Should collective conciousness be a progressive ideal?

[Zinkovich]

I hear much of this collective unconcious, and yet have not heard of anyone who has fully gone into it. The hermits, the mystics, all of them had "I" and "ego", for all their claims of the possibility of transcendence and godhood.

Language marries us to reference, and all reference marries us to ego. Without this reference, there is no thought but blind acceptance, no change but staticticity, for without reference, without our limitedness, there would be no need for change. Nothing small harms the collective, while even the smallest of things can harm the limited. The collective in its multiplicity is aware of all it connects to, while the limited is selective in its filtration and thus needs to "learn".

Knowing this, I view the collective concious as a cultural ideal rather than a pragmatic construct currently inherent in reality. If we started out as a collective unconcious, if we started out as a transcendant whole, why would we now be limited to self, and not infinite in reference? In my opinion, we have either fallen, or have never been transcendant at all. Due to the implications of the first possibility not being in any way visible within my point of reference, I lean towards the idea that we have never had a collective unconcious. Therefore by my reckoning, we must develop a collective unconcious through other means such as technology to ever possess it.

Because of this, I view progress as the ideal. Within my current viewpoint, only through progress and the discovery of new cognitive technologies can we come closer to the ultimate joining and understanding of one another, as a collective and intimate whole.

So, in conclusion:

-Do you think we should broaden our reference by becoming "merged" in conciousness by technological means someday, or do you think individualism should be maintained/an option if such a thing as conciousness-merging becomes technologically feasible?

-What if we could just be aware of others' experiences in the absolute sense when it comes ot integration, while still being seperate in our thoughts and mind?

-What value do you put on individualism within the context I am describing it? Is it really so negative to be aware of yourself on a small scale rather than becoming some microcosm of a whole?

I have many further quesiton to probe for opinions on colloective conciousness, but for now I'll leave things as they are.

Edit: For clarification, I mean "infinite" and "small" metaphorically in comparison/contrast with our current "level" of reference. I do not literally mean "infinite", perhaps a better term could have been "higher". Sorry fo rthe confusion, but oftentimes I choose the wrong words when I'm trying to write something I've put a lot of inutional thought into.

[Mr. Blue Sky]

Let me start by saying I think this is a great idea for a thread.

I do not think we should sacrifice individualism for a merging of consciousness, and I do not think it would ever happen - people would be very, very cautious about giving up their individuality. I do, however, think we should sacrifice our selfish individual interests for the collective good, which is what I think you were getting at when you were talking about collective consciousness as a cultural ideal.

It would also be desireable if we could be fully aware of each other's experience while maintaining our own individual thoughts and mind. However complications would undoubtedly arise - if everyone could understand how it feels to be everyone else, would people still have their own thoughts? all experience and memory would be relatively the same. We would be much more understanding of each other, problems would be solved much more easily between people, and productivity as a species would skyrocket. However this would come at the price of a barely varied individual experience and becoming an almost hive-minded species

In regards to your idea of what collective consciousness is, I think it is possible that it is not only a cultural ideal but could still be a pragmatic reality construct. The "ego" and "I" that you speak of are indeed inherent in humans, as separate physical beings. However, a common term used to describe what the mystic experiences when he sees whatever it is that he is calling mystical is "ego death." Humans are physical and mental beings - we are separate as biological entities, but as social organization demonstrates, we are also joined together by our many mental processes. In ego death, the mystic somehow "kills" his individual aspects and joins with the pure collective mental aspect of his being.

Maybe... or maybe not, I still think the possibility of collective consciousness as a reality is plausible and could be concordant with current scientific knowledge. Regardless of whether it is a part of reality or not it's still an idea that's very worthwhile and often overlooked in the modern world, especially in today's self-centered, materialistic America.

[Kuldeep]

The existence of individual is due to Ego so much so up to a level of micro-organism. As long as you think yourself an individual you are individually finite to a limit of your capabilities. You do not have control over other's consciousness or individuality. Once, your Ego is erased your consciousness exist in whole universe. You would seize to exist as Zinkovich. You would feel existing everywhere. That stage of yourself would not affect the existing state of universe in no way. This universe is guided by action/reaction phenomina. However, surely your idividuality would go away.

