Re: Kool-Aid didn’t kill those people.
 

If you assume a person has a sphere of influence, a group mind is a definitive possibility as the group behavior can spread and strengthen specific ideas.

Re: Kool-Aid didn’t kill those people.
 

Human beings seem to crave comforming to others. Using LeStat's example of religion, most people originally join that religion because the people around them (family, friends, community) also do. Why do so many people in America become Christians rather then Muslim? Why is it the opposite in most of the middle east?

It's the same for political opinions. When I first started paying attention to politics I was a Neoconservative christian. Of course, this is because my parents espoused the same beliefs and positions, and when I got into politics (after 9/11) a very popular (at the time) neoconservative christian was president. If you spoke out against what the President did post-9/11 you were unpatriotic, you don't hate America do you? Luckily I was able to think critically and eventually abandon those beliefs, but apparently the 88% of Americans that are religious weren't that lucky.

There was a very interesting study we went over in my social phych class about conformity. One guy asks five people (they answer one at a time publicly) and four of them are in on it leaving one that isn't. The question is an incredibly simple mulitple choice question a four year old would get right. The four that are in on it give the same wrong answer. The fifth one looks bewildered but still goes along with the rest of the group! Repeated many times with different subjects the subject would agree with the rest of the group something like 80% of the time! Interviewing people afterwards the subjects would say that they were confused but figured their initial answer was wrong since no one else gave that answer.

They also said that even if the lone subject was right they didn't want to take a chance of being the only person wrong and that it is more comforting to part of a group that got a question wrong then be the only person that got a question wrong.

Re: Kool-Aid didn’t kill those people.
 

[ QUOTE ]

If you assume a person has a sphere of influence, a group mind is a definitive possibility as the group behavior can spread and strengthen specific ideas.

[/ QUOTE ]
Minds are influenced by all sorts of inputs including inputs gernerated by other minds. That's not a group mind is just a group of minds.

chez

Re: Kool-Aid didn’t kill those people.
 

Thanks Chez. But I did put it in quotes for that reason.

Re: Kool-Aid didn’t kill those people.
 

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks Chez. But I did put it in quotes for that reason.

[/ QUOTE ]
Thought you were. Just so much hi-falutin language in this thread that its easy to think something really simple has a mystical quality.

chez

Re: Kool-Aid didn’t kill those people.
 

The human urge given a negative spin by OP is the same desire that keeps families and institutions together. Without it we would be off to our own devices, not give a shet about anybody else, and never act as a team or collective effort, and generally end up killing each other over our differences anyway.

Re: Kool-Aid didn’t kill those people.
 

[ QUOTE ]
Freud informs us the reason for this form of behavior is the tendency for humans to be suggestible and influenced by a psychic form of transference.

[/ QUOTE ] Sounds good and all, but not true. It's a learned behavior. Going against the crowd results most often in bad consequences for the defector. There are countless examples of this in action, and it's not often because of transference that people exhibit the group mind.

[ QUOTE ]
individuals sacrifice personal interest for the group interest.

[/ QUOTE ] It is for their own personal interest that they cater to the group. Sometimes it backfires and instead has bad consequences.

[ QUOTE ]
“Moreover, by the mere fact that he forms part of an organized group, a man descends several rungs in the ladder of civilization.” Isolated, he may be a cultivated individual; in a crowd, he is a barbarian—a creature acting by instinct. “He possesses the spontaneity, the violence, the ferocity, and also the enthusiasm and heroism of primitive beings.”

There is a lowering of intellectual ability “pointing to its similarity with the mental life of primitive people and of children…A group is credulous and easily influenced”—the improbable seldom exists—they think in images—feelings are very simple and exaggerated—the group knows neither doubt nor uncertainty—extremes are prevalent, antipathy becomes hate and suspicion becomes certainty.

Force is king—force is respected and obeyed without question—kindness is weakness—tradition is triumphant—words have a magical power—supernatural powers are easily accepted—groups never thirst for truth, they demand illusions—the unreal receives precedence over the real—the group is an obedient herd—prestige is a source for domination, however it “is also dependent upon success, and is lost in the event of failure”.

[/ QUOTE ] This just doesn't make any sense.

[ QUOTE ]

That which promotes life is good that which promotes death is evil.

[/ QUOTE ] I'm with you here.

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we seek hypnotists as our chosen leaders.

[/ QUOTE ] All leaders are granted the status of knowing, we dare not disobey or fear the consequence. It's not a hypnotic power, just the nature of learning.

I'm still amazed at the detailed work and mainly coherent thought you can put into the works of Freud. It seems so obviously flawed to me, yet I'm amazed at how well you put together a working discussion with cogent points based off his work.

Re: Kool-Aid didn’t kill those people.
 

Iconoclastic,

I'll have to agree with you and DougShrapnel, but most of all, without having any ideas about who, or what, it is, your avatar rocks!

Re: Kool-Aid didn’t kill those people.
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

If you assume a person has a sphere of influence, a group mind is a definitive possibility as the group behavior can spread and strengthen specific ideas.

[/ QUOTE ]
Minds are influenced by all sorts of inputs including inputs gernerated by other minds. That's not a group mind is just a group of minds.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

And a mind is a result of the building blocks that make up our bodies and and what affects them, but we still call it a mind and not a group of building blocks and what affects them.

It is not always useful - nor necessary - to separate terms just because we know what their individual composition is. Groupthinking is a very distinct feature of certain human behaviors for example, and thus looking at the group as a whole can be useful.

Re: Kool-Aid didn’t kill those people.
 

you don't think it was poison?