Re: The "Group-Entity" Illusion

Freespeak (f-prime@activist.com)
Tue, 19 Jan 1999 20:50:44 -0700

At 03:27 PM 1/19/99 -0700, Dick.Gray@bull.com wrote:
>
> IAN: A black-and-white newspaper photograph is a
> collection of individual dots, but the collective
> entity is more the sum of the individuals, since
> the same dots in any other ordering would not
> be the collective entity that is "the photo."
>
> I believe that that situation -- where the whole
> is greater (has something more) than the sum of
> the parts -- defines "the collective entity."
>
> So the question is: Is the photo an illusion?
> If yes, the collective entity is an illusion.
> If no, then the collective entity is real.
>
>Dick: The picture is actually in our perception, not on the paper.
>
>
Furthermore, there's a fundamental difference between the dots on paper we perceive as a photo/picture and the supposed "collection of humans" some call "society." That difference lies in the largely fixed relationship between the dots on one piece of paper, and the very different kinds of "fluid" relationships (or lack of) between the individual humans some claim constitute a "society."

Frederick Mann

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