Talk:Hive mind

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Redirecting "Mob mentality" to "Hive mind" will work for right now, but these terms are really two different parts of a spectrum of behavior. "Mob mentality" is usually used to describe almost accidental behavior that takes control of a group for a short period of time. "Hive mind" is often used to describe more long lived behavior with heavy external influence and even control (as was seen in the totalitarian states described in Orwells book 1984). maveric149

I wonder if a hypothetical nonexistent entity is really appropriate for an encyclopedia. ray van de walker

Early efforts at hivemind development are reflected in the academic literature of poststructuralist philosophers and literary theorists, and a branch of academic feminism (not representative of popular feminism) influenced by these trends.

Says who? Poststructuralist philosophers, literary theorists, and academic feminists don't claim to be developing a "hive mind." Personally, *I* don't see them developing a "hive mind." Maybe some of their critics argue that they are attempting to develop a hive mind, but if so this should be attributed.

Isnt the human brain a hivemind? It consists of several small and individual braincells that work together to create a single mind. Isnt that a perfect example for a real and working hivemind?? :) smaffy

1 Hive, Vision of the Future.
2 Of hive tyrants, cerebrates and brainbugs
3 Vanity
4 Hivemind (software)
5 Alphabetizing?
6 Relation to other topics
7 wikipedia

[edit] Hive, Vision of the Future.

yes, but I think I'd define it a little differently, individual cells that work together to create independant functions, and the independant functions work together to create the single mind, a sum of the brain matter's functions. The hive mind, the next logical step to the paradigm, of micro -> macro. In the most common networking of the hive mind, the 'mind' that is created is shared to create one collective independant mind, the brain as a whole that it uses then become as the functions are to our brain. creating a form of super conscious, which is why there are many who find it so intriguing and admirable. weighing the rammifications of it is entirely another story in itself.

I also introduce the notion, that hive minds can be set up in a way that is almost infinite, the ways you can network the mind together are almost as limitless as the ways the mind networks itself.

You see with a hive mind, there is the potential to have so many different flavors of hive consciousness. Its hard to explain, but I'll try.. basically you break up every function that the brain performs, and then imagine a connection that can be made with this function. It'd probably be easier if I just gave a couple examples of how one might be set up.

One type and most commonly considered would be just a 'shared' mind, as far as thoughts and logic is considered each mind would accept shared responsibility for thinking on one 'bit' of information from another user. Only bits of information are cogitated on to prevent overload, it would basically be a 'torrent' mind, if you know anything about downloading software, a torrent connects to all users with one same file, and shares bits and pieces from each user until it forms a complete file. The same could be similarly done with the mind, the way it 'handles' the operations of who gets what and conditional treatment offers only another facet to the complexity that you could allow for these hive minds. each one would be nothing more than a brand of hive. the future of this is very promising for the networks and ones who can engineer different models of this.

There are some draw backs to some types of hive minds, some hive minds could be less intrusive, and only use perhaps dormant areas of your mind, or receive based on 'will' rather than an 'enforcement', the less intrusion, the more individual you will be.. the real drawback in it is, well more of a withdrawal. once you are subjected to a 'shared' mind you will not instantly be 'turned' although it raises an interesting notion in how a new individual would accept all of this, possibly even coding must be designed to make the transition as smooth as possible to becoming 'One' with the hive. To the hive, you are a chunk of brain matter that provides a function.. no different then how we would see another function like.. face recognition or seeing, not as vital, but defenitely more beneficial to it as a whole being.

With long duration inside the hive mind an individuals seperation of the hive would be very undesirable, both for the hive and the person... from the persons view point, they will be losing an entire reality.. they will feel severely inadequent and may not even be coherent, as their minds will have put even full dependency on this external links source of information.

So once you join, its more of a life decision, it would be more damaging to come back as an individual than to remain part of the hive, your sense of self may even still exist.. but only as a pseudo-piece of hive, it would to some extent put your mind in a gray-area state, where your self has been overlapped with many others.. all the identities joined as one to create something possibly better/worse. better regardless of its intentions.

Productivity would be extremely high for all members, but they pay the price with identity, although even then... there is an option that you could only be a part of the hive to a 'degree' like only allow yourself to be a piece of it, but not fully integrate.

This brings me to another design type, being able to experience someone elses perspective, will almost be like a drug, the insight will be incredible and it will be thousands of times better than any pschadellic you will ever try. experiencing someone elses mind could even become an addiction, but also will likely lead in crimes that may even be much scarier, a rape of the mind if you will... I'd imagine could even be punishable by death if this was done, as it does seem to be a very serious offense, almost comparable to killing, as the violation would be so severe to the persons state of existing.

Even hive mind dreaming, some may participate in hive minds only when they sleep, having perhaps a 'collective' dreaming, I could see plenty of benefits in this, the mind would be very refreshed when it awakened, having more of the bandwidth to solve its problems. although sleep could be more of a chemical replenishment, and not just a tool for defragment.

- NrWarren

[edit] Of hive tyrants, cerebrates and brainbugs

And not to forget the Tyranid race from the board game Warhammer 40k, the Zerg from StarCraft and the "bugs" from Starship Troopers...

Afaict, telepathy is fictional, but it seems to be a widely adopted idea in science-fiction culture, and so I'd say it deserves mention in a general encyclopedia. Correct me if the scripture, aka Wikipedia guidelines, say otherwise ;-)

But the article needs to differentiate better:

Fictional - telepathy and complex information exchange between nervous systems or known communication mechanisms (with cf. limited information exchange):
- accoustic (audible sound or ground/water vibrations)
- chemical (pheromones)
- visual (e.g. body language or light signals)
- body contact
Hierarchical structure or "peer to peer network" (or something in between). E.g. afaik the "Borg" use an almost flat hierarchy, the "Zerg" use a strict top-down hierarchy (commands flow down the hierarchy, information flows up, lesser creatures' decisions are limited to instinctive behavior), and, in the real world, social insects decide most things (e.g. where to look for food, when to attack an intruder etc.) on their own, but are influenced by pheromones emitted by the queen.

Aragorn2 00:48, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I think this article should be expanded to include the (much more positive) Hive Mind concept discussed by Lion Kimbro in The Hive Mind Argument. When I think Hive Mind I don't think of confomity (as this article currently describes the concept) but rather of inteligent discussion and distributed rational decision-making. Is Wikipedia itself not a Hive Mind? Are there any objections to changing the tone of this article to reflect this? Leif 05:09, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

If you want to expand the article, go right ahead - but what is already here is factually correct and NPOV. →Raul654 05:15, Aug 28, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Vanity

The section about the little-known Halifax band Hive Mind looks like a vanity addition, being as it is completely free from interesting content. Remove? --Air 12:26, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hivemind (software)

someone should mention the hivemind jakarta project

done, stub Hivemind article added. --Air 11:18, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Alphabetizing?

Sometime in the next day or two I plan to realphabetize the fiction list by name of hive mind species/group, which I think makes it much easier to browse. --David.alex.lamb 22:21, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

The alphabetizing will take place in group mind (science fiction), where I have moved this section. --David.alex.lamb 23:45, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Relation to other topics

I had mistakenly created group mind (science fiction) before discovering this topic. It looks like both topics have some overlap between sociology/psychology uses and science fiction uses -- and perhaps a few others. Depending on what is needed to handle the earlier (undated) discussion, it might be appropriate to create a Hive mind (disambiguation) page. --David.alex.lamb 22:21, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I made this page a disambiguation page, and moved the only content to group mind (science fiction). The stuff discussed above maay need to move to some appropriate other page. --David.alex.lamb 23:45, 19 February 2006 (UTC)