Transcendent cognition, the rise and fall of civilizations [#Progress_Studies]

The recent call for progress studies:

Why did the Industrial Revolution start when it did? Why did Silicon Valley happen in California rather than Japan or Boston? Human progress is understudied, and @patrickc and @tylercowen want to change that. https://t.co/do55DQ5yHi

— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) July 30, 2019

and the generally ill-considered Twitter reaction against it, e.g.:

I joke about this shit, but it *is* shit, and it's infuriating. There is a historiography of science and technology. There are studies of projecting, of planning the future, of ideas and practices meant to improve or transform things, going back centuries and published each year. https://t.co/HZx4RfZu3c

— Ted McCormick (@mccormick_ted) July 31, 2019

naturally got me thinking about the theory of cultural ranks that David Hays and I developed in the last quarter of the previous century. Not, mind you, that we developed the theory under the rubric of progress, but that we certainly believed that an understanding of the cognitive underpinnings of how culture had evolved up to the present would be useful, perhaps even essential to moving ahead.

And, yes, we were (and I remain) aware of the ideological mischief that has been done in the name of progress. To that, I believe David Chapman had a perceptive reply:

Realizing, in the mid-20th century, that the Myth of Progress was an eternalistic quasi-religion, and asking pointed questions about “cui bono” and “why should we believe this,” was hugely valuable and necessary.

It’s now a lazy trope, suitable for mindless mechanical MPUs.

— David Chapman (@Meaningness) August 1, 2019

And that brings me to another excerpt from Hays’s The Evolution of Technology Through Four Cognitive Ranks (1993). These excerpts are the last two sections from the final chapter, “They Did the Best They Knew How”.

In section 8.3, “Transcendent Cognition”, Hays summarizes his reasons for believing that each rank has gone beyond the previous ones. This section consists of 15 short statements which necessarily depend on arguments developed earlier in the book. As such it indicates the range of material the book covers. In the section 8.4, “The Rise and Fall of Civilizations” Hays observes:

For the fall of empires, there have been many explanations, all too specific for me. Do I care whether it was disease, depletion of the soil, restlessness of the proletarians, intrusion of barbarians, corruption of the elite? Not much. The level of abstraction appropriate to this question seems to me to be this: Every empire has grown too large for its cultural rank. Specifically, every empire has grown until it created for itself problems too complex for it to solve with the means of thought available to it. The substance of the problems may be unique to each empire, but the increasing complexity of problems with size of political unit is universal.

Don’t let the word “empire” mislead you. It by no means excludes the current American imperium, though Hays would not have used that term. He was, we both were, and I remain, concerned about the future.

As has been my habit for these excerpts, I retain the mono-spaced ASII formatting of the original.

* * * * *

8.3. TRANSCENDENT COGNITION

I believe that each of the four ranks has its own system of thought, its own cognitive processes, I believe and that the cognition of each rank transcends the one before. What reasons do I have for my beliefs?

1. Wiora's rhythm, melody, harmony, texture. One could not say that some cultures "need" melody but others do not, could one? Changes in music must be attributed to changes in capacity to think about musical material.

2. Speech, writing, calculation, and computation. Writing transcends speech by setting the visual-manual channel in correspondence with the vocal-auditory channel all over again. Calculation transcends writing by the algorithmic correspondence of writing with enumeration. And computation transcends calculation because it is built on the algorithm of algorithms.

3. The spiritual religion and natural philosophy of rank 2 transcend the tabu, mana, animism, and practical lore of rank 1. The humanism and science of rank 3 transcend these in turn.

4. Lore, practice, engineering, and systemics. Each offers its critique on the methodology of its predecessor. Systemics picks and chooses among criteria; engineering takes its criteria for granted. Engineering picks and chooses among techniques for accomplishing a purpose--materials and designs--while practice is limited to the ones acquired in apprenticeship. Practice makes perfect what lore does unthinkingly.

5. Family, monarchy, democracy, ... Charisma transcends kinship in that it extends trust beyond personal acquaintance. Consent of the governed transcends charisma in that it bases trust on self-confidence.

