Neural Nets

When there is a network of "entities" (subsystems) that make "decisions" based on inputs and produce outputs, where these outputs are inputs to other entities, then the overall system is a sort of "Neural Network." A Neural Net can accept complex inputs and make complex outputs. In a sense, it can "think." It can make decisions that are not necessarily the decsions of any of the individual component entities.

Examples of Neural Nets are brains, ecosystems, crowds, cultures, and civilizations. The US Economy is a Neural Net. People try to control it, but it has a mind of its own. Political Parties are Neural Nets and they too can have a mind of its own, defying political "leaders" and making thier own decisions. Political leaders are just a component puting in their outputs as inputs to all the other components.

Natural Selection in an Ecosystem is itself a sort of a Neural Net. That is why Evolution seems to have a purpose or sense of direction sometimes. The Neural Net of organisms and environment (all kinds of entities) are receiving inputs and making outputs which become inputs to the others. No wonder "it" thinks.

The same is true of a Culture or Civilization. It can think and evolve and seem to have a direction and mind of its own. The whole is more than the sum of its parts. The "mind" of a culture is not the same as the mind of any individual. The mind of a human is not the "mind" of any single neuron or cell in the body. Each cell goes its way, doing what it does, but the whole body is a different entity, with its own purpose and direction, and it goes its way. And that body and mind, is itself a component in the Culture and Economy of the human community. And the Community is itself a bigger Neural Net, with its own mind.