Networks, Nature, and Humanity

It is January 1, 2023, and I am continuing my work to understand how the domain of human cognition – what I refer to as the?Information Domain ?– develops, flourishes, and interacts with the inhabitable dimensions of military repute: land, cyber, maritime, air, and space. The following discussion represents research into networks, seeking to understand the best-fit corollaries for study, which is critical to developing a suitable foundation for further research, writing, and instruction. As is typical, herein is a discussion of my viewpoints, coupled with books I have recently read and consider worthy of sharing for broadening your studies. In such a prolific information age, I think any book recommendation is only as good as it relates to and bolsters discussion. That is how I select these books. Please feel free to comment, retort, recommend, or engage with this discussion however you see fit.

It is beyond question that Human networks require diversity.

Alex Pentland’s?Social Physics?explores human interactions in terms of a mathematical force. Throughout, Pentland discusses various studies that measure people’s influence on other people, groups, or societies and vice versa. I use this book as an opener for one of my classes at Georgetown's Communication, Culture & Technology Masters Program . We discuss Pentland’s concepts of exploration and engagement and actively apply the concepts of physics (sans the mathematical proofs) throughout the discussion of organizations in society. For example, in a research paper, one of my students used this concept to explain the stagnating life cycle of many corporations. In a fascinating application, they noted that high exploration leads to success; that success increases the desire for established engagement; those relationships solidify a network and decrease the exploration of new nodes. This lack of flexibility eventually stagnates the corporation. One can use many examples to discuss and apply this concept, and I hope this student takes their education and research further to support further application to social phenomena.

Of course, in modern business parlance, the stagnation of a commercial industry makes for a “red ocean .” It creates inefficiencies, such as corruption and abuse of arbitrage opportunities, as well as opportunity. Moreover, slowing down as the biggest company in a thriving market often spurs new technologies, setting the stage for the old successful company to be outdone by a new-to-market concept, less constrained by the stagnated system. This stagnation was also quite visible in James C. Scott’s?Seeing Like a State.?

Scott’s book provides an excellent overview of what a government requires to exist and how it manipulates every aspect of the physical and cognitive dimensions to organize, replicate, and grow. A boom-bust cycle reminiscent of the exploration and stagnation cycle is described and analogized throughout the book; however, this one talks about the need for diversity. A forest’s wide variety of plants, animals, and other organic life forms creates highly nutritious soil. Scott explains that these conditions lead to corporate forest management, turning “nature into natural resources,” where all but a cash crop is removed from the area to grow a specific product selectively. However, unfortunately, simplifying the network leads to the destruction of the draw of the excellent soil composition, natural pesticides and herbicides, and ideal growing conditions. However, governments have already staked out, identified (“made legible,” in Scott’s terms), and incorporated taxation into these lands.?

I would need another paper to discuss how and why destructive systems are encouraged and sustained. Let me continue with the discussion of the crops. Ghazoul’s?Ecology?provides an excellent overview of managed lands, referred to as monocultures, citing that the decreased diversity of the land requires increased pesticide, herbicide, and fertilizer use to provide the plants what was previously there – and for free. One concept (of many) I took away from these readings is the importance of exploration and diversity in the environment. Some leaders overmanage their organization, limiting team action to allow the leader visibility (“legibility”) of every engagement. Neither the team nor the leader negatively affects the organization intentionally, but this over-control necessarily limits the team’s freedom of movement and often leads to stagnation.?

We could benefit from reversing anthropocentric concepts.

Merlin Sheldrake’s?Entangled Life?provides an enlightening view of fungi and how these adaptive, complex creatures establish relationships – in lichen and mycorrhiza. According to Sheldrake, the word entangle was an anthropomorphic term. Entangle originated to describe the “complex affairs” of humans but now explains the complexity of other interactions, such as those between plants and fungi. Lichens are mutually supportive relationships between fungi, algae, and other bacteria. These provide complementary capabilities.

On the other hand, mycorrhizas form from relationships between fungi and various plant root systems. Mycorrhizal fungi connect to roots underground to create a network between every class of plant, receiving, regulating, and sharing resources between trees, shrubs, vines, flowers, and more. They sometimes carry bacteria between plants and even cultivate and consume bacteria within the network. Resources flowing from plant to plant within the fungi, from high resource holdings to high resource needs, represent a complex adaptive process.

