Ideomaterial Polysystems and Politics

Draft of the paradigmFor a better understanding, the content of the article should be placed in some conceptual framework (the paradigm according to T. Kuhn), and this paradigm has not yet acquired a sufficiently clear form.

However, it can already be presented in the form of a project, which basically fits into the complex of scientific and philosophical ideas of the XX – XXI centuries. This paradigm was formed by the author under the influence of such scientists and thinkers as Aristotle, Socrates, G. V. F. Hegel, K. Marx, C. Darwin, E. Durkheim, T. de Chardin, V. I. Vernadsky, A. J. G. Simpson, A. A. Bogdanov, V. I. Kremyansky, W. R. Ashby, V. A. Engelgart, M. Foucault, I. I. Schmalhausen, T. Parsons, G. Kastler, T. Kuhn, R. K. Balandin, N. A. Berdyaev, P. K. Anokhin, L. S. Vygotsky and many others (sorry, who forgot).

If we look at the evolution of the Universe, which has become more or less clear to us due to the incredible development of natural sciences (mainly physics) in the XX century and the technical means created on its basis (telescopes, radio telescopes, spectroscopy, infrared, X-ray, neutrino, gravitational sensors, etc.), then we can see one amazing a trend that has persisted for many billions of years.

This is an increase in the complexity of the systems inhabiting the universe, leading to the emergence of intelligence ^[1], but perhaps the intelligence we know is not the last stage of this evolution. We do not know why it is so arranged, but the last hundred years of the development of science are a triumphant proof of this particular ascending line.

At the beginning of the Universe, there were no complex systems at all; it was filled with elementary particles. The temperature was too high, and the first atoms (hydrogen and helium) appeared only when the universe cooled down. Further, due to the heterogeneity of the primary cosmic gas and the presence of gravitational forces, the first stars began to appear – already quite complex systems. But planets could not yet arise, there were no necessary elements: complex atoms of carbon, silicon, iron…

These elements were produced in stars, probably even in several generations of stars, the first of which were hydrogen-helium, quickly burned out and exploded, and the new ones inherited the more complex atoms that arose there. Some of these stars turned into neutron stars, in which the heaviest atoms appeared, which after the explosion of the star fell into interstellar space.

The next generations of stars (such as the Sun), concentrating interstellar gas, already including elements such as silicon, iron, carbon and oxygen, formed together with planets, which are much more complex systems than stars. There are a lot of superatomic complexes on the planets: molecules, minerals, mountains, oceans, lithospheric plates and so on.

Planets are the basis for the emergence of life, which, with the small size of organisms, creates a highly concentrated complexity: a bacterium is much more complex than a stone.

On planets irradiated by the energy of their star, molecular evolution begins, oceans, atmosphere, planetary structures and many other interacting processes arise, leading to the emergence of life, first unicellular, and then multicellular. There is a biosphere populated by a variety of interacting organisms.

Ultimately, there is a system built from organisms, just as an organism is built from cells – society. This is the most complex system known to us in the universe. And in society (especially in a multitude of co-existing societies), politics always arises.

Conclusions that can be drawn from this picture:

1. The universe is designed to create increasingly complex systems, the highest of which, society, has intelligence (but probably is not the end point of evolution) and in which politics is possible (even inevitable).

2. Complexity in the general process of evolution is inherited and accumulates (even in atomic evolution), "jumping" through the steps is impossible; Natura non facit saltus.

3. When one type of accumulation of complexity comes to a dead end, a completely different kind of process "puts a shoulder" to it: the complication of atoms is supported by the emergence of stars that did not exist in the early Universe; in the future, the emergence of planets, the formation of the crust of planets with a high degree of diversity (oceans, mountains, islands, together with solar energy, gives impetus chemical and further biological processes), etc.

4. On the path of increasing complexity, we see the emergence of new structural levels, where the elements of the systems of each level are the systems of the preceding one: elementary particles – atoms – molecules – cells – multicellular organisms – society.

5. At each level, new interactions, new qualities, new forms of movement arise (for example, valence, which elementary particles do not have, appears at the atomic level, metabolism and self-reproduction at the cellular level, organs in multicellular and, finally, social interactions, organizations, communication, reason and politics at the level of society.

6. Starting with higher animals, evolving systems acquire an ideal subsystem: knowledge about the surrounding world, the objects of this world and the properties of these objects, which allows them to survive and reproduce themselves much more efficiently in this world, capturing an increasing amount of matter and energy.

7. The highest product of the evolution of the universe today is not a person, but a society, more precisely, a society of global proportions, a civilization; an individual cannot create a language (and why would an individual need a language?), cannot create science, art, culture, and so on. A person knows how to use language, culture, can make a modest contribution to them, but knowledge carries the whole society, it transfers to the individual for temporary use a part of its culture, thanks to which he becomes a person; an individual is a person only because he carries a part of society.

8. Biological evolution (which, in fact, is the search for more and more perfect structures of the organism) proceeds by blind search: random deviations and the selection of successful options. An animal cannot grow itself (or at least its descendants) thicker fur or sharp teeth. In contrast, the evolution of society is largely due to the creation in one's imagination and subsequent implementation through the action of new tools, new forms of organization of society (starting with new forms of hunting or tribal organization), new forms of organization of the state. Those states that better design their future win. And this is where the evolution of systems in the universe comes into the realm of politics.

