The Tragedy of Hierarchy and Authority
200,000 years or 10,000 human generations is what it took to get where we are today. It took 9,700 generations of humans to realize the value of the scientific method. Stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again without making progress. So what were 9,700 generations of humans doing when they were not doing science?
These generations spent all their time constructing models of reality that were influenced more by authority than by a systematic method of model construction that challenged authority. It took humans 9,700 generations to realize that their cognitive bias for authority prevented them from seeing the utility of the scientific method.
But what is completely odd is the characterization of the human brain as an idealized scientist. Many call this the Bayesian brain theory (see: Are Brains Bayesian?)
Unfortunately, Bayesian theory and its statistical underpinnings also fall into the same trap of truth via authority. Certainly, humans perform hypothesis generation and empirical testing, but to label this and the scientific method Bayesian borders on the absurd. Because Bayesianism adopts methods we’ve created to predict games of chance and made it gospel. The bait is the scientific method is essential, the switch is that Bayesian theory depicts the scientific method therefore Bayesian method must be valuable.
Unfortunately, Bayesian theory is the flat earth theory of the scientific method. As an analogy, AI believed that formulating programs that played chess would lead to AI. But like games of chance, games of chess are closed problems. Reality in contrast is open-ended.
The scientific method works because there are many minds that criticize the hypotheses that are made. A key cognitive bias of humans is that we are very poor at criticizing our own thoughts. We are however very good at criticizing other thoughts. The scientific method works because it is a collective method. It took 9,700 generations to accept it because you needed to convince a majority in society to shun the hierarchical structure of civilization and to embrace an alternative.
To convince all of humanity requires scalable technology. That was writing and scaled further with the invention of the printing press. The scientific method would not be so prevalent without a mechanism for the distribution of information.
The scientific method is the learning algorithm of modern civilization. It is an emergent property of the robust propagation of information across a collective. An emergence that has as its source a particular kind of symmetry.
Symmetry is characterized by a feature that remains constant in different reference frames. The artifacts of science, the experiments, can be repeated by many other participants to reveal the same result. It is surprising that few understand that the meaning of truth is tied to underlying symmetries in reality. There is no truth without symmetries.
The scientific method has been effectively been practiced using reductionist methods. It is easier to discover symmetries if we can isolate parts from the whole. This has approach has worked effectively for centuries. However, the reductionist approach has its limits. We have already picked the low-hanging fruit that is within the reach of reductionist methods. We need to begin using holistic methods of science if we wish to make new progress.
Scientific discovery is learning and it should not be a surprise that how brains learn can be only understood via holistic methods. As I’ve argued above the scientific method is a collective civilization scale learning method.
All learning, in general, has this characteristic that it can not be reduced to the brain or machine that is doing the learning. Learning always involves the ‘participation’ of the environment.
If the environment is not cooperative, as in the first 9,700 generations of humanity, then learning stagnates. One cannot formulate intelligence that is in vats. That is because intelligence requires learning and learning demands engagement with an environment that can change independently of the mind that interacts with it. Therefore, if we are to reverse engineer minds, we have to understand environments that lead to learning and not to stagnation.
Collective deliberative thinking is an innate capability in humans. However, hierarchical organizations were invented to effectively coordinate civilizations at scale.
The scientific method is a civilization-scale learning method that rests on decentralized criticisms of existing practices.
The question that humanity must wrestle with is whether we continue to pursue decentralized algorithms to achieve human-aligned civilizations or do we continue with the existing path using hierarchical algorithms that are rigid and inflexible.
It is this rigidity and inflexibility of present-day civilization structure that is leading to processes that are misaligned with the needs of humanity. Humans have created artificial intelligence in the form of civilization.
Structured like a paperclip maximizer that is unable to change its original working instructions. We are now in a race for a solution against a civilization that is on a breakneck path towards killing us all.
But it is a race where the homeostasis algorithm of current civilization discourages the pursuit of any solution that changes the status quo.
Goodhart’s law reminds us that the hierarchical structure that we invented to scale civilization for our benefit will be reimagined to protect the hierarchy and not the living beings in the hierarchy.
We are all passengers in the Titanic where the captain stubbornly insists on the invincibility of the ship. We are so habituated with the conveniences of our civilization that we do not bring into question its fallibility.
There are many among us that are mesmerized by the illusion of control that civilization affords us. Not realizing at all that it is this very civilization that is leading us like a Pied Piper to our eventual doom.
We have god-like technologies in our possession but we refuse to wield them so as to not disrupt the existing hierarchies. A majority of us do not want to rock the boat despite the boat heading over the waterfall.
Is the modern definition of a tragedy exactly this? That suffering is preventible, its solution is known yet we don’t do anything about it?
This is perhaps different from the old understanding of tragedy. Where suffering is a consequence of fate and there’s nothing one could to about it. The modern version is a reflection of current technology, there’s this notion that there is something that can be done.
But perhaps the idea that something can be done is also an illusion. It is an illusion that we can get back control of our civilization against a backdrop of exponential growth in technologies.
Civilizations are still driven by the humans that participate in them. But what if, the same humans cannot understand exponential growth and do not know how to react to its threats? Have we not seen this story already played out?
Therefore, we have a civilization driven by a hierarchy where those with the levers of control are unable to recognize the size of an iceberg. They are unable to recognize exponential growth and the suffering that something this can bring.
With nobody really in charge of our survival, we must then ask. What do the lifeboats look like?
