Change and Complexity

Abstract

Earlier in this book I suggested that social systems and structures are likely to exhibit non-reductive emergent properties and that this likelihood arises from the highly complex nature of the individual elements that pattern social interactions. I suggested, indeed, in line with Sawyer, that the very nature of the use of symbols means that the number of possible starting conditions for any interaction is, to all intents and purposes, infinite, and thus that any structures that emerge from the concatenation of those interactions are likely to be highly unpredictable in detail, although they may appear to exhibit a degree of predictability and stability on a large scale. This paradox that social phenomena appear to be highly unpredictable and reticulated at the micro level, and yet appear glassy and stable at the macro level must be examined if we are to make sense of how societies and institutions within those societies work. In Part II of this book I laid out a new conception of the bases of motivation and action and their relation to our intentional — directed — states of mind that enables us analytically to place our motivations to act within the past, present, and future of our environment. I suggested that we satisfy our will towards ourselves in performances that are enabled by the adoption of supplements, or extensions, to our existing selves.