1. 1 The Intersection of Man and World Biological (including genetic) Level Cultural Level Social Level Technological/Material Level Economic Level The Plane of Human Processes The Plane of the World s Processes Nature Reality Natural Laws Net Cumulative Determinants of Human Behavior Human Nature Politics Other planes may exist and intersect: e.g., Spiritual Plane, and that s a whole nother conversation … The Spiral Dynamics conversation is related more integrally; summarized at http://www.fudomouth.net/rhizome/kwintegralvision.htmhttp://www.fudomouth.net/rhizome/kwintegralvision.htm Human sustainability is to an extent determined by net human behavior, which is the resultant of net determinants accumulated through each successive level, with each level forming the basis for levels above, and lower levels having the greatest power and effect (see Concordance). As a holarchy, each level includes and transcends (to an extent) the levels below, and its native behaviors are constrained (to a larger extent) by those lower-level parameters. Positive and negative feedback loops and other interactions abound between all levels and both planes. Alexander Carpenter alexander@nmci.com 707-527-2732 6 January 2011 Copyright 2008-2011 All Rights Reserved

2. 2 Levels Concordance LevelConsciousnessChoiceStabilityTools Influence on Behavior Storage in… Constructs Technological, within Environmental Limits Most Conscious (but not highly) Total in Principle; Little in Practice Lower: Sculpture Machines, Material Great: Parameters & Boundary Conditions Things Static Constructs of Matter; Tactics Economic/ Political Increasingly Conscious More Lowest: Mob Dynamics Symbols ($,) for combined Values and Material Least; ad hoc Activity. Extrinsic Motivators Power and Force; Habits Static Constructs of Economic Value and Interests; Strategy Social Somewhat Conscious Some Low: Software, Mental Explicit Rules, Symbols for Values Less; Neurological. Extrinsic Motivators Writing, Attitudes Deeds Static Constructs of Social Value: Law, Status, Mission & Means Cultural Some Conscious; Mostly Unconscious Very Little Medium: Firmware, Emotional Impulse: Values Algorithms * Much; Endocrine. Intrinsic Motivators Speech, Memory, Rituals, Memes, Myths, Archetypes Static Constructs of Group Viability: Governance & Ownership/Control, Religion, Purpose & Vision * Biological, within Natural Laws Almost Entirely Unconscious Essentially None High: Hardware, Visceral Instinct: Survival Algorithms * Greatest; Cellular. Intrinsic Motivators Genes, Epigenetic Systems, Cells Static Constructs of Individual and Group Survival: Reproduction, Power * Dynamic Improvisation and interaction within and between Levels leads to Systemic Change. All impulses and constraints on behavior accumulate and overlay upward; net behavior results. The inverse of responsiveness to change (I.e., adabtability), both from within and from without. * Behavioral algorithms proven to work over evolutionary time (as opposed to historical time)

3. 3 Holarchies Standard binary ( run/not-run ) algorithms (universal) Clever syntheses and combinations of standard algorithms (common) New human-processes behavior (rare) True learning (very rare), then Algorithmized in memes or genes (extremely rare and slow to manifest) To be conscious means to have made distinctions. To be conscious means to make choices (a behavior in itself). Consciousness evolves and human behavior reflects expression of genetically mediated algorithms, which bound cultural algorithms (to an extent), which bound social algorithms (to an extent); then expression of environmental constraints and cumulatively bounded personal choices. It is in the deepest levels that we have the greatest power (and most difficult access) to cumulatively influence choices in higher levels. The strongest influences we can have on personal choices start in the lower levels. Every propagandist knows this. Every Oligarch knows this. Every religious leader knows this. It is from the biological level that we can influence and liberate culture; it is from the cultural level that we can influence and liberate society; it is from the social level that we can influence and liberate politics and its economy; it is from the political level that we look back down-level and can influence and liberate the individual with that liberation consonant with natural laws and environmental constraints, and each level s liberation consonant with its bounding levels imperatives, either natively or through compensations and constraints. Any advocacy or sustainability conversation that seeks to change individual and collective human behavior will be successful in direct proportion to its origination in the lower levels and how effectively, coherently, and explicitly it connects them to the upper levels so more-conscious choices can be made. It must also synthesize a values-centric post-post-modern and trans-disciplinary integration of chaos math (the properties of complex non-linear open systems with emergent events and properties, and fractal iteration), world-cultural wisdom-tradition metaphysics (over dualistic subject-object metaphysics), matrix- systems awareness (over linear cause-and-effect), modern hypothesis-falsifying quantum and evolutionary sciences (over Positivist science including the social sciences and economics ), and modern business best- practices (cultural evolution in operations and with accountability, over command-and-control) and modern managerial accounting methods with no externalities.

