The Search for a Fair Society: Why the Rule of Law is Fundamental

October 24. Thank you for joining me. Grab a coffee and let’s talk about a realistic utopia of a fair society.

The rule of law comes up quite often today in our political discourse. It’s important. It’s also very abstract. So, let’s change this by revealing the role it plays in connection with the dataset that defines society.

Once more – and I repeat it as often as I do because it is fundamental to understand human cooperation but so many are unaware of it – reality is nothing we share by nature.

That is because a human brain doesn’t have the capacity to process all the data necessary to produce a true model of the physical universe. Far from it. But even if the brain had the capacity, which it has not, the brain is hidden from the physical universe in a cavity behind a thick skull. It relies on our senses as sources of data from the physical universe.

Our senses are extremely limited in the scope of information they gather as well as in the actual amount/ precision. And they differ from person to person as controversies like the one around the famous dress prove. So, the input of actual data about the physical universe into the generation process of our model of the world is tiny and already shows differences between people. The question is, how do we get from that to the detailed reality we are presented with by our mind?

The answer is: hypotheticals based on existing information and loads of creativity. To give you an example of how far creativity goes: we know that time is the creation of our mind as are colors. Even three-dimensional space is most likely not something that exists in the actual physical universe in which we are all simply patterns in a single wave function. The hypotheses our brain comes up with are not willy-nilly though. The material things that make up our body, seek both their lowest energy state and to be in equilibrium with their surroundings. To achieve that they need to explore their surroundings and interact with it, preferably the bits most promising to take them closer to their goals. Our brain/mind developed as a tool to hypothesize about the most promising energy patterns to interact with and how to make the interaction happen. The mix of material things in our bodies and how they are bonded differs from person to person. Hence, our hypotheses will differ from person to person.

As a result of differing data input and differing hypotheses, the dataset making up the reality that we experience in our minds are completely different. Different enough that in the natural state, unless you are so closely related that the make up of your material things is quite similar to each other and the prior knowledge that gets so deeply ingrained in you that it feeds your unconsciousness is similar (cultural imprint), there’s no common ground that would make it possible to shape common goals. The ability to shape common goals is a prerequisite to any cooperation.

Here's the thing though, humans want to cooperate with each other. And that goes back to the twin goals of the material things we are made up of again, and the need that arises from these goals to explore our surroundings. Searches can be executed by exploiting existing knowledge. While this is enough for an individual human to survive without any need for cooperation, it’s not real exploring. The leeway made toward gathering new information in such searches is extremely low. When it comes to exploring you need to conduct random searches which promise a much higher payoff. They are very risky though, too risky to engage in by a human alone. Yet, cooperation offsets the high risk, the better the more humans cooperate.

For humans to cooperate, they must align their self-generated models of the world to create some common ground between them. Alignment happens, when all humans in the group replace some of the data that they would choose themselves to put into their model of the world, with a dataset they all share. This replacement dataset contains all the definitions, rules, and structures that govern their cooperation.

The rule of law in this context is that all members of the group or society self-generate their models of the world according to the same dataset because only that makes cooperation possible.

In a fair society, that’s not a problem. There the dataset is a compromise all members of the group had the same say in and which they agree to use willingly because it satisfies at a minimum the one motivation all humans share to seek cooperation: an increased ability to execute random searches, along with any other motivation they might all share. But the more a society is based not on equality and freedom but on one part of the group believing they can coerce and force others into using a dataset these people don’t agree to, it becomes a problem because whatever this dataset is, it will contain different versions of the dataset for different people. The common ground to shape common goals is lacking and thus cooperation becomes impossible. What results are conflict, oppression and violence.

Any thoughts? Tell me. Tell all. Since our models of the world change with every new information we gather and the models are only accessible to others when we communicate them, we are part of never-ending negotiations that require constant conversation and debate.

To watch this post as a video, go here.

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