An idea develops into an ideal by way of an individual. The icon for
this individual is an averaged representation (averaged across space
and through time but represented within the moment as by individuals
of different developmental levels, democratically). This icon also
refers to an idol, which is an eternal object-- such that the
individual can exist as multiple living examples while at the same
time having objectively determined actions... those related to the
idol as object-standard (a *standard* only, since it is otherwise
impossible to represent a living Being according to a non-changing
object). Thus the individual is like an idol which internalizes the
icon (and this icon is reducible, then, to a mere life force): He
projects an image of popular conception... though as an example (he
"the same as" this image, symbolically).
Using these terms: "Critical mass" is like the icon (averaged, abstracted unless exemplified, a subjective representation of temporal development within a frozen moment); that is, it must be internalized and projected (like an image), by an individual, and according to a necessary historical development (such that it is logically caused to manifest and works toward a reasoned effect).
Being symbolically understood-- as an ideal and through the production of ideas-- such critical mass seems more a potential within which individual consciousness might function. Even still, it seems like this critical mass has already been reached (and is ever-present) since, as defined, it would be the mechanism by which an individual is thus able to become self-conscious (the icon transcends the idol within the individual by way of the projected image-- and again as a symbol within the imagination).