> Come on, none of us are really "human" anymore since the advent of cell phones.
I really like the way you put it. In isolation, humans today have essentially the same natural mental capacity we had 2000 years ago, but we've become part of a much bigger computer. A human brain 2000 years ago was a very isolated entity. Even in centers of learning in the classical era, the amount of knowledge one could tap into was vanishingly small compared to our capabilities today. Everything and everyone was isolated in both space and time.
A brain today is not just an entity on it's own, it is intricately wired into the common consciousness. Crucially, we have a vast database of knowledge - easily searchable and distilled for maximum learning rate - all available at our fingertips. A modern brain is a neural network linked to billions of other neural networks, and all of them are linked to a shared memory that they can use at will.
Assuming that the main limiting factor is the bandwidth between a human brain and computers (and thus by extension between individual humans), then a direct interface could ostensibly bring about a new revolution (for better or worse).
I feel computers (and the networks between them) are a natural evolution of our hive mind. When we first started taking spoken language and committing it to writing, we created a hive mind that extended beyond a generation. Prior to that point, everything was passed on through observation of other humans (observing behavior, observing speech, etc.). This meant everything had to pass through, and be mediated by, a human brain. Once we committed that to writing, we had a direct line back to the original brain that created the content unencumbered by the mushy grey bits that have consumed and regurgitated it since.
I feel we are still iterating on that. Cataloging our collective minds and building ever low latency systems to navigate those catalogues. Computers are just an extension that improved our ability to catalogue and retrieve the contents of each other's brains in an incredibly low latency way.
We are part of a hive mind. Our industry is actively building the load bearing infrastructure that supports our hive mind.
I agree that this is an elegant lens with which to view the world, and I love writing and computers and all that. But I don't think that oral histories are necessarily worse in both content and process.
From my understanding, indigenous Australians and Polynesians had rich oral histories and cultures. Also oral culture may be more adaptable than a musty written document that never changes and must be followed. The human experience of living in an oral culture is naturally being lost, but it doesn't mean it was wrong or bad. I find it fascinating to imagine what life was like for them, how they did things differently.
"oral histories are necessarily worse in both content and process"
"doesn't mean it was wrong or bad"
It is a dead-end, though.
While these cultures are interesting from anthropological point of view, I highly doubt you would give up all the benefits of the culture you live in today and join an Polynesean or Australian tribe.
I feel like you’re over-indexing on the word “hive”.
It’s not about having a queen or mindlessly following. Being a part of a hive mind doesn’t make you a lemming.
Example to demonstrate: assume you know calculus. How much of calculus did you discover yourself? How much of the corpus of math that led up to calculus did you discover yourself? How much of that corpus is your individual contribution vs. how much of it represents the brain power of hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of other humans throughout history exploring that problem domain?
For any given problem domain, humans have documented it in a shared corpus that you can “download” into your brain. You are an individual. You still get to choose what to download and how to interpret it. But you are still sharing in a commons when you do this. That commons is what I’m referring to as a hive mind, it’s a shared consciousness where our collective brain power is building a corpus that no single brain could. It extends far beyond ourselves.
The existence of a hive mind (or multiple) does not rule out the existence of individuality (not vise versa), it can be an emergent property of multitudinous individualistic interactions. The degree of influence varies depending on person and subject. We all tend to be conformist in some ways and iconoclastic in others.
Some realities cannot be reduced nor should they be reduced to analogies like "hive". Our social reality is irreductible being the most complex one known.
Hive mind as an emergent property still implies a common thing for which one lives. Or a queen. A peer that is one's reason to live. The closest thing I can see to a hive mind is the army.
We are all different and it is not because a person one talks with does not express a different opinion does it mean he thinks the same.
> Some realities cannot be reduced nor should they be reduced to analogies like "hive". Our social reality is irreductible being the most complex one known.
I don't understand how that has any bearing on whether human society can form hive minds or hive mind like entities.
> Hive mind as an emergent property still implies a common thing for which one lives. Or a queen. A peer that is one's reason to live.
No that is absolutely not what a hive mind is. A hive mind is a collective consciousness. That's it. It says nothing about the objectives or agency of it's parts.
> We are all different and it is not because a person one talks with does not express a different opinion does it mean he thinks the same.
You seem to be laboring under the apprehension that a hive mind supplants the consciousness of it's parts. That may be the case for certain hive minds, but it is not a necessary feature. A hive mind can just be an emergent property of individual minds that are strongly connected but still retain agency.
Mindless conformity is inhuman. We are more tribal than "hival".
Thanks for precising hive mind, I understand it better now.
Hive mind can be seen as uncritical conformity or collective intelligence. Because it can be understood as uncritical conformity I will use another word/concept. Like tribal mind. Because it suggests tribes (plural) that one belongs to or not, status, etc
A hive mind is not something exclusive to bees or having a queen. As a matter of fact, a hive mind almost by definition cannot be concentrated to a single individual like a queen, so I'm not sure why you are so anchored to disputing that your are a bee?
If we define hive mind as a collective consciousness, then for sure one can argue that such a thing seems to be arising in human society. As a matter of fact in modern parlance it is fine to call a strongly unifying force, set of norms, school of thought or strong social bonds a hive mind. The hive mind can still be constructed of individuals capable of agency and independent action. It does not replace the minds of it's constituents, rather it can be thought of as an emergent property of many individual agents forming a deeply connected collective.
Have you ever seen a real hive bro? I see you consider yourself as part of one, but do you even realize the implications or just mindlessly accept it? I am not and will never a bee. This analogy is demonstration of laziness.
Everyone is a bee to an extent, unless they live as a hermit. We’re all part of a larger system and have certain things to do (work, pay taxes, and so on). With the advent of the internet, behavior will continue to grow more hive-like due to basically instantaneous communication. Is that so bad?
Wouldn’t ants bee a better metaphor? The thing is though that apes aren’t insects, and thus their social arrangements are a bit different, with individuality being more prominent among The large brain mammals.
To an extent. Certainly not to the extent that it is a worthy comparison. Conformity is not bad in itself. What is bad is the comparison to a mindless drone. I would go more for something like tribe mind instead of hive mind.
“When we invented the personal computer, we created a new kind of bicycle…a new man-machine partnership…a new generation of entrepreneurs.” — Steve Jobs, c. 1980
You make human sound too grandiose. Human are still driven by the ape inside all of us. We filter facts that don't comply with our predetermined conclusion.
Just consider the fact that everyone thinks they are above average in compassion or intelligent and stuff that like that. Even if you scream in their face that "HUMAN OVERESTIMATE THEIR PLACE IN THE AVERAGE!!" they will still claim that they are in the 51% percentile.
If anything, technologies and networking have made human a lot more stupider in that its harder to climb against all the misinformation.
I really like the way you put it. In isolation, humans today have essentially the same natural mental capacity we had 2000 years ago, but we've become part of a much bigger computer. A human brain 2000 years ago was a very isolated entity. Even in centers of learning in the classical era, the amount of knowledge one could tap into was vanishingly small compared to our capabilities today. Everything and everyone was isolated in both space and time.
A brain today is not just an entity on it's own, it is intricately wired into the common consciousness. Crucially, we have a vast database of knowledge - easily searchable and distilled for maximum learning rate - all available at our fingertips. A modern brain is a neural network linked to billions of other neural networks, and all of them are linked to a shared memory that they can use at will.
Assuming that the main limiting factor is the bandwidth between a human brain and computers (and thus by extension between individual humans), then a direct interface could ostensibly bring about a new revolution (for better or worse).