Remembering stuff - concluding post

(Previous posts [1], [2], [2.5], [3], [4] & [5])

Having attempted to analyze the factors that influence civilization and its evolution, this last post(hopefully) examines the mechanism behind "resurrection" of civilization.
Here "resurrection" is used intentionally. Basically "resurrection" is a different and difficult process from "advent".

The reason is not very difficult to understand.
During advent, the instinct that drive civilizations are still primal and unconditioned, and the network arising out of interactions is only beginning to form.

On the other hand decline is a symptom of imbalance of instincts, thus "resurrection" implies restoring the balance, which means "rewiring" the connections to make social network functional.

Like the previous posts, this post too is concerned with how memories can be utilized for revival of civilization.
I make a distinction between memories dependant on their utility to the civilization.

One set of memories represent the decline and atrophy of civilization. These must be eliminated from the psyche. The other set represent the evolution and ascendancy, these should be promoted. Here I will emphasize that value system to which evolution aspires to, changes from stage to stage, hence memories do get reclassified during the evolution, resulting in rejection or assimilation. Also all the modes of memories can be classified as belonging to the either set.

One last point is about importing "value system". It is fashion of the modern times to proclaim certain values as universal. This is nothing but self-deception and unfortunate result of intellectual triumphalism of modern age. A more accurate statement would be that there are certain values which are "almost" universal.

Now before someone starts thinking that I am just rambling, let me emphasize, this "almost" is important, because it denotes the context in which value system evolved. Now much like evolutionary biology, development of civilization also ends up exhibiting convergent evolution, and as in biology while the basics remain same the details may vary. Hence attempting to impose a value system, evolved in a different environment,"in Toto" upon a different civilization is recipe for chaos and disorder, much like what is happening in India.

Instead, the preferable course should be to imbibe the vigour and contemplation which drove the development of value systems underpinning a vibrant and advanced civilization, to internalize the essence of such values.

Remembering stuff - V

(Previous posts [1], [2], [2.5],[3] & [4] )

Extending analogy between biological and social memories, it is possible to draw parallel between the situations when both the faculties do not function as desired.

But first, there is one more deviation that can be added to the abnormality of memory (as discussed in one of the previous posts). This is false memory, this is memories of events which never happened, this is again indication of some trauma or shock.

Coming back to civilization, there are times when memories atrophy. Before that a note of caution memories stabilize civilization, they do not make it impervious or eternal. However vigorous the civilization might be, it is bound to decline at some point, the best the memories can do is to act as seed of rejuvenation.

Now the memories atrophy when the process whereby new memories are created ceases. This happens when the intellect, the creative constituency of civilization declines. This may be due to,

a) The material decline of the civilization, when the production and trade declines due to geopolitical factors, dependant societies wither. I assume something like this happened to Harappan civilization (more accurate description may be Saraswati Civilization).

b) The intellect and the creative accomplish the task when they have a well defined (and respectable) position in the hierarchy which sustains them. However if this position or the whole hierarchy is undermined, these decline.

c) When rituals and traditions restrict restrict mobility and society becomes stagnant.

Now the first cause is beyond domain of human influence and hence outside the scope of this discussion.

Second cause deserves a more detailed analysis.

The social fabric can be riven from outside by foreign invasions. Again there can be a foe so overwhelming and resolute against which mightiest effort are futile, at that point one can surrender or take a last stand depending on what are the conditions. But many the times the foe is comparable in military power and it is the lack of political unity and presence of infighting and intrigues, which does the society in. These conditions indicate both decline of moral virtues among the ruling elite (Kshatriya) and the inherent flaw of political institutions.

The social fabric can also be sundered by internal uprisings and revolution. This has less to do with elite than with discontent of masses. This implies either the inherent injustice in the system, or a mismatch between ethos of elite and masses. Most of communist revolution point to the former, while religious persecution in Europe points to the latter.

Third point is more complicated

There is another aspect with the memories, the most persistent mode of memory is as rituals and tradition. These are formed by the most potent action of the instincts and hence survive for the longest duration. A big drawback of this is that they remain even when they are outdated.
I stated earlier that intellect drives the creation of memory, but here intellect was used in the sense the instinct to think, even this instinct is conditioned by social norms. It is necessary that it be distinguished from the ability to reason. Reason is more than a instinct, it is a system of thinking.

