Conference hydra::dejavu

    Dave,
    
    	There are a number of doubts about this phenomenon that come from
    	various sources, both regarding its authenticity and some of the 
    	conclusions often drawn from it.  If you can find a piece of primary 
    	source material on it, you will have accomplished much more than 
    	I have on this subject.  Please let me know if you do.
    
    	See also the discussion in ERIS::PHILOSOPHY, topic 292 where this
    	was discussed and some references were provided.
    
    	I think I've seen some things about this more recently, too, I'll 
    	try to enter something tommorrow.
    
    							kind regards,
    
    							todd

Yes, doesn't this also relate to somebody's relatively recent theory
called "causative formation" or something? I think it's been discussed
a bit in this notesfile, too.

    		Dave,
    
    	Not sure if it has pointers to a source for the original study, but
    there is a book titled "The 100th Monkey", by Ken Keyes, which
    discusses this phenomenon. Check your local library or new-ageish
    bookstore.
    
    					good luck,
    
    						chuck

    Todd,
    I had a look at that topic in Philosophy.  My doubts about the
    original experiment and the wide acceptance of the validity of
    this experiment seem to be correct.
    Someone mentioned a book "The 100th monkey and other paradigms of
    the paranormal" by Kendrick Frazer, Prometheus Books,
    ISBN 0-87975-655-1   Did you get a chance to see this?  Does
    Lyall Watson quote a source?
    I think that the phenomen is fairly aptly named.  However, the
    conclusion should be that whenever a wierd and wonderful claim
    is made (and referred to) by a certain number of people, then
    the general public cease to question it, and begin to use it
    themselves.
    
    Regards,
    Dave
    
    PS  I am not assuming that this experiment did not take place nor
        reported correctly just because the source has not been cited yet.
        I am remaining open on this.  Any pointers would be appreciated.
    
        

    I should say first that I don't doubt the concept of a group mind
    in some form in biology.  There are some good examples in the
    insect world of amazing degrees of cooperation between individuals
    who are basically nothing more than a few neural cells worth of
    intelligence and instinct.  Clearly something very interesting goes
    on with groups in nature.
    
    The Hundredth Monkey, on the other hand, is likely a distortion by
    Watson, who appears to have admitted as such in in the Fall,1986
    issue of _Whole_Earth_Review_, "Lyall Watson Responds", on pp. 24-25.
    
    Watson's original mention was in his _Lifetide_, 1979, N.Y., Bantam
    Books.  _Lifetide_ was one of a number of widely read books in which
    Watson (who holds a Phd in zoology, according to his book jackets
    and according to research done by Martin Gardner) was also well known
    for his various books in the 1970's popularizing the idea of scientific
    proof of various tradtional occult doctrines.  Watson was a significant
    populist of the 'power of pyramids' movement as well, with his book 
    _Supernature_ (Doubleday, 1973).  That seems to also have turned out to 
    have been a distortion at best, having failed replication even by 
    researchers sympathetic to the claims, such as Art Rosenblum of the 
    Aquarian Research Foundation in Philadelphia.
    
    For those not familiar with the Hundredth Monkey idea, Watson claimed
    that monkeys on the Japanese island of Koshima had learned a certain
    skilled task of washing food in an extraordinary manner.  Apparently,
    when a critical mass of monkeys had learned the task by laborious trial 
    and error and imitation means, suddenly all the monkeys were doing the
    same task, including individuals of the same species on other
    islands which presumably the monkeys from the first island did not 
    physically contact.  
    
    Ken Keys, in his 1982 _The_Hundredth_Monkey_, (Coos Bay Oregon, Vision
    Books), used the idea of the Hundredth Monkey from Watson's book
    and compared it to the possibility for an individual being
    able to bring the human world to peaceful coexistence in the same
    manner.  
    
    The 'skeptical' view of the story was told in the _Skeptical_Inquirer_,
    #9, Summer, 1985, pp. 348-356, "The Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon,"
    by Ron Amundson.  I don't know if the Frazer book reprints the 
    article or does another treatment of the material, since I haven't 
    read it, but I'd expect they'd cover the same ground.   Prometheus and 
    _SI_ seem to be politically strongly connected.  Often unreliable, imo, 
    but sometimes useful material taken with an appropriate grain of salt.
    
    							kind regards,
    
    							todd

1869.5 (todd)

>    The 'skeptical' view of the story was told in the _Skeptical_Inquirer_,
>    #9, Summer, 1985, pp. 348-356, "The Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon,"
>    by Ron Amundson.  I don't know if the Frazer book reprints the 
>    article or does another treatment of the material, since I haven't 
>    read it, but I'd expect they'd cover the same ground.   Prometheus and 
>    _SI_ seem to be politically strongly connected.

    I'm not sure of the exact relationship, but Prometheus Books and CSICOP
    are run out of the same office (_SI_ is the magazine -- it refers to
    itself inaccurately as a "journal" -- published by CSICOP).  Prometheus
    is owned by the founder and "CEO" (head of the council? something like
    that) whose name has just -- in classic Freudian denial/censoring --
    slipped my mind.  Frazer is, I believe, the editor of _SI_.

                                            Topher