Socio-Biogenic (S-B) Existentiality

Graphic 1: Socio-Biogenic (S-B) Existentiality

Preliminary

Notwithstanding the definition aforementioned, it is beyond the scope of this article to illuminate the ambit of the socio-biogenic existentiality except to infer that it is ultimately vastly selectional, concerned with the entirety of interactions amongst biogenic populations – both micro and macro-molecules - and their interrelated systems of life, including but not limited to coexistential evolution of plants; animals and human beings. Whereas a complete discussion of socio-biogenic existentiality is beyond the scope of this article, the following discussion explores the ethnography of human society: psycho-social and socio-political.

Pre-Conscious

Nucleotide sequence data indicate that divergence of human-chimpanzee, human-gorilla and human-orangutan lineages occurred about 5.5, 6.7 and 8.2 million years ago respectively [1]. The divergence into separate species may initially have been driven by small cytogenetic differences and or mutations in key genes regulating gamete formation or regulation of early embryonic development. However, once speciation had been accomplished, the effective reproductive isolation meant that species-specific patterns of intra-genomic sequences exchange could result in extending differences between species [2].

Today, molecular genetic analysis of human phylo-genetics illuminates sufficient proof of evolution by speciation that the matter is widely accepted. Comparisons of the genome organisation and gene expression in humans and the great apes reveals evidence of: highly comparable genome number and size; very similar chromosome banding patterns; extensive conservation of synteny (colocation of chromosomal loci); very similar gene family organisation; 98-100% sequence homology of coding DNA and approximately 98% sequence homology of non-coding DNA; extremely similar gene expression; and highly conserved telomeric (chromosomal terminus) repeat sequences. Simultaneously however, evolutionary theorists remain in disagreement over the two primary competing hypothesis concerning the origins of modern humans: firstly, whether it is the Multiregional (differential gene flow) Hypothesis or the African Replacement "Out of Africa" (dispersal) Hypothesis. In either case, the socio-biogenic Pre-Conscious may be considered synchronous to the vertebrate evolution of a higher-order ‘Triune Brain’ (Paul D. MacLean) [3] in Homo sapiens and their emergence out of the African sub-continent.

Accordingly, during the Pleistocene some 1.6-0.1 years before present, Homo sapiens are believed to have acquired a triarchic complex formative of human ‘pre-consciousness’.

• The Reptilian Complex located in the hind brain is associated primitive instincts of aggression and territoriality;

• The Paleomammalian Complex located in the mid brain and fore brain region facilitates adaptive instincts such as motivation, emotion, memory and parenting, and

• The Neo-mammalian Complex located in the neocortex mediates consciousness and intelligence in humans.

The neuro-ontogeny of the Pre-Conscious is epistemological such that the S-B Existentiality developed multi-collinear with emergence of organised social life. Prior to the era of human settlement, Homo sapiens were primitive and foraging hunter-gatherer by nature. Use of primitive stone tools and control of fire are typical of the lower Paleolithic era some 5-10 million years ago. Organised human social life involved a process of self-discovery: the pre-formation of a group consciousness evolved by symbolic interaction (semiosis) from sounds and signs to symbols and speech. With structured arterial language, early humans also discovered the symbolic possibilities of gestures used for communication. As a result human behaviour became more complex. The newly conversant Cro-Magnon (Early European Modern Humans) [4] fabricated social conventions and learning; early human language facilitated the conjuring up of structured thought patterns, direct communication with self and others, conceptualisations such as ideas and inventions, translation of past events, and preparation (plans) for the future. By these means, early humans were thus able to bring their environment including their social environment under increasing control [5]. Anthropologists also suggest emergence of a distinctive pattern of human persistence associated with increasing information stored in the brain, and the will to recall and strategically utilise the stored information to purposeful ends.

Conscious

Notions of a finite human "existential" condition may be argued to have commenced at the time of the middle Paleolithic when humans started social interaction with the dead. Remembrance of things past ultimately gave way to an ability to affectively sense the humanity of a dead body that was once human. This event in history marks the coincident demise of cannibalism and the emergence of conscious and civilised society, at least in a primitive form.

