[MD] Social Imposition ?

[PhaedrusWolff at carolina.rr.com]

Hi All,

I'm still stuck on this thought there is not collective mind. 

Man developed as a social animal, and has become dependent on creating 
of cultures through collective thinking, and it is more than just 
psychological in that our wellness is dependent on this 
interconnectivity of collective thinking. What we are calling cultures 
are an interconnection between collective thinking of man, as well as 
all we experience through nature, including man and even the cosmos. 
We are conceptual beings from birth, and our interrelationship to each 
other was and is needed by man to evolve. 

The term consciousness and mind are considered the same in the Eastern 
religions Pirsig speaks of, and only in the West are we ‘convinced’ 
our self-awareness is from individual interpretation related only to 
the functions of the brain. 

The difference, or at least as I see it, in Eastern spirituality and 
Western science, is that in the East, spirituality is not looked at as 
a religion that has developed, but was always with us. Even saying 
this, I am thinking more toward ancient Eastern spirituality, as I 
believe this spirituality is being lost in the East as well as the 
West. 

In this sense, I might agree there is no ‘Collective Mind’, as it 
seems we are losing it. By losing it, we may not be evolving to a 
better world, but destroying the world we live in. Spirituality is not 
the same as a religion or belief system, but the same spirituality 
that keeps animals from killing each other, but only going through 
ritual confrontations where once one has proven the superior, the 
confrontation ends with the weaker one recognizing the other is 
superior, not an egoistic fight to the death, or killing out whole 
tribes for no reason other than ego, and advancing our own wealth and 
power. 

To me the idea of non-connectedness through an individual mind, only 
subject of its singular brain functions would not be Dynamic Quality, 
but a static quality, a society of egoistic approach which has led to 
the collective consciousness in our Western religions of creating 
ourselves as superior to those Easterners, as well as the Westerners 
who interpreted our Bible differently. If the others don’t stand on 
one foot, rub their belly and pat their head, then they are going to 
Hell!, and it is our duty to save them. 

The idea of collective mind to me would be one of interpretation, and 
the denial of a collective mind might be a recognition that our social 
evolvement is creating the chaos Pirsig spoke of in our dogmatic 
beliefs in ‘Scientific’ observation of perceived facts; that we can 
point to it with our little Aristotelian fingers and call it 
knowledge, and this is all the mind is capable of, the functions of 
observance in the brain. 

Have we not advanced from genetic evolvement to social evolvement? 
Does our evolving not depend on our social environment? Is our 
developed language not from evolving socially? Could we even exist now 
without social stimulation? 

IMHO, it is not a matter of whether or not we have a collective mind, 
but if we are losing our collective mind; sinking into a static 
quality, a mechanical existence, a society of lemmings susceptible to 
Herd Behavior, all in the pretense of being intellectually superior.  

Chin