Part 8. dialogues with ‘protoic meta-humanity’ series. On the ‘Meta-Sociality’ of Human Society. GLOBAL STRATEGIC HYPOTHESES.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

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”

 As leading archaeologist Melinda Zeder argues, initial domestication was not a desperate response to resource scarcity or environmental crisis.  Instead, it was driven by small-scale societies deliberately enhancing resource-rich environments using traditional ecological knowledge. Humans didn’t just adapt to nature; they built a completely new “cultural niche”.

 

The Feedback Loops of the Neolithic Niche

 Through NCT, we can see the Neolithic transition as a multi-species co-evolutionary engine: 

   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’].

          4. Genetic Modification as a Byproduct: This human-constructed niche radically altered the genomes of both parties.  Ruminants evolved smaller brains, shorter faces, and high docility.  Concurrently, humans, who culturally constructed the dairying niche, underwent gene-culture co-evolution, rapidly selecting for the genetic mutation for adult lactase [E.D. Editors – enzyme] persistence [E.D. Editors – lactose digestibility persistence into human adulthood].

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:

www.dialectics.info

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.

 

 

 

 

YOU are invited to post your comments on this blog-entry below.