As the autumn leaves continue to fall, so will I continue to add sub-clauses to my showcases.
I’m hoping that the following six sets of clauses or statements together with their sub-clauses can tell us how society works.
1. AMBITION
2. PRIORITISATION
3. NATURAL SELECTION
4. THE RULE OF THREE
5. ASSEMBLY
6. PERFORMANCE
Sets 1 to 4 describe the behaviour of solitary individuals acting alone whereas 5 and 6 deal with the behaviour of cooperating groups. I refer to these six statements as “Assembly and performance thinking” The reality of God is comprehensively confirmed here as every society’s ‘Mind of its own’.
In the 1920s the American sociologist Talcott Parsons more or less completely mapped out this line of thought, but he failed to see that every group has a mind of its own. This failure fuelled his attempt to describe human society as a monolithic structure rather than a kalaidascope of interacting autonomous groups. His writing is so intricate and hard to follow that sadly academia turned a deaf ear.
I’m saying, and this is the whole point, that there may be useful insights about ourselves waiting to be unearthed if we examine society as the interactions of cooperating groups rather than of cooperating individuals [book 240 p18]. It’s a simple idea.
Here are some explanatory notes on each of these six statements.
1. AMBITION
The ambition to survive and prosper is the defining essence of life. It distinguishes living matter from non-living matter. If the matter in question, even a seed, wants to survive and prosper as an individual, it is alive, otherwise it is not. The opposite of ‘alive’ is ‘not alive’. Death here is not the opposite of life; it’s an event, not a state of being.
Ambition; the survival instinct is purely selfish, It is totally self-seeking and completely devoid of altruism. Any kindness to others has been evolved for the ultimate benefit of `the individual.
1.1 Plato’s cosmology, his allegory of the cave and all that, well explained in his book The Timaeus, is truly brilliant but quite clearly total nonsense. Supporting religious belief it has misled mainstream philosophers, not all but many, for many centuries. Aristotle and his pupil Theophrastus don’t seem to have been totally convinced; it’s not central in their thinking which is where I’m sure their master Plato would have liked it to have been.
1.1.1 Philosophy deals in the riddles of life. For example; being, knowledge, time and space, life, consciousness, infinity, and more. As soon as we understand one of them it ceases to be a philosophical subject. If this line of thinking is accepted, philosophy seems rather pointless, but like dog-shit it sticks to your foot.
2. PRIORITISATION
For a living thing to survive and prosper it must be able to prioritise at any time between the following three simultaneous imperatives;
(M) it must metabolise; which means acquiring and using energy (oxygen, water, food, etc, and eliminating waste). [Metabolise]
(S-P) It must protect its-self against the dangers in its surroundings. [Self-Protect]
(B) It must reproduce its self [Breed].
Furthermore for a living thing to survive and prosper it must be endowed with the ability to perform one or all of these imperatives at any time. If one of the three is absent or denied, the thing can’t live. It must also prioritise continually between the three.
2.1 Awareness. A primitive species of microbe benefits if it can evolve a self-protecting sense of its self and of how it survives in its own habitat. This is often referred to as self-awareness. Not all microbes have achieved self-awareness (eg Corals).
2.2 Consciousness. Consciousness is then simply the inevitable result that you are aware that you are aware. Philosophers, who love riddles regularly tie themselves in knots about this, but that’s all there is to it.
2.3. Why should there be these three imperatives: metabolism, self-protection and breeding? I can’t imagine why for a living thing to survive and prosper there would have to be three, why not two or one of these imperatives. I guess this question must already have been solved by scholars unknown to me.
This ‘why three?’ question probes the very essence of life. I don’t expect the answer to affect my question; How Does Society Work?”
2.3.1 The prioritising spark. The fascinating problem here, which sparks off the evolution of so many of nature’s wonderful tricks, (sight, cooperation, etc) is that every single creature must be able to prioritise between these three often conflicting imperatives. Each must solve the most important one at any particular time. Split-seconds or decades may be needed to determine the decision to M, S_P, or B. It’s a problem and a fascinating one which each and every life form has to decide for its self in order to survive and prosper. No decision = no survival. Looking back; every jelly-fish, slime-mold, elephant, and pine tree can claim that it has evolved through the succession of these decisions in its history. In reverse this succession looks like an ever expanding fan of development in which natural selection drives species into newly available niches. That describes how the imperative to decide to M, S-P, or B, has given rise to the amazing complexity of life on earth today including sight, flight, octopuses, migrating bird navigation systems and big brains.
3. NATURAL SELECTION
Darwin’s natural selection speaks for itself. It runs right through the six sets of statements or clauses about society. The only reason for including it here is to convince doubters that the human is indeed just one animal among a million others, and that there is a natural continuum between for example a bacterium and a human. So I won’t go on about it here. Those who already accept the zoology of Natural Selection should skip this set of clauses
The ubiquitous and regularly reinvented concept of God, when explained as the personification of a society’s ‘mind of it’s own’ is entirely compatible with the doctrine of natural selection.
