The Emergence of a Virtual Global Nation | Featuring Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development

Old Story Globalization



Globalization is an old story; old and working, and working harder than ever. We can say the Millennials generation is its result. The generation of the cyber-connected realm; but they are only the beginning.



Wireless, electronic, and optical networking technologies are capable of providing such huge amount of precious information worldwide. Info in the form of shared data, file, application, and even transaction that involve real non-virtual goods; but the point is the word "Shared".



The fundamental cause of how a nation formed are "Shared" perspective, fate, and struggle. Language, territory, ethnicity, and anything racial doesn't have but a small contribution.



I live as a part of a nation that has around 300 distinct native ethnics, and more than 742 different languages and dialects. I often met people who have a conversation in a language I don't understand. But fortunately, the memories of the ancestor's endeavor taught by school and reminded by annual anniversary kept us together.



In many parts of the world, nations exist in a country that the major population is not even the native of the land, such as the USA. What just happened there is an example of acceptance of shared feeling and land.

Power

Power was the one that begun globalization. When an empire had a surplus of power, they needed somewhere to contain it, and they'll found someplace, even across the ocean. Then the oppressed natives of the new-found-land would struggle and a simple shared view of the common enemy. When the natives gain freedom, they'll form a new nation.



Socio-culture


In a higher level society where physical hostility is inapplicable, there will come invisible injustice. Though concealed, it still can be heard or proven on paper, and/or with records of data. Next thing is, a new nation is born through reformation or etc. At least a new intellectualized nation will emerge.



Knowledge


This can be reached only with sufficient amount of education. Technology is a medium to reach the higher living standard which grasped by learning science. Many groups might do submission and form a new nation because of their inferiority to the other group of people in the aspect of science. This might be the case of Commonwealth nation.


Oppositely, when a group of people has grasped enough amount of knowledge, they might revolt and build their own nation.


And by education it doesn't limit to formal school, but real life experience is included. People living as a professional in particular field might see each other eye-to-eye in a closer relation, and perhaps, as a nation if they have shared perspective, fate, and struggle.


An engineer can easily acknowledge another engineer as a partner rather than to an artist.



Corporate


A group of people having a similar view of how things work might consider joining up as a group. When backed with such potential, a group can penetrate some boundaries and gains a massive amount of profit. They can employ other people to even further benefit the group.


I've quoted in the previous post about VOC pioneered corporate-led globalization. Yes, corporations were what made globalization to be possible, with the help of capitalism of course.

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My Approach


I'll associate theories of human cognitive development as an approach to understanding the development of a nation as a whole, like a human, in the happening realm of the virtual world. A nation is an entity of collective human mind united by similarity and shared feelings.


And I think medical psychology theories is some of the most realistic approaches which can determine damage and benefit rationally, it often crucial as evidence in particular judicial process.

Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development


Before we dive into the stages, we should better understood these principal noted by Piaget himself.


Reality is a dynamic system of continuous change that revolves around transformations and states.


Transformations are changes things undergo, whether states are conditions found between transformations.


Those aspects are influenced or retained by human intelligence. Operative intelligence is the active aspects that respond to transformation. Figurative intelligence is the retaining part of the states.


At any time, operative intelligence frames how the world is understood and it changes if understanding is not successful. Piaget stated that this process of understanding and change involves two basic functions: assimilation and accommodation.



Just like human perception of reality, the Internet is always changing and is commonly known to display people's mind all around the world. So we can analyze the collective demonstration of how the human consciousness can reach as a unity.



Assimilation and accommodation are two sides of a coin. People interpret new things to make sense of it by assimilation (integration) and processing new things when they didn't understand them by accommodation (taking action).


For example, people start to perceive (assimilate) that "Apple" might be an electronic product rather than just a fruit by (accommodate) watching advertisements or by experiencing the product's performance directly.



Cognitive Development Stages


Sensorimotor Stage


Progressive construction of knowledge and understanding by coordinating senses experiences.

