Guide:
I. Introduction
II. Components of thinking
III. Mechanisms of cognition
IV. More mechanisms
V. Types of memes
VI. Meme2Meme2Gene interactions
VII. Human2Human transmission
VIII. A Bigger World
IX. Gravity of 'plexes
X. Three is a crowd ← you are here
XI. Third scenario
XII. Religion and philosophy
XIII. Mental disorders of the new age
XIV. True vs Fake
XV. Outsourced Me
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There is a specific type of idea floating in the noosphere, a more complex and organised one, representing a next step in evolution of ideas. It's big, adaptive, is foundational to human civilization, and responsible for everything involving organisation of more than three/five people. Susan Blackmore, a fellow memetics enthusiast (to put it lightly), quoted Dawkins saying "As Dawkins put it, the new replicator is ‘still drifting clumsily about in its primeval soup’ (Dawkins 1976, p. 192)", to which i say - "No.".
The brevity of my response, if you can call it that, will be compensated with the length of my writings. Memes have traveled very far, indeed, and I'll help you see it too.
I present to you the "Meme of the group".
Describing it is a bit like describing what a "bird" is, have to make broad strokes, and a lot of additional detail isn't universally applicable to all types of "group memes". What works for a sparrow cannot be used to describe a macaw, for example. But a crew of the submarine follows the same blueprints the crew of hospitals do, so despite immense differences in detail, low-res patterns are very similar, and those overarching similarities is what i'm mostly going to focus on. Mostly.
Let's do it.
1.Infoload in the biomass
To understand what we are dealing with let's take a bunch of dudes already infected with such a meme. Maybe they are a bunch of plane crash survivors on an uninhabited island, or they are a squad of soldiers on a battlefield, or a bunch clerks in accounting department in some corporation - the difference is not insignificant, but not relevant right now.
And what exactly do we have? People. With memes in their heads. Among those memes are group-memes. If you shed all distractions, what's left? A web of interconnected pieces of behaviour, which interact and coordinate with each other.
Such creature isn't new to human knowledge but it's name was usually invoked in the tomes of magiks and esoteric forums, and while the theurgic nature of the beast, if present, is beyond me, i'll borrow the term anyway. Beasts like their names, and i'm using the word "meme" too much anyway.
Behold the structure of an "egregore"(creature i describe doesn’t have a proper name as far as im aware, “egregore” simply describes any mass belief, while i focus on a more advanced entity, but i’ll borrow the word anyway). Of a living organism.
Granted, it's very primitive, but it's effects are significant. Now is not the time for that however. To understand the nature of this being we must examine it's structure first - it has it's own "DNA", so to speak. And to understand it's "DNA" i'll explain how people form egregores.
1) Take a bunch of dudes, the bare minimum is three, but the structure of such a group is too small and prone to not having any effects, egregore proper starts forming at five and more. But not too much, or it will break apart too. Dunno what is the upper limit but the Dunbar's number might be a good clue.
2) Drop those people in some place - the environment will shape the structure of the egregore too. One major requirement - the environment must motivate people to join groups, like, for example, being too hostile to individuals somehow, making it necessary to join to survive.
3) Then the "DNA" of the groups starts forming, and the first major part of it is the reason for egregore to exist. Remember the human ability to create expectations? Groups utilise it to create a goal, which the group is supposed to live for, strive for - without it the egregore will die. On an uninhabited island the goal would be surviving, for corporations it's survival too, but a different form of it, clubs too strive for something. It effectively decides the “diet“ for the group.
4) Second major part of the group's "DNA" is the one that is responsible for a lot of memetic effects being a part of the group has, and to create it each member must conceptualize themselves as a part of said group. They aren't just a person anymore, they are a component of a bigger whole, more than sum of it's parts, and it's wellbeing and performance depends on everybody doing well too. They are a "group", a "party", a "movement", a "unit", an "army", a "club", a "family" - anything. If you don't see yourself as a "part" of something - there's no egregore in you. But if you do...
5) After the creation of the core of the memeplex it will search for all possible patterns and programs to associate with. To do well for the sake of the group you must know what to do in the first place. Not everything will fit , but some information is exactly the kind the group needs. Dunno if it cooperates with instincts.
6) The group will separate it's members into multiple "roles" - they are specific to the group and it's goals, but in general those can be separated into three types:
I. Maintenance. They are responsible for adapting the environment to the needs of the group, and keeping it that way. If something interferes - they fix it. They are the masters over the domain of physical;
II. Workers. They are the ones doing the thing that advances the goals of the group;
III. Managers. They are responsible for the memes within the group. They issue commands, resolve conflicts, control the signal output and flow.
7) Also don't forget formation of "bonds" and "trust" - there's no "group" without those, so channels for exchanging information, memes, are established. Enforced even.
And thus the gears start turning. People start acting for the sake of the group, memes flow in and out of people, and the information is used to coordinate and activate programs and patterns. While plenty things influence the structure of the egregore, only bonds between people, the "expectations", "conceptualization", and "associations" are a part of the "DNA".
Example:
Pick a bunch of dudes and drop them on top of uninhabited island.
