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The First Cambrian Explosion
or
The Global Cellular Meta-System-Transition

This is an excerpt from the e-book The Gaian-Ego Hypothesis. A major implication of system theory is what it can say about the nature of organisms, it relates to an aspect of evolution that is little considered by many. An outcome of cells creating beyond themselves is a phenomenon called the Cambrian Explosion which is an example of a global Meta System Transition (MST) [FR]. It was a systemic event that occurred around 550 million years ago whereby the ecosystem of single cellular organism underwent a change, giving certain cells (eukaryotes) enhanced communication capacity. Their subsequent interactions and systems of dependencies self-organised into vast collectives of cells that we call multi-cellular organisms. All animals including ourselves are such organisms and we are self-organising civilisations of trillions of cells with emergent phenomena such as mind and ego. Understanding this is vital for understanding the true systemic nature of ourselves and ultimately of civilisation.  More >

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Gaia or the Man Machine?

This is an excerpt from the e-book The Gaian-Ego Hypothesis. Also see The Man Machine - Organisms to Organisation, Consciousness or Materialism and Survey of the Central Idea.

Some have countered the idea of the planet as a holistic organism with comments such as: "But the question for us as individuals is: do we want our descendants to become like the cells of organs, organs which in turn comprise some larger entity - that is, totally dependent on the functioning of our civilised system as a whole, mere cogs in wheels? Is it inevitably to this end that the human pattern, like the metazoan and the social insect patterns before it, had to evolve? Lastly, if we should not want to evolve this way, are we still able to halt the trend that is already in progress, and if so how?" [FR].

W. D. Hamilton [FR], the author of this comment was a leading evolutionary biologist who was a forerunner to sociobiology and the scientific study of society as a natural evolutionary phenomenon. But in subtle ways, like most of his contemporaries, he was caught in a mechanistic view of the world and didn't have enough systemic insight to comprehend what it means to form a collective organism out of ourselves. Through collective integration we cannot but help form a super-system of some kind, we implicitly recognise that fact through the word 'civilisation'. It is the nature of systems to integrate and create super-systems and we are not beyond the fundamental systemic 'laws' of the cosmos. The only way to avoid creating beyond ourselves would be to cease all communication and cooperation and become isolated individuals or small fragmented tribes living close to nature, but for that the population would need to be massively reduced, the ecosystem massively regenerated and strict prohibition of all cooperation must be enforced. But in our current situation it is the case that for a long time we have already been "totally dependent on the functioning of our civilised system as a whole". We have already become sub-systems inextricably integrated into a super-system. But the important question is what kind of a super-system do we create out of ourselves, will it nourish us or devour us?

That depends on what ideas flow through our minds, what ideas flow through the culture and the way that we structure ourselves and come together in order to interact and integrate. These factors determine whether we create a fascist machine that enslaves us as "mere cogs in wheels" or whether we create a vibrant healthy living organism that can thrive and glow with health, where its health is our collective health, its intelligence is our collective intelligence and its joy is our collective joy.  More >

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This is an excerpt from the e-book The Gaian-Ego Hypothesis that relates to the evolution of systems from organisms to organisations via the agency of human civilisation. Also see this Psychological Perspective on Civilisation and Gaia or the Man Machine?

Organisational Governance

First some basic terms and concepts before we get into the systemic history of human civilisation. All organisations have both an informal and a formal structure. These are concepts from the systems theory of organisational structures, which I will briefly define. They are two parallel systems of governance within any organisation. The informal structure within a society is the original organic level of governance, its main communication mechanism is the 'grapevine' and its code of conduct is traditions, norms, taboos and so on; it can be anarchic such as a group of friends or it can be highly structured such as a tribe that has well defined roles and power relations. The formal structure of a society is a later outgrowth that institutionalises the basic nature of the informal system of governance and extends it over a broader reach. Its main modern communication mechanism is mass media and its main code of conduct is legislation.

In any organisational structure these levels of governance exist to varying degrees. It is most commonly analysed within corporate cultures so I'll first discuss it in this context. Too often the system is envisaged from the perspective of the formal structure so the culture becomes authoritarian; the staff are objectified as the corporation leverages it control and pushes for productivity but due to the ignorance of the nature of the organisational system the formal structure abuses the informal structure leading to stress, low morale, lower productivity, absenteeism and staff turnover. These are then naively blamed on the staff and tighter controls are implemented thus worsening the situation [FR].  More >