[ExI] Open Individualism

[Ben Zaiboc]

This makes no sense to me at all. It seems equivalent to claiming that 
all rocks are connected (and just as useful).

I can claim that all male humans have their own 'open individualism', 
separate from the same thing in females, or all living things have it, 
or only certain classes of beings, or objects or collections of 
organised information, etc., etc. What does it actually mean? Nothing, 
as far as I can see (apart from as mental categories that we use as part 
of our thought processes, but that's not what we're talking about here).

More importantly, what use is this idea? Clearly the claim that it can 
eliminate wars and cruelty etc. is false. We already have groups of 
people that treat each other differently to those not in the group. 
Claiming that we are all in the same group doesn't work, because then 
there is no 'out-group' to compare ourselves with, and it instantly 
falls apart into sub-groups. In any event, you won't convince everybody 
to buy in to this idea (assuming that it's the knowledge of this idea 
that is supposed to give rise to World Peace (rather than the existence 
of the thing, which it clearly is not)). I'm certainly not sold!

If such a state as this not-group-consciousness group consciousness 
exists, and is not accessible to anyone as an individual, again, what 
use is it? I don't even know what it actually means, let alone how 
anyone could prove it exists.

Is this idea like the concept of a body being made up of individual 
cells? The body has no direct knowledge of the cells, and the cells have 
no knowledge of the body as a whole, just their local environment? If 
that's so, then what does this Open Individual do? Where is the evidence 
that it exists? What effect does it have on the world? If the answer is 
"it's the sum total of all humans alive on the earth", then it's 
singularly ineffective as an 'individual'. It suffers from massive 
internal conflicts of several different kinds, and apparently hates 
itself. Sticking with the biological theme, it's an insane teratoma. So 
I don't think that can be the answer.

I'm tempted to posit the existence of an Open Individual that consists 
of all male blonde humans over 6 feet tall. Is there any way of 
disproving that such a thing exists?

Do cats have their own Open Individual?

Monkeys? Hominids? Mammals? Cephalopods? Everything with a brain?

All humans who understand calculus?

Are there infinitely many Open Individuals?

Etc.


Ben