There is a relationship between individual and collective activities such that we could translate concepts for individuals—such as autonomy, identity, and responsibility—to groups and collectives.
A “collective mind” can be defined as “a network of two or more individuals who are sensing, thinking, and/or making decisions together in real time.”
New and emerging technologies for collective thinking and action prompt us to ask if there’s yet another paradigm shift looming in the near future, in the realm of technologically supported collectivity.
We can anticipate an emerging category of technology, namely Brain-Computer-Brain Interfaces (BCBIs) where the computer component functions not only as a mediator between humans—as in BBI—nor as a cognitive extension tool of a person, but as a “co-thinker” of sorts, organizing, optimizing, and potentially adding content to multi-person interfaces.
We can conceive of two sub-categories of MacroMinds: (1) weak MacroMinds, which are collaborative interfaces between two or more individuals, and (2) strong MacroMinds which are intimate interfaces giving rise to a (new) joint entity.
We can begin to see how the emergence of technologies for collective thought, sensation, and action gives rise to a spectrum of more or less complex conceptual agent compounds.
The more we move from indirect and unidirectional towards direct and multidirectional tools, the more muddled our sense of identity, agency, and responsibility seems to become.
Collective intentionality presupposes a background sense of the other as a candidate for cooperative agency; that is, it presupposes a sense of others as more than mere conscious agents, indeed as actual or potential members of a cooperative activity.
What distinguishes a smaller neural network (single-brain) from what is essentially a larger neural network (multi-brain) in such a way that adoption of individualist concepts of autonomy, responsibility, privacy, etc., seem to be appropriate in the former case but not in the latter.
A hivemind society may be desirable for a number of reasons, including that such a society would increase the goods of intimacy and goal achievement, and that it would free us from the chains of individualism.
A Collective Mind is a network of two or more individuals who are sensing, thinking, and/or making decisions in real time.
We should conceptualize UniMinds as just that: united minds, merged into one network where the interface is in principle little different than an artificial brainstem, essentially connecting multiple (at least three) hemispheres so that they function as one joint organism.
We are faced with the challenge of conceptually containing the identity of a MacroMind: under what conditions does a MacroMind keep its identity over time? How many (and which) constituents can be removed, added, or changed whilst maintaining the identity of a MacroMind?
What we are likely to see in the coming years is the emergence of technologies of collective minds which do not easily lend themselves to be clearly boxed into any of these four categories, under descriptions such as “Cloudminds,” “Mindplexes,” or “Decentralized Selves.”