As individuals, we store very little detailed information about the world in our heads. In that sense people are like bees and society is a beehive: Our intelligence resides not in individual brains but in the collective mind. To function properly, individuals rely more on knowledge stored not in our brains but elsewhere: in the environment and above all in other people. When you put it all together, human thought is incredibly impressive. But it is a product of a community, not of any individual alone.
One of the key properties of the human mind: It did not evolve in the context of individuals sitting alone solving problems. It evolved in the context of group collaboration, and our thinking evolved interdependently, to operate in conjunction with the thinking of others. Much like a beehive, when each individual is master of a domain, the group intelligence that emerges is more than the sum of its parts.
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This is interesting. I would like to know where this idea came from. I would go further by saying that the collective mind is not even located in human brains but out there in the 'ether'. Rupert Sheldrake teaches that the individual's mind resides in morphic fields located on the super-natural plane. That would make collective consciousness the amalgamation of those fields. This is not to take away the processing power of the mind which he says draws our thoughts into the brain to real-ise them, something like a computer operating system drawing data into RAM to be worked on and then returned in its modified form to the morphic field. This harmonises in one way (processing) with Iain McGilchrist's teaching of how the left brain analyses data from the right brain, modifies the content and (ideally) returns the new data to the right brain.
brentan
Level 8
June 11, 2019
2
@Matias The reason I consider Sheldrake's idea is that there is absolutely no evidence for the belief that memory is located in the brain. While I agree with Vervaeke's description of second-order thinking to share knowledge, this doesn't attempt to explain the location(s) of collective consciousness. For that reason, I recommend reading Sheldrake's book Presence of the Past.
Cite your research. I disagree with:
"As individuals we store very little detailed information about the world in our heads."
LiterateHiker
Level 9
June 11, 2019
1
This is suggestive of the concept of universal consciousness. To what extent is evolution then driven by collective intelligence rather than the other way around? Could epigenetics be explained by collective intelligence?
It is a very interesting topic.
WilliamFleming
Level 8
June 11, 2019
0
Fascinating - epigenetics as a feedback loop, if I'm following your thoughts correctly.
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