On Physical Reducibility of Group Mind

The group mind phenomenon refers to a variety of intentional activities undertaken by the collective.As a mental phenomenon,the group mind naturally faces the question of whether it is physically reducible.This question can be addressed by the following arguments.First,unlike the individual mind,the collective mind need only be endowed with specific,limited cognitive capacities;Second,these capacities can be accounted for by the relevant cognitive capacities of the members,the environmental context,and organization of the collective’s activities;Finally,physicalism is able to account for the physical nature of these elements and their organization.This reductive line of thought suggests an important diagnosis: the traditional reductionism of the collective mind,which calls for a reduction of the collective mind through ontological individualism,both ignores the material character of collectivity and somehow mythologizes the capacities of the individual mind.The proper materialist insight implicit in physicalism should replace the traditional individual-collective dichotomy.