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Curious about y'alls opinions on the hive mind/collective consciousness theory. Arguments for or against as well as a certain question for those in favor of: have you tripped and do you link that to your belief in it?

tazzzyy 4 Mar 4
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21 comments

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5

I tend to liken it to the herding instinct. If you need any proof that the herding instinct still exists in humans, just watch people line dancing.

5

The hive mentality is pretty well proven from my understanding. The psycholgy of groups has been studied to death. Trpping is mind expanding and, in my opinion, can help one resist conformity, but non conformity comes at great social cost. It must be weighed between cost and benefit.

3

I never tripped.

I think different cultures have varying emphases on individualism. I know I'm flirting with a stereotype here, but visiting Vietnam I could not help but feel that they value the individual far less than I'm accustomed to as a US citizen. And I'm not talking about communism; that's an expression of it, I think, rather than the cause. Those people are sweet, friendly and curious, but attack their "nest" and they will march by the tens of thousands to their death in defense of it with very little hesitation. We found that out the hard way in the Vietnam War.

Today you visit Hanoi and you encounter old war veterans maimed in various ways, some of them crawling around begging in the steets, and therein is the flip side of this "hive mentality": there's no evidence I could see of self-pity or bitterness, or hostility to us as visiting Americans. Quite the opposite. They seem to accept that life is just stuff that happens and when it's over it's over. Very present-oriented, and I didn't get the sense that it was religiously-mediated particularly, not consciously anyway. They don't value their lives in the service of the greater society, but they don't feel they're owed anything either. Sometimes I remember that visit and think we'd be better off without our "rugged individualism".

3

Dzogchen: "ultimate reality" = all is one, "non-duality"; therefore literally all consciousness is one. Well not really because at the ground of ultimate reality you've transcended "consciousness"...but close enough... All consciousnesses are one reality expressing itself through dualistic multiplicity.

In this scheme, "ignorance" is the root cause of the obscurations that generate a sense separateness from the non-dual ultimate reality (first link in the 12-fold chain of dependent origination in Buddhism). All you have to do is eradicate the ignorance of the way things really are, and you can contact the ground of all being, a.k.a. ultimate reality.

Sounds simple, but it calls for dismantling your mind, basically. Takes work.

3

I'd say its less of a collective consciousness and more of just an instinctive reaction to certain social cues. People are saying laughing and yawning and..linedancing haha. And those are more obvious. I think there are more subtle body language or motion cues that are so subtle we don't recognize them, but follow them anyway. If we're not aware of whats causing us to act in a certain way it certainly feels like we share a link.

Oddly enough as someone who drives a lot I see it on the highway, with people matching speed with people in different lanes, usually for no reason (lane's clear, etc). People will stay that way for a minute or 2 before realizing they're going slower and speed back up. It kind of makes driving for a living frustrating and I wish people would just use cruise control, but that's a tangent for another time 😀

Anyhooo, I don't even know if that got close to answering the question. But I posted some words and pretended I know what I'm talking about 😀 and that was pretty neat.

3

Possible. Agriculture was invented in different points on the Earth rather than it originating from only one source. And I'm not sure how tripping translates to that shared learning.

I suppose it is possible in regards to Quantum Mechanics' "entagled particles". It states that some particles can be entagled to each other - regardless of distance, as in astronomical, light-type distances (e.g. light-month, light-year, light-decade distances). And information from one particle can transfer instantaenously into the other particle. But, of course, all that is only theory. Einstein didn't like the theory, but didn't dismiss it. He named it "spooky". Seriously, he scientifically labelled it "spooky action". Hahaha!

3

This is my basis for it

3

No, thank you. I've lived my entire life doing as much as I possibly can not to think, talk, or otherwise be like everyone else.

@ScienceBiker I think we're more like everyone else than we realize. I've made a habit of engaging people with different backgrounds and views in conversation deliberately. I find that,for the most part, people are people. Most of our views and convictions are picked up and learned over a lifetime. The experience differs but people do not.(as a general rule)

2

I suspect that people enculturated in similar ways will respond in similar ways to similar stimuli. I see it often in theatre where we will get a rash of productions on a similar theme in a year.

1

I'm very curious about this topic. Russel brand interviewed a guy on his podcast called under the skin, available on youtube.

anyways, there have been studies where rats learned something in one part of the world, and subsequently, rats from another part of the world learn it faster. This guy calls it morphic resonance.

I like the idea someone brought up about instinct. I mean, what the hell is that? Animals are just born knowing how to eat, swim, migrate. We just accept it because it's so normal, but there's something to that, something remarkable.
I don't write the idea off. I'm skeptical, but I had dillusions of grandeur as a kid. I thought I remembered living other lives. I also had a good imagination, so I don't know.

1

Collective Consiousness is confused with the herd mentality, of people looking towards either; a charismatic leader or an intelligent leader to make major or societal decisions for them. Which is a detriment and a danger to society, and the growth of culture itself.
Now if you are talking about entering the Astral Plane, and access into the cosmic knowledge across space and time. That is a completely different framework of thinking than is, the hive mind.

1

I used to "trip" 45 years ago.

1

Works for bees and ants. Not very effective for humans.

1

I have but a very long time ago - for me it was just funny I had friends with whom I dropped tabs and went to the local park I stopped before anything bad happened .

1

Maybe more of an instinct. I dunno it could be somewhat because there's a lot of things that humans from varied places all have in common. Think about that weird S symbol we millenials all drew in middle school all over the world

0

There's a lot of less than obvious information being relayed subconsciously by humans constantly. This forms a contiguous link between any two people through a human network.

So, I would say that the concept of a collective unconscious is untenable, our active subconscious network produces functionally similar effects.

For the record I've tripped and seen things beyond words. The idea of a collective unconsciousness is pure human arrogance, as if conscious thought was magic. As if consciousness was a fundamental property of matter just waiting to build up into something human shaped to become expressed.

0

A very dubious theory. Where would such a collective mind end, and why? If it included everyone on Earth, it would be totally and impossibly unwieldy. If not everyone, where would the limit be - everyone you know? Even that would be several hundred people, depending on how you set the limit: Does the postman who knows your name and where you live and what sort of mail you get count, even though you may only know him (or her) to see? Or does the degree of interaction depend on how well you know each other? In which case your spouse and closest family would outweigh everyone else. And what happens when one of them dies - does that suddenly remove a significant part of your 'collective mind'? Are they active in the 'collective' even when they are asleep? Or totally drunk? Or develop Alzheimer's? How old does someone have to be to be part of the 'collective' - 5? 10? 15? Do people with schizophrenia, or psychosis, have an input? If so, what's the effect? If a close friend or relative goes off to the other side of the world, is their input still the same? If someone you know doesn't like you, can they disrupt the 'collective' adversely for you? Is the collective knowledge the sum of all the knowledge of all in the 'group'? - If so, I would know a heck of a lot more than I do!
You could ask dozens more such questions, to which there is no certain answer. In short, it's just a speculative, fanciful idea, with no theory as to how it would work, no evidence to support it, and no reason to suppose that such a thing exists.

0

I’d give my answer but you’re collective mind already knows it

0

Hive mind can be seen in most businesses and communities. Everyone knows their "place". Those who question it are imprisoned or killed. There are so many times hive mind has been visible.

0

“We are Geth,” Legion.

0

I do believe in collective consciousness. But, I don't see it overriding our life. Just some kind of built in knowledge that humans share, that can be tapped into for good or bad.

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