Introduction
In this article I invite you to a philosophical adventure, which happened to start for me one night. For more immersion I kept the form close to „stream of thoughts” or a „mad man notebook”, hence some points would be reoccuring through the article, sometimes taken from a slightly different side.
We start from the stability idea and stability selection (which is similar in results to evolution theory, but more general). We will build some new terms, like „human living structure”, even if synonyms are already there. That’s to underline the stability context.
I was surprised to see how many interestring observations and scenarios can be developed from such superficial and general theory. The constructs like Machine-less Matrix, Mack The Stable Killer or Angel Of Destruction are really worth attention. Whole article is not of scientific character, with minimal use of resources and references, therefore I genuinely don’t know how it relates to the current state of Philosophy.
The second part of the article is adding an imperative to the stability selection theory, so that a philosophy for everyday’s life can be developed. I’ve built the imperative on two, in my opinion natural pillars, which give rise to „Conservative Scientism” or, to avoid some confusion, other name -„Stabilism”.
Now, its time.
Stability
Structures are observed on a longer time scale because of being stable. Unstable structures are transforming into stable ones in the long term.
A man is one of the stable structures. A rock is a stable structure. A dead man is unstable, decomposes and becomes a feed for other structures.
Evolution comes from stability. Unstable living structures decease, stable ones remain. Evolution could be both an outcome of stability/instability and a mechanism of stable living structures to remain.
Living structure is more than an individual. A man dies and becomes unstable. Children live; the structure is the man, his ancestors and children at the same time. But living structure can be viewed beyond a single specie. A cat eats a fish. Cats and fishes are a living structure. By generalization we can arrive at something like biological ecosystem. Let’s call it a macrostructure.
Starting from unstable world, over time the number of stable structures should grow, which makes the living macrostructure more complex. The stability of one structure depends on the other being stable; its more efficient to rely not only on stable „dead” structures, but also living ones if they remain in the long term.
The key in this picture is to recognize that no driving force is present. The system doesn’t have any direction, but for stable structures pushing out unstable ones when viewed from long timescale. Structures around us excel at self-preservation as the ones weak in this aspect got extinct. So Human are encoded for self-preservation due to long selection process. Many Human features are likely developed to excel at self-preservation, but not necessarily all of them. Consciousness, which lets us say „cogito ergo sum” or in the context of this article „i am, so i’m stable” is probably one of many self-preservation tools. Those who developed it remained.
Yet there is no purpose of being stable. We happen to master the stability game, because unstable structures got erased, not because we are going into any meaningful direction. Here comes the God, who also may be a self-preservation tool developed in the late human evolution… curbing a conscious man who can destroy self and others, so that he remains stable…
There is nothing to win, neither there is anything to lose – if the humankind dies that’s just one of living structures. Pain and regret is just an illusion, one of self-preservation tools.
That’s a deep bottle of nihilism or the moment of the reader’s evil arc. But that’s just a picture, an imaginary system, a vision, a mood. Even if the world makes no sense, we need to prove it as much as possible first. In the nihilistic world we have infitite time to do it… if we are stable enough.
Deeper Into Stability
Stability can be viewed from different scales. As a human, we’re naturally interested in years, decades, centuries, millenia… a million of years is already way beyond our intuition. Yet we probably come from there – the age of Earth is estimated as ~4.54 billion years, the age of life on Earth estimated to be no less than 3.7 billion.
Similarily, very short periods of time are not that relevant for us – a minute of stability doesn’t matter much unless interferes with the longer timescale entities. If we treat time as a continuum we can imagine a “nanoman” who perceives each nanosecond as human does for a year and the age of his Earth is one second. That’s the same proportion. One milisecond for a nanoman is already beyond comprehension.
Stability is also viewed locally. The evolution of living structures on Earth may not matter on the large timescale if the Sun collapses.
