1. Resolving the conflict caused by social credit assignment
Kamesh R. Aiyer

2. THE PROBLEM OF “I”
Preview: The social-cognitive-linguistic term “I”
is, despite its simplicity, hard to understand.
It was apparently simple and easily used
It spread very quickly – maybe even the first viral
“meme”
Difficulties arose with the easy generalizations
that caused immediate problems
Thesis: The Bhagavad Gita is one attempt at a
solution
© 2012 Kamesh R. Aiyer Slide 2

3. THE INVENTION OF THE SELF
Philosophers, scientists, religious teachers,
etc., use the words “self”, “consciousness”,
“intelligence”, and so on, as though their
meaning was obvious
When they come across the paradoxes, i.e.,
dissonance between the concept and
observation, they spin elaborate explanations
Thesis: These concepts are used to solve
certain problems in language. When
generalized and applied to other situations,
they don’t work (sometimes).
© 2012 Kamesh R. Aiyer Slide 3

4. THE PLANNING PROBLEM
A pride of lions does not “plan” a hunt.
They go out as a group, surround the migrating wildebeest,
do some ineffectual forays, then slowly focus on one weak
animal
Lions are far apart and not talking to each other!
The first foray proves the weakness
The lions surround and go in for the kill
The point being, they do not talk to each other
The actions of the individual lion are determined by context
They have almost the same problem-solving behavior
What happens when you put two lions together from
different prides?
I don’t know, but my guess is that they will have difficulty
hunting together
Is it even possible? © 2012 Kamesh R. Aiyer Slide 4

5. COMMUNICATING ABOUT ROLES AND ACTIONS
Two small bands (of humans) need a
language for supporting cooperation
Language needs concept of “actors” in
“roles”
Awareness of roles is the initial
representation of consciousness in language
For other definitions that don’t work: Julian
Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the
Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
© 2012 Kamesh R. Aiyer Slide 5

6. ON AVERAGE, GROUPS DO BETTER
Where Julian Jaynes goes wrong – role of self for
resolution of the Credit Assignment problem
E.g., recent work (CMU+MIT) on effectiveness of
small groups in problem-solving
Better communicators do better than expected
Not correlated to “IQ” of members (min/max/mean)!
The social problem: Assign credit for group
performance
But the group does not do better because of any
one person
So, the key societal question: WHO gets the credit?
© 2012 Kamesh R. Aiyer Slide 6

7. THE PROBLEM OF CREDIT-ASSIGNMENT
A pride of lions goes out to hunt. They bring down a
wildebeest and all sit down to eat. The male lion gets
the first bites
Because he is bigger
Psychological – he was bigger, now they defer to him
Who gets the credit for the successful hunt?
What if it was a failure because one lion (lioness) did
not perform his (her) role? Who gets that “credit”
In human groups, positive credit is appropriated
Sometimes by consensus
Sometimes by assertion
Sometimes by right
© 2012 Kamesh R. Aiyer Slide 7

8. CHIEFDOMS
Small tribes appear to have been egalitarian with
occasional self-appointed Big Men organizing pot-
latches
Read Malinowski on New Guinea, but also Marvin Harris,
Cannibals and Kings
Big Men take credit for their successes
At tremendous sacrifice on their part and their followers’
parts
“We did it”. Note the “we”
Big Men grow lean while everybody else is fat!
Praising the Big Man pays off once a generation (or
less) when a disaster (natural or otherwise) strikes
Big Men make the key management decisions
Followers get spin-off benefits
Others are “saved” © 2012 Kamesh R. Aiyer Slide 8

9. “BIG MEN” ORGANIZE GROUPS
The organizer of the group takes credit
But in social discourse, the group is “We”
“We” are celebrated, the chief takes credit in the name of “Us”.
“We” come first
As groups become larger, they are structured into a hierarchy of
subgroups
Not necessary, but refer back to CMU/MIT study of small groups
I.e., Harder to communicate effectively in larger groups
“We” works up the hierarchy
Credit flows up the hierarchy
The ROYAL “We” comes first (no “I” yet)
Dissonance between subchief’s use of “We” and chief’s use of
“We”
Dissonance between subgroup leader’s use of “We” in different
contexts
Solution: Boss is “We”, subordinate is “I”
© 2012 Kamesh R. Aiyer Slide 9

