Collective Consciousness
The matter of individual human consciousness -- what it means, whence it comes, even how to define it -- is challenging enough. Expand the term consciousness, per Joseph Campbell, and apply it to an overall awareness and engagement with the world and the term would encompass, say, the way a flower turns its head to the sun, heliotropism, a plant consciousness.
It is in the broader meaning that we shall discuss the natural phenomenon called murmuration – a term describing the way in which a collective can reflect a behavior that mimics large-scale consciousness. Take but a few minutes to observe Starling murmuration 2020 #Geldermalsen and decide for yourself whether the complex and coordinated shifting flight patterns of the flock display a certain sort of consciousness.
What is the physiological mechanism that somehow provides the almost simultaneous signal between two birds separated by hundreds of feet and hundreds of other birds i.e. each starling somehow connected to every other as if part of some superior collective mind? Research of the phenomenon reveals that animal groups often seem to react to environmental perturbations as if of one mind (Murmuration Research). In the case of starlings that may be part of an evolutionary design to thwart predators. If so, the question becomes how and to what degree does such consciousness emanate from within the flock?
That opens the way to contemplating whether the mystery of murmuration might come into play when it comes to the collection of other animals, say humans. After all, isn’t the marketplace, for example, the expression of collective minds? As Robert Prechter wrote in his book The Socionomic Theory Of Finance “the aggregate investor thought is not conscious reason but unconscious impulsion.”
Such is the wisdom of the crowds meaning the market is smarter than any one individual, no matter how much that single investor fancies him/herself with analysis (absent, of course, the benefit of inside information). Tied to that insight is the power of reflexivity which means, per George Soros, setting up “a feedback loop between market valuations and the so-called fundamentals which are being valued.” As Keynes noted, “Successful investing is anticipating the anticipation of others.”
But perhaps the mystery of murmuration is best applied to humans in the literal meaning of “we are all connected” – the essence of MM 6/4/21 You Are A Network, wherein the Self is far more than an individual but is defined more broadly in terms of ongoing relations. So viewed, leadership itself becomes less about the leader and more about the consciousness or the ever-changing stream of awareness of the flock. Or, in a quote attributed to Gandhi, “I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?” One could apply the same principle to explain the madness of 1930s Germany or to the countervailing power of Churchill when he said, “It was a nation and race dwelling all around the globe that had the lion's heart. I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar.”
The starling murmuration phenomenon exists when systems are said to be in what’s called a “critical state” i.e. one in a so-called phase transition, poised to tip, to be almost instantly and completely transformed, like metals becoming magnetized or liquid turning to gas. We might apply that principle in the context of our last two topics on the inherent instability of America as she (arguably) slowly loses the ballast known as the middle class.