Abstract
Some stated information, such as “1+1 = 2” or “force = mass×acceleration” can be assessed as true or false in a sense that is enduring and independent of politics. Such statements are subject to merely minor objections or caveats that for almost-all practical purposes amount to nit-picking. The same can be said about many natural-language (NL) evaluative statements that refer to (i) the human-goods, (ii) the limitations of markets (with respect to those goods), and the (iii) general qualities of human intentions. However, the only available true statements about these things are imprecise, containing words like “frequently” or “complicated”. In future, the knowledge-based economy should be fully in-formed by what is known: that is, statements about humans and markets that are true in the above sense.
Introduction
One of the more noteworthy ideas in Zeleny’s Human Systems Management paradigm is that “knowledge is the ability to coordinate action” whereupon “all the rest is information” [1, 2]. The latter can be re-described as “in-formation” because it permeates the boundaries of cognitive systems and contributes to the formation of things. Information in this sense includes all of what Nonaka & Takeuchi [3] had described earlier as explicit or encoded knowledge, which in turn referred to all possible symbolic patterns and digital-sequences.
One then has to consider (reflectively) how any human mind might assess whether or not to admit any particular chunk of explicit-knowledge or information (EK/I) and to be in-formed accordingly. Humans need to assess or to “know” whether any given chunk of EK/I is likely to be useful for coordinating their projects and serving their purposes, which in turn always involve some mixture of narrow human interests with services (or dis-services) to society as a whole.
Unlike ideas in the political sphere, however, the truth of the EK/I chunk “1+1 = 2” is something that humans rarely need to contemplate or make any decisions about. Significantly for what follows, formal statements like this are almost-always true and they can effectively contribute to almost-all human projects. Nonetheless, “1+1 = 2” is not quite unconditionally true. There are tacit conditions that apply to it, or that have to be packed in with it, like packet-switching in computer networks. For example, a mind must: understand, or belong to a language-community where, the symbol “2” is reserved for the formal-successor of unity, (i.e. it is true-by–definition) and know-that (at some interpretive or semantic level) this EK/I refers to the aggregation of discrete objects in a real world (e.g. rocks, sticks) and nothing more complicated (like a couple of cows that might produce even more cows, etc.)
For almost-all assessments and purposes, these two conditions on “1+1 = 2” (i.e. one on the syntax, one on semantics) are so obvious and well-known that there is no need to think about them, nor to state them explicitly. Indeed, to do so might very well be described as nit-picking. One might, for example, envision a totalitarian state (as George Orwell did in his novel 1984) where many minds accept and understand the natural language (NL) statement that “2+2 = 5 if the party says it is” (cf. [4]). However, this quote speaks only to the possibility of a legislated and official revision of permissible syntax, together with the likelihood that citizens would be prudent enough to play along. No totalitarian state, nor any political process, can possibly create a fifth rock out of nothing every single time that “4” rocks are contemplated, or actually gathered by its citizens; nor can a state un-invent-by-decree the formal mathematical successor function.
Very similar points apply to many other more complicated EK/I chunks that are true in this almost-always or “subject-only-to-nitpicking” sense. Pythagoras theorem and all of Newtonian Physics are good examples. The former constitutes information about triangles, but it is subject to a nitpicking objection that the sides of those triangles are sometimes really arcs due to the curvature of the Earth, whereupon fully accurate calculations require spherical geometry. Newtonian Physics is comprised of a much more complicated file that has in-formed many capable minds (both human and artificial) thereby endowing them with an improved “ability to coordinate action”. It is applicable to almost-all human projects involving motion, such as driving or flying to work; unless of course (to nit-pick once again) that “work” happens to take place in a distant galaxy or involves the co-ordination of sub-atomicparticles.
Some ancient human tribes “knew-of” only one, two and many, a tiny subset of modern arithmetic and if one inquires more fully into the historical origins of any of the EK/I chunks in modern arithmetic, trigonometry or physics, one quickly sees that they all evolved, in a general or non-technical sense (e.g. [5] p. 5). That is, the chunks themselves display a distinctive pattern of descent with modification, mediated by human minds. In addition, but significantly for what follows, the “almost-always true” EK/I chunks-of-the-time were always available to humans (or citizens); but only a few of the more capable ones paid any attention.