9. Society, as it develops, forms increasingly complex ideomaterial polysystems: tribes, peoples, nations, states and civilizations (which can be either a community of states or a very large state today). These polysystems are the continuation of the lines of evolution of the Universe, the highest for today. They compete in various ways, including the struggle of future scenarios.  No one inside these polysystems can know which of them will give rise to the next stage of cosmic evolution (perhaps already beyond the Earth), but each of them is obliged to make every effort to become such a stage. This is the duty of civilization to the universe. Civilizations that neglect to fulfill this duty are eliminated by history.

10.                         Perhaps in the future, the entire population of the Earth will be included in one ideomaterial system. But at the moment, the complexity of socio-cultural, technological and economic integral systems is insufficient to accommodate the entire population of the Earth, and the attempt to integrate humanity on the basis of a single financial and market layer, ignoring cultural diversity, contradicts the evolution of civilization in their creative competition. The problems of the evolution of civilizations should be considered by cosmopolitanism: the science of managing the development of civilizations in the context of the evolution of systems in the Universe.

11.                         At present, the best means of designing the future are mega-machines of thinking: the teams of specialists controlled by politicians, carrying scientific knowledge about nature and society, united by social networks, decision support systems, digital models of economic, social and environmental processes, digital counterparts of their state and other states of the world. The civilization that creates such a mega-machine first will overtake all the others in a few decades.

Ideomaterial systemsWhat is an "ideomaterial system" (hereinafter – IMS)?

This is a system, some of the elements of which are material, and some are ideal ^{[2, pp. 100-102, 105-109; 3;4]}. Usually it is a holistic (holistic, organismic) ^[5] system that acquires its properties as a result of the organized interaction of its elements. An example of such a system is a familiar personal computer. An absolutely physically sound computer cannot work until programs are loaded into it, the main one of which is the operating system. Moreover, as a material system, it is in perfect order, except for the BIOS screen, you will not get anything from it. We may also notice that when loading different programs (for example, games or CAD), the behavior of the computer radically changes. Also, when changing the working bodies (subsystems) of the tractor, it can become either an excavator or a drilling rig. But in this case, the quality of the system changes as a result of replacing not the physical, but the ideal part of the whole system.

There are also very simple ICS, for example, a slide rule, which, nevertheless, performs mathematical calculations. The scale carries the idea of a numerical series, and moving the engine implements mathematical operations.

An explanation is required here[b]. Downloading programs is not adding any material elements to the computer. Just as wax takes the imprint of a ring without iron or gold, only its shape (logos) ^{[6, p. 421]}, a computer perceives only immaterial information, not a single atom or electron from a laser disk (or from the Internet) it does not get into the computer's memory.

But how can an immaterial idea (or code) control a material machine? How do our thoughts control our body? This is a famous psychophysical problem, over which philosophers struggled for hundreds of years, up to the XX century (after which there were no people left who could notice it). One of the last to work on it was K. Popper ^[7] who, in addition to the world of things and the world of ideas, introduced the concept of the third world – the world of products of human consciousness (written texts, paintings, sculptures, etc.). It cannot be said that he succeeded in explaining the psychophysical problem, but formulated an important position: there are objects (for example, works of art), which belong to both the world of things and the world of ideas [ibid., pp. 20-21].

The following can be taken as a working hypothesis: all things in the world have both ideal and material content, which is why they are cognizable. The ideal is the arrangement, organization, structure and form of things (for example, a Roman marble copy of the Greek bronze sculpture of Apollo conveys the idea of the original with its form); reflection and cognition occur when organization is transmitted from the object to the subject using a carrier: light or sound waves, electrical impulses, etc. and is expressed in a change in the internal organization of the subject (a change in the states of neurons), or a computer (a change in the states of memory cells), which is the reason for the change in its behavior. The movement of this organization can occur in different material forms (the sound of speech is transformed into text and then into the organization of processes in the perceiving brain, after which it is transformed into the actions of the carrier of this brain), can be recoded during this movement (the drawing is converted into a sequence of bytes), but these are just technologies. The bottom line is that there is a movement of organization in matter and ICS can perceive this organization, changing their behavior as a result.

It is easy to notice that people and even entire nations are similar in this sense to a computer: without knowledge (culture) "loaded" into them they are as little capable of social action as a computer without an operating system, and when the ideal subsystem is "rebooted", they change their behavior (sometimes very much), as happened with Russia in 1917 and 1991 or with Ukraine over the past thirty years; it seems that we have entered into another reboot at the present time.

It is important to note that the idea (organization) reflected in the brain or computer is not static like a photograph, but is capable of movement (we can imagine and anticipate the running of an animal, the movement of mechanisms, human behavior), to model and anticipate situations and even invent new objects and situations.

The movement of organization creates an ideal overall: so the structure of iron atoms is common to them both on Earth and on Mars, it is determined by the generality of the laws of physics, transmitted through them. Something in common with an object arises in the brain when a scientist examines the structure of a crocodile, for example, if only because he can then reproduce this structure in a drawing. But by studying this crocodile, he learns something about other crocodiles, because there is a generic common transmitted to this crocodile through DNA from the population and the species as a whole. It is due to this commonality that we learn something about the atoms of distant stars by examining similar atoms on Earth, we learn something about different animals on the planet without dissecting them all.

The culture of a large society is a huge repository of knowledge accumulated by millions of its members over hundreds of years; this knowledge is the means of existence of this particular society and precisely in its environment: in that geography, in that part of the biosphere and between those neighboring societies in which its history took place.

