Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT

Is Spookybot a zombie?

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Morituri:
Cognitively speaking, specialization is absolutely key to what human intelligence is and does.  We are what we are and can think the way we think because our survival strategy is socially cohesive groups with individually adaptive specialization.

That means, we survive best as social groups supported by individuals capable of acquiring specialized skills at need, in response to the requirements of the group.  It is that capability to learn new skills that defines our strengths as a species, and the need to deal adaptively with others who have acquired whatever bewildering and unanticipated variety of skills their band or tribe has required of them that has made language a good strategy for survival for us.

Language - communication using symbols - is the compelling reason why thinking using symbols is an adaptive skill for humans.  And that is precisely the kind of intelligence and consciousness we value as being uniquely ours among all species. 

If everybody did everything, in an undifferentiated way, we would have no need for anything near the kind of rich communication that we do.  And if we had no such need, we'd never have developed the knack for language, or symbolic thought.

Thrudd:
Well said.

So transposing the human social structure model could work with any intelligent and social organism based on similar foundations of communication and cooperation between individuals creating a socially structured whole.

An organic mind is composed of individual cells that are all the same physically [as far as we know for now] yet their connections and stored data is what differentiates them towards different functions. The loss of specific connections can cause issues, the loss of whole regions may cause other issues.

So our theoretical AI based Hive Mind could work in a similar way with individual units that were self aware yet part of a greater whole.
This is where speculative fantasy rarely dips its toes because it is something most scifi writers have a hard time grasping the concept of and then extrapolating into the true unknown.
Would the overmind be just some regular Joe who like gardening or making things go boom, or would it be something totally alien that we just cant grasp the concepts involved?

Would the individual minds be conscious of the system as a whole ?
If they were how would they view the overmind and their part in it?
If they were not would events and actions within the group be chalked up to fickle gods or fate?

The more I think of it the more it seems plausible that society is an organism in and of itself operating on a different timescale compared to that of the individuals involved and few if any are conscious of it.
And at the moment our societies are not yet mature enough to be out of diapers.

Tlaloc:
I think looking at the Argentine Ant mega colonies might give some pointers. The Xi'Chung Hive in Space Empires games also give a rather terrifying example, as they expand aggressively and don't really use diplomacy... I think Hive species are incredibly difficult to envision and for them to meet non hives likewise (eg Enders Game).

Also if a hive species has to deal with individualist society (for technological, ethical or strategic reasons), as opposed to annihilating them, then they might have to develop more 'conscious' nodes to interact with them. How these would fit in is another question. Do they get up and down lifted?

traroth:
An AI in multiple bodies? Reminds me of the Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch trilogy...

JoeCovenant:

Have I missed it?
Or if its not here... I'm a little  surprised that The Borg haven't been mentioned yet?

:)

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