Socio-philosophical analysis of algorithms and internal logic of the development of social systems

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Proceeding from the fact that modern society at the turn of the XX - XXI centuries passed into a new stage of its development, which today is commonly called "informational", it is necessary to study and give a scientific analysis of the structural elements of which such a society consists and what is its life support system?

This issue is, on the one hand, essential for the study and use of the mechanisms of social development, on the other hand, for understanding how modern state and non-state structures can interact in the new cultural paradigm of the information society.

As a modern researcher, Professor E. L. Ryabova: “The two world wars became a good lesson for those geostrategists who acted solely on the basis of the basic characteristics of classical geopolitics. It turned out that it leaves aside such essential resources that both states and non-state actors are able to mobilize in crisis international situations”[1].

One should think about whether the current state of society has really brought many fundamentally new differences from its past states, or whether the new (informational) paradigm has become everything, a logical continuation of the development of a society functioning according to a certain order, built in the process of many thousand years of social development of human civilization ?

In fact, in order to understand what is happening, an answer should be given to another question: how in an information society to describe what lies at the heart of its life and how through this to show its structure and organization?

Let's define one of the main differences of the information society from the previous states. This difference is represented in the emergence of a new environment, which is usually called the cyber environment or cyberspace (the Cambridge Dictionary defines this word as the adjective “virtual”, “associated with information technology”) [2].

This environment appeared as a result of the scientific and technological progress of human civilization, and took its place in social development along with the natural and social environment. The main vehicle in cyberspace is the virtual Internet. It is on the Internet that modern mankind spends most of its time both to solve work issues and to ensure their own leisure.

Let's try to describe the essence of the information society through terms related to Internet technologies. One of the well-known terms associated with the operation of computers (computers), which has entered scientific use along with cybernetics, is the term "algorithm". Note that the 1983 Philosophical Encyclopedic Dictionary, edited by L. F. Ilyicheva, P. N. Fedoseeva, S. M. Kovaleva, V. G. Panova gives definitions of such a term.

According to this edition, an algorithm is “a program that determines a method of behavior (computation); system of rules (prescriptions) for effective problem solving. This assumes that the initial data of the tasks can vary within certain limits. " The Philosophical Dictionary, edited by IT Frolov, says that “we deal with an algorithm whenever we have the means to solve a particular problem in general, that is, for a whole class of its variable conditions” [3].

A skeptic will say: how can a public device be compared to a virtual environment and a computer based on instructions and software. However, let us remind that the word “program” itself, translated from ancient Greek, means “prescription”, “predestination”.

Moreover, modern studies of social processes introduce the concept of an algorithm in relation to society. Professor from Zurich Felix Stadler writes in one of his works: “By Algorithms I mean not only program code, but also the work of socio-technical systems and institutional processes in which the solution of problems of more or less long sections of the chain can be automated.

The expansion of the field of application of algorithmic systems is not accidental and this is not a process that can or should be "stopped". We must rather develop differentiated criticism so that we can understand which Algorithms we need and which we don’t want”[4]. This very important remark of Stadler draws us to the sign of algorithmic actions - positive or negative impact on society. Let us dwell on this issue below.

The Harvard Kennedy School website published an interview with Katie O'Neill, author of The Weapons of Mathematical Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy. She writes: "When we build an algorithm, we define the data that define it, we do it often biased … but the main thing is we define the goal (my emphasis, EB), we define success."

She further points out that it is difficult to imagine that algorithms created for profit in educational institutions will suddenly be used in order to make sure that every student receives the best education. And he calls on the government to pay attention to this [5].

But one should not think that the problem of algorithms and the internal logic of behavior they build is a problem that has arisen in connection with the informatization of society. Rather, it is possible to consider this thesis in a different way - the informatization of society in the form as it is going today is a consequence of the work of the algorithm existing on the planet.

Let's see if there are any examples in history that prescribe humanity to exist in society according to certain laws, that is, is there a manifestation of the work of the logic of social development? Of course have. They even received such designations as "norms of morality" and "norms of law".

Vivid examples of ethical norms of behavior are various religious teachings in which “in the name of God” the “correct” behavior of believers is foreseen and the essence and consequences of “wrong” behavior for society are revealed. Moreover, not only religious systems have a set of ethical rules. For example, such a code of "correct behavior" was adopted in 1961 in the USSR and received the name "The moral code of the builder of communism."

Today, many institutions have their own codes of ethics, for violation of which employees face administrative punishment, up to and including dismissal from work. Isn't this a prescription (program) of social behavior?

