Evolution of Freedom
Part II: TEAM SPORT - Chapter 14
BIOMIMICRY
To meet our challenge, we need to redesign our cooperative institutions and the information they generate from the ground up. But instead of trying to reinvent them from scratch, we should seek inspiration from nature, the most prolific and ingenious designer known to us. Evolution has a four-billion-year head start in solving very similar problems to those we are confronted with in our daily lives.
Biomimicry is a scientific design principle that solves complex problems by emulating solutions found in nature. Since nature has evolved through natural selection, its solutions have been rigorously tested and stood the test of time. The amazing solutions these evolutionary processes have created, albeit at different scales and in different contexts, should be used as sources of inspiration in our design process.
The human body–arguably evolution’s finest creation–should serve as our main inspiration and as the measuring stick against which our proposed solutions are measured. As our task is to design the cooperative institutions of a globe-spanning superorganism, using the human body as an analogy of how the various cooperative features could be designed becomes enormously useful. When the body is capable of coordinating the cooperation between 36 trillion individual cells, we should be able to coordinate the cooperation between 8 billion human beings.
If we take the economy, for example, its purpose is to allocate resources as efficiently as possible. Nature has solved this same problem in numerous ways that can be used as inspiration for how we could improve our own system. Inside every living system, including us, you will find a highly efficient resource allocation mechanism operating at a microscopic scale.
We want to understand how information and energy/matter flow inside the human body and what the mechanisms are that keep all our cells healthy and cooperative. This is vital information as we seek to maximize the well-being of every human being on the planet.
So far, we have enlisted the help of evolutionary scientists, game theorists and mechanism designers, mathematicians and systems thinkers to help us solve our puzzle. Now we are enlisting the help of cellular biologists, endocrinologists and many other experts in biology to help us come up with the best possible solutions.
In studying cellular biology, we should zero in on the processes that make self-organization possible within the body. An example of self-organization is our body’s ability to repair itself. If we get a cut or our bone is broken, our body has the capacity to heal. Some animals can even grow back lost limbs. Any damage an organism encounters creates an immediate signal response that stimulates all the necessary activity that will lead it back to health and homeostasis.
As we try to understand the communication behind self-organization, our focus should be on the various built-in feedback loops that allow organisms to return to homeostasis. Every organism is internally wired with a complex web of feedback loops that help keep it stable and healthy. They ensure a consistent supply of energy/matter that allows the organism to function optimally. Many of these feedback loops are chemical reactions that mechanistically respond to changes happening in the body’s chemistry and its surrounding environment.
Being able to design the necessary feedback loops that will bring the planetary superorganism to its ideal state is the Holy Grail of systems design. It is high time we learned these vital lessons and applied them to human organizations.
By identifying the right analogies and sources of inspiration, we are more likely to uncover the right designs for our next level of cooperation, which is necessary for the major evolutionary transition we are undergoing. Where the cell is a community of cooperating bacteria and seems to perform functions similar to human organizations, the mitochondria seem to perform functions similar to humans within those organizations. Adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, the energy source for all living beings, seems to perform many of the tasks we assign to money.
What makes DNA so fascinating is that every cell contains exactly the same set of genetic instructions, and each cell knows which subset of those instructions applies specifically to it. The DNA contains the information that makes self-organization possible. When we understand the vital function DNA has in our body, we realize that human society lacks a cohesive social or cultural version of DNA that would allow us to self-organize on a planetary scale.
For cultural evolution to work, we must assume that we need a shared depository of vital information that our cultures run on. This social DNA would instruct us on the best ways to allocate our energy/matter in various situations and how to coordinate our efforts with others all across the globe. Part of our task, therefore, is to understand what information to include in this social DNA and how this information should be generated. I propose that the function of the DNA should be performed by the pro-social marketplace, which we will design in the coming chapters.
But as we draw inspiration from nature, we should also be careful not to stretch the analogies too far. We should only utilize solutions found in nature when they are useful and appropriate. While existing life forms serve as inspiration and important references, we must acknowledge that the process of evolution has never solved exactly the same problems we are trying to solve now. Biomimicry has little to offer when we grapple with issues like human psychology, ethics, democratic governance and markets. Biomimicry provides us with great analogies and sources of inspiration but it can’t provide us with all the answers. It is ultimately up to us humans to come up with the final designs.
We are thus faced with a creative and explorative endeavor, which starts with our initial designs and proceeds to computer simulations and small-scale tests in which those designs are perfected iteration after iteration. We can even use AI to generate a panoply of variations on our designs and then see how they perform in simulations. These iterations represent incremental, evolutionary steps. But unlike natural evolution, conscious human cultural evolution is goal oriented. The institutions our society is based on are by-products of historical processes–the institutions we intend to build will be based on well-engineered technology.
