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Having presented the key dimensions and structures of a Living Systems Model, what follows is an interpretation of its significance and meaning in terms of how people conduct their everyday lives.
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Each of us carries out his actions and experiences within a personal conceptual framework that includes a general idea of what we are, how we function, and how we relate to the world. As mature adults, we have also developed a set of beliefs for dealing with the unknowables that would otherwise leave major gaps in our understanding of the world.
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The Living Systems Model provides a new perspective on man's role in the scheme of things. Examining human organisms from the view of their parent nation-state superorganism produces a radical shift from our traditional human-centric conceptualization of the universe. It offers a new and clearer understanding of man's purpose and the nature of his free will. |
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Humans Live Their Lives within Nation-State Superorganisms
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Over time, the design of human organisms has evolved to operate within a three-level living system hierarchy. Most humans can no longer function as independent entities. Throughout the world, it is becoming increasingly difficult for an individual to even carry out his life within an isolated family or tribal enclave. The development of nation-states is nearly complete, and a transition toward world government is well underway.
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Today, humans are positioned mid-level, between lower-level cells and a higher-level superorganism. This positioning involves interdependencies in both directions. A human's ability to perform actions is directly dependent upon the work carried out by his subordinate cells, and he receives essentially all his nourishment and protection from within the structure of his nation-state superorganism. Humans lead an indentured life that is split between their own self-maintenance and the life function work they must perform for their nation-state.
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The Emergence of Free Choice
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Humans have long had the ability to evaluate a situation to determine a "best" response. In pre-tribal times, the only consideration was "What is best for me?" or "What is best for my family?" As a member of a tribe, such deliberations expanded to include "What is best for others? and "What is best for the tribe?" And in the present time, the scope of this broader concern has evolved to include "What is best for our country?" There is often a conflict among these factors, because a benefit for one may come at the expense of others, and what is best for the many may require sacrificing the few.
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In their evaluation of a situation, humans are often described as having "free will" whereby they can choose their own individual response. For many centuries, philosophers have struggled with the question "Whence do they derive this power?" - - implying that some kind of supernatural creator must be involved. The concept of coevolution across three levels of living system helps clarify the source, capacity, and limits of this freedom.
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Man's free choice evolved in tandem with superorganism development. At the tribal stage, most decisions were related to survival, in terms of nourishment and protection from the environment. There was a strong chief or council of elders who made the important decisions about work and resources, and their distribution among members. Day-to-day decisions by an individual member had little effect on this arrangement, as his work actions were usually part of group efforts. However, as the tribes began merging into nation-states, a decentralization of responsibilities and resource decision-making became necessary.
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The Function of Markets
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As the geographical size of the superorganism grew, it became increasingly difficult for a central governance mechanism to attend to all the varying regional resource capabilities and requirements. High complexity and low speed of communication limited central governance to focusing on higher-level policy decisions. Within this centralized policy umbrella, local governance substations and a broad self-governing "free" market structure began to emerge.
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The new market structure enabled individual citizens and organizations to make their own immediate decisions about producing, selling and buying goods, while collectively meeting the needs of their nation-state. The market structure was self-organizing, and functioned both as a facilitating and a constraining force to help maintain the nation-state's homeostatic equilibrium across a larger territory and population.
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In tandem with the emergence of markets, human organisms developed a more sophisticated decision-making capability that allowed them greater individual freedom of choice. This free choice capability extended to decisions about who they would associate with, what kind of work they would perform, where they would live, and what kinds of goods and material things they would acquire. In conjunction with enabling individual freedom of choice, the collective results of their decisions were governed by the "invisible hand" of free markets.
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The Ongoing Evolution of Superorganisms
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In a large marketplace, each citizen's individual local market decision can have only a miniscule effect on everyone else. But when taken together, they may collectively represent a significant trend, where their combined result could significantly impact the nation-state. For small changes in individual behavior, the markets are self-organizing and self-regulating mechanisms. But when a large percentage of market participants shifts their free choices in a new direction, it may distort the market structure and interfere with its existing role in maintaining superorganism homeostasis. If the result is bad for the nation-state, government may enforce policy restrictions to limit the action. But if the effect is good, it may adapt to a new policy structure that encourages the change.
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In this way, the free choice of individual human organisms introduces random variations into the nation-state behavioral culture and superorganism design. Within the market structures, these random variations are acted upon by natural selection, where the best new practices survive and proliferate. This enables a nation-state superorganism to adapt to new environmental conditions, changing its design and structure within its own lifespan.
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This adaptation process can be interpreted as part of the ongoing evolution of superorganism design. Where a gene pool carries changes in the human species design across generations of individual lifespans, a cultural meme pool carries changes to a nation-state superorganism's design across adaptations within its own lifespan.
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The nature of a superorganism's meme pool has gone through many changes. In tribal days, the rules of behavior that it imposed were simple, fluid, and maintained in the brains of leaders and elders. By the time of city-states, the rules had been become formalized and externally documented in writing or carved in stone. Nation-states furthered these changes, with formal organizations dedicated to the maintenance of culture, religion and governance laws.
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Digital Technology and the world wide web have accelerated the transition toward an externalization of knowledge and decision making. All of the world's information is becoming available online, and internet services have enabled instant and ongoing communication among like-minded peers. The result is a shift of human thought from individual conscious effort to that of group consciousness. In terms of living systems, this implies a movement toward greater regimentation of human organism thought and activities by a more powerful and highly developed superorganism.
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