[MD] Collective intelligence

[Ham Priday]

Hi Ron [Horse and Platt mentioned] --

Let me begin by easing your mind.

The fact that you introduced a thread which evoked a variety of comments, 
pro and con, demonstrates that it remains a controversial subject on which 
the MoQ founders will ultimately have to reach some degree of unanimity. 
Nothing you said or suggested has offended me personally, and although 
mention of  "collective intelligence" strikes a dissonant chord with me, I'm 
fully aware that it is regarded as a major tenet of the MoQ.

Nor did I mean to give the impression that I was leaving the MD as a 
consequence of this thread.  Due to some technical problems I'm currently 
experiencing with my inbox, I was unable to post a response to Horse for two 
days, even while successfully responding to you.  This did give me pause, 
like the one in the cellphone commercial, and for a while I feared I had 
been "locked out" for something I'd written to Horse.  But as you can see 
from his encouraging 5/17 reply, this was not the case, and for the present, 
at least, I remain your kindly, if somewhat "sociopathic", dissident here.

That said, I do want to address an aphorism that you've apparently 
attributed to me, although I can't find the original post.  Horse on 5/17 
quoted you as saying:


> The big question and the one I sense Ham railing against
> is the idea of the whole being greater than the sum of it's parts
> He sees this as a loss of individuallity and free agent status.
> Yet when asked if the brain works in this manner to achieve
> conscousness I tend to get the idea he views consciousness
> as a separated entity from the "collective" processes of the brain.

To which Horse has commented:
> The whole being greater than the sum of its parts is what
> emergence and self-organisation is all about. This doesn't mean
> that individuals lose their importance and this seems to be what
> both Platt and Ham rail against. Being an individual AND part
> of a community are not mutually exclusive states. F'rinstance,
> a nation is greater than just a bunch of folks milling around.
> I really don't understand why people get so bent
> out of shape about this idea.

Ron, I do not rail against "the idea of the whole being greater than its 
parts."  In fact, whenever I've used that expression, I've stated it as "the 
whole is MORE than the sum of its parts", since a sum of parts is an 
aggregate of differences, whereas the whole is One undifferentiated 
absolute.  Quite possibly you weren't attributing this expression to me but 
only using it to describe my view of the MoQ.

I do think there is a "loss of individuality and free-agent status" in the 
MoQ epistemology, not because of a "parts-to-whole" relationship but because 
there is no "whole"'.  That is, you don't arrive at a whole by fusing the 
parts.  I reject the notion that a conflated whole is the ultimate or 
primary Reality.  Just as everything in existence is relational and 
differentiated, that which transcends existence is not a "collective" but 
the undivided Source, or what Pirsig calls somewhat ambiguously Dynamic 
Quality (the "dynamics" being the creation of static patterns, such as 
"selfness").

This really has nothing to do with "collective processes of the brain", 
being part of a community, or the multiplicity of individuals comprising a 
nation.  Such examples don't define the metaphysical whole of reality. 
Collective processes of the brain don't create proprietary awareness.  A 
community doesn't create individuals.  A society doesn't create mankind. 
Again, these are not a primary source; they're only a "sum of differentiated 
parts".   Everything in experience is differentiated and relative to the 
observer.  The appearance of existence is what I call "being-aware".  I 
explain the epistemology as Value differentiated by organic sensibility and 
intellectually objectivized as beingness.

Thanks for another opportunity to present my views.

Best regards,
Ham