Costs and Priorities: A Summary.

This publication explores 3 main ideas:

1. Self and identity.
2. Resource programs.
3. Social relations, such as politics or finance.

We’ve discussed these concepts in the context of virtual systems and information systems, and have referred to specific domains of knowledge to describe how these concepts work in practice:

• Mathematics
• Biology
• Theory of Computation
• Information Theory
• Philosophy (mind, self, epistemology, ontology, etc)

I want to overview these three main concepts of this publication.

1. Self and Identity

Self and identity are not simple matters. Classical liberalism reduces society to a collection of individuals, while at the other extreme, in communism, every aspect of life is under the purview of a collective.

Both extremes are wrong.

Humans are not blank slates — tabula rasa — but rather sponges.
From infancy, we do not passively wait to be written on — we actively absorb, imitate, assimilate, and adapt to the world around us. It’s fascinating.

Personal self isn’t competing with collective needs and objectives,
instead, identity emerges by resolving a variety influences(by prioritizing, or choosing, we might say). Without stimulation and influences, personal self does not exist at all.

Individuality is a limited concept compared to principles of identity applied generally. Sometimes it is more instructive to look at the interactions of competing programs, both inside individuals and across them, than to analyze the interactions of distinct individuals. Individuality is not a particularly important boundary in describing the evolution of information systems. Sometimes it’s relevant, sometimes it’s not.

In my view, there is nothing in the process of emergence of identity that must limit it to individuals or individual organisms. The process of self emergence can happen in the brain of a single organism, or the collective cultural processes of larger social groups.

Our language reveals these parallel processes. We ascribe intentional action to groups, institutions, and entities of all kinds.

We see this as a metaphor, but I think it is not. Intent is exhibited by both individuals and groups. We describe them differently because one process is viewed “externally” and the other is perceived “internally”.

Groups and individuals both have decision structures for resolving competing programs, as well as conceiving and considering possible actions and outcomes in the first place.

We identify individuals and groups, but they are in fact both virtual entities, used for deconstructing the world. Virtual entities are constructs of thought and language used for describing and understanding our physical environment. What about your name connects it to your physical organism? This connection happens because of information in your mind and the minds of the peers around you.

Virtual entities emerge from, or are emulated by, a more basic layer that can be described as “artifacts in an environment”. But even that is still an abstraction, we can’t avoid abstractions altogether because we have to use language to describe these things. Describing artifacts in an environment is still just an abstraction used by cognitive processes, but it imitates the physical world directly at a lower level.

Descriptions of artifacts in an environment can be abstracted to a higher level by identifying and describing virtual entities. This happens whenever we perceive virtual entities — we process sensory information according to learned schemas to encode knowledge.

We can choose to analyze dynamics at a low level, in terms of artifacts(genes and memes), or at a high level in terms of virtual actors (people and polities).

Both descriptions are valid, though each offers a different perspective and different insights. At times it may be useful to jump back and forth between these two reductions.

2. Resource Programs

We mentioned resource programs in the preceding section. Programs are always concerned with resources.

Social actions, like any other actions, fulfill resource programs. Consider the practice of “friendship”. It is an enriching and rewarding relationship. In this case, it is about developing a valuable virtual resource, not a physical one. Virtual resources can be resources just like physical resources. Friendships and other personal relationships are a perfect examples of virtual resources. Social actions fulfill programs — and programs which emerge will structurally impose choice outcomes which develop and use resources.

If you feel like this is an obtuse way to view personal social relationships, you’re probably right. It’s conceptually valid, but not necessarily helpful in the real world. The important point is that it’s a completely valid description. It’s possible to adapt all social actions and their causes into the conceptual framework of resource programs.

I won’t suggest you view personal friendships only in resource terms, even virtual resource terms. That would be stupid. Instead, there are two instructive reasons why I’m describing social actions this way: 1) to demonstrate the generality of resource programs, they can apply to contexts we wouldn’t normally consider, 2) to highlight a good example of a virtual resource, thus demonstrating the difference between physical and virtual resources.

What is a Resource?

What is a resource? Why can resources be either virtual or physical? What is a general definition of resource that works for both physical and virtual things?

A resource has utility to a virtual entity for performing its resource programs. Virtual entities choose how to use resources according to the values of the programs which direct their actions. Programs program values by structurally imposing actions that fulfill those values. This description of resources and programs is circular, a problem we have encountered before in this publication. If you recall, we escaped our previous encounter with a circular description using a base case.

