What are yall's beliefs of an attempt to artificially force the evolution of humanity, merging people's individual conscious minds into one single entity. This would supposedly end human suffering,or at least the suffering that people inflict upon each other.
"God's In His Heaven, All's Right With The World" -Nerv, from Neon Genesis Evangelion
It makes me uncomfortable.
why? it would solve alot of problems that exist between groups of people in the world and like i said above it would end the suffering that people inflict upon each other.
Would this involve throwing everyone's brain into some big bucket? I do not understand. 
no there would be a microchip implanted onto the surface of your brain. this microchip would wirelessly transfer thoughts, conscience, and personality into a giant computer where everyone in the world would become a single entity, like God.
Can I just get hooked up to Wikipedia instead? And maybe some porn.
lmao.
that sounds either very boring or very catastrophic
If we all converged into one single entity, what should become of individuality? I don't want to become part of one ultimate machine acting and thinking as one. I don't want to be some sort of sci-fi God. I'd like to keep my humanity.
there would be no individuality but think of the pros, no more war, no more hate crimes, no more of anything that is cruel and you would be able to keep your humanity. you would still lead a regular life. you would get up in the morning, eat breakfast, go to work, have a family that sort of stuff
Congratulations on the first good MG topic in a while.
Heh, I saw something sort of like this on that History Channel Star Trek documentary. There's a person who actually did implant cybernetics into himself so he could consciously control computers. Not just simple things, but actually operating a quite articulated robot hand. He wanted to do what you're talking about and eventually have everybody online.
Such a network would probably not be a consciousness, however. I imagine it would be more like REALLY convenient internet access and user interfaces. Just because you have access, don't mean people would control you, or that the implants would influence your thoughts other than information.
That does bring up the question, though, how would such information be interpreted? If they developed the ability to deliver stimuli that correspond to existing senses, what about other stimuli, rather than a technological hallucination? There are specific centers in the brain that correspond to various sense, so I wonder if it's even possible to develop cybernetics that would not be the equivalent of a hallucination.
As for the concept of some kind of group consciousness being developed after cybernetic networking, I'm not sure if I believe that would ever happen. The barriers wouldn't just be biological science and computer science, but infrastructure, too. How would you transmit every thought in billions of computers more complex than any developed so far, to every one of those computers, each of them only capable of processing small amounts of data at a time? Ignoring technical restrictions, there would have to be a demand in the first place, and it would have to compete with a safe, very convenient computer that people already have installed. There would probably be enough people interested in it that it would probably become possible eventually, but you'd need to get people willing to join. Cybernetic computing would allow both information sharing and privacy, and I can't think of many practical advantages to a theoretical group consciousness over that.
Let's say the technology exists and people do join it. One of the first things they'd do would be to get rid of that shared pain feature. Sure, those popups made some money for some online companes, but browsers blocked them quite fast.
If it was developed to true group consciousness, you'd likely get multiple group consciousnesses too. That might actually have the opposite effect, sharing the entire hostility of each group with every member. Each murderous person in a foreign group causes every member of another group to feel the combined rage and pain of every member who knows the victim. You'd probably just reduce the number of individuals in the world, creating a larger-scale version of wars (which are larger-scale versions of individual duels, brought on by development of "group consciousnesses" of cultures.)
This reminds me of the Borg off Star Trek.
Also, in my opinion a world where everyone has a shared conciousness would be horrible. It'll be boring to heck because everyone would be the same. In an extreme example of how I feel, people would be unable to enjoy each other's presence, unable to feel happiness or sadness or anger. If they did it would be at set times, and not when the person individually feels like it. I see it as mind control.
The world is so interesting because everything acts in it's own way. There are some horrible people who do inflict suffering in others, but this is often due to the way they are brought up. They could have been abused in some way, which results in a vicious circle situation. Or they could have been taught that committing suffering on others is good, like some extremism cults (I call them this because they are often a small minority of the main religion). Surely changing this to make people appretiate others more is a better solution. It wouldn't eliminate it, but I still see it favourable over having no individuality.
Oh hay looking back, all I've done is reinforce Deck's point.
[edit] - Looking back on Vec's point, I did read a book once about a world where everyone had a chip inplanted in their heads which allowed them to be constantly on the internet. You could Instant Message people by thinking and order things online just like that. Unfortunatly the people of the world were constantly bombarded by advertisements. It was like a hi-tech Big Brother situation.
In the end a girl dies when her chip is hacked. She had her chip installed pretty late due to her family's poverty, so her chip and her body started to compete for control. The chip then ended up shutting her body down bit by bit. First her leg went dead, then her hand, and so on. Quite sad, really.
That's a point. What if the chips in this idea were hacked into o.o DISASTER.
Turning everyone into drones acting under the impulse of a single "mind" (making everyone a single entity) is something I doubt would be a good idea. Not purely due to the potential lack of autonomy allowed to the individual bodies (how much would productivity be affected - since there's enough daydreaming among individual consciousnesses, how bad would a single uber-consciousness be?) but also the lack of diversity in thought and ideas would most likely be detrimental to our scientific and cultural advancement, not to mention potentially devastating to our survival chances (one mistake, or failure to calculate for unforeseen circumstances, and everything could go up in smoke). Add into this the issue of resolving the differing impulses between men and women - how confused would this single consciousness end up? Not a trade-off I'd think was worth the promise of world peace.
