A group mind, group ego, mind coalescence, or gestalt intelligence in
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
is a
plot device
A plot device or plot mechanism
is any technique in a narrative used to move the plot forward. A clichéd plot device may annoy the reader and a contrived or arbitrary device may confuse the reader, causing a loss of the suspension of disbelie ...
in which multiple minds, or consciousnesses, are linked into a single, collective consciousness or
intelligence
Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can b ...
The First Men in the Moon
''The First Men in the Moon'' is a scientific romance by the English author H. G. Wells, originally serialised in '' The Strand Magazine'' from December 1900 to August 1901 and published in hardcover in 1901, who called it one of his "fantast ...
'' (1901) while the use of human hive minds in literature goes back at least as far as
David H. Keller
David Henry Keller (December 23, 1880 – July 13, 1966) was an American writer who worked for pulp magazines in the mid-twentieth century, in the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres. He was also a psychiatrist and physician to shell- ...
's ''The Human Termites'' (published in
Wonder Stories
''Wonder Stories'' was an early American science fiction magazine which was published under several titles from 1929 to 1955. It was founded by Hugo Gernsback in 1929 after he had lost control of his first science fiction magazine, ''Amazing Stor ...
in 1929) and
Olaf Stapledon
William Olaf Stapledon (10 May 1886 – 6 September 1950) – known as Olaf Stapledon – was a British philosopher and author of science fiction.Andy Sawyer, " illiamOlaf Stapledon (1886-1950)", in Bould, Mark, et al, eds. ''Fifty Key Figures ...
's science fiction novel ''
Last and First Men
''Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future'' is a "future history" science fiction novel written in 1930 by the British author Olaf Stapledon. A work of unprecedented scale in the genre, it describes the history of humanity from t ...
'' (1930), which is the first known use of the term "group mind" in science fiction. The use of the phrase "hive mind", however, was first recorded in 1943 in use in bee keeping and its first known use in sci-fi was James H. Schmitz's ''Second Night of Summer'' (1950). A group mind might be formed by any fictional plot device that facilitates brain to brain communication, such as telepathy.
This term may be used interchangeably with hive mind. "Hive mind" tends to describe a group mind in which the linked individuals have no
identity
Identity may refer to:
* Identity document
* Identity (philosophy)
* Identity (social science)
* Identity (mathematics)
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''Identity'' (1987 film), an Iranian film
* ''Identity'' (2003 film), ...
or
free will
Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded.
Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and other judgements which apply only to actio ...
and are
possessed
Possessed may refer to:
Possession
* Possession (disambiguation), having some degree of control over something else
** Spirit possession, whereby gods, demons, animas, or other disincarnate entities may temporarily take control of a human body
*** ...
or
mind-control
Brainwashing (also known as mind control, menticide, coercive persuasion, thought control, thought reform, and forced re-education) is the concept that the human mind can be altered or controlled by certain psychological techniques. Brainwash ...
led as extensions of the hive mind. It is frequently associated with the concept of an entity that spreads among individuals and suppresses or subsumes their
consciousness
Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...
in the process of integrating them into its own collective consciousness. The concept of the group or hive mind is an intelligent version of real-life
superorganism
A superorganism or supraorganism is a group of synergetically interacting organisms of the same species. A community of synergetically interacting organisms of different species is called a holobiont.
Concept
The term superorganism is used m ...
s such as a
beehive
A beehive is an enclosed structure in which some honey bee species of the subgenus '' Apis'' live and raise their young. Though the word ''beehive'' is commonly used to describe the nest of any bee colony, scientific and professional literature ...
or an
ant colony
An ant colony is a population of a single ant species capable to maintain its complete lifecycle. Ant colonies are eusocial, communal, and efficiently organized and are very much like those found in other social Hymenoptera, though the vario ...
.
Some hive minds feature members that are controlled by a centralised "hive brain" or "hive queen" while others feature a decentralised approach where members interact equally or roughly equally to come to decisions. Hive minds are typically viewed in a negative light, especially in earlier works, though some newer works portray them as neutral or positive.
As conceived in speculative fiction, hive minds often imply (almost) complete loss (or lack) of
individual
An individual is that which exists as a distinct entity. Individuality (or self-hood) is the state or quality of being an individual; particularly (in the case of humans) of being a person unique from other people and possessing one's own Maslow ...
ity,
identity
Identity may refer to:
* Identity document
* Identity (philosophy)
* Identity (social science)
* Identity (mathematics)
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''Identity'' (1987 film), an Iranian film
* ''Identity'' (2003 film), ...
, and
personhood
Personhood or personality is the status of being a person. Defining personhood is a controversial topic in philosophy and law and is closely tied with legal and political concepts of citizenship, equality, and liberty. According to law, only a l ...
. The individuals forming the hive may specialize in different functions, similarly to
social insect
Eusociality (from Greek εὖ ''eu'' "good" and social), the highest level of organization of sociality, is defined by the following characteristics: cooperative brood care (including care of offspring from other individuals), overlapping generat ...
s.
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See also
*
Deindividuation
Deindividuation is a concept in social psychology that is generally thought of as the loss of self-awareness in groups, although this is a matter of contention (see below). For the social psychologist, the level of analysis is the individual in th ...
*
Global brain
The global brain is a neuroscience-inspired and futurological vision of the planetary information and communications technology network that interconnects all humans and their technological artifacts. As this network stores ever more information, t ...