THE SOCIETAL ORGANISM 



in the direction of the societal organism is in certain 

 respects analogous to the integrations that occur on 

 various lower levels of the development of matter. 

 However when it occurs on a higher level it results in 

 new, emergent features. In all these integrations the 

 extropy of the material involved is raised. 



Integrations of complexifying matter are always 

 most closely analogous to the nearest integrations both 

 up and down the line, rather than to integrations one 

 or more steps further removed. 



THE SOCIETAL ORGANISM RAISES THE ORGANIZATION 

 OF ITS IMMEDIATE SURROUNDINGS 



Insect colonies have certain effects upon their sur- 

 roundings. These effects result in an increase of the 

 extropy level of the immediate environment. The full 

 significance and reasons for this phenomenon will be 

 discussed in the next chapter, but a few examples per- 

 tinent to insect colonies will be cited now. 



The ground constituting an ant heap certainly is 

 more orderly and consequently has a higher extropy, 

 than the same ground would have if the ant colony 

 were not present. The honey containers of the bees, 

 constructed with mathematical perfection, surely have 

 a greater extropy than the same amount of wax and 

 honey in dispersed form. 



The very fact that the insect colonies tend to arrange 

 inanimate matter in orderly fashion, for some func- 



65 



