One and a Half Human Natures – 09. Lecture VIII. Levels of Selection and the Invisible Head

At the moment there is no video recording of this lecture. The main ideas of this lecture were addressed in a relatively old (2017) talk in Russian: "Multilevel selection in hierarchical systems: scenarios of the Invisible Hand, the Invisible Foot, and the Invisible Head".

S. Lem. "Eden" (1959). Excerpts from the book

The final part of the book. The crew of a spaceship, consisting of six men who are named after their professions, ends up on the planet Eden as a result of an accident. During excursions across the territory surrounding the crash site, they interacted with manifestations of the civilization of strange beings whom they called "double-bodies" [duotids]. At first, a single duotid came to the ship; attempts to establish contact with it led to the understanding that it was, most likely, a moron, and not a bearer of this planet's technology.

The crew managed to restore the ship. The duotids "grew" a protective wall around the ship, meant to seal it off. The humans used antimatter to make an opening in this wall, through which another duotid came to them, an intellectual one. Passing through the opening in the wall, this visitor was heavily irradiated. They converse with him using a "calculator" - a computer.

The other three had slept the whole day. When they woke up, it was growing dark. They went straight to the library. It was a nightmarish sight. The tables, the floor, all the free armchairs were piled with heaps of books, atlases, open albums; hundreds of scribbled sheets lay underfoot, mixed in with books were parts of instruments, colored engravings, tin cans, plates, optical glasses, arithmometers, coils; a board leaned against the wall, water mixed with chalk dust streaming down it, a thick layer of dried lime powder covering the fingers, sleeves, even the knees of the Physicist, the Cyberneticist, and the Doctor. They sat facing the duotid, unshaven, red-eyed, drinking coffee from large mugs. In the middle of the library, where a table had once stood, rose the box of a large electronic calculator.

"How's it going?" asked the Coordinator, stopping in the doorway.

"Splendidly. We've already agreed on sixteen hundred concepts," answered the Cyberneticist. <...>

"What do you know?"

"A great deal."

The Cyberneticist spoke:

"He's already absorbed many of our symbols - mainly mathematical ones. Information theory, one might say, is done with. The worst is his electrical writing: without special apparatus we couldn't learn it, and we have neither such apparatus nor the time to make one. Remember the tubes in their bodies? That's simply a writing device! When a duotid comes into the world, such a tube is immediately inserted into it - the way we used to pierce girls' ears... On both sides of the large body they have electrical organs. That's why the trunk is so big. It's like a brain and a plasma battery at the same time, which transmits charges directly to the 'writing channel.' The channel ends in wires at the collar, though it varies. Of course they still have to learn to write. This operation, practiced already for thousands of years, is only a preparatory step."

"So he really doesn't speak?" asked the Chemist.

"He does speak! The coughing you heard is language. A single cough is a whole sentence, spoken at great speed. We recorded the coughing on tape - it breaks down into a spectrum of frequencies. <...>"

"What is their science like?"

"To our eyes it's strange," said the Physicist. He rose from his knees. "Won't get rid of this damn creaking," he tossed at the Cyberneticist. "Enormous knowledge in the field of classical physics. Optics, electricity, mechanics in a peculiar combination with chemistry - something like mechanochemistry. There they have interesting achievements. <...> From these starting points we moved on to information theory. But its study is forbidden to them outside special institutions. Worst off is their atomistics, especially nuclear chemistry."

"Wait, how do you mean forbidden?" the Engineer was astonished.

"Very simple, such research may not be conducted."

"Who forbids it?"

"That's a complicated question, and we still understand very little," the Doctor interjected. "Worst of all, so far, is our orientation in their social dynamics. <...>"

"Who governs the society? Who is at the top - a single individual, or a group?" asked the Coordinator, reaching for the microphone.

The loudspeaker crackled, a drawn-out hum was heard, on the device's panel a red indicator blinked several times.

"You can't ask it that way," the Cyberneticist hurried to explain. "'At the top' in this case is a figurative meaning of the phrase and has no equivalent in the calculator's dictionary. Wait, let me try."

He leaned forward:

"How many of you govern the society? One? Several? A large number?"

