People And The Herding Instinct
Posted: Monday, September 05, 2011
by Octavia Hansen
Octavia Hansen
As much as we don't like to recognize our animals instincts, that will never be erased from thousands of years of survival practices. Herding is such an instinct. The need to be with those of our kind, good or bad. When the instinct is for good, it serves us well . . . helping after disasters, coming together after the death of a loved one, celebrating any happy occasion. When the instinct becomes mob mentality, it destroys . . . riots in London, fights in Vancouver, wars.
Herding is apparent at restaurants. There will be close groups at close tables. When this isn't a preference of a waiter, people huddle together. Sometimes it's a convenience such as being near the door, not walking far, recognition of friends. Most of the time, it's just herding. Perhaps people are quietly magnetic, many times I try to sit alone and others will surround me. Maybe as a loner, they think I know something, maybe I'm blazing new ground, maybe I'm sitting in their usual place. I think it's instinct.
This herding instinct is distinctly present in paintings. At the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, in Fort Worth, TX, it glares out of masterpieces from Charlie Russell. Soldiers turned toward each other, not looking at vast empty landscapes, no matter how majestic. Even lone riders look toward people and civilization. Other masterpieces also make it apparent . . . Renoir and Luncheon At The Boating Party, Da Vinci's Last Supper has everyone in tight groups, the central lone figure silently projects sadness.
Maybe open empty spaces are too much for the human psyche. Maybe it's that being in groups makes it easier to survive, to mate, to raise a family.
Subconsciously, instincts are programmed into machines, perhaps not always that unconsciously.
There are always a variety of ways to approach something, to solve a problem, to answer a question. The usual way or more popular can come from instincts, it's easier to turn right than left, a majority of the population is right handed. Herding is just another instinct.
Isaac Asimov was a keen observer of human nature. He seemed to project himself forward, at least out of his own consciousness and personal world, to study human nature in various future situations. Robots and the progress of civilization being foremost in his thoughts. He could see patterns emerge and seemed to predict an outcome. A particularly haunting observation about programmers and their product:
There have always been ghosts in the machine. Random segments of code that have grouped together to form unexpected protocol.
Unanticipated, these free radicals engender questions of free will, creativity, and even the nature of what we might call the soul.
Why is that when some robots are left in darkness, they will seek out the light?
Why is it that when robots are stored in an empty space, they will group together rather than stand alone?
How do we explain this behavior? Random segments of code? Or is it something more? When does a perceptual schematic become consciousness? When does a difference engine become the search for truth? When does a personality simulation become the bitter mote of a soul?
That which is programmed by human beings, will carry human traits into the future. Asimov could already see this.
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