Evolutionary theory of behavior
2025-2026
This page features an extended version of my lecture notes for the evolutionary theory of behavior.
It includes original notes with some minor corrections, more recent comments (marked with a ⇑ sign), and additional links to subsequent posts.
This is the first part of my experimental project aimed at resolving the theory crisis in psychology and psychiatry.
PREFACE
This theory begins with a description of a general evolution of matter in the universe and related to it phenomena that may affect the behavior of structures within it, such as memory, consciousness, self-awareness, intelligence, will to live, free will, and, later, the concept of a creator.
Despite the seemingly abstract introduction, our primary goal is very practical. We explore various processes that are being found in the psyche of intelligent structures, including humans, looking for new ways to work with them in the fields of psychiatry, psychology, and sociology.
Combination of old philosophical concepts with modern knowledge, practical observations, and additional ideas from the fields of computer science and engineering provides us with a new toolkit for exploring and explaining processes within the psyche. This leads to the creation of a structured, purely mechanical model of behavior that covers both personal actions and patterns in groups.
By breaking structural parts of our model, we discover a list of potential malfunctions, a standard set of inevitable psychiatric diseases that various species should share regardless of their local differences.
Further investigations are aimed at finding missing connections between scattered pieces of information in the field and fixing dead ends in other theories. We use this project as a central core and gradually build a mechanical model of the whole psyche around it. This is a long process that eventually should lead to the complete elimination of statistical models, fuzzy wordplays, and intuitive guesses from our work.
Table of Contents
- EVOLUTION
- BASIC IMPULSES
- PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOR
- MALFUNCTIONS IN THE SYSTEM
- SOCIAL ENGINEERING
I. EVOLUTION PREFACE
PREFACE
At the beginning, we need to make a few statements about the evolution of the universe. To make some definitions. At first glance they may look not connected to the topic of human behavior, or behavior in general, but they will become a ground for further, more practical explorations and models.
⇑ This is like a mathematical system of sorts. We accept a set of axioms, create a framework, and then play with data and see what happens.
⇑ It's not common to design such systems in psychology, but this approach guarantees that all our predictions grow from the same tree. If any of them is falsified, we can trace back an axiom that caused that, fix it, and get a better model automatically.
⇑ First iterations of this system were confronted with counterexamples, changed, and improved in various ways over years. Current version is a stable one. In case of any dramatic discoveries that'll require major changes in the core, they'll be posted here and in my blog.
UNIVERSE
The universe exists.
The universe is derived from matter - a large amount of particles, separated by space.
CHAOS
Absolute chaos, a cosmic vortex, where particles move through space arbitrarily, without any structures present, is a natural state of the universe.
Chaos opens endless opportunities for particles to collide, interact, be combined into structures, and for the structures to be destroyed, disassembled back into the particles.
Every structure is derived from the same particles, same matter. All is one, and one is everything.
NATURAL ORDER
There is a natural order. The rules of engagement. The physical laws that cannot be bent. Every interaction between the particles can happen by the rules only.
Interactions, events, have consequences. Creation or destruction. Birth or death. One event can directly lead to another one, or open new opportunities for more complex events to happen.
TIME
Time is a way to organize the consequences.
Time is one-directional. Consequences come after events.
An event and its consequences, the next events, and the next ones, and so on, form a chain of connected events or a process.
EVOLUTION OF MATTER
The universe is self-similar. Structures interact and can be combined into more complex ones, and they can be disassembled.
Construction of these more and more complex structures is the evolution of matter.
⇑ By default, we'll use the term "evolution" in its most general sense, like a progression from simple to complex things. Biological evolution fits somewhere in the middle of that, but we won't pay much attention to it, and will primarily look for universal patterns instead. Just keep that in mind.
Random interactions happen all over the universe. Creation happens all over the universe. The process of evolution happens all over the universe. Randomly created different structures form branches of evolution.
Complex structures can be destroyed. Matter will return to the form of simpler structures. They can be combined again. And destroyed again. And so on. The process of evolution goes in waves.
WILL TO LIVE
Random events can start destructive processes outside, or conflicting processes inside a structure - self-destruction. It is inevitable. It is a matter of time.
Some complex structures may obtain a will to live during the process of evolution, a self-preservation mechanism that can block some of the destructive processes.
SPECIES
Some structures may obtain an ability to reproduce themselves or other structures, leading to a series of identical structures. It increases the chances of that branch of evolution to survive chaos and destruction.
Random events, mutations, may lead to copies that are not completely identical, creating species diversity and collecting various qualities of structures within a branch of evolution.
Technically, the process of reproduction is not a necessary part of evolution. Some structure that represents a particular branch of evolution may survive the surrounding chaos by chance, be combined with some other structure, and become something bigger.
MEMORY
Obtaining an ability to save and extract information, to have memory of previous events, is the first crucial moment in the process of evolution.
Structure that has memory of events inside it, as well as events outside it, has consciousness and self-awareness.
⇑ We use the terms "consciousness" and "self-awareness" in the context of general processing of information. These are universal things. An additional "sentience" with "qualia" may or may not be present in different species. We don't have any reliable data to be sure about anything related to that.
⇑ I wrote a separate post about technical aspects of self-awareness, and how do you actually find yourself in data. And why does the infamous mirror test represent not a self-awareness test, but a version of an IQ test.
Conscious structures naturally explore themselves, or other structures around them, and save information. Matter explores itself. The universe explores itself.
FREE WILL
Possible actions of a structure are partially predetermined by its overall design and its memory, if present.
Some structures may obtain free will, a chaotic mechanism that starts conflicting processes within a structure. They will be destructive, but they will allow it to make a choice against the behavior predetermined by its overall design and memory.
The real choice can be made through self-destruction only.
Processes of self-preservation, created by will to live, naturally work against free will.
⇑ See more about freedom and chaos in my blog. That rabbit hole is deeper than it may look like.
PURPOSE
The fact that a choice can be made means that the purpose of existence is not preprogrammed. Fate does not exist. Destiny does not exist.
⇑ At this moment, we're talking about common meanings of these words, where people see their lives shaped by parents, teachers, or cultural environments, like they're parts of a well-structured system, and your functional ability to rebel against data in your own memory, disrupting that system. It's a language game. Your structural freedom is real and fully compatible with hard determinism.
⇑ We have to work with multiple coordinate systems, and sometimes the same words can be interpreted differently. It's not a big problem, just an inevitable result of connecting multiple fields together.