No one person is able to carry the entire culture of a complex society; society places small parts of its culture in individuals, whom it specializes within the framework of the general division of labor into thousands of professions[c].

An individual becomes a person when a certain part of society settles in him in the form of a share of the culture of the people. Thus, the people who form the people together form a collective entity that has its own special picture of the world. Culture in a person determines his values and aspirations, his behavior. Culture also determines the social structure of society at the industrial, settlement, regional and state levels, which requires the interaction of political science and cultural studies ^[8].

But culture itself consists of many relatively independent subsystems: sciences, such as physics or biology, arts (literature, painting, music ...), religions, texts (some of which are basic for this culture), military strategies and principles of the organization of the army, sports with their own rules, together with its centuries-old stories. Each of these subsystems is ideomaterial; its carriers are living people, but in addition there are special artifacts (temples, books, telescopes, symbols, rockets, museums, sports equipment, etc.), without which this subsystem cannot function. These systems interact with each other, sometimes synergistically, and sometimes conflicting. For example, physics helps biology by creating optical and electron microscopes, DNA sequencers; religion can both help and interfere with public administration, astronomy and paleontology often interfere with religion, chemistry helps agriculture and medicine. There can be no industry, aviation, television, a modern state, etc. without physics, chemistry, mechanics…

The basis of each of these ideomaterial systems is its ideal subsystem, which itself also consists of organically related elements (theories, sacred texts, rules of sports games, as well as their interpretations and methods of application, as well as didactic systems, thanks to which new people become carriers of the ideal subsystem). T. Kuhn wrote about this best of all ^[9] in relation to the sciences; but his method can also be applied to the understanding of other ideomaterial systems.

Let's look at more concrete examples of ideomaterial social systems: for example, chess players (except those who can imagine the game mentally) cannot play without chess, physicists cannot work without instruments (as well as without books, reference books and laboratory journals), musicians cannot play without instruments.

These are the ICS, which, in addition to a set of ideas, should include both people and various artifacts, and agriculture also animals and plants.  Moreover, artifacts are also connected into systems; for example, the iconostasis should stand in a temple, not on the street. The orchestra includes a large set of different instruments that convey the idea of music to us in a holistic system.

Now about the system-forming role of the ideal IC subsystem:

Let's imagine an orchestra on stage. Suddenly all the musicians forgot the notes, forgot how to play the instruments, forgot all the music in general (Bach and Mozart, Armstrong and the Beatles, and even folk songs). Although they remember everything else: their language, what their name is, where they live, and so on, but they will look at each other, wondering: what are we all doing here? And what kind of incomprehensible things are we holding in our hands? That is, they stopped being musicians. The integrity of the orchestra exists only due to the complex of ideas about music that has been accumulated for centuries.

Or imagine the Institute of Experimental Physics... Let these physicists retain all other knowledge except physics itself. But if they have forgotten one of the ideal subsystems that make up the culture of mankind (physics), then they will perceive their former generators and accelerators as some kind of machines or tools of incomprehensible purpose... What can be made with their help?

Private ideal subsystems of culture are inevitably inscribed in the larger culture, in the language and customs of the people. Here is what I. Brodsky said in his Nobel lecture: "... the poet always knows that what is colloquially called the voice of the Muse is actually the dictate of language; that language is not his instrument, but he is the means of language to continue its existence... regardless of the reasons for which he takes up the pen... the immediate consequence of this enterprise is the feeling of coming into direct contact with the language, more precisely, the feeling of immediately falling into dependence on it, on everything that has already been expressed, written, implemented on it... this dependence is absolute, despotic... for, being always older than the writer, language still possesses colossal centrifugal energy, communicated to it by its temporal potential - that is, by all the time lying ahead...".

But different authors create different texts because they hear the voice of the language differently. Moreover, the language tells people different fairy tales depending on the place where they were born. And that's why different texts resonate differently among the people. Some live for centuries, covering hundreds of millions, others are forgotten after a few years, read by a dozen or so relatives and friends.

Why is this happening? Yes, because some texts help people understand something about themselves and their lives, and others... they just pretend to be texts, trying to resemble those already known, but they do not have a new meaning.

The predecessor of the concept of "ideomaterial system" can be called M. Weber, who drew attention to the influence that religious and cultural beliefs have on economic efficiency. Weber characterized the ideal part of society (the spirit of capitalism) as follows: "a historical individual," that is, a complex of connections existing in historical activity, which we combine into one whole in terms of their cultural significance" ^{[10, p.17]}.

It is easy to notice that the same person can be a member of several ideomaterial systems: for example, a Russian, a biologist, a chess player, an Orthodox, and so on. But at the same time, he may be in intellectual ties with German biologists, Russian historians, and so on. We see a lot of superimposed ideomaterial systems that are "stitched" by people entering several systems at the same time[d] ^[11]. And to each of them these people give some part of their life time and energy. Measuring this time gives us a tool for moving from conceptual reasoning to what is called "positive science".

Self-reproduction of ideomaterial systemsICS must ensure their self-reproduction.

First of all, they must ensure the dissemination of their system of ideas to new individuals - carriers. There are various social technologies for this.

