Outline of Appendix 1.....Deep Evolution A General Theory of Evolution Information, Decision, and Social Control (1) Chaos (2) Extropic process (3) Associative process (4) Analogical process (5) Schematic process (6) Rational-Analytic (7) Dialectical-Systemic (8) Syntropic

Appendix 1: Deep Evolution A General Theory of Evolution (As an introduction to the general theory I am including at the beginning of this appendix several paragraphs taken--and modified--from the body of the text. These will help to explain the relevance of a general theory of evolution to the theory of the organization and evolution of democracy.) Many possible worldviews exist. They are all constructed from arbitrarily selected facts and assumptions. Every social and political system can be said to be organized in accordance with a ``grand theory,'' but this ``theory'' is usually implicit or reserved for the ``responsible elite'' who discuss it primarily among themselves. [Chomsky, 1993] Beware the claims of those who disavow general theory or philosophical preconceptions. They are either unaware of their preconceptions and the particular interests they serve, or they are consciously hiding them. In this book every attempt is made to make basic perceptions, values, assumptions, and philosophical notions explicit. One of those philosophical notions relates to the way we think about evolution. The concept of evolution by variation and natural selection has generally been accepted throughout the world and presently enjoys a high level of currency in all the sciences. But what is it that actually evolves? It may be that the forms that are evolving are not only the material forms which we can perceive through our senses. These material forms certainly evolve, but they are rather like the clothing we wear. Clothing fashions and styles evolve, but it is in the organisms which wear the clothing that the more important evolutionary action is taking place. As fashionable clothing is to the organism so organisms are to the organizational principles embedded within the organisms and their social systems. These organizational principles, which evolve through stages or paradigms, are the more important stuff of evolution, because they are independent of their material manifestations. The evolving principles of organization can be transferred to other than carbon based material systems which depend on chemical energy. Doing this suggests the possibility of a dramatic leap to new evolutionary trees. For example, silicon (or other than carbon) based self-reproducing automata, utilizing several forms of energy, with potentially higher levels of adaptive intelligence than presently enjoyed by human systems, are at least a future possibility. It is therefore not the particular matter-energy, molecular, or biosocial form which evolution takes that is most important. Rather, it is the underlying set of informational, or organizational, principles which employ matter-energy to create, maintain, and evolve adaptively intelligent systems that we ought to regard as more fundamental. Democracy can be seen as a biosocial manifestation of these underlying organizational paradigms. As we proceed with the development of this theory of democracy I shall try to make my basic values, assumptions, and perceptions as explicit as possible. I start with the tautological assumption that all organization evolves out of chaos as a result of the randomly interacting forces in ``chaos.'' Since every dynamically organized system produces entropy while sustaining itself, I assume that the evolutionary steps out of and away from disorder each produce yet more entropy in its environment. They pass through discernible stages which I shall refer to as paradigms of evolution or history. Each system and stage could be mathematically described as a ratio of the information contained to the entropy produced. The systems at each "level" or "paradigm" of history have a potential for evolving to a higher, i.e., more complex and adaptively intelligent, level. Nothing "requires" them to evolve in a particular linear progression, but lawful processes of self-organization combine with random events and natural selection to produce an overall evolution toward higher levels of adaptive and self-organizing intelligence. Each higher level of both adaptive and self-organizing intelligence requires, and incorporates, the lower levels of organization through which it evolved. Each system of organization has self-identity maintaining control mechanisms which are subject to changes--some of which are then naturally selected. While the higher stages of self-organization contain their own self-sustaining, and sometimes imagined, rewards for existence, it is important to remember that the entire structure of complex, living systems could collapse into entropic disorder with but a few wrong decisions by a few human beings. Human social, economic, and political formations, including democratic structures and processes, are fragile but special cases in the general evolution of organization in the Universe. By utilizing an approach based on general systems theory [Bertalanffy, 1968] and cybernetics [Wiener, 1948] for conceptualizing this evolution (see also [Jantsch, 1975] and [Piaget, 1970]), we can achieve a more economical and more efficient way of understanding