The Hundredth Monkey

by Ken Keyes, jr. The Japanese monkey, Macaca fuscata, had been observed in the wild for a period of over 30 years.

In 1952, on the island of Koshima, scientists were providing monkeys with sweet potatoes dropped in the sand. The monkeys liked the taste of the raw sweet potatoes, but they found the dirt unpleasant.

An 18-month-old female named Imo found she could solve the problem by washing the potatoes in a nearby stream. She taught this trick to her mother. Her playmates also learned this new way and they taught their mothers too.

This cultural innovation was gradually picked up by various monkeys before the eyes of the scientists.

Between 1952 and 1958 all the young monkeys learned to wash the sandy sweet potatoes to make them more palatable.

Only the adults who imitated their children learned this social improvement. Other adults kept eating the dirty sweet potatoes.

Then something startling took place. In the autumn of 1958, a certain number of Koshima monkeys were washing sweet potatoes -- the exact number is not known.

Let us suppose that when the sun rose one morning there were 99 monkeys on Koshima Island who had learned to wash their sweet potatoes.

Let's further suppose that later that morning, the hundredth monkey learned to wash potatoes.

THEN IT HAPPENED!

By that evening almost everyone in the tribe was washing sweet potatoes before eating them.

The added energy of this hundredth monkey somehow created an ideological breakthrough!

But notice.

A most surprising thing observed by these scientists was that the habit of washing sweet potatoes then jumped over the sea --

Colonies of monkeys on other islands and the mainland troop of monkeys at Takasakiyama began washing their sweet potatoes.

Thus, when a certain critical number achieves an awareness, this new awareness may be communicated from mind to mind.

Although the exact number may vary, this Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon means that when only a limited number of people know of a new way, it may remain the conscious property of these people.

But there is a point at which if only one more person tunes-in to a new awareness, a field is strengthened so that this awareness is picked up by almost everyone!

(from the book "The Hundredth Monkey" by Ken Keyes, jr. The book is not copyrighted and the material may be reproduced in whole or in part.

... evolutionarily selected improved rrreality models ...

... great call ... Zach ... :-) ...

sb.

I do think there's something very good about the general message of encouragement to spread new ideas. However, I don't think there's anything very true about the story (http://skepdic.com/monkey.html) - at least, beyond the fact that they did perform this study and watch monkeys teach monkeys to wash potatoes. That first part is a tad interesting on its own though. After all, it's rather amusing how this parallels the modern story of children teaching their parents to use computers.

Never underestimate the power of a mind still fresh... (or kept in such an open condition.)

Interesting that he would make such a thing up, yikes.

Still, I wonder if there could be any truth at all behind it...

But your right, the signs are there and it's starting to smell a bit like BS...

Yeeesh.

In anthropology, the simultanous (or nearly so) development of two identical or near identical matters of culture (in this case, behaviors, items, etc not biologically based) is well documented. Which is more likely: that there is some sort of vast monkey telepathic network that functions via a "Horton Hear's A Who" mode of critical mass or that where there is water, monkeys and food falling in dirt, some smart monkey is gonna make the connection between food going in water and dirt getting off food?

Actually I really like the idea of networked telepathic monkeys. Ockham's razor always takes the fun out of things.

Ockham's razor always takes the fun out of things.

They didn't use the word "razor" for nothing. :rolleyes:

I believe in a universal consciousness. but I think in most cases it's not so dramatic. It's slow and subtle.i think the universal consciousness will be stronger and more noticable when more people aware..lol so basically when we become aware that we are aware.:rolleyes:

I've seen these monkeys in action on the discovery science channel. So, they do exist.

However, I don't recall them saying anything about the monkeys being telepathic.

About the only thing from the television show that sticks in my mind is this cute little orphaned baby monkey slowly dying because it's mother had died and none of the other monkeys would have anything to do with the orphaned baby monkey at all.

So, they may have learned to wash their food, but they certainly haven't learned much when in comes to taking care of one of their orphaned baby monkeys after one of their mothers has died.

I just read some book that had the article in it...

It fascinated me because of other idea's I have.

I never really thought of the monkeys as being telepathic though...

I thought it was an interesting phenomenon which was currently not well understood.

I'll have to keep quack watch and skeptic’s dictionary handy from now on. :rolleyes:

I don't think it's somthing like being telepathic. I think it's more like intuition. A feeling.

OK, here’s what’s likely happening:

The event observed did take place, but it wasn’t the event they thought they were seeing.

There’s lots of work like this; an interesting Scientific American article several months back documented the acquisition of tool use among Orangutans. The authors did some nicely clever sleuthing that established beyond any doubt the limitations of the phenomenon.

If we had to bet on it, we’d say the threshold event that was observed involved the inclusion of the cleaning technique in the internal reality models of the original group.

And we’d also guess that the recognition of that event was what was different when they observed other isolated groups. That is, the research team carried the awareness of the modified reality model, and inadvertently communicated it in their (inevitable) interactions with the other groups.

This doesn’t mean common experience can’t be acquired by a kind of ‘group mind’; it just means this isn’t an example. It is almost certainly an interesting example of the mechanisms by which the internal reality model arises, and good evidence of the level of complexity and nature of the internal experiential reality of the observed species.

The original speciation event that gave rise to H. sapiens is marked by the spontaneous ‘descent’ of essentially the entire precursor group into an internal model of reality, abandoning the previously prevalent interpreted external model.

This work is a glimpse into that nature of that event, so it is a kind of important milestone. There are others out there, if you look for them. As we said, lots of researchers are attacking this sort of question, often without a good understanding of what they hope to find.

This and schrodinger's cat was discussed often with friends while younger. If its true or not isnt really the point anyway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger's_cat if you're not familiar with the cat. Robert Anton Wilson (if you dont know who this look him up right now) wrote a book called Schrödinger's Cat that follows his interesting look at quantum psychology or as SB would say RRReality.

D.B.

I am familiar with RAW

I haven't actually read any of his books; I watched a film called maybe logic that was kind of a biography about him and his life work.

I have so many books I want to read; sometimes I end up reading a few paragraphs out of each of them and make little progress. I'm trying to go one book at a time now but that’s easier said then done when each book raises questions answered (or put into greater depth) in the other. :faint:


As for the hundredth monkey

I just felt the author wrote it in a way to mislead the reader into believing something that wasn't 'entirely' true. Maybe he lied because the researchers were scared of being humiliated if they subjected there studies to scrutiny or maybe he lied because he didn't have any hard evidence to back up something he felt was a reality.

Ether way I don't like being mislead.