The loudspeaker rattled quickly.

The duotid coughed, and the loudspeaker began evenly emitting:

"One - several - many - governance - unknown. Unknown," it repeated.

"How, unknown? What does that mean?" asked the astonished Coordinator.

"We'll find out now. Is it unknown to you, or unknown to no one on the planet?" the Cyberneticist said into the microphone.

The duotid answered, and the calculator threw into the loudspeaker:

"Connection - dynamic - dual. Known - one - is. Known - other - no."

"I don't understand anything!" The Coordinator looked at the others. "Do you?"

"Wait," said the Cyberneticist, peering at the duotid, who once more slowly brought its face closer to its microphone and coughed a few times.

The calculator spoke:

"Many revolutions of the planet - once governance centralized - distributed. Pause. One hundred thirteen revolutions of the planet, present. Pause. One hundred twelfth revolution of the planet - one duotid - governance - death. One hundred eleventh revolution of the planet - one duotid - death. Pause. Other one - governance - death. Pause. One - one - death. Pause. Then one duotid - governance - unknown - who. Unknown who - governance. Pause."

"Yes, quite the puzzle," said the Coordinator. "And what do you make of it?"

"Not a puzzle at all," answered the Cyberneticist. "He said that up to the hundred and thirteenth year, counting from today, they had a central government of several individuals. 'Governance centralized, distributed.' Then came the rule of solitary ones; I assume something like a monarchy or a tyranny. In the hundred-twelfth and hundred-eleventh years - they count from the present moment, right now is year zero - there were violent palace coups. Four rulers changed within two years, their rule ending in death, unnatural of course. Then a new ruler appeared - unknown who he was. They knew he existed, but didn't know who it was."

"How can that be - an anonymous ruler?" the Engineer was astonished.

"Apparently. Let's try to find out more."

He turned to the microphone:

"Currently it's known that one individual governs the society, but it's not known who? Is that right?" he asked.

The calculator hissed indistinctly, the duotid coughed, as if hesitating, coughed a few more times, and the loudspeaker answered:

"No. Not so. Pause. Sixty revolutions of the planet - known, one duotid - central governance. Pause. Then known - none. Pause. No one - central governance. Pause."

"Now I don't understand," admitted the Physicist.

The Cyberneticist sat leaning over the device, hunched, biting his lip.

"Wait. General information - no central power? Right?" he asked into the microphone. "But in reality there is central power. Right?"

The calculator conferred with the duotid, emitting creaking sounds. The men waited, leaning toward the loudspeaker.

"That is true. Yes. Pause. Who information - is central governance - that one - is - no. That one, once is, then no."

They exchanged silent glances.

"Whoever says there is power, himself ceases to exist. Is that what he said?" the Engineer said, half aloud.

The Cyberneticist slowly bowed his head.

"But that's impossible!" exclaimed the Engineer. "Power has to have some seat, it has to issue orders, laws, its executive organs must exist, hierarchically lower ones, an army - we did meet their armed..."

The Physicist put a hand on his shoulder. The Engineer fell silent. The duotid went on coughing. The green eye of the calculator flickered rapidly. The loudspeaker spoke:

"Information - dual. Pause. One information who - that one is. Pause. Other information someone - that one once is, then no. Pause."

"Does information exist that is blocked?" the Physicist asked into the microphone. "Right? Whoever asks a question about this information - is threatened with death. Right?"

Again from the other side of the device came the creak of the loudspeaker and the coughing of the duotid.

"No. Not so. Pause," answered the calculator in its indifferent voice. It separated the words from each other evenly. "Someone once is - then no - that one not death. Pause."

Everyone sighed.

"So, not death?" exclaimed the Engineer. "Ask him what happens to such ones?" he turned to the Cyberneticist.

"I'm afraid that won't work," said the Cyberneticist, but the Coordinator and the Engineer insisted on this question, so he gave in: "As you wish. Fine, but I'm not responsible for the result." He asked the microphone: "What is the future of the one who spreads blocked information?"