ourselves as integral, albeit unique, dwellers in the seemingly infinite house of time and space. The paradigmatic patterns of information and control, which are described in this Appendix, were selected arbitrarily to represent stages in the evolution of organization. They may help to understand the theory of democratic development described in chapter 3, but those paradigms or their use in this context do not justify nor do they have to be accepted by the reader in order to make this text useful. My purpose in presenting them is, firstly, to make my own philosophical biases explicit, and secondly, to stimulate further philosophical and political debate that could encourage a more sustainable human progress. No actually occurring systems precisely match the pure, theoretical paradigms described below. Neither the exact control structures nor precise accuracy in identification of these paradigms is as important as the basic assertion, itself arbitrary, of a general pattern of evolutionary progression. The patterns are presented as occurring in a simple, orderly sequence, although life and the "real world" are infinitely more complex, and to us always somewhat fuzzy, processes. Each "real world" pattern contains elements of earlier patterns and structures that will only come to prominence at yet a higher level of organization. There is the additional proviso that "analogical processes" can occur in relation to each level in the sequence. Each pattern is presumed to offer an additional, adaptive advantage over previous patterns. It should be emphasized again that each level or paradigm does not replace but rather incorporates previous levels and foreshadows, to some extent, later levels. Thus in the evolution of complex systems composed of complex elements, most or all of the paradigms are present to some degree from the beginning, but at any given time one tends to be predominant and to be most characteristic of the whole system. Each of the patterns selected has a relatively simple, core control structure or theme that is repeated in various ways throughout the society it exemplifies or characterizes. For example, in The Age of Federalism, written about the Early American Republic: 1788-1800, the following was written: "What had governed just about everyone was a principle which gave a strong accent to the ideology of the Revolution: the austere simplicity of the Roman Republic. The imagery of the Latin classics had penetrated their lives, words, thoughts, and acts in endless ways ever since they could remember. The almanacs of the day, with lines from Horace, Virgil, and Ovid, had sung the praises of virtuous husbandry. The chief propagandists of the Revolution had been classical scholars, and had signed their tracts with classical pseudonyms. The non-importation agreements had been supported by the symbolism of Roman frugality and abstinence. The entire literature of the Revolution was permeated with the imagery of Republican Rome menaced by the approaching shadow of the Caesars, and it was thus appropriate that in the Constitutional Convention appeal should repeatedly be made to the history of the ancient republics. The very nomenclature of government--'president,' 'senate,' 'congress'--as well as the official iconography, the mottoes of state, even the architecture, would all be heavily Roman. Somehow their behavior ought to be Roman too. James Madison (whose expression, according to one observer, 'was that of a stern Censor') said on the day titles were debated for the last time in the House of Representatives, 'The more simple, the more Republican we are in our manners, the more rational dignity we shall acquire."' [Elkins, 1993] The creation of modern representative democracy was saturated with analogies of an earlier republic and the images of a "more rational" government. It initially produced a "democracy" of White, Christian, male property owners, however, in which only 6% of all adults voted in the first presidential election. It was, in relation to most of its inhabitants, an authoritarian dictatorship in which leadership was selected "democratically" from among a small, elite group, by and for the interests of that small, elite group. In the subsequent evolution of that first "liberal democracy," from the electoral reforms of the 1830s, the extensions of the voting franchise to Black men after the Civil War, to women in 1920, to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, and to the Motor Voter Bill of 1993 we can see themes and patterns that match those described in the pages below. The relevance of this broad, philosophical discussion about organization in a book about democracy is that it provides a way of understanding the place and "purpose" of democracy in the overall scheme of history. The stage upon which liberal democracy formally appears is that of "rational-analytic process" in the affairs of human self-government. The "purpose" or function of democracy is to further the quality, survivability, and evolution of human life at every level from that of the individual personality to that of the human species and its supporting environment. It does so by providing a peaceful way for competing individuals and social groups to make difficult political decisions on behalf of both the parts and the whole of society. Information, Decision, and Social