4. 4 HolarchyHierarchy Defining relationship: Include and TranscendSeparate and Dominate Visual geometric style:FractalEuclidian Native mathematics:Complex non-linear open systems, matricesDifferential equations, closed systems Operational rhythm:Iterative, parallel, and expansiveSequential, linear, reductionist, teleological Evolution:Most of nature is evolving, This is how the human psyche and is organized, this way (and polity) has evolved Expression of will:Align and EnrollCommand and Control Elicit CommitmentForce and Punishment Social style:Us and ThemUs versus Them Type of belief systems:Gnostic Natural PhilosophyAuthoritarian Ideology Political instincts:Optimize systemsSequester resources Due processRealpolitik Relating:CompassionPity SurrenderSubmission Economics:Open system with natural limitsClosed system with externalities Generative systemsZero-sum accounting (the whole is greater than the sum of parts) (my whole is greater than your parts) Projected relations:Synergistic, synchronisticSyllogistic linear cause-and-effect There is no cause; there is only effectDominion over Nature Web of LifeChain of Command Examples of Holarchies Sub-atomic particlesParticipant DataOutcomes Atoms Program Information Activities/Outputs Molecules Agency Knowledge Tools Cells Community [Wisdom] Techniques Tissues State Knowledge Tactics Organisms Civilization InformationStrategy Ecosystems Culture Data Mission Humanity Vision Values Levels: Holarchic versus Hierarchic

5. 5 Quotations The law of unintended consequences is what happens when a simple system tries to regulate a complex system. The political system is simple. It operates with limited information (rational ignorance), short time horizons, low feedback, and poor and misaligned incentives. Society in contrast is a complex, evolving, high-feedback, incentive-driven system. When a simple system tries to regulate a complex system you often get unintended consequences. Andrew Gelman If you dont understand how thing are connected, the cause of problem is solutions. Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute The prevailing system of management has destroyed our people, says Dr. [W. Edwards] Deming. People are born with intrinsic motivation, self-esteem, dignity, curiosity to learn, joy in learning.Intrinsic motivation lies at the heart of Demings management philosophy. By contrast, extrinsic motivation is the bread and butter of Western management... A corporate commitment to quality that is not based on intrinsic motivation is a house built on sand. Peter Senge, Building learning organizations, Journal for Quality and Participation, March 1992 All traits and tendencies of all living creatures no matter how they are generated during ontogeny or learning, including all aspects of culture, or whether they are a result of environmental variations or chance are necessarily products of organic evolution. There is no alternative. Richard D. Alexander, Other Voices, 16 May 2009 We must recollect that all our provisional ideas in psychology will presumably one day be based on an organic substructure. Sigmund Freud, On Narcissism, 1914 In assembling complexity the bounty of increasing returns is won by multiple tries over time. As various parts reorganize to a new whole, the system escapes into a higher order. Ilya Viscount PrigoginePrigogine

6. 6 Our most significant adaptation is a brain that is run by an operating system called culture. It is in our genes, so to speak, to learn and think within a cultural system. The food we eat (cheeseburgers, fermented puffins, grilled grubs, raw whale blubber) will vary with our culture, but what we crave (fats, high energy sugars, and proteins) will not. The ideas we think with (magical, philosophical, religious, scientific, individualistic, conformist) will also vary with our culture, but the fact that we think with ideas will not. We have the most complex brain of any known animal, and at least some scientists think it got this complicated so that it could learn cultural systems: But can we distinguish the hardware from the operating system? Helga Vierich-Drever, anthropologist, personal communication, 2009 This operating system is written in a programming language that is language itself. Every word represents an algorithm that defines experience and combinations of experiences. We can talk about what we have ideas and names for. We can act individually without that communication; we cant act collectively without that communication through language. Acting collectively means society and culture to record and propagate its rules for workability… With the bicameral mind intact, there was resonance-effect for alignment and movement if not actual communication, when that broke, language took over as the means for social coherence. Symbols replace shared experience, but values of the algorithmic kind came from shared experience. So symbols must drive shared experience, universal throughout society. Divide and conquer must end. [J.J.Rousseau: The principal function of the modern state is to keep people apart.] Actions become symbolic, as does the act of professing values (and not necessarily acting in consonance with those values). The Big Lie takes power… And yes, things are getting more and more complicated and faster and faster, as well….. Alexander It is impossible to reason a man out of something he has not been reasoned into. When people have acquired their beliefs on an emotional level they cannot be persuaded out of them on a rational level, no matter how strong the proof or the logic behind it. People will hold onto their emotional beliefs and twist the facts to meet their version of reality. Sidney J. Harris, American Journalist Our principal constraints are cultural. During the last two centuries we have known nothing but exponential growth and in parallel we have evolved what amounts to an exponential-growth culture, a culture so heavily dependent upon the continuance of exponential growth for its stability that it is incapable of reckoning with problems of non-growth. M. King Hubbert More Quotations

