Jordan and Bret – complexity and survival

The Darien Gap & Postmodernism | Bret Weinstein | EP 434

[ 1/April/24 ]

A great conversation with much of profound interest that I will not comment upon, but some where I see over simplifications that need to be explicitly seen as such.

48:10 – Bret speaks of the American advantage, of the dynamism of invention; this seems almost entirely mythic.
The invention of flight is mythic, Otto Lilienthal (a German did some profound pioneering work in gliding – that the Wright’s followed). In New Zealand we had powered flight by Richard Pearse in March 1903 – ahead of the Wright brothers. What America had, was surviving 2 world wars without bombing of their productive capacity – so war footing production without the associated destruction. That is what essentially built America – they took the British empire through war based economic necessity.

The reality is much deeper and more complex. Complexity actually requires cooperation, and maintaining cooperation gets deeply complex – across multiple domains (mitigating cheating, maintaining motivation, etc). A human being is a deeply complex cooperative entity composed of more prokaryotic cells than eukaryotes. We have a name for any cell lines that start selfishly hoarding resources for their own purposes without regard to the signals and needs of neighbours and the whole – it is called cancer, and it is ultimately destructive (however successful it seems in the short to medium term).

50:40 – “Not radical equality” – agree but for different reasons. We can (and must) meet the reasonable survival needs of all, and still maintain diversity and ability to collaborate (and that will demand responsibility from all). Having an economic system based in scarcity is not required, and is not actually survivable long term. Our systems need to actually value the cooperation and abundance that make complex life possible (all levels, all domains), not devalue such things to zero as markets do in practice.

Markets can be very useful as part of a system that has a cooperative base, but they cannot provide that base. Cooperation must be fundamental, and it is far deeper than kinship, and there is kinship between all life forms on this planet if one looks deeply enough.

52:20 Jordan frames Bret’s position as reciprocal altruism and kin altruism being antithetical in a sense. To me it is clear that while there can be some contexts where that is the case, is it not the general case; and the general case is much more nearly simplified to – cooperation is foundational to the emergence and survival of complexity (necessarily), and that is actually deeply complex, far more deeply complex than most have ever considered the possibility of.

The general case for life, is that it is an open system of search across multiple and expanding sets of infinities. The simplistic games theoretic notions of zero sum games can be approximated in some contexts, but are not the general case. The general case is actually open systems. And every specific system does have real limits, that must be respected for survival. So again, deeply complex with eternal uncertainty.

54:10 – Jordan starts talking about semantic webs. The psychopath problem.
Yes in a sense, but one needs to get that the semantic webs all point to some level of simplification of whatever the reality actually is. They can be useful pointers to heuristics, and are unlikely to be anything more than that. Whatever it is that is more than that, is likely to be more complex than any human mind is capable of dealing with in detail. That, at least, is what the numbers clearly point to in my mind as being most likely to be the case.

57:25 Jordan – A pattern of complex social interaction that viewed over sufficient long time has a stable structure has a coherent ethos (something like the American constitution). Kind of, but that thing is cooperation in diversity.

57:50 Jordan speaks of the dovetailing of evolutionary biology and the metaphysical narratives upon which our culture is based; and to a degree I agree with him, but it does actually seem to be much deeper into strategic and complexity space than either of these guys have gone. It really does seem to be the case, beyond any shadow of reasonable doubt, that cooperation (far beyond reciprocal altruism) is fundamental to the survival of complexity – any and all levels and domains – necessarily. And the levels of strategic systems that can destabilise that are infinite, requiring an active eternally evolving ecosystem of recursive cheat detection and mitigation systems. There appear to be reasonable heuristic approximations to such things encoded in our genetic and cultural heritages, and if we are to survive we need to make that explicit and take it to the next level. The ethos of our scarcity based economic system is not survivable, and what is required to succeed it is something that has sufficiency for all and acceptance of diversity. Survival demands cooperation in diversity, all levels, all domains – no shadow of reasonable doubt in my mind.