Sub-Stage	Description
1 Simple reflexes	Coordination of sensation and action through reflexive behaviors.  Internet will only face essential protocols people really need such as calculation and information transfer. With every successful process over time, those protocols become an  intentional program.
2 First habits and primary circular reactions phase	Coordination of sensation and two types of schema: habits (reflex and primary circular reactions (reproduction of an event that initially occurred by chance). Internet started to repeat basic successful function to transfer information. Also, passive algorithm began to manifest unconsciously (both as unimplemented computer science and human mind pattern).
3 Secondary circular reactions phase	Development of habits and become more object-oriented, moving beyond self-preoccupation; repeat actions that bring interesting or pleasurable results. Virtual world and its citizen developed the coordination between vision and prehension. Ability occurrence at this stage: 1 Intentional innovation to implement function to achieve the desired goal such as the creation of search engine, virtual amusement and commercialism. 2 Secondary circular reaction or repetition like the long distance communication process of “chatting”; or the search behavior that starts to manifest. 3 Differentiation between means and ends that exhibit the dawn of virtual logic.
4 Coordination of  secondary circular  reactions stages	Coordination of vision and touch – hand-eye coordination; coordination of schemas and intentionality. This stage awakened the logic of the virtual entity and the coordination between means and ends. A mark of the beginning of goal orientation with the deliberate planning of steps. Protocol and algorithm were implemented with such objective to meet the virtual needs of people. Search engines, communication programs, online games implemented worth valued functions to attract sponsors or any commercial or other orientation.
5 Tertiary circular  reactions, novelty,  and curiosity	Became intrigued by the many properties of objects and by the many things they can make happen to objects; experiment with new behavior. A phase of discovery of new means to meet goals. An awareness of new possibilities to reach goals encourages internet to exploit creativity to an extent that resulted in the non- or for-profit idea such as the creation of memes, forums, new programs of traffic analytic approach, new algorithms, etc.
6 Internalization  of schemas	Developed the ability to use primitive symbols and form enduring mental representations. A stage of mental insights from the cyber world itself. People have transitioned from basic mechanical formula to implementing norms and real-world values. Dedicated websites were created for certain real-world movements sometimes inessential or misunderstood.

Pre-operational Stage


The Net-population is in an episode of playing around. They are considered preparing for the future practical operation.


But in this time they still unable to perform functional task but only with limited mental capabilities.


Here, the state of mind is still egocentric and less aware of the existence of other viewpoints out of themselves. Such as the case of self-centered viewpoints of freedom and prosperity from particular nations.



Symbolic Function Substage


The Online-Realm can now think of image and symbol. Not just we can search for a picture with a search engine, but as an entity, people can manifest themselves as a role figure. People playing role-play game is one easy example, but deep further, the virtual populace can unite as a bigger union to represent a perspective.


An online discussion forum can express and push some opinion on some occasions. Symbolically, a group of environment-caring people can speak of climate change, whether they did the scientific research themselves or not, so it can become a world concern.


But unlike in individual human, this stage requires a massive amount of awareness from the virtual dwellers. A stage that would happen in a much longer time, or faster depending on the capabilities of each countries cyber capabilities.



Also in this stage, limitations exist in the form of egocentric and pre-causal thinking.


A circle of people might egocentrically see anything from only their own point of view. What one country considers appropriate might be considered immoral in another country.


Pre-causal thinking is a term used by Piaget to describe three concepts of causality in the children's mind which is animism, artificialism, and transductive reasoning.


A belief that inanimate object has lifelike aspects is animism, eg: speaking car, speaking plane, speaking train. That thing is very common in any kind of visual media, especially on the internet.


Something happening around and then a belief arose that the cause is human or other association is artificialism. For example, a belief that diseases in an area is worsened by any human utilization of vaccines.


Transductive reasoning is a failure of understanding the true relationship between cause and effect. For example, some people believe that when there's a crow shrieking, someone will get a bad fortune.


Pre-causal thinking is currently dominate many sectors of the online world. Hoaxes are what I consider closely related with it. We can found much of them on Facebook, Youtube, or in any other place on the internet.


So, we can say as an entity, or what I would assume the "'Virtual Global Nation" is still in this  Symbolic Function Substage  --  Pre-operational Cognitive Development Stage. It's still quite in the playing around - about to, but a not yet operational phase. It needs a further push of work to be quite operational.




Intuitive Thought Substage


It's a phase when the cyber-connected denizen begins to questioning the vast amount of knowledge they unconsciously acquired. Media's effects such as TV shows and mags start to dissipate because of the rise of insight and self-awareness.


In December 2017, A game company faced stock price downfall because of a resentment of loot box pay-to-win microtransaction system. Loot boxes, a pay-to-win moneymaking model is not new in the gaming world, but the growing cognitive capabilities of people enabled them to rehearse the ongoing system.


