Foreword

On Human Systems

Humanity is collectively constituted by a single species--gene flow among human subpopulations has been relatively rapid and has occurred for many successive generations on regional and global scales. This species maintains one of the greatest biomasses on earth and is the greatest consumer of natural resources--thus its growth has put a strain and stress on almost every biome and biological region on earth, in numerous ways, whether direct or indirect, and the kind of adaptive equilibrium achieved by Homo sapiens is complex and complexly mediated by many artificial and artifactual inventions.

It is becoming increasingly imperative that we come to terms with the systems of our own creation, its biological consequences and its long-term state-path trajectory in the world. We can ill afford to maintain systems that prove in the long term self-destructive or bio-destructive without being able to at least substantially repair the damage to ecosystems caused by this pattern of development.

Human systems on one hand, constituted by a single kind of animal form, are relatively basic. On the other hand in terms of their complexity and size, and in terms of the complexity of the human mind and of human cultural and knowledge systems, they are extremely vast and varied on earth.

The object of human systems theory is the development of a comprehensive and unified framework concerning the development of human system, and the mechanical explanation for their patterning. This is based upon the proposition that human systems constitute something, if not unique in the universe, then certainly quite unusual and extremely rare, and the enlarged capacity of the human brain, combined with an unique anthropomorphic trait complex, has resulted in the formation of alternative real systems that are the artificial product of human invention and imagination, and that did not exist previously in the natural world. Such systems therefore constitute an entire strata which connects to natural systems, and that also bridges over to the theory of alternative systems.

Human systems theory can never achieve the degree of coherence and parsimony found in physical systems theory. Human systems are multi-factorial and therefore highly underdetermined developmentally in their hyper-complex states. For human systems especially, it is a problem of language--of having the terms and definitions suitable for such extreme complexity--as well as of logic. Outcomes in the historical development of human systems cannot follow predictable pathways.

The main consequence of this is that achievement of a comprehensive human systems theory must compromise itself paradigmatically, and can at best be poly-paradigmatic and thereby meta-paradigmatic rather than merely a single comprehensive and singularly coherent explanation of such systems. It must thus borrow insight, information and frameworks from multiple sources and disciplines of study of human patterning, and it must forge what is at best a kind of explanatory framework that permits and has latitude for multiple alternative hypothesis and theories of the same sets of phenomena, cast from different theoretical points of view and in terms of different words and languages defining these alternative perspectives.

These alternative human-made systems may be said in a loose sense to be intelligent systems, at least in that they are the product of human intelligence, and thus incorporate intentional design in their patterning. We refer to the overall patterning of these systems in a social sense to be "civilizations"--what Alfred Kroeber referred to as the style patterning that is the product of human genius.

The question remains unanswered whether or not there are other intelligent civilizations in the universe that are not human in origin, but that are  the product of the evolutionary development of other alien life-forms. It is certainly the case that alien intelligence is a possibility. If it could arise on earth, then certainly it can under the right circumstances arise upon any planet. It is expected though that this outcome is extremely unlikely from a simple stochastic standpoint, hence, the development of alternative intelligent civilization elsewhere in the universe is highly unlikely, or extremely rare and thus such civilizations much be very few and very, very far between.

It almost goes without saying that any contact with especially advanced forms of alien civilizations will be revolutionary upon multiple levels of our knowledge and understanding of reality--it may even be symbolically destructive of our own anthropomorphic sense of civilization if such alternative systems are extremely powerful and more highly developed than our own. It is also more than likely that we would eventually meet alien intelligence, because in their shared state of curiosity they would be attempting to make contact with other alternative civilizations like ourselves. The main obstacles to be overcome in this matter are the vast depths of space-time probably involved in such long-range communication, and the highly advanced state of technological development probably required to over come such distances, if this is indeed even possible given fundamental limitations such as the speed of light. Civilizations may well go extinct before they have the chance of having their signals received by distant targets.

But such contact must be necessary if we are to push a meta-paradigmatic perspective of alternative intelligent systems, or civilizations to a new level that we might refer to them as been truly "universal" in application. In the patient meantime, we must content ourselves with  the conceit that our human civilization is quite alone in a vast and mostly empty universe, and that we may be, if not the only life forms, one of the most advanced ever produced. As far as we know now, and may ever know, it is only human beings who have the capacity for realizing their own predicament, uniqueness and solitariness in the universe, and for transcending ultimately the constraints of nature that exist for all other known forms of life we are familiar with. The knowledge that we may or may not be alone in the universe, or that this might even matter, is ours alone to struggle and experience. Dogs, cats, cattle, birds, fish--these creatures and all others we know of are ultimately the subjects of their own making in the world, a part of the world and nothing more. They lack the sentience that makes our own human systems interesting, transcendent and special.

Human Systems

by Hugh M. Lewis