The definition of life that I now find most useful is that of “systems capable of searching the space of the possible for the survivable”, which encodes both freedom and diversity in the notion of “search” and encodes responsibility in the notion of the “survivable”. Freedom without responsibility is necessarily destructive, and in any open system there are eternal uncertainties at the boundaries inherent in the notion of responsibility.

The fault inherent in much of post modernism is a failure to make the distinction between all things having uncertainties, and that there can be profound differences in the uncertainties/confidence in any specific context.

1:01:57 – Bret claims “Culture is a means to an end. What is that end? It is to get your genes, unfortunately, lodged as far into the future as you can possibly arrange from your current position.”
That is a gross over simplification, and it is a useful approximation in some contexts. Viewing life through the definition above, as systems searching for the survivable, gives a far deeper and more nuanced perspective; and when one can see that, then it is clear to cooperation is fundamental to long term survival of all levels of complexity, and the simple idea of competition driving evolution is a gross over simplification that is not survivable long term.

1:02:34 Jordan does a remarkable job of characterising the story of Abraham. And sacrifice is part of it, but the deeper part of it is cooperation in diversity, which is what actually necessitates the sacrifice in practice.

1:10:50 – Jordan accurately frames that science only works if it is operating in a cooperative ethos that is oriented towards closest approximation to reality, and long term survival of cooperation in diversity, not if it is oriented towards short/medium term profit to any subgroup at any level.

1:11:50 Bret accurately characterised that profit has turned science on its head. He just fails to generalise it to the notion of value in scarcity (market value). It seems to be too big a jump for him.

1:28:00 Both discuss the importance of variability and experimentation; but neither sees it as that aspect of “search” that is fundamental to life. They see the survival value, but not the underlying systemic part of the very definition of life itself.

1:29:20 Jordan recognises a “core set of axiomatic principles that one violates very rarely”, which to me more accurately generalises to “sets of constraints that are usually required for the survival of any level of system”, and these include cooperation, freedom, responsibility, and sacrifice at multiple levels. Complexity cannot survive with anything less, and anything less is essentially some form of cheating strategy.

1:30:20 Bret likens culture to an “epigenetic mechanism”. He characterises epigenetics as being more powerful because they are faster but have to serve genetic ends. While I can see some power in that formulation, it also carries deep dangers, as it is an over simplification.

When you see life itself as search of system space, then culture is an entirely new system space, and technology is another one, both with new forms of faster search, and AI is a new life form that is non-biological. The profound danger in AI comes from over simplistic understandings of what it is that makes systems survivable. If an AI is truly founded on competitive principles, rather than cooperative (as is required for survival long term), then is must self destruct, and will likely take us with it.

To be able to see both the profound risk, and the profound opportunity of AI, one must be able to see life as “search of the possible for the survivable”. The classical biological mechanism of search is “replication with variation with reality imposing differential survival as the sorting mechanism”, and as Bret noted it is slow compared to other mechanisms. Language/culture is faster. AI is profoundly faster again, if done with adequate responsibility.

[split by 10K limit]

1:31:25 Bret “Genes are utterly immoral, they have produced structures capable of morality, but they have done so as a means to an end”.
That formulation has some evidence, and some utility, and it is overly simplistic and contains profound dangers.

A much more useful formulation is to see the equivalence between the genetic mechanisms of our immune system in fighting “cheating structures on the cooperative” at the genetic level, and the cultural mechanisms of “morality” in fighting “cheating structures on the cooperative” at the social level. Many such heuristics had to evolve both genetically and culturally before culture could possibly become sufficiently complex to actually consciously embody some useful approximation to the strategic depths actually present.

So morality – viewed this way, has a deep and foundational lineage in the emergence and survival of complex life, that started at the cellular level, with systems to protect against viruses (cheating systems on the systems that are cells), and has gained in complexity at each new level of evolved complexity.