At the same time, in cases with religious norms of morality, an unambiguous explanation of the behavior determined by religion is not always required, it is taken on faith on behalf of God, and in cases with secular ethical rules, the opinion of the entire work collective is not always required - it is recommended for adoption on behalf of the management …

Let's conclude: "algorithm", as a scientifically recognized term, can be a term that describes not only technical and virtual computing systems, but also social systems.

Continuing to consider the terminology associated with computer systems, let us note that the algorithm in the computer forms the internal logic of the system. This means that the algorithm in society also forms its internal logic [6], on the basis of which there is a search for ways to solve certain problems.

So, if an algorithm is a program that determines a method of behavior and a system of rules for efficiently solving problems, let us consider historical examples showing the presence of a single algorithm that forms the internal logic of social development.

There is a period in European history when the system of scientific knowledge in its modern understanding began to form. We are talking about the activities of such scientists as the English peer and philosopher F. Bacon, who is considered the founder of modern philosophy of science, which proposed a new method of cognition, French mathematics, philosopher, physicist R. Descartes, English materialist philosopher T. Hobbes, English philosopher J. Locke etc. Their works became the basis for the methodological divergence of philosophy and theology, the emergence of the 18th century enlighteners, the formation of modern science based on evidence of the existence of various forms, phenomena and processes in nature, and not on the basis of belief in them.

They were among those who laid the new logic of social development. Why did they do it, what drove them? History will not give us a definite answer. However, they laid down a new scheme for the internal organization of society, created the prerequisites for the transition to a new social structure - bourgeois society and to a new technological structure - industrialization of the 19th century.

But here's the question: by changing the internal logic of social development (from theosophy to philosophy), have they changed the algorithm for the existence of society?

Let's figure it out. Christian theosophy of medieval Europe, which sought to rationally substantiate and systematize the Christian doctrine [7], which is commonly called "scholasticism", is based on the methodology of the biblical teaching about Christ (New Testament). Note that Theosophy, like philosophy, is a teaching about the structure of the world, man and man in the world.

Without going into theological details, it should be noted that the world was presented to European Christian theologians as a trinity - God the Father, the Son of God and the Holy Spirit [8]. The above philosophers, recognizing the primacy of scientific methods of cognition, did not deny the role of religion in the social structure and proceeded from the thesis that the world was nevertheless created by God, but it contains objective laws of development that science must study. F. Bacon wrote: "superficial philosophy inclines the human mind to atheism, while the depths of philosophy turn the minds of people to religion" [9].

In his "Reflections …" [10] R. Descartes also deduced the existence of God. For example, he believed that the general cause of movement is God. God created matter together with motion and rest and preserves in it the same total amount of motion and rest [11]. That is, rational and sensory knowledge is the essence of a single divine principle of the entire nature of things. This is also the essence of trinity.

Only in such a philosophical trinity, in contrast to the theosophical trinity, rationalism and sensationalism (sensory cognition) come to the fore. This means that the result of the activities of the "new" European philosophers of the 16th-18th centuries was the transition of society from theosophical representation to a scientific one based on rationalism and empiricism, which determined the origin of both social upheavals (bourgeois revolutions) and a change in the technological order (industrialization).

At the same time, the algorithm, which carried the essence of the "trinity", remained unchanged. The internal logic of the functioning of social institutions has changed - from political to social and scientific. Academies of sciences, new political ideologies, new forms of government appeared.

But, for example, precisely because the algorithm that carried the essence of the "trinity" has remained unchanged, religion has not lost its social significance, but having adopted new forms of Christian Protestantism or retaining the old forms of Christian Catholicism and Orthodoxy, it remained in the public consciousness as a necessary tool regulation of social behavior.

The further course of events again led to a change in the internal logic of social behavior. This is due to the development of industrial society and the emergence of two large social strata, called by K. Marx classes - the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

The emergence of Marxism as a doctrine of the establishment of a society of social justice determined the emergence of such a socio-ethical phenomenon as "atheism". Atheism (from the Greek - atheism) is the denial of the existence of God or gods, spirits, supernatural forces and, in general, any religious beliefs.

As it is written in the first edition of the Small Soviet Encyclopedia, “the era we are living through, passing under the sign, on the one hand, of the colossal growth of technology, the mechanization of labor using the power of steam, electricity and other types of energy, on the other hand, the mighty growth of a new class - the industrial proletariat, has put forward in the person of the last new bearer of atheism and the gravedigger of religion”[12].

