VII. Our Earthuman Ascent: A Major Evolutionary Transition in Twindividuality

2. Complex Local to Global Network Biosocieties

Ingold, Tim. The Trouble with Evolutionary Biology. Anthropology Today. 23/2, 2007. The University of Aberdeen social anthropologist takes issue with the 2006 article by Alex Mesoudi, et al (search within) which seeks a “unified science of cultural evolution.” The problem for TI is not a project to join biology and society, but the employ of an antiquated Darwinism to do so, unaware that evolutionary theory is under radical expansion to include developmental and dynamical system influences.

By all means let us seek a way of embracing human history and culture within a wider concept of evolution: not, however, by reducing history to a reconstructed phylogeny of cultural traits but by releasing the concept of evolution itself from the stranglehold of neo-Darwinian thinking, allowing us to understand the self-organizing and transformational dynamics of fields of relationships among both human and non-human beings. (17)

Jenks, Chris and John Smith. Qualitative Complexity: Ecology, Cognitive Processes and the Re-Emergence of Structures in Post-Humanist Social Theory. London: Routledge, 2006. An impressive work, as its table of contents below attest, bent on reconceiving the field of sociology in terms of dynamic self-organizing social systems. This task is methodically pursued with an emphasis on autopoietic self-structuring, as Niklas Luhmann has earlier done, so as to provide a more appropriate understanding of real cultural phenomena. An academic postmodernism prevails to at once liberate the endeavor from linear modernity and to express an open, malleable fluidity. But this school precludes any imagination that underlying or encompassing the rush of events could be inherent natural commonalities.

Part One: The Interdisciplinary Field. Chapter 1. Complexity Theory: A Positioning Paper. 2. From Descartes’ Conjecture to Kant’s Subject & the Computer. 3. Autopoiesis in Cognitive Biology. 4. Emergentism, Evolutionary Psychology and Culture. 5. Prigogine’s Thermodynamics, Ontology and Sociology. Part Two: Critical Developments. 6. Modernism and Determinism: Linear Expectations and Qualitative Complexity Analyses. 7. Complexity Theory as a Critique of Postmodernism. 8. Cognition and the Renewal of Systems Theory. 9. The Evolution of Intelligence, Consciousness and Language. 10. Complexity, Language and Culture: social systems in qualitative, i.e. not formal terms. Part Three: The Fields of Complex Analysis: Contemporary Complexity Theory. 11. The Ethics of Pragmatism: Politics and post-structuralism in transition after the complexity turn. 12. The Topology of Complexity. 13. Re-interpreting Global Complexity as an Ontology: Human Ecology.

Juarrero, Alicia. Dynamics in Action: Intentional Behavior as a Complex System. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999. New understandings of human activities are possible by means of the nonlinear sciences.

Jusup, Marko, et al. Social Physics. arXiv:2110.01866. In a paper to appear in Physics Reports, a 16 member team with postings in Japan, Croatia, China, the USA, Luxembourg, the UK, Singapore, Germany, Russia, Italy, Spain, Austria. Slovenia and Taiwan including Petter Holme, Stefano Boccaletti and Matjaz Perc achieves a thorough survey of this (re)union project from its 18th century inklings (Auguste Comte, et al) to our pewawnr worldwise retrospective observance. Twelve chapters over 358 pages proceed from Urban Dynamics, and Econophysics to Pandemics and Climate Phenomena and topics such as polarization, tipping points, biodiversity, neighborhoods, mobility, deep learning AI, and multiplex connectivities. As we peoples may gain a global vista on an evident course from a substantial universe to our evident witness and participation, how might it at last dawn as grand universe to Earthuman discovery?

Recent years have seen a rise in the use of physics-inspired methods as a way to resolve diverse societal problems. Such an effort is due to physicists venturing beyond their usual field, but also by other scientists who wish to gain a deeper basis. Here, we dub this nascent endeavor as a "social physics." We first review the modern way of living that enables humankind's prosperous existence such as urban development, vehicular traffic, financial markets, civil cooperation, societal networks, and the integration of intelligent machines. We then move on to consider potential threats to like criminal behaviour, massive migrations, contagions, environmental issues, and finally climate change. Their coverage ends with ideas for future resolve. After some 360 pages and 1148 references we conclude that this integrative synthesis across this widest expanse seems quite promising. (Abstract excerpt)

Kenett, Dror and Juval Portugali. Population Movement under Extreme Events. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 109/11472, 2012. Boston University and Tel Aviv University systems geographers comment on a technical article in the same issue “Predictability of Population Displacement after the 2010 Haiti Earthquake” by Xin Lu, Linus Bengtsson, and Petter Holme which reports that even in such chaotic disasters can yet be found underlying patterns of mathematical regularity. By way of any philosophical muse then, whatever kind of reality, albeit capable of catastrophes, might collaborative humankind be at last coming upon, quantifying, reading? And if it may dawn that orderly natural principles do indeed exist, could they be availed to recreate a new, livable, sustainable Haiti and world?