The second problem is that any shift in the configuration of forces implies disadvantage to the group(s), usually the predominant or the elites, it is but natural then these groups will seek to resist any change, a very effective way to eliminate any challenge to hegemony is to prescribe rituals and rites which in effect restrict any potential challenge and at the same time amplifies the actual power wielded by status-quoits. This results in proliferation of rites and inflexibility of system.
This, I believe, can explain in part, the rigid caste system, this I believe also explains a gargantuan bureaucracy.


Associated with the atrophy are closely related phenomena, loss of memory, denial and manufacturing of false memory.

These again are analogous to the phenomena manifested in individual humans.

First two tendencies are usually the result when a society or civilization is re-ordered on basis of a new set of ethos and ideas, which is a radical departure from the traditional values.
This might happen when either an external conqueror imposes his values over the vanquished population. Other possibility is when a radical social movement (usually alien to the traditions of host civilization) supersedes over the prevailing social norms. The time this process takes depends on the robustness of the host civilization. Islamic conquests for the large part are examples of the former and spread of Christianity in Europe of later.

Denial on the other hand occurs when the old civilization even though vanquished still maintain their presence, the new order unable to eliminate old memories, ignores or actively suppresses them. In this it is somewhat similar to case of false memories. A typical example of this is Pakistan. Basically what we have here is a society in dilemma, caught in between two conflicting identities, the urge to belong to one identity is the driver behind this suppression. Usually this suppression is society wide. But there is other case which should be discussed in the end.

False memory on the other hand is a device to protect the collective ego and self-identity (again much like as in case of individuals). It has two forms, one to shift the blame, or to boost the esteem. One example of former is how one major component of Islamic identity is victimization with blame shared by US/Israel/loss of Andalusia/unrighteous caliphs. Example of later is how Muslims who are non-Arabs invent lineage originating from Arab.

Last is the case for denial which applies in case of India, this time too there is active suppression of memories, but this is not driven by conflict between civilizations. This happens when some pernicious, where pernicious implies that it harms evolution and leads to decline of society, ideal
infects the psyche, as is not hard to see that the very first section which is infected by this is of intellectuals. Which will explain why seduced by the ideologies of universalism of 20Th century our intellectuals on one hand actively create a false picture of Indo-Pak bonhomie and on the other hand pine for a socialist utopia.

It is this disease of the intellect, and obfuscation of civilization's memory, which is hardest to counter, because this malaise is internal.

Remembering stuff - IV

(Previous Posts [1], [2], [2.5] & [3])

Before proceeding, one point must be (re) emphasized, neither the evolution, or the value system or the conscience should be taken to mean as presence of central intelligence, but nor does it mean creation is automatic and foregone conclusion, rather the creation is made possible by intellect of very few individuals, who more often than not, have no co-ordination.

Now coming to the main point, how exactly this "collective memory" forms and persists. I can only speculate but there are two aspects of it.

One there is always a distinction between creation of memory. There is elite "memory", this includes philosophy, classical art, religion etc. As opposed to this is "folk" memory which persists as folk arts, music. The "elite" term is used it's creation is only possible due to support of the elites (in political as well as economical sense) of the civilization. On the other hand, "folk" memory is created by the "common" masses.

The other distinction (again it is just speculation) that can be made is nature of memory.

First and foremost comes the literature, it may be religious, epic, oral, text etc. Second arts especially the performing arts, (plastic arts usually being much more subtle and fragile for creating impressions). Third are the rituals, rites, traditions of the society. Usually as one moves from to rituals there is a gradual transformation from elite to folk.

There are few general rules,

1. As a general it is the elitist impressions which encapsulate the value system most precisely.

2. However the trade-off is the reach of these impressions is narrow, and it is the "folk" impressions which more or less decide the broad contours of memories.

3. Further just like memories of individual, some impressions are much more permanent compared to others. The permanency of impressions arises from their compatibility with instincts they arise from.

4 . The agents who create these memories are philosophers, artists, priests etc.

Now, a society which is evolving, will be preserve its memories, what is more the memories will be modified by the agents who are all the time creating new impression based on the phase of society. These altered memories will decide the next phase of evolution.