In this article it is argued that very similar points apply to some specific evaluative NL statements about the classical human-goods (section 2), the limitations of markets with respect to those goods (section 3) and the general effectiveness of human intentions (section 4). Each of these knowledge-domains contain some NL statements that are true in the above “almost-always” sense. Just like arithmetic or physics, they also evolved in the general sense and have remained available to all minds, whether human or artificial (as discussed in section 5).
Goods
The philosopher Thomas Nagel [6] once wrote that “the idea of truth applies as much to values as it does to facts” and indeed almost-all of the above points about “1+1 = 2” apply with almost equal force to statements that affirm the essential goodness of any of the classical and modern human-goods (HGs). For example, all forms of justice (distributive, restorative, retributive) are HGs, whereupon the NL statement “justice is good” is almost-always true. Like 1+1 = 2, however, it is also subject to nit-picking. For example, some people perversely derive pleasure (another HG) from observing or personally experiencing an injustice; but this does not at all imply that justice is bad for humans. A similar analysis applies to all the other members of the HG-set, which are:
“Wealth, freedoms, friendship, beauty, nobility, respectfulness, kindness and caring, charity, sociality, happiness, pleasure and health.”
... and it is quickly apparent that this set can be (fuzzily-) partitioned according to whether the HG is primarily a property of: circumstances within human societies (i.e. wealth, friendship, justices and freedoms) or character-traits (i.e. nobility, respectfulness, kindness, caring, charitableness and sociability), or psychological states, such as happiness, pleasure, health and aesthetics, or beauty1.
In addition, all of these HGs are subordinate to a set of meta-goods that refer to “good” combinations, mixtures, patterns, or distributions of the (object-level) HGs. The meta-goods in turn include the various distinctive forms of: balance, optimality, rationality or reasonableness, as well as human-understanding and wisdom (Fig. 1).
For example, whilst it is known-that justice, wealth, friendship and happiness are (truly) good, it is also known-that any reasonably balanced mixture and distribution of these human goods (RBMDHG) is a meta-good (e.g. [7]). Finally, it is both true and well known that human-life is the only transcendent human-good: This is because it is the sine qua non that both activates and gives meaning to all of the other human goods and meta-goods.
Nagel [6] also stated that “some evaluative truths (are) so obvious that they need no defense”. It is indeed obvious that “all of the HGs are good for humans” and that this statement only needs to be defended against the nit-picking type of objection. There also exists a large file (similar in some respects to the Physics file) of generally-evolved moral-philosophical information (e.g. utilitarianism and perfectionism, etc.). These “files” elaborate upon the forms of the good and the roles these might play, or ought to play, in guiding or coordinate human action (i.e. the various distinctive forms of moral reasoning). However, such statements are far more complicated and so, quite like Trigonometry and Physics, they have in-formed only a few minds throughout history.
Preferences
In contrast, it is widely known and rather obvious that any given person or human-mind might desire (or prefer, or have a taste for, or an obsession with) the absence of, or the opposite of, any of the HGs. Some people (report that they) like pain or poverty, or perhaps they enjoy a marked imbalance of the HGs that combines gross injustices with wealth and beauty for themselves only. Indeed, sometimes an HG is desired only when others do not have it, or are deprived of it. Even though such perverse (or bad) desires are common, they essentially prove the current rule: the essential and enduring goodness of all the HGs and meta-goods. Everyone, including the desiring mind, almost-always knows the truth, which is that these “bad” desires are trans-valuations, expressing something that is truly bad or imbalanced.
Relationships
Another large file of non-obvious NL statements refer to possible relationships between the HGs (i.e. they qualify the elements of the set HG×HG). Almost all such statements, however, are temporary assumptions, because the referent relationships are so complicated that they are not yet well-understood (one might say that the true knowledge has not yet evolved). Strict subsets of these temporary assumptions, however, can be selected and assembled into coherent ideologies; that is “frameworks of ideas that can be used to explain values” [8]; but those component assumptions or ideas are arbitrary and they do not have to be true. Indeed, the “explained” value-priorities are sometimes far from obvious, or non-obvious, which is precisely why they might require an explanation. An example might be that “negative freedom from state regimes is more important than distributive justice”.