After the initial shock they'll establish the group, "we are in this together", and start doing the surviving stuff. Some will focus on getting resources, like food or construction materials, others will focus on building tools and shelter, and some will focus on leading and resolving conflicts. Someone knows how to make fire and cook food? That will be his role. Good at hunting? Hunter role. Natural-borne leader? He'll take that place. Farming, fishing, anything that will keep egregore intact - a person with abilities will be the one to focus on performing those acts.
Have you heard of "specialization"? It's a trend of humans delegating various tasks and job to one another, so they could focus on doing one thing, but doing it well, without distracting themselves with interferences. If someone is good at getting food others will have to spend less time on it, so they can do something else instead, and be productive at it. And a "role", a "job", and an "organ" for an egregore are all the same thing. That results in humans focusing on perfecting exactly one type of memes, at the cost of all others.
This is the bare minimum description of a functioning egregore out in the wild.
So in the end what do you have? Better processing power, - instead of one person performing tasks, it's a bigger chain of information exchange, which allows for better coordination and maximum increase of chances of survival not only for the organism, but also memes it contains. In effect, you get supply chain where a bunch of people use their programs and patterns to transform the noosphere somehow, which allows other people to act, which goes further... but i already talked about that.
Egregore is it's own organism made of information, where memes is it's blood, bonds - arteries, and each human is a small organ. Buildings circulate people, electricity, and fax paper like heart circulates vitae. Every human is an organ of this organism, but it's not pure, there are a lot of other programs and patterns which may interfere with the flow and interpretation of memes, but make no mistake - the problem is being worked on. Only associated memes are supposed to be a part of the egregore. Due to it's memetic nature it doesn't like contradictory signal either.
2.Macroorganic anatomy
But how should we classify the egregore? That's... tricky... Replicator is far beyond the point of being just a little factory for itself, a standart small group has everything to be classified as a "single-celled organism", or whatever is the memetic equivalent of that.
Have you ever heard of mitochondria? Both a somewhat renowned internet meme and a functional part of the bacteria, the purpose of which is generating energy for the cell. But the juicy part is the presence of the DNA in it, which is separate from the DNA of the cell, indicating that mitochondria some long time ago was a separate organism, which became an organ of the bigger entity for whatever reason, now performing a task of being a "powerhouse of the cell".
Currently human programming is at the stage equivalent of mitochondria in it's pre-assimilation state, when it was capable of being separate from the other organs, and performing operations for it's own survival, like moving around and reacting to environment. Probably. I don't know how it was with the microorganisms, but i do know how it is with memes.
But there aren't only single-celled organisms "drifting clumsily about in primeval soup". I think. We are treading uncharted waters here, even i'm not equipped to fare, but venture forth i shall - huge corporations, with departments and corporate ladders are memetic equivalent of multi-cellular organism. Primitive still, but significantly more complex than just a pattern. Factories are living bodies, taking energy from eating metal and plastics (i mean memes, not electric grid), producing waste which feeds other organisms. And so are malls, and office buildings, and warehouses, and everything else - city is an ecosystem. Or maybe a whole new organism too.
Alternatively we are at some pre-multicell period, there are bacteria in nature which can assemble from separate pieces into giant organisms, like “Dictyostelium“. It’s a common sentiment - to compare crowds of human moving through the landscape with liquids - they bypass obstacles using similar “motion physics“, however i am of the opinion the comparison with moving bacteria is more apt.
But let's dial the scope back a bit, and focus on the effects being a part of the collective has on human mind.
The principle behind those effects is simple - no meme wants to die, but a group-meme has a much bigger arsenal of tools to fight for it's survival, and it will not hesitate to use them. Remember the "conceptualization" stage? Where you start perceiving the group not as individuals, but a collective? That's when everything goes downhill. This concept is memetic, and as such - it doesn't want to die. So you will be motivated to remain as a part of the egregore and maintain it's existence, for everything that lessens it will hurt you to through the same mechanisms that affect you, when you see or hear something that goes against your beliefs. I spent enough time talking about that before, so i'm sure you understand.
However, there is a major caveat in the scope of the effects of being a part of group: the concept of the "whole" doesn't exist in one head, but multiple, and they all coordinate. I'll rephrase so you'll understand it better: egregore sees itself in other people. Normal memes too use your mental faculties to win the evolution's race, but group-meme will use other people to maintain it's grip on you. If you decide to leave the group - that's a contradiction against the concept of the "whole", and counter signal is a poison for the memes. In the same vein - you will be compelled to act on behalf of the egregore, just as it is compelled to act upon you. This desire to keep the group’s integrity at 100% is to blame for public wisdom like “Crab Bucket Mentality“ and/or “Tall Poppy Syndrome“ - do not be better than the others, or you will be punished, dragged down the level of the rest. Why? Because they understand, even subconsciously, that, after you become “better“, you will stop being with them.
3.Macroorganic psychology
The amount of effects the egregore has it's hosts isn't particularly big, but it goes something like this:
1) People of the group will try to maintain the integrity of the group. Changes to the concept of the "whole" are met with... well, additions to the group are more welcome, usually, but losing memebers is recognized as a handicap, and treated accordingly.
