The Plant and the Pot : Evolution of Social structures and Constraints.

Let us  write our initial assumption as I have formulated in the previous blog post:

The behavior of social agents is determined by the social factors that exist in the current moment.

This is a fundamental concept to understand. We are beings that are controlled entirely by the environment in which we live in. That statement does not exclude our ability to change these factors. Not at all.

The statement though is fundamental in understanding why groups of people behave the way they behave.

The Party experiment

Let me give an example to make this notion clear. Let's say that you arrive at a party in which the host has mistakenly put the heating regulator to 35 degrees Celsious. What will eventually happen is that the people inside the house will start to take their clothes off. Then the host will realize that the heating regulator is too high and it will put it back to normal.
     Here we have two actions, the spontaneous reactions of a group of people to external stimuli and the subsequent alteration of the environment by the host. Both actions are a response of the increasing levels of heat. The action of the host is integrated into our assumption.


In fact, Isaac Asimov, a well known science fiction writer has been inspired by this to write his Foundation series of books. Isaac Asimov was a Professor of Chemistry. He wrote the first book in the 1940s when he was still a student. He was inspired by the Ideal gas law, the fact that even though molecules behave randomly in microscopic level, they have macroscopic properties that are defined by laws.
    If you increase the heat of the gas, the pressure will start to rise if the volume remains constant. I wonder whether Isaac Asimov got the idea for his series by actually being a host in a party and experimenting with his guests. :)

Let us assume that this proposition is correct. Why do we need to know about it?
The answer is simple. By knowing this law, we are then able to research of the social dynamics of specific environmental and structural factors. We are able to reflect onto this factors and change them so that the social dynamics change.

Through awareness of the effects of environmental and structural factors, Society is able to promptly change these factors and thus alter itself or its future self in the process.

Sparrow, a programming framework to express communication patterns and social structures and Organic Life as a metaphor of Social Processes.

DNA and Formal Program Specifications.

To understand the reason for the second metaphor, one needs to know the context around the metaphor. I am building a framework that will allow the creation of formal specifications of communication patterns. Since the communication patterns of a group of people express in a very concrete way the social structure of the group, one could say that the programming framework will actually be used to create formal specifications of social structures. 

    I will omit the technical details of the project, but I will point anyone that wants to learn more, to look at Idris , Dependent types and their use in Formal Program Verification and Session types, a new research subject on the specification of communication patterns.

Now, let us look at DNA. Its main function is to provide the specification of the properties of an organism. In the microscopic level, its functions is to be used to produce protein molecules according to that specification. Protein molecules are then either used locally or transferred between cells, the membrane of the cell has specific receptors that only allow specific proteins to enter the cell. Proteins can be used to transmit a message or can be used physically in the internal processes of the cell.

Thus, we see that the formal specification of communications have the same function as the DNA of organic life.

Properties that allow the Evolution of Social structures

As sparrow acts like the dna of social structures, we need to see how it enables the evolution of the system. In other words, which properties should we have to allow the evolution of the system?

Enabling the Democratic feedback loop

For Society to change the system, the social structures, it must be aware of the social structures, thus any formal specification of those social structures requires that:

1. It is available to any member of the Society.

2. The specification is easy to understand by anyone involved. This is a very important point. As automation starts regulating our lives, not knowing the reasons why you are requested to do something leads to a dystopian future that I wouldn't want to live in. But even if the specification is difficult enough that only allows specific people to understand ,change and evolve, that would mean that the democratic control of the system would not be possible.

Idris, the programming language I work with, permits the development of Domain Languages, language constructs that are natural to a specific domain. This allows the simplification of the language. Literate programming is another important method to simplify and explain software.

Since sparrow is not ready yet, here is a video of a presentation that was the inspiration for its creation.

Combining the simplicity of the domain language methodology with literate programming, I believe that this does enable the democratic feedback loop:

Modularity and interoperability

A second property that is necessary for evolution to happen is that new social structures need to be permitted without breaking the interoperability with the remaining system. Consider for example the creation of subcultures in human societies. If those subcultures affect the social interaction of their members with the remaining society, if they do not have the same rights like everyone else, or if they have difficulty to find work, then those subcultures eventually wither and die.

  Similarly gene mutations that prohibit cells from functioning inside the organism are eventually eradicated.

For interoperability to not break, we need to hide the differences of the mutation from the external environment. As long as the interface of the internal structure with the outside world is preserved, then the differences that exist internally are irrelevant.

  As we have pointed, the DNA creates specific receptors in the membrane of a cell that permit only specific proteins from entering. In the same way, sparrow should allow for the creation of communication membranes that hide the internal social structure of the group from the outside world.

Formal verification instead of Random Mutations

Sparrow is used to write formal specification for communication patterns. What this means is that when a group wants to create a new mutation or to build a new social substructure, the compiler checks that this mutation is interoperable. This is the main feature of the Session Types research. What this means is that it simplifies the evolution of social structures. Poeple can not make mistakes with regard to interoperability. Their mistakes will be shown by the compiler in terms of error messages. This is a major feature on which the democratic feedback loop depends.