The hoarse dialogue between the calculator and the motionlessly lying duotid went on for quite a while. Finally the loudspeaker spoke:

"The one who such information - incorporated - self-governing group - unknown measure - probability - degeneration - limit. Pause. Cumulative effect - absence of term - adaptation - such necessity - struggle - slowing of force - potential - absence of term. Pause. Cumulative effect - absence of term - adaptation - such necessity - struggle - slowing of force - potential - absence of term. Pause. Small number of planetary revolutions - death. Pause."

"What did he say?" the Chemist, Coordinator, and Engineer turned to the Cyberneticist at the same time.

He shrugged:

"No idea. I told you it wouldn't work. Too complex a problem. One must proceed gradually. I guess the fate of such an individual is nothing to envy. He faces premature death, the last sentence was fairly unambiguous, but what the mechanism of this whole process is, I don't know. Some sort of self-governing groups. Of course, one could build hypotheses about this, but I think I've had enough of arbitrary combinations. <...>"

"Let's get back to business," said the Coordinator. "What are the results of carrying out this biological plan?"

"Because of it, individuals began appearing in the world who were eyeless or with varying numbers of eyes, incapable of living, mutilated, noseless, and also a large number of the mentally deficient. <...> Evidently, the theory they relied on was wrong. Over a decade and a half, thousands of mutilated, deformed mutants appeared - the tragic fruits of this experiment they're still reaping today."

"Was the plan abandoned?"

"We didn't even ask about that," the Cyberneticist admitted.

He turned to the microphone:

"The plan of biological reconstruction - does it exist now? What is its future?"

The calculator, creaking, seemed for a while to argue with the duotid, who let out a faint cough. <...>

"There is a plan, no. Pause. Now once there was no plan. Pause. Now mutations, disease. Pause. True information - there was a plan - now there is none."

"Didn't catch that," admitted the Engineer.

"He says that now the existence of this plan is denied - as if it never existed at all, and the mutations are supposedly a kind of disease. In fact the plan was carried out, and then they rejected it, unwilling to admit their defeat."

"Who?"

"This supposedly nonexistent power of theirs."

"Wait," said the Engineer, "how can that be? From the moment the last anonymous ruler ceased to exist, did some kind of era of anarchy reign, or what? So who carried out this plan?"

"You heard him. No one carried it out - there was no plan at all. That's what's claimed today."

"Well fine, but back then, fifty-odd years ago?"

"Back then they claimed something else."

"No, this is impossible to understand."

"Why? You know that on Earth we too have certain phenomena that aren't customarily spoken of out loud, even though people know about them. For instance, even purely everyday relationships are impossible without a certain dose of pretense. What for us is not defining, secondary, for them is the main factor. <...>"

"Factories, derived from the biological plan, is the number small or large? How many?" asked the Cyberneticist.

The duotid coughed, and the calculator answered almost at once:

"Unknown. Factories, apparently, many. Pause. Information - no factories at all."

"This is, however, some kind of society... horrifying!" the Engineer flared up.

"Why? Have you never heard of military secrets or anything of the sort?"

"What energy powers these factories?" the Engineer turned to the Cyberneticist, but said it so close to the microphone that the calculator immediately translated the question.

The loudspeaker hummed for a minute and recited:

"Inorganic - term absent - bio. Pause. Entropy - constant - biosystem." - The rest drowned in an intensifying hum. A red light flashed on the panel.

"Gaps in the dictionary," the Cyberneticist explained.

"Listen, let's switch him to polyvalent," the Physicist told him.

"What for? So he starts babbling like a schizophrenic?"

"Maybe we'll understand more."

"What's this about?" asked the Doctor.

"He wants to reduce the calculator's selectivity," the Cyberneticist explained. "When the range of meanings of some word isn't sufficiently sharp, the calculator answers that the term is absent. If I switch it to polyvalent, it will start engaging in contamination - creating verbal hybrids that don't exist in any human language."

"That way we'll understand him better," the Physicist insisted.

"Fine. We can try."

The Cyberneticist switched the plugs. The Coordinator glanced at the duotid, now lying with closed eyes. The Doctor went up to the giant, examined him for a while, and, saying nothing, returned to his place.

The Coordinator said into the microphone:

"There's a valley here to the south. There are large structures there, in the structures skeletons, around them graves. What is this?"

