4 ms·
Humans have achieved not just intelligence but co-operation. we are "herd" enough that the benefits of learning from others overcomes the need to be smart enou
by lifeisstillgood 5y ago
Humans have achieved not just intelligence but co-operation.
we are "herd" enough that the benefits of learning from others overcomes the need to be smart enough to work it out yourself.
But individualistic enough that we won't follow the herd all the time (we might want to improve that given the success of religion and dictators).
But what I am trying to say is that intelligence is a necessary but not sufficbet condition. We also need ... politics ... for want of a better word.
Our brains seem to be wired as levels of co-operating systems coming to collective decisions - and that is a pretty good way to describe politics and society.
Human species is less a collection of organisms feeding and dying and more a distributed brain, trying to wake up.
Now that each node has a pocket sized way to communicate with each other node, I wonder what the conditions for consciousness really are?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- winnit 5y agoHave you read Swarm by Norman Spinrad? It's a short-story which illustrates some of the points you have made by bringing an alien species that are less individually intelligent but more hive-oriented than human beings into the mix.
- bar_de 5y agoAlso the book "The Invincible" by Stanisław Lem tells a story about distributed intelligent lifeforms. Really nice as they are described in a very unique un-anthropocentric way, i.e. their rationality is hardly understandable by the space faring humans encountering them.
- rmnull 5y agoi can't seem to find the book by that title by that author. I did find a book by that title but its 800 something pages long and don't think its the title you referred to. do you mind providing a link?
- StingyJelly 5y agoI've red a short story that matches the description and the name. Took a while to remember but it was in A Science Fiction Omnibus [0], apparently it's by Bruce Sterling so could be a different story. <https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15192261W/A_Science_Fiction_Omnibus https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15192261W/A_Science_Fiction_...>
- winnit 5y agoNo, you're right - it was Bruce Sterling!
- winnit 5y agoHere's the link, it is actually by Bruce Sterling as another commenter pointed out to me. https://1lib.sk/book/4373271/0a0915 https://1lib.sk/book/4373271/0a0915
- waqf 5y agoAlso "Web" by John Wyndham.