Intentional and ceremonial burial of the dead (interment) commenced about the time of 100,000 years ago, as shown in the archaeological records of the remains of Neanderthal man buried in famous cave sites at La Chapelle-aux-Saints, Southern France, Shanidarin Iraq, Kabara, Israel, Krapina, Croatia, and Skhul Qafzeh, Israel

Early socio-biogenic consciousness progressed in form and function as the early human learnt to direct ego-aggressive affect toward more abstract social processes such as play and organised warfare. Other dimensions of the human intuition and desire to communicate and create emerged in the form of primitive art, as may be observed in numerous examples of cave paintings (La Ferrassie, France); carved ivory plaques (Tata, Hungary); and Bone plaques (Abri Blanchard, France). Indeed human art and invention of musical instruments, such as the bird bone flute (Grotte de Placard, France) signaled the advent of a cultural and aesthetic modality of human self-awareness (conscious) and the developing S-B Existentiality. More importantly, these artifacts inferred a concept of periodicity and time which Anthropologists believe ultimately provided the foundations for development of conceptual constructs for interpreting larger temporal phenomena such as lunar cycles and breeding habits of herd animals. By this time, early humans had traversed a "conscious threshold" and were quickly adapting to a newly apparent human imperative: the organisation, storage and analysis of knowledge.

Some 11,000 years ago rapid advancements in social and cultural development combined with consolidation of human knowledge coalesced with the construction of permanent human housing and completion of ‘Jericho’ - the first walled city. At the time of 12,000 years ago, humans had domesticated Canis lupis, (wolves) which would later evolve to contemporary Canine sp. (household dogs). Similarly, domestication of Equus ferus caballus (horses) occurred at about this same time. Later during 10,000-9,000 years ago humans commenced systematic practices of horticulture and agriculture.

The Conscious of S-B Existentiality culminated with the proliferation of formal language and independent script which is recorded to have developed at four junctures of human history (in Mesopotamia, Egypt, lowland Mesoamerica and China) approximately 8,000 years ago. Technologies of literacy occurred much later with the advent of the printing press discovered with the invention of the Cyrus cylinder and Cylinders (cylinder seals) of Nabonidus, last King of the Neo-Babylonian Empire 556-539 years ago. Subsequent early printing methods (woodblock printing, movable type) were developed by the Chinese in the year 220 before modern printing presses using simplified Roman alphabet were developed by Johannes Gutenberg during the 15th century. The Conscious therefore expanded human intelligence which rapidly aggrandized with new systems of knowledge (Renaissance), linguistics and techniques of computation (mathematics) unequivocally to provide the foundational catalyst for the edifice of ‘knowledge’ per se.

Meta-Conscious

Meta-Conscious is defined by aggrandizement of complex socio-economic globalisation that commenced with the transition from basic foraging, which had characterised the human lifestyle for some 20 000 years; toward a sophisticated and organised society of cultivators and herders. Notably, the peoples of the Middle East (Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Jordan and Israel) had the foresight to intervene in the reproductive cycles of some of the plants and animals their ancestors had foraged for generations. No longer simply harvesting nature's bounty, they produced their own food and modified the biological characteristics of the plants and animals in their diets [6] to such an extent that the Neolithic revolution would also mark the birth of a new "total economy". At this time the Middle East and Mesoamerica were particularly advanced in food production and domesticating animals. In both hemispheres, they had learnt how to selectively breed wild grains such as maize, Irish potatoes and manioc to support the development of large-scale village farming communities, which then proliferated into complex village types to form the germ of urbanisation and the modern State.

In the Neolithic period, the city of Mesopotamia – where ancient humans were first fully literate, educated and organized in political society - emerged as the first human civilization. Later by the time of the classical antiquity, early notions of State were formulated in ancient Greek city-states and the Roman Republic such as to found the early 4th century institutions of democracy, citizenship and representative government. Hence, Meta-Conscious is typified by advanced systems of society and polity which were correspondingly spurned by the impetus of the modern State and its momentum for political causation and domination. This ‘Arcana Imperii’ of statecraft had the effect of germinating the exigencies of ‘political epistemology’; the state prerogative for state knowledge (census, state intelligence) and state administration (municipal surveillance, administrative laws, and external affairs).

Early socio-political and economic systems of the archaic State were agricultural by adaptive strategy, and reliant on differential access and stratification. A defining prescience was that the political structures, once in place, had become permanently and regionally fixed institutions. From this etymology of human endeavour, a world system emerged beginning with the Christian military Crusades 1096 and later the European Age of Discovery of 1400s. These large-scale events were trans-regional and trade-oriented constituting a new realm of human consciousness – ‘globality’ of the global arena. Subsequently, during the 15th-18th Century the social historian, Fernand Braudel developed a ‘World System Theory’ published in a volume entitled ‘Civilisation and Capitalism’. Braudel’s theory emphasised the manner by which micro-societies agglomerate into a fully integrated assemblage functional as a ‘world-system’.

By the time of the 18th century, the industrial revolution fully transformed Europe and later the rest of the world system with it. Merchants and mercantile companies involved in the trans-oceanic trade supplied the capital to fuel the breakthrough industrial inventions: machines reliant on new forms of water and steam power that would exponentially increase production in both farming and manufacturing. Thereby, the organisation of human societies underwent a transition from domestic production to massive large-scale production in factories to effectively consolidate capitalistic domination. This industrial form of socio-political economic system had at its base a relatively rigidly stratified class system, which eventually lead to an explosion of the world population after 1750.