The Idris compiler provides automated help messages on the errors of an implementation, reducing the complexity of implementing new mutations/ social substructures.

  Evolution and Enslaving Constrains

Till now, we have talked about the way that the Society can democratically evolve the System that it lives in. Most of the discussion was about groups of people that altered their internal interaction while preserving  the interoperability with the remaining of the Society.

   On the other hand, in many cases, either external factors or self-imposed constrains by Society are necessary for the well-being of its members. This of course goes against the freedom of specific members of the society whose actions are regulated.

According to Carlos Gershenson:

"Dealing with complex systems, it is not feasible to tell each element what to do or how to do it, but their behaviors need to be constrained or modified so that their goals will be reached, blocking the goals of other elements as little as possible. These constraints can be called mediators (Michod, 2003; Heylighen, 2003a). They can be imposed from the top down, developed from the bottom up, be part of the environment, or be embedded as an aspect (Ten Haaf et al., 2002, Ch. 3) of the system. Mediators are determined by an observer, and can be internal or external to the system (depending on where the observer sets the boundaries of the system). An example can be found in city traffic: traffic lights, signals and rules mediate among drivers, trying to minimize their conflicts, which result from the competition for limited resources, i.e. space to drive through. The precise rules and conventions may change from country to country, e.g. side of the street to drive or behavior at intersections. Nevertheless, they are successful as long as everybody adheres to them. Another example of a mediator can be seen with crowd dynamics: columns near exits of crowded areas help mediate between people and facilitate their departure, reducing the probability of accidents caused by panicking crowds (Escobar and De La Rosa, 2003). The notion of mediator can be seen as a generalization of “slaving constraints” (Haken, 1988). 

Notion 4.2.2 A mediator arbitrates among the elements of a system, to minimize conflict, interferences and frictions; and to maximize cooperation and synergy."

Examples of Enslaving Constrains in Nature

The plant and the Pot

For a plant to grow, it requires soil that has some type of properties. It needs to have ingredients necessary for the metabolism of the plant, it needs water and it needs for the soil to be stable enough to provide support for its structure.

   The plants that are in pots are given those characteristics by the owners of the pots. The pot is a constrain for the plant but without it, it would not be able to survive.

   Plants that are in fertile land not only fulfill the necessary factors of life by being in the land but at the same actively  protect the land from erosion that would lead to an environment that would be hostile to them.

Blood glucose regulation

The cells of the human body require specific conditions to function. One such condition is a stable concentration of glucose in Blood. The organism regulates glucose through the production of insulin from Pancreas. An inability to produce insulin or the cells not reacting to insulin as they should results in diabetes.

External Constrains vs Internal constrains  

As we saw in the examples, the constrains  can be both external or internal. External constrains are set by the environment while internal constrains are regulated by the organism itself. Both types of constrains have the same effect. If the organism/society fails to respect them , it leads to disintegration. Both external and internal constrains lead to the reduction of freedom of the subsystems of the organism or society.

There is no reason to prefer Internal Constrains over External Constrains. They both restrict the freedom of individual agents.

Enslaving Constrains and Freedom

As we saw, the introduction of constrains are necessary for the increase of the total satisfaction of the system. For Society, this unavoidably limits the freedom of groups of people.
    There is the false belief that certain types of constrains are ethical. They are not. For example, the ideal of free association is not so ideal if it is used to exclude minorities from the economic and social structure since these minorities have no other way of survival.
    At the same time, as we saw, the absence of constrains has no ethical imperative either. It is a common belief that Capitalism respects freedom because it respects economic freedom. The results of course on Society are far from perfect. Increased levels of Inequality and Economic Crises are the norm. People have the freedom to search for work but the system does not provide work for everyone.

Capital Constrains as a necessity for the prosperity of Society.

Society needs to provide protections on the individual while at the same time limiting some of his actions so that general prosperity is maximized.
  With regard to Capitalism, capital , concentrations of money,  controls the Production of the Economy through rules that regulate its behavior. The main rule for Capital is that the production that will consume an amount of money will be able to deliver a higher amount than the sum that was spent. Given the fact that the behavior of Capital is regulated by laws that are not determined by people, not even the owners of the Capital itself, Capitalism does not allow the democratic control of the economy.

For this reason, Ryaki proposes two things.
   1. Ryaki has a monetary system in which capital is not allowed to extract more capital. At the same time, every individual is allowed to invest his capital to whatever he wants. This permits groups of people to invest in things they like, which Society in general might not find noteworthy.
   2. The monetary system of ryaki can be circumvented by the democratic structures of Society. If Society finds that the Capital funds should not be spent there or that they should not be owned by a specific person, then Society has the ability to do as it wants. Democracy is above any regulating system, in this case, it is above the monetary system of Ryaki. This is in direct contrast to what is happening  in countries like Greece where the Democratic decision of its people is unimportant compared to the rules of the market.