Maxing Stability Doesn't Explain Everything;
Care For The Weakest
The macrostruture of the present time is a point on the stability growth path. We know we are here because the evolution process gave us consciousness. Yet not everything what we do must be about stability. We are encoded for some self-preservation mechanisms due to the past of the path and we inherit those towards the future. But they are not everything, there are also various features which emerged to achieve self-preservation capability, but don’t contribute to it by itself. There are mechanism which became useless or even counterproductive. Finally, there are features which just spontanously arise and have nothing to do with stability.
We can imagine how a human world concentrated on maximal stability would look like. Cautious, pragmatic, concentrated on the wellness and safety of the new generations, devoted to science and understanding of the macrostructure. Also soulless, leaving unproductive ones like disabled and elders to die rather than waste any useful resources (like time) on them. Very likely some kind of eugenics and population control would be there, but done only when the positive impact on stability of human and macrostructure is without a doubt.
The phenomenon of the care for the weaker ones who can’t give much to individuals or macrostructure is in my opinion one of the most interesting things which goes beyond or even against the stability struggle in the humankind. The converse looks very natural and likely to be developed in the evolution of behaviour and ideas. Yet not only we don’t observe it as a natural behaviour, but in the race of civilizations the ones who to some extent care for the weakest remained.
Is that something noble about humankind, an accident, or a hidden kind of evolution play again which goes against our coldblooded expectations? Maybe the safety check of not killing others without a reason was so heavily necessary for us to be stable, that its encoded in the human nature. So that for example the offenders develop a trauma which makes them destroy self in the longer timescale. Also care for the weakest is necessary to raise children and maybe the consciousness is not enough to change the deep nature (another evil arc opportunity for reader).
The arrival of consciousness is such a paradox. It is insane to think how from a soup of inorganic matter (abiogenesis hypothesis) and a simple fact of instable structures deceasing in the long term we arrive at such complex ability. How was it possible and was it really necessary to survive? Yet it had to happen for us to know about it 😉 Just miss this crucial step and there would be no one to care. As of now we don’t know if there are any other beings developed to this extent. Maybe we are alone in our ability to perceive and change the world, maybe if we extinct on Earth, the stability path would nevermore lead to this level of consciousness.
Human Changes Macrostructure, Macrostructure Changes Human. Evolution Of HLS Collectives
As human keep getting more prevalent as a stable structure on Earth, the macrostructure changes and the structures stable with respect to high human population have better chance to remain. Some living structures can adapt, the other would go through natural selection process. Also individual human adapt to high population by specialization and scale-dependent endeavours. Many modern men would have hard time to live by themselves.
The higher the population, the more collective stability matters for survival rather than the stability of individuals. We form a living structure together, where individuals play a role for collective benefit. In a sense collectives start to evolve faster than individual human because they have more power and influence. Think of states and companies. As the contest is mainly in the space of consciousness, human collective structures are fighting with each other. We are living in the era of development of collective organization, of which again the most stable will prevail.
There is a big threat though – the most stable organization may win, but doesn’t have to be the best in terms of general stability or survival of human living structure as a whole. Our self-preservation mechanisms brought us up to the present, but there is no guarantee they would be sufficient for the future. Because flexible collective organization relies on consciousness, this part gets heavily developed and also we may assume high consciousness human to be more stable. When the consciousness evolves into a really free will, nothing can stop human living structure from self-destruction. Who knows, maybe we are there already?
The evolution in the space of consciousness or reasoning to some extent outpaces classical, biological evolution. Discoveries like fire or electricity transformed the macrostructure very fast. Human were also able to supply own minds with various tools. Alphabet supported memory, abacus counting, now artificial intelligence may replace or improve on great deal of mind capabilities. In the short term the structure would favor those who can get most from AI. The part of human living structure important for stability, but irreplacable with AI is likely to develop in the long term, while replacable features may decease to save energy.
Stability mechanisms seem easy to identify when going from present to the past, but so unclear when looking into the future. It is easier to predict which type of men would flourish in the current and maybe incoming generations than if their features would be long term stable.