6. Fire, ambient, fossil, free. To capture ambient energy requires, first, the conception of prime movers and, second, a range of structures and machines from saddles to windmills. To extract fossil energy requires both a conception of inorganic energy sources and a technology to penetrate the earth; not to mention new machines. The freedom of rank 4 requires the conception of the earth as a system and, for that conception to have consequences, both a host of technological possibilities and the systemics to derive choices from values and facts.

7. Will, essence, causality, cybernetics. Essence is the concept that emerges from self-analysis. Causality emerges on distinguishing subjective from objective connections.

8. Skill, land, factory, information. Deliberate action to improve the land requires thinking about agronomy; slash-and-burn does not. Deliberate construction of productive facilities requires anticipation of future gains; peasants* live in an eternal present. Education and research require faith in the human capacity to translate knowledge into welfare.

9. Evolution of language: Simple ways of expressing complex ideas.

10. Evolution of writing: Rank 2 writing sprawls; rank 3 gets organized. Rank 4 interweaves graphics.

11. Counting, arithmetic by insight, algorithms, summation and other parametric operations.

12. Anxiety. Rank 1 controls anxiety by repetition and magic. Rank 2 depends on religion and philosophy. Rank 3 has strength of character. Rank 4 uses psychoanalysis to find and modify the sources of anxiety.

13. Society. Kinship, institution, role, ...

14. Change. Chaos, inspiration, invention, investigation.

15. Evolution and development. Rank 1 evolves toward rank 2 without guidance or even awareness. Rank 2 develops toward rank 3 with intent at some level. Rank 3 attempts to guide the advancement.

8.4. THE RISE AND FALL OF CIVILIZATIONS

My friend Naroll, whom I have quoted several times, planned to write a book on the evolution of culture under the title Painful Progress. Humanity has spent blood, sweat, and tears on progress, mostly in vain as it sometimes seems. One after another the civilizations of the past have risen and fallen to rise no more. In Egypt, at least until quite recently, life in farming villages was the same as it had been thousands of years ago. Of ancient Mesopotamia, only archeologists can find any trace. The Roman Empire that stretched from Spain to Palestine and beyond is gone, and so are the several Chinese empires of the past. So are the empires of America, and the kingdoms of Africa. Spengler* wrote on _The Decline of the West_ in the late 20s, and we may feel that World War II and the subsequent rise of Japan only bear out his gloomy views. Each of the Great Powers* that has arisen since the Renaissance has spent its substance on military establishments and bankrupted itself.

Until 1939, humanity was confined to enclaves. The barriers of oceans, deserts, high mountains, and thick forests were not impenetrable, but expansion of empire across them was restricted. The Romans crossed the Mediterranean, and the British encircled the globe. Nevertheless, when Japan became strong enough it easily took the remote British possessions. America sent troops to Europe for World War I, where the war was fought. World War II was almost a global war, and if World War III ever comes we have to suppose that it will be fought on all continents at once.

Within each enclave, the parable of the tribes has been enacted. Political expansion by force has occurred repeatedly and, I think, inevitably. The horrors of constant fighting--worse in early ranks than in later ones--have been accompanied by culture contact, by enlargement of central communities where specialists can flourish, by increase in the concentration of wealth that can be tapped for philosophical and scientific study of the universe and of ourselves.

Technological evolution enlarges the effective size of the enclave. The higher the technology, the longer the reach of military power, until it can span the whole earth as it now does. If the parable of the tribes is still applicable, then all the earth will be enwrapped by one empire.

For the fall of empires, there have been many explanations, all too specific for me. Do I care whether it was disease, depletion of the soil, restlessness of the proletarians, intrusion of barbarians, corruption of the elite? Not much. The level of abstraction appropriate to this question seems to me to be this: Every empire has grown too large for its cultural rank. Specifically, every empire has grown until it created for itself problems too complex for it to solve with the means of thought available to it. The substance of the problems may be unique to each empire, but the increasing complexity of problems with size of political unit is universal.