The last 30 years have witnessed the emergence of complexity theories of cities (CTC) – a domain of research that applies the various complexity theories to the study of cities. CTC portray cities as complex, self-organizing systemic networks. They suggest that cities have originally emerged and are still developing out the space-time interactions between the many urban agents, this to say, the individuals, families, households, firms, and other entities that act and interact in the city. The activities and interactions between these urban agents give rise to the global urban multilevel network and structure that in turn affects the agent’s cognition, behavior, movement, and action in the city in a circular causality. CTC have demonstrated a whole set of resemblances between cities on the one hand, and natural, material, and organic networks on the other. (11472)

Kenrick, Douglas, et al. Dynamical Evolutionary Psychology. Personality and Social Psychology Review. 6/4, 2002. A paper in a special issue on “The Dynamical Perspective in Personality and Social Psychology” maps out an “interactionist” union of complex systems principles and evolutionary theory.

One of the exciting discoveries emerging from studies of complex systems is a ubiquitous tendency toward self-organization. (347) What an evolutionary analysis adds to the dynamic perspective is a focus on content. By focusing on adaptive content, we should be able to make more specific predictions about which self-organizing structures and patterns will emerge within human minds and across social landscapes. (355)

Kesebir, Selin. The Superorganism Account of Human Sociality. Personality and Social Psychology Review. 16/3, 2012. The Turkish-American, University of Virginia social psychologist describes her thorough doctoral study of how human groupings seem to possess or be moving toward organism-like traits and states. She first reviews prior colony models, and goes on to the major transitions view of emergent evolutionary stages, which are seen akin to superorganisms. Five salient features are then applied to human assemblies: Integration of lower-level units through communication, Shared intentionality and social identity processes, Low heritable variation among the entities, A common destiny, and Mechanisms to resolve conflicts. As the quotes aver, she concludes that some form and temperament like this does appears to be going on. It is worthwhile to compare with Andrew Bourke’s Principles of Social Evolution, which likewise joins genomes and cells with persons and communities, (first quote) as a confirmation of life’s episodic scale of being and becoming.

Life forms are organized in nested clusters. Genes are bundled in chromosomes that occur in cells. Cells are joined together in multi-cellular organisms, and some multi-cellular organisms, such as bees and ants, live in societies. This hierarchical organization strongly suggests that the amazing diversity of life forms is partly due to the grouping of biological units into higher-level units. Although this idea has been endorsed since the end of the 19th century, it has not been part of the mid-20th century evolutionary synthesis, most likely because it lacked a strong theoretical underpinning (Bourke, 2011). The dynamic underlying the hierarchical organization of life forms has been called major transitions in evolution (Maynard Smith & Szathmáry, 1995). A major transition in evolution occurs when individual organisms become so integrated that they transform into a higher-level organism in their own right. (235)

Looking at human societies through a superorganism lens allows for a clearer appreciation of the full scope of human existence. A unifying narrative emerges for phenomena that are treated piecemeal within an individualist paradigm. According to this narrative, cultural meaning systems, shared intentionality, norm compliance, deference to authority, social identity processes, religiosity, and morality can be understood parsimoniously as manifestations of the same dynamics that create superorganism-like social structures. Superorganisms thus offer a useful heuristic around which to organize our understanding of human sociality. (251)

The task of this paper was describing how and when human groups are like superorganisms. The answers raise a third question that I have not addressed: Why are human groups like superorganisms? The why question invites an evolutionary explanation. Specifically, we have to ask whether the superorganism metaphor works because humans actually have gone through a major evolutionary transition to arrive at superorganismic capacity. Do we have in our hands a case of convergent evolution rather than just a surface resemblance? Even though this paper did not seek to make an evolutionary case for a major transition account, the reviewed evidence speaks to the possibility of a major transition for two reasons. First and simply, the abundance of superorganismic human features suggests that a major transition might have taken place. If human groups act like superorganisms in so many ways, we have to consider the possibility of a major evolutionary transition. (251)

Kiefer, Kate. Complexity, Class Dynamics, and Distance Learning. Computers and Composition. Article in Press, 2006. Educational classrooms can be seen to express emergent self-organization, wherein student interaction is more effective than in remote, virtual experiences. Check the journal website via Google.