10. WHAT IS BEING ASSERTED?
There is a hierarchic social organization that solves
social problems
There is a cognitive problem of how to assign credit
within the social organization
Within a single human this is done by the architecture
of the brain
Language is the tool used by humans to provide an
architecture for social problem-solving
“We” with multiple contextual meanings is the first
attempt
“I” is the second, simpler attempt, subsuming “we”
© 2012 Kamesh R. Aiyer Slide 10

11. “WE” BECOMES UNIVERSALIZED TO “I”
But solution creates new problems, because
humans generalize language concepts/memes
“I” becomes attached to physical and mental
associations of the subject
Something “We” never did
“I” has a body, has mental states, owns property,
has emotions, and so on
“I” can conflict with “We”!
“I” is a much more grounded and concretizable
concept!
Suddenly credit assignment is back as a problem
Can’t have that!
© 2012 Kamesh R. Aiyer Slide 11

12. PROBLEMS OF “I”
“I” comes with a raft of problems
“We” survived death, how does “I” survive?
Invention of “spirit”
“Discovery” of “out-of-body” experiences
“I”-s can contest credit assignment
Selfishness, jealousy, etc., can be NAMED!
Blame can be explicitly assigned DOWN the hierarchy
We all know how this works!
“I”’s relationship to objects can be named and contested
External Object: Common/Private, Use,
Human relationships: bound/free, friendship/enmity, superior/inferior
Internal Feelings: (navarasa) love, mirth/laughter, fury/anger,
pity/sorrow, disgust/nausea, fear/horror, courage/persistence/self-
sacrifice, wonder/awe/amazement, serenity/calm
© 2012 Kamesh R. Aiyer Slide 12

13. “I” AND “WE” MUST BE RECONCILED
The relationship between “I” and “We” is a problem.
What is it? What should it be?
Why should this ”I” be the “We” and that “I” not.
The core problem is credit/blame assignment.
But there is NO solution to the credit assignment
problem!
In any complex feedback system of variables, you can
usually arbitrarily choose one as the base and another as
derived. There is no universally computable problem (no
algorithm exists to solve it)
i.e., there is no solution
Gita says, “I” should do its duty to “We” w/o worrying
about “fruits”, i.e. don’t worry about who gets credit!
Hindu: Vedanta generalized “We” to “Brahman” and “I”
to “Atman”, both abstract entities, devoid of a body!
© 2012 Kamesh R. Aiyer Slide 13

14. “I” AND THE PROBLEM OF SUFFERING
People have always suffered. But now, we
can say
Why am I suffering? Why am I in pain?
Previously, the reaction to a threat or injury
could be automatic
Now you can name the associated “feeling”
That leads us to Cause-and-Effect
© 2012 Kamesh R. Aiyer Slide 14

15. CAUSE AND EFFECT
Another built-in mechanism in the architecture of
the human brain
Refer: experiments that show ~300msec as the
dividing line between cause and non-cause
Everything else is generalization, validated by test
Aristotle’s classification – immediate/contingent/etc.
Causal relationships that are not immediate must be
discovered and tested -- if you can’t test it, it isn’t real
The Law of Karma – ultimate untestable
generalization of Cause
Everything that happens must have a cause
The cause must be in the same problem space as the
effect
Moral effects have moral causes
© 2012 Kamesh R. Aiyer Slide 15

16. THE BHAGAVAD GITA
Brings these two together
“We” dominates “I” – do your karma (i.e. your
assigned acts)
If you do your karma faithfully, the law of Karma
will not apply, you will not suffer, you will “attain
moksha” (be liberated from the cycle)
Do not be concerned about credit assignment –
it will get done.
In any case, “God” gets the credit/blame
© 2012 Kamesh R. Aiyer Slide 16

17. OTHER SOLUTIONS
Buddhist: Suffering is caused by attachment – act
reasonably (whatever that means), without
attachment.
Jain: The Atman is reborn repeatedly and the Law of
Karma applies across lifetimes
Christian: The WE hierarchy terminates with God;
Each “I” has a direct love/hate relationship with God and
is the only important one.
All other I-We relationships are mundane.
All actions have consequences on Judgment Day
© 2012 Kamesh R. Aiyer Slide 17