Logic would dictate that the more information available to us, the better decisions we can make regarding any given problem. At the turn of the 21st century, we function under the assumption that all the information in the world is made available to us through the global connection of the Internet. With the cumulative knowledge of all the voices within the blogosphere and the ever expanding digitization of text books, it largely is. The access of information, just as the evolution of technology, is reaching a point of singularity, where anything can be accessed by anyone, instantly. Distance has become irrelevant as a determinant for communication. We are entering an age more and more characterized by vertical-networks. But this new reality is not in harmony with the artificial social structure that have been ingrained into civilization: Hierarchy.
Social systems, be it political, economic, military, or medical all function within the structure of a hierarchy. In a hierarchical structure, a trickling down of relevant information allows for an efficient use of time and work. A tells B what to do, and B is only given what is relevant from A to function. It is a system that requires a top and a bottom. And it is a system that is characterized by two things; ‘distance’ and the control of information.Sigmund Freud codified society based on hierarchical relationships as the dominant intellectual framework of Western Civilization, at a time when industrial machinery was becoming more and more relevant in human life. Those at the top of the social hierarchy were the educated and the informed and were those in control simply because they could mediate this information. Freud noted the system’s artificial nature as opposed to the organic structure of the human brain. It seems that the concept of hierarchy parallels the artificial function of simple machinery. In clockwork for example, a series of gears turn yet smaller gears which spread work and amplify efficiency. Each gear has a task, rotating differently than the previous, down a line of other gears rotating to an ultimate end. It is these separate stages that also resemble the mechanism in the steam engine or any other kind of artificial mechanical process. If these parts are communicating to each other, they are only discussing what the previous gear is doing. Gear A is rotating at X speed in said direction. This is all gear B needs to know in order to operate in response. The totality of the machine, or the initial factors are not relevant to gear B’s function. This premeditated distribution of relevant information is what defines the control of a hierarchy as a social system. In simple machinery, this is mediated by physical distance. And in social hierarchy, it is mediated by a more conceptual ‘distance’, as the top of the chain never directly interacts with the bottom. Information control mediated by distance is what defines a hierarchical system.
This system of hierarchy, however, does not exist naturally. It is an artificial structure of control, and the result of intelligent life. Nature has a very different order that arises consistently throughout biological systems, called Collective Intelligence. It is the vertical network that we see resembled in the digital web of communication that is the Internet. (Tovey, Mark, pp 13) Instead of a hierarchy of connection, computers, just like their biological users, connect with each other across networks that defy any kind of structure whatsoever. (Arkenberg, 2011) This connection is not defined by distance, because distance is not a factor. The connection is instantaneous and unanimous. In systems consistently shown in biological life, a much more complex system of interaction emerges. This interaction creates an organism in itself. And this new organism is less about hierarchy and control, but about evolution through unanimous connection and feedbacks. This new social structure is an organism, because unlike man-made structures, the social organism creates and redefines itself.
In biological systems, swarm behaviour resembles a social interaction that is completely organic, flexible, changing and constantly redefining itself, much like the Collective Intelligence. It is self-emergent. Let us use a school of fish as an example of biological life in a collective. A school of fish seemingly act as a single fluidic organism. The moment two fish come into “communication” range of each other, they form a new organism in their union. The members of this new organism feed off of the information transmitted between their connection. If one fish becomes scared of a dark area on the seabed, it may divert its course, and the other seemingly instantaneously adapts. When more fish are added to this aggregate organism4, the amount of information being sent between them is increased. Now hundreds or thousands of small fish are transmitting their environmental “opinions” to each other in a vertical network of interaction. But how does this surplus of information effect the organism as a whole? What is fundamentally different about a school of two fish, as compared to a school of 500 fish? The relevant phenomena here is that the communication has not changed. The will of the totality of the swarm is an instant and nearly mathematical expression of the collective will of its individuals. Rather than the single fish who gets spooked by the darkness on the seabed, in the collective it is a proportional number of this swarm that gets spooked. This naturally emergent new “tribe” of scared fish to the whole is the massive equivalence of the single fish to the pair. In a collective system, one individual is not going to drastically alter the overall movement of the group. An individual variation will, however, hold macro-logical relevance if it is shared by a larger group.
The human brain is a much clearer representation of these emergent groups in a collective intelligence. As a naturally emergent system of organization, synapses in the human brain instantly communicate in a loosely vertical network of interaction. But over time, the brain constantly redefines smaller networks within its web that begin to house certain tasks, and these smaller networks are constantly evolving and changing. The key is that these networks, just as the collective opinions of fish, evolve on their own.