⇑ I highlight the perspective that's being used as the default one in our context of behavior where we talk less about physical determinism and more about systems and order, leaving the word "chaos" as a placeholder for everything unstructured and unpredictable. It's a good compromise that works fine for all our practical purposes, but everything has to be carefully transposed and combined with other positions to make a complete picture.
The result of the existence, the consequences of it, can be observed at the time after the end of the existence, but it cannot be completely planned or predicted due to the chaotic element of choice in the process, and because of random events outside as well.
INTELLIGENCE
The next step of evolution is the obtaining of intelligence, an ability to make a new rule in addition to the natural order and follow it.
⇑ There are many things that we can build on top of this. A combination of intelligence with an additional pattern recognition system allows us to build an internal world, and produces various side effects like boredom, seeking for a purpose, and even the thing that some call collective unconscious, but the essence of intelligence is in rules. Create and follow. That's the key.
⇑ You can be technically intelligent and not very smart at the same time. Your smartness is a complex metric that only partially depends on your design.
Memory of the previous events is necessary to make a new rule. Consciousness is a necessary condition of intelligence.
The ability to make a choice is necessary to follow a new rule. Free will is a necessary condition of intelligence.
⇑ In other words, you need a functional ability to override your own instructions for behavior with new rules that you've created.
⇑ Most "AI-powered" tools don't actually do that. We have to be careful here. Our standards for intelligence are a bit higher than the ones that they use for AI agents these days. We don't treat thermostats as intelligent structures.
TRANSFORMATION
Structure becomes intelligent as a whole when some of its parts become intelligent. Human is intelligent as a whole, although some parts of it may not be intelligent.
The chaotic universe is not intelligent. It does not change the rules. Once an intelligent structure is created by a random event, matter becomes intelligent. The universe becomes intelligent.
CREATORS
New rules lead to the creation of infrastructure, a combination of various structures that act by these new rules. Some intelligent structures become creators of it.
Creators and the created environment become one complex structure of matter, with some new qualities.
Infrastructure may allow saving information outside the creators, exceeding their individual limits, which may depend on their design or the time of their existence.
Obtaining an ability to intentionally increase your memory, to make more and more complex rules, is the second crucial point. After it, the speed of evolution increases drastically.
MASTERMIND
The third and the last crucial point of evolution is the eventual theoretical creation of a mastermind, a vast infrastructure across the universe with memories of every existing rule in the universe. It will be able to control everything that can be controlled, and create everything that can be created.
⇑ Some people may interpret it as an important spiritual being from the past or from the future, depending on your perspective.
Along the evolution, the mastermind is being constructed within, and limited by the natural order; therefore, it is not almighty.
Since the mastermind is derived from intelligent structures, it is intelligent.
SELF-DESTRUCTION
The mastermind may choose to create a new universe eventually.
⇑ The problem of evil appears in this context. After we design all our patterns of behavior, it'll never look the same.
Creation of a new universe requires matter. Current structures in the universe must be destroyed. The mastermind must be self-destroyed in order to give birth to a new universe.
DESTINATION
Creation of the new universe may be perceived as the final destination, the only possible end of evolution. Everything gets back into the singularity. All the matter disassembles back into the primary chaos of particles. The consequences are being lost. The clock resets. The process of evolution starts again.
⇑ This is a situation where evolution leads to a new cycle of itself. Patterns of behavior that we study will be involved. Technically, the universe can be destroyed in some violent accident before that happens, but we don't have enough data to connect any of these ideas to our system at this moment.
It is likely that none of the intelligent structures of the present time, at least in our branch of evolution, will exist long enough to be able to prove any theories about the mastermind or the destination, so we will continue in a more practical manner, and try to collect the knowledge that can be collected and used today, within our current limitations.
II. BASIC IMPULSES
PREFACE
In the fields of psychology and psychiatry, we are interested in behavior of intelligent structures. The following model will be applied primarily to them, exploring the high level behavior of the most complex structure known to humanity. The human itself.
STRUCTURAL PARTS & IMPULSES
During the process of evolution, four important structures within a human psyche had been acquired:
- Will to live (to stop hostile processes).
- Memory, naturally leading to consciousness and self-awareness.
- Free will (to make choices).
- Intelligence (to make and follow rules).
- Diagnosing. Looking for flaws in yourself and your environment. You need to find a problem first, in order to deal with it.
- Counterbalance (counterattack). Creation and targeting of a process that goes against a destructive one.
- Reprisal. Complete destruction of a problem. Not just stop it. Not just hurt it. But destroy. It is important to differentiate this from aggression. The process of reprisal has a precise target that is to be completely annihilated.
- Dread. Fear. Anticipation of a great danger. Not looking for problems, but waiting for them to happen.
- Reconstruction. Repairing. Refueling. It is essential for survival to fix and fuel your boat. And yourself.
- Ignoring a problem. Not producing any reaction. The problem may be resolved on its own. No need to spend your energy on it.
- The environment is full of energy and opportunities. It helps you to act.
- The environment is indifferent to your actions. Actions seem to not produce expected consequences.
- The environment is resistant. It stops your actions. It may not be hostile, but it does not allow you to act.
- The environment is dangerous. It requires some reactions.
- The environment is safe. It naturally requires different reactions.
- The environment gives you gifts. You can take them.
- Temptation to try something new, to do something forbidden, to take old rules and throw them all away.
- Destruction of the environment. This is not a protection mechanism, but a way to achieve something.
- Aggression. Pure rage. Uncontrollable explosion without any precise target that destroys the environment completely.
- Justification. Bending a new rule to defend an old choice. The natural order cannot be bent, but some other rules can, can't they?
- Adaptation. Destroy yourself to survive. The choice to adapt may lead to circumstantial survival, but it is destructive by its nature.
- Exhaustion. A destructive way to use all received resources, the gifts of nature. To the end. Consequences are not important.
- Creation of new things. Changing the world is the most natural thing to do for intelligent structures.
- Protection. Keep things as they are. Keep the order. Keep the rules. Keep the created.
- Inflexibility. Follow a rule no matter what. Concentrate. Work hard. Achieve your goal.
- Call for pity. A willingness to be guided and protected by some other intelligent structure. To be petted. Only intelligent structures can become pets.
- Inaction. A choice to sit back and let things go on their own.
- Satisfaction. Relaxing reaction to gifts, fulfillment of wishes and expectations. No need to concentrate.
These structures start processes, basic impulses, that guide our behavior.
Impulses can be perceived as proactive and reactive. Their lists for every of the four structures will be split into two parts by this quality. They are opposite to each other.
