People programming

I’m currently reading the book ‘Critical Mass’ by Philip Ball (yes, the philosophical musing is back. And you thought it had gone for good!) which is all about how physics can be applied to human society. Brilliant idea and very well written – though I do put that up with a warning, the first 100 pages or so are all about statistics which many people might find a bit of a drag.

Today I’m going to talk about one element of what he’s spoken about so far. A group of scientists, under the direction of Helbing and Molnár, created a very simple computer program in which simple simulations (called peploids by the author) follow a set of simple rules. These are such rules as ‘don’t get too close to other people’ and ‘move from A to B’ (or B to C and so forth) then these peploids are released in an environment and watched.

The interesting thing is that despite the fact that these things have a great deal fewer ideas running through their simple little programming, the way they move through their environment is very similar to how we ourselves move. For example, if a simulation is made of a corridor with a doorway, the peploids seem to follow a similar burst like pattern as we ourselves do (first a group from this side, then a group from the other side).

This set me thinking about how complex our personal movement actually is. We might think we apply a great deal of consideration and ethical reasoning (letting other people go first, not pushing, etc.) to how we move around, but if such a simple simulation can mimic us so exactly, then do we really do all that we believe we do?

In other words, this helped me once again call into question our supposed sophistication. We believe we’re terribly sophisticated (we have to, as we need to sustain our exaggerated self importance) but are we really? Isn’t it perfectly believable that some of our genetic ‘programming’ is in fact incredibly simple, for the obvious reason that there just never was any need for it to become more complex? We follow this programming blindly and it serves us perfectly well, yet in our minds we’re tempted to add all this non-existent complexity so as to maintain the illusion of our own supposed superiority.

Where else can we see this sort of behaviour? I’m actually asking that, because I haven’t given that part a great deal of thought yet. It might be seriously worth giving some thought, though; as finding other areas were we operate far simpler than we believe would possibly offer some immense opportunities. What kind of opportunities? Well, obviously in terms of sales it would be very interesting. By designing an environment to take advantage of people’s inherent programming we could increase sales and profit. It might also be very interesting in terms of politics and social cohesion (though, obviously, that would be something for the government to look at – I very much doubt they’re going to listen to me.)

And what about the ethics? Some people might object that it is unethical to use people’s inherent programming to ‘manipulate’ them into behaving contrary to what they might naturally be inclined to do. Obviously, I don’t agree. It is a person’s responsibility to be as well informed as possible and avoid allowing others to have an advantage of them by ways of their physiology and psychology. If they let themselves be manipulated, then I believe responsibility lies largely with them. A good analogy would be the law: Ignorance of the Law does not protect you from the law. Ignorance of your inner workings does not mean others shouldn’t use it against you. It is your job to know your own mind; conscious and unconscious.