As is the Mind of Society So is the Mind of Man
We often think that all men are independent to each other and their thoughts have no relationship with others. We believe that everyone is unique and the human personality is determined on the basis of the random combination of genes or his DNA. As per the Indian philosophy, man is the reflection of the universe (Aham Baramasmi). The Upanishads, state:
As is the human body, so is the cosmic body
As is the human mind, so as the cosmic mind
As is the microcosm, so is the macrocosm
We can use this principle for gathering much useful information about the man and the society. If we have the macro-picture of the society, we can understand the individual's mind of the member of the society. We can also understand the mind of the society by the study of one or more persons of the same society as the common traits amongst few people embodies the soul of the mind of the society. Every man of a society shares the thoughts of the society independent to his personal thoughts.
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Opinions Polls and Expert Opinion
The mechanisms for knowing the mind of the society is by the opinion polls, elections or referendum. While elections are to select an individual for the governance, referendum is used to get the opinion of the society on a particular issue. However, these processes are quite exhaustive as they involve voting of all citizens in the poll. Hence often opinion polls are used as an efficient method to know the view of the society by getting the votes of a sample population on random basis.
Opinion polls are quite common in all democratic countries to determine the opinion of the society. For example, it is common to hear that in USA the approval rating of the President is increasing or decreasing. These opinion polls or surveys play very important role in the democracies as it keeps the government in power, informed about the opinion of the citizens. The ruler can, therefore, take those actions that are popular rather than unpopular between the people.
Opinion polls or surveys are not based on the voting of all the citizens but often select very small percentage of the population on random basis. Often the sample size is very small (less than a fraction of a percentage). Still the opinion poll represents the mind of the whole population fairly accurately. In fact, nowadays it is very common in almost all the democratic countries to predict even the number of candidates who are likely to win from each party or the percentage of votes which a candidate or political party is likely to get. The experience shows that the predictions based on the fractions of population are quite accurate. Thus the micro-picture of the mid of few people seems to broadly represent the macro-picture of the society.
Now, imagine that you reduce the size of the sample. The accuracy of the predictions may not reduce much. There is not much reduction in the accuracy of prediction if the sample size is say 80% (actual voting) and just 0.001% (the normal sample of population). Now if the sample, size is reduced to say just one, yes, just one. Can we still make the predictions? Yes, it is possible. Even at the lowest level of one person, the people have a feeling or intuition as to who is likely to win of lose. An unbiased expert can accurately predict the chances of winning of a candidate or the party based on his intuition and experience even without doing any survey or poll. However, his accuracy would depend, how attune he is with the mind of the society. A human mind is the reflection of the mind of the society. So one can feel the mood of the people and make predictions based on intuition, if his fair and just. The accuracy of the mind of an expert is almost as high as the accuracy of the surveys conducted by getting the opinion of thousands of people.
The Mind of the Man
One of major mistake we can make in understanding the people of different society is to consider them similar to our own. Each society creates a mind of its own which is shared by all the members of the society. Let us discuss this issue with the example of democracy itself.
In India, the concept of democracy was introduced by British based on their own experience of democracy. The constitution of India is broadly drafted based on the constitution of UK and USA. However, when it comes to implementations, the realities are quite different. In USA, there are only two main political parties i.e.. Democrats and Republicans. There is virtually no strength of the third force. The situation is not much different in UK where the votes are almost split between the two major parties Conservative and Labor. The power only swings between these two major parties.
On the contrary, India has at least 6 national parties and over a dozen regional parties and hundreds of other parties. The central government of India is presently formed as a coalition of more than a dozen parties. No single party in India have more than 30% of the votes polled. Thus the same constitution leads to different political system in different countries.
Macro vs Micro Society
The government of a country can not survive for long if there is an inherent contradiction between the mind of the people and the mind of the society. The macro-image of the society can be useful information to understand the mind of the man who is smallest denomination of the society. Let us take the contrast between USA, UK, India, Islamic countries or communist countries. The governments of a country seem to represent the mind of its people. The mind of people can be known merely by knowing the system of governance in a country. Here we can divide the mind of the people to have three type of logic i.e. Crisp Logic, Fuzzy Logic and Single-Logic.