In the fulcrum of the political epistemology, the world system has manifested as an instructive object and legacy of the emergent S-B Existentiality. Informed today by high notions of liberalism, globalism and global democratic order, the world system prevails as a veritable human ‘Meta Conscious’, mediated and articulated by the many specialized agencies of the United Nations, a peak international organisation formed in 1945.

Conscious Interval

Conscious interval is the pre-figurement and proliferation of conscience-oriented (public morality) human organisations concerned with global change agendas in direct response to the apparent negative externalities of the World System. Scientific data (Moll & Grafman, 2006) reveal that neuro-anatonomy related to human conscience include the meso-limbic reward pathway (primitive stimulus) and the sub-genual cortext (septal) region (paleo-mammalian). Also altruistic and humanitarianism (ethics, universal kindness and benevolence) behaviour is associated with the posterior superior temporal cortex (pSTC). The Conscious Interval therefore appertains to the public/private continuum of S-B Existentiality underpinned by the compelling force of public morality (human conscience) and private morality (human altruism).

• Public Morality (human conscience) undertakes to confront ‘Universal Wrongs’ associated with vulnerable populations and world eco-systems at critical risk of global failures that have culminated in morally unconscionable and deleterious consequences such as (a) slavery, which was extinguished over successive global campaigns during the 19th century and formally under the auspices of the League of Nations in the Slavery Convention (1926); (b) genocide, retold in the horrors of Germany (1935-45); Cambodia (1970s); Iraq (1980s); Serbia (1990s) and Rwanda (1990s), (c) ethnocide (harm to marginalized populations) and (d) ecocide (environmental degradation). The appropriate resolve to universal wrongs supplicates the globalization prospect of ‘Universal Rights’ which is the utopianism of equality and equal rights as enshrined in supranational campaigns of the United Nations.

Similarly, public morality is increasingly addressed by system reform, a concept of ‘systems-learning’ of the modern State. Characterized in virtue ethics as the ‘Benevolent State, human-centric governance may be observed to have emerged in tandem with 19th century and 20th century left-of-center politics to address negative externalities of industrialization and contingently the practices of global governance to address processes of regionalization, and institutions of globalization. In the post-structural context, the benevolent State is concerned with the rhetoric of the ‘managed market’, and the corollaries of the post-structural world system such as post-industrialisation, post-Fordism, and post-modernity (cultural development).

• Private Morality (human altruism) refers to the collectivized ventures of private and conscience-oriented global citizens via processes of civil activism, and coordinated political campaigns of the global civil society. Human altruism may also be exemplified by the international organization activities of the International Committee of the Red Cross formed in 1863 to alleviate suffering resulting from war and which was the world’s first large-scale coordinated humanitarian organization; the formalisation of International Committee of the Red Cross also marked the birth of international humanitarian law.

The Conscious Interval is therefore, a necessary outcome to world systems development and human progress thus far: a requisite transition to universal existential alignment.

Hyper Conscious

The Hyper-Conscious entailing advanced global (socio-systems) governance is a product of the post-industrial global order and precursor to its emergent successor, a bio-digital social and political order (global order). The latter being a construct of the totality of spatio-temporal technological advancements that empower and augment individual freedom. In particular, socio-biogenic Hyper-Conscious is defined by high-quality information saturation involving higher-order selectional processes to consciousness.

• Digital Media is characterized by mass communications such as continuing advancement and dissemination of media and info-tainment as well as internet, convergence of new technologies and ‘virtualisation’. Digital media also facilitates improved processes of government to citizen (G2C) relations by means of technology enhanced inclusive and representative government (e-government).

• Digital Governance denotes Government Process Re-engineering (GPR) implementations that leverage the enabling and transformational power of new technologies to improve total governmental activities. New state of the art technologies are deployed as governmental ‘tools’ in the form of ‘cyber-detectors’ which are high-technology methods of ‘finding things out’ and ‘cyber-effectors’ meaning new methods of group targeting (citizen sorting) and enhanced organisational productivity.

• Bio-Politics refers to the confounding politics of emergent dimensionalities and inter-faces of the hyper-conscious. Bio-politics is effectively the bio-ethics associated with the proliferation of bio-molecules (bio-chemistry), synthetic biology (synthetic DNA), and ethno-centric applications of biometrics concerned with human surveillance and access controls.

The Hyper-Conscious is thus the inevitable enmeshment of humans in the emergent bio-digital global order and the post-humanism realities of post-structural life.

How to cite this article:

MEF (2012) Socio-Biogenic (S-B) Existentiality. The Meta Existential Framework. MEF e-Publishing.