The difference in “level/depth of consciousness” between Minds and humans is an interesting one, because the scale matters a lot. I say forget parrots and take

The difference in “level/depth of consciousness” between Minds and humans is an interesting one, because the scale matters a lot. I say forget parrots and take it even further. Culture Orbitals are IIRC run by a single Mind, and contain tens of billions of humans. At that point, this analogy becomes plausible: “a mind is to a human as a human is to a yeast cell.” The name itself, “The Culture,” might be a sly reference to how we think of microscopic colonies! Minds think on the order of nanoseconds or picoseconds too, fast enough for the distinction to be meaningless to me. That enables them to relate to humans with a vast timescale difference, perhaps on the order of (as a sibling suggested) a human managing a lawn, only with a full 3D (and x-ray and infrared and etc) view of each grass blade at all times. And the manager doesn’t have to sleep or generally spend more energy than raising a single arm-hair to attend to even the most troublesome specimens 99.999% of the time. It’s a hard thing to comprehend, because in the novels the Minds are so engaged with individual humans: offering advice, presenting opportunities and options. If I carry the analogy through, we do the same thing by using probiotics, sanitary practices, etc. To a yeast cell, a sudden influx of sugar might look like a Mind’s sage advice does to a human seeking fulfillment. Heady stuff.