It would be great if we could get the point where we could look at the 'power spectrum' of a system and all its subsystems and make accurate predictions about how well it will perform in various scenarios.
For example, is it better to have one strong, centralized government, or a looser confederation of states? Is there an optimal amount of power one should delegate to individuals?
I mean, if you honestly compare the human body to society, our bodies look like horrible totalitarian states with a caste system attached.
Cells have their reproduction strictly controlled; cells that break those rules are induced to commit suicide (apoptosis) or are attacked and killed off by the police (immune system); cells that evade these measures and continue to reproduce often end up killing the individual (cancer). Even though cells (mostly) share all the same DNA, they are induced to specialize at birth and mostly stay in their roles for their entire lifespan.
So in what important ways are societies different from our bodies, such that societies should maximize liberty of the individual? What does that say about how we should structure society -- should it be a strict geographical hierarchy, or something looser (e.g. corporations and other groups), and how much power should go to each level of organization?
There's been much work on this in graph and information-theory. To the point of centralization: it's a trade-off between efficiency and robustness (for one thing). Most living systems show evidence of this trade-off, having a mixture of centralization and distributed processing. For example, the body has a distributed blood supply (all cells share the same network) but has a central heart. Cells themselves have mixed centralized components (the nucleus, various organelles) and distributed aspects (the cyctoplasm, parallel transcription of DNA and production of proteins etc). The brain does distributed parallel processing but has centralized components (the amygdala, the pituitary gland, the cerebellum)
> such that societies should maximize liberty of the individual?
This is required only because the controlling mechanism (the ruler/government) can be selfish and clueless in regards to what rules the subjects should follow for the well being of everyone. and also they are so detached from the problems of individuals....
Imagine a system where a ruler experience every pain and discomfort of every one of their subjects, real time (like in the body of a living thing). In such a system, I think individual liberty can be completely removed, because no one would not want to do anything outside of the rules anyway...
I don't think this is desirable in general. In the case of an individual, it makes sense to have a "live or die together" behaviour (mostly). I don't think this is the case with modern societies (cities or countries). It's completely plausible that a single individual has conflicting interests with the the rest of the system, and still, the individual (and the system) is better off doing its own thing.
I'm also wondering how systems of cells can produce feelings, and of what "strength" those feelings are bounded to be. Could it be that a system made from not cells but humans produce bigger feelings?
Anyway, regarding your comment, I'm not sure if we can say anything about how we should structure larger bodies (like societies) if we don't know anything about the feelings of each of their parts.
You could think of meditation as the dictator listening to what everyone has to say / letting them do their job. When the guy at the top doesn't listen then it makes sense for some group to make their own thing and grow to compete with the host government (cancer).
For example, is it better to have one strong, centralized government, or a looser confederation of states? Is there an optimal amount of power one should delegate to individuals?
I mean, if you honestly compare the human body to society, our bodies look like horrible totalitarian states with a caste system attached.
Cells have their reproduction strictly controlled; cells that break those rules are induced to commit suicide (apoptosis) or are attacked and killed off by the police (immune system); cells that evade these measures and continue to reproduce often end up killing the individual (cancer). Even though cells (mostly) share all the same DNA, they are induced to specialize at birth and mostly stay in their roles for their entire lifespan.
So in what important ways are societies different from our bodies, such that societies should maximize liberty of the individual? What does that say about how we should structure society -- should it be a strict geographical hierarchy, or something looser (e.g. corporations and other groups), and how much power should go to each level of organization?