2) The wellness of the group becomes a huge priority - egregore suffers when it's "body" is harmed too, so you and others will change their behavior accordingly. But wellness not only physical - memetic too, so the group must be coherent in both mind and body. After all, an egeregore is a creature of information, so harmful signal is not allowed.
3) Performing the role for the sake of the group becomes a priority too, so all other activities get curtail to exhibit themselves less, and the one thing you are responsible for will take the spotlight of your attention and execution.
4) You will become more tolerant towards hazards coming from the group, when you become a part of it, and majority of costs associated with being a part of the egregore will be accepted and tolerated. Excused even.
5) Members of the group will seek ways to improve the group, either by increasing their numbers, improving the environment, or improving the memes involved in the roles. Maybe new people will have memes which will synergize will with the rest, maybe new tools and a place will increase the productivity, maybe some people aren't doing their part well enough and an action must be taken to fix that.
Those are general outlines, and the strength, or even specifics of how those effects manifest will vary from one egregore to another, - just as sparrows are different from macaws, local ballet group isn't like a cult. Hopefully. But the process is there and you'll feel it. Or will get pressured into it by other group members.
What does an egregore want?
It wants to live. Everything else flows downstream from that. The desires of an egregore aren't particularly sophisticated, and it's incapable of self-reflection, so a frequent scenario you'll see happening again and again is it performing some very complicated sets of actions to achieve simple goals.
Goal number one is securing the source of "food". Every egregore has raison d'etre, every group needs to have a justification for existence, and without constant validation the group will decay and die. As an example let's take a group of cooks in some restaurant - a well (olive)oiled machine for turning ingredients into fine dining. So what feeds the egregore here? Group lives of acting, to live it must do what it is designed to do, so the food for a group here are "ingredients", or whatever they are in the infofield, whatever memes they are composed of. You are what you do, and so is the group you are a part of, - restaraunt lives to feed people, and it's kitchen's inhabitants' purpose is to cook, and cook well. Same goes for other groups, whatever name you can give them, be they "builders", "accountants", "translators" or "friends". For an egregore to act is to live, so it does, but it can't act upon just anything, it's designed for specific things, and those things are it's "food".
I know, we live in a society, and a capitalist one at that - plenty of businesses, and as such - egregores too, depend on monetary compensation for their performance, so does that mean money count as "food"? Only if we are talking about bankers, or some other group of people who's primary forms of activity involve operations with currencies. I know, and the groups do too, how valuable money are, but everyone understand them as a proxy for obtaining other resources. Put that group of cooks in a situation where they receive money for doing nothing, and the egregore will die, leaving behind separate individuals with whatever social connections they managed to forge over other memes. Group’s reasons to live and cooperate is egregore diet.
I also know this puts interests of individuals and groups at odds to a degree, but i'm not sure what is the issue exactly yet, i'm sorry, so i have to skip the issue for now.
But because of dependency on having the supply of right signals, a very relatable need i'm sure, groups will try to somehow make sure the "food" supply is permanent and secure, all to avoid such an uncomfortable fate known as "starving to death". How it will achieve that and what methods will be chosen depends on the group itself. Sparrows aren't macaws (i promise not to repeat this sentence anymore).
Goal number two is to keep the group intact. There are group-memes inside of the heads of several humans, which make up the body of an egregore. It wants to lose neither, because it "knows", if you can call it like this, that losing people makes it less too. So actions will be taken to ensure that the band doesn't dissolve and the contacts are maintained. To make sure the bonds stay true the egregore will make sure nothing hazardous happens to it. Do remember though, that it's a creature of information, and it's nature is memetic, so it's contradictory signals that the group concerned about, and memes are the poison that erode the fabric of the group. Each member of the group's body can become disabled from neck and below, and the egregore's worries will be only the fact it can't get it's food anymore, due to obvious reasons. Group-memes don't care about the group's bodies. Not any more than you care about your organs. But egregores do want better memes for themselves, both patterns and programs, to improve their performance. Better skilled cooks have better chances to survive, plus there's something to say about having bigger variety of "food" due to bigger variety of programs/recipes.
This creates two trends in groups' behavior:
1) Groups will avoid info- and memetic hazards. Each egregore has it's own memetic makeup, and as a consequence - there are specific types of memes wich will nourish or poison it. You can notice those simple rules frequently, like don't insult your collegues, don't swear, don't start romances, - the internal flow of information is going to be regulated with various degrees of severity. For the same reason the environment in which the group "lives" will be controlled and adapted to avoid people getting infected with some troublesome idea which will interfere with group's goals.
Why? Because contradictory signals will break the bonds between people, or give power to some other memes in people's heads, which means the egregore will have less control, and bigger chance of people leaving the group. It does mean the group will stay away from physical harm too, because it doesn't want the self-preservation instinct to interfere. The signal must be pure, so it will care of it's vessels to a degree.
2) Groups will seek new members sometimes, to increase the resourcefulness of the group. New people = new "organs" which will convert signals for the benefit of the whole. But not all people are allowed, - only those who's head contents will not result in the harm done to others. It might seek new beneficial memes though, be they programs, interpreters, or just patterns for better immunity. I'm sure you can imagine how a new cook for the restaurant, who knows how to cook sushi, unlike others, will help to tap into a new market, or who's someone who knows how to solve in-fighting, will improve the group's cohesion. But for different groups - different behaviour, not all like the increase in size for whatever reason they might have, and different people will defend themselves and others from infohazards differently.
