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"There's a poetry in the materials we use to construct our world of artifacts; it speaks of our long history as a technological species."
- William Gibson
 |
| Hive Mind | ||
| A group mind. |
As far as I know, the first use of this phrase in mainstream science fiction magazines.
| "They must be constantly in telepathic rapport with each other. Something like the "hive mind" of the bees, even further developed. Maybe the individual intelligence of each Cubic pools into a group intelligence, just as their bodies combine. They're at least semi-intelligent, judging from the way they were working." |
| Technovelgy from The Face of the Deep,
by Edmond Hamilton. Published by Captain Future in 1942 Additional resources -
|
If you poke around, you can find earlier usage of the idea, but not in science fiction. For example, in The Philosophy of a Commoner published in 1928, there is this idea:
Science fiction writer James Schmitz picked up the same phrase for use in Second Night of Summer (1950):
Compare to the ring-table from The Universe Wreckers (1930) by Edmond Hamilton, a device which creates a group mind among participants ("...the great metal globe whose strange mechanism made of the thirty minds of the Council members a single mind"). Another example would be the racial mentalities described in StarMaker (1937) by Olaf Stapledon. See also the group ego from Methuselah's Children (1941) by Robert Heinlein. Another similar idea is composite living from The Day the Aliens Came (1995) by Robert Sheckley.
Concerted action of ants, bees, indicates an intelligence not the aggregate of individuals—one intelligence apart directing—a hive mind instead of a bee mind.
"Many very efficient life-forms aren't physically complicated, you know," she went on, letting the sound of her voice ripple steadily into its mind. "Parasitical types, particularly. It's pretty certain, too, that the Halpa have the hive-mind class of intelligence, so what goes for the nerve systems of most of the ones they send through to us might be nothing much more than secondary reflex-transmitters."
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Face of the Deep
More Ideas
and Technology by Edmond Hamilton
Tech news articles related to The Face of the Deep
Tech news articles related to works by Edmond Hamilton
Hive Mind-related
news articles:
- Collective Superintelligence Is At Hand!
| Instant Journalists: Ordinary People With Cell Phones |
| Meta's Horizon Studio's Unique Avatars From Text Prompts |
| Switzerland May Cap Population At Ten Million |
| California Governor Candidate Calls For Voting By Phone |
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'Why, a clockwork dancer, or, better still, one that would go by electricity and never run down...'
'Maybe the individual intelligence of each Cubic pools into a group intelligence...'
'Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set and put together her own...'
'Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of midday.'
'A broken circle with arrows pointing to a right-hand flow appeared in the chalf.'
'The object seemed melted together like wax — nothing was distinguishable.'
