In this case, we want to build an ontology, or at least some salient parts of one, that could serve as a formal specification for a very specific type of social ecosystem, or at least a social ecosystem for which we have a large number of examples. Not only that, we have several well-defined examples of the architects and builders who were deeply involved in building such social ecosystems. So, it will be an interesting exercise to create a conceptualization of sufficient detail that it can be captured in a specification; that is, in our ontology, such that one could perform at least a thought exercise in which the characteristics of these existence proof cases could be derived.

Now, the question becomes what are we going to specify; what is our conceptualization? Well, in the words of Shakespeare, “the play’s the thing.” The modern addendum then is “You can’t tell the players without a program.” So, it will be useful later on if we understand the various elements that we ultimately need to consider in our specification.

A central feature of any religion, or any social ecosystem for that matter, is the ability to differentiate the believers from the non-believers: the members of the ecosystem from the non-members. As has been noted more than once, “The benefit to having a club is the ability to exclude people from it.” That’s a rather cynical view of certain types of groupings, but a relevant concept nonetheless. From our perspective, the greater need is to be able to establish who is in the group, and what special role, if any, various individuals play within the group. Beyond establishing membership, we can anticipate the need for a list of distinct roles within the group that must be played by its members. This implies that the mechanisms that we use to identify the members of the group must be capable of establishing and conveying various attributes associated with that identity.

The premise that we are exploring is the efficacy of social ecosystems as grouping mechanisms in enhancing the competitive advantage of one group relative to other groups. Thus, a group, and hence its general membership, may derive advantage in the natural selection process to which all groups are subject. So, the anticipation is that our conceptualization must provide for the application of rules that the members of the group must or should follow when they interact with other people, with other groups, and with the natural ecosystem in which they exist. Looking forward, we can anticipate that it will prove advantageous to the operation of the group to allow some aspects of the rules to be negotiated among different parties to a transaction. So, our ontology should establish mechanisms through which individual positions relative to the rules can be codified as part of the transaction process.

The rules of the group will encompass a number of variants of interactions. Consequently, it will be necessary to define constraints, modifiers and attributions on the various rules such that the various interactions are recognized and the correct rules applied. We further anticipate that discrete rules, attributed at an individual group member level, may encounter conflicts in at least between-member interactions. The implication of this is that somehow, prior to or during an interaction, the actual rule that applies to the interaction must be discernable. We’ll consider this a bit more in a following section.

Finally, some consequence of the application of a rule or set of rules during an interaction will accrue. It seems obvious that different implementations that might follow from the conceptualization will enable different mechanisms for evaluation or enforcement of the rules. So, the conceptualization must allow for a variety of approaches.

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