"Wait, graves mean nothing."

The Cyberneticist pulled the flexible microphone stand toward himself.

"To the south - an architectural structure, next to it - in openings in the ground - dead bodies. Dead duotids. What does this mean?"

This time the calculator exchanged scraping sounds with the duotid for longer. They noticed that for the first time the machine seemed to be asking itself about something once more; finally the loudspeaker, turned toward them, monotonously reported:

"Duotid - physical labor no. Pause. Electrical organ - work, yes, but accelero-involution - degeneration - abuse. Pause. South - this is exemplification of self-governing procrustics - pause. Biosociolockup - anti-death. Pause. Social isolation - not force, not compulsion. Pause. Voluntariness. Pause. Micro-adaptation of the group - centro-self-attraction - production - yes, no. Pause."

"Well, got that?" The Cyberneticist glared angrily at the Physicist. "'Centro-self-attraction', 'anti-death', 'biosociolockup'. I told you! Now, please, decode it."

"I'll decode it gradually," said the Physicist. "This has something in common with forced labor."

"Wrong. He said 'not force, not compulsion', 'voluntariness'."

"Well, let's ask again." The Physicist pulled the microphone toward himself. "It's not clear," he said. "Say it very simply - what's in the south, in the valley? A colony? A group of the condemned? Isolation? Production? Who produces? What? And for what purpose? To what end?"

The calculator once again conferred with the duotid - this went on for some five minutes - then spoke again:

"Isolomicrogroup - voluntariness - interlinkage - compulsion - no. Pause. Each duotid - counter-game - isolomicrogroup. Pause. Main connection - centripetal self-attraction. Pause. Linkage - anger-hatred. Pause. Whoever guilt - that one punishment. Pause. Whoever punishment - that one isolomicrogroup - voluntariness. Pause. Interconnections reverse - polyindividual - linkage - anger - self-healing. Pause. Sociopsychocirculation - internal anti-death. Pause."

"Wait!" shouted the Cyberneticist, seeing the others stir helplessly. "What does this mean, 'self-healing'? What purpose?"

"Self-heal-ing," the calculator muttered, this time not consulting the duotid at all.

"Ah! The instinct of self-preservation!" shouted the Physicist, and the calculator hastily confirmed:

"Instinct of self-preservation. Yes. Yes."

"You mean to say you understand what he's saying?!" The Engineer jumped up from his seat.

"I don't know if I understand correctly, but I'm guessing - it's something about some kind of punishment system of theirs. Apparently these are some kind of micro-societies, autonomous groups which, so to speak, have mutually driven each other into a corner."

"How's that? Without guards? Without overseers?"

"Yes. He said outright that there's no compulsion at all."

"That's impossible."

"Why, though? Imagine two people; one has matches, the other has the matchbox. They may hate each other, but they'll only light a fire together. Anger-hatred is anger and hate, or something close to it. So cooperation within the group arises thanks to feedback loops, as in my example, though of course it's much more complicated! Compulsion is somehow born by itself - it's created by the internal condition of the group."

"All right, all right, but what are they doing there? What are they doing there? Who's lying in these graves? Why?"

"You heard what the calculator said. 'Procrustics.' Evidently from the Procrustean bed."

"Nonsense! Where would a duotid have heard about Procrustes?!"

"The calculator, not the duotid. It's searching for the nearest concepts according to resonance in the semantic spectrum! There, in these groups, exhausting labor is carried out. It's possible it has no purpose, no meaning at all, he said 'production - yes, no' - meaning, something is being done, they have to do it, because it's a punishment."

"Why do they have to? Who's forcing them, if there's no guard there at all?"

"How stubborn you are! As for production, maybe I'm wrong, but the situation itself creates the compulsion. Haven't you heard of forced situations? Say, on a sinking ship, the options for rescue you can choose from are very few - maybe under their feet, for their whole life, is the deck of just such a ship?.. Since physical labor, especially exhausting labor, harms them, some kind of 'biolockup' occurs here. Perhaps in the zone of the electrical organ."

"He said 'biosociolockup.' It must be something else."

