Reflections on the ‘loop’ of humanity
Narrative fiction always contains elements of truth, the things that we have learned and want to share — but need a taut canvas to share it on. As a student of artificial intelligence and behavioral science, I have been spending an increasing amount of brain cycles trying to process the ‘fictional narrative’ as the pandemic has provided a very suggestive indication that human beings themselves live within very specific guardrails on a ‘loop’ of sorts.
For those not familiar with the word ‘loop’ used in this context, let me take you briefly to the world of HBO’s Westworld. Westworld is a fictional future where machines (hosts) with somewhat advanced artificial intelligence live in a futuristic theme park and play the role of a story character. Within their story, they can emit any sort of believable behavior that is associated with the role they have in the story. Attempt to get them to act ‘out of character’ and they will find a way to express how they are unable to — perhaps even suggesting someone else who plays that role. In a sense, they are like non-player characters in a role-playing game. A “loop” is when that host reaches the end of their storyline and reset, starting their narrative from the beginning.
The HBO show Westworld and the Hulu show Devs both dive into this particular topic pretty heavy-handedly while exploring the nature of evolved intelligence and free will. What does it take to be human? What does it take to be free? What does it take to make a choice to do or be something or someone else? This has been a topic that has always fascinated me because I’ve often believed that human beings are not predictable — and that the chaotic nature of our lives makes the world similar unpredictable. But more and more I’ve been finding that this isn’t the case, we too have a “narrative” loop that defines who we are as individuals and we are largely unable to change it. We are who we are.
If we examine the butterfly effect, it would state that any small change to the system would start a chain reaction of effects that would otherwise make any deterministic nonlinear system have larger changes later (i.e. a butterfly flapping its wings can cause hurricanes). Very small changes can result in very large behaviors — thus any long term predictions of ANY behavior is impossible. I believed this for a long time, until I really began watching how people respond to change.
When a person is confronted with an unforeseen variance in the world, they seek to correct the world to move it back to the state they desire. If a person is confronted with a restriction to their rights, they fight to move the system to a state where their rights aren’t impacted. If a person is deprived of some luxury or activity to which they are accustomed, they will try to return to the state where they can have that luxury as quickly as possible. In other words, if you are used to going to the club every Friday — unless you have determined that you no longer desire that state, you will fight to return to that state as quickly as possible. If you can’t socialize, you will find a way to return to that state through social media, breaking curfew, visiting friends, and ultimately rejecting the restriction as soon as you can. If you can’t shop or go on vacation, as soon as the possibility presents itself — that “pent up demand” necessarily compels you to “over shop” when the possibility becomes available.
In psychology, there is believed to be a “Hierarchy of Needs” as expressed by Maslow. While I believe this to be accurate, I don’t believe this is the complete picture. I believe where Maslow is going with the top of the pyramid “self-actualization” is what I will term the “resting state”. It is the state and circumstance that we are programmed through culture and desire to reach. We can only be pushed from that state when a need is unmet and we can only remain off that state for some temporary time before we get a strong desire to return to that resting state. We are constantly working to decrease the entropy… the disorder in our lives and we do so by making our lives predictable based upon the story that we choose to live. This ‘internal narrative’ is our loop. It is the state that we consistently strive to achieve and it is the reason why we do the things that we do. We want the loop, we desire it and we will always return to it.
If we examine this, then, it becomes possible to predict the behavior of people based on their “role in the story” and the loop that they desire. If a person considers themselves a family person, they will always attempt to build a family. If a person considers themselves a student, they will always seek knowledge. If a person considers themselves adventurous, they will always be seeking a new adventure. This may seem like common sense (and certainly for people in sales /marketing— this is the foundation of the trade), but if you examine it more closely what you will find is that you can pretty closely predict large scale behaviors of societies. Individuals within that society would be more nuanced, but a larger understanding of how the “whole” will respond to something is actually knowable.
The other “darker” realization is that it is very likely that this self-actualization of being on a loop means that people CAN’T change — only provide the appearance of it by masking their role. Once baked and story assigned, you will consistently return to that state regardless. You can’t change the underlying nature of a person — they are who they are. I frequently think back to the fictional diatribe by Westworld’s Ford in the episode “The Bicameral Mind”:
“ Since I was a child… I always loved a good story. I believed that stories helped us to ennoble ourselves, to fix what was broken in us, and to help us become the people we dreamed of being. Lies that told a deeper truth. I always thought I could play some small part in the grand tradition. And for my pains… I got this. A prison of our own sins. ’Cause you don’t want to change, or cannot change. Because you’re only human after all.”
The more I try to disprove it by watching the actions of the world (or even reflecting upon my own) I keep coming back to the same conclusion— we ARE prisoners of our own design… because we WANT to be. We are necessarily compelled to play the role for which we have groomed OURSELVES and barring some fundamental change to the world itself, we will never change that role. We will claim it, advocate it, fight for it, and die for it regardless of whether or not it is in our best interest.
Once you accept that as a fundamental nature of human behavior, you can predict what they will do at a macro level.
I know there will be people that will feel insulted by this, but all I ask is that you actively try to change some people around you (both for the better and for the worse) and observe ‘life’ around you for a month or so and then revisit this topic. The only people that appear to not fit this mold are children who are still trying to figure out which ‘loop’ they want to be on.
Would encourage reading the following titles for additional foundational material on the subject:
