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bruzzes
05-05-2003, 10:24 PM
http://www.worldtrans.org/pos/monkey.html

The Hundreth Monkey


The Japanese monkey, Macaca fuscata, had been observed in the wild for a period of over 30 years.

In 1952, on the island of Koshima, scientists were providing monkeys with sweet potatoes dropped in the sand. The monkeys liked the taste of the raw sweet potatoes, but they found the dirt unpleasant.

An 18-month-old female named Imo found she could solve the problem by washing the potatoes in a nearby stream. She taught this trick to her mother. Her playmates also learned this new way and they taught their mothers too.

This cultural innovation was gradually picked up by various monkeys before the eyes of the scientists.

Between 1952 and 1958 all the young monkeys learned to wash the sandy sweet potatoes to make them more palatable.

Only the adults who imitated their children learned this social improvement. Other adults kept eating the dirty sweet potatoes.

Then something startling took place. In the autumn of 1958, a certain number of Koshima monkeys were washing sweet potatoes -- the exact number is not known.

Let us suppose that when the sun rose one morning there were 99 monkeys on Koshima Island who had learned to wash their sweet potatoes.

Let's further suppose that later that morning, the hundredth monkey learned to wash potatoes.

THEN IT HAPPENED!

By that evening almost everyone in the tribe was washing sweet potatoes before eating them.

The added energy of this hundredth monkey somehow created an ideological breakthrough!

But notice.

A most surprising thing observed by these scientists was that the habit of washing sweet potatoes then jumped over the sea --

Colonies of monkeys on other islands and the mainland troop of monkeys at Takasakiyama began washing their sweet potatoes.

Thus, when a certain critical number achieves an awareness, this new awareness may be communicated from mind to mind.

Although the exact number may vary, this Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon means that when only a limited number of people know of a new way, it may remain the conscious property of these people.

But there is a point at which if only one more person tunes-in to a new awareness, a field is strengthened so that this awareness is picked up by almost everyone!

____________________________________________________

This phenonomon is also apparent in Quantum physics.
I don't quite remember where I found this connection, maybe from the Dancing Wu Li Masters book, but if two people observe the same new unobseved phenomonom at the same time it becomes defined the instant it is observed.

I have always wondered how the flat earth concept that had been the only concept for thousands of years should be accepted almost instantaneously by the worlds population. The above story by Keyes may explain some sort of universal consiousness, also spoken by Jung, that exists with all the universal truths that await for someone to pluck it.

I also wondered how evolution happens in our own consiousness. Why are some able to see ghosts, or auras or predict the future, or see colors in words or any number of para-normal events. The numbers are few in any given population, but are they the forerunners of an evolutionary leap in consiousness?

I admit my knowlege of these ideas are rudimentary at best and I apologize for it's vagueness.
I am sure they are some erudite members here who might recognize some of the concepts I am trying to address and I welcome their insight.

Anyway, I find the above story and my musings as an uncontrollable thirst for knowlege and understanding.
Somebody please...illuminate me.

mikeky
05-05-2003, 11:34 PM
I can't help but be a skeptic, and seems <a href="http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC09/Myers.htm">others</a> are as well. I believe that the monkeys did indeed learn the behavior, as did behavior passed around among humans regarding the flat Earth, round Earth, etc.

Otherwise, where is this collective understanding today? Are there modern human examples of sudden understanding that can't be traced back to discovery and communication? There doesn't seem to be.

Fiona
05-06-2003, 02:45 AM
If Ethics had yet enacted the THREAD of the Month... You'd be the second nominee (May) I got April (rub rub,) but it doesn't yet exist (digdig) so i can not nominate you.

(In essence Stevent suggested we have a thread of the month for someone who brings a subject to our attention. As much as i get Out there... I don't think I've thought THIS before... I thank you! :thumbsup:

Steve
05-06-2003, 12:15 PM
An interesting concept, fascinating, actually!

Mikeky, let me offer a suggestion for your request for "modern" analogies.

Why is that children, almost universally, in the U.S. and other developed nations, seem to be quite proficient at using computers, while their parents and other older people need almost constant coaching?

Almost any child, given a mouse, seems to instinctively know what to do with it. Could this be a modern example? Where the schools had, initially, the same function as the "teaching monkeys"?

bruzzes
05-06-2003, 10:23 PM
Ha! I knew someone would bring up the refutation to the Keyes story. Healthy skeptimism is always good. I researched everything before I posted the story. But the connection to quantum mechanics, and a similar aside to Jung only piqued my curiosity.