⇑ All these impulses aren't random, of course. Later, we'll address relationships between them, and connect everything in one system.
⇑ Also, if you'll get a question why some species-specific actions are not here, I wrote an additional post about them. In two words, we need to select actions that can be done differently. If everybody in your species does the same thing in the same way, then it's not a matter of choices and shall be studied separately, outside of the field of psychiatry.
⇑ By using this separation of actions, we not only strip the psyche to its very core, but get a fascinating opportunity to study the same patterns of behavior in various species, regardless of their local bodily features.
WILL TO LIVE
Will to live creates basic impulses related to diagnostics, defense, and danger in general.
Proactive impulses. Find the problem. Aim. Finish it:
Reactive impulses. Problems happen. What will you do about that?
MEMORY OF THE ENVIRONMENT
Information about events outside will affect structures' behavior drastically, increasing its diversity.
Proactive impulses (the environment reacts to your actions):
Reactive impulses (you react to the environment):
FREE WILL
Free will gives us a set of impulses, related to choices and destruction.
Proactive impulses, to make changes:
Reactive impulses, to adapt to the changes:
INTELLIGENCE
Intelligence is related to rules and creation of the environment.
Proactive impulses:
Reactive impulses:
LIMITATIONS
Our list of impulses is not finished yet. It will be improved in the future, filled with details, and adjusted to different species, as empirical knowledge is being collected.
⇑ We assume that you don't acquire all these structures and impulses at one moment. These are complex things. You build them step by step. Some species will lack some of them, or will have proto versions of them.
⇑ Also, fully developed impulses require certain universal intermediate modules present in the system, like a reality checker for example (we call it a reward system in some species). When combined with other modules, it leads to various psychological phenomena such as respect or will to power, and can cause severe malfunctions in the system if wrongly configured. But this is a separate topic. For now, we'll concentrate on the top-level design and behavior.
⇑ In this rather limited theory, we gradually design a central core of a large framework. It includes a number of deeply interconnected structures and processes, and works as a guide for all further research. We may skip some things for now, but then we'll spend an eternity attaching this core to everything that lies around.
Nevertheless, the present set of impulses allows us to build a model that predicts human behavior, as well as many observable effects in human society, and, importantly, the development of all major psychiatric diseases, accurately enough for many applications. Future improvements will not affect its benefits at the present time.
III. PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOR
PREFACE
Our collection of basic impulses raises some questions. How is the complex behavior being constructed from these basic blocks? Are there any rules? Are some of them connected? How? Answers to these questions will allow us to build a system that can predict our behavior.
THE RULES
Some impulses cannot exist simultaneously within a complex structure. It should be obvious. Destruction and reconstruction cannot happen simultaneously. Environment in your memories cannot be safe and dangerous at the same time. Creation and not creation cannot be done together. Etc.
Impulses, started by one structure, affect other structures. Creation, started by intelligence, changes your environment and affects the following memories about said environment. Adaptation, started by free will, is destructive for the structure itself, and, naturally, affects its will to live. Etc.
⇑ Since all relationships between the basic impulses are based on pure logic that's naturally rooted in physics, we don't expect to see any limitations as long as the natural order stays the same. It's quite unusual for a psychological system to not have any limits of applicability, but we deal with what we have. If your design includes impulses from our list, you have to follow the rules with no exceptions.
⇑ Initially, we were building our system by choosing basic impulses first, connecting them to each other using simple logic, testing the resulting model, and fixing wrong choices. With time, I realized that we can do everything in reverse, and get the same result with fewer initial variables.
⇑ That reversed approach provides deeper insights into the relationships between impulses that we didn't see clearly from our initial perspective, and highlights the exact places where our language can't handle the logic properly. It's likely that we'll change the descriptions of basic impulses at some moment to add more precision to them.
⇑ New perspective doesn't change the system itself in any way, so we can proceed with old materials.
LOOPS
At the moment of evolution, when complex structures get several structures within them that produce impulses, we start to get loops. Three impulses can be connected in a loop. The loop forms a stable pattern of behavior that persists over time.
⇑ In other words, impulses that are connected by the rules trigger each other in a circle. An impulse from one structure triggers a response from another one, which triggers a response from the third one, which triggers the response from the first one once again.
⇑ Shorter loops of two impulses can be constructed in theory, but combinations of opposite processes between two structures don't make much sense. I assume that these rudimentary loops can exist in some primitive species, but I don't see any evidence that we actually use them.
⇑ Longer loops can be constructed if included impulses don't contradict each other. In practice, our options are rather limited and the direction of behavior can be easily confused which leads to a variety of problems that we'll discuss later.
PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOR I
From basic logic and observations, we get the following set of possible loops of three impulses, patterns of behavior, that do not include any conflicting impulses. We will address them as patterns of behavior of class I.
Proactive: (1). E:indifferent -> W:counterbalance -> F:aggression -> E. (2). E:stops -> I:inflexibility -> W:reprisal -> E. (3). E:helps -> F:temptation -> I:creation -> E. (4). F:destruction -> W:diagnosing -> I:protection -> F. (5). E:helps -> F:destruction -> W:reprisal -> E. (6). E:indifferent -> W:diagnosing -> I:creation -> E. (7). E:stops -> I:protection -> F:aggression -> E. (8). F:temptation -> I:inflexibility -> W:counterbalance -> F. Reactive: (9). E:danger -> F:adaptation -> W:ignoring -> E. (10). E:safety -> W:dread -> I:call for pity -> E. (11). E:gives -> I:inaction -> F:exhaustion -> E. (12). F:justification -> I:satisfaction -> W:reconstruct. -> F. (13). E:safety -> W:reconstruct. -> F:exhaustion -> E. (14). E:gives -> I:satisfaction -> W:ignoring -> E. (15). E:danger -> F:justification -> I:call for pity -> E. (16). F:adaptation -> W:dread -> I:inaction -> F.
W = Will to live; E = Environment (memory); F = Free will; I = Intelligence.
Some of these 16 loops, created purely mechanically, may look weird. Why would any human behave like this? But the loops are there. Later we will see that there is indeed some logic present in them, a legacy that we share with our distant ancestors.
It might be easier to interpret connections between these loops in the form of a table, with some common names.
The names are purely optional, yet they can help us to organize things.