The Vibe Of Stability Selection Theory
While viewed as „progressive”, the description of the world by stability selection on philosophical grounds leads to conservatism or nihilism rather progressivism. Let’s have a look at various interpretations and conclusions we can take out from the picture:
Conservatism | We really have to appreciate how we arrived to be stable and conscious and respect the values and instincts which led us there.
Nihilism | We emerged as a part of a spontaneous process. Pain, regret or joy of life are illusions which got developed in the evolution to make us survive. The process is ongoing and leads nowhere, there is no real values.
Ecologism | We have to preserve the macrostructure where we are stable at all costs.
Generativity | Contribution for future generation stability is very important. Stability of my (and other) children are more important than mine.
Intergenerational Embedment | We should view self as a temporary manifestation of a living structure which includes past and future generations. Nothing more, nothing less. Stay humble, eh?
Humanism | Given how much we got through, shouldn’t we be proud of selves? Maybe even appreciate these little traits which don’t contribute to stability and may decease overtime? Ideas in the consciousness space may be as real as your fingers, books can shape the human living structure and consequently the macrostructure. Also if there is no God we have to pick our values by ourselves, study self and own capabilities.
Collectivism | The human living structure is more than a sum of independent individuals. It is an element of the macrostructure and it evolves faster than individuals. We should think and contribute to collective improvements even more than improvement of individuals, because its more efficient and impactful.
Atheism / God-creator | The more grounded abiogenesis-like theory becomes, the more justified atheism is. Yet atheists have a tedious job of answering questions of „If God doesn’t exists then explain X”. A confirmed and full understood abiogenesis doesn’t exclude God’s existence – in fact if the mechanisms prove to not require God’s intervention, but would be beautiful and finesse, the theories of God-creator may triumph instead. In those the world is a complex structure built by God in which no divine intervention is needed.
Equity / Dignity | Its very weird, but reducing human to a structure which emerged in a soulless, spontaneous stability game probably brings more dignity than average person feels. In a purposeless game everyone is equal. Everyone’s stability path up to the present time is similarily impressive. The mistakes which we make in life are not that important unless interfere with the stability of whole human living structure. Neither achievements are. This view is an ointment for a human who inherited egoism, ambition and need of social recognition as self-preservation mechanisms.
At superficial level stability philosophy may invite something like eugenics – „stable”, strong human rather than weak and disabled. But the deeper you go, the more arguments against rather than for appear – the appreciation of human stability path, the risk of self-destruction if the consciousness goes too far ahead of instincts, the stability of the macrostructure, internal stability of the human living structure where a jester may be as important as a king. Why to risk a position which is already great? And if the eugenics is meant to prevent the future pain and disappointment for the weaker ones, then stability philosophy comes up with the soulless, nihilistic answer: pain is illusion.
The Matrix Without Machines or
Illusion Of Selfness
The pleasure is an illusion, one of self-preservation mechanisms. It ranges from food consumption, through sex, up to the joy of proving a mathematical theorem. We are aware that’s a subjective singal from our body. Yet what a formidable illusion it is! Not only makes us feel good, but gives our lives a glimpse of purpose, at least in the short term, every day of our lives.
For this reason some of us would like to live forever. The living structure being eternal and all human feeling nothing but pleasure is not enough – the target is an everlasting pleasure for an individual. Paradise on Earth, no heaven, only sky, forever high. Yet if we someday arrive at that state, would the illusion remain?
Probably yes. Even if deceased by nature, the medicine level of a society of eternal people would be enough to provide us with eternal illusion of pleasure. Any amount, to be swallowed or stimuled. Immortal, voluntary „drug addicts”. Science fiction grounds, but philosophically interesting – something which today’s human mind can’t really wrap around yet.