Back in the 1970's, Trancendental Meditation became popular. It was founded on the same concept as the Keyes story but pre-dates it by thousands of years. There are studies, again controversial, that show that large groups meditating on peace could lower the crime rate in an area. Group prayer seems almost always to work. Again, this may seem obscure, but group consiuosness can effect those not connected to the group. I am not advocating that this is so, rather that this seems an intriguing concept.

BTW, my flat earth to round earth consiousness is a myth according to my wife, so it may not be a quantum leap in group consiousness that I thought it might.

My wife...she's always right.


<small>so she tells me...;)</small>

mikeky
05-07-2003, 12:34 AM
Originally posted by bruzzes
...Back in the 1970's, Trancendental Meditation became popular. It was founded on the same concept as the Keyes story but pre-dates it by thousands of years. There are studies, again controversial, that show that large groups meditating on peace could lower the crime rate in an area. Group prayer seems almost always to work. Again, this may seem obscure, but group consiuosness can effect those not connected to the group. I am not advocating that this is so, rather that this seems an intriguing concept.
I didn't intend to discount the concept, just it seems more evidence is needed for verification. Unfortunately, this would be very difficult to objectively study, as is the concept of divine intervention. But that Keyes misinterpreted and/or misrepresented the results of the monkey study would indicate lack of unbiased data supporting the view.

...My wife...she's always right.


<small>so she tells me...;)</small>
Yikes, same here; maybe there's something to this collective conciousness thing after all! ;)

Sacchiridites
05-07-2003, 10:18 AM
I don't have a lot of intellectual resources or scientific reasoning behind what I'm about to say. I just want to join in on the fun philosophy. Hope that's ok. I can sort of see how things might happen just the way you say about the monkeys' traits, Bruzzes.

If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one around to see it, hear it, feel it... did it really fall? Was it actually even there in the first place? Nope, not unless TWO people believe it. One to witness it and another to speak it into belief or 'reality' as it were. It's not enough proof for just one person to believe.

Relativity can apply to any state of 'being' or 'consciousness'
(you may choose your term) real or imagined. Our reality and our truths depend on each other. Independently, we maintain each other's existence through our own chaotic creation that made us, right?

But I was thinking (a dangerous thing on some days).... if I did not exist on that plane and came to be suddenly; by chance thrown into that universe, that reality, that moment, that relative existence, does it make my own chaotic creation any less real than the one I just joined? *shrug*

By joining that reality, don't I also join all the realities of that moment, including evolutionary and existential traits that were there before me? I say it has to be this way. It is the order of chaos that creates the snowflake, the human tissue, the random order of collectivity to create a reality. It's the Big Bang all over again. And here we are. Darwinism at it's finest, to boot!

We do not exist one without the other. Neither do our traits.

If I and my traits are here and no one is around to see, hear, feel, touch and confirm that I am here, am I and my traits still here? Yep, I can't reverse the relative order of chaos that decided to settle in and create my 'I am'.

My faith points me to a greater 'I AM' that established these movements or patterns of chaos ever so long ago, since the beginning of 'time.' The traits were there, too......just in a different state... kind of like a snowflake that forms out of random chaos....all of a sudden, for a brief moment, it just 'is'.

Glad to be here. Cie.

bruzzes
05-07-2003, 08:54 PM
Wow, from monkey brains to Chaos theory with a touch of Jung and quantum mechanics all floating around in various states of ambiguity. This thread itself seems vague and formless in some ways. I have always been curious what others think and why they think the way they do. So far this thread fits the bill.

So many think of this world as subjective. That the world revolves around our individual psyche's. How do I know that this life is not a dream? How do I know if you are real or not. How do I know if my life course has not been plotted and I merely go day to day fulfilling a destiny that has ben pre-determined? With added knowledge of relativity, parallel earths, levels and levels of mathematical abstract planes, the science of chaos, wondering who am I becomes a complex journey through myriad concepts all of them real in some sense or another.

And you are right Sacchiridites it takes a consensus to prove that individual reality is in fact reality. Excellent post. I was too dense at first to understand what you were saying but my wife saw it in perfect clarity and explained it to me.

<small>she is really the brains of the family;)</small>

Sacchiridites
05-08-2003, 12:44 AM
Originally posted by bruzzes
but my wife saw it in perfect clarity and explained it to me.

<SMALL>she is really the brains of the family;)</SMALL>

Ahhh, it takes two sometimes, doesn't it? The way women and men think work just right together.&nbsp; Don't give your wife ALL the credit, now. :)

&nbsp;

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