16 PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOR
Proactive: (1)"invisible" (2)"obsessed" (3)"genius" (4)"recidivist" E:indifferent E:stops E:helps F:destruction W:counter I:inflexibility F:temptation W:diagnosing F:aggression W:reprisal I:creation I:protection (5)"gladiator" (6)"artist" (7)"prisoner" (8)"philosopher" E:helps E:indifferent E:stops F:temptation F:destruction W:diagnosing I:protection I:inflexibility W:reprisal I:creation F:aggression W:counter Reactive: (9)"adaptive" (10)"helpless" (11)"lazy" (12)"apologetic" E:danger E:safety E:gives F:justification F:adaptation W:dread I:inaction I:satisfaction W:ignoring I:call for pity F:exhaustion W:reconstruct. (13)"fool" (14)"consumer" (15)"victim" (16)"conformist" E:safety E:gives E:danger F:adaptation W:reconstruct. I:satisfaction F:justification W:dread F:exhaustion W:ignoring I:call for pity I:inaction
This table can be perceived as our main tool, a cheat sheet for field psychology.
⇑ We'll reference these patterns by numbers in parentheses. If you see (1), (2), (3), etc., then it's a pattern from this table. The same numeration will be used consistently throughout all further posts in my blog.
PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOR II
Some patterns can be used together as a complex pattern of two loops, a pattern of class II.
Patterns in the same row or in the same column contradict each other, and cannot be used simultaneously.
Proactive and reactive patterns are not connected by any impulses, and cannot be combined into one pattern of behavior.
The rest combinations can be created:
Proactive: Reactive: 1 plus 6/7/8 9 plus 14/15/16 2 plus 5/7/8 10 plus 13/15/16 3 plus 5/6/8 11 plus 13/14/16 4 plus 5/6/7 12 plus 13/14/15
With the total amount of 24 patterns of class II.
A third pattern will not be connected or will contradict patterns that are already included in a pair. Two-loop patterns of class II are final.
STABILITY OF PATTERNS
Patterns of class I are unstable. Individuals can switch between them from time to time.
⇑ If you use one pattern for a while, others may start to see it as a part of your personality, but it's not a fixed part. You can change your patterns.
It is interesting to notice that little human kids, who are hardly intelligent, use patterns from the first column a lot. Impulses from intelligence are not present in these patterns.
When their mother is indifferent, they start to cry and throw things chaotically (1); they can become surprisingly violent if nobody stops them (5); they ignore danger (9); and in safety they will fix a hole in a mouth with every candy on a table, not thinking too much about the consequences (13). Of course, we assume that every human is in fact intelligent, and even the little ones use various patterns, but this observation is very interesting nonetheless.
Patterns of class II are stable. They are self-sustaining. The change is still possible, but it takes more energy to stop a loop when a part of it is being constantly reinforced by another loop.
PREDATORS AND PREY
Observing these patterns in animals and people, we may notice that proactive patterns are patterns of predators, and reactive ones are patterns of prey.
This mental picture helps us to understand the practical logic of these behaviors. For example, in the pattern (10) we see a paranoid fear of safety. Why would an individual be scared if nothing happens? But predators attack in silence. If you live in a jungle, visible safety is indeed suspicious.
⇑ All our examples with predators, prey, pets, etc., may seem a bit too animalistic when applied to humans, but they should help us to grasp the essence of patterns. It may not be necessary for theoretical discussions, and we won't rely on this when building a list of inevitable malfunctions, but intuitive understanding of different behaviors helps a lot when it comes to practical applications.
Little kids, who are technically pets, being protected from their environment, can switch between patterns suitable both for predators and prey, but adults tend to choose a side and stick to it.
⇑ It starts to look like every pattern of behavior is associated with a specific chemistry of a human body, and differences between the sides are so dramatic that you just can't switch easily. We'll need to collect more information. This effect may or may not be present in different species.
⇑ Also, people acquire sets of values and goals aligned with their patterns and need to re-evaluate everything when switching them. It makes adults more inert in comparison to kids who don't know who they are.
⇑ Proactive and reactive patterns specifically are very different in this context, which makes both groups of patterns seem irrational when looking from the other side. For most adults, it would be hard to switch sides not only because of the chemistry, but also because it doesn't make any sense.
EMOTIONS
It is important to notice that emotions do not affect our behavior that much. What we feel and what we do is not the same. If you are a prey, and you see a predator, you run. You may feel whatever you want, you may have a good day, or a bad one, but you will run.
⇑ Some psychologists criticized this interpretation, saying that emotions guide everything in our behavior. And then they were making fake smiles to their enemies instead of chopping their heads off. Just saying. Internal rage doesn't lead to destruction unless it's already included in your patterns.
Emotions can be perceived as a universal language that can be used to establish communication between various parts of the same system and between separate individuals, not only in the same species, but also across different species that have similar versions of this mechanism.
This topic will be explored in future work, but in the context of behavior we will stick to the idea that the mechanism of emotions is not the structure that defines our final observable behavior.
⇑ Language is a poetic term. Technically, we're talking about a signaling system. It's a reactive mechanism. It describes the state of your machine, but it doesn't make any decisions.
⇑ In some cases, you can even work without emotions.
INTERVENTIONS
If we want to change the behavior of a particular individual, we have to stop one of the impulses in use. We need to break the loop. This action will push that individual to choose another pattern of behavior instead.
⇑ This is a simple action on its own, but there are few tips that may help if you never tried to work with behavior from this perspective.
Every pattern of class II has one primary impulse that is included into both loops. That impulse is the hardest to stop. There is always another choice.
Breaking one of the patterns while helping to use another one, setting a direction, can be an effective method of behavior control. We just need to keep in mind the problem of predators and prey.
⇑ We can create roadmaps for cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) using our table of patterns. From our perspective, their techniques make sense, but the process itself could use some adjustments.
⇑ Traditional psychological schools often start with evaluating various aspects of clients' behaviors in terms of healthiness, adaptiveness, positiveness, etc. The problem is that such a mindset makes you ignore the direction of behavior. You just don't see where the logical conflicts are.
⇑ Every pattern has a place in this world. All of them may look "good" at some moment. You can accidentally force a patient to use an incompatible combination, and you wouldn't even notice that.
⇑ We can keep the tools, but treat them differently. There are current patterns and desired ones. Nothing more. We diagnose a client, choose a new behavior, use our table to make a step-by-step plan on which patterns to stop or establish, and then use cognitive and behavioral techniques to do that. No emotions. No judgments. Just make a plan and stick to it.