Positive And Negative Stability Control
The Angel Of Destruction
As a bead in the chain of past and future generations which form our living structure, we have little positive control on the future. Would our children act like we would? Would the values and beliefs which we support triumph? The best we can achieve is continuing own living structure, add another bead to the chain, maybe contribute to the consciousness space of the society.
The amount of negative control is way higher. We can be the last bead in the chain if we choose to. Think of suicide. We can destroy whole living structures in the macrostructure and there would be no way back. Think of genocides or animal species extinct due to human actions.
Knowing the difference in power between negative and positive control, one can derive different conclusions.
Negative control is possible in short time, positive control requires long time and maybe collective effort. One should always aim for positive control to keep all options open.
Negative control is more effective, positive is almost obsolete.
Ballad Of Mack The Stable Killer
Mack takes his knife and kills one person in the town everynight. Right when launches the deadly blow, Mack says: „I’m more stable than you”. After thousands of nights there was noone left in town but Mack and Betty, the most beautiful woman. They married and had children. Their children though couldn’t reproduce as there was noone left besides family. Seeing this Mack took his knife and stabbed self into heart. One second before the deadly blow, the knife shined at Mack and he heard the voice: „I’m more stable than you”.
What can we learn from this spooky story? Mack uses negative control. Is he right saying: „I’m more stable than you.”? Sadly, hard to argue, he is right. A successful murder means that you’re and have been more stable than the victim. So you can be the most stable person in town just by negative control, like Mack was. Something which barely ever can be achieved with positive control. But at the end of the day, the question is how much the most stable means. Mack himself is unstable, just as every individual. Only his living structure, where Mack is the last bead, means. At the end of the day, Mack unwillingly destroyed both his living structure and human living structure as a whole. The positive control which Mack had to make up for own mistake was too little. In the end, Mack’s living structure became less stable than his knife.
What made this story possible? The town being completely passive. Mack should have been stopped after the first murder. Mack’s offense was destabilizing human living structure to stabilize own structure. The plan failed in the end, but that’s just a matter of story; Mack could have killed 60% of the town instead and terrorize the rest in order to marry Betty, watch his children flourish over the others in the new generation.
To be stable, human living structure needs to have the ability to purge itself, negative control must be an option. That’s how, on top of natural instincts, laws were established. „Eye for an eye” rule, which today tends to be viewed as primitive, in the context of Mack story feels moderate and helpful for stability, a true achievement of humanity. In the context of conservative interpretation of stability philosophy, one can note that killing a man is equal to cutting down a branch of human living structure – „you” could have been a bead on this branch in the future.
Dual Identity. Probablilty And Determinism
Sometimes we say: I could have been born in… In stability selection theory we assume soul doesn’t exist. You’re exactly a children of your parents and couldn’t have been anything else. Your „soul” is nothing else, but consciousness developed over generations of human living structure, tied to your body. Your „soul” may be quite different to others, who knows. You may have different type and level of consciousness.
Yet at the same time you’re a part of human living structure. Your parents and ancestors brought you genes, but whole structure also had tremendous impact. In stability selection theory, your conscious and sub-conscious loyalty is rather more to human living structure than your own structure. That’s population survival mechanism which goes beyond primordial instinct of isolated organisms.
That’s amazing duality, hard to wrap your mind around. You’re last bead in the chain of your ancestors (this chain looks more like roots of a tree, but let’s stick to this metaphor). And at the same time a product of a probabilty game, where whole human living structure matters. If there is just one conscious human on the Earth – its you. Yet if there are billions – you’re one of them and the chances for your existence were higher 😉
Modern Day Human Structure Stability
What can make modern day human structure unstable? There are many concerns:
Human are more abundant element of the macrostructure than ever. It means that other elements of the macrostructure would get stability selected in an environment where human is a vital part. Think of bacteria, viruses, parasites…
Consciousness is in a rapid development stage. Human with a really free will topping the instincts can become unstable.
Stability of macrostructure (resources) with rising human population.
Mass destruction weapons.
Collective forms evolution going wrong.
