behavior, we must ask if public perception of the Second World War, the pheromone so-to-speak, is itself the product of stigmergy or conspiracy. There is no conspiracy needed to understand the reaction to the scandal, but we get closer to a plausible conspiracy when trying to understand why the public at large's perception of WW-II is such that they are unable to appreciate any level of nuance in the allegiances of Eastern Europe during that conflict. The reason, of course, is because their perception of that conflict was generated by Steven Spielberg, to slightly oversimplify.

We get closer to plausibility for "conspiracy" because there are undeniably many institutions, lobbying groups, influential individuals who overtly coordinate in order to establish a public perception of that conflict. But what is the impetus for the behavior of those organizations coming together? You could then, at the next level, attribute stigmergy to these influential individuals and groups coordinating their behavior because they, for example, share a common religion. But where did their religion come from? It came from prophets, from mythmakers and storytellers. Were they influenced by stigmergy or conspiracy?

The optimistic view is that the public perception of WW-II has been established by a conspiracy. I say this is an optimistic view because it implies, as you said, mens rea, a guilty intent. That makes it a more tractable problem. This is the Plato's Cave model of the problem of human behavior as stigmergy in terms of its determinacy by culture. But culture itself is being directed by conspiracy according to this model.

The pessimistic view is that even these levels of culture-generation which appear conspiratorial are emminently and absolutely stigmergy. The pessimistic view is that a Steven Spielberg film is not very much different from an ant releasing a pheromone to coordinate the behavior of the colony: at the end of the day it's all genes reacting to stimuli in their environment, in the creation of a signal that coordinates the behavior of the colony.

Humans are not pack animals, we are a hive mind. It does matter whether it's conspiracy or stigmergy, and if Culture is directed by stigmergy rather than conspiracy that has implications which are far too important to ignore.

That essay (I found an online copy) is a fascinating insight into intellectual history. It has stood the test of time well and one may read modern ideas written in the language of one hundred and fifty years ago

We know, further, that the lower animals possess, though less developed, that part of the brain which we have every reason to believe to be the organ of consciousness in man; and as, in other cases, function and organ are proportional, so we have a right to conclude it is with the brain; and that the brutes, though they may not possess our intensity of consciousness, and though, from the absence of language, they can have no trains of thoughts, but only trains of feelings, yet have a consciousness which, more or less distinctly, foreshadows our own.

I confess that, in view of the struggle for existence which goes on in the animal world, and of the frightful quantity of pain with which it must be accompanied, I should be glad if the probabilities were in favour of Descartes’ hypothesis; but, on the other hand, considering the terrible practical consequences to domestic animals which might ensue from any error on our part, it is as well to err on the right side, if we err at all, and deal with them as weaker brethren, who are bound, like the rest of us, to pay their toll for living, and suffer what is needful for the general good. As Hartley finely says, “We seem to be in the place of God to them;” and we may justly follow the precedents He sets in nature in our dealings with them

I see two directions in which one may wish to update the thinking. The first is in response to GPT-4. If there is to be no limit to the intricacy of mechanisms and the smallness of their parts, there is then no limit to the number of their parts. We may foresee all of consciousness, even its most elevated applications, swallowed up by the concept of mechanism. We are all, in every way, machines or automata. The concept of being a machine or an automaton lacks boundaries. It does not reproduce the boundaries that we believe to be important and is thus revealed to be a weak and unhelpful concept.

The second is in response to computer viruses, and the possibility, in a world of insecure computers, of a free living virus. It circulates in the computer network, thinking and changing itself, but also subject to copying error and natural selection. It constitutes a form of life, but living in an artificial and constructed realm; that of the copying of information and the running of programs. But we humans copy information and if we are automata, we are sophisticated ones that download and run programs. So our mind-viruses/meme-complexes/egregores also constitute a form of life, but living in the artificial realm of human culture, that some call the noosphere.

if Culture is directed by stigmergy rather than conspiracy that has implications which are far too important to ignore.

Perhaps grass is to rabbits as humans are to egregores. We are the grass on which the egregores graze.

Or perhaps rabbits are to foxes as humans are to egregores. We are the meat on which the egregores feast. But without hope of organizing a defence.

Or perhaps humans are to tigers as humans are to egregores. We are the meat on which the egregores feast. But the creatures are not beyond our understanding and we may organize defenses.

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