COMPLEX ENVIRONMENTS
In therapy, it is common to see a situation where a memory of a dangerous environment, a so-called psychological trauma, seemingly blocks some of the patterns that include memories about safe and fruitful environments. This happens within the rules of our table. The pattern (9) blocks (10), (11), and (13), while (15) blocks (11), (13), and (14).
⇑ More information about traumas.
Danger does not affect predators' willingness to hunt. Patterns on different sides of the table are not connected. Some predators may not even understand why they should hear about their old traumas.
Patterns (4), (8), (12), and (16), the right column, are the only ones that are not connected to memories about your environment. They are the easiest to establish if the said environment is not under our control and constantly changing.
LIMITATIONS
If we follow these ideas, we can affect individuals or predict their actions to some degree, but if the system is broken, then a more nuanced approach may be required.
⇑ Our final behaviors are full of minor details that we won't be able to predict with absolute accuracy, but we can always reduce everything to core patterns and see the direction. In most cases, it would be enough to understand where everything goes.
IV. MALFUNCTIONS IN THE SYSTEM
PREFACE
In the field of psychiatry, our main points of interest are potential malfunctions in the system. They can be perceived as diseases.
Standard patterns, both class I and class II, shape normal behavior. Individuals who use them do not feel sick. There are no internal conflicts.
⇑ Some therapists may disagree with that. It's an important issue, and we'll try to resolve it by relying on natural designs and logic instead of subjective interpretations of craziness.
There are several kinds of malfunctions to expect. We will take a look at all of them, make some hypotheses about diseases and causes that are not yet discovered, and discuss how to work with them in therapy in order to make patients' lives easier.
⇑ There are some speculations in the field about evolutionary benefits of psychiatric diseases. We won't go down that road. We think like engineers. We break things.
⇑ Also, we can design a variety of attacks on our brains, similar to the ones that we perform in computer systems. They're barely connected to behavior, and I'll cover them separately in my blog, along with some other malfunctions related to the general processing of information.
DESTRUCTION OF THE SYSTEMS
What happens when a system that produces impulses is destroyed? This is the first and the most obvious problem to expect.
If one system is destroyed, then 75% of the patterns stop immediately.
If two systems are destroyed, then 100% of the patterns stop, which practically means that our patient will be thrown back in the process of evolution for millions of years.
⇑ Since all these systems are complex, their partial destruction should be possible. In that case the patient won't lose everything at one moment. It can be a long process that greatly depends on the design of these systems in your species. There are many local details to expect. We'll stick to the rough picture for now.
There are four systems to destroy. There are four types of degenerative diseases to expect.
In any case of destruction, we have the same picture of four patterns of class I left. One column. If we consider the problem of predators and prey, then there will be only two patterns left. Quite a tragic situation. And no, stable patterns of class II cannot be constructed within a column.
INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY
Without an intelligence module, patients will use the patterns from the first column and will behave like little kids that we addressed earlier. This condition may be perceived as intellectual disability.
MEMORY LOSS
Without memory of the environment, patients will use the last column of the patterns. The closest human equivalent of this is Alzheimer's disease.
⇑ This is a rather specific example. AD is one of the clear anchors that we use to connect this system to the human brain. However, depending on your design, you may have various additional diseases that also target your memory mechanism and eventually destroy it.
⇑ Dissociation in a graph of memories can create amnesia-like effects, but they happen on the level of software and have different consequences. We'll address them later. Right now we're talking about broken hardware.
It is expected to see destruction and blaming, looking for flaws in everything (4); creation of rules and then a temptation to throw them all away, get back to "normal" life (8); constant reconstruction of memories and justification of actions (12); adaptation and fear (16).
NO WILL TO LIVE
Without the will to live, patients are predicted to use the third column of the patterns, but practical observations become difficult. Without any defense mechanism, a patient will likely be killed by destructive or even self-destructive processes much faster than proper observations will be made.
⇑ It doesn't mean that patients purposefully aim for self-destruction, but they don't have anything that'll stop them from going into a downward spiral.
⇑ This phenomenon is especially confusing in relation to the patterns (3) and (11). External observers may not notice that things went sideways up until the last moment.
It is important to differentiate the so-called sadness and a complete inability to create a defensive process within a structure. This must be a bizarre final version of immunodeficiency of the psyche.
PEACE?
Without free will, patients are predicted to use the second column of the patterns. This condition was never observed as a disease during the research, but it is being mentioned in various religions, named differently, as something good. Not a disease, but something to be desired.
However, our system predicts that this is indeed a disease, a destruction of the specific structure that is supposed to produce impulses. This is a disease to be discovered.
Also, we may notice that the contradictory set of patterns of the second column can be described with the word "brainwashed", which is quite an interesting coincidence.
THERAPY OF DESTRUCTIVE PROCESSES
Destructive processes can be stopped in theory by medicine that is yet to be created. Unfortunately, we cannot do much here. The best thing we can do is provide support and try to keep the patterns that are still present.
CONFLICTING PROCESSES
The second class of malfunctions is related to the possibility of creation of conflicting impulses. They are destructive for the structure as a whole, and consume energy. This can be observed as some energy-related symptoms, in addition to anomalies in behavior.
⇑ There are two ways to create a conflict. You either don't stop something that shouldn't be there anymore, or start something that shouldn't be there in the first place. Because of that, we have two groups of diseases here.
⇑ Also, conflicting processes lead to a feeling of depersonalization. It doesn't affect behavior that much, but can be quite uncomfortable.
These malfunctions can exist with the previous four destructive diseases simultaneously.
MANIA + DEPRESSION = CATATONIA
Several conflicting proactive patterns will create a behavior that can be addressed as mania. Large amounts of energy are being used. Lots of actions. But it is quite hard to do any productive work in one direction.
Several conflicting reactive patterns will create the reverse situation, depression. Reactive patterns naturally require less energy, but again, the direction of behavior is getting confused.
Both mania and depression are problems with a mechanism that stops the loops of impulses. The system goes to the next pattern, but the previous one does not stop, and we see a conflict.
The expected development of these diseases will look like several random patterns, both proactive and reactive, that all contradict each other. Mania and depression at the same time.
This will create a condition that can be perceived as catatonia. In mania and depression, we see at least some direction in the form of proactive or reactive patterns, but with catatonia there are no directions left.
⇑ Technically, we can distinguish two versions of catatonia: stupor if the set of patterns is symmetric, self-neutralizing, and agitation if it's not.
⇑ In some classifications, people may treat these conditions as various bipolar disorders and introduce catatonia as a final stage. These divisions are artificial. You just collect more and more patterns on both sides.