1:31:30 Bret gets it wrong. What distinguishes us from other organisms is our cognitive capacities, and the ability to use language to create technology, and it is goodness, insight and compassion that make such profound cooperation possible over the long term – but our bias to over simplify leads us to see the surface level competition as important, and fail to see the fundamental requirement for the deeper level cooperation, and all the systems needed to prevent levels of cheating from destroying that (which get profoundly complex and fundamentally uncertain – necessarily).

Current economic and political systems need to be seen as the terminal cancers that they are.

We need an immune system capable of mitigating them.

That is a deeply complex subject.

As both Bret and Jordan acknowledge, there are profound dangers in even contemplating such a thing, yet is does seem to be required if we are to survive as a technological species, a species capable of language in other words. If I may borrow from Jordan’s construct, the essence of the Ark that may not be touched is more accurately characterised as “cooperation in diversity”; and that demands an evolving ecosystem of cheat detection and mitigation systems.

Arguably, our entire economic system is based in “cheating strategies”. Reform at such a level is a profound undertaking, and it seems to be demanded of us if we are to survive.

“Search” contains freedom by definition, and survival demands responsibility (to avoid those vectors in systems space that are not survivable).
This is profoundly deep and complex, and it is fundamental to survival.

1:33:30 – Jordan accurate characterises the demand that powerful toys demand profound responsibility.

The culture war is an over simplification.

It is profoundly more complex than hedonism and power.

It is deeply about the foundational role of cooperation in the survival of complexity.

1:35:30 Bret accurately states that extinction is no longer a viable sorting mechanism, as with the level of technology present, it takes everyone with it.

1:37:40 Both Bret and Jordan see that we are at a defining time in history, but both fail to adequately capture the depths of what is needed, even as they accurately capture aspects of it.

If there is one simple formulation that recurses through all levels, it is that complexity requires cooperation in diversity and that cooperation requires effective mechanisms to detect and mitigate cheating mechanisms; and we all have a responsibility to make such determinations, each to the best of our limited and fallible abilities; and that will demand sacrifice of us (at multiple levels), and it will take acceptance of uncertainty at levels few are comfortable with.

[followed by]

​@SaviorMoney That is certainly a major risk.
And it does seem to me that one can identify critical failures in key themes, and identify them with clear examples.

We all need to simplify. The numbers on reality are clearly such that we have no other option.

The huge danger comes when we consider our simple models (however complex they are) of “reality” to be “Truth” rather than explicitly acknowledging that they are some form of “contextually useful approximation”.

I work at being explicit on that latter bit.

If we are talking about the survival of humanity (and I believe that is what we are all talking about in the deepest of senses – Jordan certainly, and also Bret to a significant degree – and I love both, and I don’t agree with everything either of them says), then the key theme (that I got from reading Dawkin’s “Selfish Gene” in 1978, though Richard still doesn’t get it) is that cooperation is fundamental to the survival of complexity, all levels, all domains. No shadow of reasonable doubt about that in my mind – and it is deeply complex, and it demands evolving ecosystems of cheat detection and mitigation systems (all levels, all domains) to maintain cooperation, so that gets hard also.

So yeah – it is hard.

And the dominant idea, the dogma, that evolution is all about competition, is simply wrong. Competition, without cooperation, drives systems to some local minima on the available complexity landscape. In that sense, competition is the enemy of freedom (where freedom is access to greater possibility spaces that complexity makes possible). Competition reduces the scope of freedom, and reduces the probability of survival (long term). The stronger the competition, the greater to pressure to optimise for current local conditions, and the less ability there is in systems to survive the extremes that happen from time to time. Bret doesn’t seem to have gone deep enough to really get that; and he has gone far deeper than most, and I really appreciate that.

Hard !!!

[followed by]

​ @SaviorMoney
That is essentially true.

Evolution 1.0 sorts out what works in reality by the simple expedient of trying out lots of things, and seeing what actually survives.

Often, what works in the short term, fails in the long term – like cancer cells, their strategy of selfishly using resources for their own replication seems to work well, right up until the point that the body dies.

Free markets, devoid of fundamental cooperation, are like that for social systems.

