The upward spiral of complexity

Note: Taking time tomorrow to publish its regularly scheduled blog post is high risk, so here's that post one day early. Enjoy!

Reading Douglas Hofstadter's I Am a Strange Loop has me feeling increasingly confident about using analogy to express ideas, so here goes one of my favorite analogies.

A human body is composed of about two hundred different types of cells. Some cell types include skin cells, nerve cells, muscle cells, and blood cells, and there exist many more. In fact, the cell types in the above list are actually classes of types; there are many types of skin cells, nerve cells, muscle cells, and blood cells.

The differences between the cell types are sometimes quite extreme. Consider a plane-Jane neuron, whose gangly axon can stretch for inches or even feet. In the microscopic world of cells, such a large length for a cell is unusual. Indeed, the entire concept of a neuron is unusual except in the regulated, secure environment of the human body; a neuron cannot independently obtain nourishment, dispose of waste, or protect itself from invasion; rather, it relies upon the other parts of the body to bring it nutrients, to take away waste products, and to thwart hostile attempts to interfere with the neuron's normal functioning.

The main point here is that there's little possibility that a neuron or any other cell like a neuron could exist outside of a human body or some other organism possessing a nervous system. And there would be no reason for a neuron to exist outside the body. The neuron carries out the specific function of quickly generating and propagating signals over long distances (as measured in the microscopic world of cells). A neuron, with its input dendrites and output axon, would be useless both to itself and to others outside the body.

And yet, inside the body, our strange little neuron fulfills a critical role and so the body creates for it that regulated, secure environment where it will thrive. Indeed, our little neuron is not so unique in this regard; the good health of the body is the complex, interdependent synergisms of distinct cell types creating for each other favorable environments where each cell type's specialized form and function help sustain all parts (including itself) within the whole.

Most bacteria and other unicellular organisms, meanwhile, must survive within environments that are unregulated and hostile and so must be more generalized than our body's individual cells. The bacterium must procure nourishment, dispose of waste, protect itself, and reproduce. It is by necessity nature's do-it-itself cell.

One question I'd like to pose, though possibly a little absurd seeming, is: which is better off in the arrangement, (1) the generalized do-it-itself unicellular organism cell or (2) the specialized do-one-thing-well multicellular organism cell, such as our little neuron, that lives within a complex and differentiated multicellular organism?

The question may seem absurd in that both generalized and specialized cells seem to be doing quite well for themselves within the specific environmental niches in which they thrive. In the objective sense where how “well off” a cell is equates to its reproductive success, both types of cells are doing quite well.

Furthermore, cells don't have emotions or thoughts or feelings so we can't probe the cell to figure out any subjective measurement of how “well off” each cell type is.

What we do know is that a complex multicellular organism is better off through the existence of such cell differentiation. Indeed, a complex multicellular organism cannot exist at all without cell differentiation. Imagine an organism as complex as a human being without possessing cells that quickly generate and propagate signals over long distances. How would such an organism react in a timely manner to stimuli within its environment? How would such an organism possess mobility without something like a muscle cell? Or have a protective boundary between itself and the outside world without something like a skin cell? For a complex organism to exist, cell differentiation is not optional; it's necessary.

And now, let's complete the analogy.

The real question I'd like to pose is: who is better off in the arrangement, (1) the generalized do-it-yourself human being who procures his own subsistence or (2) the specialized do-one-thing-well human being who fits, as does a differentiated cell within a complex multicellular organism, within a complex multi-individual “host economy” that provides a safe and nourishing environment for him carry out his specialized tasks?

The analogy is, I think, a useful one. Most of us within advanced economies do not procure our nourishment but instead rely upon the grocery store (which in turn relies upon the transportation network and the farmer and so on) and water system to provide us our food and water. We do not dispose of our waste but instead rely upon sewage and trash pickup. We do not thwart hostile invasions ourselves but support police and military institutions that do. In return, we do specific jobs for which we have been trained and that not everyone else could do. We are not unlike the little neuron that exists solely within its regulated, secure environment.

The question remains: who is better off in the arrangement? Hopefully it's obvious to you that an advanced economy's existence is possible only through specialization, and so an advanced economy is better off with specialization, much as how a complex multicellular organism requires of its cells specialization. But I am not asking about whether the economy is better off; I am asking about which type of individual is better off. In the objective sense, generalists continue to eke out successful niches within non-advanced economies, so it cannot be denied that generalists and specialists alike are reproductively well off. Furthermore, it can be misleading to judge through a quality-of-life metric. We would expect the specialist to be wealthier in the same way that we observe a typical neuron to have a higher metabolism rate than that of a typical bacterium. I fear there may be no quantitative way of answering this question. But human beings do have emotions and thoughts and feelings, and so might there exist a viable subjective measurement?

For what it's worth, here's my proposed answer to the question. I think that, based on the evolutionary history of Homo sapiens not being a lone survivor type of organism but instead relying upon the differentiated economies of the family, the clan, or the tribe for his survival, that human beings are better off within some sort of economic environment effecting some degree of specialization. However, that Homo sapiens has spent most of his evolutionary history within small, localized economies, it seems to me that human beings are not well suited for the heavily specialized environments that the modern, advanced world has created.

It's tacitly assumed that humans are the ones who have created cities and nations. However, might it be that cities and nations have created the modern human? To return briefly to the analogy, it's not as if all these two-hundred-plus differentiated cells existed within nature and decided to come together to form Homo sapiens. Rather, Homo sapiens came about through millions of years of speciation and increases in the complexity of organisms' composition. Cells differentiated because it was in their individual reproductive interest to differentiate, and the host organism took advantage of the opportunity for additional complexity afforded it by that differentiation. Cellular differentiation allowed for increasingly complex organisms, which in turn allowed for increasing cellular differentiation, and so on. The parts created the whole, and the whole created the parts.

Might an analogous process be taking place between humans and their advanced “host economies”? If so, how much control do individuals have over the world? How much control must the world have over us individuals? Where do emotions and thoughts and feelings factor into all this?