Follow-up

Please read my response to KM's comment on "Through the Beginning."

Development

We have to speculate as to what the development of other species was like but there can be no doubt that the growth and development of the human race is analogous to the growth and development of a human being from infancy to maturity. Tabula rasa is the term used to describe the state of a human in its infancy. As the infant develops under the guidance of adult humans it acquires the knowledge that those adults have attained. But if the same infant were to be raised by adults who do not have the same level of exposure to knowledge the child would only attain the lower level of knowledge.

Through the Beginning

We are so accustomed to contrasting the intelligent with the ignorant that it comes as something of a surprise to realize that what we call intelligence is actually an expression of ignorance.

I think I was prepared for this revelation several years ago when one of my college professors commented that people who obtain terminal degrees are experts in ignorance, because they are supposed to be experts in areas of knowledge that no one else had explored. They were now the only expert in the previously unknown.

The desire to know more must be preceded by an appreciation of our own lack of information. Those who believe they know everything have no desire to explore and discover. This reminds me of an old saying I picked up somewhere along my academic journey: If our reach does not exceed our grasp, what is heaven for.

If all the species that preceded us on the planet operated on instinct, why did the universe decide to change our make up? Unless I can be shown evidence to the contrary I must conclude that somebody switched the script. As the next in a long evolutionary chain of species humans should not have arrived on earth devoid of the survival knowledge they needed. Every other species before then had that knowledge. Why didn't we?

One thing is certain. Humans arrived on this planet armed both with a need and a desire to learn and explore. This truism is the foundation of all our scientific endeavors.

At the beginning

To understand where our intra-species enemy consciousness originates we must think of the conditions that existed just before the first humans arrived on the planet and how the advent of humans changed those conditions. Humans were different from the non-humans species in a very pivotal way. Each of the other species acted out of instinct but humans possessed what we now call intelligence. The irony is that intelligence does not look very much like intelligence.

Instinct is not stupidity. Because instinct is hardwired in every non-humans species each non-human organism instinctively knows how it should react to external stimuli. But this hardwiring also means that under normative conditions it will not do otherwise. This is especially noticeable with diet. DNA has prescribed what each species will use as nutrition when it is hungry and it will not eat any food even if it observes a different diet in other species.

When humans arrived they did not have that instinct hardwired in their DNA. What we call intelligence is the result of humans not knowing what the optimal response to external stimuli should be. Through experimentation and observation of other species they developed their own responses to external stimuli. Our history documents the changes we have undergone as we gained a greater understanding of our environment. At first we only ate what we could hunt and gather. Later we learned how to tend to crops. Our ignorance has been a great blessing. While non-human species generally respond the same way regardless of where they may live, humans are able to change their responses to external stimuli. But where humans have variety the non-humans species are always correct in their response. More importantly, intelligence could result in humans accepting a less than optimal response and believing it is correct.

One beginning

The history of North Korea begins in 1945 when Korea was divided at the 38th parallel in accordance with a United Nations arrangement, to be administered by the Soviet Union in the north and the United States in the south. Before 1945 there was one Korea, which extended back to Lower Paleolithic. After the Japanese Invasion of Korea was ended with Japan's defeat in World War II in 1945 the Soviets and Americans were unable to agree on the implementation of Joint Trusteeship over Korea. This led in 1948 to the establishment of separate governments, each claiming to be the legitimate government of all of Korea.

I mention this to draw our attention to the obvious. North Korea did not cause this problem. The division of Korea into North and South Korea was not a Korean idea. It happened because the Americans and the Soviets could not agree on how to how to run Korea jointly. There was a time when there was one Korea and Koreans did not view each other as enemies. There was also a time when humans lived as brothers and did not view each other as enemies. The fact that we keep trying to find ways to overcome this enemy consciousness seems to indicate that we do not believe that enemy consciousness is an natural aspect of human development.

In the next few blogs we will try to understand the root of enemy consciousness with a view to find a permanent solution for it.

We cannot be satisfied with a solution that must be maintained at great expense. The resources we expend to maintain a forced peace can be more profitably used elsewhere. Global military expenditure stands at over $1.2 trillion in annual expenditure and has been rising in recent years. The benefits of eradicating the scourge of enemy consciousness are obvious. If we had access to an additional $1.2 trillion annually we could eradicate poverty and illiteracy. More could become available because enemy consciousness also manifests itself in national crime statistics.

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes … known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

James Madison, Political Observations, 1795

Telomeres

When I launched this blog I decided to subscribe to Google ads primarily to see what topics the software would link to the subject matter I planned to discuss. The ads on origins and systems or organizational theory were obvious. Today I was pleasantly surprised to see an ad with the title, "Measure your Telomeres." This was only obliquely addressed in my discussions about cancer and DNA.