Control The role of information, much discussed in recent years, is as fundamental as matter and energy, and is related to democracy in the following ways: (1) In a democracy people or their representatives make decisions based on information and values which flow through the decision points that are characteristically structured into the democratic process. (2) Each decision is actually a "decoding" and "recoding," a "chunking" or a "synthesis," if you will, and/or a "rechanneling" of information flowing to the decision-maker, then on through the decision-maker's environment and back again. (3) In a more fully developed, liberal democracy, negative feedback control structures explicitly exist and function among relatively autonomous units of democratic society to ensure that each part is performing in accordance with the social contract. One of the most significant deficits in many systems that describe themselves as "democratic" is the lack of planning and feedback to ensure that the goals of public policy are achieved with a minimum of waste and corruption. The decision-maker, in any case, may eventually be the human species--with the larger flow of information from the cosmos through the human species and its environment. Every other level of decision-maker would also be integrally involved in the partially systematic, partially uncontrolled information flow through such systems as the individuals, families, and the formally defined bodies of democratically elected representatives. Democracy, in sum, is a set of information, decision, and control structures through which a portion of the Universe passes as its matter-energy and information evolves. Ultimately, again as theory that is often subverted in practice by special interests, the decisions made in a democracy (or in any governmental process) are made on behalf of all the living systems that are affected by the governing demos and which are part of the ecosystem that sustains their health and life. It is, theoretically at least, a method by which living systems structure the flow of information and values to improve themselves and further their own evolution. In practice, and increasingly in theory, the decisions made by human governments have impact on all living systems. Democracies, therefore, ought to regard themselves as representing not only their formally-defined electorate but all of life. The General Theory Whether we look around us, or at ourselves, we see structure. With the possible exception of elementary particles, everything that exists is an organized system that is composed of parts and has characteristics of a whole system. Every whole system has a history and a meaning in relation to its parts and to other systems Each particular system comes into being, persists for a length of time, changes, and then goes out of being. The (a) origins of systems, (b) structures of systems, (c) changes in systems, (d) relations among systems, and the (e) dissolution of systems can each be conceptualized in a variety of ways. The choice of how to conceptualize systems, and how to test our concepts, strongly influences the structure and content of human knowledge. This ultimately "free" choice is constrained only by the "law of requisite variety" and by the effects of "the choice" on the ability of the chooser to decide. As the Universe evolves, its subsystems--among them the various human systems--must continue to evolve in order to continue to survive with "identities." This requires that they increase the ratio of variety, or complexity, within to variety in the environs. However, variety in the environment must exist at some necessary level in order for humans to survive. The evolution of complexity can be conceptualized as having patterns and as occurring in stages. Human meaning and purpose arise from the value that we attach to our survival and evolution within the larger, surviving and evolving environment. (1) Chaos. "Chaos" is necessary to all evolution. The first stage of "organization" is that of "chaos." At this level of "organization," however, there is no organization. We may loosely refer to two subtypes of "chaos." One is absolute, or pure, entropy. One can say almost nothing about maximum entropy, because with no energy available there can be no movement, no structure, and no information. Whether absolute entropy exists anywhere, or in fact, whether it ever will in the future exist, is a matter which physicists seek to ascertain for us. The second type of "chaos" is relative. Within this "chaos" there degrees of available energy and information, but it is not usually perceived as available energy or useful information by observing systems. Mathematicians are applying new methods in an effort to perceive patterns in "chaos" which cannot otherwise be seen. There are some systems that appear "chaotic" to one person, of course, while another person perceives them as behaving lawfully, i.e., according to principles that aren't perceived by the first person. Such a system appears, therefore, to be unusable or unavailable to the first person while the second person (perhaps a mathematician) can be in consciously beneficial relationship with it. Clairvoyants, astrologers, and psychics practice their crafts in this shadowland between the known and the unknown. Chaos always appears to us as a