Group Minds: Many as One

Posted By: Ruqinzhe, Firewall Sentinel

The practice of combining multiple egos together into a single collective entity — a group mind — is on the tip of transhumanity’s capabilities. However, this practice of synthesis is widely viewed with mistrust and suspicion. Thanks to the TITANs, intelligence augmentation efforts of this sort are frowned upon. Many also fear the idea of losing their individuality and free will in a collective consciousness. Without ourselves, our own personal thoughts and identities, what are we? Yet the practical utility of putting minds together to tackle tasks cannot be overlooked.

A History of Coming Together

The potential for group minds began before the Fall, when mesh inserts became widely adopted. Direct, telepathic, brain-to-brain communication via radio waves and mesh connections enabled people to directly share their own sensory input and experience that of others on a widespread scale for the first time. This altered the nature of transhuman collaboration overnight. When combined with other apps that facilitate the exchange of data, people became interconnected and interoperable like never before.

The first expansion of these capabilities into more of a shared mind-state came with egos that engaged in mass forking with regular merging. This allowed an individual to amass multiple experiences at once and then combine them together, but the time required to merge forks makes this process somewhat inefficient. This was later followed by morphs that incorporate multiple egos to operate, such as flexbots and weapon systems like the fenrir, as well as the core morphs that oversee habitats and ships. However, these are widely viewed as cooperative endeavors rather than full group minds.

Though many renegade scientists and technologists have experimented with group consciousnesses, the first true success in this regard was born partly out of necessity. The hypercorp Ambiscience was field testing its “hypermesh link” implant with the colonists of Synergy when the exoplanet’s Pandora gate access was cut off for a full six years. During the hardship that followed, the group mind established via these hypermesh links became critical to the colonists’ survival. Upon re-establishing contact with the Solar System, the colonists were originally greeted with fear and caution, but their success has since led to others adopting the hypermesh link to create their own localized group minds.

Not all is perfect when it comes to collective egos, however. Polities commonly outlaw group mind technologies and research, and participants face a great amount of social stigma as inhuman drones. Security agencies are known to keep a close watch over gestalt egos, fearing that they may evolve into an exponential- growth superintelligence much like the TITANs. These concerns are inflamed by terrorist attacks made by exhuman “soul eaters” who are known to practice dangerous ego-merging techniques on unwilling victims. And continued experimentation with hypermesh links and similar technologies has been hit or miss, with some notable failures, such as the Synergists’ attempt to incorporate young children into their group mind, only to “lose them” within the collective consciousness.

Fears

The concerns people have about group minds are established in or enhanced by the alien nature of a collective consciousness. Transhumans are used to being distinct entities, with our minds sacrosanct, and the concept of becoming so closely entwined with the minds of others is alarming and squicky.

The primary fear when it comes to gestalt minds is loss of individuality. If we mash our minds together with others, where does ours end and the others’ begin? Depictions of group minds in popular media portray them as subsuming the self into a greater whole, with the end output that individual components exhibit the same sort of groupthink we commonly attribute to cults or the brainwashed. The reality, however, is that few of the collective intelligences possible with transhumanity are this bleak. While some group minds exhibit “personality overlap,” it can be argued that this is just an exaggerated form of the subconscious manner in which we all tend to mimic and copy the mannerisms of our close friends. Even among the neo-synergists, people retain their individual nature — at least, so far. It is only the developing minds of children that have been subsumed into the group whole.

Related to this is the concern that people within a group mind become mindless drones without their own self control and free will. Losing one’s agency is certainly terrifying, but few group minds take things this far. In most situations, individuals retain their ability to act independently. At worst, group minds make decisions collectively and there is pressure within the group to adhere to that decision. Of course, the overwhelming pressure to conform to the group’s desires can itself be coercive.

The most widespread objection to a collective mind is the invasiveness. It takes massive trust to give others access to your deepest thoughts and most embarassing memories. Proponents argue that this increases the bond, as everyone is stripped bare, and those linked find the commonalities in their experiences. To those of us who value our privacy, such openness is anathema. Even if you consent to opening yourself up when joining a group mind, consent is only valid if it can be withdrawn at will, which is not the easiest once you are part of a collective ego.

Fears that group minds will develop an exponentially increasing intelligence are largely baseless. While there is power in numbers and sharing of skills and memories, the technology does not enable that sort of unrestricted intelligence amplification.

Regardless of your opinions on group minds, one should always consider one known drawback: the addictiveness. The deep connectiveness of group minds is known to trigger reward centers in the brain, such that leaving a group feels like a let-down. Participants who withdraw from a group mind are known to suffer a form of withdrawal, sometimes debilitating. Many people who leave group minds inevitably return, or find new ones.

Arguments For

The obvious benefit to group minds is the cooperative forcemultiplier aspect. By putting our minds, skill sets, and experiences together, transhumanity is better capable of tackling its problems and rising to the occasion. Of course, we can do this without melding minds, but grouping together is more efficient and provides more opportunities for collaboration.

Less obviously, group minds bring people together and build community in an unprecedented way. The intimacy of group-mind interactions mean that the participants rapidly come to know each other’s capabilities and quirks, enhancing collaboration on a deeper level. Even if the individuals within a group are not close friends, they quickly come to know each other as if they are.

The Minds Within

Since egos within a gestalt mind retain their individuality, the groups within can be just as fractitious as any other mass of people in society. While group minds are typically more unified in purpose and better capable of achieving consensus due to their linked nature, the reality is that their constituent parts are not always in full agreement. This can lead to a paralysis of decision or a change in position over time as one faction within the mind achieves dominance over the others. Very rarely, individuals in a group will find a matter so divisive that it splits the group and either some leave or a bitter struggle for control breaks out. Usually, however, compromises are reached and the group mind finds a way forward that is at least acceptable to its components, if not ideal.

While most group minds employ decision-making processes that ensure each individual voice within is heard, they are subject to group dynamics just like everyone else. Without safeguards, the loudest, most charismatic, or most manipulative egos can achieve disproportionate sway over collective decisions. A few group minds dispense with collective decision-making altogether, falling back to hierarchical models where one voice leads the group.

External Relations

From the outside, an individual participant in a group mind is indistinguishable from a normal single-minded person, but it’s important to remember that you are dealing with a number of minds at once. Their nature makes it difficult for individuals within a group to maintain intimate relations with people outside the group. Potential partners are usually uncomfortable with the details of their relationship being shared with the rest of the collective. There is a sub-set of people who get off on that, however, and specifically seek group minds out. Even friendships can be difficult to maintain; depending on the type of group mind, it is not always apparent which component of the collective ego you are dealing with, and they sometimes blend together.

Some group minds go out of their way to advertise via AR which individual component you are dealing with at any given time. Others prefer to minimize their individual identities, always presenting a group front. In fact, some collective egos go out of their way to establish a gestalt personality, a unified presentation of their varied selves. Other transhumans tend to find these group personas unsettling, as if they can tell they are manufactured or not a singleminded person. The kinesics of a morph sleeved by a group mind are often quite strange, seeming to blend multiple persons’ mannerisms together in an incongruent way and then subtly shifting to something different.