Ego removal is in individual benefit only and not for the masses. Higher state of consciousness would keep you balanced, uneffective due to pleasures and sorrows.

I do not think collective higher consciousness in a community is possible and also even if it is, it would not be of any good. However pious preaching thinking others as equal physically, in your place and performing good deeds would make people desciplined and better society to live in.

[Dadoo]

Individual consciousness is the exact same as the collective, viewing the singularity by the singularity in many minor perspectives.

That is a clue, passed down by many seekers and mystical thinkers.

It is the very separation of these ideals which is egotistical.

In one sense, we are all identical. Even the smallest mote in the eye of the collective, harms it.. or verily affects it.
One twisted individual changes the qualitative summation of the collective, in turn and vice-versa.
Although we must think and communicate in linear motions, the concept is bi-linear, wherein quotient and divider aren't deduced in steps, rather oscillate simultaneously.
This may render all quantification moot, as a balanced equation sums to zero, it would not matter which values are placed upon the variable "individual " and it's shadow, the "collective". They are equated and bound.
Were there only one man, this concept would be easily grasped by him.

Don't be confused by the multiplicity. It is still the same, where ever you go.

Be the collective,
watch the individual grow.

Dadoo

[Kuldeep]

I not confused but talk to confused people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[JohnMK]

If we started out as a collective unconcious, if we started out as a transcendant whole, why would we now be limited to self, and not infinite in reference?

Are you saying that the (hypothetical above) starting point is itself the goal? I grew out of the womb, I don't want to grow back into it. :) On the face of it, I think your reasoning fails here.

Nothing small harms the collective, while even the smallest of things can harm the limited.

Collectives are also too slow to efficiently respond to the various challenges that reality presents us with. They stifle progress and (by definition) liberty.

Of course what you're really talking about is empathy. Let's distinguish between two facets of it here: 1) the involuntary experience of your perception of the cognitive state/reasoning process of another human, and 2) the accuracy thereof. A balanced state of empathy (I'm speaking of #1 here, you'd always want #2 to be as accurate as possible) is probably optimal.

Too much empathy seems to be just as disabling as too little. I would rate myself as highly empathic on both metrics, and it does influence my life greatly, for better and for worse. Being with friends and seeing them laugh, smile, and in general good cheer, makes me extremely happy, even if I'm sad. Seeing someone who I think might be sad, or who I know is sad, effects me in that direction. Those who are highly empathic can also be amongst the best actors, and liars too, if they need to go that far.

It's not just my intellect that keeps me from being a wanton murderer, it's my empathy as well: I simply could not hurt someone, because I would be hurting myself. This is the genesis of what most people call altruism, IMO. What prevents them from realizing its inherently selfish genesis is a mixture of lack of insight into own cognition and now scientific ignorance as well.

In specific answer to your questions:

#1) Hands off, laissez faire. Let's just let it go wherever it's going, and not tinker with it as a collective goal. If individual people decide to plug in, fine.

#2) Empathy's pretty damn useful. So of course this is good . . .

#3) There will be times that empathy is functionally important, and other times where some quiet and isolation is welcomed like a vacation. Let's be careful not to think of this in the binary.

[Athena]

So if we all shared the same understanding of east and west relationships, of things like the cursades, and how Christians and Jews have historically related with each other, and with Muslims and pagans, and how Israel came to be, would we have the fighting we have today, with all sides wanting to be precieved as the good guys and calling the other evil, or if shared the consciousness, everyone able to understand from all point of view and knowledge, would there be agreement and peace?

[Athena]

"Collectives are also too slow to efficiently respond to the various challenges that reality presents us with. They stifle progress and (by definition) liberty".

Why are you in such a hurry? What needs to be decided in a short time? How is delaying a decision until there is a consensus going to stifle liberty?
It would have been nice if the US hadn't rushed into a war opposed by the UN. What is happening in Iraq is not liberty!

Democracy is about talking things through and not making decisions until there is a consensus. What is the hurry? This is way of life.

[Technosoul]

Well, at last, a thread worthy of being involved in.

As I recall the concept of a collective consciousness began due to some scientific observations as well as some historical research.

