Successful cooperation among a group of individuals requires a low entropy of ideas. That is to say, the group must be “on the same page.” This paper proposes a framework aimed at illustrating the relationship between human cooperation and the various ways individuals use information, specifically through the lens of entropy. Information, thoughts and ideas are divided into two categories based, not on content, but rather on dimensionality. Dichotomous thinking will refer to simple unidimensiona…
Read moreSuccessful cooperation among a group of individuals requires a low entropy of ideas. That is to say, the group must be “on the same page.” This paper proposes a framework aimed at illustrating the relationship between human cooperation and the various ways individuals use information, specifically through the lens of entropy. Information, thoughts and ideas are divided into two categories based, not on content, but rather on dimensionality. Dichotomous thinking will refer to simple unidimensional ideas while analytical thinking will refer to ideas which explore the relationship between two or more dimensions. The development of the framework proposed here proceeds from three fundamental axioms, the ability of individuals to recognize and/or assign value along with the second and first laws of thermodynamics. The framework will be used to illustrate how, when faced with complex problems, overly dichotomous thinking can increase the entropy of ideas thus inhibiting cooperation. Given the increasing political polarization and global instability, reframing how we think about information is critical. This paper argues that the fundamental distinction between dichotomous and analytical thinking should be at the center of this reformulation.
