It’s been suggested that colonies of social creatures, particularly insects, function as a coherent single organism, wherein the individuals are analogous to cells and/or organs in a larger organism - they communicate by various chemical and behavioural signals that could be argued to be every bit as complex as those signals of which a nervous and endocrine system is capable in ‘higher’ animals.
Certainly in the case of termites, this seems a convincing suggestion; organisation of action emerges for which no individuals (not even the queen) are directly responsible.
So, is it possible that the [colony as a unit] has any kind of emergent consciousness? - might we one day be able to communicate (not as individuals, obviously) with termites ?
And indeed, could the same logic be used to support the notion that, for example, humans in a large group such as a corporation, might form a dependent, but self-aware group mind that operates at a level above that which is comprehensible by any of the individuals.
Have you by any chance read “Gödel. Escher Bach - an Eternal Golden Braid”, by Douglas Hofstader? If not, read it!
It features, in one of the later chapters, an aardvark having a conversation with an anthill, where the aardvark ‘talks’ by eating individual ants, and the hill replies by sending around ants. The individual ants know of course nothing about this, and try desperately to avoid being eaten. The entire book talks a lot about emergent systems.
After reading that I recommend “the User Illusion” by Tor Nørretranders, and “Shadows of the mind” by Someone Else.
They all make a very compelling case for the view that consciousness is an emergent phenomenon that can evolve from systems where the indivudual mechanisms are all known and understood.
I’d tend to doubt that it truly could. While god knows that any corporate Mission Statement is rooted in group thinking, I feel like there’s a large component missing.
In the Hive, you have an organic need that is only fulfilled by the entire hive’s focused energies- SURVIVAL. In the corporate world, survival is a much more amorphous concept, isn’t it?
I work, so …so what? So A) I can get a raise. B) I can get a new cubicle of my own. C) I can get an inside hallway office. D) I can get a window office. E) I can get a corner office. F) I can get a new car/home/spouse/lifestyle/whatever.
If there is a deeply primal survival directive in a corporate environment, show it to me ! There are too many layers getting in the way of true sentient thinking in a group that large. The hive is organic with a true single goal. The corporation is inorganic- i.e., it communicates by e-mail, memos, one-on-one meetings, etc. There is no common thread of drive or thought- not really, anyway.
Anyway, I’m talking about the corporation being sentient at a level above human sentience and therefore possibly not easy for us to be consciously aware of.
That’s the problem. We are sentient. Communication is deliberate and our actions/responses are considered. I don’t think ants or termites are self-aware so they don’t have selfish desires getting in the way of group goals. How is the corprate sentience going to influence the individual? Are you compelled to invest in company stocks without being aware of your compulsion or its causes? I don’t think self aware creatures will be controlled by a hive mentality unless they are willing to give up their self identity and humans as a group ar too selfish for that. You might argue that some cultues such as medieval japan sort of made it work but even then, a person was always directing the goals. There was no group sentience and I don’t think such a thing will happen unless some more powerful entity just decides to take control of a bunch of human minds.
Maybe, maybe not; we do have selfish motives, that’s true, but I don’t see that it would necessarily prevent the macro mind emerging; we are largely at the mercy of interactions that are beyond our individual control; the stock market is a good example of this.
Obviously, there is no way to know if corporations, nations, religious groups etc. have a certain kind of conciousness or sentience as it would be a qualitatively different level than our own.
I also reccomend Godel Esher Bach, it is quite enlightening.
I don’t know whether or not this has anything to do with anything, but the “hive mind” is not confined exclusively to the insect world.
The naked mole rat–mammals–live in colonies and have a dominant “queen,” who keeps other females sterile by scaring the shit out of them from time to time. They seem to have adopted a lot of other hive-like behaviors, too.
There was a really entertaining article about them in Scientific American a few years back, but I unfortunately cannot find the article in question at http://www.sciam.com .