The Polar Elements of Anthropology

There are TWO polar elements that make up Anthropology. These are the Organic evolution of Humans and the Second is the Superorganic (or Culture).

The First is the Organic pole that focuses on humans and their evolution as a species. It makes up the core of Paleoanthropology as carried out by archaeologist and paleontologist focused on early humans.

The Second is the Superorganic pole that focuses on the ideational or cultural domain of humans living in supraorganic or social groups. It makes up the broad areas of Social/Cultural anthropology and Linguistic Anthropology.

One must also remember that between the poles there comes a blending of elements. Physical anthropology, for example, ranges from the study of the similarities and differences in the physical body of individuals to the effects of physical reproduction (genes) on a supra-organic population. Linguistics, in the broader sense as semiotics, deals not only with the encoding of sound patterns, but also on the range of behavioral communication activities performed by individuals that melds into the superorganic (meanings) of cultures.

The former is existential in the sense that its evidence is physical and real in the form of archaeological sites, bones, tools, and features. The latter is ideational in the sense that it is expressed through language and behaviors. These are the ways that the members of the social unit express themselves and their meanings through their behavior and their works (technologies).

To ignore the former is to ignore the fact that humans are part of the natural evolution of life on the planet. To ignore the latter is to ignore the importance of culture as the mechanism through which humans have risen to the point of the dominant species on the planet. To ignore the middle ground is to ignore what has and will make us human.

The emergence of technology, or transorganic behavior, as the human method for solving survival problems and transmitting the solutions across generations is the link between the organic and superorganic poles. It is also the glue that holds us together as a self-aware and self-reflective species.

Updated version 8 14 2018

Second Life and Anthropology

The virtual worlds of the Internet pose an interesting challenge to modern American Anthropology. Comprised of memes in a virtual electronic universe, the Internet is a transorganic organism that is changing how organic human beings and superorganic institutions conduct their relationships. As Internet technology spreads around the planet and as the means for accessing becomes more diverse, powerful and cheaper, it becomes easier for individuals and institution to form, develop, and evolve relationships unconstrained by physical time and space. One of these virtual worlds is Second Life.

Here is an example from the FRONTLINE program Digital Nation showing how IBM (a global superorganic institution) has moved into this new world.

Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.

The anthropological question is: Is Second Life, a social network or an alternative socio/cultural universe? How does Second Life compare to Facebook as a human enviroment and as a superorganic institution?

Another branch in the Evolution of the TransOrganic

In a recent post, Welcome to the true TransOrganic Age we looked at the development of a technology that will enable a computer to create new life forms on demand. In this earlier essay we looked at the computer as the parent of the new life form where the machine code determines the process of assembling the DNA code.

In this essay we look at the other end of the spectrum, replacing the organic parts with synthetic parts to create life.

When computers become sentient, a new order of life will emerge. This will be an order of life which favors organic/machine integration such as we have seen portrayed in AVATAR and The Terminator series. Control of production in such a world will shift from DNA based life to trans-organic technology. Human, and other DNA based life forms, purpose in the world will be dependent on their economic value to the super-organic creatures which dominate the planet. These creatures will weigh the value of DNA life relative to non-DNA life for their survival their technological complexes and chose accordingly. This is another way of saying that societies and civilizations will struggle for survival based on the competition between, human capital or DNA capital and non-DNA capital represented by technology.

James Cameron's Avatar presents a fictional depiction of what this future might be like. The battle between "humanity" and "technology" is played out here on many levels. The Corporation, a super-organic entity representing Earth, is driven by its need for "food", the mineral Unobtanium which is found on Pandora. It is this premise which drives the story line.


One plot line which stands out, Jake Sully's story, is based on the fact that today's robotic and prosthetic technologies are breaking new ground in treating the human body traumatized by war, accidents and natural disasters. New ways to restore function to damaged bodies offer new opportunities for individuals to return as productive members of society. It creates economic value as well as a new economy for the super-organic civilization.

The wedding of technology with the human body began some 250,000 years ago with the first use of animal skins for protection from the elements. Today, this union has evolved to where we might expect the next generation will have a blue tooth implanted at birth to insure they have instant communication across the planet.

At the University of Reading, Kevin Warwick and Ben Whalley have taken an different and interesting approach. Build the machine and implant an organic brain. They have inserted a rats brain tissue into an mechanical robot and demonstrate how this organic brain can learn to control its mechanical body.



If the mind is the home of the soul, and brain the loci of mind, then here we have an alternative evolution track. Detach the organic soul from the organic constraints of the organic body. Then enable the soul to survive in a hostile physical environment by installing it into the appropriate robotic container. This may be a necessary step for humanity as a species to seed the universe with earth born intelligent life.

What does this mean for our mortality, our morality and our humanity?

Welcome to the evolution to the true TransOrganic Age

Here is the announcement of the end of organic man as the dominate species on Earth and the raise of non organic man-made technology as the next evolutionary order of earthly life.

On April 25, 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick published their ground breaking paper Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid Today, a little over 57 years later, mankind can claim to have truly unlocked the secrets of the the gods: "How to create life through technological and non-organic means". Technology, building on the human capacity to change the environment has emerged as the TRANS-ORGANIC order of life.

As a graduate student in anthropology, I was fascinated by Philip K. Dick's 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I speculated on what that future would mean to our definition of "human". That was 52 years ago.

Later, 38 years ago, the story was transformed into the Ridley Scott's 1982 Sci Ft classic movie, Blade Runner. Blade Runner depicted a distant future where the boundary between organic and trans-organic orders of life become blurred.

Suddenly, that future appears to be a lot closer to reality. The following, posted and presented on TED in May 2010, marks the public announcement of how technology, through the computer, will be able to create new life forms. Four bottles of chemicals, and a computer program and maybe an advanced HP chemical printer, life is created. How long before we can do this at home on our Iphone?

Humanity's capacity to create solutions to its evolutionary problems by technological means has been nature's unique adaptive strategy for our species. Now the tables appear to be turned. Nature and evolution will be directed by Technology using the tools discovered and invented by human for its purposes. The capability of purposefully synthesizing DNA marks the emergence of The Trans-organic Order of life.



What will this mean for our species in 10, 20, or 50 years?