Human Nature: a hopeful polemic

-Introduction-
1. Chaos and Complexity
2. The Structure of Intelligence
____________________________________


If we could all agree on the rules by which the game of being human is played, we might stand a better collective chance of winning.

Of course, in order for such a set of rules to be universally accepted, it would have to convincingly account for the entirety of human philosophy, behavior, and capability, with absolutely no exceptions. Republicans, pacifists, teenagers, suicide bombers, and concert pianists would have to co-exist within the same completely self-consistent framework, together with everyone else in human history. While reconciling the entire range of conflicts generated within and between individuals and cultures under one hopeful human banner remains a noble goal--one that has inspired the searching of countless theologians, philosophers, scientists, and college freshmen--it has also proven to be an elusive quarry.

I would like to offer my two cents on the subject.

These perennial human conflicts are quite clearly fed by potent springs. But if their power can be traced to the fundamental hydrological dynamics of human nature, and those dynamics can be spelled out, then perhaps their energy can be drawn to more productive outlets in the surface topology of human society.

An accurate mapping of the proximity of the varied human terrain above to the unified dynamic forces beneath might even reveal why different societal structures use different methods to tap that energy source. If we could identify the underlying rules which completely describe human nature, perhaps we could then identify the topological conditions under which various incomplete notions of human nature might steer a culture towards democracy, tribalism, or socialism.

Instead of imposing a utopian management of imperfect human nature through government, I propose the unleashing of human potential, including that of government, through a more complete understanding of human nature itself.

Any comprehensive theory of human nature must account for both the existence of many differing religions and the passions aroused by comparing them, but it does not need to endorse religion any more than a theory of digestion or blood circulation would, as long as it can focus on the mechanics of being human rather than the purpose. It is not necessary to discuss the nature of God in order to describe the structural function of my knee, as long as I don't get into how exactly my knee came to be engineered the way it is. As long as a theory doesn't preclude any particular religion, there remains room for pragmatic consensus on structural grounds.

My purpose is to advance our understanding of the human condition, and thus our ability to improve it, by articulating the laws which govern the deep and truly universal structure of human nature. I believe that humanity and all its works, for good or ill, can be reconciled within the framework I wish to present, and that understanding its structure will allow us to unleash the incredible potential inherent (and largely latent) in each human being.

Describing human beings as imperfect only masks our lack of knowledge, by measuring what we aren't; that measures the shortfall of humanity against our own expectations, rather than human nature itself. Negative definitions can help to narrow the focus of a difficult question, but they cannot efficiently describe the actual properties of anything complicated. Simply declaring human nature unknowable is no longer sufficient, as technology has amplified the destructive reach of the determined individual to the point where entire societies are at risk. We need something more precise.

I submit to you that it is our understanding of human nature that is imperfect, rather than human nature itself. I wish to introduce a powerful set of unifying rules and observations, most of them originally articulated by other people, which when taken together appear fully capable of accounting for human nature as it really is. Ideally, this description will provide a lever to move our political discourse out of the rhetorical firebombing stage and into a realm where solutions are actually possible, for I do believe that they are within our reach, if not yet firmly in our grasp. Firmer knowledge of the ground rules of human nature will allow us to transform the architecture of our human institutions where necessary, and it will go a long way toward showing us how.

The underlying rules which govern human nature are far simpler and far more elegant than what you might expect, given such a vast and untidy subject. This is because they are rules of process. They function much like the simple physical laws which constrain the intricate growth of crystals, but result in the endless individuality of snowflakes. Simple components, when they interact according to the right sorts of simple rules, can produce bewilderingly complex results. Various attempts to describe human nature have succeeded in finding the measure of some of its facets; my purpose is to reveal the hidden order which governs the formation of the entire crystal. As I hope to demonstrate, a complete structural understanding of the full scope of human nature will show us how to use both our differences and our similarities to develop the incredible potential waiting to be tapped in each individual human being.

I believe we haven't found these structural laws up to now because of several factors, including these: 1) human beings have only recently become computationally aware of the order that lurks in chaotic and complex systems, and the existence of that counterintuitive order is not yet common knowledge; 2) because of the complexity of the brain and the difficulties involved in studying it, we haven't got a universally accepted theoretical model of the relationship between intelligence, emotion, the brain, and consciousness; in fact, we haven't even had ANY overarching theory of how intelligence functions until very recently; and 3) the human beings trying to puzzle out human nature are not themselves immune to the cognitive and emotional effects of being human.



Because of the burgeoning length of this post, I am now experimenting with breaking its content essentially into chapters, each receiving its own linkable post. The next of this series of chapters (at present!) deals briefly with the promise of Chaotic and Complex systems, and can be found here.