MULTIPLY as a disaster enabling process

Risk-enhancing Cognitive Implications of the Basic Mathematical Operations (Part #3)

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This may be understood as a systematization of the the ADD process. As such MULTIPLY can be explored as a syndrome of unconstrained ADD processes and their possibly exponential acceleration.

It might then be asked at what rate "acquisition" is increasing, as with "growth" -- and whether such multiplication of the ADD process is sustainable on a planet variously constrained in terms of resources. The challenge is especially problematic in the light of attention deficit disorder and the erosion of collective memory -- potentially constrained in its ability to encompass the dynamics of complex systems for the requisite time to comprehend them, devise responses and ensure their sustainable implementation..

More questionable is the tendency of the major religions to encourage large families. This commitment to MULTIPLY may be seen as fundamentally reinforced by the divine injunction common to the Abrahamic religions. The cynical would argue that this is an easy policy whereby the numbers of the faithful can be increased with little investment in missionary activity. But the faithful are reassured by holy scripture and notably, for the people of the Book, by the key phrase "be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 1:28), as separately discussed ("Be Fruitful and Multiply" the most tragic translation error? 1995).

Many -- if not most -- strategic problems, on which attention is focused, derive fairly directly from increasing population numbers (food, water, land, housing, pollution, unemployment, energy, etc). In this sense these problems may be understood as deriving from fan injunction upheld as sacred (Root Irresponsibility for Major World Problems the unexamined role of Abrahamic faiths in sustaining unrestrained population growth, 2007; Begetting: challenges and responsibilities of overpopulation, 2007).

Of relevance to this exercise, "population" can be considered in a more general sense as a statistical population -- namely any set of entities concerning which statistical inferences may be drawn. Just as the human population is multiplying in a seemingly unconstrained manner, the connections amongst people, and between concepts and preoccupations, is also multiplying. Increasingly there is the realization of the overwhelming sense in which "everthing is comnnected to everything". This renders ever more complex the challenge of managing change and engaging in initiatives without unforeseen problematic consequences. Cognitively, it is the sense of "overwhelming", recognized as "information overload", which has implications systemically analogous to those of overpopulation.

The cognitive resources available for consideration of any form of governance are demonstrably inadequate to the challenge. In the case of the final challenges faced by the Roman Empire, the matter can be analyzed in terms of energy resources, as has been done by Thomas Homer-Dixon (The Upside of Down: catastrophe, creativity, and the renewal of civilization, 2006). A similar argument can be made in terms of information and the capacity to generate and disseminate it as required by the challenges. Whilst technical facilities of vast capacity have indeed been developed to this end -- as exemplified by web/internet facilities -- missing is recognition of the challenge for individual and collective comprehension of relevant information as the connectivity and implications continue to multiply.

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