Feelings and Constraints (English)
It seems as if it is not easy for people to live 'civilized' in a 'society' and to cooperate with one another, because the daily news is full of crises. Could our feelings and the way we react to each other have something to do with it?
In his book Dance to the Tune of Life, the biologist and physiologist Denis Noble discusses in depth the relationship between the different levels that biologists distinguish in living things. Within the organism, or the individual, the different levels of among other things molecules, cells, tissues and organs cooperate and permanently strive for balance. Life means cooperation, movement, disruption and restoration of balance. (1)
Biologist and epigeneticist David Sinclair writes in his book Lifespan: “Homeostasis, the tendency for living things to seek a stable equilibrium, is a universal biological principle. Indeed, it is the guiding force of the survival circuit. And thus we see it everywhere we look.” And about dizzyingly much enzymatic reactions within a cell he wrote: “If this sounds chaotic, it is, but we need this chaos for order to emerge. Without it, the molecules that must come together to sustain life would not find each other, and they would not fuse." (2)
Now let us consider the level that is one level ‘higher’ than that of the human individual, namely that of a group of people. In contrast to the levels, which together form the individual, however, conspecifics are not physically connected to one another. They must therefore derive their connectedness from something different. This raises the following questions:
a) Could our feelings and emotions have something to do with a necessary sentiment for connectedness?
b) Could the exchange of feelings between people (or the lack thereof) be crucial for the development of a sentiment for connectedness?
c) Could the lack of, or insufficient sentiment for connectedness lead to chaos that does not create order and that does not lead to homeostasis?
d) And finally, would the scale at which people interact with one another play a role in this?
Denis Noble writes that according to his Principle of Biological Relativity, all levels form a relationship with each other. This obviously does not stop at the level of the individual organism. The levels above also have relationships with the subordinate and superordinate levels and even then, life processes try to achieve stable equilibriums (homeostasis). Human feelings and emotions are effectively balanced when individuals interact frequently – daily – and in many forms. All senses are important, but 'seeing' is perhaps the most significant. In addition, there are many ways in which feelings and emotions can be exchanged, such as through language, talking and sex. Due to too large a scale, human feelings and emotions can no longer be effectively balanced and people get into trouble. Just like cells, tissues and organs when feedback loops are disrupted. One might call the effective exchange of feelings a constraint to achieving homeostasis in the form of cooperative individuals and stable groups. The biologist, anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar calculated the maximum group size at approximately 150 people. On a larger scale, primary competitive and aggressive impulses are no longer sufficiently controlled, selfishness, greed and aggression emerge and people start to behave in an uncivilized manner. In his book The Age of Empathy, the biologist and primatologist Frans de Waal talks about the importance of achieving emotional agreement. (3) Agreement of feelings is key to homeostasis between humans, but cannot be achieved at too large numbers of individuals because humans' natural behavior-regulating mechanism is not tuned for that. Do these biological constraints mean people cannot cooperate on a large scale? The answer is: that is possible, however it will not happen spontaneously. First, we need to understand our natural behaviour and be aware of our biological constraints. We can then build on the open networks concept, which Denis Noble sets out for the 'lower' levels. Much has been thought about the emergence of open societies, such as by the philosopher Karl Popper and the sociologist Richard Sennett, who did so for the open city. (4) It is not unimportant that open networks are emergent (5) with chaos and complexity on one side of the balance and serendipity, new ideas, solutions and anticipation on the other side.
Such a new idea from the 1960s and 1970s was “The AI we could have had”. People then experimented with a computer that supported man in his feelings and creativity instead of becoming a vehicle for the self-destructive accumulation of individual material possessions and the concentration of power in a few individuals. (6)
Truly intelligent is to anticipate well worldwide and to simply be happy.
References:
(1)
Denis Noble, Dance to the Tune of Life – Biological Relativity, 2016, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9781316771488, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316771488
(2)
David Sinclair, Lifespan, The revolutionary science of why we age – and we don’t have to, 2019, Thorsons, an imprint of Harper Collins publishers, HB ISBN 978-0-00-835374-2, PB ISBN 978-0-00-829234-8
(3)
Frans de Waal, The Age of Empathy, 2009, Harmony Books, New York, ISBN 9780307407764
(4)
Huib Papenhuijzen, Nooit Meer Concurreren - Onderzoek naar de balans tussen samenwerken en concurreren tijdens de menselijke evolutie (Ending Competition - An inquiry into the balance between cooperation and competition during human evolution), 1e druk, 2022, Uitgeverij Boekscout, ISBN 978 94 645 0742 3
(5)
Denis Noble gives an interesting interview about the scientific concept of ‘emergence’. Here is the link: https://www.whyarewehere.tv/people/denis-noble/
(6)
- See the article in the Financial Times “The AI we could have had”. Here is the link:
https://www.ft.com/content/c63dae2b-b0d5-4b27-a718-2cce165097b9
- For more information about the experiment itself, see the website “Sense of Rebellion”. Here is the link: https://www.sense-of-rebellion.com/
Want to know more? Read my book Nooit Meer Concurreren (Ending Competition), available at bookstores, publisher Boekscout and Bol.com. This is the link: https://koopmijnboek.shop/9789464507423