Telomeres are related to the ability of a cell to divide. In most cases the telomeres at the end of the chromosomes (I am typing this from memory) gets shorter each time the cell divides until the cell reaches the Hayflick limit and divides no more. Of course, this is coded in the cell's DNA. In a cancerous situation DNA tells the cell to replicate the telomeres instead of shortening it, so that the cell essentially becomes immortal. These are perfectly healthy cells but their unbridled growth produces a terrible disease because of the pressure it places on other cells.

This process accurately illustrates what the human race has been going through. More later as we deal with our global cancer.

Acting individually on behalf of the whole

The behavior of North Korea brings in focus one of the most serious issues humans face today. We need to find a way to bring the species to the point where at the same time that we are acting in the best interests of our groups, regardless of how large they are, we are also acting in the best interests of the entire species. In addressing this issue we will need to discuss more fully several issues that were raised in our last blog; issues like global DNA, species as organism, natural systems vs. synthetic systems, and organism vs. organization.

Organization is the most powerful human invention and it is based on what we learned from studying the systems around us. Systems Knowledge has given birth to both Systems Theory and Organizational Theory. The organizations humans have developed are synthetic systems because they are based on what we have learned from the natural systems we encounter in nature. Both natural and synthetic systems are composed of multiple parts that work interactively and they both exist to achieve a particular purpose, but there are essential differences between the two. Because organizations are synthetic systems developed by humans the continued existence of these synthetic systems depends on human maintenance.
Natural systems can also be called organisms because they function as organisms. A natural system is not an organization because humans play no part in their development. Even though it appears that the human species is the largest grouping of humans it is actually a single organism.
We are all familiar with Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). This nucleic acid contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms and some viruses. DNA is often compared to a set of blueprints or a recipe, or a code, since it contains the instructions needed to construct other components of cells, such as proteins and RNA molecules. DNA determines how an individual member of a species will develop from infancy through to adulthood. In animals and other nonhuman species the appropriate response to external stimuli is coded into the species DNA. The DNA that guides the development of the individual organism is a copy of the DNA that determines the characteristics of the species. The importance of species DNA has been overlooked because nonhuman species are guided by instinct.

Humans are different. When humans arrived on this planet they demonstrated that DNA directs two aspects of an organism's nature: physiological and cultural. The physiological nature of all species is genetically predetermined. Humans are different from nonhuman species in the way they respond to external stimuli: their cultural nature. Unlike other species humans did not arrive on this planet knowing how they should respond to external stimuli. That difference demonstrates the organic nature of a species. Even though nonhuman DNA is static at both levels each infant has to develop into an adult. Because human DNA is dynamic at the cultural level the human species has also been subject to development, the goal being to get to the same level of homeostasis observed in nonhuman species.

Our experience with North Korea is indicative of the fact that we have not developed as we should.

North Korea and the rest of us

To engage in descriptive systems thinking requires a bit of an out-of-body experience. What is the benefit to humanity of North Korea choosing to thumb its nose at the rest of the international community by deciding to expand its nuclear program? This would be the equivalent of one of the organ systems in your body deciding to disregard the needs of the rest of the body. This is called disease and because North Koreans are humans and not aliens, it is the equivalent of an autoimmune disease or a cancer, in which the body attacks itself as an enemy.

For some people, like TOD LINDBERG who recently wrote an Opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, the best way to deal with situations like this is to "take them out." The Opinion piece is called "The Only Way to Prevent Genocide."

This is the approach we learned from the ways we deal with cancer today. Because we are unable to correct that have taken place in our DNA we have to use destructive methods like chemotherapy and surgery to eradicate cancer. But, as we have learned, these methods do not give us immunity from cancer in the future.

As Einstein so astutely noted, you cannot solve a problem with the same mentality that caused the problem in the first place. Cancer cells are not the problem. In fact, when views dispassionately, cancer cells are perfectly healthy cells that have "claimed" the immortality other cells do not have. It is the compromised DNA that is the problem for it is the DNA that instructs these cells to continue dividing, or in the case of autoimmune diseases to treat other human body parts or organs as "not human." The only guaranteed cure for cancer (or autoimmune diseases) is to be able to correct the compromised DNA. As long as the DNA maintains its flawed instructions cancer can reoccur.

North Korea is not the problem, at least in the long run. Humanity is the problem. Somewhere our "DNA", whatever it is that has guided the development of the human species, has gone awry and produced groups like North Korea that care first for themselves before thinking of the rest of the species. It is there we must focus our efforts, even while we try to mitigate the actions of groups like North Korea.

It can be done, but it will take bold thinking.

So far

Here is what we know for certain.

1. Humanity is one of many species that live in this ecosystem we call earth.
2. Humanity is also a system, because it is a component subsystem of this ecosystem.
3. As a component of this ecosystem humanity should work interactively with other components to maintain the existence of the ecosystem.
4. The fact that our world is in peril because of human action indicates that as a system humans have not acted as they should within this system.
5. Humanity must be considered to be an anomaly among systems.
6. To explain this anomalous behavior we must consider how the human species differs from all other species on the planet.
7. If we are able to settle on this difference we may be able to reverse this trend, in the same way we have been able to rescue other endangered species.