The technology that solves the problem of our coexistence will form the next step in our cultural evolution. By rewiring how information flows on this planet, we also change how we metabolize energy/matter. This technology will manifest itself as a culture that consciously bypasses the root causes of the numerous existential crises we are now confronted by. When this technology is successful, it will be seamlessly integrated with nature and the evolutionary process itself.
Biomimicry is a scientific design principle that solves complex problems by emulating solutions found in nature. Since nature has evolved through natural selection, its solutions have been rigorously tested and stood the test of time. The amazing solutions these evolutionary processes have created, albeit at different scales and in different contexts, should be used as sources of inspiration in our design process.
The human body–arguably evolution’s finest creation–should serve as our main inspiration and as the measuring stick against which our proposed solutions are measured. As our task is to design the cooperative institutions of a globe-spanning superorganism, using the human body as an analogy of how the various cooperative features could be designed becomes enormously useful. When the body is capable of coordinating the cooperation between 36 trillion individual cells, we should be able to coordinate the cooperation between 8 billion human beings.
If we take the economy, for example, its purpose is to allocate resources as efficiently as possible. Nature has solved this same problem in numerous ways that can be used as inspiration for how we could improve our own system. Inside every living system, including us, you will find a highly efficient resource allocation mechanism operating at a microscopic scale.
We want to understand how information and energy/matter flow inside the human body and what the mechanisms are that keep all our cells healthy and cooperative. This is vital information as we seek to maximize the well-being of every human being on the planet.
So far, we have enlisted the help of evolutionary scientists, game theorists and mechanism designers, mathematicians and systems thinkers to help us solve our puzzle. Now we are enlisting the help of cellular biologists, endocrinologists and many other experts in biology to help us come up with the best possible solutions.
In studying cellular biology, we should zero in on the processes that make self-organization possible within the body. An example of self-organization is our body’s ability to repair itself. If we get a cut or our bone is broken, our body has the capacity to heal. Some animals can even grow back lost limbs. Any damage an organism encounters creates an immediate signal response that stimulates all the necessary activity that will lead it back to health and homeostasis.
As we try to understand the communication behind self-organization, our focus should be on the various built-in feedback loops that allow organisms to return to homeostasis. Every organism is internally wired with a complex web of feedback loops that help keep it stable and healthy. They ensure a consistent supply of energy/matter that allows the organism to function optimally. Many of these feedback loops are chemical reactions that mechanistically respond to changes happening in the body’s chemistry and its surrounding environment.
Being able to design the necessary feedback loops that will bring the planetary superorganism to its ideal state is the Holy Grail of systems design. It is high time we learned these vital lessons and applied them to human organizations.
By identifying the right analogies and sources of inspiration, we are more likely to uncover the right designs for our next level of cooperation, which is necessary for the major evolutionary transition we are undergoing. Where the cell is a community of cooperating bacteria and seems to perform functions similar to human organizations, the mitochondria seem to perform functions similar to humans within those organizations. Adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, the energy source for all living beings, seems to perform many of the tasks we assign to money.
What makes DNA so fascinating is that every cell contains exactly the same set of genetic instructions, and each cell knows which subset of those instructions applies specifically to it. The DNA contains the information that makes self-organization possible. When we understand the vital function DNA has in our body, we realize that human society lacks a cohesive social or cultural version of DNA that would allow us to self-organize on a planetary scale.
For cultural evolution to work, we must assume that we need a shared depository of vital information that our cultures run on. This social DNA would instruct us on the best ways to allocate our energy/matter in various situations and how to coordinate our efforts with others all across the globe. Part of our task, therefore, is to understand what information to include in this social DNA and how this information should be generated. I propose that the function of the DNA should be performed by the pro-social marketplace, which we will design in the coming chapters.
But as we draw inspiration from nature, we should also be careful not to stretch the analogies too far. We should only utilize solutions found in nature when they are useful and appropriate. While existing life forms serve as inspiration and important references, we must acknowledge that the process of evolution has never solved exactly the same problems we are trying to solve now. Biomimicry has little to offer when we grapple with issues like human psychology, ethics, democratic governance and markets. Biomimicry provides us with great analogies and sources of inspiration but it can’t provide us with all the answers. It is ultimately up to us humans to come up with the final designs.
We are thus faced with a creative and explorative endeavor, which starts with our initial designs and proceeds to computer simulations and small-scale tests in which those designs are perfected iteration after iteration. We can even use AI to generate a panoply of variations on our designs and then see how they perform in simulations. These iterations represent incremental, evolutionary steps. But unlike natural evolution, conscious human cultural evolution is goal oriented. The institutions our society is based on are by-products of historical processes–the institutions we intend to build will be based on well-engineered technology.
The technology that solves the problem of our coexistence will form the next step in our cultural evolution. By rewiring how information flows on this planet, we also change how we metabolize energy/matter. This technology will manifest itself as a culture that consciously bypasses the root causes of the numerous existential crises we are now confronted by. When this technology is successful, it will be seamlessly integrated with nature and the evolutionary process itself.
