> On 29 Nov 2014, at 10:08 am, Richard Ruquist <yann...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> It may just be herding instinct or projection on my part,
> but it seems that my chickens are more intelligent
> as a group than individually.
>
> I attribute that to a group mind due to entanglement
> in a mind/matter duality.
> Richard
Do you want to put up a new thread about this? I am deeply interested in
"groupthink" and see it as largely unacknowledged. Don't know about the
mind/matter duality entanglement, but hey, we have to get this Theory of
Everything in by Christmas so go for it, I say.
The topic branches nicely. There is the notion of reward and discipline within
the group and the whole pecking order. The fact is, most humans act with a
tribal mind - always have, always will. Until Kurzweil and the Google robotics
work out how to reprogram us. We always regard the people from across the river
with suspicion because we are the eternal hunter-gatherers. We haven't even
left the forest and savannah in our minds yet and behave accordingly. Humans on
their own tend to regard others with less suspicion due to their needing stuff
that only belonging to a group offers.
There is the whole emergent thing of the group behaving as you say, more
intelligently (or competently, exhibiting adaptive behaviour both within and
without) which accounts for the enormous value of being a good and compliant
clan member rather than the elephant who walks alone in the forest and gets
shot by the poacher.
Margaret Thatcher said something about this. She said something like "there are
only two power structures: governments and families." Dynasty, in other words.
GroupThink is about winning better at evolution, 14 heads are better than one,
but then everyone has a different perspective so someone has to crack the whip
occasionally to stop the bickering. Then the Prophet descends and suddenly
everyone is connected to something wonderful and supernatural and that's what
the group now live and die for so really it has been a waste of time for the
individuals within group but a bonanza for the religion that is bolted onto
them.
Something...
Kim
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