What is “atheism” from the point of view of changing the internal logic of social development? This is a transition from trinity, as a three-dimensional logic, to a two-dimensional logic: "God is - there is no God." Hence follows a lot of philosophical discourses on the subject, which sounds as a whole like this: "if there is no God, then everything is permissible for me?"

Let's look at the logic of social development through the prism of new technologies of the twentieth century. Indeed, the growth rate of production has led to the need to form sales markets and consumer attitudes towards goods. A person-consumer became necessary, who would not think about "high" morality, but consume what needs to be sold to producers.

What to do? Displace, expand the norms of morality to their almost complete absence. Atheism in the minds of people is one of the mechanisms for nurturing a generation of consumers. On the other hand, this is a simplification of the existence of a social system - a transition to a two-dimensional logic of behavior, which began to be traced in everything. A striking example is the military scheme of distinguishing "friend or foe", that is, "friend - foe". Hence the consequence - the enemy must be fought.

It is in this form that this consequence can appear only in the logic of two-dimensional behavior. The method of finding a partner with whom you can build a dialogue on certain principles is not considered as an instruction for action (absent in two-dimensional logic). That is why the mechanisms of cultural cooperation between different peoples and civilizations do not work (it all comes down to threats of armed confrontation or direct warfare).

Considering various N-dimensional logics of behavior, it will be correct to clarify that modern physics has come out to study the issues of eight-dimensional space [13].

One should not think that in three-dimensional logic there were no enemies and they were not fought with. No, there were enemies, they were looking for, found, fought, and if they did not find, then they did and fought with them again, including on behalf of God and on behalf of Science and Ideology, since the third component (let's call it shortly - God) has always been abstract, and in the minds of people was the bearer of ethical norms rather than real goal-setting and the conduct of conscious practical actions in the development of society.

Apparently, realizing something similar, the leadership of the Soviet Union made an attempt to replace the "outdated" idea of God with a new "advanced" idea of Communism as a goal-setting in the development of Soviet society and man.

In this sense, the report of A. V. Lunacharsky at the I All-Union Teachers' Congress in 1925 [14]. Here are some excerpts from it. “We are in constant, albeit sometimes hidden, conflict with the authorities of the rest of the world, and we are well aware that the soil on which we are holding is very loose, as V. I. Lenin, swampy, because beneath us lies a huge stratum, on which we now mainly economically and hold on - small-peasant farms, far from growing to the stage when they could ripen for the transition to a communist economy. And next to this, the cultural level of the country also does not correspond in any way with the enormous tasks that the October Revolution set for itself."

Indeed, the tasks of the country's socio-economic development required fundamental changes in the education of the population and the training of specialists. In fact, at first these were the tasks of survival, and only then development. At the same time, the internal logic of the Soviet social system was supposed to have a stable long-term character of building a society of social justice. Let's pay attention to how A. V. Lunacharsky examines one of the main tasks of that period.

“Let us take the task of defense, which leads us into the very thick of social pedagogy. Defense primarily rests on people, on the mood of the army, which in our country, in Russia, is in the vast majority of peasants, but also everywhere consisting of peasants and workers. What is the bourgeoisie doing to defend itself and attack even more, for bourgeois countries are countries of predatory imperialism? She develops the so-called spirit of "patriotism", she attaches great importance to the school and the influence on adults out of school, in order to develop and support the ideas of "patriotism".

Of course, the idea of "patriotism" is a completely false idea. What really is a homeland under the capitalist system, what is each individual country, power? Very rarely you will find a country in which, by chance, its border coincides with the boundaries of the settlement of a given people.

In the vast majority of cases, you have powers whose subjects in a democratic country are covered by the false term "citizens" - people of different nationalities. When war is declared, a Pole living in Warsaw must shoot his brother, who lives in Krakow. Nobody asks what nation you belong to, but they ask whose subject you are and who should you serve your military service to."

Criticism of the idea of patriotism, perhaps, was not so much a cosmopolitan sense, as it is customary to represent from the point of view of the ideas of the international communist movement. From this point of view, it was a consequence of the realization of the incorrectness of two-dimensional logic, in the definition of which it was put as follows: "a patriot is not a patriot", and was considered through the above recognition scheme on the principle of "friend or foe". Namely, such a scheme usually leads to conflicts.

If we look at the “technology - ideology - goal setting” scheme as a schema of the internal logic of the new “trinity” of society in the pre-war Soviet period, then patriotism in this sense seemed to be a social phenomenon from the logic of two-dimensional capitalist behavior for solving problems of a slave-owning nature.

