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As has been shown, the evolution of animated nature is not dependent upon competition. Not even Darwin had maintained that. "Survival of the fittest" means the survival of those organisms adapted best to their immediate environment. Certainly, the relentless fight against one another is not the epitome of evolution. However, Social Darwinism and National Socialism have shown in drastic ways to what extremes a wrong understanding of a theory can lead to; it surely wasn't a bad translation of the relevant materials that accounted for these extremes.
And yet it exists, the battle of systems. It is raging between systems of the same kind, between systems of different natures, and even between systems at completely different levels of organization, such as between society and individual, for instance. As will have to be shown, there is no basic difference to conflicts between system parts, between hierarchical levels.
This battle is a part of the system dealing with its environment. This is of course part of its normal evolution, and no one is justified to view it as something abnormal or pathological, even if it manifests in the form of war. If one does not want to accept certain consequences and concomitants in a society the only remaining option is to recognize and identify the nature of the phenomenon and thus to alleviate its effects. This is the only way to have a chance to change the awkward situation. We therefore have to learn to view this fight as a normal necessary part of the evolution of more highly organized cybernetic systems.
A system actively dealing with its environment is not merely confined to action.
Construction is a projection of the own criterion onto another system. If active criteria clash, it leads to battle. The energy a system is capable of activating determines, in relationship to the quality of its theory of the environment, its strength.
In turn, release of energy, potential reduction, follows general rules. The overall system is still being optimized. In this sense, the battle as a conflict between systems is an evolutionary process. However, new aspects come into play. These new aspects bring about further evolutionary advances. The result will be an abstraction of events around the battle. The increasing extension of orientation processes and the opportunity to calculate events around the battle lead to an increasing abstraction of conflicts and contests. At new system levels, the results of these conflicts and contests are codified as rules, regulations, laws, etc.
To gain a full understanding of what is taking place here we should take a closer look.
Why do systems fight against each other? In order to approach the matter methodically correct, from the viewpoint of this treatise, we shall try to understand it as a way of dealing with the environment.
The environment enforces its requirements upon the system. The criterion becomes the guiding principle. Freedom and self-determination gain in significance as evolutionary targets. For the system, releasing itself from the conditions which created it turns into a major problem. More and more, action moves to the fore and starts to reverse the flow of information. The system sets the criterion for its environment. Two or more active sources of information facing each other head-on constitute the reason for conflicts and contests.
The conflict itself can already be found in the existential conditions of systems. It is a component part of the evolutionary criterion. In the course of evolution, this conflict is carried out with consistently improved ways and means.
At first, the conflicts are carried out via selection. In the further course of evolution, self-organization and action will lead to new qualities.
The necessity of conflict and contest leads up to an optimization of the overall system in a new evolutionary process. The direction of the flow of information is increasingly harder to detect. The system´s own theory provides a major portion of the information required.
A hard fight takes place already at the onset of evolution. The most striking ones are those of competitors and predators. It is simply fantastic to watch the ways and means contrived to that end. For example, the evolution in the dentition of herbivores runs parallel to the storage of wooden material in plants. Plants produce poisons so as to protect themselves from vermins. Other vermins, immune to these poisons, feed on the plants so as to protect themselves from their predators with the poison of the plants. In order to be able to better memorize these unappetizing fellows they are often equipped with special warning colors which are at once being imitated by other animals in order to partake in the protective effect. And this brings us to a very important method of dealing with a dangerous environment - disinformation. A system tries to deliberately evoke reactions in a hostile or antagonistic system which will be beneficial and useful for itself but mostly damaging to the antagonist. If a non-poisonous, flashy-colored butterfly signals a bird "I am poisonous" with its warning colors, then this could probably pass for a defensive maneuver, from a judicial viewpoint. However, if a small fish takes on the identity of a harmless and welcome grooming fish so as to take a fat bite out of a large fish, then the fun stops right there for the big one.
The conflict can already be found in the existential conditions. It is not until the emergence of systems in competition that the conflict becomes what it is.
At first, the conflict is carried out via selection because the system is missing ways and means of action. It is not until the further course of evolution that the battle can be fought with consistently improved methods.
Self-organization and action help the system to arrive at totally new possibilities.
The necessity of systems dealing with one another, as part of the evolutionary criterion, prevails at the onset via selection and leads to an optimization of the overall system by means of a special evolutionary process, the fight.
Animated nature is full of tricks, feints, and walloping lies. Targeted disinformation, that is lies, is therefore the usual mode of conduct between systems hostile to each other. The steadily increasing significance of information led to the point that errors in carrying out conflicts between systems also gained in significance more and more. The systems began to evolve types of behavior targeted at denying the opponent/enemy important information or altering it or even providing him with completely new - but false - information, all for the purpose of provoking desired types of behavior detrimental to the opponent/enemy.