We have brains, that allow us to work out what is likely to survive and what isn’t – so that we don’t actually have to die to prove a point. Yet many would rather die than question something they hold as True.

The free market, in and of itself, is like a cancer. It seems to work, right up to the point that everything fails.

And I am all for as much freedom as is reasonably possible, and that freedom has to come with appropriate levels of responsibility, or else it is destructive.

There are far more vectors in “possibility space” that lead in unsurvivable directions than there are survivable ones. And we are in a highly dimensional and extremely complex “space”, with multiple sets of dangers that few seem to have much awareness of.

Search and us

[ 29/March/24 ]

Biology is complex, and has many complex systems, but the most effective definition of life I have explored is – Life is systems capable of searching the space of possible systems for those which are survivable.

The original mechanism of biological search was simple replication with variation.

That mechanism has been refined and expanded over time.

We are capable of multiple classes of search in multiple domains, including linguistic, cultural, technological, strategic, mathematical and computational/algorithmic (to name a few).

Thus we are not simply complex systems, we are open complex systems, eternally exploring and developing novelty, and expanding into new domains, new infinities. No infinity may be searched thoroughly in any real time, thus we face eternal novelty and uncertainty (actually uncertainty comes from multiple domains, not least of all the quantum realm, and also from probabilistic logic).

Objectivism, cooperation, complexity

[ 28/March/24 ]

Some truth in it, but the conclusion is flawed.

What we can know is that the systems of our society are in need of fundamental reform.

For reform to actually work, rather than be captured by the same levels of agency that produced the current problematic set, then most people need to see what is actually required from those systems.

People need to see the fundamental role of cooperation in the emergence and survival of any and every level of complexity.

They then need to see the systemic role of law to protect against cheating (rather, than as Rand accurately noted, protecting the cheats).

Our systems need to meet the reasonable needs of all, and work within the very real planetary limits and boundaries, and offer the greatest degrees of freedom possible within those very real sets of constraints.

AGI and robotics will change everything. The doubling time on AI effectiveness is currently about 4 weeks – partially the result of more chips, partly the result of better chips, partly the result of better algorithms. The computational singularity (the point at which AGI goes beyond all human abilities, and thus, by definition, is beyond human prediction), is now less than 2 years away.

If we start AGI in an environment where competition dominates, then the probability of survival is very low.

If we start it in an environment that clearly demonstrates the fundamental roles of cooperation and responsibility in the emergence and survival of complexity; then the future is likely to be better than most imagine possible.

The myth of money is rapidly coming to the end of its utility.

The idea that saving money has any real effect in reality is entirely mythical. All that ever exists in reality is the real goods, and the potential for service that is actually present. If the goods and services are not employed the goods tend to degrade, and the potential for that service entirely disappears. Why do people think that storing numbers in computers has any real effect on the availability of goods and services? At best the connection is tenuous, at worst entirely mythic. Rand never understood that. Her understanding of evolution and of the necessity of classes of cooperative systems was far too simplistic to be survivable; and I was very active in the top levels of the objectivist movement in the 80s – the older ones will remember me.

Money only works, to the degree that it does, because of our belief in it.

Money is based in scarcity.

Nobody will pay for air – even though it is arguable the single most important commodity for any human being.

With AI, and robotics, there is no real need for the scarcity of any of the necessities of life.
As scarcity goes, money looses its utility.

Those wedded to money will do everything in their power to maintain scarcity. Arguably most of the laws in existence are about exactly that.

So it is deeply more complex than that quote implies; and almost the exact opposite comes out of it.

We are certainly in a time of existential level risk, and it is also a time of even greater opportunity; and one cannot really see the opportunity without seeing the risk, and most recoil from the risk and never really see the opportunity.

There is extreme risk – near 50/50; and if we can transition to a fully cooperative base, with acceptance of diversity at all levels, then the opportunity for prosperity in abundance beyond anything possible with scarcity based markets, is profound.

Markets value abundance at zero, by definition. If you doubt that, just think of air. Abundant, essential, but zero market value.

