Social Entrainment: The Achilles' Heel of every empire.

Entrain:

1.(of a current or fluid) incorporate and sweep along in its flow.

You are an individual. You may be part of an ethereal consciousness, but you are still a quantized individual nonetheless.

Society is a collection of individuals...a sort of hyper-conscious condensate, established for the sake of mutual stability between individuals. Society can be good, but it can come with its dangers. Given our nature as humans, I would say that society is a necessary evil. If we forsake our responsibilities as individuals for the "greater good" of society, we risk creating a social abomination. As this collective leviathan waxes in strength and insatiable hunger, social entrainment claims more casualties.

Entrainment is an inevitability. The question is, are you entrained to the beat of society, or to that of virtue?

What is virtue? What is truth?

May the those definition never be agreed upon by society, lest we loose our individuality in our own monsterous nature.

I'm not sure I fully understand your link to solely entertainment but what you have demonstrated is the human nature to assimilate into the collective given the necessary external forces to influence the individual.

Edit: The demonstration, I enjoyed.


Edit: But the demonstration is basically mechanical intervention and does not relate to human variance in the human brain. Simple interventions may affect one but not the other. Variant manipulations from multiple sources would be required to have significant effect on masses of individuals. Does that make any sense?

a reply to: CharlesT

I guess what I'm trying to communicate is: Become a functioning member of society, but don't live and breathe by the pulse of society. Instead, entrain yourself to something that you believe to be higher than society. For me, I seek to be entrained by God's beat, but not as society defines God, only as He presents Himself to me.

For others, God may not be the issue. Maybe its the underlying archetypes, or some form of philosophy. Who am I to define truth for others? Just seek your own way.

The wave-particle duality in Quantum Mechanics implies that there is a "Goldie Locks" range of stability that exists somewhere between the collective and the individual. Find that range for yourself.

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

For myself, I have not found that enlightenment yet and actually, may never. I step to the beat of my own drum and my path is still uncertain at this point.

It makes me think of living with three women and they all go on their period at the same time.
And the German invasion of Poland.
They are both very similar.

You post makes me think, we have a great philosopher and deep thinker here trying to relate deeply spiritual feelings and beliefs to goats.

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

Hello BP.
No clear answer to your question.
Mostly try to not be entrained by mind, and to give-in to entrainement that is beneath easy perception.
Seeking deeper meaning, to what this seemingly individual experience is.
-
So many different beats, and the salad is nice and spicy.

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest
I would say. Depends on what medium your situated in? Because whichever medium you are, then you will slowly convert to it. Simply by the virtue of being there. Lucky you eh!

Do you know how to make an infinite energy machine? Try converting mechanical energy into chemical combustion, and then back again. Should not be to hard, we already have half the problem solved in everyday cars and vehicles. But then again half of anything never equaled to whole anything. But that vid is more closer to having a self propelling machine then it is to philosophy and metaphysics.

What is virtue? What is truth? Some may ask. There is virtue in truth, but the truth is, there is no truth to virtue.

And yes humans in large groups do seem to do stupid stuff. But once in a while, they also do, not so stupid stuff.

I think ultimately, the solution to avoiding social entrainment is something along the lines of Jungian shadow integration; but the integration process must be catalyzed by some form of gnosis . I use the term gnosis vaguely as a representation for whatever form of spirituality/metaphysical knowledge that resonates with you as an individual. For me, that gnosis is the Bible. Regardless, it is essential to identify our personal stumbling blocks that hide within the shadows of our subconscious minds, and bring them into the light of conscious resolution, with the power and momentum of gnosis-to-epignosis conversion--the process of converting knowledge to wisdom via day-to-day application.

This is beyond religion and socio-political idealism. Rather than regurgitating the processed content that is carefully propagated by the ideologues of politics, philosophy, and religious leaders, it is much more useful to use discernment in parsing all knowledge. Apply that which stimulates growth, and discard that which encourages stagnation to the point of social entrainment.

By further defining yourself as a stable individual, you are doing both yourself and society a service. It is easy to become disillusioned by the doom and gloom of the media. Free speech, and freedom of press is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it facilitates the spread of knowledge, but on the other hand, that knowledge can be used to establish hypnotic feed-back loops that have a tendency to entrain the masses...but we must not let these adverse reactions polarize us.

If, "as above, so below", then as below, so above. Find equilibrium on the individual level, and perhaps when enough of us have accomplished this goal, we can enjoy equilibrium as a society...however fleeting it may be.

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

The wave-particle duality in Quantum Mechanics implies that there is a "Goldie Locks" range of stability that exists somewhere between the collective and the individual. Find that range for yourself.

ias a biotechnologist (B.S., 2013), i enjoy finding compelling and easy to understand methods for revealing that we as individuals are, in fact, perfectly proficient to comprehend this mystical concept.

your quoted section above... the ideal balance between the individual and the collective... is beautifully illustrated by a flock of birds in flight (and most famously, the Starling flock.)

the bird formation generates profound levels of complexity by means of a simple algorithm which you aptly identified as inside motion vs outside motion, dictated by an (biochemically?) induced statistical distribution.

nevermind it's cause. what is fascinating to observe the similarities of the bird formation with the phenomenon of Molecular Orbitals, which are not well understood by the organic chemistry establishment.



for instance, in the Planck's 'action potential', the operators shown below show lowest level quantum limit. or rather, how far can the quantum starling fly in the smallest frame of time... and in which direction will the electro-starling appear, statistically. this can be easily translated into the same statistical activity in the starling flocks.


the planck length gives a statistical guideline as to how quantum particles behave. this same statistical formulation can be applied to the birds.

in short, the flight activity of the Starling flock is quite literally like observing the nano-level Molecular Orbital quantum behavior.

i love this thought process... but it is very easy to become entranced by it. but i think those birds are more entranced than any human ovserver!!

(did i play the thread game correctly? IDK.)

a reply to: tgidkp

I apologize for the late reply, I've been out of town, but that is a fascinating analogy. Thank you for sharing that beautiful bird video.

And yet the World's a stage...
Lack of foresight, carelessness or pride in that sense usually a bigger killer.

IMPROV!!!

www.youtube.com...

It struck me a few days ago that the "truth" is whatever is most prevalent. We have democratized reality to the point where 1/3 of millenials believe the Earth may be flat. Social entrainment is why we are sliding downwards as a society as we excuse the worst behaviors to a point undreamed of just a few decades ago. [

Good thread. It reminds me of this particular verse in the bible:

Roman's 12
2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

I know you'll appreciate this, your thread here is a testament to it. Most people conform to the patterns of this world as today's political climate goes to show.

S&F

a reply to: 3NL1GHT3N3D1

Thank you. I think that verse hits the nail on the head.