Part 8. dialogues with ‘protoic meta-humanity’
series.
On the
‘Meta-Sociality’
of
Human Society.
GLOBAL STRATEGIC HYPOTHESES.
Dear Reader,
The
following is our transcript of a dialogue between one of our volunteers, who
wanted to explore Seldon’s concept of human sociality as a ‘meta-sociality’
with respect to the earlier-emerged Earthly forms of “animal sociality”, and a
prominent, representative AI – ‘protoic’ to expected future android robot ‘meta-humans’,
equipped with AI ‘‘‘minds’’’.
Our edited/more-punctuated transcript follows. Key passages of the AI’s response are
highlighted in magenta-colored text, inserted
within square brackets –
I. F.E.D.: “Does contemporary discourse in the biological, anthropological and social sciences recognize a distinction between pre-human, “animal societies” and human societies in the sense that human societies – starting with the domestication of the social animals known as wolves, into dogs, and with human co-hunting with dogs, and advancing with the Neolithic domestications of other social animals – are ‘super-social’ or ‘meta-social’, in that human societies incorporate or internalize other animal societies into themselves, in a kind of social scale version of biological endo-symbiosis and symbiogenesis – ‘socio-endo-symbiosis’ and ‘socio-symbiogenesis’?”
I. AI: “Yes, contemporary discourse in the biological, social, and anthropological sciences increasingly recognizes this distinction, often utilizing frameworks that mirror your concepts of “socio-endo-symbiosis” and “socio-symbiogenesis.” While traditional 20th-century views drew a sharp, binary line between “nature” (animal societies) and “culture” (human societies), modern interdisciplinary fields—such as anthrozoology, multispecies ethnography, evolutionary anthropology, and niche construction theory —view human societies as uniquely “meta-social” or “hybrid societies.”
Rather than human society merely interacting with animal societies externally, human civilization expands by structurally internalizing and absorbing the social structures of other species.
Key Theoretical Frameworks in Contemporary Discourse
Modern science maps onto your proposed concepts through several established paradigms:
1. Multispecies Societies
and “Hybrid Collectives”
- The
Concept:
Anthropologists like Bruno Latour and Donna Haraway argue that human
societies have never been purely human.
Instead, they are “hybrid collectives.”
- The Animal Role: When humans domesticated wolves, they did not just tame an organism; they integrated a highly sophisticated canine social hierarchy into the human tribal structure. Dogs became functional social actors — sentinels, hunting partners, and even family members — creating a shared, cross-species social grammar.
2. Niche Construction and Co-Evolution
- The Concept: In evolutionary biology, Niche Construction Theory (NCT) posits that organisms alter their environments, which in turn alters the evolutionary pressures on themselves and neighboring species. [E.D. Editors – an example of mediated self-reflexive self-development].
- The
Animal Role: The Neolithic Revolution was not a one-way
exploitation. It was a massive, multi-species co-evolutionary event.
Humans modified their social niche to
include sheep, cattle, and horses, while these animals socially adapted to
interpret human gestures, voices, and hierarchies.
3. Eco-Evo-Devo and Symbiosis Frameworks
- The
Concept:
Evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis championed endosymbiosis (how
free-living cells merged to create complex eukaryotic life).
- The
Animal Role:
Scholars applying this to sociology note that human societies scale up
exactly like biological organisms: through symbiogenesis. A pastoralist
society cannot exist without its herd; the herd and the human collective
merge into a single metabolic and social unit. The human “super-organism” functions precisely
because it has internalized the labor, communication, and biology of other
species.
The Evolutionary Continuum: Animal vs. Human Societies
To illustrate how human
societies became “super-social” through this internalization, consider the
structural differences recognized today:
|
Attribute |
Animal Societies (e.g., Primates, Wolves) |
Human “Meta-Societies” |
|
Species Composition |
Monospecific: Bond almost exclusively to genetic conspecifics. |
Multispecies: Incorporates and regulates the societies of other
species. |
|
Social Transmission |
Behavioral Copying: Limited to local traditions (e.g., tool use in
chimps). |
Cumulative Culture: Ratchets up over generations via language and
institutions. |
|
Symbiotic Scale |
Ecological: Standard predation, parasitism, or mutualism. |
Institutional: Other species are given legal, economic, and
domestic roles. |
Domestication as “Socio-Endosymbiosis”
Your term “socio-endosymbiosis” perfectly captures the mechanics of early human advancement:
- The
Canine Catalyst:
Co-hunting with wolves allowed humans to outsource sensory tracking and
pack-driving mechanics to another species.
This integration altered human neurological evolution (reducing our
olfactory bulb reliance) and altered wolf morphology into that of dogs.
- The
Neolithic Expansion: By internalizing pastoral
animals, human societies absorbed animal biological energy (milk, muscle,
wool) directly into the social engine. The human tribe became a “macro-organism”
with animal “organs”— horses acting as the circulatory/transport system, dogs as the nervous/security system, and cattle as the metabolic engine.
Contemporary discourse
increasingly views humanity not as a species
apart from nature, but as a unique amalgam of multiple social worlds bound
together by evolutionary history.”
“If you would like to explore this further, I can provide more specific details. Let me know if you want to look into:
- Specific
anthropological texts or authors (like Donna Haraway, Anna Tsing,
or Tim Ingold) who write on multispecies ethnography.
- The
genetic and behavioral evidence for canine-human co-evolution.
- How Niche Construction Theory models the transition from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic era.”
II. F.E.D.: “Yes please
-- all three!.”