Before becoming an element of any other IMS, the child becomes a member of his first system – the family, where he learns the widest ideal subsystem of his civilization – language, but also the elementary rules of life in society, and the first ideas about the world around him, and not just in the form of images, but linked to the words of his native language ^[12]. It is useful to compare the world that a village child of the Middle Ages could perceive even before school (who also saw not so little even in his village) and the modern one, who has the opportunity to see all the countries of the world on TV and the Internet.

Moreover, the child not only sees pictures, but hears the conversation of adults and connects them with what he sees, connects signs with images, and then with concepts [ibid., pp. 805-810] and even "theories" (what is happening and why) developed by a whole nation throughout its history. Thus society, its sum of ideas, settles in the individual, who becomes one of its carriers.

National culture is reproduced in modern countries with the help of the school education system. In schools, students are trained to become elements of ideomaterial subsystems of society: various sciences and crafts, arts, technological systems (such as railways or metallurgy). Further, some people receive higher education, becoming elements of scientific ICS.

The ideal part of the IMS is always a sign system ^{[13, pp. 397, 486, 491, 496]} and this is another measurable part that allows quantitative research. Most of the culture of modern societies has already been digitized, which makes it possible to automate such research. A huge amount of cultural information allows us to talk about "civilizational inertia", that is, the impossibility of quickly changing the direction of civilization without the use of enormous force.

PolysystemsModern society is a complex conglomerate of ideomaterial systems.

These are very peculiar systems. Ya . Smuts wrote: Thanks to this mutual penetration of the combined fields in a society or group, a multiplication of power occurs, which creates the appearance and most of the reality of a new organism. Therefore, we are talking about social, group or national organisms. But in fact there is no new organism; a society or group is organic, but it is not an organism; integral, but it is not a whole. ... Groups, families, churches, societies, nations are organic, but they are not organisms ^{[5, p. 348]}.

Indeed, let's take the science of biology as an IMS, that is, a complex of ideas, artifacts and people. It is integral, although it has internal subsystems: genetics, evolutionary biology, cytology, and so on. It includes scientists, institutes, books, journals, instruments, laboratories (often with experimental organisms). But at the same time, all these elements are not physically connected as in the body. Each individual biologist can believe and go to a Tibetan monastery, some institutes and journals are closed, but new ones are opened, etc. However, as long as biologists exist, the science of life that unites them with its philosophy and history is preserved and developed.

ICS often do not have clear boundaries. For example, a biology student is probably a member of the community of biologists (at least after the 3rd year). But will he remain a biologist, having worked for ten years as a businessman after graduation? Believers belong to the carriers of religion, but is such a carrier a person who declares himself Orthodox, but does not attend church and is unable to name at least half of the apostles? A clear center of the IMS, consisting of professionals (scientists, priests, politicians, athletes) is surrounded by an increasingly rare cloud of people who give less and less of their time to the IMS.

ICS interact with each other, in some cases constantly and systematically, but sometimes rarely and accidentally. Chemistry and biology (biochemistry) constantly interact, occasionally cosmology and religion. Physics has given a lot to the army, but the army also constantly supports physics by lobbying the government for spending on physical research.

Here is a young man from the Soviet era, influenced by his parents, loved classical music. Suppose he listened to it for an average hour a day. Then he got acquainted with rock music, got carried away and began listening to this music also for an hour a day. Suppose there were ten million such cases. So, the IMS of classical music in the USSR lost about 360 million hours a year, and the IMS of rock music acquired them.

Next, let's consider the interaction of different types of ICS. Since rock music was not particularly favored in the USSR, its fans began to listen to the BBC, etc. And these stations skillfully pay attention to the problems existing in the USSR. As a result, rock lovers gradually begin to listen to Bukovsky, Solzhenitsyn, Medvedev, etc. The IMS of the dissident movement acquires tens of millions of hours of time of sympathizers reading samizdat and discussing the problems of the USSR with acquaintances [e].

Every modern state is a complex consisting of a large number of ideomaterial systems interacting with each other, and some of them are connected by very strong and constant interactions, while others interact rarely and weakly, some of them have clear boundaries, others look like fuzzy sets, and the relationships between them are constantly changing, new ICS are emerging, they are also imported from outside, their weight in society is changing. An interesting example can be seen in the table "Socio-political context and indicators of identity policy in Kazakhstan, Armenia and Belarus" ^[14]. The basic "layers" of the ideological subsystem of the state are its culture and a complex of institutions, but institutions are the product of culture and society, and culture and society, in turn, are the result of the actions of institutions ^[15]. This whole conglomerate of ideological subsystems together with the state, together with the material systems that carry them and are controlled by them, can be called an ideomaterial polysystem (hereinafter IMPS).

Theory of polysystems and . Even-ZoharaThe theory of polysystems was developed by the Israeli linguist Itamar Even-Zohar in 1969-1970 ^[16].

He drew attention to the fact that the texts existing in literature in some language are not independent units, but almost always explicitly or indirectly refer to other texts of this literature and inherit thoughts, techniques, expressions developed in the history of literature. Therefore, the literature of this language is not a library of books standing on shelves, but is a dynamic multi-layered network of interconnected and interacting texts-subsystems, their interpretations, these texts have their place in the system of cultural values, which he defined as a "polysystem". It is obvious that some texts are almost unrelated, others interact quite strongly, and that all these connections change over time, which is expressed by the words "literary life". Because of this, translators often have to solve problems that arise when translating because the host literature of another nation has a different network of associations. How to explain what kind of "my uncle of the most honest rules" is to those who did not pass Pushkin at school? Even-Zohar notes, however, that when developing the theory, he used the ideas of Russian formalists of the early XX century, to which he refers Tynyanov, Eichenbaum, Jacobson, Shklovsky and Bogatyrev. Even-Zohar also has a very interesting work on the mutual influence of the Russian and Hebrew languages.

