The Case for Society as a Cosmic Brain

"You see a line, I see a brain. Neither of us is wrong."

What makes a brain? Everyone has an answer, but almost no one has a precise one. A friend or a stranger on the street may be able to tell you that a brain makes us feel pain, bliss, or everything in between. Some might be able to tell you that it helps us regulate balance, and some might say that it bridges our senses and the “subconscious.” To me, the brain is intriguing precisely because it’s a bodily faculty that not only manages to captivate the imagination, but also to pervade the most meticulous attempts to scientifically understand it. And it’s not too far of a stretch to say that speculation succeeds where science fails; until the various ongoing human brain studies conclude (or perhaps even after they do), our philosophical definitions of the mind remain pragmatically true as ever. 

By our current understanding, the brain relies on electricity. The cells in the slime-and-rubber organ are electrically connected to receptors, sensors, and motor neurons all over your body. They talk to each other, but they’re also capable of acting independently. They rely on each other, but seemingly magical phenomena occur when one or two “parts” of the machine are detached. Some blind people can navigate a whole maze without bumping into the walls and consistently catch baseballs pitched at them. Veterans who had lost a limb often feel a sensation of a hand or arm that doesn’t exist anymore, and they sometimes try to use them. The same goes for “instantaneous” or, more scientifically accurately, “somatic” responses, like recoiling when touching a hot surface or even constantly blinking, which mostly happen without the brain being consciously aware of it. There’s tons of explanations that science has provided to the strange and complex behaviors of the brain, but we won’t get into that today. Instead, we’ll explore how the structure of the brain itself—the networks of billions of semi-cooperative, interlinked, and communicative cells—might shed a new light on the fundamental concept of intelligence. 

Douglas Hofstadter theorized in his amorphous and groundbreaking book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid that cognitive systems like human brains might be likened to “formal systems,” environments where artificially rigid rules create inevitably repeating patterns that “generate” meaning. To understand his sentiment, here’s what I found to be the most succinct example from his book: 

Let’s say that we have a logical theorem A, and let’s say that A is “true.” Now, since A does NOT have the authority to declare itself true, we’d need a different theorem, B. B has one purpose: to say that “A is true.”

Yet, B is also potentially wrong, and it, too, lacks the authority to decide whether itself is correct. So, there must be another theorem, C, that declares the truth of B. And so on… 

This pattern repeats forever, yet the interactions between the theorems say something about the system itself. Depending on your perspective on the thought experiment, maybe you’d say that the infinitely complex contradictions highlight the fundamental self-contradictions in logic and mathematics discovered by Kurt Gödel. Or, you could say that the whole spiel is symbolic of the self-defeating intricacies of connection, how acknowledging the existence of the axiom “A is true” avoids all the chaos that follows. 

But what meaning you make of the pattern is really besides the point. Hofstadter’s ideas are foundational to modern branches of Cognitive Science and Philosophy of the Mind, yet the very concept of the brain as an “emergent” system provokes something truly special. It’s commonly agreed that the brain’s complex neural networks do follow a structure, starting from the “inputs” of sensory data, and “outputs” of thoughts and bodily movements. So what happens in between? As it turns out, the complex work of manning the body boils down to single neurons, which, upon receiving an electric signal, may either decide to pass it along or stop it from moving forward. Thanks to the quirks of neurochemistry, each neuron might have a slightly different threshold for this behavior. Every millisecond, a respectable percentage of the roughly one hundred billion neurons in an average body fires, effectively sending “ripples” of these signals in a way that culminates in the swing of an arm or the decision to indulge in another cookie. 

We know that certain neural regions generally work together, and we also know that disabling certain mental areas provokes responses ranging from severe and instantaneous depression to an insatiable appetite. And yet we also know that the absence of one or two neurons does next to nothing—in fact, neurons die all the time regardless of how healthy someone is or isn’t. Let’s just try to generalize this for a moment. Let’s disregard any alternate cognitive theories (the idea that our so-called consciousness is separate from our brain, for instance) and see that a brain is really just a complex set of inputs being translated into outputs. It’s true that our brains are unique in that the signals are sent by means of electricity—but so do our electronic devices and many animals who don’t possess the same level of intelligence. The only thing left, then, is the sheer complexity of the human mind. With a similar degree of complexity, wouldn’t any other such system be able to form its own “rules” for how it handles certain signals, teaching individual members to fire in a manner that is both consistent and seeks to further some kind of objective? 

I make the case that our society mirrors the structure and function of the human brain, and that it can thus be considered as one. It is a machine that amplifies ideas and, too often, propels them into the limelight. Yet it’s also a silent killer of promising ideas like the Rotodyne or the OpenAI movement. And just like a brain or any other type of cognitive mechanism, it has “nodes” in the form of the eight billion humans alive on Earth. Symbolically, some nodes—like national leaders or prominent celebrities—have a greater “weight” in determining what ideas take over our collective imagination, and some have almost no say in our contemporary fixations. Nonetheless, through conversations made casually over the internet or face-to-face in a conference room, every figment of our brains are “inputted” into a vast interlinked network. Ideas like “I’ll have a cheeseburger with fries, please” might be forgotten nearly instantly by the other nodes, while millions of people dedicated lifetimes to study profound ideas about electric current, computer engineering, and quantum physics. 