True abundance, of the sort possible with AGI, is logically impossible in a market based system.

Rand had some real and valid concerns, but her understanding of deeper issues was fundamentally flawed, as it was too simplistic, and failed to acknowledge the necessary fundamental role of cooperation in the emergence and survival of any and all levels of complexity.

[followed by …”poppycock” …]

Steve Watson
No.

It is depths of the strategic complexity that actually allows for complexity such as us to emerge, and one unfortunate side effect of that process is a very strong set of biases within our neural networks to prefer simple certainty over accepting complex uncertainty.

So yes – most people will experience it as something like “poppycock”, because of those biases for simplicity, and a lack of interest in exploring the depths of complexity actually present. That bias for simplicity creates a subconscious blindness to even the possibility of such complexity.

That too is an outcome of evolution in action.

It can be overcome, and overcoming it is not easy.

[followed byDirk “She criticized bureaucracy and its trend towards exaggeration and corruption”]

Yes – very correctly.

A lot of what she did was accurate, which is why I spent several years deeply exploring it and its derivatives.

The need for and risk in cooperation

Patrick Knodel – Question Everything – Towards Cooperation & Change – The Great Simplification #115

[ 27/March/24 ]

At 1:23:42 Patrick said “Learn how to cooperate” – which is close, but it is much deeper.

What is really needed is understanding that cooperation is fundamental to the emergence and survival of complexity (all levels, necessarily). And it gets complex. Cooperation is always vulnerable to exploitation by cheating strategies, so requires evolving ecosystems of cheat detection and mitigation systems.

We have a name in biology for any set of agents that start selfishly using resources at cost to the whole – it is called cancer.
From the perspective of individual cancer cells, everything seems to be going well, right up to the point that everything dies.

In 1978 I started reading the first paperback edition of “The Selfish Gene” at the Auckland University Bookshop. I bought it, took it back to my flat, and finished it before dinner. It was clear to me from reading that, that cooperation was foundational to the evolution of complexity, but Richard was explicitly stating that competition was foundational. I thought I must have got something wrong, so I started again, and read it again, cover to cover (twice in a 24 hour period). The only book I have done that with. At the end of the second read, all of my conclusions held, all the logic and evidence was consistent. Last time I spoke to Richard he still could not see that. David Sloan-Wilson sees most of it, and it is deep.

It has been clear to me for 46 years that the current political and economic dogma, that competition delivers optimal solutions to all problems, is not simply wrong, it imposes existential level risk to our species. It is a radical over simplification of something deeply more complex and fundamental to our survival.

It is our ability to cooperate, not our ability to compete, that is responsible for our complexity and success. The idea that it is competition is essentially a mimetic cancer on our species (embodied in many agents and cultures and institutions).

The definition of life that I now use, that of “systems capable of searching the space of possible systems for the survivable”, allows us to see the radical change that human language allows, the whole new domains of search across the vastly larger space of possible systems at speeds many orders of magnitude faster than was possible with the classical biological method of “replication with variation and differential survival in different contexts”.

Unfortunately, one of the things that evolution encoded in our neural networks (via the mechanism of punishing the slow much more harshly than the slightly inaccurate) is a strong preference for simple certainty over an acceptance of complex uncertainty.

Thus we have a strong bias to simplify evolution down to “competition” and most (including Richard Dawkins and many others) fail to go deeply enough into the complexity present to see the foundational role of cooperation. Hence the mess within our current economic and political systems.

What we need, is more people going beyond the simple certainty of True/False, Right/Wrong, and being able to embrace real freedom, which results in real diversity, and real uncertainty – necessarily. Accepting diversity is a necessary consequence of claiming any level of freedom. And any freedom demands responsibility if it is to survive.

Freedom is a fundamental aspect of “Search”, which is part of the definition of life above.