"But something like that. Within the group there's linkage - mutual attraction, meaning the group is doomed to stew in its own juices, isolated from society."

"This is very vague. What are they actually doing there?"

"Well, what do you want from me? I know as much as you do. After all, misunderstandings and shifts of meaning pile up on one another, not only on our side but also between the calculator and the duotid, on the other! Perhaps they have a special scientific discipline - 'procrustics,' a theory of the dynamics of such groups! They plan in advance the type of actions, conflicts, and mutual attractions within its sphere, functions are distributed so as to form a kind of equilibrium, exchange, circulation of anger, hatred, so that these feelings solder them together while at the same time preventing them from coming to any understanding with anyone outside the group... <...>"

"He's very tired," said the Doctor. "One or two more questions at most. No more after that. Who wants to ask them?"

"I do," said the Coordinator. "How did you find out about us?" he threw into the microphone.

"Information - meteorite - ship," the calculator answered after a moment, having exchanged a few hoarse sounds with the duotid. "Ship - from another planet - cosmic radiation - degeneration of beings. Pause. Bring death. Pause. Glassy isolation for the purpose of elimination. Pause. Observatory. Pause. Rumble. Did - direction-finding - direction of sound - source of rumble - focus of impact - rocket. Pause. Went at night. Pause. Waited - the Defender opened the isolation. Entered - here. Pause."

"They announced that a ship had fallen with some kind of monsters, right?" asked the Engineer.

"Yes. That we had degenerated under the influence of cosmic radiation. And that they intend to seal us in, surround us with this glassy mass. He used the sound to determine the direction of the shelling, established the target, and thus found us."

"Wasn't he afraid of the monsters?" the Coordinator threw into the microphone.

"Not afraid - that means nothing. Now, what was that word? Ah, anger-hatred. Maybe it'll translate that way."

The Cyberneticist repeated the question in the calculator's strange jargon.

"Yes," the loudspeaker answered at once. "Yes. But - chance - one - in a million - revolutions - of the planet."

"That's understandable. Any one of us would have gone," the Physicist nodded, understanding.

"Do you want to stay with us? We'll cure you. There will be no death," the Doctor said slowly.

"No," answered the loudspeaker.

"Do you want to leave? Do you want to go back to your own?"

"Returning - no," answered the loudspeaker.

The men exchanged glances.

"You really won't die! We really will cure you!" exclaimed the Doctor. "Tell me what you want to do once you're healthy."

The calculator creaked, the duotid answered with a single sound, so short it was barely audible.

"Zero," the loudspeaker said, as if hesitating.

And a moment later added, as if unsure it had been correctly understood:

"Zero. Zero."

"Doesn't want to stay, doesn't want to go back either," muttered the Chemist. "Maybe he's... delirious?"

Everyone looked at the duotid. Its pale-blue eyes gazed at them motionlessly. In the silence its slow, muffled breathing could be heard.

"Enough," said the Doctor, standing up. "Everyone out. <...>"

As the men rose and headed for the door, the duotid's small torso, still supported by an invisible prop, suddenly broke - its eyes closed, its head fell back limply.

"Listen, we kept questioning him the whole time, but why didn't he ask us anything?" the Engineer remembered in the corridor.

"Why, he did ask, actually," answered the Cyberneticist. "About the relations prevailing on Earth, about our history, about the development of astronautics - as recently as half an hour before you arrived he was talking a great deal more."

"Must have grown very weak."

"Must have. He took a large dose of radiation, the journey through the desert must have tired him badly, all the more so since he's rather old. <...>"

Footsteps sounded behind them. The Doctor came out of the library. Everyone looked at him inquiringly.

"Asleep," he said. "Bad with him. When you left, I decided to..." He didn't finish.

"But you were talking with him?"

"I was talking. That is... You understand, it seemed to me it was the end... I asked him whether we could do anything for them. For all of them."

"And what did he say?"

"Zero," the Doctor repeated slowly, and everyone felt as if they were hearing the calculator's dead voice. <...>

The Engineer left pieces of building material to cool and kept lashing with the annihilator further, cutting into the vault a window from which fiery icicles flowed down. <...> The Engineer measured radioactivity from a distance. The counters buzzed warningly.

