Is there such a thing as a group mind? If so how does it affect the thriving and surviving of groups? What do such group minds look like from a historical perspective? What about a modern perspective?
My interest right now is how power players across history have collaborated with egregores (especially 20th century nationalism) to reach the heights of power, and how people with a Christian or scientific mindset ("epistemology of truth") tend to be blind to the actual game of power players (who have an "epistemology of power").
This description largely matches my read of things. In particular how Christianity was killed by it's offspring (which reminds me both of Charles Taylor's "A Secular Age" and Zeus...)
I am not really convinced that there is anything it is like to be America, even if there *is* something it’s like to be American. But I do think people end up in mobs and act together as a system. Just not sure that system is conscious. I think the bandwidth needs to be greater for that.
I think there's a whole discussion to be had about the intersection of a group mind with it's members. Let's take this off the cuff example. Imagine that you're part of a group and the group decides to kick someone out because he's bugging people. If that threshold has been crossed then as a member of the group you can sense that the group as a whole has a negative opinion. It is like something to be part of the group.* The group wants that guy out. Of course as an individual member you may have a more nuanced opinion, or you may be leading the charge, which makes the idea of groupness somewhat tenuous. But there is still an aggregate opinion that manifests as group level tension.
*I think a certain amount of empathy is also required
I understand that the brain has an electro-chemical pulse -- kind of a frequency at which neurons ... do something. It’s been too long since I read about it. Does that electrical pulse become different in the two halves of a separated brain?
Here’s an interesting paper that talks about the state of research on split-brains. It doesn’t offer an answer to my question, but it explores alternatives that respond to the curiosity under my question. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7305066/
I'm just a lay person on this topic, but their sense of self is largely unaffected, it's mostly that they react independently when it comes to stimuli. One wonders if that sense of self starts to diverge the longer it's been since the operation. I suspect if you kept the hemisphere's visually isolated, so that each hemisphere saw something different then they definitely would develop different personalities over time.
If you move from severing to actual damage then you get all sorts of crazy effects, particularly if it's right hemisphere damage. For example:
As a neuro-guy myself, I would say your split-brain example is excellent as a starting point but doesn't go far enough. There are hundreds of anatomical circuits, each of which competes for conscious attention and control of our behavior on a moment by moment basis. Most of that goes on with no awareness. So I think that idea that a mind has to be aware of itself as a mind in order to qualify is too restrictive.
Interesting and good to know. I suspected as much, particularly when you look at how much of the brain's activity is inhibitory on other parts of the brain.
Group minds quite obviously control and pattern the thinking, emotions and behaviors of all human beings, with very rare exceptions.
The original Western example of that was/is of course the "catholic" church which erroneously pretends that it has a "great commission" to convert all of human beings to the "one true faith" (really a belief system) as defined by them. Some right-wing Christians even pretend that its grotesque "magisterium" is binding on all human beings.
The "catholic" church runs the worlds largest (group mind) propaganda machines in electronic , paper paper, and very sold material forms too. Its tentacles reach into almost every village on the planet.
Its solid material forms are parish churches and its world-wide network of "catholic" universities.
At another, but very similar level the principal form of group mind formation and control is of course TV . In any given moment how many people world-wide are tuned into, and thus being brainwashed (zombified) by TV.
We are also trapped and controlled by the Wetiko psychosis which has reached its almost terminal development.
I confess I am unlikely to take any claims of _current_ Catholic hegemony very seriously, though it's a defensible position historically (but then only up until the Protestant Reformation n'est-ce pas?) And complaining about TV feels several decades too late.
That said I do like reading so I have picked up "Undreaming Wetiko" on Audible. You can be confident that a review of it will appear in this space.
You might be interested in the DARPA doc "A Memetics Compendium" which is like an operations manual for dealing with egregores https://twitter.com/kcorazo/status/1682288155037425665
Christianity was the original atheism. The old gods were egregores that kept the peace through deceit and Christ killed all of them https://www.explorations.ph/i/138274602/normie-psychopath-autist
Physicalist science brought this a notch higher with its desire for "intellectual cleanliness at any price" (Nietzsche via Girard) https://twitter.com/kcorazo/status/1726810053330808858
My interest right now is how power players across history have collaborated with egregores (especially 20th century nationalism) to reach the heights of power, and how people with a Christian or scientific mindset ("epistemology of truth") tend to be blind to the actual game of power players (who have an "epistemology of power").
