Collective Thought

[ctrl y]

This thread will be better understood if you know the context it's coming from.

I recently got into an argument with my debate coach. It was sparked when I ran one of my arguments for use in the next tournament past him. Basically, my argument went as follows:

1) The resolution makes use of the phrase "just society."

2) Justice is a virtue that can only be held by a decision-making entity.

3) There is no group thought, because all cognition occurs within separate brains.

4) Therefore, societies cannot be just, and the resolution is self-negating.

I should point out at this point that I'm not interested in critiques of this argument (that tournament's over now anyway), and include it here only for context.

My third premise has some pretty obvious Randian origins. The coach objected to it for two reasons:

1) It's like saying "There is no human life, because all life occurs within separate cells of the body."

2) Minds come in different orders of organization. A lone neuron can be considered a mind, a severed brain segment can be considered a mind, a full brain can be considered a mind, and a group can be considered a mind.

Since it is a tenet of Objectivism that group thought does not exist, I'd like to know if you're aware of any rebuttals to my coach's two objections.

I'm interested in your responses to these arguments. I'm thinking about playing Devil's Advocate in this thread.

Edited November 1, 2007 by ctrl y

[RationalBiker]

1) The resolution makes use of the phrase "just society."

2) Justice is a virtue that can only be held by a decision-making entity.

3) There is no group thought, because all cognition occurs within separate brains.

4) Therefore, societies cannot be just, and the resolution is self-negating.

"Collective thought" is not necessary for a just society. Lots of individual decision-making entities can get together and agree on an objective system of laws to make a just society.

Minds come in different orders of organization. A lone neuron can be considered a mind, a severed brain segment can be considered a mind, a full brain can be considered a mind, and a group can be considered a mind.

His argument is weak here. You can play spot the odd man out if you like, but the first three examples do not lead logically to the fourth. You have to nail him down on a definition of "mind" as far as I can see.

Edited November 1, 2007 by RationalBiker

[ctrl y]

"Collective thought" is not necessary for a just society. Lots of individual decision-making entities can get together and agree on an objective system of laws to make a just society.

I'm not interested in debunking that argument at the moment.

His argument is weak here. You can play spot the odd man out if you like, but the first three examples do not lead logically to the fourth. You have to nail him down on a definition of "mind" as far as I can see.

How would you draw the distinction between the first three and the last one? I'd like to be able to answer him with something stronger than "all the bits of a brain are touching one another, therefore it's a mind and a group isn't." What I want to be able to do is point out the essential flaw in his thought, rather than impose a burden of definition upon him or use a reductio ad absurdum. I'm holding myself to this standard because if I'm going to believe something I want to be pretty sure I'm right, and I want to know the principle upon which I'm right.

Edited November 1, 2007 by ctrl y

[RationalBiker]

I just assumed that if there was a problem with your argument to begin with you may want to reexamine it. Even if his objections don't hold water, would you still pursue an argument you know to be flawed for other reasons?

[ctrl y]

I just assumed that if there was a problem with your argument to begin with you may want to reexamine it. Even if his objections don't hold water, would you still pursue an argument you know to be flawed for other reasons?

You're right about that. I really only wanted to address the coach's objections in this thread, though.

Edited November 1, 2007 by ctrl y

[RationalBiker]

Oddly enough, the issue of "entities" is being discussed in another thread. My initial thinking is that the first three example demonstrate parts of a single entity whereas the latter involves seperate entities. I think it is his burden not just to claim that multiple entities can be "one mind", but he has to support it with facts. It's not up to you to disprove his assertion until he's given evidence of his assertion to begin with. The collection of people sitting around a table and coming to a commonly agreed upon decision is not necessarily evidence that an entity (the group mind) has been formed by the collective efforts.

The following assumes a healthy fully functional mind or minds in both instances.

I think the fact that the bits of the brain are touching is not so trivial a distinction as you might think. If I understand correctly, a single mind cannot be unaware of what it is going on in it, what it's observing, feeling, focusing on, etc. The mind and the brain of a single entity cannot exist without each other.

By contrast, the "group mind" cannot be aware of what is going in it's other parts first hand. Each mind can be given information at the will of the other minds, but they are free to withhold information as well, or they can intentionally give misinformation. Each seperate entity can exist independent of the other entities.

[MikeJoyous]

Hi:)

A "just society" doesn't refer to some sort of collective mind. It's about the philosophy consciously shared by a majority of the members of that society. It's the idea that life *should* be fair, and that it is right and proper for a government to enact legislation against various instances of members being *unfair* to others. There is the implication that the principles governing "fairness" are of universal applicability, thus justifying the "superior" voice of the commentator who talks about the "justness" of that society. In practice, there have been many different and contradictory notions voiced of the "just society." This does not mean, of course, that universal principles of justice do not exist; rather that well-meaning folks have not agreed upon what those principles are.

Sheesh, don't let the vagaries of the English language confuse you, friend. The language is about *explaining* things, not making 'em overly complex. I realize it doesn't always seem that way:(

best always,

Mike

[AisA]

This thread will be better understood if you know the context it's coming from.

I recently got into an argument with my debate coach. It was sparked when I ran one of my arguments for use in the next tournament past him. Basically, my argument went as follows:

1) The resolution makes use of the phrase "just society."

2) Justice is a virtue that can only be held by a decision-making entity.