Several other evaluative statements refer to relationships that are obvious, true and entirely non-ideological. Of course, there has to be a trade-off here, hence these true statements about HG-relationships are neither as precise as “1+1 = 2” nor as concise as, say, “justice is good”. To give just a few examples: equal justice (in all its forms) for all humans can be a source of happiness for many; anyone’s health depends in part on the health of others; total wealth in society relates to distributive-justice in complex ways; acts of kindness amongst humans are often reciprocated and they often initiate or reinforce a virtuous cycle; acts that contribute to wealth inequality frequently reinforce a vicious cycle, acts of charity or nobility often produce respect, friendship and happiness, and so on.
These stated relationships on HG×HG, while imprecise, are indeed self-evident and do not have to be justified by any ideology. They are examples of “evaluative truths so obvious that they need no defense” and significantly, they are all useful.
Markets
Much the same can be said of the known limitations of market-based systems (KLMBS) such as the monopolistic-tendencies of “merchants” that were warned against by Adam Smith and later acknowledged by Hayek. These are all limitations with respect inter alia to the achievement of some reasonably balanced mixture and distribution of the human goods (RBMDHG). To overcome any of them, some exogenous (political or social) actions are necessary (cf. [9]). The other known limitations are: the empirical tendency of humans to prefer (or desire or buy) things that reduce their own well-being or that of others (as mentioned earlier) the complexity of human motives for productive activities (including intrinsic or aesthetic motives and expressive forms of rationality), the limited information available about items being traded in any market the absence of particular aspects of distributive justice (e.g. The Rawlsian difference principle) and the associated exclusion from the system due to a lack of an ability to pay the frequently-harmful effects of unpriced externalities the strictly-positive pricing of non-rival goods (e.g. intellectual property) the harmful aspects of speculation, and the failure of market-based-systems to produce public goods in the absence of private charity or political action.
Apart from a revolutionary change to some non-market-based system (which would be the culmination of distributed efforts by citizens, human-buyers or consumers), there are precisely two ways (as in 1+1 = 2) to overcome these KLMBS. The first is to regulate the system (exogenously) in a skillful and efficient manner. The second is to promote a distributed (bottom-up, BU) process of ethical activity within the market. The first is essentially a top-down (TD) approach involving good governments, or a central coordinating authority. Such a government (a) constrains the exploitation of the KLMBS by profit-driven or shareholder-oriented businesses, but it also (b) compensates citizens for the effects of that exploitation (Fig. 2).
The second ethical way can be re-cast as a set of “strategic” responses by business themselves to each of the KLMBS (e.g. [10, 11]). Specifically, a business can either exploit a limitation, with the intention of making a profit or capturing an above-normal return on its shareholders’ financial capital, or else refrain from such exploitation, or take action to compensate for that limitation (Fig. 3). Business strategies of “compensation”, in turn, can be either direct or indirect. An example of the former is when a business provides healthy market offerings and informs the buyer of this, in order to overcome the preference vs. well-being limitation. Another example is a business that seeks market-power but at the same time supports anti-trust law, or actively assists a swarm of small collaborators. An example of “indirect compensation” is where a business knowingly pollutes, but at the same time supports community health clinics. Such mixtures can of course change over time, but (as depicted by the smaller arrows in Fig. 4 compared to Fig. 2) it is then obvious and true that:
“ ... the greater the frequency of business-level compensatory strategies, the less the need to regulate the system in order to achieve any RBMDHG.”
Although this statement includes an ordering (like the earlier statement about freedom and justice), it is not political, merely descriptive of a system, quite like statements in arithmetic and physics. Any RBMDHG can only be achieved by some mixture of TD (government) and BU (business or enterprise-level) strategies. This is a variant of another true-but-imprecise statement (often associated with Marxism) to the effect that the state can “wither away” under some conditions.
Intentions
There are also many true NL statements about the general effectiveness of human intentions, although some of the relevant explicit-knowledge is perhaps not quite so obvious. Specifically, it is known-that: the plans (of minds, mice and men) often fail the outcomes of plans are almost-always different from what was originally intended (plans go awry), due in part to unforeseen or emergent factors (e.g. internet applications and viruses) human intentions become more effective when they are sustained over a long period of time and are pursued with adaptable meshing sub-plans (i.e. resolute-rationality and resilience), and intended outcomes can often be achieved indirectly or with sub-plans that are expected to bring about the very opposite outcome, temporarily or locally. John Kay [13] offered the analogy of the East-West shipping route via the Panama-canal, which actually runs from West to East.