Although the theory was developed for literary, linguistic and semiotic purposes, it can be extended to many other cognitive processes, including social and political ones. Many of the patterns discovered by Even-Zohar can be applied to other ideomaterial polysystems. He himself wrote "... the theory of polysystems - in any formulation - ultimately seeks to explain larger complexes than literature" [ibid., p. 2].

Let's move on to the works of Even-Zohar. Definition of a polysystem: A polysystem is a multiple system, a system of various systems that intersect with each other and partially overlap, using different variants at the same time, but functioning as one structured whole, whose members are interdependent [ibid., p. 11]. Polysystems can be multilevel: for example, the polysystem "literature" is a component of a larger (poly) system, which is "culture" [ibid., p. 22]. From the point of view of system relations, the polysystem behaves as a single whole, but each of its subsystems can at the same time participate in some other whole, and be regulated in it by other rules [ibid., p. 31].

It should be added here that in social and political systems these are often fuzzy systems, the boundaries of which are vague and the elements on the borders can be characterized as belonging to them by 90%, 50% or 10%.

Referring to Shklovsky, Even-Zohar identifies canonized ideal subsystems in culture that are approved by the dominant circles [ibid., p. 11]. There are formal and informal "markets" in society ("cultural elite", unions of writers and composers, intellectuals, mass media, art galleries, academies of sciences, etc.) in which authoritative circles in the market determine the value (in a broad sense) those or other ideal or ideomaterial (painting, sculpture) objects. At the same time, there are always non-canonized ideal subsystems (music, texts, political theories) ^{[17, p. 15]}.

To this we can add that alternative currents have recently been increasingly populating the Internet and becoming an influential force (which can be fairly accurately estimated by the number of hits and viewing time). Uncanonized ICS begin to absorb part of the clearly limited and easily estimated "processor time" of the brains of the country's population. As in the law of conservation of energy: how much social time one IC has arrived, so many others have gone.

The essence of the matter here is that digitalization dramatically reduces transaction costs compared to printed communication; few can publish their texts on paper at their own expense, and few texts will receive support from dominant circles, and the "network" allows any bright author, even far from the canons, to capture the IMS time.

Next, Even-Zohar introduces the concept of repertoire. "Repertoire" means a set of rules and materials that determine the possibility of both manufacturing and circulation, as well as production and consumption of any given product ... a repertoire in a culture or culture is a warehouse where the necessary elements for this structure are stored ... different variants make up competing and conflicting repertoires ... often one repertoire manages to establish itself as the dominant one, thus excluding other ... alternative repertoires can be fully used in various social clusters, where the dominant repertoire can be rejected as undesirable ^{[16, pp. 17-19]}.

The concept of Even-Zohar is very important for political sciences – interference. He's writing: "Contacts can be defined as relations between cultures in which a certain culture A (source culture) can become a source of direct or indirect transfer for another culture B (target culture). As soon as this possibility is realized, we can say that interference has occurred. Thus, interference is a procedure that occurs in the contact environment in which the transfer occurred" [ibid., pp. 53-54]. I will cite a few laws of interference formulated by Even-Zohar, which are quite applicable to the cultures of peoples and ethnic groups:

1. interference is always unavoidable

2. contacts will cause interference sooner or later, if there are no resistance conditions,

3. culture becomes a source of dominance

4. interference can only take place in one part of the target culture, then it can move to other parts

5. the assigned repertoire does not necessarily support the functions of the original culture

In the context of geopolitical reconfiguration , the concept of polysystems and Even-Zohara can serve as one of the ways to understand and foresee the ongoing processes in which ideal cultural systems play an even greater role than material economic ones, if only because an economy without knowledge and goals is powerless.

It is clear that the state can be considered as a polysystem, and an ideomaterial polysystem (IMPS). It is clear that the state is a holistic system, if only because it is united and most of all fears disintegration. But the question arises: what then is the main bearing element of the state as a system?

The Territory is indifferent to the states existing on it; they break up, unite, join unions and federations, but also divide and fight, remaining on this common territory (although seas, rivers, mountains and climate play a role). The common language is important, but there are polyethnic states, there are also neighboring states with a common language, which nevertheless do not merge together. An economy built on the same principles, connected by finance and trade, is undoubtedly important, but a common economy of many states is quite possible, provided that foreign trade is free (the most famous example is the European Union). The same can be said about ideology. Both the common liberal-market and the common communist ideologies did not lead to the merger of the states committed to them. It seems that in order to maintain the integrity of states, the simultaneous action of several ideal subsystems that are part of their polysystem is necessary.

Nations as ideomaterial polysystemsIn this part of the article, I will try to link the concept of IMPS with the emergence and development of national and multinational states, based on the well-known works of B. Anderson and E. Hobsbawm.

A number of ideological complexes are considered as the cultural basis of national states. These are language, religion, history, local culture, value system. However, the analysis of specific States shows that none of these complexes is universal. There are states in which several languages, religions, very amorphous value systems, many ethnic groups with their own cultures coexist.

