by Dr. David Fialk, Editor / Publisher

Call it consciousness, awareness, self or soul, science is trying to understand our most intimate experience of being. These efforts at applying engineering principles to our thoughts and motives are necessarily very small and particular, but from them we can derive some interesting generalities.

The scientific exploration of intelligence, how we think, feel and decide, makes use of something called Game Theory, which the actor Russell Crowe introduced most of us to in the movie A Beautiful Mind. Also known as Economic Theory (why we buy what we buy) and Conflict Theory, at the heart of Game Theory is the Prisoners' Dilemma:

Two people are imprisoned for a crime. Each can testify against the other or stay silent. Each of these moves has a different jail sentence associated with it: one testifies against the other (one goes free and the other gets 20 years), both testify against each other (each gets five years), both silent (each gets one year).

The cooperative move, taking into account the fate of the other prisoner, is the surest way to win the game.

A real-world example:

Factories dyeing fabric have been polluting the same river. A law is enacted mandating equipment to eliminate such river pollution. The cooperative move, obeying the law, creates a better environment for everyone along the river. But the selfish interest of each factory owner is to cheat, to not spend the money for the anti-pollution equipment, because with lower costs he can out-compete his rival fabric dyers.

We can see the real-world consequences of selfish moves in the "race to the bottom" which engulfs our societies today. Game Theory tries to stop that.

Slime Molds

Slime is a very simple organism, brainless and single-celled. Let's imagine a slime mold heading towards an oat, a desirable source of energy. Now, with a razor blade, we cut off the leading edge of the mold, thus creating a new individual. That individual has a decision to make: It can go forward independently and get the oat, and not have to share that valuable resource with the giant mass of slime mold which is back there. Or it can merge back and reconnect with the mass.

In the separate payoff calculus, it's better for me, the cut off leading edge, to go get the food and not share it. Merged back together, the payoff matrix changes because there is no me and you, there is just we. And merging provides other payoffs, greater than the immediate resource, the oat.

Biology, our biology, is based on merging: subcellular components join into cells; cells into tissues; tissues into organs; organs into organisms. All connect with each other in important ways, merge and form higher level units that have distinct goals, memories, competencies and preferences from the different parts.

When you merge with another unit you get metabolic (economic) resources, but you also get information; once you merge you cannot tell whose information, whose memories those are. Larger scale individuals do very well because now they now have larger computational capacity, the combined knowledge of many pieces. Larger cooperative units force the cooperation of their parts because you cannot defect against yourself.

Race to the Top

What is true for biology is true for society. Belonging brings benefits. Individuals join together in families. Workers join together in unions. Residents create neighborhood associations. Neighborhoods create community initiatives.

The benefits of living in a healthier society, plus the amount of positive feeling (serotonin) that the factory owner gets from belonging to the community, far outweigh whatever advantage he gets from following his own selfish interest. People who belong live longer, healthier and happier, and money (beyond what you need for life's necessities) can't buy that.

Lokkal is the online nexus for community. Starting in San Miguel, starting with better communication, Lokkal's local internet platform builds community and strengthens the local economy, solving many of the problems facing society today. The solution is not going to come from the top down. What we need is localism, not globalism.

As Game Theory and slime molds show us, cooperation results in a positive outcome. I don't like quoting Marx, but he got one thing right, "Unite all who can be united."

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