A similar idea you might like to think about would be the potential for a "shared consciousness", where, while maintaining your own individuality, you could access the conscious thoughts of others - read each other's minds, in a sense. I have my own thoughts on this, but I'll see what you guys think before voicing them.
im interested in your ideas
Instead of being what amounts to a PC army doing a task or whatever, I'd rather have the option of being an individual. I like being one person and not having to listen to go along with others.
Sure, groups are nice for a single goal, but it's nice to be able to sit alone and think. Being hooked to one single mind would also be boring.
Plus, it's just pain damn creepy after seeing the Borg and also shows like Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. >.>; In the way of SAC, it's also kinda cool at the same time... it's all complicated.
I guess I missed the part about MG being a sci-fi discussion forum.
I'll let myself out quietly, but just as an aside, does anyone know the way to the place where we keep politics and interesting stuff like that?
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This forum is for discussion involving sociology, philosophy, science, culture, opinions, gender, politics, etc.
Why'd you be wrong
Science and science fiction are not the same thing =(
I'm guessing the ezOp doesn't interpret the description the same way. You don't have to worry anymore. :0
The line between what we see as Science Fiction and Probably Future is rapidly blurring.
This is very interesting concept, one that has obviously been something humans have thought about for a long time. As was pointed out ideas like The Borg and Ghost in the Shell become a little less Sci-Fi-y when you look at how fast technology is progressing.
It would be interesting to see if a cheeto stained overweight adolescent would be as quick to end a life as he would screw over a computer.
~Tobe
The concept of the pros and cons of a group consciousness is philosophy, and the idea of cybernetic computers is quite believable. The Borg are sci-fantasy, but the topic is not about them (at least not explicitly, since group consciousness can be interpreted in many ways). Culture and sociology are also part of the discusion. To dismiss it just because many representations are outlandish shows misunderstanding of human nature.
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Also, in my opinion a world where everyone has a shared conciousness would be horrible. It'll be boring to heck because everyone would be the same. In an extreme example of how I feel, people would be unable to enjoy each other's presence, unable to feel happiness or sadness or anger. If they did it would be at set times, and not when the person individually feels like it. I see it as mind control.
That's just one interpretation of the concept. Instant communication would not necessarily involve any of those things, because the technology would have to be designed explicitly to do that.
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Looking back on Vec's point, I did read a book once about a world where everyone had a chip inplanted in their heads which allowed them to be constantly on the internet. You could Instant Message people by thinking and order things online just like that. Unfortunatly the people of the world were constantly bombarded by advertisements.
In the end a girl dies when her chip is hacked. She had her chip installed pretty late due to her family's poverty, so her chip and her body started to compete for control. The chip then ended up shutting her body down bit by bit. First her leg went dead, then her hand, and so on. Quite sad, really.
That's a point. What if the chips in this idea were hacked into o.o DISASTER.
Cybernetics can't take over a body unless that is their function. That would be an incredibly complex and currently impossible task that wouldn't just happen by accident, and hacking wouldn't do it unless the hardware had the capability. It's impossible for a mouse or CD-ROM to take over your body, or to be hacked to do so, and that's really not too different from the book's scenario.
Ads would be a legitimate security threat, though. Since we're talking about basically an advanced wearable computer, you should be able to turn it off, but if it isn't designed well and doesn't have a hardware off-switch (unlikely), it might be possible to disable the shutdown procedure.
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Not purely due to the potential lack of autonomy allowed to the individual bodies (how much would productivity be affected - since there's enough daydreaming among individual consciousnesses, how bad would a single uber-consciousness be?) but also the lack of diversity in thought and ideas would most likely be detrimental to our scientific and cultural advancement, not to mention potentially devastating to our survival chances (one mistake, or failure to calculate for unforeseen circumstances, and everything could go up in smoke). Add into this the issue of resolving the differing impulses between men and women - how confused would this single consciousness end up?
There is a reason extreme forms of group consciousness are a major fantasy theme. Humans HAVE a group consciousness known as culture. They combine the hive and the individual, employing the advantages and disadvantages of both. Fantasy such as the Borg are exaggerated dystopic metaphors for conformity, but a system that actually evolved out of practical use would probably not remotely resemble it. I expect that if they did get around the bandwidth and processing issues, it wouldn't be too different from the dynamics of culture that exist now. Culture can both stimulate and supress innovation. Gender roles are going out of style anyway and if anything dropping barriers to point of view would lead to less confusion.
A current inconvenience on the internet is that jokes spread so much that they become repetitive. However people still have their own senses of humor. I see the subject as an extension of the cultural and communication trends that have been going on for centuries.
Slight side-point - I would contend that gender roles aren't going out of fashion, more being less confined to given genders. This is probably reflected in some feminist philosophy no longer referring to man vs. woman, but instead the masculine vs. feminine psychological types.
That said, I was wondering who would be first to bring up the current level of group consciousness provided within cultural identity. However, my previous post was based on my interpretation of the original post, which I interpreted as supposing an extreme example of a collective consciousness, where the individual conscious loses autonomy, and simply becomes a part of a greater entity (a true "hive mind", so to speak).
As to the reduction of confusion, I believe confusion is often a symptom of diversity of thought. The more different ways something is looked at, the more different interpretations there will be generated (whether voiced or not). Because people approach things in different ways, confusion easily results from not comprehending someone else's approach, since you would act differently. This is where clear communication of ideas can help avoid this, but I would be concerned if we completely eliminated all confusion in communications.
Quick question to the OP: this thread wouldn't happened to be inspired by End of Evangelion would it?
yes
But the series taught us it is wrong and that we should embrace are and others individuality no matter how much life sucks. Something like that.
