Bay 12 Games Forum

But the important point is to distinguish between the mere appearance highly cooperative social organization that produces works an individual wouldn't be capable of producing alone, and the actual substance of a hive mind.  A true hive mind is a fictional concept in which the individuals of the collective have no individual identity.  The numerous examples brought up so far in this thread illustrate that individuals of hive mind organisms in fiction typically cannot function on their own.  Humans certainly function at a higher level when utilizing means of communication and cooperation, but we're perfectly capable of getting along on our own.

Humanity isn't a "true" hive mind in that sense, I agree, but I think "hive mind" is a perfectly good concept to describe ANY group of creatures achieving greater thinking capacity than a single creature. Knowing how something works might make it less magical, but it doesn't make it stop working.

Wait, would you qualify an anthive as a hive mind? Ants have no individual indentity that anyone can find, and can't really survive alone. They would seem to fall inside your definition, but I think you said earlier that they don't.

Yeah, aquifers don't really make any sense at the moment. And neither do magma pipes. They happen right next to each other whenever a magma pipe is generated in a biome with an aquifer. You can use the pipe for getting past the aquifer, if it goes high enough and you happen to have a map with no other path.

Sorry, I wasn't communicating very clearly.  What I meant is that technological progress is not inevitable, and is not an inseparable part of human society and development.  What if a group of people found themselves free of competition and lived perfectly content lives harvesting just the resources that they needed from a forest.  What incentive could they possibly have to knock down the forest for grazing land in the absense of some outside influence? If you want to read more about technological determinism and its critique, check out the wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_determinism as a starting point.

Oh, THAT'S what you meant. Yeah, of course technological progress does not necessarily happen, but it HAS HAPPENED, and I feel proud of it. Humans have succesfully developed metallurgy, steam power and space flight; and I don't think this would have been possible without some coordinated effort.

I wouldn't call anything but a group of organisms that showed distributed intelligence and the means to communicate thoughts throughout the collective and dependence on that intercommunication and decision-making ability to the extent that individuals could not function apart from the group a hive mind.

Humans can communicate thoughts across pretty much any distance. We're communicating RIGHT NOW. And as for distributed intelligence, I'd say humans have that as well. Looking again at our beloved technological progress, that's how it mostly happens today. Someone publishes an article on particle physics somewhere, and someone else reads it and builds on the ideas. If every individual had to think alone, without help from the collective intelligence of the rest of humanity, we'd never manage to do ANYTHING. Or, as a more common example, Wikipedia.

And if you require COMPLETE dependance of the central hive mind at all times, the Borg don't qualify. They actually seem more competent when isolated. And even when alone, humans rely on other humans. Robinson Crusoe survived because he already knew how to make a fire, how to build a shelter, where to look for food and so on. And he had a whole bunch of salvaged tools, mass-produced by other humans. As a thought experiment, take a newborn human and DON'T connect it to the human hive mind. Don't teach it language, don't let other humans near it, just give it required nutrients, and see how it fares. My guess is it will do worse at tests of intelligence than rats.

Go to a human town at night and gouge out everyone's eyes. Or just walk around the world map and kill random encounter animals. Or lose a fort to a siege and go destroy the invaders. I think the combat is pretty fun, with all that ruthless semi-realism of the game keeping track of every body part individually and occasinally letting you hack limbs off. And in the next version, keeping track of every wound individually. Not to forget the eye gouging.

Eh, that's close enough to satisfy my "I'm right"-sense. Although to tell the truth, I just wanted an excuse to quote something from Planescape: Torment. I suppose I could try to look up the bit where someone gets pushed into actual magma. I'm at the mercy of the internet, having lost one of the CDs several years past.

theres no rule 34 on MAGMA though. HAH!

There is a burning man hovering in the air over a grille in the Smoldering Corpse Bar. His skin bubbles and chars, and flames pour from his tormented eyes, yet his expression is far away, almost as if he were reveling in the flames.

No more talk and wander... Ignusss wishesss to BURNNN...

Ignusss burnsssss... sssooo long ago... yet...

Once...

Once... Ignussss knew NOTHING of flamessss... ssset ssssmall firesss, tiny flamesss, tiny flickeringssss...

The firessss grew... Ignussss ssset firessss in their streetssss... and lit the firessss of anger in their heartssss...

They sssought to punisssh Ignus, the ssmall fliesss from the Hive. They wissshed to sssee Ignusss BURNNN after Ignusss ssset fire to their ssstreets...

...tiny magelingsss, hedge wizzardsss, runecasterssss... tiny sparks of magic came to PUNISSSSH Ignusss for hurting their loved onessss... they sssentenced Ignusssss to BURNNNN, made Ignussss a TORCH, a sssspitting FLAME, burning, burning...

It wassss JUSSSTICE, they sssaid...

...but it was not a sentence...

...there is ssoooo much flamessss and painnn that there issss NO pain... there issss LIGHT, and HEAT, and the flesssh runsss as TALLOW acrosss my bonessss...

...and for the firssst time...

...Ignussss wasss PLEASSSSED...

When the Planessss burnnnn and all life is torchesss, then Ignusss ssshall at lassst... be at peace...

It's this kind of craziness that really makes it worthwhile to simulate the world outside the fortress. And the future promises even more. I can't wait to be able to dig and build in Adventure Mode.