The Pattern of Terrorism as an Emergent Property

One of the outcomes of the theory of complexity has been the recognition that patterns can emerge from the behavior of large numbers of independent actors, each working with only local information. Read more about emergent properties.

Emergent properties are examples of teleonomic processes. Teleonomy is the term applied to the effect of apparent purpose in a system. It can be contrasted to teleology which is applied to planned or purposeful activity.

Thus, the effect of large numbers of independent emitters of greenhouse gas increasing their emissions, results in more of that gas in the environment, in more heat being trapped in the atmosphere. The added heat in the atmosphere leads to more heat in the oceans and a change in sea surface temperatures and more evaporation. The molecules in the atmosphere somewhat modify their behavior as a result of increased heat and moisture in the air, and cloud formations and storm patterns change. It appears as a result that more and/or more hurricanes form as one of the results of the process.

In the past, people unable to understand the complex causality, would have been likely to attribute the change in weather to planning. Since such planning would be beyond the scope of any human in the past, they would attribute the effect to super-human planning, or action by the gods.

I suspect that an increase in terrorism may be largely the result of large numbers of cells forming and acting independently. That more form and act now may be largely the result of more feeling of anomie among increasing numbers of immigrants, increasing anti-immigrant prejudice in indigenous populations of countries receiving more immigrants, increasing communication about the problems of Muslims and immigrants, increasing access to information about how to conduct terrorist activities, and a social cascade effect as potential terrorists see more examples of terrorist activity in the media. If so, rather than increased terrorism being primarily and indicator of increased effectiveness of planning by international terrorist masterminds, it may be an example of an emergent unplanned pattern from changes in what we might call a social climate related to terrorism, and in part a response to globalization and the improving international information infrastructure as well as to the expanding and worsening conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Pakistan, etc.

If this is right, the metaphor of a "War on Terror" may be especially misleading. You can perhaps conduct a "war" against those responsible for a planned campaign of terror, but you can not conduct a "war" against a climate conducive to terror. The approach to a social climate must be made through education and other actions to change social conditions and to change peoples minds.

I suspect that President Bush and his administration, as well as many of the administration's supporters would find this argument unintuitive. Evolution is a prototypical teleonomic theory, seeing the emergence of species, including Homo sapiens, as the result of random genetic changes and natural selection. Those who reject evolution in favor of "intelligent design" reject teleonomy in favor or teleology. Similarly, those who believe the biblical story of creation reject teleonomic arguments from cosmology, geology, and biology for a theistic teleological argument. Such people may have considerable difficulty accepting a teleonomic explanation for the development of international terrorism, preferring a teleologic argument; they may as a result prefer war to education and social change as a response to a perceived pattern of increased terrorism.

The inner core of the Bush administration may itself find the teleologic argument more emotionally appealing than the teleonomic, and/or it may find that making teleologica arguments more acceptable to its base.

This discussion perhaps illustrates a reason why scientific literacy is important for the electorate, Scientifically literate people must understand and be familiar with teleonomic explanations for natural phenomena. Indeed, scientifically literate people should have an understanding not only of the physical sciences but also of the social sciences. Indeed, one of the first teleonomic arguments in science was that of Adam Smith, explaining the "hidden hand" underlying market efficiency. Economic markets are seen to have prices emerge as teleonomic properties from the independent action of large numbers of individual buyers and sellers, each working with locally available information, rather than of central planning. Indeed, a key failure of communist government was due to the fact that central planning did a worse job at setting prices than the free market.

(It is perhaps ironic that the party most ardent in its defense of the free market is now identified with those most ardent in the rejection of the theory of evolution.)