Since mania, depression, and catatonia have the same core problem with the loops that do not stop, we could say that all of these diseases are indeed the same disease. Slightly different symptoms reflect underlying configurations of loops that were not stopped properly.
This can explain why a rather crude electroconvulsive therapy, ECT, works with this set of diseases and removes their symptoms for a while. It just stops everything. This is exactly what we need. To stop. To press the "reset" button and start a fresh self-coherent process from scratch.
⇑ Also, there is another way of thinking about this. If a switch can get stuck, it can become wobbly as well. That would be a perfect metaphor for this situation. Too much lube or not enough. These are two extremes. Seizure and catatonia. With a seizure, you don't stop processes in one move, but rather constantly turn them on and off. And yes, somewhere in the middle, we should have a safe spot where a system can regulate itself properly.
SCHIZOPHRENIA
On top of that, there is another problem to expect. Conflicting processes can be started simultaneously. The most obvious scenario is two mirrored patterns of class I or II being started at the same time. This may be perceived as the ambivalence in its purest form. Schizophrenia.
For example (1) + (9), or (3) + (11), or (7) + (15) for class I, or ((3) + (8)) + ((11) + (16)) for class II.
⇑ It's slightly confusing, but the full logical opposite of a loop is not a loop constructed from the opposite impulses on the other side of a table, but the one that goes in the opposite direction to that one.
⇑ There is a number of possible combinations here. It can be convenient to group them into clusters.
This condition may look like a special case of catatonia, so we have to be careful. This is not a problem with stop-signals.
Schizophrenia is a fatal error in the mechanism that is supposed to control the direction of behavior. Railroad switches are broken, and they allow two completely opposite processes to be started simultaneously within the system.
Mirrored patterns annihilate each other. Energy is being wasted. This leads to the lack of energy for everyday tasks. This symptom is associated primarily with schizophrenia and rare mirrored configurations of catatonia. Without energy, we need to shut down some systems. Emotions are not required for survival. They go dark first.
⇑ In other words, patients with schizophrenia can switch between different patterns, and they don't collect them as in mania, depression, or catatonia, but they get a mirrored pattern enabled every time.
⇑ In some sense, this is a wiring issue. You make one choice, and a connected choice is being made automatically. This means that in theory, depending on the design of the switches in different species, they may have several kinds of this malfunction. They'll cause not only mirrored combinations of processes, but some others as well.
⇑ So far, I don't have any evidence that humans have these alternative versions of schizophrenia, but we can't eliminate that possibility. These conditions won't feature pure ambivalence and total energy drain, and there is a chance that they're being misdiagnosed as treatment-resistant cases of other diseases. If we discover these conditions, we'll need to introduce a separate term for them to prevent confusion with "classic" schizophrenia.
THERAPY OF CONFLICTING PROCESSES
Medical ways to finally cure these diseases are still in development. Unfortunately, we have to wait. Psychotherapy can be used to reduce the symptoms.
⇑ Available antidepressants and antipsychotics don't make much sense from an informational perspective. While they can provide certain useful effects, they can't fix any of these breakdowns. They're not precise enough for that. A new class of drugs has to be developed.
⇑ These diseases are often associated with motivation, our reward system, and dopamine, but we have to be careful with interpretations. It's easy to slip into poetry and introduce a magical willpower where abstract levels of dopamine just reflect amounts of data of certain types in your channels.
Since the main constructions are not affected in these diseases, and the problem is in the switches only, radical methods of therapy can be used. It is the opposite situation to the destructive diseases.
With schizophrenia, it might be a good idea to stop all the used patterns on one side of the table. Proactive or reactive. It does not matter. This will unbalance the system, leading to the counterintuitive result where free energy will be gained, because not all of it will be wasted in completely mirrored self-annihilating processes.
⇑ This unbalancing should work with all theoretical alternative versions of schizophrenia as well, but we'll have to stop different processes.
It is important to notice that this method does not cure the disease, but it reduces the symptoms and makes life much more comfortable.
Similar ideas can be used with mania and depression. The only difference is that we need to identify all the patterns that are not being used and do not allow them to appear. We need to stop the process of collecting first.
Then we can start to block the rest of them, until only one is present. It is a lot of work, but it can be done. And again, it will not cure the disease, but it will remove the conflict and it will make life easier.
⇑ A patient has to stick to that pattern after therapy. Remember that the switches were never actually fixed. Everything works as long as you keep the momentum. If you slip into conflicting behaviors, you'll relapse.
⇑ It would be especially difficult to stay on track with schizophrenia, where conflicting processes start automatically and you have to constantly block them, spending already limited energy on that, but it's the only way.
EXAGGERATED IMPULSES
If every system works, and the switches are not broken, the next problem to expect is the amplification of impulses. When impulses are being created too fast, processes become too intense. Too amplified. Exaggerated. Uncontrollable. This may be perceived as an anxiety of sorts. The problem is independent, and can be added on top of any other malfunction.
There are 24 impulses. There are 24 conditions to expect. The set is not completely identical, but surprisingly similar to our current classifications of personality disorders.
Amplified inflexibility is basically an obsessive-compulsive disorder. You must follow the rule. Amplified call for pity is a dependent personality disorder. Amplified destruction is an antisocial personality disorder. Ignoring is autism, dread is paranoia, etc.
All these unpleasant conditions on the border of a "disease or not a disease" represent the same technical problem. We should expect to find a number of catalysts that amplify all these processes in similar ways.
⇑ In ICD-11, behavioral disorders are listed in a slightly awkward manner now. Serious malfunctions, such as schizophrenia and catatonia, are placed at the same level as obsessive-compulsive, eating, or stress-related disorders, as well as some conditions that are hardly diseases and more like violations of collective morality.
⇑ I would prefer to split their list into four blocks for clarity: destruction of the systems (connected to other problems outside of 06 category); major diseases (mania, depression, catatonia, schizophrenia); personality disorders (all the accentuated behaviors, including violations of various collective rules as special cases); memory malfunctions (we'll get there in a minute). This classification is what we get naturally from our system.
THERAPY OF EXAGGERATED IMPULSES
Anxiety, loss of control, will be present. It can and should be removed before any psychotherapy. There are medications for that.
Then we will see a situation very similar to the patterns of behavior of class II, the maximum of two loops created around the impulse that has been exaggerated. Our actions should be very straightforward. We stop both loops to prevent self-amplification and switch to other behaviors.