I'm not Maslow, so my pyramid is smaller, and beyond the need for safety and growth egregores don't want much. As i said, they have complex behaviours for achieving simple things, the variety of the species emerges from how they do things, the way they do them, and where. Also anatomy, there’s plenty of variety too.
But there might be another layer for the hierarchy of memetic needs, creating a place for the third goal.
Goal number three: I don't know why, but the process of creation of the "bigger whole" concept quite often involves creating recognizable reference points, such as images and sounds, to associate with. Or to put it simpler - the egregore wants a name and an image for itself.
I don't know the reasons an egregore would want that. I recognize the benefits of claiming the territory and PR, but... i don't think that what motivates the group psyche. More research needed. Do expect to see the symbols associated with the egregore near it's territory/infofield, like flags or graffiti. Some use sounds or songs even. It can get pretty eldritch. You know how in horror movies and games an invisible force hostile to humans warps reality, distords the minds, twists things, and there's black goo oozing from every orifice? All those things can be achieved by an egregore too, especially the "mind" part, but not as fast as it depicted in fiction, and you ain't going to visit 4th dimensions. Yet.
The distortion of things is pretty easy to spot:
It's a consequence of someone wanting to completely abandon all rules imposed by the traditions of the place, and break as many of them as possible. Especially the instinctual parts, it seems, the kind that makes the fire mesmerizing. Not dissimilar to teenager's rebellion against the parents, a new "movement" sometimes desires "freedom" "from conventions", and does so by finding it's own equivalents of "sex, drugs, rock'n'roll" and wearing punk clothing.
But there's another way a "distortion of the infofield" happens, the one a little bit more human-hostile and subtle:
It's called "hostile architecture", and is a consequence, usually, of someone trying to fight poor people. Don't allow psychopaths in positions of power, or you'll see real spikes growing out of the ground.
The distortion of space is a bit more abstract and metaphorical, but it still can happen, and it too is a consequence of egregore's infofield altering abilities.
Prime example being United States - car manufacturers bought out the public transportation and killed it off, so everybody now travels by car. Abundance of vehicles means every city and every facility is now built to accomodate them. All those roads, all that parking space, all the cars, and just people's willingness to travel further resulted in everything being further apart than in other places.
4.Amorphic barriers
While i do spend a lot of time describing the memes as if they are some sort of living microorganism, bacteria it is not. It follows it's own rules and complete one-to-one similarity is impossible.
One such example is structure of the egregore - unlike that one of the amoeba or infusoria, a "group" is more fluid and unstable. "Body parts" are lost and found anew like it's a video game with rare loot - PhD from Yale is "Common", while contents of the heads of some schizo shaman from Mongolia is "Ultra Rare", with lots of buffs and debuffs. Possibly cursed. Wanna add him to the team?
Not that the groups don't realise this on some subconscious level, so the fix for creating more stable structures is coming, don't worry. I promise, you'll praise and later condemn this solution for what it brings. Bacteria had to develop a way to maintain their structure to create a multicellular organism too.
Back to the topic - not all structures are alike, and bigger egregores have more complex "anatomy". Compare employees from local store with that of a huge mall - you'll notice not only the increase in numbers of people, but the variety of "roles" created through specialization and change in environment and needs increases too. Bigger size means bigger and different challenges, so groups have to adapt by getting new people/"body parts"/"organs". Increase in number of people performing the same or similar tasks to increase to quantity of information crunched is the most observable trend, but let's focus on more interesting parts.
Since we live in particular type of society, the most common, or at least noticeable, configurations of big groups are the ones doing business, so the terminology i'm gonna use will be specific too. And due to bigger size the "roles" and "organs" become bigger, consisting of multiple people at once, creating it's own "sub-groups", "departments" - people in them still count themselves as a part of the "bigger whole", but they also realise they are a part of the smaller division. Egregore gets layers. Those "cooks" i plenty used as an example - both a "group" and an "organ" in a bigger egregore that is the "restaurant" or "bakery" or whatever.
I'll leave the description of more "performative" organ types to someone else, and focus on what i know best - the "manager" "class". To put it simply - with the increase of the size, the group starts creating it's own analog of the nervous system for delivering commands/memes to right people/"organs", and also a dedicated immunity system to watch out for info and meme-hazards.
This is a tough task to balance out, actually. For example - establishment of group's immunity clashes with the memetic immunity of the people the group consists of. Remember - no meme wants to die, and there are plenty of information in your head which may not be compatible with the egregore you are part of it, which it will demand you suppress, preventing the signal from being created. On one hand it's understandable - you don't like bacteria getting uppity in your own body either, lest you get sick, but on the other hand - do you find a prospect of losing a bit of your own humanity for the likes of Amazon appealing? Regardless, groups want no pollutants in their meme flow, so that will be controlled. One day they may just perfect it. I don't welcome the day.