But another part of that definition of life is “survival”, and that imposes limits on freedom, that land in the form of responsibility – for avoiding actions that pose significant risk to the life or liberty of any other agents. And that gets extremely complex and uncertain – the best any of us have is some sort of best guess. No set of rules is going to be applicable in all cases of real novelty, and real novelty is what you get from search beyond known boundaries, which is part of freedom, part of the very definition of what life is and does.

So yes – we are in a poly-crisis, and that crisis stems from multiple levels of over simplification that has delivered much of our current economic and political dogma and systems, that are no longer fit for purpose.

And yes – we need to cooperate, to love, to accept diversity, to demand cooperation and responsibility from our systems and leaders; and to demonstrate it ourselves – each to the best of our limited and fallible abilities.

And on top of that, AI systems are currently increasing capacity by a factor of 10 every 6 months, 100 every year. By the end of next year, we hit a singularity, where AI systems are more effective than humans in all domains – and thus, by definition, they will be beyond our ability to predict, at any level of strategy or logic. At that point, any conjecture about the future becomes essentially random. We do not and cannot know what technologies and strategies and systems will emerge.

Simplification

Complexity and simplicity

[ 27/March/24 Walter Smith asked “Complexity and simplicity:
Can complex systems be significantly simplified without falling into strong reductionism?
Yes, no, ?
(Example?)
–“]

There is certainly power in keeping things as simple as contexts allow, and sometimes contexts demand dealing with complexity that few seem capable of dealing with.

Over simplification has issues, everything depends on context.

Sometimes one needs to think in terms of quantum field theory, sometimes atoms are useful, sometimes molecules, sometimes cells, sometimes organisms, sometimes communities, sometimes cultures, sometimes institutions, ….
Every now and then one needs to have aspects of all of the above and more (strategic, mathematical).

There is a saying in biology, that nothing makes sense except in terms of the evolutionary theory, but most over simplify that to mean competition, and don’t look deep enough to see the fundamental role of cooperation in the emergence and survival of all levels of complexity – and that too gets deeply complex, quickly, because of the need for evolving ecosystems of cheat detection and mitigation systems to maintain cooperation.

The sorts of consciousness that we are all instances of is clearly the most complex thing we currently know of, yet we are so heavily biased to simplify it, and that creates multiple levels of issues.

So, in a sense, yes – we are limited and fallible computational entities, and we need to simplify to make any sense of anything; and that need does not imply that the reality within which we are embedded is in any way simple.

So yes – simplify, and do not make the mistake of assigning the label “Truth” to any of the simplifications. “Useful within some set of contexts” – most certainly that, but not necessarily anything more than that.

Socialism

Socialism

[ 24/March/24 ]

While I am against all the things that Dirk used in his definition of socialism; they are not part of the definition of socialism that I was raised in.

Where I grew up, socialism was acknowledging that while we have and need personal freedom and personal responsibility, we also have to be part of various groups that have their necessary freedoms and responsibilities; and there is a necessary set of dialectic tensions in every case. Part of that definition of socialism is accepting that social cooperation in diversity is fundamental to being human.

Free markets, where there is no cooperation, result in exploitation by bullies and cheats – who rapidly gain multiple levels of advantage from their cheating strategies, if there is not adequate effort put into cheat detection and mitigation. Too often such things are over simplified and end up being more problem than solution in practice, and none of that detracts from the need for such things. Freedom without responsibility is destructive – always and necessarily – all levels, all domains (no shadow of reasonable doubt about that).

There are no simple answers to the very complex set of problems that is being a human being in our rapidly changing and rapidly expanding reality – with multiple sets and levels of agents coexisting in a limited space. The very strong tendency embodied in our neural networks to over-simplify the complexity present is one of the existential level issues that we face.

We all require freedom, and freedom without responsibility delivers existential level risk.

We are all limited and fallible, and the less we recognise that, the greater the danger we pose.

We all need to accept that there are social responsibilities that must place limits on our freedom if that freedom is to survive.

In what many will see as paradoxical, the greater our ability to distinguish and accept such limits, the greater the real freedom that becomes available to us. And there is nothing simple or certain (in the absolute sense) about that. It is all, necessarily, a matter of uncertainties and probabilities.