mystery, and into that mystery we project a great variety of images based on fear or desire. Most prominently, we project humanlike images of gods having various qualities, supernatural powers, and issuing authoritative injunctions, which when followed, often produce advantages for those who claim direct communications with the alleged gods. Chaos may also appear to harbor danger or evil when the embodiments of fear are projected into it. "Chaos" is dangerous to carefully ordered systems, yet entropic processes are as necessary to order as night is to the day. We shall never do away with chaos. It is a fundamental aspect of the evolution of information and organization, i.e., to change itself. Relative chaos introduces or accompanies all change, mutation, fluidity, possibility. In short, its continual presence makes possible all the freedom, novelty, and creativity that is present in the "informed world." It also threatens to destroy structural integrity at every level of human existence from the sperm and egg to the whole human species. It is something, therefore, toward which we must develop an intelligent, careful, and respectful attitude. It will be both the end of humankind and an essential component of our more creative future. (2) Extropic process. This is an appearance of the one, the first and then an intermediate, step from disorder toward more in(form)ed existence. It seems to come out of chaos by chance and into its existence by circular processes involved in "self-assertion." This is the new idea that comes into the mind and then is gone if it's not nourished by new connections. It is, at another level, the Cartesian assertion: "I think, therefore, I exist." It is not yet an orderly relationship with anything outside itself but rather a system whose relation to other systems is yet to occur. The internal forces which converge from chaos to hold this new system together and give it structure may become known later but not at the moment of extropy. Two writers on extropic processes involved in the birth of modern, representative democracy described themselves in 1993 as having "an extended encounter with firstness." [Elkins, 1993] By the nature of its developing internal process an extropic system "bootstraps" itself into an existence with what may be a still fuzzy identity as a whole system. It is, for example, the first assertion of a self-described democracy--wherever (Mesopotamia, Greece, unknown tribal communities, etc.) this occurred. Other processes outside of it must then begin to relate to the new identity that has asserted itself, although that new identity may be quite transitory. Expressed as a form of logical argument, extropic "logic" sounds like this: "A is true, because A exists." Extropy, in short, is a coming into being of a self-referential argument, or control system, in support of itself. It is that elementary "thing" which A. N. Whitehead called "a thing of value to itself." [Whitehead, 1925] The origins of extropic process, however, lie in the largely unpredictable convergence of relatively spontaneous forces as they produce "the first of a kind, hostile to its own kin."[from a poem by Catherine Klee] The extropic structure is always something of a surprise. (3) Associative process. Associative system is the earliest form of what we ordinarily perceive as an "organization" of distinguishable elements. "Association" manifests in several ways. Examples include the physical field forces underlying attraction and repulsion, with some mixture of the two holding two or more elements in a more or less causal relationship with one another. The abstracted control system is "associativity:" a cause-effect relationship that, at this level, is not further defined. An appearance of contiguity in space or time is typical of elements in associative process, although some experimental evidence suggests a possibility that, under unusual conditions, "action at a distance" may also put elements in association with one another by means other than known field forces.[Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen][J. S. Bell] An associative relationship often offers a survival advantage to its parts, and for that reason associative relationships are quite bountiful, even ubiquitous, in nature. The structure of one element in the associative system is reinforced and protected by the strength of its bond with another element. At the level of the mammalian central nervous system associative process manifests as a simple form of learning that confers survival advantage. After a child associates fire with pain as well as with warmth, or heights and edges with falling, and both pain and heights with discomfort or danger, that child is more likely to survive in a world that presents those dangers to his or her existence. To the observing system a learned association has the meaning that if one stimulus is perceived, its associated stimulus or response will soon follow or is already nearby. This enables quick, automatic reactions that do not require slower, more complex forms of information processing before a decision can be made. The primitive logic of associativity may be expressed as follows: "If A is true, then B (by association with A) is also likely to be true," or "if A exists, then (its frequent associate) B is likely to exist." Like other early