Dear Howard and colleagues,
Thanks for the comments on "instinctive" justice. I agree on those evolutionary
roots, although it is not the kind of complex "invented" justice needed even
for the early urban settlements. The Hammurabi's legendary code, for instance,
was in the context of a mostly urban civilization, possessing writing, number
systems, mass-religion, bureaucracy and very different professions. It was
written because justice administration could not be left to oral vagaries.
Celts, conversely, never developed writing systems (& decent number systems)
and so were unable to go beyond the village/tribe stage, where the
"instinctive" justice and the face-to-face relationships are sufficient to
cover the collective organization demands. Their very interesting culture and
folklore had no parallel in permanent sociopolitical structures, irrespective
that they could improvise astonishing military rampages. In the book by Jared
Diamond (Guns, Germs & Steel), there is a very interesting Table in pp. 268-9
that describes the whole conditions for ascending in social complexity: bands,
tribes, feuds, kingdoms, empires... Each society has to find, first, an
adequate ecological environment (or being able to built it "artificially") and
then has to invent the further organizational requisites (or has to receive
them from abroad). That Table is quite interesting and may be important for
further advancing the "informational approach" to human history.
Thereafter, the social "superorganism" becomes possible due to the long term
work of human knowledge (or "reason" as Hans puts), through language, deictic
combinatorics, etc., in an exercise of collective intelligence, mostly of the
AP type (Angelic!). Science as the great social method to
create/invent/innovate is probably the best paradigm for AP values. Justice is
as much essential, but the invented one, for it must be differentiated and
evolved for the larger and larger social organisms. Failure to develop the
appropriate legal developments and judiciary instances means that the conflicts
always inherent in the LP human reality will paralyze and even destroy the
existing social order. Collapse is always close by (what happened with URSS
colossal empire?). In our times, those perennial, intractable conflicts are
fueled not just by conflicting memes, but by a series of arbitrariness, errors,
force exhibitions, retaliations, occupations, etc. that cannot be examined and
judged by any judiciary system. The Western failure even to glimpse that
absence is but an epochal blindness.
Bob has drafted the universal drama, where the elements of the two different
scenarios AP & LP mix and intertwine forming more and more complex tapestries.
Perhaps the essential point of all this deployment was marked in Howard's first
paragraph of the kickoff text: "What are the forces of history? And what do
they have to do with information science?" But a previous question may be in
order: is "force" the most cogent term to rationalize the upheavals of human
history? Is "force" an interesting element at all for advancing the
informational worldview?
Best wishes to all (and particularly thanks to Hans for his hyper-kind comment!)
--Pedro
De: howlbl...@aol.com [howlbl...@aol.com]
Enviado el: miércoles, 06 de enero de 2016 0:37
Para: PEDRO CLEMENTE MARIJUAN FERNANDEZ; fis@listas.unizar.es
Asunto: Re: [Fis] January Lecture--Information and the Forces of History
good commentary, pedro.
where do compassion and love--the archangel principle--fit into the lucifer
principle? and why have groups progressed in complexity since the end of the
last ice age eleven thousand years ago?
to form a superorganism, a cohesive group, you need huge amounts of
collaboration and cooperation. love is one cohesive force, one bonding
element, one form of social glue. justice is another.
justice resolves differences in the group without violence. justice is at work
in chimpanzee societies, where new leaders are required to uphold the weak and
the downtrodden and to settle disputes. if a new leader doesn't understand
this imperative and is a mere bully, the females in the group oust him from
power.
justice is at work in !Kung San societies, where the days are devoted to
hunting and gathering and the nights are devoted to story telling and dispute
resolution.
but where does the increasing complexity of human societies come from? humans
are drawn to the sight of other humans. when architects in the 1960s tried to
fashion contemplative spaces around office buildings so the buildings'
inhabitants could get a touch of calm during lunch hours, it didn't work. the
buildings' workers shunned the contemplative spots and sat on the buildings'
outdoor steps. why? to watch the sight of other people going by on the
sidewalk.
we love the sight of others. and the more others, the better. from that
impulse came
