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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egregore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egregore "Egregore (also spelled egregor; from French égrégore, from Ancient Greek ἐγρήγορ

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egregore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egregore "Egregore (also spelled egregor; from French égrégore, from Ancient Greek ἐγρήγορος, egrēgoros 'wakeful') is an occult concept representing a non-physical entity that arises from the collective thoughts of a distinct group of people." For example, a state or AI - something that consistsnof people, but has a distict goals of its own.

rolisz 4y ago
I've been running into egregores (or at least the concept of egregores) a lot lately!
- 0xBABAD00C 4y ago
  Human beings are not the top-level cognitive agents, there are egregores at higher levels of organization (related to memeplexes, meta-organisms, etc). It's just hard to define and talk about them concretely, our language is not well-suited to reason about agency above the human level. One century-old example of identifying an egregore is the meme "A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism." It's nothing supernatural, just like a combination of neurons computing each their own thing gives rise to a new agent (human), a combination of humans computing each their own thing gives rise to a superhuman agent (spectre of communism).
  - edgyquant 4y ago
    My opinion is that the Earth is the top level cognition with a hierarchy of lesser intelligences going all the way to the single cell. We exist in between and that is why the human condition is so depressing.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
dbtc 4y ago
Thank you, I hadn't heard of the word before and I think it'll stick with me. I think there may be some crossover or resonance with the ideas of: - Carl Jung's collective unconscious and archetypes - Arnold Toynbee and Oswald Spengler's view of civilizations as (pseudo) organisms.
edgyquant 4y ago
I think it’s pretty self evident that groups of people working towards a goal are no less a single brain/organism than an individual human doing so. There’s no argument you can make about humans being an individual that doesn’t apply at a scale higher (and this goes all the way up to include all life on Earth imo.) Language is just another dimension of message passing between neurons. Once I realized this most religions began to make total sense to me, I had been thinking of gods etc as beings existing independent of this universe-but really the just exist on this “plain” of existence stemming from it.

rolisz 4y ago

I've been running into egregores (or at least the concept of egregores) a lot lately!

0xBABAD00C 4y ago
Human beings are not the top-level cognitive agents, there are egregores at higher levels of organization (related to memeplexes, meta-organisms, etc). It's just hard to define and talk about them concretely, our language is not well-suited to reason about agency above the human level. One century-old example of identifying an egregore is the meme "A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism." It's nothing supernatural, just like a combination of neurons computing each their own thing gives rise to a new agent (human), a combination of humans computing each their own thing gives rise to a superhuman agent (spectre of communism).
- edgyquant 4y ago
  My opinion is that the Earth is the top level cognition with a hierarchy of lesser intelligences going all the way to the single cell. We exist in between and that is why the human condition is so depressing.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

dbtc 4y ago

Thank you, I hadn't heard of the word before and I think it'll stick with me. I think there may be some crossover or resonance with the ideas of: - Carl Jung's collective unconscious and archetypes - Arnold Toynbee and Oswald Spengler's view of civilizations as (pseudo) organisms.

edgyquant 4y ago

I think it’s pretty self evident that groups of people working towards a goal are no less a single brain/organism than an individual human doing so. There’s no argument you can make about humans being an individual that doesn’t apply at a scale higher (and this goes all the way up to include all life on Earth imo.) Language is just another dimension of message passing between neurons. Once I realized this most religions began to make total sense to me, I had been thinking of gods etc as beings existing independent of this universe-but really the just exist on this “plain” of existence stemming from it.