forms of logic, this one often leads to serious mistakes in the real world. Racial or cultural prejudices, and similar missed opportunities, are examples of the dark side of associative process. Nevertheless, in the whole scheme of things, the associative process is present in all complex systems and confers--on balance--advantages that explain its continued presence. In what we may think of as the first democracies, meetings of a group of citizen "associates" take place, for example a group of village elders, the free men of pre-Solon Athens, or the "freeholders" of early New England colonies, and those present express themselves, exchange opinions nonviolently, and make decisions by voting or by random selection techniques such as drawing straws. They may select representatives and informally agree on a small body of rules, though they do not yet have a written constitution or a universal franchise. They have what I would call an associative democracy. (4) Analogical process. Immediately after the birth of associative process, and especially after schematic patterns appear, the possibility of complex patterns of reproduction arise. When one complex pattern of associations exists it may produce, or be reproduced, or evoke through environmental forces, copies or images of itself. This process of reproducing copies, or analogs, is not in itself simply an association at a higher level but rather a new type of informational process that dramatically speeds the growth of structure in the world. Further, patterns that reproduce themselves or that are reproduced have, almost by definition, evolved principles for survival. It is this "greater survivability," some greater degree of permanence, that every structure of value to itself seeks, and those that find a way to succeed become more plentiful than do patterns which disappear after only one transitory existence to reappear again, if ever, only when rebuilt from the beginning. In humans, analogy carries with it a feeling of truth having been demonstrated by an example that resonates with a previously experienced structure that was similar. Certainly, one "feels" that if one structure is known to have existence, then another identical or similar structure may also exist. Analogues can thus occur at every level from the associative on up. Analogical process is often involved in creativity, as for example, when in 1865 the German chemist, Kekule, dreamed that the flames of a fire turned into a snake biting its own tail and then to the idea of the molecular structure of a benzene ring. Analogical thought also offers an economy in that one instance may be understood to stand for many others. By the same token it thereby contributes also to premature judgment or prejudicial thought. The problem with analogical argument is that the specific context of the metaphor may not be the same as that of the metaphrand, and therefore the likelihood of one implies only varying degrees of likelihood of the other. A scientific argument requires an elucidation of specific cause and effect processes in each different context. Nevertheless, analogy is valid often enough, and is powerful enough in its effect on the brain, that its efficient use as an informational strategy is beyond dispute. Its logical form goes like this: "The truth (or structure) of A implies the truth (or structure) of B," or more crudely, "A is true, because it looks like B which is known to be true." Almost any structure, process, or model that exists will eventually be found to have a counterpart of similar structure. Analogical aphorisms abound in most human societies. In ancient societies "an eye for an eye, and tooth for a tooth" was a familiar guide to policy which, as Ghandi later admonished, "could lead to the whole world being both blind and toothless." The Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is an old analogical rule modified somewhat by computer game strategies that lead to an "evolution of cooperation." [Axelrod, 1984] Isopraxic greetinag behaviors, such as waving to one another, bowing, or shaking hands, exist in most socially and sexually reproducing species. Watching from a distance while two people converse in a state of rapport reveals the extent to which we use analogical processes in our nonverbal communication. The term "analog" is used in chemistry without disrespect, but analogical thinking is often described with a pejorative tone by persons working in fields of endeavor that rely heavily on rational logic as the means of solving problems. There are "democracies" which were legally constructed in emulation of the idea of democracy while existing only in form and without actual adherence to the democratic process or to the democratic spirit. We may term these "analogues" of democracy. (5) Schematic process. An orderly sequence of events can occur over time and in a series of cause-effect relationships among associated structures. We may define a schematic as any cause-effect sequence involving two or more steps that do not involve feedback. It is simply a chain of cause and effect reaction that, once triggered, runs its course. This simple process enables the survival of many a species. It's control system is a feedforward process that works only insofar as its environmental context is highly favorable, that is, only as long as the environment