Often called the wood wide web, Sheldrake provides visuals for these networks, analogizing them to human concepts like the diffusion of fashion trends, the financial flows of economics, the spread of viruses, animal neural networks, deregulated markets, and – of course – the internet itself. The comparisons are many, but we may be reviewing these complex adaptive systems with the wrong perspective - personification. It is easier to give human-like qualities to plants, animals, or fungi because metaphors help us understand concepts we cannot experience ourselves. However, what if fungi are not representative of human systems as much as human systems represent fungi? What if we are inappropriately using the various terms for this – anthropomorphism or personification? What if humans are simply a more complex version of fungi??

In several recent reads, the authors have asked what an alien would say if they came to earth to study human life. Books like?Seeing Like a State,?Ecology, and?Entangled Life?provide fascinating discussions into natural functions and networks. If we were to examine any part of our bodies, we would find them teeming with life. As Sheldrake points out, “there are more bacteria in your gut than stars in our galaxy.”?(pg. 16)?If one was to view the planet Earth in a petri dish, would humanity look like a fungal network, growing, connecting, communicating, and transferring resources from various life forms throughout the planet – sometimes with obvious mutuality and sometimes for astonishing and unknown reasons??

A biomorphic Analogy: The conundrum of contribution.

Countries work as independent entities, balancing trade and policy to benefit endemic economics (individuals, corporations, and the government – situationally dependent). Typically, a nation with a significant resource abundance – whether a natural resource or production overage – provides those resources to countries in need. Governments will often build networks to ensure the effective distribution of these resources, often connecting to others with purpose-built constructs, like sea/airports, highways, rail networks, and the associated carriage. Sometimes, however, nations will build relationships with others of no resource benefit; however, it supports a more diverse set of engagements to balance resources over the long term or reduce the danger of overdependency. This transfer from abundance to need represents the mycorrhizal network, where the natural complexities of resource systems likely match and exceed our own if we know where and how to look.?

As a professional in the military field, I will expand upon this parallel between human and fungal activity with another book I recently read. Malcolm Gladwell’s?The Bomber Mafia?explores the development and use of precision bombing as an independent activity of land army actions. During the second world war, Brig. Gen. Haywood S. Hansell worked to develop the technologies and practices required to provide precision bombing. Until then, carpet bombing was the norm, shock-and-awe the impact. After the introduction of the precision bombing technology – well after the end of World War II – targeted effects became the norm, sparing populations from the ineffective “dumb bombs” of Hansell’s time. However, Gladwell’s discussion of the Marianas and Chengdu, China in that conflict reminded me of Sheldrake’s discussion of mycoheterotrophs. Let me explain.

Describing the airbases built on Guam, Saipan, and Tinian, Gladwell describes them as “too small to be of much interest or use to anyway”?(pg. 3)?until strategic bombing. Later, they are called “about the least hospitable place imaginable for an air force base” with no facilities; “a lot of rocks.”?(pg. 127)?Chengdu was no better, a desolate place where bombers stopped to refuel before heading to Japan. Not only was it unsupported by any infrastructure, but Gladwell also says it cost the Army Air Corps 12 gallons for every gallon of fuel imported for airfield resupply. These airbases remind me of mycoheterotrophs because these plants cannot make energy on their own and require full-on support from the mycorrhizal network to exist. Scientists are unsure why these plants are allowed into the network and how they can take resources without giving back. As I read through Gladwell’s discussion, I think scientists may be missing out on a biomorphic correlation between humans and fungi.?

I am not an ecologist, biologist, or mycologist, but my surface scratching did not reveal academic research on these plants (see the?Ghost Pipe ?or?Snow Plant ?for examples), providing understood benefits to the mycorrhizal network. So, this is my two cents on the matter (take it for what you wish). Allowing these plants to connect to the network without contributing goes against Darwin’s widely accepted theory of evolution. I think they benefit fungi without giving resources by providing information. If mycorrhizal networks were using these plants as outposts for sensing or basing, for example, the cost to the network would likely be of sufficient value. We saw this in World War II and have even seen it more recently in the?Middle East ?and the?South China Sea . Sometimes a resource sink provides other benefits by drawing in additional resources, as in the case of Dubai, or by protecting them, as in the case of China.

In Conclusion.

Borders, distance, language, and culture are decreasing barriers to the growth of our human networks. Personal connectedness increases with technological evolution, allowing faster physical and cognitive homogeneity. No matter how we view this reality, this is guaranteed to shape our existence into the future. What do you think? Could we be a lot more like fungi than we realize??

- Luke Revell

Books mentioned in this writing:?

Social Physics?– Alex 'Sandy' Pentland

Seeing Like a State?– James C. Scott

Ecology?– Jaboury Ghazoul

Entangled Life?– Merlin Sheldrake

The Bomber Mafia?– Malcolm Gladwell

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