h a l f b a k e r yBreakfast of runners-up.
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The problem with all these "hive mind" notions is memory. Humans store memory in changes between specific synapses, that are always connected across specific axons. When you're talking about a cluster of small organisms, their neural nets only extend as far as their teeny brains, then you have these really huge 'synapses' composed of air between each organism. Unfortunately, air isn't a good memory storage medium, and for there to be persistent storage, each fly or bee or whatever would have to 'remember' a specific other fly to transmit to or receive from. |
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So, in order for your idea of integrating a bunch of insect brains into a much larger neural net to work, you'd have to solve the persistent interconnect problem between specific bugs. Also, the usual serial information transfer across air is much slower than axon depolarization and suffers from high error rate and low bandwidth. The signals of hundreds of thousands of neurons have to be boiled down to a thin serial stream of air vibrations, then reconstructed into hundreds of thousands of neuron firing patterns on the other side. |
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It's this bandwidth bottleneck, by the way, that produces our own sense of individuality. |
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Suggested reading: Godel Esher Bach. I believe it is the tortoise who has enlightened conversation and smalltalk with an ant colony. |
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//It's this bandwidth bottleneck// blue-bottle neck, in this case. |
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Greg Bear's memorable Slant features an AI based on a neural network of insects, including a reset mechanism consisting primarily of Raid. |
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His previous book, Queen of Angels, includes as an aside the idea that bacteria are really vast amorphous intelligences, slowly communicating through viruses. |
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Allow me to introduce my good friend, Paragraph. He doesn't seem like much, but if you have him on your side, everything you write looks better. |
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Indeed, letters form words, words make sentences, sentences make paragraphs. Paragraphs make books, pamphlets, ideas on the halfbakery and whatnot. In a sense, words communicate with following words to create a wider meaning in the paragraph. Good anno [voice]! Go memes! |
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