Twin Logic Societies
It can be said that the people of the countries like USA, UK and most European countries usually see the truth only in black and white. You are either right or wrong. Almost half the people are always wrong in the opinion of the other half. In the countries where there are two party governments. In these countries, people believe in binary or crisp logic where there are only two possibilities i.e. either right or wrong.
However, these countries do not have the permanent sense of right and wrong as one can see that the governments in these countries keeps on changing. The right of today can become wrong tomorrow just like one party can lose and other party can win. Yet at any point of time you have only one right and the rest is wrong. There is also a healthy acceptance of the different point of view as the wrong of today can hope that it can become right tomorrow. This also reflects the idea of tolerance since the majority population tolerates the minority half despite of their difference of opinion. The change of the government from time to time in election is the reflection of the reality that people's mind are subjected to change with time. People are willing to learn new things and change their mind. But the people can not accept part-truth or the truth to be only partly true.
Fuzzy Logic Societies
Now consider a multi-party country like India. The pattern of governance in India shows that at any point of time, there are many rights and many wrongs. This reflects the philosophical mindset of the people as they are all used to the diversity of truths. Here the people believe on fuzzy logic instead of crisp logic. So for them truth is always partial as absolute truth can never be known. The independence of opinions requires tolerance of other person's point of view which appears to exist in plenty in India. You can also find the similar pattern in some European countries like Italy. This difference of opinion is also an indication of the philosophical and artistic minds of the society and their people which allows the people to follow their own path and discover their own destiny. It is no wonder that the tolerant religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism are born in India.
Single Logic Societies
Let us now refer to the societies which have dictatorships (like gulf countries, China) or the single party democracies ruled by single parties like Singapore or Russia . In these countries, the governments do not change with time and the same person or his family continues to rule. The people of these countries are those who have known only one Truth which they believe so deeply that they can't even discuss or debate any other point of view. Naturally no creativity, philosophy or art can grow here. One can see that most of such dictatorial governments exist in Islamic countries or the countries created based on a man-made doctrine. Even when the countries like Pakistan tried to experiment with democracy, they fail. The constitution of Pakistan was changed seven times. Even when, technically, there was a democratically elected government, in reality it was always the Army which ruled the nation behind the scene. If one closely observes the history of China or Russia, one can find that it never had tolerance for other opinion. It has always has a rule based on doctrine whether Monarchy or Communism. The present doctrine is communism but it can change, if another doctrine annihilate communism. Even the democratic government of Russia or Singapore is no different than the communist government of China or the Monarchies of Middle-East countries.
Knowing the Mind of an Individual
What the macro picture can tell us about the mind of the people at the lowest level? If you meet an Indian, he is unlikely to have strong views on any issue and he is likely to respect diversity of thoughts and opinions. His opinion is based on practice rather then logic.
If you meet a man of the western country (like American and European), he is likely to have fixed views on every issue. However, he is willing to discuss and convince you his views and may surprise you with the knowledge of the subject that he does not agree. His opinion is based on logic. If you can produce better arguments or convince him to the other point of view, he may even discard his old view and change to he new view. However, whatever he believes, he believes hundred percent at any point of time.. There can't be any ambiguity or ambivalence in his ideas and believes.
However, if you meet and citizen of a dictatorial country or single party system, you need not waste your time in discussions as his mind is not willing to tolerate another point of view. No amount of logic or reasoning can alter his views.
Conclusions: Appreciate the Diversity
Thoughts are things that are created similar to the creation of human body. They are not independent from the thoughts of the parents or the society. Thus like the DNA of each cell of the body is same as the whole body, same is true with the DNA of the thoughts that resides in our mind. The mind of a person represents the mind of the society as it carries in it the thousands of years of the evolution of the thoughts of the society. So when people changes his place of origin and settle in different countries, their mind undergoes cosmetic changes to adopt the environment of the new country and culture gradually. Yet it is nothing more superficial than that of the tanning or lightening of the skin which the body undergoes when a person lives in a hot or a cold country. However, the features of the person continue to closely resemble with the people of the parent country whose part the person is. Therefore, even within the same country, people of different societies continue to behave differently despite of the centuries of coexistence.