The barriers for wrongthink are varied, starting from HR departments acting as a dedicated organ for attaching new hosts to the body and vetting incompatible ones, to internal bodyguards and adapted infrastructure. In fact, it's possible to organise a snitch network by fostering memes which will compel "organs" to notify necessary systems of incorrect signals being expressed. Your co-worker said something inappropriate? Notify the authorities and get a nice bonus, like free soda or something, and a boost for your own self-esteem. I wonder it's a proto-system for feeling pain. It is also definitely not in the interest of the group to have it's "organs" go into mental breakdown every time they hear someone saying the N-word, so having some tolerance is necessary. Group wants you to be mentally invulnerable to outside hazards, but infinitely susceptible to inside influence. Some day groups will perfect the art of crafting such barriers.
5.Blood of the house
But the "nervous system" isn't made up of only snitches, a system for delivering commands is necessary too. Via "managers". A class of egregore's "organs" the purpose of which is to receive information from "the top" on how to operate and to relay that information to necessary body parts. The system can grow faster than the egregore can notice, or handle, so let's start from the general overview:
1) The top itself. The decision-making organ. The brain of the egregore. The CEO. The Boss. The Bosses. The Leader. Whatever's the name, someone gotta steer the ship. Control over people and what they do, establishment of rules, managing the contacts with outside world and other companies, being the final say in everything important - this list is long, i'm sure you can add your own points. Whatever human brain does with it's own body, brain of the egregore does too.
2) Information-gathering people. Egregore wants to know the information about its environment, whatever it may be. Everything that threatens it, everything that benefits it, group needs to know, in order to react to it. I'm certain you heard phrases like "market research", "focus groups" and such, but it's not limited only to that. Sometimes, they are gazing inwards, into the group's body too. Simpler anatomy demands other memebers of the group, including the Leader, perform the task.
3) Internal network. People interpreting and relaying commands. Actual "managers". People responsible for relaying commands from the top to others. Commands when to act, what to enact, and how things ought to be done.
The point is - as above, so below, and vice reversa, the structure of information flow within the group mimics that of proper living organisms. It maybe primitive yet, but hey, gotta start somewhere. Think a human "doing research" is that much different from a whisker of a cat? Hate to break it to you, but you are correct, they are very different. Not for the egregore though. Because it takes only the parth of the human vessel, which performs a task, and the task in this example is dipping into the noosphere, and reading it's contents to relay that to decision-makers. If you remove all unnecessary elements, like non-associated memes or the body of flesh and bones, you'll see what i mean. It's a consequence of the same pressures our more microbial ancestors experienced back in the day, with the need to understand the environment, lest the hostile substances would dissolve the body and predatory competition takes them for their nutritional value, so the systems for reading are developed. But those systems mean nothing by themselves, just knowing the world means nothing if you don't do with the knowledge anything, so the systems for coming up with proper reactions to the "signal" are developed. And the "reaction" shouldn't be just coming up with the solution, the organism should act and make it's body change to the situation, like by changing the course of movement, or telling the organs to change their work regime. Question to ponder - can egregore feel pain? From what i've seen it's not that obvious of an answer.
And there's so many layers of interpretation of information - the signal that is understood by one section of the group's body may not be useful to another - think those cooks i mentioned before understand the fluctuations in NASDAQ? Someone at the top does, and makes everyone act in response to that. The bigger the structure, the more diverse the types of roles performed by different people, and all of them need their own signals to react to. Which is why at bigger levels of complexity each "organ" gets their own "leader" to communicate with the "nervous system", and mediate between the internal structure of it's department, and the rest of the egregore's body, "brain" in particular, or whatever counts as a "higher-up" in whatever creature you see as an example - chains of responsibilities can be well-entangled.
The process of specialization is neverending though, and as the scope goes up, people in the bigger groups become too focused on doing one thing, and one thing only. Nothing else. That leads to problems with communication between... well, everything. Egregore in good health coordinates all of it's body like a well-oiled machine, but it's not infrequent to hear how one part missed the information/resources it needed due to some fuck-up, making the whole process of some departments halt. You think it's much different from the organ failure humans can experience? You'd be right, but i already sang this song, so i hope you get the point. Groups can suffer "indigestion" too, apparently.
But i'm going to bring another consequence of such specialization - the "top" loses it's ability to understand the "lower levels" of egregore's body. Boss knows not how the IT department does it's work and how to command them, so their relationship boils down to "do your thing" with minimal interference. To illustrate how it works - You, a being with blood and chemical processes, have the same exact problem, in fact. You are not aware of your own organs - you don't know you have kidneys, liver, pancreas, whatever. Well, technically you do know, but where that information came from? Did your own body tell you that or was it an anatomy book? Sure, it's not hard to figure out where the food goes once eaten, or that you have lungs, because you can feel the movement inside, but for other mechanisms of the mortal coil... Think about it - why the moral restrictions on performing autopsies was such a hindrance to developing a good picture of what human body is made of? To further drive point home - you can't control the beating of your heart, even if you feel or know about it, unless you a Buddhist monk or something. Breathing, while controllable, is partially automatic too. Can you directly control your blood pressure?