"We'd have to wait at least four days," said the Coordinator, "but we'll send in Blackie and the cleaners."

"Yes, the radioactivity is significant only on the surface. A strong jet of sand under pressure will suffice. And the debris should be gathered in one place and buried."

"We could load it into the stern settling tank." The Coordinator gazed thoughtfully at the cherry-red glow of the burning ruins.

"What for?" the Engineer was surprised. "That'll do us no good, useless ballast."

"I'd rather not leave any radioactive traces... They don't know atomic energy, and it's better they don't find out about it..."

"Maybe you're right," muttered the Engineer. "Eden..." he added a moment later. "You know, a picture is forming in my mind... After what this duotid-astronomer told us, or rather... the calculator... a chilling picture..."

"Yes," the Coordinator nodded slowly. "Some kind of extreme, consistent abuse of information theory. It turns out it can be an instrument of torture more terrible than any physical torment. Selection, inhibition, blocking of information - this way one really can cultivate a geometrically precise, nightmarish procrustics, as the calculator put it."

"What do you think, do they... does he understand this?"

"What do you mean, understand? Ah... you mean, does he consider such a state normal? Well, in a certain sense, probably yes. After all, he knows nothing else. Though he does refer to their ancient history - tyrants, at first ordinary ones, then anonymous ones - so he has a scale for comparison. Yes, most likely, if he had nothing to compare it to, he wouldn't have been able to tell us any of this."

"If the appeal to tyranny lets him recall the best of times, then... thank you..."

"And yet... This is, to a certain degree, a logical path of development. Some tyrant in his turn probably hit on the idea that personal anonymity, given the existing system of government, would be more advantageous. Society, unable to concentrate its resistance, to direct its hostile feelings at a specific person, becomes to a certain degree morally disarmed."

"Ah, so that's how you see it? An impersonal tyrant."

"Maybe it's a false analogy, but after some time, once the theoretical foundations of this 'procrustics' of theirs had taken shape, one of his successors went even further, eliminated - notionally, of course - even his own incognito, abolished himself, the very system of rule. Of course, exclusively in the realm of concepts, words, public pronouncements..."

"But why are there no liberation movements here? This I cannot grasp! Even if they punish the dissatisfied by confining them to autonomous isolated groups, after all, in the absence of any guard, oversight, external violence, individual escape and even organized resistance should be possible."

"For an organization to arise, there must exist means of mutual understanding. <...> Notice that certain phenomena among them, generally speaking, aren't lacking a name or connections with other things - rather they have names and connections that pass for genuine - masks. Deformities caused by mutations are called an epidemic of some disease. The same, evidently, happens with everything else. To conquer the world, one must first name it. Without knowledge, without weapons, without organization, cut off from the rest of the planet's inhabitants, they can do little."

"Yes," said the Engineer, "but this scene at the cemetery, this ditch under the city, probably indicates that order here is, after all, not as perfect as this unknown ruler would like. And remember how our duotid was frightened of the glass wall? Apparently not everything runs smoothly. <...>"

"So we've decided to launch," the Engineer was saying, "yet we could have gotten to know their language better. Understood how this cursed power of theirs, which pretends not to exist, actually works. And... given them weapons..."

"To whom? To those poor wretches like our duotid? Would you put an annihilator in his hands?"

"Well, at first we could ourselves..."

"Destroy this power, eh?" the Coordinator said calmly. "In other words, free them by force."

"If there's no other way..."

"First of all, these aren't people. You mustn't forget that in the end you're always talking to the calculator, and that you understand the duotid only insofar as the calculator itself understands him. Secondly, no one imposed on them what exists. At least, no one from space. They themselves..."

"Reasoning like that, you'd agree to anything. Anything!" shouted the Engineer.

"And how do you want me to reason? Is the population of this planet a child that's wandered into a dead end, from which it can be led out by the hand? If it were that simple, my God! Liberation would begin with us having to kill, and the fiercer the struggle, the less discrimination we'd apply, killing in the end only to open a path for ourselves to retreat or a road for a counterattack, killing everyone who stands before the Defender <...>"