Evolutional slowdown. With high survivability, the stability selection is slower. Other living structures may evolve faster and push out human.
There is also a question of what exactly do we want to preserve in the modern human structure to say its stable. Probably that’s not only „human form”, but also consciousness at least. Then we may have some other problems:
Consciousness decease. Yes, both increase and decrease are a risk. Consciousness is assumed to be mainly self-preservation mechanism, can gradually step down when people would be selected by lower rather than higher consciousness. Going into science fiction grounds, it may happen for example via AI development. Relying on AI rather than own brain would be faster and more efficient – think of cyborgs and brain implants 😉 You have no chance against the minute-by-minute productive guy she tells you not to worry about.
Biased consciousness. Stability selection theory overlooked something important. There is one value worth living for, ultimate pleasure and the sense of life. Its Coca-Cola.
The Lack Of Imperative
The stability selection theory lead us to many interesting observations and conclusions; probably way more can be discovered. Yet practical use of it is none until we start to give artificial value to structures.
Philosophies attractive to human most often answer the question: how to live? There have to be a higher instance which distinguishes between right and wrong actions, an imperative.
We can try to build own imperative according to own taste based on the stability theory, or we can build-in this philosophy into a one where imperative already exists – of course proven there is no main contradictions. For minor contradictions we assume the theory with imperative is supreme. To some extent stability theory is then a servant of the philosophy with imperative, enforcing its recommendations.
For example I believe we can make it for many Christian virtues: humility – a bead in the chain of living structure, small piece of human living structure, „selfness” is illusion, people are equal as a miracle of nature.
Conservative Scientism Or Stabilism
My personal favorite imperative comes quite naturally from stability selection theory: we need to appreciate how miraculous the development of consciousness is and therefore respect our nature and the path of stability which led us up to this point (just look again at timeline of human evolution wiki). We don’t know if there are real values (God) which give the life a meaningful purpose, but it would be a waste to not try to find those. This has to be done on the grounds of science rather than affection though. We need to step-by-step understand more every day.
So we created ex nihilo two main values: the stability of human living structure and the development of widely understood science. Consequently we also identified two main enemies: destabilization and ignorance.
Can’t go wrong with a life in accordance with the common values and instincts which led us up to this place and which contributes to the stability of the structure (conservatism), but on top of that one should try to think independently and try to contribute to general understanding of the world in the whole human living structure. The knowledge while non-material is also subjected to stability selection and needs both a host (human structure) and durability (scientific method). Also note that old values brought us here, but are not guaranteed to carry us forward in the long term (just quite likely). A critical analysis is important to maybe drop some old habits at some point.
The more stable human living structure is, the more time can be used beyond self-preservation necessities i.e. for science which by itself not necessarily contributes to stability. Yet of all kinds of science, this which can help to stabilize human living structure the most is of the highest priority. Of course, there are surprises, but generally medicine is more vital than the theory of music for the survival of the humankind.
„Conservatism” doesn’t mean coercing self or other people to the old ways. It is more of a recognized safe space. „If you don’t know what to do, do what ancestors did”. For the most part we still don’t know, therefore tradition fills the void. Human living structure is varied, not every individual plays the same role. Exempli gratia: nothing wrong about being homosexual 😉 The only forbidden actions in the Conservative Scientism are those which go against consciousness and against stability in a major way and with high enough certainity.
Neither „Scientism” part forbids religion. At least not until science proves that God doesn’t exist 😉 By the way, I believe that what the human living structure really wants to find is „real values” or „eternal happiness for individual”. Imagine if one day God revelates self beyond any question, and the dialogue would look like:
– „Hi Human, I’m God”
+ „Hi God! I can’t believe you revelated yourself to me!”
– „Just wanted to show you that I exist. Yep, I made it all. Got to go now.”
+ „We humans are grateful beyond words. What shall we do to please you?”
– „What to do? Something like a moral codex? Nah, I’m already happy, I don’t care. Bless to you and all humanity.”
