[ExI] Singular vs Group mind(s) [was: Second Life]

[Mike Dougherty]

On Sun, Mar 14, 2010 at 2:58 PM, Ben Zaiboc <bbenzai at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Ok, I can see how my comment could be taken as an attack on your idea, but I didn't mean that.  Could you restate your argument, because it seems I don't really get it?
>
> (Use simple language, please, my brain is still only small)

I'll first admit that I don't really have a clear picture myself, it's
more of a hypothesis that's still forming - so simple language that is
still expressive of that sense might be out of my reach.

First, it was the observation that certain vocal list members seem to
ignore who posted a particular opinion as what seems like a mental
shortcut.  They respond to a thread and use "you" to direct their
flame to the recent poster and accuses them of saying things that were
posted by others either in the same thread or on the same list.
Obviously you (Ben) do not take this shortcut and can attribute
authors properly.  Maybe my observation is of a particular "type" of
poster, but it still segues to a bigger picture.

Next, I observed that some of the lists to which I am subscribed
attract definite styles of posters or topics.  Obviously an artificial
intelligence list attracts AI topics, it's also possible to infer that
AI researchers have a certain temperament that contributes to a style
or tone of posts.  Extropy chat is a collection of more like-minded
people than would be expected from an N-member sampling of the general
population (of either the world or a specific country).  So from the
unordered list of messages in my inbox, I frequently ignore the tags
for list-source when opening them but can still confidently attribute
the list by the style of posts.

There are some individual members that overlap multiple groups.  Their
individual style is unique (consider any of spike's posts: they're
more like spike's other posts than like anyone else's*).  Now I
consider how the individual's style contributes to the "flavor" of the
group.  How many individuals are required before a group can be
identified?  It's like the question about how many grains of sand are
required before the collection is referred to as a pile.  (to which I
believe the legendary Anders answered that a pile with grain
countability of 0 contains no sand at all)

Next I considered all the groups (online and not) of which I am a
member.  It is quite likely that the intersection of these groups is
the singular member: me.  That's about the most definitive answer I
can provide for the identity question that returns to this list like a
swarm of locusts.  I made the same observation about my Facebook page;
it's merely the intersection of accepted friend requests - the only
thing that can be said about the identity of that account is defined
by the connectedness of the network to others.

I wonder if refinement of this theory using a mathematical model would
use more set theory or probability.  I know it probably doesn't yet
even sound like a theory because I haven't made a statement that can
be tested or proven.  In that sense, it's more of a lens through which
other theories could be viewed.


* hi spike, thanks for your participation in my example.  :)