Egregore is the same, even if different in ways that don't matter. Specialization means that the top don't need to know everything, just have to relay the most necessary information to responsible parties, and they'll sort the rest themselves. And the bigger the growth, the more "autopiloted" everything becomes. "DNA" of the group starts having it's own programming telling the body parts how to act, giving egregore primitive "instincts".
A bit of humour - do you think we can apply Sigmund Freud's separation of self scheme to groups? Something gotta play the role of Id, if CEO can act as an Ego. Perhaps the Legal Department is the group's SuperEgo.
What is the smallest egregore in world? A family of three. What is the biggest one? Nations, mega-corporations, organised religions. Pick one.
I spent much time using various abstract businesses in the vacuum as an example of quintessential egregore in the wild, mostly the ones that live of getting $$$, but as i also said group-memes don't care about money, only appropriate signals.
Back to the topic, one problem i can't reconcile yet is the question of multiplicity, or whatever is the right word for it. The problem goes something like this - are there really "multicellular" memes? Body of the "Government" group can be unfathomably huge, is it really a united organism, or is it more appropriate to call it a "colony"? The lines are pretty blurry due to fluidity of the structure of Gregory's body, people can just come and go, plus/minus a few obstacles. Because of this fluidity making distinctions what counts as a "body" and "organ" is challenging - is a "restaraunt", with all it's bosses, waiters, cooks, and janitors, - a whole "egregore" or just a bunch of smaller ones living in one place and cooperating? They certainly live of each other's signal, but it's not exactly a solid criterion. Add to that the fact that big businesses use "divisions" and "branches" and other off-shoots of themselves - are those an extension of the whole body or a separate memetic being multiplying itself? Let's muddy the waters even further - the body of the group can house "organs"/people who aren't a part of the egregore, being essentially a separate entity with symbiotic or parasitic relationship with the rest of the group. Simplest example: freelancers perform tasks for the group, while not being fully incorporated into the flow. Human body is similar in that regard too, you know - it has plenty of bacteria which don't share the DNA, but help maintaining the body. Prime examples - microbiomes of immune and digestive systems, helping break down various chemicals and foreign organic matter. Did you know that children born via c-section, instead going through more traditional "exit", have problems defending against deceases? Breast milk of your mother also "infects" you with useful mercenary microorganisms.
That was symbiotes, now let me show you parasites. The logic is simple - information is egregore's life, it's blood, so leeches can feed of it's signal. To avoid unnecessary spiel, just look at this picture and i'm sure you'll understand:
Everybody wants to be a manager. Or a cancer tumor. Yes, some "organs" can develop an attitude and start demanding more resources, more power, more people, more everything for itself, with obvious conclusions. Usually those also demand rerouting of the "blood" flow so it goes through it, and every decision is to be made/vetted by that organ. I'm not well-versed enough in the inner workings of the corpos, so i'll just use this as a note for the future: how do "blood clots" work for the egregore? And how does a damaged "nervous system" works in the case of memes?
Here's a more interesting scenario: what if the "Brain" of the egregore is a parasite? A foreign or "home-grown" entity which doesn't considers itself to be a part of the egregore, and thus doesn't value the integrity of the other group, but is using it's resources to feed itself, while using the control status to prevent the rest of the body from protecting itself. Can't help but draw parallels with mind-controlling fungus.
Or how about a virus attack? One of the semi-popular tactic a group can use to get rid of competition is to infiltrate the enemy's body, take a spot in some major meme flow, start to clogging it up intentionally. I'm sure some of the readers of these words are familiar with some managers with attitude, who demand to have a personal input in every affair. And an approval must be signed to do anything of value. In two paper copies. And a boss must sign both of them too. And forms signed should be of different types for different situations "for the ease of cataloging". And each form must be submitted at certain times of the week. And they "expire" after the week passes. Ever saw a group falling apart due to a memetic heart cancer? Nature sure is full of wonder.
And that is assuming malice - remember my description of how human-to-human can drive mutation of ideas? Egregore is made of second scenarios, and all of them must be at least adequate for the group to function - anything less will kill the system. Egregore can mutate to dysfunction, or even die due to it's memes losing strength over time - all memetic forces still apply.
I already talked how being infected with the "group-meme" affects human mental processes and behaviour, but that was the basic change, inherent to almost all of variations of egregores, - the list of all alternations inflicted on psyche is much longer thant that, especially in the case of prolonged exposure in bigger groups.
The bigger the group, the stronger the effect, and being with it changes you too. So what are those changes?
The most obvious one: behaviour reinforcement. Every egregore needs one group of memes, tolerates some others, and almost irreconcilably hostile to others, which leads to finding ways to create more of one group, and completely filter out others - those forces are going to be applied to you too, essentially creating a "tunnel effect". You must not behave a certain way, nor should you think wrong thoughts to ensure they don't result in unacceptable conclusions or actions. Over long periods of time it leads to "harmful" memes being forgotten due to them not being "fed", so staying in the group for too long changes you, whether you like it or not. Old habits die hard, and professional deformation is a thing.