After such an encounter humanity probably starts to build Non-Machine Matrix 😉
How to live then?
Use time to build stable structures and support the stability of human living structure.
Try to be locally stable as an individual in the human limits. Physical and mental health.
If temporary times are safe, work for the future.
If you don’t know how to act, obey common ethics.
Respect self-preservation instincts and human values, but do not always succumb to them, especially to selfness/egoism or pointless pleasure.
Try to contribute to the human knowledge bank, especially in the fields which can improve stability.
Try to preserve the macrostructure.
Collectiveness > acting individually. The human living structure right now evolves in cooperation space more than individuals do.
Humility, dignity, equity.
Observe the world around. Stay cool and intelectually honest in your observations. Maybe revelation happens?
Have capabilities for negative stability control, but concentrate on positive.
Fight against destabilization and ignorance. Constantly ask questions and try to find answers, try for others to do the same.
The imperative, while starting from a bit different assumptions („good” reason in the universe vs „neutral” sponanteous stability selection), make a Conservative Scientist very similar to a Stoic when it comes to daily routine and attitude. Living in accordance with nature and common values, while keeping cold, analytical, problem-solving mindset.
The life of a Conservative Scientist is not much of a joy, even compared with a Stoic. Its very against the selfness of a human individual. Many religions promise an eternal paradise after a good life (which in my opinion plays into human selfness instinct hard and makes these successful in the global consciousness space), Conservative Scientist has a „paradise now” in which all happiness is nothing but illusion and one is nothing but a bead in the living structure. CS has a tiny hope to improve on this by finding real values thanks to science. But that’s a carrot on a stick – gives a purpose to life and a feeling of being unaccomplished at the same time. A real red-pill philosophy; what bears this name today is a kindergarten.
The name Conservative Scientist stems from two pillar imperatives, but is quite unfortunate and would be misunderstood as a researcher going to church every sunday. Instead something like Stabilism/Stabilist may sound cool 😉
Conservative Scientism Stability Paradox
So we’ve built a philosophy on stability… but is that philosophy stable enough to remain in the human consciousness space? If not, then we just wasted a lot of effort, acted in contradiction to own philosophy…
As stated in the previous section, Conservative Scientism is hardly sexy, very against human instincts, rather weak imperative and low negative stability control use. Comparing this with a main religion, where eternal paradise is promised, each human action is morally assessed, siners are damned (the set overlaps in a decent chunk with guys we dislike – finally justice!) and diverging from the doctrine results in an excommunication, ostracism or even physical coersion, its kinda clear which fighter is worth to bet the money on. Similarly all secular cults, which are more embedded in instincts and make more use of negative control, like supremacism or darwinistic capitalism, are predicted to be more stable than CS.
The only hope for standalone CS to have impact is being convincing enough in a rational discourse. That being said, as I remarked earlier, parts of CS can be built in more expansive ideologies and in my opinion have a good impact. My christian cultural background especially makes me love how strong humility, dignity and equity values are in CS and I think it would be nice if more worshippers supplied self with this viewpoint.
Closure
Hope you enjoyed these adventures of an unleashed mind. While all the discourse here comes from my own late reflections, personally I’m definitely not a model Conservative Scientist. My contribution to human structure stability is probably rather low, my input to human knowledge bank is mainly Gwentology. Anyway, that’s a feed for thought. Maybe my CS rating improved after this article.
After work on this article I appreciate philosophy more and intuition tells me ancient Greeks must have developed something very similar to me ~2.300 years ago (maybe in my ignorance I don’t know the name, but more probably it just wasn’t stable enough or the terms used changed its meaning meanwhile). Philosophy is good for brain and good for life, no wonder the Greek heritage lives to this day and impacts human living structure. Also philosophy doesn’t have to be impractical – think for example of the best daily routine for a Conservative Scientist 😉
Stay stable and sharp,
lerio2