Evolutive Change of the Society

This chapter is aimed at examining the crucial issue of the evolutionary change (evolution) at the level of society. In the first part, it discusses, in a logical language, the concept of the logically living, starting with the primitive concept of automaton. So, three categories of living are identified: biologically living, informational living, and symbolically living. An abstract scheme of all the species of change in the Universe is presented and examined. The society is logically described by a state vector and a propensity vector, then, by combining the two vectors, the society’s situational vector. The basic construction in this chapter is the identification of the societal forces that drive societal evolution. The chapter identifies four such forces, as binomials, together with their logical signification, roles, and functions in the society's kinematics. These forces are analytically examined, and their graphical pictures (in four quadrants) are developed and interpreted. Next, the chapter discusses the (mixed) causality in the symbolic species case: impersonal and, respectively, personal causality. The chapter ends with a very detailed analysis of an evolutionary model of society based on the four forces identified. So, four ages of the society (childhood, youth, adulthood, and wisdom) are identified, each based on one of the four forces of the society. In this context, the basic “ingredients” of an evolutionary process are identified and described, from mutation to selection. Annex 1 addresses the concept of public goods, involved in the state's functioning.