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From: Martin Harran <martinharran@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Making your mind up
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2024 11:36:02 +0100
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On Mon, 22 Apr 2024 11:39:56 +0200, Athel Cornish-Bowden
<me@yahoo.com> wrote:

>On 2024-04-22 08:52:51 +0000, Martin Harran said:
>
>> On Fri, 19 Apr 2024 14:08:58 +0200, Arkalen <arkalen@proton.me> wrote:
>> 
>>> On 17/04/2024 12:14, Martin Harran wrote:
>>> 
>>> snip
>>>> 
>>>> Another aspect that strikes me is how individual minds can operate
>>>> collectively, almost as if a new mind is generated as in mob hysteria
>>>> but also in other useful ways; as a management consultant delivering
>>>> management development programmes, one of my favourite topics was
>>>> showing how collective decisions are generally better than individual
>>>> decisions. Although that has long been recognised in management and
>>>> business,  I am not aware of any attempt to study it from a science
>>>> perspective.
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> I read this a few days ago and thought "shhh keep your responses
>>> relevant and focused, don't bring your latest hobbyhorse into every
>>> conversation it's even vaguely reminiscent of" [I ask that you imagine
>>> here Taylor Tomlinson miming the effects of antidepressants:
>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47WXVTpnOyU&t=228s ]
>>> 
>>> But that laudable instinct wore off apparently. You know what book has
>>> some interesting things to say about collective decision-making? "The
>>> Evolution of Agency" by Michael Tomasello ! \o/
>>> 
>>> Actually one could argue it has a lot to say about decision-making in
>>> general, it just gets at the problem from a very different angle than
>>> the "how it works in the brain" that you seem to be talking about.
>>> That's why I hesitated on the relevance front. But if a more high-level
>>> discussion of how decision-making might work in its most general form,
>>> that comes up with a very interesting perspective on the relationship of
>>> individual humans to the collective, seems like it might interest you
>>> it's a pretty short and (IMO) accessible book.
>> 
>> I've added the book to my list but for somewhat different reasons than
>> what you have said above. I have long been intrigued by the ideas of
>> Teilhard de Chardin
>
>Have you read Peter Medawar's review of Theilhard de Chardin's book? I 
>can't find the complete review on the web, though I'm pretty sure it's 
>there: I've certainly read it, and I haven't got a subscription to 
>Mind. Anyway, some of the most characteristic parts are quoted here: 
>https://reasonandmeaning.com/2015/03/20/p-b-medawar-critique-of-teilhard-de-chardin/ 
>
>
>I expect you won't like it at all, but others may.

Full critique is available here:
http://bactra.org/Medawar/phenomenon-of-man.html

I read it some time ago. What I didn't like about it was that it is a
purely polemic attack on Teilhard, I didn't see any *scientific*
contradiction to his ideas. Can you point any out to me?


>
>>  that everything is on an increasing complexity
>> path - increasing complexity in particles leads to matter; increasing
>> complexity in matter leads to life; increasing complexity in life
>> leads to consciousness; increasing complexity in consciousness leads
>> to awareness; his belief that increasing complexity in awareness will
>> ultimately lead to the Omega Point.
>> 
>> From the reviews I have read, I see echoes of that in Tomasello's book
>> so I will be interested to see to what extent, if any, that is the
>> case.