The parable of the tribes says that growth is unstoppable; the increase of complexity says that collapse is inevitable. Does this argument lead to the conclusion that we live in vain?

No, that is not my conclusion. To begin with, empires span millions of lifetimes; today, billions. Most of those lives may be satisfying, and more satisfying when the empire is approaching the point of collapse. Golden Ages seem to come shortly before the end.

More importantly, each empire leaves behind a residue of culture that provides part of the matrix from which the next rank of thought crystallizes. Has any paideia gone without a contribution? I think not. And we have to think of all these contributions as essential. Western Europe moved from rank 1 to rank 3 in a long rush, without a pause to enjoy rank 2 life in the middle. (From 1600 to 1800, roughly, there was a kind of pause, with a few at rank 3 and more at rank 2.) Without the rediscovery of old ideas, the residue of Greek and Indian cultures, I think the rush could not have happened. So even in the broadest perspective, the ancients did not live in vain.

Let me improve on that: The value of each life is in the living; the material, intellectual, or spiritual legacy of a life is not the primary measure of its value. The value of each culture is in the lives it provides its members; progress within a culture should be valued by enhancement of life chances for them. Nevertheless, we have a heritage from the past. The metaphor we need is seedcorn. Even that metaphor is inadequate. Our culture is not just another generation of Greek culture; we are a hybrid.

And as for the future, it all depends. We can see evidence that we are coming to the limit of our way of thinking. Problems that we may not be able to solve are all around us: Ethnic wars, drugs, education, employment, pollution, global warming, population size. Will we be swept away? Or will rank 4 or rank 5 crystalize and go on to ways of life that cope effectively with all those problems?

Remember, the contagious diseases that were catastrophic in the past are now trivial problems (AIDS is not quite trivial). We can live comfortably in ethnically homogeneous cities of a million, whereas our ancestors could scarcely manage a hundred thousand. Unfortunately, we are trying to manage ethnically _mixed_ cities of _ten_ million. Will our descendants do that easily?

The theory of cognitive rankshift says that we cannot predict. However, the theory gives no reason for despair. On the contrary, it gives the only reasoned basis for hope that has ever come to my attention. The theory does not set a limit on rank; it may suggest a minimum of 20 to 50 years between rank- shifts, but I am not sure of that. By working to increase know- ledge, to diffuse it, to organize it, we are doing what we can to improve the matrix in which the next rank can crystallize. We can hope to get the ability to solve our problems before they overwhelm us. The hope may fail, but it is not foolish.

I want to end with a look at the past. One strain of stylish intellectual culture condemns the past and everyone in it. Look at Thomas Jefferson, who exploited a poor black woman while teaching democracy (for white males who owned land). Disgusting! Not a true saint in the whole hagiography.

No, certainly not a single saint. The world is run, and always has been run, by persons rather like ourselves. They were imperfect, as we are. Nevertheless some of them deserve respect, as we may earn respect, because they did the best they knew how and it was good enough to serve. Not having our rank of thought, they were incapable of the nicety of moral judgment that we can and should apply to political decisions. Not having our rank of thought, they were incapable of extending the protection of "human like me" as widely as we can and should. Not having our rank of thought, they could not calculate the long-term consequences of their actions as well as we can and should. They worked with the terrible restriction of an incapacity to think that would make them ineligible for any responsible job in an industrial country today. Hampered and hobbled as they were, they initiated the trains of events that carried us to our present condition.

Some of our ancestors, some of us, are evil. Pathological evil is not the same as cultural error. Evil takes satisfaction from doing harm; error sees no harm in what it does. Curing the sick, teaching the ignorant, and occasionally confining those who accept neither one are such familiar points in our culture's repertoire that I need not urge them on you.

We can well be aware that we, too, are hampered and hobbled by inadequate systems of thought. We deserve to be proud of ourselves if we do what we can to improve our thinking within the limits of our culture, and if we think as clearly as circumstances permit about the problems that we face.