For now, let’s just let this circular description of resources and programs suffice.

Sustainable programs are inherently self-creating. Entities which perform sustainable resource programs self-perpetuate compared to other entities and programs which disappear. Fulfilling parameters of growth or sustainability is what leads such programs to perpetuate or persist.

Resources are things that are applied, or used, based on their utility in fulfilling programs. Some resources are consumed when they are used, others are not. Consumability is not the defining aspect of a resource. Some resources must be developed, others need not. Need of development is also not the defining aspect of a resource.

Utility is the defining aspect of a resource. Utility involves choices: actions intended to achieve value. Even in a deterministic environment, choice can be described in terms of possibility. Two distinct structures which create two different outcomes are possible in the same context. You could swap one out for the other. Choice can be a valid even in deterministic systems, because it is simply an analysis of how well possible structures fulfill parameters. Once you solve that math problem, you substitute in the answer, just like in algebra. This is choice.

Intentionality is not instrinsic to structures in systems, it is a property ascribed to virtual entities in virtual systems. Ascribing this property to virtual entities is useful for the same reason that virtual entities are useful in the first place: it allows us to perform mathematics simulating physics with less mental effort.

Is it a resource? — Gravity

Even if we accept that resources are defined by utility, it can still be challenging to determine whether or not something is a resource. Consider gravity. Is gravity a resource, or just a universal unchanging force?

The answer depends on how you construct your virtual entities. Humans on earth can’t choose to apply gravity or not. Thus, it would not be a resource. That’s the reality for most of us on earth. Gravity is an unchanging aspect of your environment, not a choice. But if you are directing a space program, orbiting and slingshotting vessels among planetary bodies — gravity, or some related concept, would be a very important resource, which you apply for its utility in achieving your goals.

3. Social Relations

We have talked about friendship already, which is one of many social relationships that work better when you don’t try to quantify it.

Political and financial relations are also social relations.

I want to note, that I have been trying to avoid using the word human in certain discussions.

The word human is not completely general. So instead, we talk about social entities, or more generally: peers (peers need not be social, only interacting entities of the same type, for example, computers in a network are peers).

Sometimes using the word human makes sense, when we are referring to the legacy, heritage, or practices, of the set of creatures we identify as humans.

Okay, let’s move on.

Finance is social relations subject to culturally defined quantitative accounting norms which are imposed socially, enforced legally, and tracked cybernetically.

Political relations are decision structures used by virtual entities that are social groups.

The fact that politics is about the identity and choice structures of virtual entities representing social groups, makes politics very involved and messy.

Insights

So what’s the point of these three concepts?

Identity emerges from different contexts.

The first concept help us realize how identity emerges in different contexts:

• a personal cognitive context,
• a social group context,
• a cultural context,
• and a cybernetic context.

Society has structures that exist at scales beyond the impact or influence of individuals without cybernetic assistance. It is only at these large scales (large network scales, not geographical ones) that cybernetics is applicable. The foundation of cybernetics, the mathematical tools of feedback and control theory, do not apply to either personal relationships or cultural phenomenon, at least not effectively and consistently.

Personal relationships are too complex, too casual, and too inconsistent to use these mathematical tools. We perform these relationships according to complex cultural and personal practices. PID control simply doesn’t work. Cybernetics doesn’t apply to small social groups for the same reason.

Culture is different. Culture DOES extend beyond the scale of individuals, but it is too chaotic and distributed for even the best kalman filters to handle.

Cybernetics applies to contexts that operate at large scales but with which we connect to personally. Presidential elections, media coverage, legislation, financial and monetary policy, etc. Facebook is a perfect example.

This particular type of structure lends itself to the mathematical tools of feedback and control very well.

If we apply these concepts correctly, we won’t see society as a collection of individual utility maximizers.

We can also answer specific questions:

“Why do I feel lonely? Why do I need friends?”

Over time, I’ve come to see these questions as more important than questions like “How do I make money? Why am I poor?”

I’d rather feel connected and part of something real, than to live with a virtual assurance that I’ll be able to buy groceries and pay rent.

While the latter is important, it’s not the most essential part of who we are.

Sometimes I feel like a robot, walking around. . . trying to imitate a human, based on my analytical approach to self, but I think we’re all just biological robots who feel, ignorant to what that really means. Love it and live it.

I don’t even see myself as an individual anymore… I see being an individual person as one of the many systemic processes in a complex structure of identities I participate in, creating selves. Personal self is more “self” contained than other processes, but it’s not the only identity I participate in.