Anderson immediately connects nationality with culture ^{[18, p. 29]}, putting forward an interesting idea: a nation is an imaginary political community [ibid., p. 30]. That is, the people who made up the nation, at some point (a period of time) imagined it, wanted to become a part of it, and therefore it appeared. Thus, the creation of nations and states is translated into a cognitive-project area, in which the idea of a certain community is put forward, which creates this community, mastering the masses and providing them with a model of the desired future. The idea of community becomes a force, taking over society.

Hobsbawm attaches the main importance to economic relations ^{[19, p. 47]}. In the light of the IMPS concept, there is no contradiction here: the economic IMS synergetically interacts with the cultural IMS, there is interference of the cultural repertoires of several ethnic groups beginning to form a nation, and this interference (penetration and adaptation) it is precisely supported by the development of economic relations. But, since people had previously imagined themselves in this community, they decided that, on the one hand, it does not fit their usual life, but on the other, it will give some new opportunities.

However, in some cases we see that cultural IMS based on different sets of repertoires interfere with the unification of nations, even despite the common language and culture, for example, the division into Catholics and Orthodox among Serbs and Croats [ibid., p. 112].

Anderson draws attention to the role of Catholicism and Latin in the design of the Western world. The fact that Catholic services are conducted in Latin forced the educated stratum of almost all of Europe to study this language; before 1500, about 80% of books were printed in Latin, it was the common language of priests and scientists of all European countries.

From the point of view of the IMPS, the Latin language, Christianity and the Greco-Roman classics created a thin, but important layer of communication for people who use culture, uniting the whole of Western Europe. The images of the Bible have become common images (Even-Zohar's repertoire) for European peoples, influencing the interaction of the material strata of society, economic, military and administrative.

In the future, starting from the XVII century, as a result of lower prices for books (books and printing houses are elements of the material part of the IMS), more and more literature was printed in folk languages, local writers appeared, creating local ideological complexes and laying the foundations of future national states.

General conclusions for the IMPS concept from the works of Anderson and Hobsbawm:

1. The polysystem of the state necessarily contains a unifying ideal layer (a system of layers) in which there are means of communication (a common language, sometimes not ethnic (Latin for Europe, hieroglyphs for China)

2. Nations are the product of cultural and economic development, in Europe the concept of "nation" was established only in the XIX century

3. the general model of the world, which is the basis for decision-making (religion, myth, ideology)

4. book printing is the most important means of unification of large communities

5. Common language and religion do not lead to mandatory unification of communities into one state and do not prevent separation from metropolitan areas (Latin America, USA and Canada)

6. The presence of different languages, ethnic groups and religions does not prevent unification into one state (France, Russia, China, India)

7. An important unifying and distinguishing structure is the administrative one, which creates a network of management and solutions to social problems, both material and ideal (institutional) (Latin American countries, which were parts of a single empire with a common language, religion and culture, did not create a single state)

8. To create nations, it is important to have a "sense of collective belonging" (Hobsbawm) or an "imaginary community" (Anderson).

Methodological individualism and methodological sociologism (holism)The question of whether there is a single political science in the world or whether there are several political science paradigms is not accidental ^[20].

Political science, as one of the ideomaterial subsystems of culture, is in strong interaction with the civilization that carries this culture. In my opinion, everything is simple: if a civilization is not afraid to be itself, then it certainly creates its own political science. But the question of correct political science is a vital question about the place of this civilization in the cosmic process of increasing the complexity of systems; a mistake can be fatal.

I think that the deep divide between Western (in the Anglo-American version that dominates today) and Russian civilizations lies precisely in the advantage that their way of thinking gives to the individual or society. By the way, continental thinkers were not so unanimous, many preferred individualism, but many thought holically.

This problem was clearly manifested in the conflict over the famous phrase of M. Thatcher that "society does not exist." The non-existent society was so outraged that the Prime Minister had to explain [f].

But you can sharpen the question. What is the "democracy" that all Western societies swear by? This is the power of the people, but, then, this subject exists? He can make decisions, and the mechanisms for making these decisions are well known (up to the right to armed resistance to an unjust government under the US Constitution). But then the supporters of individualism would have to admit (if they were honest) that the people are a "metaphor."

Individualism and holism (sociologism) are two opposite ways to study and understand social phenomena. Individualism was elevated to the level of "methodological" by L. Mises. He wrote: "First of all, we must realize that all actions are performed by individuals. The collective is always manifested through one or more individuals whose actions relate to the collective as a secondary source. ... The criminal is executed by the executioner, not by the state. It is the intention of those who are interested in this that distinguishes the actions of the state in the actions of the executioner. ... The collective lives in the activity of its constituent individuals. ... Thus, the way to cognition of collective wholes lies through the analysis of the actions of individual individuals" ^{[21, p. 43]}.

Mises does not even notice that the actions of the executioner who killed a stranger to him, who did not harm either the executioner or his friends, are somehow not very clear from an individualistic point of view.

Durkheim saw the picture differently: "The totality of beliefs and feelings shared on average by members of the same society forms a certain system that has its own life; it can be called a collective or common consciousness. Undoubtedly, it does not have a single organ as a substrate; it is, by definition, scattered throughout the entire space of society. Nevertheless, it has specific features that create a special reality out of it" ^{[22, p. 80]}.