Kolodny, Oren, et al. Integrative Studies of Cultural Evolution: Crossing Disciplinary Boundaries to Produce New Insights. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. Vol. 373/Iss. 1743, 2018. OK and Marcus Feldman, Stanford University, and Nicole Creanza, Vanderbilt University introduce an update issue for research findings as they take on a life of their own about how small and larger societies evolve and accumulative knowledge. Some entries are Enquire Within: Cultural Evolution and Cognitive Science by Cecilia Heyes, Generative Inference for Cultural Evolution by Anne Kandler and Adam Powell, and Cultural Complexity and Evolution in fluctuating environments by Laurel Fogarty. See also Cultural Evolutionary Theory: How Culture Evolves and Why It Matters by Nicole Creanza, et al in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (114/7782, 2017) and Game Changing Innovations by Oren Kolodny, et al in PLoS One (December 2016).

Culture evolves according to dynamics on multiple temporal scales, from individuals' minute-by-minute behaviour to millennia of cultural accumulation that give rise to population-level differences. These dynamics act on a range of entities—including behavioural sequences, ideas and artefacts as well as individuals, populations and whole species—and involve mechanisms at multiple levels, from neurons in brains to inter-population interactions. In this article we highlight some specific respects in which the study of cultural evolution has benefited and should continue to benefit from an integrative approach. We showcase a number of pioneering studies which illustrate the value of perspectives from different fields for understanding cultural evolution, such as cognitive science and neuroanatomy, behavioural ecology, population dynamics, and evolutionary genetics. They also underscore the importance of understanding cultural processes when interpreting research about human genetics, neuroscience, behaviour and evolution. (Abstract edits)

Krishnadas, M., et al. Recurrence Measures and Transitions in Stock Market Dynamics. arXiv:2208.03456. We note this contribution by Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Tirupati worldwide researchers as another case whereby nature’s universal code-script mathematics can be seen in similar, manifest effect even across our frantic financial trades.

The financial markets are understood as complex dynamical systems whose dynamics is analysed by data sets that usually come from stock markets. A reliable method is based on recurrence plots and networks from statistical phases. Here we perform a detailed study of the daily complexity of 26 markets around the globe using these measures. We show that the measures derived from recurrence patterns can be used to capture the nature of transitions in stock market dynamics. Our study reveals that the radical changes around 2008 indicate a stochastic transition, which is different from than during the pandemic. (excerpt)

Laland, Kevin and Amanda Seed. Understanding Human Cognitive Uniqueness. Annual Review of Psychology. 72/689, 2020. University of St. Andrews neuropsychologists (search KL) contribute to current quantifications that our human acumen arose as an embellished ramification of intelligent, psychological, behavioral and collective which can be traced back through life’s evolution to its earliest rudiments. A graphic image depicts this long episodic course as an emergent projection of the same basic entity/network structure. In respect, once again our main premise for this collaborative bibliographic resource is that a further enveloping episode is much underway to a prodigious global progeny.

Humanity has regarded itself as intellectually superior, yet special faculties, if any, remain poorly understood. Here, we evaluate candidate traits plausibly underlying our distinctive cognition (mental imagination, tool use, problem solving, sociality, and communication) and how these features may have evolved. We conclude that there are no traits present in humans which are absent in other animals that might explain our species’ cognitive performance. Rather, there are many cognitive domains in which humans have more capabilities then those found in other, earlier species. Humans are flexible cognitive all-arounders, whose proficiency arises through interactions and reinforcement between cognitive domains at multiple scales. (Abstract)

Lansing, J. Stephen, et al. Adaptive Self-Organization of Bali’s Ancient Rice Terraces. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 114/6504, 2017. A seven member team from the Santa Fe Institute, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Stockholm Resilience Center, and the Medical University of Vienna (Stefan Thurner) add a new level of sophisticated analysis to these anthropologist Lansing studies (search) over two decades about how these mathematical and geometric fractal-like forms arise naturally via coordinated human behaviors. See also a similar work by Ron Eglash and colleagues with regard to African villages and artistic designs.

In Bali, the cooperative management of rice terraces extends beyond villages to whole watersheds. To understand why, we created a model that explores how cooperation can propagate from pairs of individuals to extended groups, creating a resilient system of bottom-up management that both increases and equalizes harvests. Spatial patterns of collective crop management—observable in Google Earth—closely match the predictions of the model. The spatial patterning that emerges is nonuniform and scale-free. Although the model parameters here are tuned to Bali, similar mechanisms of emergent global control should be detectible in other anthropogenic landscapes using multispectral imagery. Recognizing this signature of emergent system-wide cooperation may help planners to avoid unproductive changes to successful bottom-up systems of environmental management. (Significance)

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