Resource Limitation and the growth of Societies

Control units in the same loop are highly unlikely to interfere with each other. But what happens if a control unit in one loop has its action vector correlated with the perceptual vector of a control unit in another loop? One or both of two things is likely to happen. Either reorganization will alter the vectors of one or more of the constituent control systems, or the deleterious effects will be dominated by shielding effects one loop provides to the other. Much as one individual control unit may shield another, so it is possible for one loop to shield another--though perhaps not very likely for any two arbitrary loops.

How can reorganization maintain orthogonality?

Remember that the control systems we are considering may all be in the same organic body, each in a different body, or they may be partitioned among a few distinct bodies. It is clearly more probable that a mutual support loop will evolve when the environmental relationships among the control units are stable, and that is most likely to occur when all the control units involved are in the same body. This provides the first possibility for mutual support domains to avoid interfering with each other--one body simply moves to a different part of the environment, physically.

Moving physically is neither necessary nor sufficient. Orthogonality means affecting different degrees of freedom in the environment, or in other words not influencing what the other is trying to influence. The problem arises when there are not enough degrees of freedom available to allow all the control systems to succeed at once. For example, both may need the same small quantity of available food, or to use the same telescope at a viewpoint. Then if one gets the food or the telescope, the other cannot. If there is plenty of food, or many telescopes, the environmental degrees of freedom are enough to allow the control unit vectors to be orthogonal. Otherwise there is a problem of resource limitation.

Resource limitation always means a lack of enough degrees of freedom for independent action by all the control systems under consideration.

Formation of Societies at many size scales

If the actions of the control units within one loop are not independent of the perceptions of the control units in another, at least one of the loops has constituents that influence the behaviour of the other. One can talk not of the control units interacting, but of the loops, as if each loop (support domain) were a unitary entity. The influence of one loop on another may be beneficial or detrimental, as it is when two elementary control units interact. But since the control exercised by an entire loop spans many dimensions, the influence of one loop on another can be simultaneously detrimental and beneficial.

Whether the influence of one loop on the control effectiveness of another is beneficial or otherwise, the mutuality structure within the influenced loop is liable to be altered. At one extreme, the loop itself may be destroyed, or, at the other, some pathways that have a common effect may change their emphasis.

Reorganization will occur if the influence of one loop on another impairs the ability of any constituent to control. The immediate result is likely to be reduced stability, but the end result will be enhanced stability, either by effective separation of the loops (orthogonalizing them), or by accommodating each to the other to form cooperative structures in the same way as control units may cooperate to form mutual support domains--and with enough interacting loops, the cooperative structures may deserve the name of "societies." In a society of loops, each has its own function, just as each elementary control unit has its own function in the operation of the loop. The entities in the societies have their own roles to play. As was pointed out earlier, in a well functioning society, those roles do not overlap--the individual control units in a loop control largely orthogonal perceptions, and happen to shield each other from external disturbances while doing so.

One can see this process continued recursively--and we do, in the form of cells, multicellular organisms. families and tribes, clubs, businees, unions, cultural and national groups...