However if due to some changes, it turns out that the society becomes unsuitable for evolution and/or for some reasons the creation of new impression ceases, the memories become outdated, with time they atrophy, and in their absence the civilization begins to wither. This occurs due to a drastic event, of historical magnitude.

Civilization which has reached such state only be revived when somehow the atrophied impressions have been erased and new more vigorous impressions created. As with the decline it is usually some drastic event which initiates this revival. Here it must be pointed that "atrophied" has a specific meaning. Simply put, any memory which impedes evolution is deadwood and must be eliminated, however memories which facilitate evolution should be preserved, and even utilized to revive civilization, further attempt to erase or discard such memories, will defeat any attempt to re energize civilization.

Remembering Stuff - III

(Previous Posts [1],[2],[2.5])

The previous post was a digression so as to prepare the background for this post.
The evolution of civilization, although faster than that of genes is still a slow process compared to the life span of humans and as such the scope of evolution is beyond endeavor of single man. Further the instincts may be the driver, it is the participating individual who is the agent.

However there is no blueprint or road map of the evolution available to the him. Combine the two conditions and it turns out that evolution is incremental process, present building on the accomplishments of the past, a bequeathing to the future.

But the problem in this is two fold, one the instincts as such remain in fragile equilibrium, which may not holdup, the other is as already pointed out the evolution of civilization is not reversible, specifically its tendency to decline is much stronger than its tendency to evolve to next stage (it can be called as entropy of civilization). I think, there is a convincing case to prevent backslide of civilization.

Question then arises how can we prevent that, the modern answer would be, "by creating appropriate institutions " or "by democracy" or "by enacting laws" or "by writing a nice constitution".

They are all correct, but only partially. Because the simple truth, that advocates of these measures do not realize, that institutions are just nice building, constitution is just a big fat book, passive, inactive, inert.
Of course these do "moderate" the effect of opposing forces and instincts, but in themselves they can not prevent the backslide of civilization, and while they do facilitate enlightenment, in themselves they can not drive evolution to next phase, finally, in themselves they are superficial.

What gives life to institutions and to constitutions, is the "conscience" of civilization, which is just another word for value system (as explained in previous post). So a more accurate answer is to create value system.
But this is back to square. It turns out that in order to have a value system, we need a value system! What an absurdity !

As it is science rescues us. To continue with analogy that I have alluded to in more than one place, civilization is a dynamic system, and our aim is its optimization, this optimization is possible only for certain specific configurations of its participant forces, these configurations change with time depending on the optimization level.
These configurations are fragile, our aim is to decrease probability (it is impossible to eliminate it) of chaos (or entropy) that this system can fall into.
Now this system manifests adaptability, this system is also capable of learning and biggest of all this system has feedback going for it.

This means the output arising from specific configurations can act as feedback (both positive and negative) to the system, control being the collective conscience.

Here another problem arises, unlike electronic circuits where feedback is almost instantaneous and can be directly used in control , civilization has slower response hence it means that feedback can not be directly routed to control.

Instead the feedback has to be stored as an impression to account for time delay factory, which acts as proxy between control and feedback.

I call this impression as "memory of civilization".

Remembering stuff - II (and I/II)

(Previous posts [1],[2])

The evolution of memory doesn't come to halt at the level of individual humans*, I believe that societies and civilizations have a "collective memory".

By this I do not restrict to technological knowledge, rather collective memory of civilization is an all encompassing collection of the philosophy, religion, rites, ethos, morality and art, the most accurate word being Weltanschauung . The question arises why the need for something like collective memory.

Nowadays one tends to assume that civilization is aggregate of individual members, sum of parts.In assuming that however, one commits a mistake, civilization is a fairly intricate system driven by interaction of forces (or influences) varying with time, and hence set of its defining attributes is in state of dynamic adjustment.

For that one must examine the cause which creates, maintains and destroys civilizations.

The civilization comes into being because, organization offers more"value" to participants than acting individually. Hence the purpose or vital sign of a vigorous and enterprising civilization is the "value" it creates. "Value" is used purposely,as it is distinct from merely material wealth*.

I believe the complete definition of value of civilization includes "approximately" material wealth, safety,security,freedom,absence of tyranny, creation of long lasting social and political institutions,ethics,arts, philosophy and religion, in that order.

In this respect the values of civilization are similar to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. However there is a crucial difference between how values of civilization and Maslow's hierarchy are realized.