In this stage, there is more characteristic to be coined out. They are centration and conservation, irreversibility, class inclusion, and transitive inference.


Centration is an act of focusing one thing and disregarding other. People still tend to overvalue the novel entertainment things rather than novel medical therapies.


Conservation is the understanding that altering things doesn't change its basic principle. Law as the presentation of justice would not decrease the value of Human Right. The firm shape of Norm and Moral would not reduce the joy of Freedom.


The Net-people in this stage is unaware of Conservation and showcase Centration. As we realized, it's still common nowadays that people pursue self-dominance and superiority. They unaware that humanity as a whole is one unification. A share of benefit would not decrease our worth, instead, we will strengthen the bond in-between, at least that will work only if people have a mutual understanding.


Irreversibility is unawareness that things are able to be reversed back to the previous state. People might lack the understanding that climate disorder is able to be reversed back to the deemed better condition without diminishing modern lifestyle standard.


Class inclusion is the inability to focus on more than two things at once so it limits their ability to understand classes and sub-categorization. In an example, if people are given an image of five cops and three pedestrians and asked, "Are there more police or people?" some will answer more police, even if people aware that police or cop is also "People". This is due to the lack of comprehension to acknowledge both classes simultaneously.


Transitive inference is logical thinking to get into conclusion using previously acquired knowledge. It is lacking at this stage. The vaccine has benefits and risks, but when people asked to determine which of them is the greater one, some people might still have difficulties.



Concrete Optional Stage


This stage gives development in the case that people start to be able to solve problems logically. Persons are able to act to concrete situations but not yet into the abstract hypothetical thinking. The logic includes inductive reasoning so things are able to be generalized. Such as if persons get irritated while being disturbed, it means everyone has rights and so people created human rights declaration.


But deductive or general-to-specific reasoning is in such struggle. For example, Everybody needs clothes to protect them from the weather, insect bite, etc. But clothing could specifically different from one location to another because of different weather, flora fauna, environment, other geographical causes, and even local customs. Some people might just tend to stick to mainstream fashion even if the weather or other factors is unsupportive. In this case, same right doesn't mean same needs.


There is also this elimination of egocentrism at this stage. For example, when A knows that B was born and live in China since then, even though B has European face, A will understood that B might be more fluent to speak Chinese and might consider greeting him in Chinese rather in English. So persons are able to put their perspective as other people. This stage also tends to utilize trial-and-error way of problem-solving.



Formal Operational Stage


It's the final stage where problem solved with abstract thought. It includes the assumption that has no necessary relation to reality. The important hypothetical-deductive reasoning is maturing here.

Characteristic:


Abstract thinking materializes as people - other than just trimming with concrete substance - also begin to examine Possibilities and Consequences of action. People should begin to think the possible outcomes of vaccine negligence, could be an outbreak.


Metacognition is a higher but simple capability also blooming here. It's "Thinking about thinking". An example, in a movie sometimes a character might break the 4th wall and speak to the audience about something in the movie. Other example, people might realize a disturbance in their way of life and start to question themselves and take action such as mental patients who aware of their own disorder; or civilians who protests questionable policies.


Problem-solving with logical and methodical way employing deductive general-to-specific reasoning. Nowadays, it's an outdated perception that things must be generalized. What considered healthy is not being too slim or too big. Balance lifestyle in an appropriation is what better.


Google has even reached a level of elaborate search engine that could grant us better search result by implementing a complex algorithm so we can input exact phrase, exclude words, search similar phrase, etc.



I assume we have in different cognitive development stage based on the cyber technological advancement, economy, education and all other factors of our real-world country. But there really is no actual barrier to the location in the virtual world.


Consider there's protocol limitation in some places, but the remaining fragments are shaping the digital atmosphere. The language barrier, IP blockage, etc., are not hindering people to reach out elsewhere around the globe.


Of course, there are no necessary means to physically manifest as a body; a nation might be formed with only awareness of shared fates, struggles, and feelings.



This cognitive development theory is actually considered obsolete and I myself did no accountable research. So this writing holds no responsible value to judge the cyber situation as a whole, but only as a piece of opinion journal, an idea. Though the phenomenon I cited are actuality.



The Internet is a milestone of rapid globalization that quite hard to contain. What comes afterward are some things that have already penetrated many existing barriers such as language, country of origin, etc. Here are some instances.