Less obvious one: remember how i said that egregores want names for themselves? Creation of a recognizable "identity" with the "tunnel effect" leads to others, both inside and outside of the group, associating people who are currently, or were at some point, under the control of the egregore, with specific behaviours. Being a part of the group becomes a telltale sign of your own memetic make-up, what you think and what you do. Wanna example? I can tell you are not amish. Technically it depends on the "predictive ability" of the association - not all groups hard-filter ideas, so there're less guarantees being in them changes you in recognizable ways.
Being in the group should be recognizable in the first place - people aren't mind readers, only signal receivers(and interpreters), so something has to give your affiliations away. Like acting in certain ways - if being in the group results in specific actions, then reverse is also true to a non-specific degree - actions can also signal affiliation with the group. Very few egregores enforce "no electronics" rule, so if you abstain from technology there's a good chance you are amish, for example. Don't think it's only outsiders who will make that judgement, you'll start "seeing" egregores too and act accordingly. Gotta protect your friends, and no better defence than the preventing the offense.
And then there's "specialization" trend... It's a trade-off, a doctor in the village have to be a jack of all trades, at the cost of never having real in-depth knowledge of something. He may treat all your wounds and give plenty of pills, but you ain't gonna ask him to perform surgeries. Perhaps he's capable, perhaps he doesn't need to, but the trend is here - more "advanced" and "specialized" skills can be found in bigger environments with more people. It's a trade-off - to develop skills at surgery means you have to not spend that time developing all other skills, so the doctor may not be able to diagnose virus infections and mental trauma. This lack in development is compensated by having other people taking their necessary niches and becoming specialists with well-developed memes the system needs but lacks.
There are many consequences to that, especially if coupled with other trends. Consequence number one - eventually people in the group will become very-very good at their one specific thing, and completely unable of anything else. No, i'm not talking about stuff you put on job resumes, long enough connection will erode even stuff like social skills, knowledge how economy works, why there's rain, and how to make a chair - anything. Might even lose knowledge how to walk or why walking is even good for you. A lot of these processes are a consequence of egregore transforming the environment to make it more suited for itself, and actions are que dependent, so if there are no patterns for triggers to work - the habit will not be used, with predictable consequences. Or it might not get developed in the first place - memes too have niches, and sometimes those niches are destroyed.
Another effect of specialization is change is some logical circuits of humans. Normally, if there's a que, then you ought to act, right? Like, if a light bulb gets broken in your house, then you change it, or if there's food to be taken, then you go and take it, if there's a person in need of help... Egregore changes that. You see, for every mechanism to work every gear has to be in it's place and turn only when it's told to turn, and every mechanism must do what it's designed to do and nothing else. If you have a role, then you must adhere to it, without deviation. Is changing light bulbs a part of your role in the gregore? Is helping people? Ever heard of the Bystander Effect? The condition for this "que redirection" to happen is having someone else taking the role of "relevant" "specialist", who's role is to react to those very conditions. You don't change light bulbs if there's maintenance crew, you don't take food if there are waiters, you don't help people if there are paramedics. "Let professionals do their job" because that is their que, not yours. Trick question: do you like violence? If you answer "no" because "it's barbaric" and some-such, i say it's bullshit, because your aversion to getting physical is there only because you have someone else to take the role, like police.
One more effect of prolonged exposure to egregore's "DNA" - shift in how a person treats information. So, you think you are committed to truth, to act in public good, to be virtuous, and observe reality as it is, because nothing more is important than information that is correct, and real, and true, because blah-blah-blah, right? Sorry, unless you are some village bumpkin, you are lying to yourself and others. To explain why i'll ask a rhetorical question: what exactly is that shift in thinking? It's simple, instead of valuing information for it's ability to accurately describe reality, the priority changes to valuing it's effects on the egregore. Remember info- and meme-hazards? That. Avoid harmful signals, emit good and healthy ones, actual contents of them be damned. Information is the blood of the egregore, and you don't inject into your veins substances that lead to a gangrene and arm amputation. The signal becomes valued for it's composition, rather than being "true", because "true" becomes just another ingredient, like iron or oxygen. Every time you curtailed your speech to avoid harming someone's feelings, even if you think your words are true - you became a part of this trend. If you think TV and journalists are not committed to finding truth and instead promote propaganda - they have just arrived to this point earlier than others. And the same shift is happening to you, your friends, your neighbours, your colleagues - everyone under the same egregore. For that reason you have journos jumping onto the opportunity to create articles "X, and here's why it is good for you", or if some major figure said something controlversial - "Y, and what he actually meant". Newspapers are the kidneys of the group (which is why most of their work is piss). They also double as the immunity - "Z, and why it's bad for you".
Another effect - segregation into roles based on sex. Remember how i said that women are "more memetic"? You can see one of the manifestations of this memetic driving here: women will take more memetic roles in the group. In particular - every role responsible for the control, and detection, and filtration of the signal. Which is why almost every HR is a woman, every teacher is a woman, every person scolding you for not being considerate of other people's feelings - woman.