Emergent systems are interesting in that all their glory can be traced from the very bottom. At the same time, however, it’s not any specific node that is worthy of the credit. Instead, the intricacies of our society draws from the sheer number of people under it. To illustrate this, take a moment to imagine. What do you want to do today? In a month? In a year? In your lifetime? Is it something fleeting, borne of a peculiar thought that’s soon to die out? Or has it been—and will be—the defining ambition of your life from this moment on? Regardless, you’ll be working on your faraway goals, pushing along the will of those fortunate enough to be around you, all the while succumbing to the probing questions of colleagues who’ve mapped out their own trajectories. What is your ultimate goal? To surround yourself with a lot of people who are each surrounded by many more. To have such an influence in the hierarchy of thoughts that whatever you say becomes heard by millions—no, billions—of people. Even if many of them believe it, reject it, or fight it, all of them will be influenced by you. And imagine yourself in this position, fielding the attention of strangers, allies, and enemies, at the metaphorical “top of the chain.” Would you have the power to change the world, to steer the billions of people that rely on you, believe in you, or fight against you? 

Whatever you may say, I must contend that the answer is a solid “No.” Illustrious leaders who unite their nation and beyond are still foiled by a passionate opposition, if only out of self-preservation or jealousy. Those who lead by fear and intimidation likewise submit their rule of force to human nature itself. The collective will of the oppressed will inevitably shift from its characteristics life-loving and self-serving to the deep-seated and seemingly forgone conviction that fighting and dying for liberty may be the last, and therefore best, course of action. And while tyrannical dictators like Stalin or Castro managed to beat back the impending swell in their lifetime, the regime they established is but a speck against the unimaginable ruminations of our society-brain, growing ever-so-susceptible to the collapse that lies up ahead. 

It’s fitting, isn’t it? None of the most powerful, awe-or-terror-inspiring humans throughout history have ever come close to understanding—much less controlling—the system of which they are a part. Is this because of some cosmic laws of interpersonal power, that stability should always return with time? Or, is it because they are simply prominent parts in the machinations of the society-brain itself, essentially an equation in the grand calculus of the world? Let’s go back to Hofstadter’s assertion of the emergent brain. Paradoxically, it’s impossible to do anything but speculate on whether it is possible for us to alter an environment so strongly tied to some fundamental idea of how humans interact with each other. That is, even if half the world’s population suddenly banded together, would their collective actions represent a subversal of the society-brain’s original “intent”? The only potential answer to this question lies in the scope of our participation in the society-brain. In other words, how exactly are we controlled by the will of such a contrived being? Some psychologists might point towards thoughts that float up from the subconscious, thoughts like “for some reason, I REALLY don’t like this person,” or “I’m really craving some fries today,” make up a surprisingly large part of our days. Others might pivot to supposed “divine revelations.” Then again, the whole point of emergence is that there is no direct mechanism tying the emergent principle (society, in this case) and its constituents (the individual people). Maybe the complex nature of human interaction causes something as abstract as “society” to form, yet in a way that no one person can gain absolute power over the rest. 

Now that we’ve characterized this whole concept, let’s ask the obvious questions. If society really is something like a brain, what is it doing? What does it want to achieve? I speculate that the analogy of the brain might be applied here, but on the basis of an entire species. The culmination of human societal development over the past ten, twenty thousand years have led to a net population growth and an increasingly greater diaspora. Territories are conquered, settled, and populated; primal darwinism takes effect on too-sparse and too-defenseless settlements, and at once they are replaced; new ways to grow and distribute food continue to keep the population jumps at the level of minimum sustainability. Today, the phenomenon I call the “commoditization of life,” which undercuts the natural supply of food, shelter, and good health using predatory business practices, limits our perception of this trend. Yet it inevitably occurs. Human population growth has not slowed down, and we have, as a species, been amicable to the idea of settling on more planets. 

The brain has the all-important self-mandate of keeping itself alive. It will do so through crafty tricks and brute force combined, whether killing off damaged white blood cells or simply killing pathogens with a high fever. I think human society also has this tendency—even though dynasties might fall from grace, entire generations suppressed or wiped out by some cataclysm or a reign of terror, society persists in some form. And our history of expansion is the most surefire way of ensuring that we do not die out. As for why the society-brain itself lives? I’m not sure that even it “knows.” Yet, we should probably be thankful that it does, in a weird twist of cosmic optimism. If there is alien life out there, perhaps they have their own societies. If so, chances are we’ll come across them in the future, when the mutual intent of survival intersects, becomes a conflict. This is where I’ll rest my case: one has no case for optimism before he considers, acknowledges, and accepts what he’s a part of.