Why have states stayed in a ‘state of nature’ for so long?

Essentially, states are like humans; they are, whether they like it or not, social (indeed, political) Beings (and thus there cannot be only one, see §19.00.10). They need to collaborate with the other states around them—or at least, even if enemies, need to share a common language and a common understanding (of such basic things as borders, peoples, acts of aggression or goodwill, etc.). An isolated, insulated, lonely path for any state is (and always has been) impossible (see also §17.00.05). If this is, however, the case, then why have states stayed in a ‘state of nature’ for so long, so immensely outdone by their own citizens, who (relatively) quickly turned themselves from humans into individuals through their states? This is because states are Beings and need to process information, but do not themselves need to augment their information processing—they just need their own citizens to do so (see §10.00.00 and §05.01.00). Therefore, whereas humans quickly moved from self-consciousness to individualisation, states did not follow; it was enough for them to simply continue to exist, to remain alive. There was no need for them to individualise, to be uniquely identifiable in space and time. Whenever they were outdone in their usefulness for their citizens, in terms of the processing opportunities offered to them, they were succeeded by another state (see §15.00.00 and §18.00.03), following need and opportunity. In the meantime, whatever limited (because of similarly limited processing capacity) common meaning it was necessary to develop for cross-border transactions was imperceptibly gradually achieved, because exchanges occurred anyway among neighbouring (territorial) states. (Tellingly, huge clashes of understanding occurred when states expanded across oceans, for example.)

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