Yes, emergent. Life did not always have brains. Before it did, chemokinesis, sensing organelles and glial cells did the sensing work now usually performed by nervous systems and artificial networks.Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑July 21st, 2020, 10:19 amI think connection - connection that allows mutual communication - is a necessary feature of the collective (un)conscious, but I don't think it is sufficient. In this topic, I assume we're taking the (speculative) existence of a collective consciousness as given. But it's a thing. A network that would/could allow communication is not sufficient of itself, I don't think, to create a thing. This thing is surely an emergent consequence of the communication network, no?
Like the mitochondria, we appear destined to losing our capacity to live freely, instead providing the power source for our "cells". Certainly we are being ever more controlled, to the point where we often don't even notice just how captive and restricted we humans are by the political/economic/technological structures we make, especially mentally.