ECHOPRAXIA, Peter Watt's sequel to BLINDSIGHT

One of my all-time favorite cogsci-fi novels, Peter Watt's Blindsight (previously here and here) has a sequel now. It's Echopraxia, and this review makes it sound pretty terrific.

I'm stoked! Anyone else read it?

Explanation of the title from the review:

As for zombies, they are simply people whose higher thought processes have been turned off. This is done either by surgery, or as a side-effect of bioengineered viral plagues. Zombies function autonomically, without conscious awareness. Their mental apparatus is “reduced to fight/flight/fuck” basic responses. They make great soldiers and sex slaves, because they follow orders unquestioningly. They are in fact subject to the malady that gives the novel its title:  “echopraxia”  is the condition in which a person compulsively imitates someone else’s actions and behavior. When they are not under hierarchical control, they simply imitate one another, and go on rampages like in the movies.

The 2012 Human Tower Competition in Tarragona, Spain | Colossal

The 2012 Human Tower Competition in Tarragona, Spain | Colossal

TV Tropes on Hive Minds and Mental Fusions

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HiveMind http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MentalFusion

I think I speak for everyone

"I think I speak for everyone when I say, OH GOD I'M A GIANT SENTIENT BEING MADE OF BILLIONS OF APES ARRAYED IN A SPHERE KILL ME BEFORE THE"

https://twitter.com/aristosophy/status/258894813632552961

Some Hivemind that I Used to Know

Apparently, Gotye himself created this video mashup of Gotye coverers covering Gotye. Got it?

1974 film about super hive intelligence, Phase IV

The film, Phase IV, on youtube.

From wikipedia:

Due to some unknown cosmic event, listed in "phases", ants have undergone rapid evolution and developed a hive mind. A scientific team begins investigating strange towers and geometrically perfect designs that the ants have started building in the desert. The ant colony and the scientific team, along with a rural family, make war with each other, with the ants being the more effective aggressors. The narrative uses the scientific team as the mainprotagonists, but also has an ant "heroine" going about her duties in the colony. The film concludes with the last of the cosmic "phases," Phase IV, which promises a new future for all life on Earth.

TRANS-HUMAN COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT, PHENOMENAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE EXTENDED MIND

Tadeusz Wieslaw Zawidzki (2012). Trans-Human Cognitive Enhancement, Phenomenal Consciousness and the Extended Mind. International Journal of Machine Consciousness 4 (01):215-.

Drawing on Charles Stross's recent trans-humanist, science fiction novel, Accelerando, I argue that phenomenology can play an important supplementary role in arguments for the hypothesis of extended cognition — the view that the mind might sometimes extend beyond the skull. In their initial arguments for this hypothesis Clark and Chalmers [Clark, A. and Chalmers, D. [1998] "The extended mind," Analysis 58(1), 7–19], deliberately downplay the role of phenomenology, emphasizing third person, functionalist reasons for it. However, passages from Stross's novel suggest that feasible, extra-cranial cognitive technology will have dramatic effects on phenomenology. Such "trans-human" phenomenology will likely eliminate intuitive resistance to the hypothesis of extended cognition, thereby supporting functionalist arguments for it. Although this is not sufficient to establish that consciousness itself might extend beyond the skull, I also argue that any view on which consciousness supervenes on the functional properties of the nervous system, like Chalmers, D. [1996] The Conscious Mind (Oxford University Press, New York) and Baars, B. [1988] A Cognitive Theory of Consciousness (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK); Baars, B. [1997]In the Theatre of Consciousness (Oxford University Press, New York); Baars, B. [2002] The conscious access hypothesis: Origins and recent evidence, Trends in Cognitive Science 6, 47–52; Baars, B. [2003] How brain reveals mind: Neuroimaging supports the central role of conscious experience, Journal of Consciousness Studies 10, 100–114, must accept this possibility.

Schwitzgebel's continued tear on group minds

The Splintered Mind: Why Tononi Should Rethink His Rejection of the Possibility of Conscious Entities Having Conscious Parts

also: Betelgeusian Beeheads

An existing, ecologically-successful genus of collectively intelligent artificial creatures

An existing, ecologically-successful genus of collectively intelligent artificial creatures Kuipers, Benjamin [pdf]

The Splintered Mind: Martian Rabbit Superorganisms, Yeah!

The Splintered Mind: Martian Rabbit Superorganisms, Yeah!