As is the human body, so is the cosmic body
As is the human mind, so as the cosmic mind
As is the microcosm, so is the macrocosm
We can use this principle for gathering much useful information about the man and the society. If we have the macro-picture of the society, we can understand the individual's mind of the member of the society. We can also understand the mind of the society by the study of one or more persons of the same society as the common traits amongst few people embodies the soul of the mind of the society. Every man of a society shares the thoughts of the society independent to his personal thoughts.
Click here to know more about my-toroidal-brain-brane.blogspot.com
Opinions Polls and Expert Opinion
The mechanisms for knowing the mind of the society is by the opinion polls, elections or referendum. While elections are to select an individual for the governance, referendum is used to get the opinion of the society on a particular issue. However, these processes are quite exhaustive as they involve voting of all citizens in the poll. Hence often opinion polls are used as an efficient method to know the view of the society by getting the votes of a sample population on random basis.
Opinion polls are quite common in all democratic countries to determine the opinion of the society. For example, it is common to hear that in USA the approval rating of the President is increasing or decreasing. These opinion polls or surveys play very important role in the democracies as it keeps the government in power, informed about the opinion of the citizens. The ruler can, therefore, take those actions that are popular rather than unpopular between the people.
Opinion polls or surveys are not based on the voting of all the citizens but often select very small percentage of the population on random basis. Often the sample size is very small (less than a fraction of a percentage). Still the opinion poll represents the mind of the whole population fairly accurately. In fact, nowadays it is very common in almost all the democratic countries to predict even the number of candidates who are likely to win from each party or the percentage of votes which a candidate or political party is likely to get. The experience shows that the predictions based on the fractions of population are quite accurate. Thus the micro-picture of the mid of few people seems to broadly represent the macro-picture of the society.
Now, imagine that you reduce the size of the sample. The accuracy of the predictions may not reduce much. There is not much reduction in the accuracy of prediction if the sample size is say 80% (actual voting) and just 0.001% (the normal sample of population). Now if the sample, size is reduced to say just one, yes, just one. Can we still make the predictions? Yes, it is possible. Even at the lowest level of one person, the people have a feeling or intuition as to who is likely to win of lose. An unbiased expert can accurately predict the chances of winning of a candidate or the party based on his intuition and experience even without doing any survey or poll. However, his accuracy would depend, how attune he is with the mind of the society. A human mind is the reflection of the mind of the society. So one can feel the mood of the people and make predictions based on intuition, if his fair and just. The accuracy of the mind of an expert is almost as high as the accuracy of the surveys conducted by getting the opinion of thousands of people.
The Mind of the Man
One of major mistake we can make in understanding the people of different society is to consider them similar to our own. Each society creates a mind of its own which is shared by all the members of the society. Let us discuss this issue with the example of democracy itself.
In India, the concept of democracy was introduced by British based on their own experience of democracy. The constitution of India is broadly drafted based on the constitution of UK and USA. However, when it comes to implementations, the realities are quite different. In USA, there are only two main political parties i.e.. Democrats and Republicans. There is virtually no strength of the third force. The situation is not much different in UK where the votes are almost split between the two major parties Conservative and Labor. The power only swings between these two major parties.
On the contrary, India has at least 6 national parties and over a dozen regional parties and hundreds of other parties. The central government of India is presently formed as a coalition of more than a dozen parties. No single party in India have more than 30% of the votes polled. Thus the same constitution leads to different political system in different countries.
Macro vs Micro Society
The government of a country can not survive for long if there is an inherent contradiction between the mind of the people and the mind of the society. The macro-image of the society can be useful information to understand the mind of the man who is smallest denomination of the society. Let us take the contrast between USA, UK, India, Islamic countries or communist countries. The governments of a country seem to represent the mind of its people. The mind of people can be known merely by knowing the system of governance in a country. Here we can divide the mind of the people to have three type of logic i.e. Crisp Logic, Fuzzy Logic and Single-Logic.