is rich enough that the schematic leads to whatever it needs in order to repeat itself later. The schematic functions as a plan that goes into action immediately when triggered. It thus saves time and energy, but of course, it must be "selected" for survival by its environment. It is not, by its own mechanism, capable of adjustment or of flexibly adaptive behavior. An example is the frog's tongue that, once triggered by the movement of a fly, will lash out though the frog cannot change its direction or speed once it's triggered--even if additional information suggests a need to do so. Its logic is that "if A, then B, then C...then Stop." A more complex version of this logic in computer science forms the core of a "production system." Reflex responses, habit formations, chains of command, and bureaucratized rules for decision-making without self-correcting feedback loops are examples of schematic process in individuals and in social institutions. Robert's Rules of Order and legislative rule systems that are put into effect to facilitate democratic decision-making are examples of the schematic elements of democracy at work. A society in which the sole or primary manifestations of the democratic idea exist in the limited context of such well-structured meetings and military-bureaucratic organizations would be a schematic democracy. (6) Rational-Analytic. Chaotic, extropic, associative, analogical, and schematic processes all interacting in material systems composed of many interactive elements can produce systems of remarkable complexity and adaptive intelligence. These systems, however, are not yet the conscious, self-conscious, self-organizing and self-reorganizing system that becomes possible when the next level of control structures is achieved. This next step in the evolution of informational structure creates a vast new category of living systems. By adding feedback to the schematic process, negative and positive feedback loops and feedforward processes combine to become major determinants of the evolution of structure. With highly complex circles of cause and effect involving many individual elements, systems can evolve very "far from equilibrium" and then sustain themselves. Systems containing a large variety and number of parts can then be reorganized or functionally recombined in a huge variety of ways, lending them a greater potential for adaptive intelligence. Within the higher realms of this level systems become so complex as to be able to differentiate a subsystem that can observe, match, model, and modulate the larger system of which it is a part. The phenomena of consciousness and self-consciousness, the ultimate in multimedia systems, occur when input patterns from either inside or outside are matched with remembered patterns and the outputs of that match are then matched to patterns of other representational domains with the whole process directed to provide continuity over time and space. Thus visual, aural, kinesthetic, emotional, taste, olfactory, and symbol-processing subsystems such as mathematical, speech, and other symbolic patterns are mixed and matched within the organism and among societies of organisms to achieve that remarkably vivid four-dimensional, "stereo" quality of consciousness and consciousness of consciousness that, over time, takes on the supra-organismic function of maintaining a society or a culture. Symbolic information, culture, analytic dissection, synthesis, and accurate, logico-mathematical representations of large parts of the world can be achieved. Vast libraries can then store them for social and intergenerational use. With negative feedback loops to assist in precise control, a complex and intelligent system can disassemble other systems, analyze the information intrinsic to its structure, then--sometimes--reassemble it having gained a greater understanding of it. "Artificial" intelligence begins to evolve, only partially by analogical extension of human functioning, as humans seek to create intelligent extensions of themselves. Rational process, however, is better at taking things apart, at analyzing, than at synthesizing. Whole system behaviors are not always well understood by analyzing them into ever smaller parts. At some level of smallness the parts become fuzzy and uncertain to the rational mind, hence the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in particle physics and in human systems interventions. Syllogistic argument is characteristic of rational systems, and it helps prevent confusion in the rational use of symbols. Set theory is also typical of rational-analytic processes and their eventual meeting with paradox. Elaborate dividing and analysis of systems eventually produces separate and conflicting truth claims, including paradox. The rules of rational logic, however, do not admit contradiction. The law of noncontradiction, in fact, is one of the fundamental laws of rational logic. It states, essentially, that when A is true, not-A cannot also be true. The real world cannot remain so divided, however, and rational process inevitably leads eventually to its own antithesis, or to self-contradiction--as demonstrated by Gödel. A different type of logic must be achieved to re-establish effective correspondence with all levels of the real world and with the various levels of purposeful, political