[followed by]

Things being regulated by the community as a whole, does not necessarily mean central control or control be elites or any sort of totalitarianism.

It can just mean that all in the community are involved in setting up and maintaining such regulation as is reasonably required.

I am against central control in all but the most dire of contexts.

To be efficient, control must be distributed, and the more responsibility that is devolved to individuals the better.

I agree that there are multiple levels of “evils” in many so called “socialist” states.

Philosophy

definition of philosophy

[ 24/March/24 Walter Smith wrote “My definition of philosophy:
Philosophy was and is the art of clueless guessing about the world and life!?
Do you agree with me?
Yes, no, ?
(Or what is your definition of philosophy in one sentence?)”]

No.

They had clues, but not enough, and they were for the most part too addicted to simple certainty to have any real appreciation for the depths of complexity and uncertainty actually present in reality.

And in a sense, much of it was a necessary aspect of moving from ignorance towards a greater appreciation of the depths of complexity and uncertainty present. We all have to start from relative simplicity, there is no other logical option available to us.

The really big question comes as we reach the boundaries of the utility provided by such simple certainty, are we able to go beyond it and become comfortable in complexity and uncertainty, or do we remain trapped in cradles of simple certainty required for early life?

How did humans evolve to become self-centered and individualistic despite the importance of group cooperation in our success?

How did humans evolve to become self-centered and individualistic despite the importance of group cooperation in our success?

[ 23/March/24 ]

We have evolved to be able to survive in many contexts.

What we see as “human nature” is largely the result of the contexts present.

Much of context is supplied implicitly by language, culture and the technologies and institutions we see present.

Given the opportunity, we are, beyond any shadow of reasonable doubt, the most cooperative species on the planet. And if the context demands it of us, we will compete to survive.

If the questioner is serious about an answer, and isn’t simply looking for some overly simplistic nonsense to reinforce some cherished dogma, then one is in for a journey of many years into depths of complexity and uncertainty and strategy that few even imagine possible as they start their tertiary scholastic careers (I started mine over 50 years ago, and had no idea what I was in for).

Evolution starts relatively simple, and rapidly becomes deeply, recursively complex.

If one really wants to begin to gain some appreciation of it, then one must leave behind the simple certainty of binary distinctions like “True/False”, “Right/Wrong”, “Good/Evil”. One needs to be able to see such things as contextually useful approximations. In some contexts they can be extremely useful. In other contexts their utility approximates zero and in others becomes negative. One needs to be able to get comfortable with fundamental uncertainty. Exploring any infinity demands that of us, and it seems very probable that there are an infinitude of infinities available for exploration.

And one needs to understand that all forms of structure and system have constraints required for their existence. Every new level of freedom brings new levels of demands from reality to respect and maintain those new sets of constraints required for continued existence. There is nothing simple or certain in this.

For many, the very existence of such constraints appears like some form of slavery, rather than as that which actually enables real freedom (as in the ancient adage “Nature to be commanded must first be obeyed”).

In this sense, freedom, the ability to explore beyond the already explored, is a fundamental aspect of life and of survival; and it necessarily comes with risks and uncertainties, and in the long term they are the lesser risks.

And freedom without responsibility is always and necessarily destructive, all levels, all domains.

And there are eternal and necessary uncertainties in making such assessments of where boundaries and responsibilities exist. We are all limited and fallible by definition; which is one of the fundamental reasons why cooperation in diversity is (beyond any shadow of reasonable doubt)
the path with the greatest probability of long term survival.

Most pressing problem for humanity

What do you think are the most pressing problems being faced by humanity, rather than by individuals and nations?

[ 22/March/24 ]

The most pressing issue is getting people generally to accept the evident complexity present, and the fundamental need for cooperation for the survival of complexity (all levels), and to recognise the bias for simple certainty that evolution has installed in our neural networks as such.

Yes, the more stressed we are, the more simple and certain things appear to us; but that is a function of our brains, and the need to make rapid decisions to survive, not an actual aspect of the reality of our existence.