The most sophisticated ant colonies (e.g., large leaf cutter colonies) are as intelligent and sophisticated in their behavior as rabbits. If we're going to reject biological chauvinism and continguism (prejudice against discontiguous entities) on behalf of the Martians, why not reject those prejudices on behalf of Earthly superorganisms too? Maybe the colony as a whole has a distinctive, unified stream of conscious experience, of roughly mammal-level intelligence, above and beyond the consciousness of the individual ants (if individual ants even do have individual consciousness).

Hive-mind hilarity

From the Onion: Residents Of Indiana Join Together To Form Collective Consciousness | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

The Splintered Mind: Is the United States Conscious?

Is the entirety of the United States, considered as a single entity, a conscious one? Answering "yes" might be the most metaphysical height to which a patriot could hope to climb. But anyway, there are some interesting issues around here concerning which systems do and which systems don't have conscious states. See Eric Schwitzgebel's discussions of this stuff here, here, and here:
The Splintered Mind: Is the United States Conscious?:

It would be bizarre to suppose that the United States has a stream of conscious experience distinct from the streams of conscious experience of the people who compose it. I hope you'll agree. (By "the United States" here, I mean the large, vague-boundaried group of compatriots who sometimes act in a coordinated manner.) Yet it's unclear by what materialist standard the U.S. lacks consciousness.

USA! USA!

Vernor Vinge’s Children of the Sky: bootstrapping high-tech civilization from hive-mind Machiavellis – Boing Boing

Vernor Vinge’s Children of the Sky: bootstrapping high-tech civilization from hive-mind Machiavellis – Boing Boing:

In this, the humans are aided by the Tines, a race of doglike hive-intelligences. Three or more Tines come together and form a collective consciousness, synchronizing with high-speed, ultrasonic chirps. A literal society of minds, the Tines are essentially immortal -- they need merely replace injured or killed individuals with new members. But the Tines are sorely limited in ways as well: if two Tines get to close to one another, their "mindsounds" will mingle, and their consciousness dissolve. Adding new Tines to a pack-individual can change its identity, sometimes creating new and unrecognizable packs.

Overview : Google Consciousness

Overview : Google Consciousness

Drawing on their experience as pioneering social media strategists, Rome Viharo and Maf Lewis have created a new phenomenon with their proposal that Google has a form of consciousness. Originating as little more than a passing comment between friends, the idea has attracted the attention of academics, philosophers, and most recently, the TED organization.

The Google Consciousness TED talk, given on April 9 of 2011 and officially released on June 9, rocketed to the top of the TEDx “most popular” site and was picked up as an Editor’s Choice on the main TED site. With well over 100,000 YouTube views just weeks after launch, the talk is rapidly changing the way we think about both Google, consciousness, government and social media.

Google Consciousness itself is just one of several fascinating and forward-thinking ideas proposed by Lewis and Viharo during the talk. From the plant-whispering Ayahuasca shamans of the Amazon rain forest to the future of social media and democracy, “the two coolest philosophy professors you never had” cover an amazing range of topics in just 18 minutes.

While not everyone is convinced that Google is conscious, the seemingly-improbable journey of this simple idea from the ears of a few friends all the way to TED and the world stage shows that it represents a discussion whose time has come. We invite you to join that discussion, and help shape the future of how consciousness and society are understood.

the human hive-mind covers Radiohead

A version of "Paranoid Android" made using only clips of Youtubers covering the song. Pretty amazing.


ht: @keith_wilson

Empirical Arguments for Group Minds: A Critical Appraisal | manwithoutqualities

Empirical Arguments for Group Minds: A Critical Appraisal | manwithoutqualities

Group minds in sci fi

Group mind (science fiction) - eNotes.com Reference
This article separates hive- and nonhive-groupminds and presents long lists of science-fictional depictions of each.

the corporation: documentary trailer

Egregore - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Egregore - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Egregore (also 'egregor') is an occult concept representing a 'thoughtform' or 'collective group mind', an autonomous psychic entity made up of, and influencing, the thoughts of a group of people. The symbiotic relationship between an egregore and its group has been compared to the more recent, non-occult concepts of the corporation (as a legal entity) and the meme."

Vernor Vinge's sequel to A Fire Upon The Deep coming in October!

Vernor Vinge's sequel to A Fire Upon The Deep coming in October! No word yet whether the Tines will be in it.