Reply to Steven and Ted
> By "genetic constraints" I assume you simply mean that we have
certain
> capacities and are not omnipotent. Is not conflict and war an indicator
> of our individual failure to manage social complexity? Or would you argue
> that war is social complexity management?
>
I was referring to the hypothesis that we have the propensity to function in
relatively small groups bind by strong cultural bonds. Since our species did
evolve in small bands, this social trait may have some genetic
underpinnings. Our disposition to use violence, to exercise power over
others, and to use emotions in dealing with social problems is likely to
have genetic basis because we find similar traits also in primates. In this
context, conflict and war are to be seen as an indicator of our individual
and social failure to deal with challenges of social complexity.
To put it tentatively simple: globalization with its economic
interdependence, migrations with its cultural mixing but not melting, and
the fact that the planet is becoming a crowded place because of population
growth in the South, creates a particular aspect of social complexity, for
which effective handling we may have certain, species-specific, biological
limits. If these biological limits are hard to prove, then we call in a bad
record in our history concerning our cultural ability to handle the "other",
the "different", to make major institutional changes without recurring to
violence, etc..
On the other hand, we may have cognitive limits to deal with the
implications of social and technological complexity that we have created so
recently in our evolution.
Ted wrote:
I do believe that there are limits to complexity of any system. I believe
the limits exhibit not only in the behavior of the system as seen by that
actions of its members, but also in the abstractions those members use in
the information that is exchanged.
Ted, can you give us an example from the social realm for your statement "My
understanding is that when those information abstractions (which
evolve with the system) become overloaded, a new level of the system is
created, with new, "cleaner" abstractions."
Best
Igor
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Received on Mon Feb 5 10:51:31 2007