I think it is reasonable to claim that values of civilization represents the goals of human instincts in various stages of social evolution. With the development of civilization, the productivity increases, which ultimately results in increase in surplus produce (or labour)**. Availability of surplus marks the transformation of society from one from phase to another, this transformation is also the trigger which raise the desirable "value" up the chian of values, I listed, for the next phase.

The pinnacle of this evolution is civilization.At this stage all the values, all the human instincts exist in state of interdependency. This interdependency means that the unlike simple hierarchy the evolution is not reversible (somewhat analogous to thermodynamics). Deficit or absence in one value can very well result in imbalance of civilization's forces, resulting in instability and decline (or even sudden unravelling) of civilization.

Now, for a civilization to evolve and prosper, it is imperative that underlying instincts are in harmony which means the desirable values be defined appropriately.
This is essentially a feedback kind of situation, as the values which are taken as goals of the civilization, are also the impulse which drives the civilization on its chosen path.

Jeez this sucks.......

* The biggest mistake, in my opinion, that Ayn Rand made was to make material progress as be all of the civilization. Market as altar, capital as God. But to be fair to her, she was a neophyte and did what what all neophytes do.

** Surplus depend upon the distribution also. There is a nice dilemma here. Civilization can not evolve unless there is surplus, and any equitable distribution will reduce the available surplus.

Remembering stuff - II

(Previous post)

So far, the ability to store and retrieve information for future requirement evolves from genes to memory, the later being much more complicated than former.

Memory finds its most evolved, and needless to say profound, expression in humans. It is not exactly clear how memory works, but the overall flow is clear. Storing, retaining and retrieving information. One assumes that there are specialized interfaces, regions and organs to execute the specific sub-tasks which constitute memory.

There are two important aspects to memory one is learning, other is forgetting.
We learn as well as forget all the time. While learning helps in acquisition of information, forgetting helps in getting rid of irrelevant information. Without this, faculty of memory will be impaired by information overload.

Now there are some special situations where memory may not function as desired.
First, it is possible that due to shocks (for example physical accident), some of the memory, or access to it, may be lost, in worse case it is also possible that even the capability to remember things is lost. While I am not sure, this must involve some drastic disruptions in the region(s) of brain which store, retain and retrieve information.

Then there is active suppression of memory, this is not forgetting, because the memory can be accessed but there is a block against it, as a result of trauma (physical or psychological).
Now it is my assumption that this block (or state of being in denial), has two forms.
One in which the signs of trauma (responsible for denial) are explicitly visible, this may be in immediate aftermath of a shock. The other form, is when the signs are not explicit, but nevertheless trauma has adversely affected the stability and robustness of psyche.

I guess the first may be at more conscious level and the second at subconscious.

But what is the point ..... ?

Remembering stuff - I

Once again we start from genes, genes are some ridiculously complicated chemicals (complicated thanks to promiscuity of carbon), which synthesize a range of chemicals vital for life, for example protein. Anyway the point is genes are in essence information encoded in form of molecules.

This information is passed from one generation to another, along the lines there is mutation and exchange. Nature selects the genes which are better suited and the rest perish.
Now there is a thing. The genes are blueprints of traits and structures which aid in survival*. But the evolution of gene is a very slow process, it follows then that genes are bound to reflect only the factors which affect them in a “significant” way for a “significant” duration.

This is not a very efficient way of ensuring survival, because what this essentially boils down to, is the fact that while the anatomy and instincts of organism as hard coded in genes are indeed suitable for coping with macroscopic environmental factors, they are not equipped to deal with short term variations (which have only local presence), which predominate at the level of individual organism.

The next stage of evolution that follows from this is the organism (now more complex than ever) gets the ability to think, that is process the input and act on it, this means development of nervous system from its primitive forms to brain.
Brain acts on the input and patterns (possibly in form of synapses) decide the output, now these patterns may be formed due to genetic inheritance, but complex brains have this capability whereby they can store information (input and output) in form of complicated networks comprising of neurons and their connections, and retrieve it for further use.

This is memory and and as we move up the hierarchy in animal kingdom, evolution of the memory (along with brains) is most noticeable.

Where I am leading with this ....

* Survival of what is the question? Of genes, of individual or of species. I think that depends on context.