This description largely matches my read of things. In particular how Christianity was killed by it's offspring (which reminds me both of Charles Taylor's "A Secular Age" and Zeus...)
I am not really convinced that there is anything it is like to be America, even if there *is* something it’s like to be American. But I do think people end up in mobs and act together as a system. Just not sure that system is conscious. I think the bandwidth needs to be greater for that.
I think there's a whole discussion to be had about the intersection of a group mind with it's members. Let's take this off the cuff example. Imagine that you're part of a group and the group decides to kick someone out because he's bugging people. If that threshold has been crossed then as a member of the group you can sense that the group as a whole has a negative opinion. It is like something to be part of the group.* The group wants that guy out. Of course as an individual member you may have a more nuanced opinion, or you may be leading the charge, which makes the idea of groupness somewhat tenuous. But there is still an aggregate opinion that manifests as group level tension.
*I think a certain amount of empathy is also required
I understand that the brain has an electro-chemical pulse -- kind of a frequency at which neurons ... do something. It’s been too long since I read about it. Does that electrical pulse become different in the two halves of a separated brain?
That's above my paygrade but if I come across anything that seems to answer that question I'll let you know.
Here’s an interesting paper that talks about the state of research on split-brains. It doesn’t offer an answer to my question, but it explores alternatives that respond to the curiosity under my question. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7305066/
What do the people who have their brains severed say, write, paint, and otherwise communicate about who they are?
I'm just a lay person on this topic, but their sense of self is largely unaffected, it's mostly that they react independently when it comes to stimuli. One wonders if that sense of self starts to diverge the longer it's been since the operation. I suspect if you kept the hemisphere's visually isolated, so that each hemisphere saw something different then they definitely would develop different personalities over time.
If you move from severing to actual damage then you get all sorts of crazy effects, particularly if it's right hemisphere damage. For example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatoparaphrenia
Hobbes wrote about at least a metaphorically similar thing long ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(Hobbes_book)
As a neuro-guy myself, I would say your split-brain example is excellent as a starting point but doesn't go far enough. There are hundreds of anatomical circuits, each of which competes for conscious attention and control of our behavior on a moment by moment basis. Most of that goes on with no awareness. So I think that idea that a mind has to be aware of itself as a mind in order to qualify is too restrictive.
Interesting and good to know. I suspected as much, particularly when you look at how much of the brain's activity is inhibitory on other parts of the brain.
Group minds quite obviously control and pattern the thinking, emotions and behaviors of all human beings, with very rare exceptions.
The original Western example of that was/is of course the "catholic" church which erroneously pretends that it has a "great commission" to convert all of human beings to the "one true faith" (really a belief system) as defined by them. Some right-wing Christians even pretend that its grotesque "magisterium" is binding on all human beings.
The "catholic" church runs the worlds largest (group mind) propaganda machines in electronic , paper paper, and very sold material forms too. Its tentacles reach into almost every village on the planet.
Its solid material forms are parish churches and its world-wide network of "catholic" universities.
At another, but very similar level the principal form of group mind formation and control is of course TV . In any given moment how many people world-wide are tuned into, and thus being brainwashed (zombified) by TV.
We are also trapped and controlled by the Wetiko psychosis which has reached its almost terminal development.
http://www.awakeninthedream.com/undreaming-wetiko-introduction
http://www.awakeninthedream.com/articles/invasion-of-the-body-snatchers-comes-to-life
That zombified TV anti-culture is of course completely indifferent and hostile towards life on this planet, both human and non-human.
I confess I am unlikely to take any claims of _current_ Catholic hegemony very seriously, though it's a defensible position historically (but then only up until the Protestant Reformation n'est-ce pas?) And complaining about TV feels several decades too late.
That said I do like reading so I have picked up "Undreaming Wetiko" on Audible. You can be confident that a review of it will appear in this space.