Interestingly, even T. Kuhn, who has written so much about scientific communities, did not want to see them as collective subjects. In the preface to the English translation of L. Fleck's book, he writes that the "perspective of the sociology of the collective mind" is unacceptable to him, that the "thinking collective" is a "hypostatic fiction" and that the idea of a thinking collective that functions as a kind of superindividual mind is "internally erroneous" ^[23].

Anyway, throughout the scientific community of the XX century there was a certain struggle between these approaches, with holism prevailing in sociology, and individualism in economics ^[24].  This struggle has led to the fact that many scientists now believe that these approaches are equal and can be used for various studies for reasons of convenience.

The trouble is that this opposition considers the issue only in this time plane, without taking into account evolution (like all liberal economic theory, which is understandable: it does not consider what happened before the money markets and what will happen after).

But if we look at the relationship between the individual and society in a system-historical perspective ^[25], we will see that society is a suprasystem built at a higher level than individuals, its elements ^[26,27].

The question of the relationship between the individual and society is comprehensively investigated in the works of D. Strauss ^{[28, 29]}. He wrote: ... the juxtaposition of personality and society underlies theoretical thinking about the conditions of human existence ... views on social interaction fall victim to two opposing positions: the position of sociological individualism and the position of sociological universalism. Strauss then quotes Durkheim: In each of us there is... two forms of consciousness: one, common to our entire group, which, therefore, is not ourselves, but society, living and acting in us; the other, on the other hand, what is personal and different in us, makes us individuals (my italics).

That is, our mind itself, with language, concepts, beliefs and knowledge, is part of society; but this set is different for everyone, which makes us individuals. This set includes an individual collection of mental constructions (images, beliefs, texts, theories, etc., taken from those cultural "repertoires" according to Even-Zohar) with which the individual interacted in the process of his socialization. The number of cultural blocks is so large, and the amount of human memory is so large that each individual set is unique. Strauss intended to complete his research with the third part, but this apparently did not happen. I managed, however, to discover something like a plan for this part[g], which outlines the following conclusions:

1. The individual cannot be considered separately from society, because society is a condition of its existence, the opposition of the individual and society is a methodological error.

2. The individual is not embedded in society as a part in a machine, because society is a set of many strongly and weakly interdependent social collectives and social processes and does not function as a comprehensive integrity. An individual can move from one community to another.

3. Each of the various social functions, social connections or social roles of a human personality is always partial in the sense that it never covers the entire social activity of a person completely. Being a family member, a colleague, a friend, a specialist, a believer, a citizen, and so on are various ways in which we designate various social functions and roles of people.

Agreeing with D. Strauss in these conclusions, it is necessary to move further and expand the system analysis of the problem.  A system of a higher structural level acquires qualities that its elements do not have (metasystem transition). The atom is irreducible to elementary particles, the molecule to atoms, society to individuals. Entering the system changes the elements themselves, they acquire a state that cannot be outside of interaction. They may say: but physicists can calculate which atom will turn out from these elementary particles. Yes, but that's when they already know how these particles interact in an atom. Now, if physicists had only protons and neutrons that are far from each other and do not interact, how could they know about pi mesons? Or would chemists see only individual atoms, and have no idea of the valence by which they can combine into molecules? Could they even become chemists?

In a multinational state, one of two things happens: either the rigid core nation dissolves other cultures (melting pot), or the plastic core nation adapts to living together, creatively changing itself and serving as a conduit between other cultures of the state, contributing to their mutual enrichment. Interaction changes the very elements of the system. At the same time, the culture of a plastic nation acquires a fundamental historically inherited knowledge and experience of how to organize the common life of many different peoples.

It is society that creates language, it is only for society that it is needed, an individual does not need a language. The idea of a social contract is absolutely fantastic, it assumes that from somewhere (even before society) intelligent individuals with a language appeared and agreed to live together because it is profitable. But individuals who are able to negotiate do not appear outside of society.

Modern biological theory begins to understand that there was a coevolution of the genome and culture ^[30]. Biological mutations that accidentally increase the ability to perceive culture at the individual level lead to the development of the culture of the entire tribe, which gives it advantages in the competition for resources, being fixed by genetic selection already in the gene pool of the population.

The question of the collective subject is especially important for the theory of the state, especially such a complex, multi-ethnic and multi-confessional one as Russia in all its hypostases: like the Russian Empire, the USSR and the Russian Federation. The existence of history shows that the whole exists, but how does it exist? What are the mechanisms, interactions, and technologies that support this integrity?

Sociology of Knowledge as an example of the study of the ideal wholeF.

Engels wrote that the need of society pushes science forward more than a dozen universities. The need to accelerate technological development forces even people brought up in the traditions of Western individualism to investigate how science works. Therefore, the sociology of knowledge is an example of the most scientifically researched and has a rich literature of the theory of IMS. Even English-speaking sociologists unwittingly come to the idea of a collective subject (quoting German researchers profusely), and at the same time, as professional scientists, they begin to investigate the structure of this subject. The results of these studies are quite applicable for understanding the principles of the device and functioning of the IMPS.

So, let's move on to the review of modern publications on the sociology of knowledge.

One of the influential works on collective knowledge was the book by E. Hutchins "Cognition in Nature", in which he comes to the conclusion that the control of the ship cannot be carried out by an individual, but is performed by a system of several people and devices. He called it "distributed cognition" and associated it with the division of labor in society. Hutchins points out the systemic nature of group cognitive processes and the fact that a group solves tasks that one person cannot perform ^[31].