For example two people in different countries might invent the same thing at the same time, but each had no idea what the other was doing. At certain ages people around the world found out how to build a campfire, and make pottery. Without communication with one another. Other examples were collected to suggest that ideas can become "international" somehow rather then remaining always in the keeping of one individual or isolated group.

Also scientists noted the same thing happening in other primate populations relative to behavior trates.

Rupert Sheldrake - Morphogenetic Fields And Beyond

But basically what they are now talking about as a collective consciousness would be "world opinon". Which can be somewhat controlled through advertising and manipulation if one can afford such a project. The Christian religion has attempted this in hopes of transforming the collective consciousness into a "christ consciousness". They gained a lot of ground which is self evident but failed to gain ground in locations already firmly sealed by another religious teaching - and failed here in the Volconvo debate forms as is evident in my latest poll. However, everyone pretty much wants the same things in life, even if they are ego centered, if they are common everywhere then they are also collective. A collective consciousness that is geocentric at it's base. Everyone wants to be happy for example, and have the goodies offered in the marketplaces, they all want things to be sane, just, fair, and secure. Most people in the collective would like to have someone they desire to love them.

I took part once in the Harmonic Convergence which was rooted in the idea that we could influence the collective consciousness by thinking about or meditating on world peace and unity with nature. Which was done at a time when the planets were in line relative to a concept based on the Myan Calendar. The idea was to awaken the collective conscousness to the concepts of brothery love, peace, and a will to safeguard nature. Millions of people around the globe took part in that ritual. John Denver went to the (old) USSR and Gorbie like the idea and he also took part and allowed the event to be aired all day long on the USSR TV stations. Shortly after that Goobie announced an end to the cold war and the wall in Germany came down. One of the people spearheading this event was Yoko Ono and thusly John Lennon recorded the song "Imagine" to aid in influencing the collective mind set globally. Shortly thereafter peace came to South Africa and things were on a roll, until Bush bombed some island and Reagan started a phoney conflict in South Ameirca. Then the Panama incident. Then we plunged back into our former ways internationally.

Harmonic Convergence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So those are some of the "roots" behind the term "collective consciousness" as I know of it. Mostly 1980s new age idealism.

[Gods_Mercenary]

Collective conciosness is only a goal for progressives who profess themselves to be facists. Then it would be perfect. No pesky dissenters!

[Vercingetorix]

How could anyone dissent who could see why someone has the ideas they do? If one can see the logic involved in the conception of an idea

First I guess we must define a collective consciousness. I do not know for sure what one is, but I presume it is what Spider Robinson was writing about in Mindkiller (if that is the book I think it is...I read it five years ago and have a better memory of what was going on in the book than most other books I read so long ago). If you have not read it and want to without knowing how the book ends, that's your problem. The book (I think) resolved in the awakening of telepathy in every person. For everybody to see the motivations behind all of everybody's actions (to see through the eyes of everybody else, really) would cause everybody, I figure, to do two things: an apology to everyone who they have in some way caused harm, and forgiveness to everybody who has caused harm to them. Truly, this is the only way I can imagine a collective consciousness to be (brought about, or to be so). If it were like this, I would call it preferable. But hell, who knows. I am a solitary person generally, so maybe like JohnMK said there would have to be a way to unplug from the consciousness.

[Captain Chaos]

This is borgesque

[Osborn F Enready]

I think progressives should skip all the happy talk, and make their goal failure, since that is where they are heading anyway.

[Zinkovich]

Thanks for your responses everyone. Your question require a lot of contextual reworkings of my original post, so its going to be a while before I can respond in an intellectually honest manner. Give me a minute(or week, whatever).

That said:

Quote by: Osborn F Enready I think progressives should skip all the happy talk, and make their goal failure, since that is where they are heading anyway.

Just....give up?

What do you think we should do to try to fix some of the "harder" of the problems in the world today(starvation, disease, lack of empathy between cultures possibly due to purely neurological/biological.genetic phonemona)? Why not at least help by making progress a singular goal?

[Osborn F Enready]

Progress, and "progressive" are two different things.

The progressives may have started out with a MANTRA of attempting to make progress, but they forgot essentials to that path, namely rights and common threads that bind us as a people.