The first two of these statements were incorporated into Mintzberg and Waters’ [13] model of the “strategic” planning process by business or government (Fig. 5). The model conveys the idea that (TD) planned or intended outcomes are often partly “realized” (i.e. become-real) whilst (i) other parts of any plan almost-always remain “un-realized” due (in part) to unforeseen events; and (ii) various other outcomes are “realized” because of unplanned or emergent or bottom-up (BU) processes.
Good intentions
The above four statements about intentions are obvious and true, subject only to nit-picking. In contrast, every statement about the relative effectiveness of good and bad intentions is inherently political and much less obvious. Of course, it is often said that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” but this is merely a cautionary tale. It is much more obvious that medical professionals, for example, frequently intend to improve their patients’ health and usually succeed in doing so. In the specific context of market-based systems, however, probably the best-known historical statement about this matter is that ...
“ ... by pursuing self-interest man frequently promotes the interest of society more effectively than when he directly intends to promote it. (Adam Smith 1776).”
Due largely to the use of the imprecise word “frequently” this also qualifies as obvious and true; all the more so when one considers the general phenomenon of emergent outcomes (above) along with the physics-like fact of surplus production due to labour-specialisation. However, Smith’s statement is notably imprecise (how frequent?) and is therefore quite like the broad statements about justice, health and kindness in section 3 (above). A somewhat more precise statement, which is really a very interesting conjecture, can be found in Ridley’s recent book [5] where he wrote that:
“ ... things that go well are largely unintended and things that go badly are largely intended ([5] p. 318).”
“Largely” in this (UK English) context means more-than-half and even that level of precision implies that the statement is unlikely to be true. In a recent book-length discussion, Ridley [5] nonetheless provided many confirmatory historical examples (i.e. unintended things or BU processes that went well, with intended things or TD processes that went badly.) Before considering just a few disconfirming counter-examples, however, it is worth noting that not only Ridley’s discussion, but also Mintzberg and Waters’ planning model (above) both seem to conflate or equate: “intended things” with “things” or outcomes that are created by top-down (TD) processes, such as the actions of powerful governments or senior-layers of corporate management, and “unintended things” with things created by bottom-up (BU) processes, such as the evolution of biological organisms.
The broad category “TD” is not, of course, the same as “intentional”; nor is BU quite equivalent to emergent or unintended. Some BU processes, like authentic democracy, involve the deliberate actions and overlapping intentions of many conscious human minds that happen to located or distributed at the “bottom” of a power structure (cf. [14]). Other BU processes are not guided by any conscious intentions, although an observer might very well attribute intentionality (e.g. creationist beliefs about evolution in biology). Finally, in any given human project, TD or BU processes typically alternate; that is, there is a BU⟶ TD ⟶ BU chain or sequence (The 2016 political campaign by Bernie Sanders is perhaps a good example.).
Setting aside this conflation or ambiguity in Ridley’s “largely go-well” thesis for the moment, one might make a preliminary attempt to assess its scope and truth by casually searching for further examples and placing them into a “good-bad×BU-TD” matrix (Table 1) as follows: For “unintended or BU as bad” we need only look to the evolution-of-death, so to speak. Darwin himself described how the larvae of ichneumonidae eat caterpillars from the inside; just as Ridley (2015) noted that baby cuckoos push eggs from their (non-cuckoo) foster-parents’ nest. It is hard to argue that these “things” are good for humans (nor a necessary part of the evolution of human life) and so they are at least in tension with Ridley’s conjecture. For “unintended or BU as good” we have the distributed (or BU) processes of innovation and discovery by humans that frequently leads to unforeseen economic-goods. These are in turn almost-always productive of some of the human-goods (e.g. pleasure, aesthetics, happiness, etc.). but they are often bad for humans in other respects (e.g. externalities, unsafe products, destruction of traditional lifestyles, etc.) and so these example might also be added to those in (i) above. Then, for “intended-or-TD-as-bad”, we have the many infamous episodes (noted in Ridley [5]) of authoritarian TD governmental projects in the 20th century (Hitler, Stalin, etc.) including militarization of economies, intentional purges and genocides with many millions of human lives lost.
