The Band (E06)
Lighting the narrow path back to the garden
“I have great respect for the past. If you don't know where you've come from, you don't know where you're going.” —Maya Angelou (1928-2014)
The future of civilization will remain at risk until we neutralize the authoritarian threat. This is Essay Six (E06) of a series addressing that issue, which necessarily involves the first scientifically valid understanding of Benjamin Libet’s famous experiment.
The experiment reveals that our culture’s implicit understanding of the “free will” phenomenon is logically flawed. Wisdom (E04) suggested a logical way to interpret Libet’s data. E06 uses that interpretation to suggests an explicit and logical understanding of free will by answering the following questions:
· How do the conscious and unconscious minds interact?
· What is the difference between a life system, a generic mammalian social system, and a human social system?
· Why was every mammalian social system hierarchical until the origin of our species roughly 12,000 generations ago?
· Why was the hunter-gatherer band the first egalitarian system?
· Why was every human system egalitarian until the dawn of the Neolithic Period roughly 400 generations ago?
· What is free will?
· Why did authoritarianism emerge in Neolithic systems?
How do the conscious and unconscious minds interact?
When an input signal arrives in the mind, it arrives in the unconscious mind where only about one in twenty input signals are recognized. The recognized signals are processed, and the rest are ignored.
A signal is recognized because of its pattern, and the pattern tells the unconscious mind how to process the signal. The unconscious mind is like a switching station. When the signal arrives, the switch is thrown, the signal travels down one of three “tracks,” and then the signal is processed in one of three ways. If a signal is recognized as an opportunity, then the unconscious mind intents to seize the opportunity. Otherwise, the signal travels down one of two “conflict” tracks.
If a conflict’s source appears to be from within the life system, it is treated like a dilemma and the unconscious mind intents to resolve the dilemma. Otherwise, the conflict is treated like a problem and the unconscious mind intends to solve the problem.
When a signal arrives in the mind and a behavioral response is triggered in roughly one half second, unconscious intent is formed in an initial 300 ms phase. Then, in a final 200 ms phase, the conscious mind becomes “aware” of both the signal and its track.
Behavioral responses are one of two types, the many and the few. The many are actions, and the few are conscious deliberations. Either way, unconscious intent is formed, the conscious mind becomes aware of the imminent response, and then unconscious intent triggers the response.
Because conscious deliberation is a limited resource, it is only used to process a few of the many recognized signals. While unconscious intent is to seize an opportunity or solve a problem, the conscious mind remains a passive observer. A conflict that appears to have a within-system source is a dilemma. It is only when unconscious intent is to resolve a dilemma that the conscious mind becomes an active participant. Conscious deliberation’s “job” is resolving dilemmas.
What is the difference between a life system, a generic mammalian social system, and a human social system?
So, the unconscious mind uses its ability to recognize patterns to determine whether a signal represents a conflict, and whether a conflict’s source is from within the system, but what is the system? I am not a life system, and neither are you. Our human DNA makes us subjects of a social system. See Maturity (E05) for a detailed description of the “system” and “subsystem” concepts.
Frogs and scorpions are life systems, and their DNA makes it so. Homo sapiens and Neanderthals are two of roughly twenty hominin species known to science. By the dawn of the Neolithic Period, our species was the sole survivor. With one exception hominin DNA made every hominin a subject of a single-family social system. In a pre-Neolithic context, our species’ multi-family “hunter-gatherer band” was that one exception.
In the fraction of a second that the unconscious mind is detecting the “conflict” pattern, it is also detecting that the conflict is a problem in need of a “neutralize threat” solution, or a dilemma in need of a resolution. A “solution” is a one-step action, and a “resolution” is a multi-step interaction between the conscious and unconscious minds. Some resolutions require multiple interactions. Some require interactions between fellow subjects. Some require seconds, or minutes, or generations.
Why was every mammalian social system hierarchical until the origin of our species?
Until the origin of our species, mammalian social systems were exclusively families. A family-sized system acts like a life system because within-system dilemmas are resolved one-by-one in the sequence in which they emerge. Within-family relationships are transformational. A conflict is treated like a dilemma, the dilemma is resolved, the resolution “transforms” a within-family relationship thereby strengthening the bonds that hold the system together.
Family-sized systems socialize with other systems. For example, family-sized elephant systems form bands comprised of a handful of families, and clans comprised of a handful of bands. An interaction between families begins in a joyful greeting ceremony, but the interaction is occurring because it is mutually beneficial. Systems do not resolve between-system conflicts. A conflict of interest inevitably emerges, the interaction ends, and the individual families go their separate ways.
Between system relationships are transactional. A “problem” pattern is detected, and the unconscious mind sends the signal down the neutralize threat track. An individual system’s self-interest is the only “bond” holding elephant and Neanderthal bands and clans together.
Before our species’ origin, every mammalian social system had two things in common. First, they were all hierarchical in nature. Second, they were all single-family systems.
The system acts like a system for two reasons. First, because conflicts between the system’s subjects are reflexively perceived as dilemmas to be resolved. Second, because conflicts between two single-family systems are reflexively perceived as problems to be solved.
The single-family system is hierarchical because its “job” is to transform immature juveniles into mature adults. Parents are necessarily dominant in their relationship with subordinate juveniles.
One system grows until it grows too large, and then it divides into two family-sized systems. And then the cycle repeats.
Why was the hunter-gatherer band the first egalitarian system?
The post-origin “hunter-gatherer band” system was unique in two ways. First, it was egalitarian in nature. Second, it was nature’s first multi-family social system.
The band-sized system acted like a system for two reasons. First, because conflicts between the system’s families were reflexively perceived as dilemmas to be resolved. Second, because conflicts between two band-sized systems were reflexively perceived as problems to be solved.
Why was every Paleolithic human system egalitarian?
The multi-family system is egalitarian because its “job” is to transform the relationship between the system and its environment.
Renown anthropologist Christopher Boehm summed up what we know about band-sized systems with the following statement on page 5 of his book, Hierarchy in the Forest (2001): “Humans were egalitarian for thousands of generations before hierarchical societies began to appear.” More is revealed on page 32 where Boehm asks a good question, “The nuclear families in human societies are scarcely void of hierarchy. Why then do the main political actors at the band level behave as equals?”
A band-sized system acts like a system because conflicts between adults are treated like dilemmas that need to be resolved one-by-one in the sequence in which they emerge. Adults who work together to resolve dilemmas necessarily perceive each other as equals. When adults perceive a dominant-subordinate relationship, they are not working together to resolve dilemmas. Instead, the dominant adult is attempting to benefit even though it is at the expense of the subordinate adult and the system itself.
In a band-sized system, the system’s culture evolved as dilemmas were being resolved. One system grew until it grew too large, and then it divided into two band-sized systems. And then the cycle repeated until the intersection of two variables. The first is an increasing number of band-sized systems. The second is a decreasing area of readily accessible and sufficiently fertile unpeopled terrestrial territory. The dawn of the Neolithic Period is at the intersection of those two variables.
Band-sized systems grew in number until the number was too large, and then the first agricultural settlements emerged.
What is free will?
The good news is that free will is a powerful tool. When it emerged at the origin of our species, it made us “free” to respond to novel contexts in a way that is both adaptive and independent of our nature. The bad news is that people who want to operate powerful tools—but don’t want to know how the tool works—are a danger to themselves and others.
Why did authoritarianism emerge in Neolithic systems?
Boehm’s above-referenced observations are when one person is treating another person the way the former wants to be treated by the latter. But what explains why one adult looks at another adult and perceives a dominant-subordinate relationship? That will be the topic of next week’s essay.