It turns out that in the USSR the logic of the trinity was preserved, in which the following were presented: ideology (education of the population, ideals, etc.), technology (industrialization, electrification of the country, etc.), goal-setting (building a fair social life order). Apparently, for this reason, a layer of prominent public, scientific, political and other figures who grew up in the new system of training and education of the young Soviet state (the USSR of the pre-war period) was formed in the Soviet Union.

And in Europe, having lost the idea of God, and in return received the same “Marxism” through K. Marx’s “Capital” only in a different semantic (capitalist) package, they did not begin to develop new approaches to the formation of the image of a new person in capitalist society (new formation), but went according to the simplification scheme - the formation of a consumer society with a constantly decreasing level of education of the population.

Today this has become a problem, since a society unprepared for solving complex social and technological problems was forced to face the need to resolve many social and military crises, but is unable to do this due to a lack of understanding of current events and a lack of practical methods for overcoming crises.

The two-dimensional logic of the European-American society is reflected, among other things, in computer technology: computers today operate in a two-bit information transmission system - 0 (no signal), 1 (there is a signal).

Perhaps it is the difference in the internal logic of behavior formed in the Soviet Union and in the capitalist countries of Europe and America that led to the fact that in the 21st century, in a series of social crises, the behavior of the population of Russia and the post-Soviet space, including countries with a socialist development orientation (China, Cuba, etc. etc.), considered as a whole (in general), looks more reasonable than the behavior of the population (also considered in general, in general) of a number of Western European and American states.

In which the norms of morality allow homosexual relations, efthanasia, the legalization of drugs and prostitution, etc., that is, they allow those social processes that will gradually lead the traditional European society to degradation and degeneration or replacement by other cultures, with a more stable logic of internal development.

By the way, perhaps this is why, today, political forces of a nationalist persuasion, advocating the preservation of traditional culture, have begun to gain great popularity among the population. But which one?

Having considered the issues of the formation of the internal logic of social development, it remains to return to the question, and what kind of algorithm establishes various options for internal logic? We do not raise the question of who brought this algorithm into human civilization, since in the absence of an evidence base, such a formulation of the question will lead us into the field of mystification and esotericism.

But an attempt to figure out what kind of algorithm leads us to programming the choice of goal-setting for the development of humanity on the planet makes sense. In general, there are only two such goals:

1) either the goal of a fair free life arrangement of society and the free development of each individual person;

2) either a strict hierarchical subordination of some to others - the "master-slave" system in one form or another, when free will is algorithmically suppressed, or, moreover, the algorithm replaces a person's free will with a feeling of freedom up to permissiveness, which is openly manifested, for example, in the internal logic that shapes the behavior of the financial oligarchy and consumer society - the so-called mass culture (everything is allowed).

That is, the algorithm that forms various logics of behavior of both three-dimensional and two-dimensional nature in modern human civilization is an algorithm that establishes the social program "master-slave". Then the actions of the Soviet government in the pre-war period can be viewed as an attempt, consciously or unconsciously, to go beyond the vicious algorithm, forming a new internal logic for the purpose of a just world order.

But, apparently failing to describe the theory of algorithms for social development (computer technology was only in its infancy), the Soviet leadership tried to form a new internal logic that began to work within the already existing master-slave algorithm.

Naturally, sustainable long-term social development did not work out, since the algorithm was not changed, and the internal logic of social development changed, assuming a negative character of development. This led to tragic consequences for the population, referred to in the history of the USSR as "thaw", "stagnation" and "perestroika".

The current state of society with the emergence of the cyber environment operates in line with the same vicious algorithm. To clarify the issue of algorithmic support of the information society, let us again turn to the classics. Even K. Marx in the 19th century. described a materialistic understanding of history and class struggle.

In the Communist Manifesto, he argued: “The history of all hitherto existing societies was the history of class struggles. Free and slave, patrician and plebeian, landowner and serf, master and apprentice, in short, the oppressor and the oppressed were in eternal antagonism to each other, they waged a continuous, sometimes hidden, sometimes obvious struggle, which always ended in a revolutionary reorganization of the entire public building or the general death of the struggling classes "[15].

Lenin concluded that “the source of contradictory aspirations is the difference in the position and conditions of life of those classes into which each society falls apart” [16]. We live in an information society. So what classes does such a society fall into? On what basis should we distinguish them?

If the key for an industrial society is the attitude to the means of production and economic relations, then for the information society it is a practical opportunity to develop and implement information flows and, accordingly, to form information relations.

