Which suggests the question, what else does nature “know” that we need to find out? I watched an animated version of “Flatland” recently with Ryan, and was fascinated to see his mind churning and turning over the concepts it presented. The idea that there’s always another dimension beyond the ones that we can readily comprehend may apply to the development of human thought about social organization.

I have no clear idea what the equivalent of the “zero-dimensional” universe might be in the context of social organization might be: perhaps the individual, apart from organization. In the “Flatland” movie, the point repeats “Me, me, me” over and over again and is its own universe.

Hierarchies are somewhat one-dimensional: it doesn’t feel like stretching the analogy too far to say that there is a “direct line of command” from King to serf, General to Private, God to man. I do, however, have a hard time conceiving of a single-dimensional space as being “perpendicular” to a zero-dimensional space. It seems to me that a line is both perpendicular and parallel to a point on the line.

I suppose feedback systems provide another “dimension” to social organization — another means by which “control” of a society or machine is obtained. Starting to stretch the dimensionality analogy a bit. Feedback is “orthogonal” to hierarchy in that it comes at the control problem from a completely different angle. Sure, I’ll go with that.

Suddenly, I wonder if “self-organizing systems” are different from other feedback mechanisms, or if they’re just multi-dimensional feedback mechanisms. In fact, the distinction between hierarchical control and feedback systems is looking a little shaky to me, too: the guy with his hand on the valve of the steam engine is just a biological governor: he looks at the way the engine is performing, and adjusts the valve accordingly. That capitalist pig Watt put a bunch of valve-twiddlers out of good paying jobs.

All those individual members of an online community are each twiddling their own valves, deciding how much attention to give here, how much engagement to have there, and the result is a bunch of interconnected, interdependent feedback loops.

If they are different, then the difference is, as Flatland suggests, a matter of dimensions. Whether they’re all orthogonal is material for another train ride (and if it is a steam train, then all the better).

What I take away from this post is that how people choose to self-organize is interesting and should be measurable. What they do in their self-organized pods is valuable information.

I could play semantic games and argue that humans have ALWAYS self-organized, even in the hierarchy of medieval times.

Kings/noblemen had to have followers in order to become king. People CHOSE their kings initially, served in their armies, sought jobs in positions of power. While they did not have the same freedom of choice we enjoy today, think about it–not just anyone could get up and say “I’m king now.”

But that’s fodder for discussion on another train ride.

And what about the need for moderation and direction on social networking sites…indeed, in society in general?

Folks might not want to listen to racists in an online community, but unless the hierarchy is there to award moderation capabilities to a select few, the tyranny of the minority (ie: racist rants) will surely drive the mainstream away.

Likewise, we face in CA (and all across the nation, really) the tyranny of the majority that denies civil rights to some based on sexual orientation. That’s what self-organization can lead to.

I don’t think that total self-determination is the way to run either a social network or a society. Rules/higher ethics need to exist to ensure fairness for all–and people are VERY likely to self-organize in such a way that discriminates.

My .02 worth. I think we agree more in concept than actual detail.

TOTALLY agree with “I think that some of the coolest work being done today, if not the most profitable in the long run, calls for having the intuition to see patterns and the insight to figure out what they mean.”

Amen.