Complex Human Systems, Part I
Why we need a unique way to think about complexity & humans.
I want to explore how institutions shape the conditions for beneficial emergence in human societies and what this means for social entrepreneurs designing interventions.
As social entrepreneurs explore new, complexity-informed ideas about economics, policy, and governance to address pressing problems, I believe that it will help to be grounded in a general framework of how complexity distinctly manifests in humans.
The study of emergent systems, as I understand it, is often divided into two broad areas: Complex Physical Systems made up of non-adaptive elements like molecules, and Complex Adaptive Systems made up of adaptive agents that evolve: like plants, animals, or software bots.1 2
Us humans fall in that second category. We’re adaptive agents.
But, we’re also….quirky.
“Quirky” in the sense of having a uniquely high amount of agency. If not literally “free will,” then a much higher degree of apparent willfulness than what’s been observed in other animals.
This quirkiness means we are able to not just respond to stimuli but to step back and reflect on—and, even, attempt to alter—the systems of stimuli that influence our complex social interactions.
While there are many writings about the general characteristics that lead to emergence in galaxies, ant colonies, and human brains, much less is written about the general characteristics that lead to beneficial emergence in human society.
And so, something like a third category of complex systems may be helpful in considering the distinct role that emergence plays in human society: Complex Human Systems.
Givens & Variables
The story of emergence in human societies can be thought of in three broad terms: genes, memes, and schemes.
Genes tell the “given” parts of our story—the parts that come from evolution by natural selection are effectively unchanging on a human-life timescale. Memes and schemes tell the “variable” parts of our story—the parts that come from the ideas and institutions that come and go.
The “given” half of the story of emergence in human societies is described using the traditional thinking of Complex Physical Systems and Complex Adaptive Systems.
That’s because we’re made up of non-quirky things: things like molecules and adaptive-yet-not-free-willing bits that follow the characteristics of emergent systems. Comprised of things that never try to alter their systems.
This includes all the bits encoded into the nature of humans—the mix of traits that came about from evolution by natural selection.
Natural selection, itself, is emergence in action, of course. But not all animals evolve survival strategies that harness the power of emergence itself. The lone puma in the jungle and the colony of leaf cutter ants under paw successfully pass on their genes in quite distinct ways.
Humans are one of a few species whose success derives from evolving emergence-harnessing traits.3 4 Similar to how the ant has hardwired traits that automatically bias it to “harness” the power of emergence (for example, the use of pheromone trails), so, too, we humans have some hardwired traits that help us automatically “harness” emergence to our benefit (for example, theory of mind and the capacity for language).
These emergence-fostering elements are baked into all of us, across culture and borders. They’re given.
And those given bits have made us wildly successful in the animal kingdom.
Surfing Emergence
If we all have these given traits, why are some collections of individuals able to ride the barrel wave of beneficial emergence while others get caught in the undertow? Why do some societies enable interactions that lead to more peace, prosperity, and fulfillment for their members, while others interact in ways that lead to more war, poverty, and barriers to fulfillment?5
Natural resources and luck play a role, of course—it’s easier to pass on genes in an area of abundance. But plenty of natural experiments show that isn’t the full story.6
No, to understand what can bias one group to flourish through emergent outcomes, we need to turn to other factors.
Exploring these questions requires turning to the second half of the story of emergence in human societies: the “variable” parts of how we interact.
That is, the parts shaped by the things related to our quirky traits.
Our quirkily high degree of agency and our quirky propensity for tinkering and think’ering with the social systems in which we live—activities like writing constitutions and curtsying and inventing social media platforms. These things make a difference in outcomes for individuals.
We need to turn to “memes and schemes,” and that’s the topic of the next post in this series.
See, for example, Holland’s excellent Complexity: A Very Short Introduction (2014, Oxford).
Photo credits: Hurricane from NOAA; murmuration from Miguel Riopa via Wired; roundabout from Dr. V. Kikati via Wikicommons.
See for example “E. O. Wilson’s Theory of Everything,” The Atlantic, H. French, Nov. 2011. “Eusocial species, Wilson noted, are by far ‘the most successful species in the history of life.’” See also: Hölldobler B, Wilson EO. The superorganism: the beauty, elegance, and strangeness of insect societies. New York: W.W. Norton; 2009.
I’m purposefully not using “eusocial” here, since my list includes humans. Eusocial animals have several traits: (1) adults live communally in groups; (2) there is some amount of cooperative care of offspring; (3) multiple generations of individuals overlap; and (4) there is division of labor in reproduction, with only a subset of individuals allowed to reproduce. We humans have the first three only.
When referring to the idea that one society could be better or worse than another, I mean that in the sense of what individuals in those societies feel in terms of them being able to increasingly self-actualize. This is in contrast to a prejudiced conception of societal success that imposes, say, a so-called Western standard of ‘good’ or my idiosyncratic description of how you or others “should” live their lives. Each person defines success subjectively. I believe that not all countries are places where individuals can succeed, as each person defines success. Using the concept of self-actualization, we can assume some general characteristics without getting too specific. For example, people would need to be able to increasingly satisfy needs in Maslow’s hierarchy; they need to have autonomy to choose their own life goals and what they define as meaningful, etc. Those general traits don’t impose specific standards: e.g. A good country is one where Christian beliefs are widespread and where internet access is available and the GDP is X and the gini coefficient is no more than Y….
Hong Kong is an island with few natural resources compared to mainland China, yet during the last hundred years Hongkongers have thrived compared to others nearby (not withstanding recent, troubling trend that may reverse that progress). The people who inhabit the Korean peninsula share similar natural resources, history, and climate, yet those in the north experience vastly different outcomes than those in the south. During the era of the Berlin Wall, living standards in West vs East Germany were quite different.