Finally, for “intended or TD as good” one might consider the more benevolent policies and plans of national-governments, as well as leaders or senior management layers of stakeholder-oriented businesses, that were implicitly intended to overcome some of the KLMBS (as in Figs. 2 and 4 above). For example, many millions of human lives have been saved by skillfully administered universal-healthcare systems around the World, during the last 70 years or so, as well as by the creation and maintenance of regulatory agencies such as the NHTSA, FAA, FDA and the EPA, in the US.
In view of the fact that human intentions, regardless of whether they are good or bad, are generally more effective when they are sustained over time (as mentioned earlier, in section 4) we can make a very credible conjecture that any senior-management layer of a business that (jointly or severally) seeks benefits for (i) the business (with their self-interest assured via incentive systems) and (ii) for society, can expect to be “generally effective” in promoting both (Fig. 6) so long as this dual-objective is sustained. Furthermore, if the “layer” or business pursues meshing sub-plans that include compensatory strategies (as in section 4 above) then the net benefit to society is likely to be greater than the benefits that “frequently” follow from self-interest-only. This is because such plans will almost-always be effective in partly compensating for the known costs to society (i.e. HG-losses and imbalances) that are imposed by deliberate exploitation of the KLMBS.
Non-human systems
The entire discussion and analysis so far has been about human goods, intentions and minds; yet the so-called knowledge-economy in the future will increasingly involve the co-production and deployment of other types of mind and actor, including artificial, trans-human and non-human-like intelligences.
Compared to human minds, these future-minds begin their existence further along some general-evolutionary path. Accordingly, there is no guarantee that they care, or will care, very much for the well-being or flourishing of (relatively primitive) humans, individually or collectively. Nietzsche famously wrote that “the servant, by imperceptible steps, becomes the master” and indeed, the relationship between artificial minds and “natural man” (e.g. [15]) might very well develop to the point where the latter become enslaved. It might even be quite similar (isomorphic) to the relationship between Darwin’s larvae of ichneumonidae and the caterpillars that they “feed on from the inside”.
The pragmatic philosophical approach taken throughout the present article readily accommodates this bad prospect. Under pragmatism (e.g. [16, 17]) the very meanings of “moral” and “human” are mutually-constituted (Fig. 7). Put differently, the morality of (and the truth for) an artificial agent is itself inherently artificial; just as the forms of the good for, or forms of moral-reasoning of any non-human-like entity are inherently non-human; perhaps even inhuman. Fortunately, natural humans already know that a sustained effort to avoid this situation (that is, to humanize technology and thus to delay or avoid a fate like the caterpillars) is not only important (e.g. [18]) but also has a reasonable chance of being successful.
Conclusion
Having found several statements about human-goods, market-based systems and human intentions that are true in the “1+1 = 2” or “almost-always” sense, one might well ask what other projects and actions, apart from the future-humanizing of technology, should be coordinated with all that true information? Sir James Martin, who is a past-president of the UK Royal Society (a position once occupied by Isaac Newton) stated ten years ago that there are some “clear and fundamental” answers to that very question. He wrote:
“if we ask ‘what is the right thing to do now’ there are clear fundamental answers, namely, end poverty, eliminate disease and squalor, educate children, teach women to read. In short, clean up the mess ([19], p. 14).”
These are appeals for coordinated actions that are intended to implant a RBMDHG involving wealth, health, justice and positive-freedom, in particular. The “answers” are also examples of “obvious evaluative truths that need no defense” and they speak for themselves regardless of anyone’s credibility or status. Sir James also prescribed the regulation of resource-use (skillfully administered) as depicted in Fig. 4 above, as well as the formation of partnerships with nature and with destitute 4th world nations. He particularly emphasized the importance of the “spreading of scientific truth.” He might very well have mentioned “the truth about the human-goods, market-based systems and intentions”. That is, all human minds, as well as the so-called knowledge-based economy itself, should be fully in-formed by what is known and true.
Notes
1. The last of these forms, “beauty” (or aesthetics) is distinctive in that its primary qualities identify it both as a psychological state (in the eye of the beholder, with other neurophysiological correlates) and as an “objective circumstance” (e.g. the golden-ratio, or moderate measurable levels of complexity, incongruity and novelty [20]).