Twin Logic Societies
It can be said that the people of the countries like USA, UK and most European countries usually see the truth only in black and white. You are either right or wrong. Almost half the people are always wrong in the opinion of the other half. In the countries where there are two party governments. In these countries, people believe in binary or crisp logic where there are only two possibilities i.e. either right or wrong.
However, these countries do not have the permanent sense of right and wrong as one can see that the governments in these countries keeps on changing. The right of today can become wrong tomorrow just like one party can lose and other party can win. Yet at any point of time you have only one right and the rest is wrong. There is also a healthy acceptance of the different point of view as the wrong of today can hope that it can become right tomorrow. This also reflects the idea of tolerance since the majority population tolerates the minority half despite of their difference of opinion. The change of the government from time to time in election is the reflection of the reality that people's mind are subjected to change with time. People are willing to learn new things and change their mind. But the people can not accept part-truth or the truth to be only partly true.
Fuzzy Logic Societies
Now consider a multi-party country like India. The pattern of governance in India shows that at any point of time, there are many rights and many wrongs. This reflects the philosophical mindset of the people as they are all used to the diversity of truths. Here the people believe on fuzzy logic instead of crisp logic. So for them truth is always partial as absolute truth can never be known. The independence of opinions requires tolerance of other person's point of view which appears to exist in plenty in India. You can also find the similar pattern in some European countries like Italy. This difference of opinion is also an indication of the philosophical and artistic minds of the society and their people which allows the people to follow their own path and discover their own destiny. It is no wonder that the tolerant religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism are born in India.
Single Logic Societies
Let us now refer to the societies which have dictatorships (like gulf countries, China) or the single party democracies ruled by single parties like Singapore or Russia . In these countries, the governments do not change with time and the same person or his family continues to rule. The people of these countries are those who have known only one Truth which they believe so deeply that they can't even discuss or debate any other point of view. Naturally no creativity, philosophy or art can grow here. One can see that most of such dictatorial governments exist in Islamic countries or the countries created based on a man-made doctrine. Even when the countries like Pakistan tried to experiment with democracy, they fail. The constitution of Pakistan was changed seven times. Even when, technically, there was a democratically elected government, in reality it was always the Army which ruled the nation behind the scene. If one closely observes the history of China or Russia, one can find that it never had tolerance for other opinion. It has always has a rule based on doctrine whether Monarchy or Communism. The present doctrine is communism but it can change, if another doctrine annihilate communism. Even the democratic government of Russia or Singapore is no different than the communist government of China or the Monarchies of Middle-East countries.
Knowing the Mind of an Individual
What the macro picture can tell us about the mind of the people at the lowest level? If you meet an Indian, he is unlikely to have strong views on any issue and he is likely to respect diversity of thoughts and opinions. His opinion is based on practice rather then logic.
If you meet a man of the western country (like American and European), he is likely to have fixed views on every issue. However, he is willing to discuss and convince you his views and may surprise you with the knowledge of the subject that he does not agree. His opinion is based on logic. If you can produce better arguments or convince him to the other point of view, he may even discard his old view and change to he new view. However, whatever he believes, he believes hundred percent at any point of time.. There can't be any ambiguity or ambivalence in his ideas and believes.
However, if you meet and citizen of a dictatorial country or single party system, you need not waste your time in discussions as his mind is not willing to tolerate another point of view. No amount of logic or reasoning can alter his views.
Conclusions: Appreciate the Diversity
Thoughts are things that are created similar to the creation of human body. They are not independent from the thoughts of the parents or the society. Thus like the DNA of each cell of the body is same as the whole body, same is true with the DNA of the thoughts that resides in our mind. The mind of a person represents the mind of the society as it carries in it the thousands of years of the evolution of the thoughts of the society. So when people changes his place of origin and settle in different countries, their mind undergoes cosmetic changes to adopt the environment of the new country and culture gradually. Yet it is nothing more superficial than that of the tanning or lightening of the skin which the body undergoes when a person lives in a hot or a cold country. However, the features of the person continue to closely resemble with the people of the parent country whose part the person is. Therefore, even within the same country, people of different societies continue to behave differently despite of the centuries of coexistence.