If a system is exposed to physical conditions it cannot cope with it will be destroyed by physical fields. Various types of poison also represent material structures of this nature affecting biological systems. The field character of information becomes obvious in this case. Disinformation conveys destructive structure. It can also use a host system and undermine complete production lines, as proven by viruses.
Biology is familiar with countless examples of how disinformation is used and the way these traps work with utter effectiveness. The existence of many animal and plant species totally depends upon these mechanisms. He who deceives lives longer! No matter whether it is for the purpose of discouraging opponents/enemies, alluring potential victims, or deceiving enemies in times of war or peace - information means power!
In this way, we can follow a red thread in evolution from the first false information with which one protozoa fooled another one, all the way to political lies in present time.
Armed forces have a particular soft spot for systems fighting against one another. Here the objective is to bring constructions to a point of autonomy as far as possible. Weapon systems have to be made capable of quickly recognizing the weapon system directed against them, to disable it as far as possible, and to paralyze it with disinformation. Defense systems, phony targets, interfering transmitters, and camouflage fall under this category.
Military interference systems are a good study object for these examinations.
The following criteria for an evolution of these systems could be listed:
Information about enemy systems is usually gained by espionage, modeling the course and progression of battles, etc. It can also be "injected" into the other system by deliberately leaking false information, resulting in that system generating the desired order within itself. It adapts to this simulated or falsified criterion.
Modeling of courses and progressions of battles is something that is mostly done with computers today. In this case, the fight is carried out between programs instead of enemies. Programs simulate certain situations in battle and how it could progress under certain circumstances - a prime example of abstraction.
Hence, the stunning parallels between biological and military systems can be traced back primarily to the universal validity of evolutionary laws of cybernetic systems, and to similarities in the evolutionary criterion.
Even the battle between completely different systems is part of the normal scene. Usually it is sufficient for two systems going into action to get into a conflict with each other, something which cannot be avoided from a certain evolutionary level on up. The only way to clarify and sort out competencies is by engaging in battle, particularly when the systems perceive a threat to their existence.
In the problematic confrontation between society and the individual, systems of a completely different nature are facing each other as well. It is observable how the original purpose of socialization of individuals can get completely lost due to a self-actualization of society.
The society is supposed to offer its individuals favorable existential conditions, but at the same time it is capable of enslaving them and forcing them to commit criminal acts. How can the individual protect himself from societal arbitrariness without starting a fight potentially threatening its existence? Undoubtedly, the search for a stable, liberal, and viable social order is mankind's most burning problem at this time. Modern behavioral research presents options for dealing with confrontations in a non-violent way, because nature has been facing our current problems for a long time already. Consequently, a society should be possible in which the rights of individuals don't have to be maintained with constant physical fight.
As a basic principle, the confrontation between more highly developed systems cannot be avoided. However, it is possible to carry out conflicts at a different level. This includes evolution as well. In systems that are indirectly dependent upon one another, in situations in which the complete annihilation of the opponent/enemy is not a sensible objective, we can observe a shift leading to a ritualization of fights.
Within society, laws regulate balances of power which were previously determined by battle. The physical fight is replaced by other processes. Laws codify the results of power struggles. In the animal kingdom, memory storage of these results can be found in pecking orders, marking of territory, etc. Hence, we are dealing with general problems such as the codification of power structures and the stability of the overall system. The competing systems are superimposed by a new hierarchy level processing information. The system grows "upwards", if we choose to call the place where the general information is located that way. A new system came into existence because the elements can now react to environmental stimuli uniformly and in a coordinated way. In nature we can often observe a mere temporary build-up of a new system. If the advantages of the new union are considerable, if it is adaptable, a stable system emerges, not just storing information or merely spanning from one fight to the next. The new system functions will reflect a part of the criterion. This process follows the build-up of a system via constant adoption of parts of the criterion as system functions. The conflict between systems gives birth to a new system, a new hierarchy level, whenever there is a necessity to smooth out balances of power without fighting. In this sense, the individual is only a part of the system called "society".
The new system is an image of the criterion which created it. The results of the confrontation are stored as memory at the new level. If all further evolution could take place within the new medium no further physical fight would be necessary in order to determine potential system changes. As the new level, it becomes the carrier of all further evolution. In addition, it becomes the new action target of sub-systems. The new system, society, is the environment for individuals and thus the arena for conflicts and contests.
A new quality of evolution is being created. Abstraction is advancing. The fight is carried out in a model instead of in reality.
2006-12-25