Nature of the Individual qualitatively different than Nature of Collective
Here is another way of diagramming the connections between the laws of the individual and the form of the group. Note that while the Laws of the Individual are intimately connected with the Form of the Collective that they have nothing to do with the Nature of the Collective. Similarly the Nature of the Individual has virtually nothing to do with the Nature of the Collective. In fact their respective Natures are qualtitatively different.
As examples witness: the Laws of the Alphabet, i.e. the phonetics of letters combined with the order of the letters, determines the Form of Words, but it tells us nothing about the meaning of the Words. Similarly the laws of Music, i.e. the harmony of notes, tell us nothing about the emotional content of the music. The difference between Laws, Form and Nature is also seen in relations between the electron and the molecule: letters ->word-> sentence-> book: and Matter -> Life. While the Laws of Matter determine the Form of Life, they in no way determine the meaning of Life.
Humans feel Emotions: Corporations don’t
Witness the progression from the inanimate Electron, which can barely be called matter, to the Corporation, which is neither matter nor human, although it consists of them.
The Body is a collection of Organs, while the Corporation is a collection of Bodies. Human Bodies feel a wide range of emotion, which has been the foundation of music. theater, literature, and art. In contrast, Corporations feel no such emotion, although they are made up of people. While humans feel anger, compassion, loyalty, and love, Corporations don’t. Hence the attributes or Nature of Humans, which is very personal, has very little correlation, if any, with the Nature of Corporations, which is very impersonal.
Groups care about Individuals to the extent they serve the Group.
Most of the groupings, except the smallest and largest, serve both the individual and collective level. For instance, we human bodies are a collection of cells while a collection of humans yields a corporation. Just as the body doesn’t care about its cells, except to the extent they serve the body, neither does the corporation care about its bodies.
Corporations, whether of a business or political nature, sometimes called countries, while consisting of people, has an existence separate from the people which make it up. These countries, kingdoms, empires, also states, tribes and family, are all corporations of people; and they are meant to survive longer than the individuals that they consist of.
There are many examples of the individual being sacrificed for the collective. On the most basic level - the father sacrifices himself for his child that his family might survive. On larger levels the individual soldiers will sacrifice themselves for their country so that their culture will survive. On business levels the corporations will casually cut away its humans in order to survive- laying off personnel and closing divisions without remorse or regret.
Corporations have no Conscience
Therefore corporations of people, which include countries, don’t have a conscience, while they are made up of humans with a conscience. Corporations care for individuals only to the extent they serve the corporation. Beyond that the humans are dispensable after they have served their purpose. When they are used up, they can be thrown away.
This is not cruel or unjust. In Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching, the Taoist bible, it states that Heaven treats humans as straw dogs - sacrificed to the collective if need be. This is natural. However, it is a trap to watch out for. Because human groups are made up of humans we tend to think that they have human emotions. They don’t. The country throws away its veterans once they can no longer fight. The Corporation throws away its employees once they can no longer work.
Best interests of Corporation to treat its Humans well
However, most of the time it pays for the corporation to treat its humans well - just as it pays for a human to treat their cells well. Happy cells lead to healthy humans - which leads to a healthy corporation. Hence the good of the corporation is frequently linked with the good of its parts. As examples, the Company provides retirement benefits to attract better quality employees and the government provides a nice financial package to its soldiers to entice them to sacrifice themselves for the Group.
Indeed life incorporates in larger collections for the greater good. Frequently corporations of life - which we call meta-life - are created to maximize the potential for collective survival of the individual cell. This doesn’t mean each cell, just most cells.
Survival of Forms defined as Successful
By definition:
Survival = Good = Truth = T = 1.
Any behavior which facilitates the survival of the group or individual is rated a one - is passed on - is continued - is considered successful - whether on the inanimate or animate level. This is another meta-law that is independent of matter and applies to any grouping in the Newtonian world of momentum.
“How”, the Reader may ask, “does this apply to inanimate objects?”
First, all matter attempts to maintain momentum - a la Newton. Next, in seemingly automatic fashion organizations of matter are passed on if they are successful, which mean they survive. This is so obvious that it seems a truism, but the same principle applies to animate matter as well. Darwin, in stating this straightforward principle of natural selection, caused a controversy that is still swirling.
While this principle is obvious when applied to inanimate matter, it is not so apparent - but equally obvious - when applied to animate matter - Life. However, it is controversial when applied to humans and their corporations.
Reader: “Why?”
Because it is commonly thought that we exhibit free will, and are masters of our destiny. In contrast, the invariable laws of physics determine the behavior of inanimate matter and instinctual behavior determines the behavior of animals, excluding humans.
While this statement is true in a limited sense - it is misleading in others ways - i.e. the common way of thinking - whatever that is.
Basically matter experiments with different forms just a humans do - just as life does. The unsuccessful forms perish, while the successful persist and abide. Further, the material forms - like the human forms - only become unsuccessful when they perish. Prior to that instant they were successful - registering all 1’s.
As an example: matter experiments with being water vapor before leaving that unsuccessful form to become liquid water. Perhaps at one point due to lack of heat the liquid state also becomes unsuccessful and it decides to become solid water, i.e. ice. Matter stays in this state for a while until too much heat is added and the water molecules decide to leave their unsuccessful solid state to become liquid again.
While this cycle of water seems quite transitory to humans - because we imagine this cycle occurring on an annual level- we could be referring to the action of glaciers which go thru this process over tens of millennia which makes the human experience look like wisps of clouds.
Unsuccessful Star form explodes as a Super Nova
If the Reader is still confused, let us look to a more material example.
A certain clump of matter organized itself as a star for millions of years. Eventually this form became unsuccessful, because of internal revolt and civil war amongst its parts. All its great poets, writers and artists warned of the coming cataclysm but none heeded the warning. Then at a certain instant in time the star exploded into a super nova - sending its parts flying throughout the universe.
“We told you so,” the pundits said. “But no one listened. And now look. Our great and mighty empire has been torn asunder - with our citizens scattered randomly throughout the universe. We warned that we were getting too big - that these internal forces were growing. We were creating too much tension and now look what has happened.”
But these collections of matter that were spewed out into the universe formed their own galaxies if big enough - or maybe just a small solar system if these chunks were not quite so huge - or maybe even a gaseous cloud which turned into a planet. The unsuccessful super nova form was followed by many eons of experimentation before this matter settled into the successful form of matter we call the Earth.
“But what an adventure we had - Most of the records of our excitement have been lost - But we left records in the form of residual light - material momentum and direction - infrared rays - that hopefully some intelligent form of matter in the future may be able to reconstruct our exciting tale from these bits of evidence that we left behind before we settled into this relatively successful form we call a planet.”
Animate and inanimate obey same Grouping rules
It is easy to animate the inanimate so that it is indistinguishable from Life, just as we did by projecting human emotions on the ‘civilization’ of a super nova. Similarly we can de-animate life so that it appears inanimate - by describing everything in terms of inevitable cause and effect. The point of these examples and stories is that Matter and Life are on a continuum of organization, and obey similar rules rather than being separated by a deep chasm. Groups, whether ‘alive’ or ‘dead’, attempt to preserve themselves at the expense of their parts. Whether intentional or inevitable is secondary to the fact that they do. While humans think of themselves striving, trying, exerting tremendous effort, to achieve some goal such as the preservation of their culture or country, they think of animals and minerals as obeying automatic laws with no choice involved. Similarly humans don’t tend to think of disembodied Corporations as striving for preservation. However Groups also have the desire for survival. As long as humans don’t wake up to the intentional nature of Groups attempting to preserve themselves at the expense of the individual, they are destined to be victims of the Group.
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