4. THE RULE OF THREE
We readily accept the idea of ‘Trial and error’. But the truth of it is that getting something done has to be a three-phase process. If I err it makes no sense to act again without first reviewing what I did wrong. Typically the three phases are act > review > plan > act> repeat >>>. So it seems wrong to wonder how-come I can switch from a solitary to a team player; that’s linear, not progressive thinking.
Much better to see this switch as a progressively triangular process in which three functions are mutually trumping as in the game ‘Scissors, Paper, and Stone’ Each function informs or constrains the next. I refer to this as ‘The Rule Of Three’. Logically there cannot be more or less than three mutually trumping functions; four or more introduces ambiguity and two or less introduces ‘hunting’. So when studying the principle of action anywhere in nature, from microbes to humans it seems right to look for three mutually trumping functions.
By the way; this I believe is the point at which the great Talcott Parsons went wrong; his argument was linear rather than triangular.
‘How does society work?’ It’s a double-question. In the first place it’s about the incorporation or assembly of a working group despite the total selfishness of each individual member. Then, once incorporated, how do these groups perform? By trial and error; by linear or circular process or what? Below I treat assembly first , before performance
4. 1. The rule of three only clicks into place when the three functions or powers are mutually trumping. See the Rule of Three; Wheels p 17
4.2. Reverse trumping comes in three types of social destruction or disease. For example For example dictatorship requires that ‘act’ can reverse into ‘plan’
4.3. The rule of three is a weak but persistent social force. It is easily side-stepped by the strong force of emotion. Wheels p21
4.4. irrational behaviour (including panic) is usually available as a sort of safety-valve; useful when rationality threatens to lead us astray. It famously failed the British Cavalry in Alfred Tennyson’s poem; ‘the charge of the light-brigade’.
5. ASSEMBLY
This is about assembling a purposeful working group. It requires 1, that individuals have evolved a propensity for self-restraint, this being similar to our evolved propensity for language. 2 that individuals are able to sense whether or not there may be enough other individuals willing to work together on the problem in hand. This Is referred to as ‘quorum sensing’. And 3 that individuals can recognise the other members of the group they are in.
Assembly into a purposeful group creates a group ‘mind of its own’ which is independent of any majority or leader. The biggest prize of all would be a universally accepted fool-proof method to interrogate any group mind. That really would be huge. It would resolve the perpetual arguments between left and right-wing politicians; between autocracy, democracy, oligarchy, dictatorship, theocracy and feudalism. The three phases of ‘do > review > plan > and repeat’ may be a promising first step towards this interrogation.
5. 1 In humans the act of assembling a group creates the group’s action-control mind of its own which is independent of any leader or majority. See Gustave Le Bon wheels p14
5.1.1 It's not absurd to say that jellyfish have minds of their own; observably they direct their own movements. (Wheels p6)
5. 2 The action sequences of all animal groups follow the exact same mutually trumping rule of triangular feedback control as do individual animals (reference 4 above).
5. 3 In humans the creation of every group’s quasi-mind of its own conjures up the concept of God, especially in large hierarchies. In other words: God is Us
5.4 the logic of the transition from behaviour as an individual to as a team player is circular, not linear –(wheels p12)
5.5 Bullying is natural but nasty Wheels p223
5.6. Hubris is a disease of the group mind Wheels p25
5.7. Political correctness – “you can’t say that granddad” - comprises spontaneous codes of behaviour filling the gaps vacated by the decline of Christian doctrine and ritual dogma.
6. PERFORMANCE
Performance here is about how the working group, once assembled, performs the task it has set its self. I propose that the group must iterate the ‘review, plan, act’ rule of three, 4 above. I’m claiming that logically there is no other possible way by which it can perform.
6.1. criticisms
6.1.1 Novak Harari’s circular arguments – he assumes the prior existence of that which he is trying to explain. This is a common error. (Wheels p10)
6.1.2 Plato made a glorious mistake in the Timaeus - he took the God-like superiority of mankind for granted. (Wheels p100)
6.2. Talcott Parsons was brilliant He very nearly described my Assembly & Performance Thinking (A&PT). But he failed to see that the feedback control loops they operate are autonomous self-motivating mechanisms. He searched instead for a monolithic / universal formula which could explain all societies everywhere. A&PT lights up his AGIL idea. (Wheels PP75-80 and 203 - 205)
6.3. Sociology is a soft science. It lacks the academic respectability of, for example, physics and medicine. (Wheels p23)
(References here are either to tonyacbwilson’s set of 240 illustrated sketchbook diaries or to his 2021 book ‘The Wheels of Society’ Quartet Books)
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