Todays progressives are no friends of mine, if you mean "political progressives".

Incrementalism is only good if you have clear goals, and a specified path.

This is something political progressives haven't had for years, in my opinion.

[Captain Chaos]

Quote by: Zinkovich Thanks for your responses everyone. Your question require a lot of contextual reworkings of my original post, so its going to be a while before I can respond in an intellectually honest manner. Give me a minute(or week, whatever). That said: Just....give up? What do you think we should do to try to fix some of the "harder" of the problems in the world today(starvation, disease, lack of empathy between cultures possibly due to purely neurological/biological.genetic phonemona)? Why not at least help by making progress a singular goal?

We should invest in human capital, then stand back and let people solve their own problems.

[Zinkovich]

Quote by: Osborn F Enready Progress, and "progressive" are two different things. The progressives may have started out with a MANTRA of attempting to make progress, but they forgot essentials to that path, namely rights and common threads that bind us as a people. Todays progressives are no friends of mine, if you mean "political progressives". Incrementalism is only good if you have clear goals, and a specified path. This is something political progressives haven't had for years, in my opinion.

Okay, you got the context by which I meant "progressive ideal" wrong- you see, I meant it in the philosphical/linguistic context- in other words, I did not mean "should political progressives work towards a collective concsiouness through technological advancement?", but rather "For those of us who hold progress as an ultimate goal in and of itself, should we look towards collective conciousness as a path towards further advancement?".

So, what do you think? Do you agree with the assessment that establishing a collective conciousness would stifle individual rights and/or creativity and innovation in general?

[Captain Chaos]

Quote by: Zinkovich Okay, you got the context by which I meant "progressive ideal" wrong- you see, I meant it in the philosphical/linguistic context- in other words, I did not mean "should political progressives work towards a collective concsiouness through technological advancement?", but rather "For those of us who hold progress as an ultimate goal in and of itself, should we look towards collective conciousness as a path towards further advancement?". So, what do you think? Do you agree with the assessment that establishing a collective conciousness would stifle individual rights and/or creativity and innovation in general?

Yes.

The borg collective would collapse under its own weight. Intellectual diversity enables social darwinism, which enhances both progress and survivability.

[Kuldeep]

I think the ideal collective consciousness from social angle should aim at humanity. All other technical developments, political strengh, religious uproars have both merits and demerits. Therefore any thing other humanity is not perfect. We are human being and so let us aim our goal as HUMANITY, WHICH IS THE REAL COLLECTIVE WORDLY CONSCIOUSNESS.

Philosophical collective consciousness I talked about in my fist post # 3 in this thread.

[Osborn F Enready]

Zinkovich said: Okay, you got the context by which I meant "progressive ideal" wrong- you see, I meant it in the philosphical/linguistic context- in other words, I did not mean "should political progressives work towards a collective concsiouness through technological advancement?", but rather "For those of us who hold progress as an ultimate goal in and of itself, should we look towards collective conciousness as a path towards further advancement?"

Thanks for the clarification.

I think there is a current collective consciousness, and though it is being fought by social and religious constructs, it is growing everyday.

I think that collective consciousness is science in all forms.

I would think in the question you are asking, it would be critical to discuss what is the meaning, or goals entailed in the word "progress".

The marriage of mind, body and machine?
The complete understanding of our individual, collective impact on nature?
Advancing human reach beyond our natural boundaries, through electronic or nano-machines?

I personally, feel man can not close the box on invention or innovation. Curiousity is natural in our species, and so are technology and innovation, but we are already learning how our lack of complete understanding has negatively impacted a large portion of our habitat by the creation and exploitation of previously discovered technology.

Once we cross from manipulating nature externally (outside the body) to manipulating nature internally (inside the body, mind, etc.) we affect the very essence of what makes us human. I think our genetic "default settings" if you will, allow us to do a great deal that we still haven't learned to deal with socially even now. I hesitate to rush exploration into social engineering, and I think that is what is at the root of this thinking. Social utopia, through technology. I don't so much doubt it could be done, I more worry of how and why it would be done, and what will be lost because of it. One mans utopia is another mans hell, so would removing "what makes us individual" not be a necessity for this line of thought, in finality?

I don't support that, if so.