Do egregores play?

Applying Betteridge's law of headlines to this blog’s title, it’s a fair bet that egregores (distinct non-physical entities that arise from a groups of people with shared motivations) do not play. And yet…

Many egregores are dire if not dangerous, including the Devil, tulpas, cults, and the Nazi movement; others, like Santa Claus and religious orders, are more or less benign. If any organization, say a religion, corporation, or political movement, can generate an egregore, then its moral value could be good or bad (and the judgment probably depends on one’s ideology). But are any of them playful?

New Scientist's 2021 Christmas edition had a lovely article about play in animals that describes Gordon Burghardt’s five criteria for play (all five need to be met):

1. The activity does not contribute to current survival.
2. It’s voluntary, enjoyable, or done for its own sake.
3. It’s different from the functional equivalent. (Play fighting isn’t really fighting.)
4. The behavior must be repeated.
5. The behavior occurs when animals are relaxed and sated, not hungry or fearful.

To the extent that the ancient gods were egregores, one can look to myth and folklore. Among the Greek gods, Hermes seems the most playful, with his origin story of nipping out of this cradle to steal Apollo’s cattle. At several points in the story, Apollo and Zeus laugh at his antics. Apollo himself is associated with playing the lyre (which Hermes invented) but seems rather a serious character. Dionysus is associated with wine and intoxication, but (judging by The Bacchae) is vengeful rather than playful. Pan, the goat-like son of Hermes, has been said to be playful and plays the pipes, but seems more mischievous (at best) than playful.

Many so-called trickster figures are transgressive, but they appear to be mischievous at best and malicious at worst; cf. Krishna, Coyote, Loki, and Reynard the Fox. They seem cunning, clever and/or deviant to me, rather than playful. When I think of playful-but-powerful fictional characters, Q in Star Trek comes to mind.

I find it hard to think of playful orgregores (the entities that putatively arise out of organizations). Some organizations encourage their employees to be playful and cultivate a fun atmosphere – Southwest Airlines comes to mind – but that’s a behavior of the constituent people, not the entity itself. I’m looking for cases where the behavior is that of the organization relating to other organizations or groups (like investors), rather than individuals. A couple of corporate behaviors seem to approach Burghardt’s criteria, like research labs and concept cars.

Research organizations like Bell Labs, Xerox PARC, and Microsoft Research don’t or didn’t contribute to their parent’s day-to-day survival (criterion #1). They arguably often don’t help the company at all even though they’re sold to shareholders as building strategic value. Research projects differ from revenue-generating products (#3), the activity continues over many years (#4), and depends on a company doing well enough to spare the cash (#5). Regarding criterion #2, the behavior is voluntary and done for its own sake, but I don’t know how one would assess whether its enjoyable for the orgregore. (That question reaches into the worm-can of whether orgregores have, or need to have, feelings.)

Concept cars that showcase new styling or technology typically don’t go into production directly (#3) and are a fixture at motor shows (#4). The activity isn’t essential for current survival, although they may be necessary to maintain shareholder, dealer, or owner loyalty (#1). I suspect that companies that are under pressure may experience strong incentives to produce concept cars to demonstrate their viability, so criterion #5 may not be met. We have the same problem regarding enjoyability (#2) as we did for corporate research.

I tend to discount posturing behaviors like PR or crowd-pleasing displays since they are intended to promote an organization which is arguably essential to long-term survival. We don’t count mating displays in animals as playful. This is a slippery slope, though; the corporate research and public prototyping I just described could simply be seen as self-promotion.

As the New Scientist article points out, by no means all animals engage in play and if one animal plays, a closely related species might not. One idea is that play enriches diversity of experience and enriches adaptation to complexity; the prediction is that one will see it in species that live in highly variable or unpredictable environments. By analogy, not all orgregores will play, and those that do might be the ones in more complex niches. Thus, bureaucracies in stable societies won’t play but companies in competitive, rapidly advancing fields might do so.