And of course, the last but not least - people will become less selfish as a consequence of the egregore changing the mindset. No, we aren't talking about "people sharing resources with others in need" kind of selflessness, it's the "sacrifice yourself for the sake of the idea" kind of deal. Granted, sharing resources too can happen, but mostly with other members of the same group, and the reason is the same - egregore is hurt. And this logic too has an endpoint - total abandonment of self for the sake of the group. No personal information, no secrets, no private property - everything is shared and used by parts of the egregore in need. Ever heard of communism? Collectivist ideologies in various forms and different names will emerge naturally as the consequence of the group developing it's control.
One question i cannot answer yet though - what drives all of those trends? Why people change their priorities from one to another, why they are modifying their behaviours to accommodate egregores, even if it harms other memes? Something deep is going on here, and i don't know why. Not even sure if i'm asking the right question. Maybe memetic driving is an answer.
Egregore has age. All of those effects i mentioned minutes before take time to develop, and it takes time to alter humans, so they become suitable vessels for the group memes for better group cohesion. How much time? Generations. Egregore can become a very old creature, a staple of civilization, outliving all of people who originally conceived it. Due to it spreading, essentially, like a virus (or any other meme), a group-meme only need to infect people faster than losing them, with as little mutation on the way as possible. But more importantly, to break through generational barrier and survive through ages it needs to find a way to get to new generations of people too - memes live at least as long as the person carrying them, so young and healthy are preferable. How young? As young as possible. It's a path for every sufficiently big idea - at some point it asks itself how it can sustain the growth through time, and the answer becomes quite easy - find a way to infect children. The simplest way to achieve that is to get into the heads of people in schools, and then slowly grow necessary memes in the heads of new hosts, so they carry the group-memes well into adulthood, and well-adjusted to existence as a part of the bigger whole.
Why children? Memetic immunity. No meme wants to die and adults already have plenty of ideas which might interfere with the process of infection, or just not integrate into the group well, so it's better to cultivate necessary memes in a "blank slate".
Egregore has two problems with that approach though:
1) No human is really a blank slate, instincts are a thing, and egregore can cause a lot of mental issues due to arising cognitive dissonance if memes contradict those.
2) Memetic distance is a problem too - too foreign of a "DNA" will not integrate properly, if at all, so a child has to be mentally prepared first, by introducing more foundational memes which will connect to "DNA".
Adults are targeted too, to catch those who somehow become susceptible, or just convince people to join by slowly building the influence through prolonged exposure to the source of information.
As you can see, egregore is concern with spreading to maximum amount of people, once it becomes big enough to realise the need for sustainable rates of infections, but to get the results it needs tools and a strategy. To put it short - Egregore will utilise best available tools to find good places with the biggest amount of vulnerable people. Today you can see mass media being used to spread the control and propaganda - someone is bound to fall for it, sooner or later.
All those effects i listed will manifest at different times and different generations. I don't know when and why, and what makes one shift their thinking this way, so i can't tell exact metrics, sorry. No idea is immortal, knowledge can die to. In case of the group-meme - it doesn't want that, as i said many times, and it's members don't want that either. However, while the motives of the people involved are understandable, with sufficiently big egregores, even if you aren't a part of it, the death of such a gargantuan creature is undesirable for you too. Reasons are a plenty, the strength of each depends on of lots of circumstances and the egregore specifically. Regardless, here's some:
1) It's an ecosystem, and a major player just got removed from its place. Whatever order of things was in place before, now it's gone, and lots of lesser groups dependent on this mega-group will suffer for that, and those dependent on them will get their share too. There will be consequences. Whatever that group was providing to the noosphere as a part of it's lifecycle, - now there will be no more of it, unless something else picks up the torch, which will take time.
2) Nature doesn't like vacuum, so if there's a niche, something will take it, and the same goes for groups - a fallen will be replaced with another one, with a different "DNA", but which produces similar signal. And there's no guarantee the replacement is better or as good as the predecessor - new egregore might take more resources for itself, might be predatory to others, might pollute the infofield with poisonous signal, might grow too much and starve lesser groups - it just might be a bitch. New doesn't mean better.
3) Plenty of egregores enforce their own internal microbiome of memes, their own culture, so the death of one means removal is such a narrow tunnel effect, giving space for the development and arrival of plenty new ideas. On surface, it sounds good, especially if you were raised on Disney movies, but think again what memes will actually pop up. It's not just "good" memes that will flourish, plenty of resulting practices will cause destruction of the existing signals in the noosphere. To simplify - if the old guard was teaching against cannibalism, after it's gone someone will become a cannibal. You can't kill an old beliefs' system and expect ideas to not mutate into something horrible. Not really relevant for businesses, but in case of the nation...
4) If national group dies, and the enforcement of behavior is dead too, welcome forth the degradation of social cohesion and the arrival of low-trust society. Egregore makes sure you don't harm it's members, but once you don't share a common link you don't care about each other anymore, in fact, you might start looking at each other as competition, with very predictable outcomes. Sounds bad? Now imagine the whole country being like that.
Sir John Glubb tried to count how much an empire lives, concluding an approximate time anything sufficiently big has allocated to it is slightly above two centuries.
N.B: Just like standard memeplexes, egregores can be "herbivorous" and "carnivorous", but i don't know specifics of that well enough. Just know for now that some egregores specialize in destruction of others. Some deaths of social links are not natural.