e pluribus unum

The latin phrase "e pluribus unum", part of the Great Seal of the United States, is on every dollar bill. (It's written in about 5 point font on the ribbon in the eagle's beak.)

This phrase translates to "from many, one" and refers to the uniting of the 13 separate states into a single organization that acted as one.

According to Wikipedia,

In 1956,E pluribus unum was superseded by "In God We Trust" as the national motto by United States Code, Title 36, Subtitle I, Part A, Chapter 3, Section 302. Both mottos are imprinted on all US coinage

It is interesting that these two phrases are chosen, as if to remind everyone daily that the on-going problem of sustaining unity within diversity is as important today as it was in 1776.

A little reflection reveals that all living organisms, as well as meta-life (such as corporations, cultures, and nations) all have major systems doing work daily in trying to reaffirm unity and undo the destructive effects that tend to rip organisms apart or even simply "lose the center" that holds them together.

This also means that, over a billion years of evolution, organisms may have internalized properties that actually help sustain the larger organism of which they're part. Othere posts here an on the prior weblog discuss how "depression" of people who have broken bonds with society may have value in disabling their ability to carry on effective action, or even commit suicide in an analog of apoptosis (programmed cell death), thus reducing their ability to spread their disaffection to others.

The identification of "bad people" and removal from circulation seems to be as important to states as the identification of pathogens and removal from circulation by our own bodies.

The big problem in all this is that the "one" that is being preserved has to change over time to adapt to changing circumstances. It has to be dynamically stable, not static and stable. The organism has to be capable of learning (short term) and evolving (long term) to incorporate new behaviors that are adapative to the new environment.

And, in essentially all life and meta-life, this dynamic stability at a large size or scale has to occur despite the fact that the lower-level cells (for bodies) or people (for corporations, nations, or cultures) are constantly dying and being replaced. Essentially every 7 years, every cell in our bodies is new. Essentially every 100 years, every person in society is new. Yet, the larger entity has to continue in an unbroken form despite this turmoil below the covers.

Another group that is very familiar with this kind of problem are the information technology (IT) people who manage enterprise computer networks and systems for corporations. Despite a continual turnover of the hardware, the operating systems, the database systems, and the applications being used, the emergent whole has to evolve smoothly and seamlessly to support the business. And, as with bodies or nations, the whole entitity may be remarkably unaware of the turmoil at the lower-scale level.

So, the "e pluribus unum" concept, the core of multi-cellular organisms (meta-life), is actually quite a profound and far-reaching concept. To be understood properly, it has to be viewed over a time-scale that covers the entire lifespan of the component entities, the larger entity, and the next larger contextual entity (perhaps a nation). The role of some preserved genes or functions will make no sense unless seen in this perspective.

So, also, it's not just "unity in diversity" that matters, but that very special kind of dynamic unity that allows learning and evolution to occur over time, with evolution of the overall being, to adapt to ever-changing environments.