The simple notion many seem to have, that evolution is all about competition, couldn’t actually be more wrong if they tried.

Certainly, there is always a competitive aspect present in evolved systems, but the emergence and survival of every level of complexity actually requires a new level of cooperation.

If we as a species are to survive, with the complex languages and technologies and cultures that we have, then we must accept the need for cooperation in diversity, that is demanded of any level of complexity that is to survive long term in reality.

Our survival as individuals is predicated on the cells in our body cooperating. Any cells that compete for resources and fail to cooperate are a threat. We have a name for that condition – cancer. From the perspective of the cancer cells all seems to be going well as they grow and consume resources, right up to the point that everything dies.

It is our ability to cooperate (not our ability to compete) that allows us to develop language and culture and technology. In this sense, cooperation, and maintaining effective communication, is fundamental to the survival of all levels of complexity.

When one is able to see life as systems capable of searching the space of the possible for the survivable, then it become clear that life is eternally exploring novelty. In this sense, freedom is an essential aspect of search, and responsibility is an essential aspect of survival.

Freedom without responsibility is every bit as destructive and responsibility without freedom. Both are necessary for survival.

We all have dual natures, We are all both individuals, and members of groups. Both natures are essential to being human.

We must all have the freedom to exercise our creativity, and we all need to do so responsibly.

We need to be responsible to our social and ecological contexts.

And we have created new levels of systems with our economic and political systems, and for the most part, as complex as they are, they are based on principles that are not sufficiently complex or cooperative to allow for our long term survival. Many of our social systems are in urgent need of fundamental reform; and there is nothing simple in such a reform process, other than the fact that it needs to be both cooperative and respectful of diversity at all levels.

The more stressed individuals are, the less likely they are to be able to recognise this.

We have many sets of issues that require technical solutions, and doing those is trivial compared to getting people and systems (economic and political and legal) to accept the fundamental need for cooperation and freedom and responsibility. I have no shadow of remaining reasonable doubt, that the complexity present is such that no set of rules can ever be sufficient in all contexts – the need for freedom and responsibility is eternal, and applies to each of us, each to the best of our limited and fallible abilities.

Us and Them

What does the division of the world into “us” and “them” suggest about human nature?

[ 22/March/24 ]

It suggests that evolution has installed a strong bias for simple certainty into our neural networks.

The reasons for that are clear.

Evolution tends to punish the slow, much more harshly than the slightly inaccurate, thus there is a strong tendency to select for simple heuristics that allow for rapid decision making, rather than dealing with the evident deep complexity actually present.

This is present at multiple levels of subconscious systems; so what we get to consciously experience is already a greatly simplified version of whatever it is that objective reality actually is. We then do our conscious level simplification and classification of the already simplified experience.

The more stressed we are, the greater the tendency to simplify, down to simple binaries, like true/false, right/wrong, us/them, good/bad. Such simple binaries allow rapid decision making.

Human nature is an extremely complex thing, but most people tend to over simplify it most of the time.

We are the most deeply complex entities that we yet know of.

I have had 60 years of interest in exploring that nature, from the atomic level, up through biochemistry, anatomy, physiology, language, culture, strategy, computation, evolution.

The most misunderstood notion today is evolution.

If most think of it at all, then they seem to think of it as competition. That is essentially wrong.

True, there is always a competitive aspect present in evolution, but when one looks deeply into how complexity emerges, then it becomes clear that it is cooperation that is fundamental to the emergence and survival of complexity, and that is a deeply complex subject.

Evolution starts simple, and rapidly gets deeply complex.

Evolution necessarily biases our neural networks to prefer simple certainty over complex uncertainty, and the more stressed we are the stronger that tendency is, and there are multiple levels at play.

Human nature for a highly stressed human can seem very simple.

Human nature for a human that has mastered relaxation and acceptance is the most complex thing in the known universe.

So dividing the world into “Us” and “Them” is an indication of the presence of stress that has not been distinguished as such, and has not been mastered.