Something’s bugging me about how the hive mind works (and I’m likely overthinking this, but bear with me). While we don’t really understand how memories are stored in human brains, they are physical things and are thus finite. It’s not that each of the joined has the knowledge of everyone else inside their head – it’s just that they have access to the knowledge in every joined head. It’s not that Laxmi’s son’s brain contains the same knowledge of her gynecologist – it’s just that when asked, the entity that was Laxmi’s son can access the knowledge inside the brain of the entity that was Laxmi’s gynecologist.
Where I’m going with this is that I don’t think it makes sense that the hive mind has access to Helen’s memories just because she joined with them right before she died. Unless those memories got physically placed in another joined’s brain, those memories should have died with Helen. And I can’t figure out why it would be useful, efficient, or even possible to transfer the memories of all those who died during the initial joining into the minds of others. Newborns, maybe, but still – why bother?
Unless… let’s say that the joined somehow knew that they didn’t “have” Carol. In that case, it would make sense to try to preserve the memories of those closest to her. I don’t believe that they could have extracted and transferred the memories of everyone who died during the joining, but they probably could make room for a few, targeted sets of memories. They could probably find some unused neurons for the memories of a few people.
I don’t think they were lying when they said they absorbed Helen’s memories. I’m just going back and forth between three possibilities – (1) that I’m wrong, and there is a physical way that they can absorb and save (somewhere) the memories of everyone who died during the joining process or thereafter; (2) that they could only do this for a select few, and recognized Helen’s memories as someone that they should keep; or (3) that while it doesn’t make sense that they can store memories somewhere, I should just accept it and relax. In most shows, I’d think (3), but I feel like Gilligan and crew would have thought this through more thoroughly.
Another way of thinking about this – if something happened that killed the physical bodies of all the joined except for one – that one individual wouldn’t contain the memories of all 6 billion, right? I mean, they just wouldn’t fit.
I see no reason why it should not be the case that either (a) every mind really does individually contain the information of every other mind in the hive or (b) if nothing else, when a member of the hive dies, their memories are transferred to the hive like data being uploaded to the cloud (in which case it’s still being stored on one or more physical servers).
Because at the end of the day… the hive operates through a kind of… psychic energy? Telepathy? Spooky action at a distance? Whatever it is, if you can somehow magic the human brain into doing that, then I don’t see why you can’t also magic it into storing 9 billion times the information it normally would.
In other words, I think you might as well go with your option (3). Just accept it. One way or another, it just works. It shouldn’t. But then again, neither should the hive itself. If you can make the hive work, you can make the persistence of Helen’s memories work.
It’s suspension of disbelief. The concept of the Hive, however it works, is the one fantastical thing the show is asking us to accept and then we go with it from there.
I think the hive makes a lot more sense if it can only access the current memories of people that are alive. It just figures out who has the knowledge they’re seeking and pulls it when needed. I think having it access the memory of dead people like Helen is kind of a cheat and less interesting.
I don’t think they have Helen’s memories. I think they have memories of her memories. In the moments she was connected, there were literally billions of minds communicating with each other, and they “saw” her memories, over and over again. Like a billion people watching a movie - even if the film is destroyed afterwards, between the billion of the watchers, they will have memories of the whole movie.
As for where the “group” memories are stored, I think they’re dispersed throughout, in bits and pieces, with plenty of replication, so losing a few individuals, or even a few million, has no appreciable effect.
Yeah as stated differently above, RAIB for vital information, spread out over many brains in multiple copies. Even if other memories need be deleted to make space.
Who’s to say they are keeping all of these second hand memories organically? They still have access to the world’s database systems…and pens and paper.
If (and it is still very much an if) memory retention is limited and/or selective, who’s to say they care about keeping everyone’s extra memories around, anymore than keeping the lights on in cities they have abandoned?
Under such a scheme, I would nevertheless expect them to keep Helen’s memories around at least until they have assimilated Carol. Helen’s memories would be some of the best information they have on Carol, who right now is an existential threats to them (as if every other unjoined human, even the ones who are ostensibly happy with their current situation or even looking forward to assimilation).
ETA: But on a completely random and unrelated thought, I do wonder what they did to the President and his minions. They indicated he wasn’t around/available. I don’t remember the exact words they used, but I took them to mean he successfully isolated himself with some key staff and security when the military learned of the infection (thus pushing up the timeline), and they felt compelled to terminate his presidency. Terminate with extreme prejudice. But now we have come to understand that’s not an option for them. Or so they say.
The exact quote, since it seems to come up again and again:
“Can I talk to the President?”
“That individual passed away this evening, unfortunately. Along with quite a few senior members of the United States government. Davis Taffler happened to be nearby and intact. And he was wearing a suit. So…”
It’s hard to imagine a scenario where the hive mind would’ve had to kill most of the senior members of government rather than simply infect them. On the other hand it seems like an odd offhanded comment to make by Taffler if it’s not a plot point. Maybe the senior government got wind of what was happening and went into a bunker to avoid infection, and the hive mind had to kill them?
I think the show has made it pretty clear that the joined can’t lie (expect by omission) and we have to take that at face value. Per Zosi, “We can’t purposely end life.” The 800 million killed during the joining were from falls, car crashes, fires, etc. Remember that during Carol’s first freak out, the seizure period was a lot shorter but another 11 million still died.
That’s true, it seems logically like there probably wasn’t some sort of plot to kill the senior government. And we even specifically saw the VC-25 used as air force one, so you can’t explain it as being an AF1 crash either (although technically there are multiple VC-25s that serve that purpose and I suppose that could be a backup, that’s really splitting hairs and seems like a very unlikely plot line). But it seems odd that Taffler would specifically mention that many of the senior government officials died without it being some sort of plot point. We’re probably overanalyzing this because we expect a lot from Vince Gilligan.
Yeah. I think it was specifically mentioned because … funny. The individual who had occupied this body was a relatively minor official but was handy and was wearing a suit. And the higher officials’ bodies are no longer living. So he will mouthpiece to you for us. In his suit.
Here’s a theory. The President and other higher ups (and their security) were already infected and were murdered by the normies who became wise to the infection. This is what precipitated the mass airborne spread of the virus.