Spiritual solution to our current economic problems

One metaphor keeps raising its hand in my consciousness and asking for attention, so I'll go with the flow and give that one some life and flesh it out this morning with you, dear reader.

The image in my head describing humans is basically a termite nest where the termites each have iPhones with GPS service, but the point of the entire structure is to be a huge sort of cosmic receiver. Each termite forms a part of the receiver array, just as each separate radio telescope ("steerable dish with receiver") forms part of the "Very Large Array" (VLA) in New Mexico shown here:

I've discussed before in some other post
[ link?]
the key difference between some number "N" of individual receivers working in parallel in a sort of heap, and the same number "N" of receivers working with their "phase synchronized" which mathematically (and actually) transforms them into a "synthetic aperture" of area N-squared and of diameter equal to the largest dimension of the group. Dimension matters, because any receiver of any kind what-so-ever can, at best, receive a distorted signal, due to its relatively small size. The resolving power (akin to 20/20 vision or whatever) of a single "dish", TAKEN-BY-ITSELF, is limited by laws of physics to an angle in space exactly equal to the diameter of the dish divided by the wavelength of the signal it is attempting to receive.

For those into math, resolution (working alone) = wavelength / Diameter.

This is true of any receiver, optical, radio, etc. A hawk, for example, can see things much tinier than a human, because the Diameter of the hawks eye is ten times the size of a human's eye, so the best resolved angle, by that equation, is separated by only one tenth of the smallest object a human eye can resolve.

The term "working alone" is just absolutely critical to this discussion. The reason is that there is the equivalent of LASER power available. In a laser, some number of atoms "N" stop radiating light incoherently, or independently of each other, and start radiating EXACTLY the same light, on an individual basis, but coherently, or exactly synchronized with each other.

The effect of this is astounding, and suddenly we go from a dim glow to a beam that can cut steel. The ONLY difference is that the very same atoms, doing the very same thing, are now doing it TOGETHER instead of separately. The are doing it in full awareness of each other and are timing their moves exactly to be precisely in harmony with each other. Suddenly the effective output power goes from N to N-squared. Now they can cut steel or light up a visible spot on the moon.

It is my point, one of my points, that the VERY SAME PHENOMENON is available to human beings. We are currently operating in the unsynchronized, chaotic, incoherent range of action, or worse. The net output productive power of N humans, working in a heap, is typically less than N times the number of humans. In fact, a committee of size 10 may only have the effective motive power of one person, and a committee of size 100 may be more like one-tenth person in total output power.

On the other hand, we keep seeing very brief flickers, or instances, where a sports team, say, suddenly 'gets it together" and "starts acting coherently" and suddenly has tremendous capacity released that is such a huge joy to watch that it's worth the $100 per ticket to be there when it happens, for those brief moments. It restores our faith in the ability of human teams and coaches to make "it" work.

It's my point that we all have the capacity to tap into that kind of power. It's mathematically and physically built into the world around us. We don't need to buy it, or find it -- it's here already, it comes with the package, we're born with it. WE just need to figure out what this little gizmo is for, and how it works, and plug it in, and turn it on. That's where I'm trying to go -- to paraphrase the Macintosh guides, this is the "missing manual that should have come in the box". This is the "user guide" to being human in a very powerful sense.

Back to termites. Termite nests or colonies have been studied extensively, and written about in books like "Sociobiology". Termites individually are exquisitely dumb animals. A given termite has something like 20 neurons in its brain (perhaps exaggerating), and couldn't solve a math equation if its life depended on it. A termite is dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.

BUT, put termites together, and let them loose to "work", and, collectively, they are smart, smart smart. They can build a nest that reflects superb architecture, load-supporting columns, tunnels aligned so as to maximize the airflow and automatic air-conditioning effect so that the nest doesn't overheat, etc.

If you haven't pondered how that works, you should grab a cup of coffee and sit down and stop whatever else you're doing and think about it. If dumb TERMITES can tap into this kind of laser-beam force, and build great nests that are way better than any individual termite could ever understand, why can't HUMANS tap into it, and build solutions to human problems that are way better than the best human could possibly ever understand? My point is, we CAN do that, and we SHOULD be doing it, and we MUST learn how to do it, if we're going to get out of the mess we've created for ourselves by our bumbling, incoherent actions on this planet as a species-amplified-with-technology.

We've amplified our MUSCLE power and can now transform the world. Sadly, we have not ALSO amplified our WISDOM power so that the transformations add up to a survivable nest with air conditioning, as it were, instead of a heap of mud we're dying in.

I have to say this again if the point isn't clear. Termites do not achieve great results by making the individual termites SMARTER. They don't start termite schools and work at termite literacy, and go on to graduate a small fraction of bright termites to become industrial engineer termites who solve problems on paper and then get marketing termites to sell these solutions to politically savvy termites who sell the rest of the population of termites on the ideas.

The idea of educating an individual termite is ludicrous. (a) it's not possible to make them very much smarter than they are, and (b) it wouldn't do much good, and (c) it's a waste of time and energy and opportunity because they termites don't NEED to be smarter to accomplish their goal.

Now consider Michigan, or the USA, and the job problem. Not understanding termites, we are trying to get "education" and "reeducation" programs to make individual workers "smarter" so that they can join up into corporation-shaped heaps and produce products that, in our dreams, will add up to a social nest that supports everyone's needs. Right. Ain't happening. Ain't going to happen in our lifetimes. This is the WRONG way to tackle this size problem. Not only is the problem too large and complex to solve that way, but also our very efforts to get smarter and address individual, incoherent tiny PARTS of the problems that we CAN get our hands around seem to keep on making small progress over HERE at the expense of much larger NEW problems over THERE, where there is distant in space and time.

The harder we try to solve our social problems with this approach, the WORSE the totality of problems becomes. Our social response to that situation is, not surprisingly, to try even HARDER to apply the wrong solution, which makes things even WORSE.

Now, some are looking for trillions of US dollars in subsidies and start-up funds to try the same failed approach even HARDER!!!! They are thining "SURELY THAT WILL WORK! The problem is that we haven't tried HARD ENOUGH! MORE WILL SURELY BE BETTER!!!"

No it won't. More will continue to only dig us into a deeper pit. As they say, if you've dug yourself into a hole --- the first thing to do is "stop digging.!"

Put down the shovel. Step away from the vehicle with your hands in the air.

Consider the termites.

How can we be MORE like termites?

My wife says my posts are too long, so I'll cut this one here and continue in the next one.