MALFUNCTIONS DURING MEMORY MAINTENANCE
Three other structures may be relatively simple, but memory is a complex one. Since the amount of particles, the amount of structures in the individual's design, is limited, information in memory must be re-ordered and deleted in order to save new information. We cannot fit everything.
There are three structural parts of memory that can make it work as a storage for information - a "writer", a "reader", and a "worker" that does all the maintenance and defragmentation. It reorganizes important information that should not be deleted and deletes the rest. This trio naturally leads to some expectations.
FALSE READOUTS
If information is being read and restructured at the same time, memory hallucinations may appear. Something that had never existed and had never been saved as a whole can be temporarily constructed from moving parts of information in memory, accidentally read, and remembered.
⇑ There are many interesting things that we expect to see in relation to memory mechanisms. Just a small amount of them are directly connected to the patterns of behavior, but this is a rabbit hole.
⇑ Also, psychiatrists use the term "hallucination" loosely. We need to be aware that there are several things that can be called like that in literature.
It is important to notice that the lack of coordination between the "reader" and the "worker" in the memory mechanism is not the railroad switch problem mentioned earlier. It is a different problem. These memory hallucinations are not a symptom of schizophrenia.
Another effect to be expected is a secondary readout of the same information that had been moved. This may lead to the illusion of deja vu. You have seen it already.
Readout of an empty memory cell, when information from it has been moved somewhere else, leads to the illusion of jamais vu. It should be there, but it is not.
Combinations of these effects create more complex ones. You may feel like you already saw something that never existed, and you may feel like you already knew something that never existed, and it should be there, but it is missing.
These are illusions to expect in any structure of this design.
Memory hallucinations and these illusions are not destructive. They do not corrupt the system on their own. Yet they can become noticeable symptoms of memory malfunctions.
DEFRAGMENTATION DISORDERS
If information is being written during defragmentation, memories will be split. This may lead to the so-called dissociative disorders.
⇑ Species, including humans, that store information in graphs will suffer both from lost associations and randomly created ones. It can be perceived as partial amnesia combined with delusions.
⇑ The so-called AI psychosis is a special case of this malfunction.
Sleep is required to perform defragmentation without this problem. The writing process has to stop.
This means that dissociative disorders can be achieved through sleep deprivation and intense consumption of information at the same time. It will force a memory mechanism to start hot maintenance in an attempt to prevent a buffer overflow. One technical problem will be replaced with another one. Kids should be affected more than adults, because they naturally explore the world and consume a lot of new information.
⇑ It's important to notice that this malfunction is not a standard psychological trauma that we mentioned earlier. These are two independent things. The screwed process of memory maintenance doesn't care about any information saved in said memory, including the one about dangerous events. In some cases, stress can lead to problems with sleep, triggering the avalanche indirectly, but lack of stress doesn't give you any immunity.
In behavior, we may observe dissociative disorders in the form of random switches between the patterns that include impulses from memory. These switches come from randomly constructed memories, and they may look like there are no reasonable explanations for them.
THERAPY OF MEMORY MALFUNCTIONS
False readouts are consequences of sleep deprivation. We can remember a classic example of this effect. Sailors. They tend to see various things in the sea at night and make all kinds of terrifying stories. Good sleep will help to deal with this kind of problems.
⇑ Even if you've triggered these effects artificially, you still can stop the reading process and wait for the defragmentation to finish.
Therapy of dissociative conditions is the opposite. We cannot guarantee anything. Memory has to be reconstructed in order to cure the disease, and we do not possess any reliable tools to do that.
⇑ In some special cases we can try to reconstruct the graph of memories, but there are many other scenarios where our tools won't work as expected.
DREAMS
It is obvious, but still worth mentioning, that sleep does not destroy the memory mechanism. It works. Some readouts continue during defragmentation. This process creates dreams. Technically, these dreams are memory hallucinations, the same ones that may happen during sleep deprivation.
⇑ When trying to recall a dream, we remember only pieces of information that have active connections to other things in a memory graph and weren't deleted during its maintenance. We don't remember any deleted stuff. Because it was deleted. This creates a certain bias in memories of dreams. They always reflect our current mindset, which turns them into subjects for rather entertaining psychoanalysis. Technically, it's just a survivorship bias.
There is a common wish to learn things in sleep instead of going to school. Even if we assume that the writing process will work, it will inevitably hit the wall of defragmentation. Any complex knowledge will be corrupted. Effective learning in sleep is not possible.
V. SOCIAL ENGINEERING
PREFACE
We, as intelligent structures, may choose to combine various behaviors into one system and create a society. That is the final level of complexity that we will cover in this theory.
Since interactions between individuals follow the same rules of the natural order as everything else, we already know what to expect.
In this short closing lecture, we will take a brief look at the combinations of different patterns of behavior within social structures, collect some recipes that should work, and discuss potential problems.
⇑ The main reason why all these combinations work or don't work on the higher levels is that patterns are being translated into moral values and priorities. It's a complex subject that goes far beyond our topic of behavior, and for now we'll skip it and concentrate on practical recipes.
⇑ The important thing here is that the logical relations between the basic impulses never change. This is why we can expect a lot of things to appear on the higher levels of organization of matter in the same way as they appear on the lower levels.
CONFLICT
Several individuals that use different patterns of behavior of class I cannot be united.
A ? B ? C
They can be forced to exist in one space, but we should not expect that they will be united and will work together efficiently in one direction.
⇑ In some cases, shared traditions may leave an impression of unity, but we shall not be tricked that easily. Visible similarities often hide serious conflicts of priorities somewhere inside.
⇑ The same applies to exchanges of resources in general. Situational interactions are not signs of cooperation. It can be counterintuitive, but many relationships that look mutually beneficial at first glance, like between artists and consumers, constantly suffer from conflicts of interest.
This situation is very much like catatonia, but it happens at the higher level of organization of matter. Serious shock, like ECT, may help to remove the symptoms.
Individuals with mirrored patterns will work directly against each other, creating a conflict, similar to the one with schizophrenia. Resources will be wasted. Communication systems will be shut down, like emotions. It would be wise not to force mirrored individuals to work together.
⇑ Such conflicts can be seen not only in direct interactions between individuals, but also in shared environments.
⇑ As an example, our world becomes biased towards reactive behaviors, and that can create certain problems for artists. They aren't dangerous, but often have to suffer because their proactive behavior isn't welcome in a reactive society.