Historically, the initiation of shared ideas in human civilization was largely controlled. Hierarchies allowed for individuals to somewhat control the shared opinions of a group with the ultimate goal of controlling the social organism. Rather than the tribe emerging from their free connection, a hierarchical system allowed for a smaller group (the informed) to determine the opinions of the whole (by regulating information). But Herbert Spencer in his 19th century writings about the “Social Organism”, recognized that the actions of political hierarchies, grow out of the will of the popular character, regardless of the will of the few. “We all know that the enactments of representative governments ultimately depend on the national will: they may for a time be out of harmony with it, but eventually they must conform to it.” (Herbert Spencer, pp 9.4) Life has a way of self-regulating itself in retrospect. Religions and political dynasties took advantage of privatized knowledge along side mass ignorance to manipulate and control the social organism. The difference is only a slower manifestation of the will of the social organism.
Up until recently, a vertical network of social structure like that of the brain was impossible for human beings. What has changed with the birth of the Internet is the removal of that “distance” that gives allowance to hierarchy. Wikipedia and Google have emancipated information by beginning to publicise human knowledge. The blog phenomena has created an even broader bank of first hand information for the social organism to digest. And the mobile phone revolution has encouraged this communication anywhere, at any time. Human beings are more and more beginning to function like synapses in the human brain. The swarm phenomenon of collective intelligence emerges.
But this liberation of information threatens the hierarchical structures that are still in place today. In agreement with Ben Hammersley, the network based connection of collective intelligence contradicts the existence of certain hierarchical structures. “Political industrial and intellectual elites are confused falling apart.” (Hammersley, 2011) It is no longer possible to control information. Political structures, religions, and cultures are all losing the importance they once had, simply because they are not naturally emergent systems. As Marty Neimeier proposed in his book “Zag”, tribalism is an emerging trend in the social organism, and it is a direct metaphor for the emergence of groups within a collective system. In today’s society facilitated by the Internet, these emergent tribes connect individuals based on ideas, goal and interest, transcending borders, nationalities or creed. They can even hold more importance than nation, religion or belief in identity as people can now find more importance in their own web emergent social tribes than their birth-given affiliations.
The emergence of tribes represents less of an importance in the individual and a greater importance in the collective. Less importance in the piece, and greater importance in the movement. As individuals are now equally exposed to the totality of the information in the social organism, more and more emerge with the same ideas with only slight variations. It is no longer the “one artist” who is going to change the minds of the populace by working through the hierarchy, it is the web of like-minded artists that create a movement. The emergence of social networks, blogs, virtual communities, and creative collaborations between these like-minded individuals represents a new kind of non-hierarchical social structure that resembles that group of spooked fish, or the clump of synapses that emerge in the brain. Rather than these structures being artificially created, they are now naturally emerging, and cannot be manipulated.
The fundamental problem that arises is in the coexistence of this new vertical-network system amidst the many ingrained hierarchical structures in society. “Hierarchy, as the dominant form of organization is becoming irrelevant to meet the challenges of the current tsunami of increasing complexity.” (George Por, pp 235) For example, funded media as a hierarchy that relies on the control of information, is seeing the greatest ramifications to the liberation of the social organism. Books were privatized, chosen and funded by a few to be administered as ‘information’. Music and film likewise have only come into existence through a hierarchy system that sifts through worthy candidates. Rather than being able to sell what was deemed relevant to the few in control, music, film, and entertainment is now being both produced and distributed freely among the vertical network of communication. It is now possible to subvert this system. Information is no longer privatized and monopolized on in order to create (professionals), but rather is now thrown down like a hay-stack to be sifted through and reconstructed by anyone (the amateur).
In conclusion, it is clear that the Internet represents a paradigm shift in our connection with eachother, and the information around us. But on a grander note, this transitions the influence of a given person away from the hierarchy of those in charge, or those with information control, to the massive web of probability resembling a generative system. The vertical network of the web, this new global consciousness, resembles a system that is consistently reproduced in biological life. If it is established that Heirarchical social structures are disappearing, then all the modes of communication that they offer are also losing relevance. Financed media avenues, book publishing, the entertainment industry, and even advertising are all losing relevance as heirarchical chains of command. Political machines filter and determine information relevance in the same way, as do advertising and other financed communication avenues. The alternative of this structure (vertical networks) poses a threat to the hierarchy’s very existence. And what is left is the pure communication of the collective. The problem seems to lie not in the fact that amateurs are emerging more successfully than professionals, or that conventional publishing machines are falling apart, but in the fact that these structures are artificial in nature and are not at par with it. Somehow, the cosmos has a way of rectifying itself into equilibrium.
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