7. 7 Memes Memes carry codons that represent associations of content that link experiences from multiple levels with an action invitation and a promise of status. Memes represent a suite of associated symbols that cross levels (cultural, social, personal), with consciousness appropriate to the level. Some symbols are glyphic, some are action/motion connected, and some are syntactical. Memes are capsules of tightly-interoperating, language-connected symbols to activate pre-adaptive impulses directed toward social settings and people to elicit action. So a meme is a story-line that connects pre-existing, well-selected-for, standardized somatic and mental algorithmic reactions through images and words, (mostly simple names and verbs). Like an iceberg, most of any given meme is invisible, deep under the surface of self-aware consciousness, in the warm bosom of the Pleistocene tickling the twitchy perineum of the mind.

8. 8 Change Interoperating Modalities to influence change Genetic Engineering around algorithms Breeding Epi-genetic manipulation through environmental cues Direct (DNA-level) genetic engineering Mega-algorithms in all that Junk DNA, which preserves modular solutions to prior challenges Cultural Engineering/Conditioning around values and morality Memetic manipulation Archetype manipulation and synergy Mythology and Religion Status and knowledge of where we fit is bred into us Social Engineering/Conditioning around rules (economics = politics) and actions Legislation ( Law ) Regulation ( Rules ) Economic pressures (market manipulation with advertising and propaganda) Motivation enforced by threat of ostracization and violence (military, police) Interaction between cultural and social goals Personal Development/Conditioning around inspiration Healing ( completion ) Individuation and collectivization (interaction between personal and social goals) Attractor-based motivation is possible at this level

9. 9 Miscellanea… Social engineering is not deep enough to change values, just behavior; leads to contradictions and dissonances, and status-seeking imbalances. Genetic engineering is not fast enough and is too broad-brushed to drive social change. Natural selection through behavior is too ambiguous and substitutable, behavioral evolution from cultural and social engineering drives breeding and, eventually, morphological evolution. Cultural engineering may be workable given enough time. What provides motivation to embrace change? Selection and survival: empirical success of applied values in the collective. Individual variations are just noise, although clan and faction variability contributes to breeding stratification and class structures. Immediate small-scale selection-events and larger-scale punctuation events ( collapse, disaster … ) provide immediate motivation, and drive selection and thereby evolution, with all that engineering playing catch-up. Immediate reactivity is heavily selected-for, over any longer-term considerations. Goal: Change values from low-grade-teleological and material market values to larger-context husbandry of the Commons: usufruct values. Change values to include a larger us than self, immediate family, clan, tribe, religion, nation, etc. What is our collective purpose? Who is eligible to gain from it? To be included in it? Qui bono now? MoQ … De-materialize values without God or teleology (actually to find balanced teleology, shifting focus from immediate Us gratification to longer-term advantage (thence including the Commons and the larger society to be advantaged or at least not damaged). Fear-based shock doctrine consciously and intentionally takes advantage of the immediate-responsiveness priority. Junk DNA represents stored modularized behavioral and morphological algorithms as integrated solutions to prior environmental-challenge cue-sets. This makes (re-)evolution and cyclic adaptation much faster and more coherent. Liebigs Law of the Minimum: if one crop nutrient is missing or deficient, plant growth will be poor, even if the other elements are abundant. Related to Goldratts bottleneck and resource-limitations in general. Enlightenment is not to change the world, but to change ourselves (in non-ad hoc ways), so we have more adaptability in response to what is rather than what we wish were.

10. 10 Status… De-couple status from money and market values; replace with ecological values This will require multi-level engineering: genetic, cultural, and social Genetic is slow, and selection will happen, mostly at the bottom Cultural is memetic, supported by social reinforcement Customs Religion Social is an enforcement challenge Laws becoming customs Ad hoc ideology becoming belief-systems