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| | == What happens when agents become aware of themselves ? == | | == What happens when agents become aware of themselves ? == |
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| - | According to the french sociologist Émile Durkheim,
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| - | the term [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_consciousness collective consciousness]
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| - | in societies refers to the shared beliefs and moral attitudes which operate
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| - | as a unifying force within society. In former times,
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| - | Religion played an important role in uniting members through
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| - | the creation of a common consciousness, just as the belief in the
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| - | own self plays an important role in building a consistent
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| - | single personality. The belief in a god is not that
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| - | different from a belief in an own [[Self|self]].
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| - | In a normal society, the media play an important role
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| - | in shaping the collective consciousness. The content
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| - | of the major newspapers, journals and TV stations determine
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| - | what the majority of people is aware of. In a sense,
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| - | they produce and construct the common collective
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| - | consciousness of the society. The shared consumption
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| - | leads to shared beliefs and attitudes. If there are
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| - | continuously reports in the media that someone is evil
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| - | or that the society is in a crisis, then the members of
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| - | the society will eventually believe that the person is
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| - | evil and that they are in a crisis.
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| - | Today, Twitter is like a global stream of consciousness.
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| - | Twitter and Facebook capture what people are doing (and
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| - | thinking) right now. Taken collectively, the stream of messages
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| - | in both platforms provides insights into the digital mood,
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| - | the collective consciousness, and the zeitgeist
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| - | ("the spirit of the age").
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| | If the population is large and complex enough, can it | | If the population is large and complex enough, can it |
