> That's why they'd have to establish that whole societies functioned like individuals — not in a poetic sense, but in a literal sense. Very hard to do that, and nobody has to my knowledge.

Indeed. I'm (hopefully) clearly extending the interpretation well beyond the scope of that paper, which I took on face value to be unsatisfactory. I'm not quite sure what you mean by "establish" but the analog of "society of mind" (not just Minsky's take) as emergent of faculties at both neurological and human organisational levels is old and appears in many forms throughout philosophy and political theory. "Poetry" would be the highest complement, but alas I am too clumsy with words for that.