Information flows carry a certain internal logic of behavior. And the ability to develop, form and implement them is a criterion for dividing the information society into classes: the class of those who generate and implement information and the class of those who consume information.

A new kind of class model of society is being formed on the basis of the previous master-slave algorithms. This new type gives rise to information slavery - the algorithmic subordination of certain information that forms the logic of behavior and does not give an opportunity to go beyond its essence.

An information slave is within the framework of one information field, without even realizing internally that he is a hostage of this information. At the top of such a social pyramid are not people and organizations, but information generated by the ruling class. Then the cyber environment becomes a tool for the rapid introduction of certain internal logic through software and information developments into the human mind.

All this leads to the fact that a representative of the information crowd studies information not for the sake of developing new scientific knowledge and approaches to the development of the world, but for its thoughtless replication and dissemination. He begins to live for the sake of information itself, and not for the sake of achieving goals (especially development goals) based on it. It follows that one of the tasks of the subjects of the modern world is the global education of the population about the role and significance of the cyber environment as a tool for human development.

conclusions

The basis for the development of society is its algorithm, which sets goal-setting and programs for achieving goals. Programs can be of different nature and have an N-dimensional component. One of the most famous in the history of mankind on the planet is the three-dimensional internal logic, which allows you to build a system of social development that is stable over time. Whereas two-dimensional logic leads society to simplification and inability to solve the simplest socio-technological problems.

Internal logic can be expressed in human consciousness through a system of views and meanings on the development of society, while the algorithm itself, which sets goal-setting, remains indistinguishable for most people and they do not see the trend of a long-term segment of human development, stopping, as a rule, on the perception of what is happening with one or two generations standing side by side.

This causes difficulties in the transition of humanity from one algorithm to another, since it is initially required to distinguish it, and only then to change the goal setting. In this case, the internal logic will also change, while retaining the N-dimensionality of its existence.

In order to learn to distinguish the algorithms of social development, the population should be taught to distinguish the internal logics of social behavior, to single out the subjects of control of these logics and to teach to see long-term trends.

For this, it is necessary to go beyond the formed stable stereotypical field of each person in each specific society.

Source: International Journal "Ethnosocium" №7 (109) 2017

[1] Ryabova E. L., Ternovaya L. O. Compatibility and divergence of classical and civilizational geopolitics // Ethnosocium and interethnic culture. No. 9 (75), 2014. - P. 23.

[2] Campidge Dictionary // electronic resource. -Access mode:

[3] Philosophical Dictionary. Ed. I. T. Frolov. –M.: publishing house of political literature, 1991. –S. 15.

[4] Stalder F. Algorithmen, die wir pauchen // Konferenz “Unboxing. Algorithmen, Daten und Demokratie "2016-03-12 / electronic resource. -Access mode:

[5] Katie O'Neill How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy. 2016-04-10 / Kennedy Harvard School // electronic resource. -Access mode:

[6] Logic - the science of laws and forms of thinking

[7] Philosophical Dictionary. Ed. I. T. Frolov. –M.: publishing house of political literature, 1991. –S. 445.

[8] See: CHRISTIAN BELIEF in questions and answers The Teaching of the "Catechism of the Catholic Church" // electronic resource. -Access mode:

[9] F. Bacon, Op. in 2 vols, vol. 2, Experience XVI "On godlessness", M., "Thought", 1972, p. 386.

[10] R. Descartes Reflections on the first philosophy in which the existence of God and the difference between the human soul and the body are proved. The third reflection on God is that he exists // electronic resource. Access mode:

[11] Philosophical Dictionary. Ed. I. T. Frolov. –M.: publishing house of political literature, 1991. –S. 109.

[12] Atheism // Small Soviet Encyclopedia. –M.: Joint Stock Company "Soviet Encyclopedia", 1928. –S. 479.

[13] See: A. V. Korotkov. Eight-dimensional pseudo-Euclidean space-time / ALMANS OF MODERN SCIENCE AND EDUCATION.- Publisher: OOO Publishing House "Gramota" (Tambov), No. 2, 2013. -P. 82-86.

[14] See: Collection “A. V. Lunacharsky on public education ". M., 1958 -S. 260-292.

[15] K. Marx, F. Engels Soch. 2nd ed., Vol. 4, p. 424-425.

[16] Lenin V. I. Selected works in four volumes. - M.: publishing house of political literature, 1988. –T.1, p.11.

PhD in Philosophy, Associate Professor, Director of the Center for System Initiatives