Summary: Social Networkism implements the concept of the soul and society described by Socrates and David Hume in order to create happy and fair societies. The members of society are then glued together by moral sentiments, as described by Adam Smith.
Our proposed science of SORAnomics is based on a new paradigm that sees individual entities as naturally part of a larger group of entities called a society.
Unlike normal definitions of society, our definition describes a society as a kind of metaphysical organism that has its own dynamics, similar to, yet different from the dynamics of the other metaphysical organism called the mind. When the mind is removed from a body, it is called the soul. In Ancient Greek and Eastern philosophy, an animal that dies has its mind converted to a soul which then transfers to a human body as a human mind. Likewise, human minds can downgrade their existence just as animals can upgrade theirs. This is easily seen in humans that act like animals and in animals that can be domesticated and trained for sports, bomb-sniffing, assisting disabled humans, etc.
A society is three or more entities working towards a common goal or interest. A partnership is a bit different as it needs to two entities as a minimum. Thus, a childless husband and wife is a partnership. It becomes a society after having a child. A family is a common example of a society. A basketball team is a society, different from tennis-doubles players that form a partnership. Since a team is a society, it also is subject to social cycles which manifest as winning and losing streaks.
This gives a flexible quality to the mind which allows it, not only to move between vertical abstract hierarches, but also laterally through horizontal abstract space*. This lateral movement manifests as minds that can group themselves together into teams, organizations, companies, and societies which have one mindset.
* In the physical world, an example of vertical hierarchal movement is a glass of water 'upgrading' into water vapor or 'downgrading' into ice. An example of lateral movement is water droplets merging with other droplets to become a big droplet that has a new identity, losing the identities of the old water droplets.
Lateral Type | Metaphysical Organism | Physical Example | Parts | Explanation |
---|---|---|---|---|
Personal | Mind or Soul (Atman) | You or Self (Jiva) | Perception | Your perceptions mold your mind. Nurture is stronger than Nature |
Group | Soul of society | American | Individual minds | Society is molded by the minds inside it. A weak basketbal team is one with weak members. |
Species | Soul of species | Human | Individual societies | Species evolve as one in order to live better |
Planetary | Soul of planet | Earthling | Individual species | All species evolve according to their planet's conditions |
Star | Soul of planet | Solar system | Individual planets | All planets affect each other. Life transfers between planets |
Galactic | Soul of galaxy | Milky way | Individual stars | Life begins from supernova which spread throughout its galaxy |
Universal | Soul of universe | Physical Universe | Individual galaxies | The galaxies form the mind of the universe as a portion of Existence |
Multiversal | Soul of Existence (Paramatman) | Multiverse (Brahma) | Individual Universes and Realities | The physical and metaphysical parts of the universe form Brahma |
The entire human species is therefore one big society made up of all human minds. David Hume and Socrates use the analogy of citizens being the individual souls with their government as the oversoul. Quesnay uses the analogy of cells in a body. In Hinduism, this is similar to the atman making up the paramatman.
This then creates the question of the separation of souls, which is called 'identity' or the 'self'. In Sanskrit, this is called jiva and the self-mind is thus called jivatman which is naturally opposed to the paramatman. Donald Trump is a separate identity and soul and mind from Barack Obama. Yet as Americans, they both have the same mind, soul, and identity. The action of the American mind is done through its government. (Sometimes, the mind splits into two, such as in a civil war, but that's a separate topic.)
In a nutshell, the self is a result of the perception of consciousness* inside the mind or soul. The entity that you call yourself is really a combination of perceptions made from your viewpoint:
All these sights, sounds, and feelings lead your consciousness to ascribe them as coming from an entity called you. After you die, the perceptions stop in the physical dimension, and so does the physical you. It then gets new perceptions in the metaphysical dimension, as the 'true' you.
'You' is therefore made up of discrete physical perceptions (creating the physical you) and metaphysical perceptions (creating the true you). The physical you is therefore made up of 'mini-yous' depending on how you can divide your perceptions from each other. If you can divide each perception into seconds, then you have 60 perceptions in a minute and 3,600 perceptions in an hour, leading to 3,600 mini-yous in an hour. The limited mind cannot handle thinking about 3,600 mini-selves and so it just thinks of them as one self.
Using the system of David Hume and Socrates, we can describe your 'personal you' as a government that manages 3,600 mini-yous in an hour and 3 billion mini-yous in a 100 year lifespan. Bad management of these mini-yous leads to mental disorders such as split personality, mood swings, forgetfulness, etc.
This personal-you or self is then a part of your society which is made up of other persons. If there are 1 million citizens then, in 100 years, the society has to manage 3 billion x 1 million minds. This explains why there is so much disorder and crises in the human world*.
* The plant and animal worlds also have disorders. But these are easily ironed out by Nature itself through extinction or evolution, with the plants and animals relatively making less fuss about them.
It would be easier to manage such variety and disparity of minds if they were compartmentalized and then connected to each other laterally, instead of being connected top-down. This system emphasizes connections or social contracts made with other members, instead of subordination and authority, making it truly democratic and social. Instead of minds focusing on their leaders for everything, they look into each other to see how their society acts, what it needs, what makes it angry/happy/sad, etc. It is easy to see also how more sophisticated it is compared to the currrent system.
Dialogue | Debate | Dialectic | |
---|---|---|---|
Purpose | To express information | To express arguments | To express solutions |
Example | "Taxes are the revenue of government" | "Taxes should be raised" | "Taxes should be raised depending on the situation" |
The interactions between the people then form the dialectic part of the network. Unlike debaters, dialecticians do not aim to win or dominate an argument. Rather, they argue in order to come up with a solution for everyone through trial and error*. This system emphasizes harmony instead of ego by making the mind focus on other minds instead of the self or non-living objects.
* Hegel's dialectics focuses on this trial and error part as thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. Socrates' original dialectics focuses on the solution that the trial and error brings. This then became 'experimentation' and the foundation of the Western 'scientific method' system which does not have an equivalent in Asia.
Instead of being cooped up by a central authority, each society is free to interact and even merge laterally with other societies naturally. This will allow not only a unified human species, but also some unity with plants and animals, leading to a planetary social network which can scale laterally to other planets, tracing the pattern in the table.
Under dialectic social networkism, the regulator prevents trolls from entering the discussion. This is different from the current 'social networks*' in place.
Current social networks have trolls because the business model of the network provider is advertising. This makes it interested in having a quantity of users instead of quality. Removing the trolls will expose the real low user numbers which then would drive away advertisers and subsequently revenue for the social network provider. The solution is a different business model.
According to our definition of society, as described by Socrates, it becomes apparent that Facebook is not really a social network, but a personal network. Your Facebook friends are really arbitrarily added by you or by those people adding you. This creates a personal bubble that can set it in opposition to other bubbles, leading to online conflict that violates our advocacy of harmony. A true social network is therefore not based on arbitrary friend-additions, but on real social contracts or promises, as desribed by David Hume. This is why our proposed economic system is based on social contracts, as a tool to realize the common interest. These contracts are then based on morals which is in turn based on moral sentiments as described by Adam Smith. Thus, this new system combines the ideas of Socrates, Hume, and Smith in order to create a human world with less disorder than at present.
Social networkism therefore is a paradigm that uses Dialectics to implement a system of social contracts, under the natural engine of moral sentiments, in order to generate sustainable happiness for the self through its society and beyond.
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