Collective needs do not always reflect individual needs, even when all the people approve the objectives. Without organization, collective needs are not met.
How to reconcile collective and individual needs ?
Behaviors favorable to the group of cells are achieved, as with other behaviors, through an adapted genome. But the problem of non-compliant cells remains. Compliance is verified through a system of challenges.
Additional instincts have been added on top of those specific to individual well-being. For example, the pleasure of being in a group, the defense of young ones even if they are not our own.
We share instincts with certain species that favor the group, such as empathy, friendship, or the sense of belonging and love that drives us to help and defend the group.
We have different systems of motivations. Decentralized systems:
And centralized systems:
To understand the importance of the primary motivation system (i.e., the primary signals of what is good or bad), we will examine the fundamental mental constructs that result from it and the links between them. For a human:
These are the various sensations of pleasure/displeasure coming from our senses and instincts. Our senses and instincts constitute our primary motivation system.
Some people do not feel physical pain. This leads to many accidents because it is only intellectual understanding that helps avoid bodily harm.
Our senses provide us with signals, and from these, we build representations. The mind classifies the various pieces of information according to their importance. This is a crucial primary distinction because distinguishing what is important from the rest allows us to process information effectively. In this hierarchy of importance, reality is the distinction between what can have consequences and the rest. Thus, we can imagine a fierce beast without it putting us in a state of stress.
Some mental disorders (schizophrenia, hallucinations) include the loss of the sense of what is real among their symptoms. This leads to dangers for the person and their surroundings.
More evolved representations of reality (through language) allow us to represent sets of realities and break them down according to their structure. For example, the mathematical statement 2+3=5 represents many realities, such as the fact that if there are 2 chairs in one room, 3 in another, and none elsewhere in the apartment, then the apartment has 5 chairs. The notion of truth alone is nothing more than the notion of reality unless accompanied by its structure, that is, the logic allowing reliable deductions of truths from other truths.
The rise of social networks has allowed people sharing mentalities and values to connect. We have seen groups form with ways of thinking that are completely dysfunctional from a purely logical point of view (but functional from the group's or socialization's perspective). We even see some groups defending the principle that the notion of truth is intrinsically relative.
With the notion of truth and related abstractions (for example, physical laws), we obtain a rather general representation of reality. But our life makes us interact with systems at different levels. What we call a system here is a set of data with rules (laws) of evolution. The notion of a system is operational as soon as there is enough determinism to make interesting deductions. For example, we see the human body as a system: the data are the organs, blood pressure, etc. , and the rules are those of biology. With this representation, we can determine elements of evolution, which doctors regularly do (for example, they deduce an increased probability of vascular accidents in cases of excessively high blood pressure).
Given the importance of systems in our lives (human mind, human society, planet, computer, etc.), we are led to conceive rules to ensure they meet our expectations. By studying basic systems related to the deep structures of reality (mathematics, physics), we understand that basic rules can generate all sorts of results, including very effective ones.
We know the troubles stemming from bad rules (poor lifestyle, failing countries, etc.), but having been immersed in fairly dysfunctional societies since childhood, it becomes difficult to understand and imagine what life with good rules would be like. Often, it is only by observing the rules of the basic structures of reality that we realize how aesthetic systems can be with good rules.
The description of these vital constructs shows us that each layer relies on the proper functioning of the previous one. Since everything stems from primary motivations, it is difficult to achieve these constructs when the basic information is blurred and contradictory. That is why it is important, at the social level, to provide the most sensible motivations possible, as these are the building blocks of a harmonious evolution of people's minds.
We know we need a coherent universe. Yet the vast majority of people are not bothered by the bizarre behavior of particles at the quantum level, even after a lecture on the subject. The reason is that we are hardly disturbed by what does not affect our motivations, that is, what neither harms nor benefits us.
This is the case for everything around us: our brain is made to eliminate "noise," that is, what has no influence on our happiness or unhappiness. So, we will be aware of a person touching us because all kinds of more or less important consequences could result from it, but our consciousness will not receive the information related to gravity (pressure at the contact point) that constantly pulls our body toward the earth.
Conversely, the stronger the influence, the greater the need for coherence.
Many situations show us that the coherence of motivations is important, such as:
Motivations are crucial, and the inability to build a coherent representation (due to contradictions or ambiguities) leads to problems. For a representation not to be problematic, it is necessary to somehow separate the good from the bad.
Our brain is designed to seek good for ourselves, so we try to build a representation where we are connected to everything good. For example, we want to live in a good home, eat good food, and be good to those around us. Thus, a measure of the incoherence of a society's motivations is the difficulty in building a representation that separates good from evil, down to the core. This manifests, for example by:
A known phenomenon in psychology is motivation crowding theory: for example, if someone is used to going to bed at 9 PM, just offering them a million dollars to fall asleep as usual will actually make them sleep less well. This is an extreme example, but it also applies if you pay people to do something they would do willingly: the task is generally better done when they are motivated more directly.
This shows us that it is not enough to motivate people with a certain pleasure/displeasure, as we need to be within a sensible system. This is a primary need uncontrollable by consciousness. When a significant part of the environment does not meet this need, it causes a deep psychological wound in the person, which they feel, if they still have the leisure to feel it, as a sense of disconnection and loss of meaning.
The same applies to motivation systems as to scientific theories or large software systems: the minimum requirement is to aim for a high level of aesthetics. That is why it is vital to have the most aesthetically pleasing motivation system possible.
We must therefore address the following question: How to align motivations with different collective needs
Without fully answering this complex question, we can provide an answer regarding the fundamental element, which is the motivation system. We have seen that it is deep and determining in the social system, so design errors have wide-reaching consequences. A key element is not to confuse various motivations and to try as much as possible to use those that offer the most meaning to the stakeholders. That is, those that allow for a simple and effective representation (effective for long-term personal happiness) of reality.
For other elements, we will address them in the sub-studies.