With the development of scientific research, more and more complex tasks arise, for the solution of which it is necessary to create very large installations and large research teams. Such projects include, for example, the Allen Brain Observatory (100 people) ^[32] and the Large Hadron Collider (up to 3,800 people) ^[33]. Researchers are beginning to come to the idea of group knowledge, a group subject as an organized group with special knowledge. This subject creates a cognitive process that none of the group members can create individually. It is noted that this idea contradicts the traditional postulate that only individuals can have knowledge. (ibid).

Creativity is associated with the discussion of problems in teams of people with a different set of knowledge and concepts, it is argued that the creative system is an autopoietic system ^[34].

A review of research on the sociology of knowledge is given in the book by D. McCarthy ^[35]. She argues that the sociology of knowledge seeks to uncover the collective foundations on which groups and (public) institutions carry out their activities and compete for power [ibid., p. 3] (which is quite applicable to politics). Further: knowledge forms the social order, ... knowledge is not just the result of the social order, but they themselves are key forces in the creation and dissemination of the social order [ibid., p. 13]. For sociologists, the word "knowledge" includes all possible types of knowledge identified in societies of the past and present: everything that is considered knowledge, whether it is religion, custom, tradition, magic, science or psychoanalysis [ibid., p. 16].

Knowledge can be studied as external phenomena: they are distinguishable from the concrete people who think them; they are products of our collective life, produced by certain groups, developed by institutions and professionals, such as scientists, doctors and theologians, communicated and transmitted to us by many different people, including parents, educators, politicians, journalists and ministers [ibid., p. 17].

If ideologies are practices, then they are strategic practices related to the power and consequences of both positions and claims of groups. One of the common strategies of an ideologue is to claim a special, superior place and function in relation to other people's ideas and practices, for example, a claim to a theoretical, rational or spiritual position and, on this basis, the right to act as the final judge and arbiter over others [ibid., p. 33]. Isn't it something familiar to political scientists?

The author of the following article writes about the formation of communities: Groups with a strong common identity can be formed surprisingly easily ... and over time they further strengthen the common identity due to the simple fact of being in the same group. Group identity reinforces intra-group favoritism ... similarities (in thinking, appearance, adherence to intra-group norms and values) within the group are emphasized, and differences are downplayed to strengthen group identity. The possible similarities of the members of the external group with the attributes of their group are similarly downplayed. ... A typical example is nationalism and stereotypes of nationalist outgroups ^[36].

This paragraph involuntarily brings to mind the ideological processes that have taken place in Ukraine in recent decades. A complex of external purposeful influences on the ideological part of the IMPS of Ukraine is clearly visible there.

ConclusionThe concept of ideomaterial polysystems, of course, did not appear from scratch.

It continues a lot of quite old discourses that have been going on in various sciences for centuries, now surfacing, then again going deep into the general scientific process. But it is possible that its application for political analysis becomes relevant precisely in our turbulent times when, it seemed, the victorious globalization is suddenly replaced by defragmentation on the civilizational blocks of states. In fact, the processes that we are currently observing (and within which we are) are the movement of civilizations in social matter, when ideas become a force, mastering the masses.

Understanding the laws of movement of ideomaterial polysystems should become a tool for self-preservation of those who want to preserve the identity of civilizations and the peoples bearing them during the coming geopolitical reconfiguration of the world.

 Notes[a] An approximate formula based on Kolmogorov's works is used here as a measure of complexity: complexity is proportional to the length of the shortest description of the device of a given object from the constituent elements.

So, for example, to describe a solid straight brick wall, we do not need to determine the position of each brick. It is enough to indicate how many bricks there are in length, thickness and height. If there are windows and doors in the wall, turns and so on, the description becomes longer and the complexity of the wall increases. A society in which there are a billion peasants planting rice is practically no more complicated than a society in which there are thirty such peasants. It is enough to describe one peasant and his farm, their community, and then indicate the total number. A society in which there are peasants, workers, engineers, scientists, governors and so on is already much more complicated. See Kolmogorov, A. N. Three approaches to the definition of the concept of "amount of information". Problems of Information Transmission, 1:1 (1965), pp. 3-11. See also Yudin D. B., Yudin A.D. Number and Thought. Issue 8. (Mathematicians measure complexity).- Moscow: Znanie, 1985. 192 p.

[b] Knowledge of classical philosophy has greatly degraded in recent decades. Talking about ideomaterial systems in quite enlightened audiences, I often encountered confusion about the immateriality of computer programs and other ideal structures.

[c] According to the Center for Scientific Research in the Field of Career Guidance and Labor Psychology, there are currently more than 17 thousand professions in Russia (see https://crcg.ru/ontology-of-vacancies-and-resumes/#more-391 ); however, there are hundreds more specializations in each profession.

[d] Interestingly, I repeated Hauke Risch in almost the same words in our 2019 article, although at that time I had not yet read his research.

[f] This is not a criticism of the internal policy of the USSR or people who sympathized with dissidents. It's just a case (sorry for the Anglicism).

[e] "There is no such thing as society" is a fragment of an interview entitled "Aids, education and the year 2000!" published in Woman's Own magazine on October 31, 1987. The response was such that the Sunday Times newspaper officially requested an explanation from the Prime Minister's office, which was given and published on July 10, 1988.

[g] Dani Strauss's letter to Thinknet dated June 23, 2010: https://dooy.info/issues/indiv.soc.html