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Modern Globalization


Media


Whether it's the extension of renaissance or not, media is one factor that massively spread culture across the continent. By media, I mean all kinds of the oeuvre which in modern day has considerably vast influence.

The invention of the broadcast system had augmented the media's reach even further. Without them, half the lifestyle in the present world could never occur.


TV, the radio, and electronic invention is another landmark of civilization that enhanced globalization, with the help of yet publishing media such as books, magazine, etc.


Developing country couldn't ever be familiar with pop music if modern media hasn't been invented. People are changing in such brief duration of cultural alteration and becoming a generation of the media consumer.


Someone said that different generation felt different things. But with such amount of cultural alteration that a generation acquired, the following generation might have divergent perspective. If such gap hit some level, a contradiction might happen.With different feelings, struggles, and fates; a different nation might prevail.



Corporation Again


Media is one thing, but other concrete reason also existed. In the previous post, I told about VOC which pioneered corporate-led globalization. Profit based motive could play even stronger cause.


Today, what kinds of thing that don't really has "Brand". Even drinking-water has many kinds of corporation brand, I'm glad that the air I inhale is still free.


Companies will put efforts to put their plan into motion and gain the best profit. Many people these days even had dreams to spend their life working in a company.


This means companies created a new realm of job granting world so people could buy their products and give them even more surplus.


When corporations achieved peaks of performance, they could literally create a "Nation". They can build schools, houses, and even a city for their worker or for philanthropy which later would make the people affected to be grateful, or not.



Sports


Football nation is no unfamiliar phrase anywhere. It's something very common, popular to be precise. If you happen to live in Brazil and you are obscure about it, you could be the one regarded as the foreigner.


This ball-kicking hobby is one of the most famed entertainment in the modern times. Football is one proven case that globalization has actualized in the world. A club is usual to transfer player across the globe. It's an everyday sight to watch a player from Brazil, Japan, Ivory Coast, Egypt, etc. to play in European League; and also the opposite.


See, shared interest what brought football club, player, and fans together, as long as someone onto it, so be it. Even football might become a concern of a country, moreover the country of the world cup contestant.


Not just football; but also any kinds of sports, racing sports, even e-sports or whatever interesting competitions exist on the menu would be able to bond anyone with shared enthusiasm.



Bitcoin


Even if I don't have any, it's truly a global phenomenon. It has the very essence of globalization itself when the world is capable to exchange information in a matter of seconds. Not limited to developed capitalist country, the persistent existence of its decentralized concept is spreading to anybody that is in touch with media - especially internet -, so the trend will not only happen in Europe or US but really is global.


It is decentralized and anchored on the hardware of every participant themselves. PC, laptop, and smartphone that have become everyday tool are capable to be the wallet of this coin. So anyone can use it for transaction anytime - if only the transaction fees not so high -.


The point is, it becomes a global exchange system that awakens the awareness of the boundaries-less world, as a logical consequence and deductive reasoning to solve the higher financial needs of global domain. Of course, shared financial psyche should arise and we might find a new kind of nation afterward.



Online Game


Kids these days are the true witness of globalization. Some of them have begun to implement foreign languages into everyday jokes, with Vietnamese, Russian, English, etc. language that some of those would never be taught in school. Right, kids are changing, and kids are the next generation of a nation.



International Problem


When the night is not even cold any more people start to question the weather. Climate change is everybody problem, and, who's to blame?


Everyone's problem requires everyone contribution. Frankly, global awareness; at least to not worsen the situation.


It's already the essential factor for a formation of a nation, shared problem. Shared problem forge shared feelings, struggles, and fates.Thus, a nation will be born.




Alas, there will come process that happens when a nation about to be formed; and one approach is the cognitive development theory that I've associated above. The process will also involve trial-and-error that results in positive development, but also harmful error along the way.




Positive Development


Better Life


Developing nation would seek the better life by studying abroad. Eventually, a nation of knowledge seeker could build a system of efficiency to be implemented in their home. For example, India has successfully launched their own space program and besting previous Russia's record of satellites on a rocket.



Negative Side Effect


Harmful Risk


Because of inevitable flaws in people including me, there will be mistakes that about to take place; such as immorality, inequality, and misunderstanding.



Coda


Rather than country, a nation doesn't really need recognition. In modern days where boundaries are dissolving, the territorial limit in the virtual world might what actually is fictitious.