Systems Knowledge

As we begin to go more indepth, let us consider the systems approach we will be taking here. The study of systems can follow two general approaches. A cross-sectional approach deals with the interaction between two system, while a developmental approach deals with the changes in a system over time.

I am approaching this from another perspective: a descriptive view in contrast to a prescriptive view. The prescriptive explores how we can use what we learn about systems to enable us to develop effective systems. This is the basis of Organizational Theory. Though unsaid, the assumption is that humans have developed as they should as a species. My descriptive approach does not make that assumption. In fact, I accept that fact that the problems we are experiencing as a system are indicative of the fact that something went wrong in the development of the human race, in the same way that a human being's development may be stilted.

Unlike other species that are hardwired to respond appropriately to external stimuli the human species arrived in the same tabula rasa condition that human infants are born. That is actually the foundation of what we call human intelligence.

We will explore this more in the future.

Discussing Perfection (the norm)

As I was reading through the previous blog I became acutely aware of the difficulty of discussing perfection (the norm) and why discussions of deviations from perfection seem to be more exotic than discussions of perfection.

Systems knowledge is perfection (the norm). It describes life as it was before humans introduced toxic variation into the system. But our research methodologies are designed to explore variations from the norm.

Think of the norm as being represented by the period at the end of this bolded sentence of twenty words.

The limitations of the norm are obvious. Its boundaries are clearly defined by the boundaries of the period. But the flip side of the norm has no limitations. None of the twenty words in our sentence represents the norm but each is a flip-side of the norm, because each uses the norm as its reference point. One word from the period. Three words from the period. But none is the period. Consequently, by discussing each of them we are indirectly discussing the norm, without ever understanding the norm fully. Since a discussion of part of the flip side of the norm indirectly addresses the components of the norm the same is true of a discussion of the differences between two parts of the flip side of the norm. It makes complete sense yet it is completely confusing.

System knowledge matters

Maybe you are wondering why this focus on systems knowledge, as opposed to systems theory, matters. Of course, systems knowledge represents the fundamental, foundational knowledge on which General Systems Theory and Living Systems Theory are based.

The opening statement of the previous blog is not entirely true; more precisely it is only partially true. Humans did arrive on earth to find a fully functioning system but there is more to the story than that. Humans are both a product and a member of this system. They are not outside of the system but are a part of it.

This means that the human species shares the fundamental characteristics with this system both because they were produced by the system and because they are a component of the system.

From the definition of a system that we discussed yesterday, it is axiomatic that it is illogical that a system would seek its own destruction. By extension it is illogical that any natural system would produce a component that would be detrimental to the continued existence of the system. Hence, we can safely say that when humans first arose out of this ecosystem they were in complete harmony with the rest of the system and functioned within the system they way all the other systems did. They were part of symbiotic relationships that resulted in a state of homeostasis.

We became part of the food web but our participation as consumers at the top of most food chains did not place any negative pressure on the system. But now we find ourselves in a situation where humans agree that they have caused many species to become extinct because of our unsustainable development of the system's resources.

Gaining an understanding of systems knowledge should enable us to understand just how it came to be that humans, an integral part of the system they inhabit, now function as if they are foreign elements.

Back to Basics

Newsflash: When humans arrived here on earth (it does not matter how long ago that was) they found a system that was working perfectly in balance -- as all natural systems do. Because of our experience with systems that fail we can be forgiven for believing than the fate of a system depends on how well humans manage it. But one only has to look at the cosmos to realize how far off the mark that view is.

Our appreciation of this fact is often clouded by our inability, or is it our unwillingness, to differentiate between living systems and non-living systems. Most of us have heard of stars that die apparently with no outside intervention, so it is obvious that some systems have a limited life cycle. This has caused us to erroneously conclude, at least subconsciously, that all systems, living or non-living, need maintenance if they are to survive.

Dying stars do not represent the standard for all systems. They only represent non-living systems. Of course, any living systems that are a part of that star would also die but their death would have been caused by extraneous sources. We can say that living systems are immortal by design because they perpetuate their existence through the "miracle" of procreation. The father of modern General Systems Theory, the Austrian biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901-1972), was absolutely correct when he defined a system as “an entity which maintains its existence through the mutual interaction of its parts." Provisionally, the primary inference we can make from this definition is that the death of any living system always comes from the outside.

This inference can only be provisional because of another characteristic of a system that is often glossed over: that every component of a system is also a system. This means that every individual organism in a system is also defined as a system. This is something of a problem because while we are positing that living systems are immortal by design, we also have experiential knowledge that every living organism has a limited life span. The only obvious conclusion is that whereas the system which is the species is immortal by design through procreation, the system which is the individual has a limited life span.

I'm back

It has been a very long while since I last blogged. Part of the reason was because of the passion I have for the subject of this blog. I had originally come on with the strange belief that I would begin a discussion of some sort and got tired of seemingly talking to myself. I think I have gotten over that and will be blogging again with a different purpose.