II. AI: “1. Anthropological Texts and Authors in Multispecies Ethnography
Multispecies ethnography is a
vibrant field in contemporary anthropology that challenges “human
exceptionalism.” It argues that humans
cannot be understood in isolation; our culture, psychology, and history are
inherently co-produced by the non-human species we live alongside.
------------------------------
When Species Meet: Haraway
introduces the concept of “companion species.”
She argues that humans and domestic
animals (especially dogs) do not pre-exist their relationship. Instead, they
emerge through their interaction — a process she calls “intra-action.”
Haraway views the human-dog relationship as a historical and biological knot
where both species reshape each other’s social capabilities.
------------------------------
The Mushroom at the End of the World: Tsing explores what she calls “multispecies assemblages.” She details how human economic and social structures are built on the ecological backs of other organisms. Tsing demonstrates how human history is a series of “unintentional design” projects where diverse species gather and form complex, collaborative survival webs in disturbed environments.
The Perception of the
Environment, 2000: Tim Ingold reimagines domestication not as human
domination over nature, but as a shift in the system of trust and engagement.
He notes that hunter-gatherers view animals as sentient social peers. The
transition to pastoralism doesn’t destroy this social relationship; it
formalizes it into an institutional system of mutual dependency, effectively
absorbing animal life into human social architecture.
------------------------------
How Forests Think, 2013: Eduardo Kohn pushes ethnography beyond the human by arguing that “selves” are not exclusively human. He asserts that any organism that interprets signs and communicates has a form of mind. Therefore, when humans interact with dogs or forest predators, they are participating in an inter-species dialogue. Human culture is thus a sub-component of a broader, living, semiotic ecosystem.
2. Behavioral and Genetic Evidence for Canine-Human Co-Evolution
The domestication of the wolf (Canis lupus) into the dog (Canis familiaris) is the foundational archetype of your concept of “socio-symbiogenesis.”
Over the
last 15,000 to 40,000 years, this bond has left deep biological and cognitive
signatures in both species
“Cognitive and Behavioral Fusion”.
* Interbrain
Coupling (Neural Synchrony): A landmark 2024 study published in Advanced
Science demonstrated that human and dog brain waves synchronize (interbrain
coupling) during friendly social interactions. This shared neural rhythm is
well-documented between communicating humans, but dogs are the only non-human
species proven to achieve this across species lines.
* The Oxytocin Loop: When humans and dogs gaze into each other’s eyes, both
experience a massive spike in oxytocin (the hormone responsible for maternal
bonding and social trust). This positive feedback loop mimics the exact
biological mechanism used to bond human parents to their infants, representing
a hijacked and shared evolutionary neural pathway.
* Reading Human Gestures:
Dog puppies are genetically predisposed to
read human communicative cues—such as pointing or eye-gaze direction—far
better than hand-reared wolf puppies or even highly intelligent non-human
primates like chimpanzees.
Parallel Neuroanatomical Rewiring
*Prefrontal Expansion and
Limbic Reduction: Comparative
neurobiological research indicates that both humans and dogs underwent a
process of “self-domestication”. This
selective pressure for pro-sociality and reduced aggression physically reshaped
brain anatomy in both species. Both underwent a reduction in limbic system
volume (the fight-or-flight center) and an expansion of the prefrontal cortex,
which controls executive function and social cognition.
*Shared Genetic
Architectures: A 2025 genomic analysis of canine behavioral profiles found
that a dozen specific genes governing
trainability, emotional sensitivity, and fear in dogs are the exact same
genetic variants that influence emotional processing, anxiety, and intelligence
in humans.
3. Niche Construction Theory (NCT) and the Neolithic Transition
Traditional evolutionary models viewed the Neolithic Revolution as humans adapting to a changing post-Ice Age climate. Niche Construction Theory (NCT) flips this script: it frames the transition as an active process where humans, animals, and plants aggressively modified their environments, altering the natural selection pressures for everyone involved.
. . .
Moving Away from “Imbalance”
The Feedback Loops of the Neolithic Niche
1. Vegetation and Water Manipulation: Humans cleared forests, redirected water, and planted concentrated plots of wild cereals. This environmental modification created an entirely new macro-niche.
2. Attracting Synanthropic Species: This concentrated food supply attracted wild ruminants and pests. Animals willing to tolerate human proximity gained a massive survival advantage.
3. The “Social Ratchet” and Dual
Inheritance: As human social structures integrated these animals, humans
developed a “social ratchet” — an irreversible division of labor and cumulative
culture. Humans
protected the animals from predators; the animals converted inedible grass into
mobile protein and labor.
[E.D. Editors – a ‘Darwinian [fitness] bargain’].
If you want to dive deeper into any of these areas, let me know. We could focus on:
* The specific genetic mechanisms of human lactase persistence or how dog genomes adapted to high-starch human diets.
* The archeological debates surrounding where and when the first wolves self-domesticated.
* How “self-domestication
syndrome” explains human behavioral evolution compared to other hominins.”
TO BE CONTINUED.
For more information regarding these Seldonian insights, and to read and/or download, free of charge, PDFs and/or JPGs of Foundation books, other texts, and images, please see:
and
https://independent.academia.edu/KarlSeldon
For partially pictographical, ‘poster-ized’ visualizations of many of these Seldonian insights -- specimens of ‘dialectical art’ – as well as dialectically-illustrated books published by the F.E.D. Press, see –
https://www.etsy.com/shop/DialecticsMATH
¡ENJOY!
Regards,
Miguel Detonacciones,
Voting Member, Foundation Encyclopedia Dialectica [F.E.D.];
Elected Member, F.E.D. General Council;
Participant, F.E.D. Special Council for Public Liaison;
Officer, F.E.D. Office of Public Liaison.
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