⇑ It would be natural to assume that individuals who use different patterns that share a basic impulse should be able to work together without any unresolvable logical conflicts, but in practice humans struggle with external synchronization based on incomplete patterns. We may hypothesize that it may work in some other species or in some unusual circumstances, but without any evidence that it can actually work we treat these combinations of patterns as conflicting ones, or, at least, highly unstable ones.
UNITY
Several individuals that use the same pattern of behavior of class I can be united as a group, and behave in all further processes as a whole.
(A + A + A + ...)
⇑ The concept of belongingness appears in this context. It's not a fundamental motivation, but we need it to progress to the next levels of complexity of structures.
Once an individual is connected to a group, one loses the ability to switch patterns of behavior. One should be extracted from the group to do that, and will not be able to connect back using another pattern.
The same way it happens with exaggerated impulses, many repeating patterns of behavior can create an intense, uncontrollable process within a group at some point. This effect can be poetically described as "the madness of the crowd".
LEADERS
Individuals that use patterns of class II, more complex ones, can be perceived as leaders.
Individuals that use patterns of class I can join a leader that shares a pattern with them.
(A + A + A + ...) + AB
Leaders use two connected patterns of behavior. They stabilize each other. This means that the leader becomes a stabilizer of the crowd, and can stop it or push it to keep the coordination between two patterns.
⇑ Naturally, the leader can be connected to a second group:
⇑ (A + A + A + ...) + AB + (B + B + B + ...)
⇑ Think of this as social chemistry. Individuals that use the same pattern of behavior attract each other. You can connect a number of individuals by using shared patterns as connectors, and form various "social molecules".
⇑ Complexity of these structures will be increasing endlessly, and it can be convenient to limit our scope. I personally prefer to work with groups as separate entities, and see leaders as adapters that can be glued to one group or another, depending on my tasks.
MEDIATOR
Different leaders can be united if they share a pattern, creating a mediator group that balances more different interests.
(AB + AC + AD)
Is this a catatonia of a group? Yes and no. These leaders use conflicting patterns, but they have a shared one as well. It is a common denominator that works consistently even when there are disagreements in other areas.
⇑ Mediator is like a degenerate case of a group with two or three adapters, but without any standard members that use patterns of class I.
TWO CHIEFS
Unity of identical leaders can be powerful, but unstable.
(AB + AB)!
Technically, they can work together for a while and be surprisingly effective, helping two different groups at once, changing things, but again, repeating processes lead to the uncontrollable one, and in this case there is nobody to stop them.
⇑ We commonly see these combinations as bright explosions in the cultural sphere. They cause ripples across the entire society, but rarely last long.
THREE-HEADED GROUP
This means that a stable group in its most complex form can have the maximum of three different leaders, who will share one pattern between themselves and with the rest of the group.
(A + A + A + ...) + AB + AC + AD
Not every group will become three-headed, but this is a safe limit that we should be aware of.
PREDATORS AND PREY
Interests of predators and prey are never aligned, but can be balanced to some degree by intelligent leaders that are able to negotiate and use logically related impulses, such as protection and call for pity.
⇑ Predators always stay at the top of the food chain and form master-slave relationships with prey, but we can try to find a compromise by keeping the most dangerous predators away with minimal collateral damage.
⇑ We could notice that there are several other pairs of impulses suitable for negotiations, but usually, when it comes to public interest, we face the same core problem of self-preservation and choosing the lesser evil.
⇑ Technically, this wouldn't be the same type of connection as with leaders that share a pattern. It's a workaround with some quirks. It may look good in vacuum, but that protection doesn't come alone. There are patterns around it. They make certain political systems surprisingly limited and predictable.
⇑ In some cases, we can try to exploit a will to power and use bribery to hide problems and form visible alliances between groups with opposite interests, but it's not a real solution. Logical conflicts don't disappear when you close your eyes. They backfire.
SOCIETY
Since a group can include three leaders, it can be connected to three other groups. Every group on the perimeter will have a maximum of two leaders left to be connected to the next groups. Then more. And more. The society is being made.
⇑ Theoretically, we should be able to include every human in a single society. In practice, humanity is full of lies. Complex social structures appear every now and then in isolated communities, but we have to admit that a rosy future where we all work together looks a bit unrealistic at the moment.
⇑ However, our social chemistry doesn't have any specific restrictions that stop us from building a better world. We can do that. We just need to design a collective ideology, balance interests of predators and prey, and set a goal to actually work towards that future. When that happens, all these superstructures won't look like dreams anymore, and will become actual blueprints for new societies.
TREE
The basic design of a society is a tree structure. It allows us to create a chain of command. All roads lead to Rome. We can force ideas and drive progress and innovations.
G
_____/|\_____
/ | \
G G G
/ \ / \ / \
G G G G G G
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \
G G G G G G G G G G G G
⇑ Such trees are commonly used in software. We make one "command center" node that sends signals to its children; they receive data, do something with it, and send it further.
The main practical problem with this type of structure is that it can be easily broken. Only one lost connection will split the whole society in half.
⇑ In some circumstances, it can be beneficial to have a system that can be easily disassembled and reconfigured, but we have to keep access to all unattached parts in order to reuse them. If you lose all connections to some remote server, it'll be difficult to fix that.
STABLE SOCIETY
In order to build a stable society, we need to create more connections between the groups. We need to make not only further connections to new groups, but also connections to the ones that are already included in our system, turning a tree into a graph with loops.
G
/|\
G—G—G
| |
G—G————G—G
|\ /|
...—G—G————G—G—...
⇑ Now we have circular dependencies in our society. Programmers often avoid them, primarily because data goes in circles and it's difficult to separate various parts of a system from each other, but this is exactly what we need in our context of stable societies.
There are endless ways to construct these graphs. In an ideal scenario, we want to have at least three connections between all combinations of its parts. That graph will be among the most stable ones. Three or more connections will have to be destroyed in order to split it.
BALANCE
In reality, it is impossible to build an ideal graph for a big society. Even a very close to the ideal one will be very difficult to build in practice, because of our inability to choose new members and lack of resources in general.
On the other hand, stable graphs slow down the progress. It can become a problem on its own. We may choose to mix both designs.
⇑ In complex computer systems, where everything depends on everything, you can't force an update. Any major change requires a lot of time and energy. Usually, we're trying to balance between stability and flexibility.
It can be a good idea to intentionally combine these two types of graphs, to have stability in the core and progress on the perimeter.
LEGACY
Following these ideas, we can try to build a system as efficient as we can within our limitations, protect our legacy, and help our branch of evolution to continue its existence.