unity. Arrow's Impossibility Theorem shows that under real world conditions no self-consistent, rational method of converting individual preferences into a collective preference can exist. Thus under the rules of liberal democracy no method of voting consistently produces a rational outcome. Only where there is a common set of values and a unanimity of opinion can the outcome be truly rational, but that achievement is only approached by levels of organization that are characterized by primarily by their "wholeness" and "purposiveness." (7) Dialectical-Systemic. At this level the world can be seen as whole system. The forest is seen along with its individual trees. The whole may be separated into parts but never without recoding, or "chunking," at higher levels until the whole system is reestablished. Both A and not-A are seen to be true when a larger whole that encompasses both truths can be perceived. Nothing by itself, however, is seen to be true without its inclusion in a whole system. There is no truth, in other words, without the whole truth. Every simple assertion is incomplete, adequate within a limited context perhaps, but inadequate if not true in relation to the whole of things. To say that the U.S.A has a successful economic system, for example, is not enough. To a systemic thinker, it begs such questions as: "Why, then, doesn't everyone have a job?" or "What effect does the U.S. economy have on Latin American (and other) economies?" But further, systemic process not only takes information about a part and compares it or integrates it with information about a whole system, it also compares that state of the system with all other possible states of the system. The whole system, or dialectical, view may include purposeful parts, but the whole system itself is not self-consciously directed. It tends, therefore, to drift. What systemic or dialectical systems clearly do not do is to design their own future structure. This can only be accomplished by the next, and highest possible, level of organization. (8) Syntropic. A system which could reorganize itself to adapt to an infinite variety of environments could survive anywhere, anytime, and under any conditions. This, of course, is an impossible ideal, yet by posing such an ideal we shed light on the direction of evolution. Almost by definition, evolution produces more of that which lasts longer in a greater variety of situations. A redwood tree may live longer than a human being, but the human species may well outlive the Sequoia species because of the human capacity to learn and to adapt to a greater variety of environments. We know that humans can travel in space, and therefore, may survive the eventual loss of the planet Earth. Humans may one day redesign their own genome and thereby assume a new species identity. We may become the cyborgs envisioned by J.D. Bernal, or we may even create noncarbon based self-reproducing automata (as envisioned by John von Neumann) that can outlast us in the long stretch toward either "universal entropy" or "universal syntropy," i.e., infinite death or infinite life. It is conceivable that one day we may seed the Universe with self-reproducing structures that by some means unimaginable to us now will achieve a significant recovery of "unavailable energy" on a galactic or Universal scale. In any case, the information-processing system that achieves a progressively improving capacity for self-organization will, by evolutionary definition, increasingly absorb and supplant--under conditions of scarce resources--the matter-energy-information of those systems which are less efficient at survival. The nature of the ideal syntropic system is this: that it can model itself and its environments over time and redesign itself and/or its environments according to its survival needs and its own desired qualities and goals. Human systems do this, in elementary ways, everyday but with obviously limited ability. We are learning, however, and our ultimate capacity for self-reorganization is yet to be determined. It may have been noted by the reader that this description of a syntropic system bears some resemblance to conventional descriptions of the various "gods" that humans have worshipped. This is no accident, I think, but rather a convergence of modern conscious thought with an ancient, unconscious construction by humans that the notion of an omniscient, omnipotent being, i.e., the fully self-organizing system, the Hegelian "idea that thinks itself," is an ideal toward which the evolution of material systems is pointing. The relevance of this broad, philosophical discussion about organization in a book about democracy is that it provides a larger framework within which an understanding of the place and "purpose" of democracy can be achieved. The materialist corruption of secular democracy can thereby be corrected without resorting to fundamentalist absolutism. The stage upon which democracy formally appears is that of a "rational-analytic process" in the affairs of human self-government. The "purpose" or function of democracy is to further the quality and survivability of human life at every level from that of the individual personality to that of the human species and its supporting environment--and in the course of doing that democracy naturally evolves toward the ideal syntropic structure.