3) There is no group thought, because all cognition occurs within separate brains.

4) Therefore, societies cannot be just, and the resolution is self-negating.

I should point out at this point that I'm not interested in critiques of this argument (that tournament's over now anyway), and include it here only for context.

My third premise has some pretty obvious Randian origins. The coach objected to it for two reasons:

1) It's like saying "There is no human life, because all life occurs within separate cells of the body."

It is self-evident that while individual human beings can think and practice the virtue of justice independent of the other members of any particular group, the individual cells of a human being cannot function as stand-alone, biologically self-sufficient entities that are the equivalent of human beings. So the relationship of the individual human being to the group is not analogous to the relationship between the individual cells of a human being and the human being. In short, his analogy is faulty.

2) Minds come in different orders of organization. A lone neuron can be considered a mind, a severed brain segment can be considered a mind, a full brain can be considered a mind, and a group can be considered a mind.

Skyscrapers come in different levels of organization. A lone brick can be considered a skyscraper , a pile of steel beams can be considered a skyscraper, a "full" skyscraper can be considered a skyscraper, and the city of New York can be considered a skyscraper -- provided you throw out the law of identity and permit words to mean whatever anyone "considers" them to mean.

[DavidOdden]

2) Justice is a virtue that can only be held by a decision-making entity.

4) Therefore, societies cannot be just, and the resolution is self-negating.

"Just" and "justice" are not synonyms, so the argument isn't valid. I'm also not persuaded that your second premise means anything, literally. Why am I saying this? Because if you really only want to know about the premise "There is no group thought, because all cognition occurs within separate brains", it would have been better to just present that premise and the ensuing counterclaims from your coach, and skip the justice stuff.

To get from your premise to his counterargument, you also need to check your assumptions about "thought" and "mind", and "mind" and "brain". To address his second objection, it is true but irrelevant that a lone neuron can be considered a mind or that a severed brain segment can be considered a mind. A rock or a can of tuna can be considered a mind; but it would be silly to do so. The expression "can be considered" is one of those dangerous clauses in a debate, because it doesn't mean "is, objectively speaking", rather it means "a person might declare or believe that it is". That is a meaningless claim because where is no way to deny the capacity of the mind to arbitrarily assign any word you want to a concept. The coach is approaching the question from the perspective that the meanings of words are arbitrary. In principle, he could say "a single cell of fingernail could be considered a mind". Successful use of this tactic depends on the user being able to judge the outrage-threshhold of the audience.

So explain to us (yourself, the coach) what a mind is, and how it has a relationship to thought.

I would start with the bolder observation, that a full brain is not a mind. "Mind" and "brain" are not interchangeable. A man can lose a large part of his brain without his mind being affected. The physical locus of the mind in humans is the brain; but then, the physical locus of digestion is the stomach and the intestines, but that doesn't make the stomach and intestines be digestion.

The awareness test that RB mentioned tells you about an important property of the mind, that it is self-aware. Society is not conscious and it is not self aware, even though the members of a given society are conscious and aware of their own minds. I am directly aware of my mind, but only very indirectly aware of someone elses, just in case they say something and I believe that are speaking their mind, and not playing a game. "Decision" exploits this fundamental property of the mind being self-aware, so that "decision" is near-axiomatic if not actually axiomatic concept, when applied to a mind. Saying that a society "decides" is really a metaphorical extension of the axiomatic concept which can mean quite a number of different things. For example, a purely democratic society could "decide" to punish murder with execution by allowing all citizens to vote on the matter on a particular day, and counting what has the majority of votes. Or, a society could "decide" by leaving the matter to be voted on by legislators, who are elected by some system of adults casting ballots.

[RichardParker]

My third premise has some pretty obvious Randian origins. The coach objected to it for two reasons:

1) It's like saying "There is no human life, because all life occurs within separate cells of the body."

2) Minds come in different orders of organization. A lone neuron can be considered a mind, a severed brain segment can be considered a mind, a full brain can be considered a mind, and a group can be considered a mind.

This entire argument rests on the fallacy of distribution, an equivocation on the term ‘human life’, and on a completely fallacious definition of the concept ‘mind’.

In 1) the term ‘human life’ is first used to mean all human beings, and its meaning is then switched to mean ‘separate cells of the body.’ An organism (in this case man) is not the same thing as the cells that compose it. This is the fallacy of distribution—equivocating between a thing and whatever composes a thing, distributively.

In 2) the fallacy of distribution is also apparent, along with an erroneous implicit definition of the term ‘mind.’ In fact, the statement “a lone neuron can be considered a mind” is not only false, but is an explicit acknowledgment of the fallacy of distribution. A thing (in this case a mind) is not the same thing as its constituent parts. The fact is that a single neuron is not a mind by any meaningful definition of the term ‘mind’. Can a single neuron think, create civilizations, build cars, make choices? The same objection is applicable to the notion that “a severed brain segment can be considered a mind”. In 2) the argument rests on not only the fallacy of distribution as in 1), but also on an absurd definition of the very concept of consciousness.

The fallacy of distribution can be made apparent by various analogies: a “civilization” is not the same thing as a “house”, although there are many houses within a “civilization.” An “engine” is not the same thing as a “bolt”, although there are many bolts in an engine. This “computer” on which I’m typing is not the same thing as an “electron,” although there are many, many electrons that go into constituting this computer.