Abstract
This paper introduces the concept of the planetary cooperation barrier: a systemic, multidimensional deadlock spanning geological, biological, cultural, and institutional domains that prevents the integration of Earth's planetary spheres into a unified, cooperative, and viable system. Drawing on (1) Beer's Viable System Model (VSM) from cybernetics, (2) major evolutionary transitions from evolutionary theory, and (3) evolutionary game theory, we provide an integrative diagnosis of the pathologies that sustain the cooperation barrier and explore design proposals for its resolution. The VSM analysis suggests ways to improve the integration of the planetary components to make it a viable complex system. Evolutionary theory suggests that the planetary transition follows the logic of prior major evolutionary transitions in which formerly independent units became integrated into a higher-level entity. Game theory provides the incentive logic for making cooperation rational even among self-interested sovereign actors. We see planetary governance as a solvable design problem requiring constraints on sovereignty, altered payoff matrices, enforceable cooperation architectures, and the construction of selection environments that systematically favor planetary synergy over localized defection. We discuss successful examples with the International Monetary Fund and the Montreal Protocol, and end with a discussion of key issues and objections.
About the Speaker
Dr. Clément Vidal is a philosopher with a background in logic and cognitive sciences. He is co-founder of the Evo Devo Universe community. In 2022-2023 he was a visiting scholar at the Berkeley SETI research center, UC Berkeley. In 2014, he authored The Beginning and the End: The Meaning of Life in a Cosmological Perspective. He is eager to tackle big questions, bringing together areas of knowledge such as cosmology, physics, astrobiology, complexity science or evolutionary theory, using the worldview concept as a framework for integrating insights from different disciplines.
He is currently a researcher at the Free University of Brussels (VUB, Brussels, Belgium), and a member of Human Energy, an organization aiming to introduce the Noosphere as a source of meaning for future generations in our globalizing world. He is also a member of the Evolution, Complexity and Cognition group, the Center Leo Apostel, and the Department of Philosophy at VUB.
Practical
The seminar will be held both on-site and online.
For those joining in person, please proceed to Room LIC.4.05.
Those joining online may use this link.
