Alan_Crowe

But egregores are, if they exist, psychic or supernatural, not computer bits and not cultures.

My ontology is limited; I admit no psychic entities, nor any supernatural ones. So just reductionist, mechanistic, materialism? Err, there is a problem. The kinetic theory of gases explains pressure as due to molecules rushing about, bumping into things. That explains gas pressure, but does it explain it away? If you want to design a steam engine, you need to do your design calculations in terms of the concept of pressure. Trajectories of molecules have way too much irrelevant detail. So macroscopic thermodynamic properties, such as pressure and temperature, have micro-foundations. They are both justified by their micro-foundations and undermined by them. I think of them as second tier real. We know that they are not the ultimate reality, and we also know that they are real enough for many of our purposes. Can you help me out here with the official philosophical jargon for this?

Pressing on, I accept that egregores are traditionally understood as psychic or supernatural. That makes me sad. Since I reject the psychic and the supernatural, I believe that that traditional understanding wastes a good word by yoking it to the supernatural, which doesn't actually exist. So I want to re-use the word egregore to denote an aspect of culture that is second tier real.

I see culture as very complicated. To get any insight into what is going on requires an expanded vocabulary, so that subtle differences can be picked apart. For example, this business is just a business, with employees who work there. That business is a egregore and has followers.

To flesh this out, think about agency problems. Business A needs to purchase an X. Business B quotes high for supplying an X, while business C quotes low. Fred works for Business A and rigs the requirements for the X so that Business A buys from Business B. Expensive. Very profitable for Business B. Then Fred resigns from Business A and gets a shiny new job with Business B. A quid pro quo? Corruption? Did Fred just use Business A's money to purchase a sinecure at Business B?

This is the usual situation in business. The business employs people who are individuals with individual agency and who play the game to their personal advantage. The usual situation, but not the only situation. Sometimes a business has a company culture that commands loyalty. If Business A had a culture that molded Fred into being a company man, he would have accepted the cheaper quote from Business C, boosting the profits of Business A and continued to work there.

I want to say: in the first case, it is just a business. In the second case, there is an egregore, and Fred is one of the egregores followers. But the second situation lasts thirty years or sixty years (some number of years); the egregore gets old and dies. Then the business is just an ordinary business and, in time it gets looted and fails.

So, I'm just not seeing it, and certainly not seeing it above culture.

I'm happy to agree to that, not above culture. My controversial stance is that culture is very complicated. Sometimes the individual people have agency, and culture is just shrug lots of details of people interacting; the kind of thing Neumann and Morgenstern talk about. Other times, there is weird stuff going on, with people surrendering their agency and being part of a collective. Call it an egregore. Maybe that is a poor choice of name, but the underlying concept needs a name. Any suggestions?

I don't think you can say humans have co-evolved along side Christianity.

Fair enough. I was over-specific there. But I still think there is something interesting going on. Think about early humans leading lives dominated by tribal warfare. There is jockeying for position going on within each tribe. Suppose the battle with the neighboring tribe is a draw. Each tribesman is hoping to survive the battle to return to his village to shag the widow of one of the fallen. But too much of that cynical lack of solidarity and the tribe loses the battle. All the men are slaughtered in the rout. A conquering hero from the other tribe makes off with both men's widows.

If the tribal warfare is brutal enough, the mountain of skulls high enough, and the river of blood deep enough, group selection actually works. Humans evolve to surrender their agency to the collective, fighting bravely in the front line of battle. I speculate that there is an evolved biological basis to people surrendering their agency and becoming followers of an egregore.