I remember reading a book once, some of you will probably recognize the
story. It's a bit old and both the title and author escape me at the
moment. But I think it was published in the 50s or 60s, possibly the 70s
and most certainly before the 1980s. The premise of the book was that a
huge "gas cloud" of some sort (it may have been described as a nebula) was
heading towards Earth's general direction and threatened to extinguish all
life by blocking out the sun. At some point during the course of the
story, it was found that the cloud possessed some sort of "intelligence",
but they couldn't figure out if it were a community of individuals or one
single large organism. They decided that with the way internal
communication would transpire within the cloud, they would communicate so
rapidly that even if they were individuals, they would be virtually
indistinguishable from one gigantic organism. By the end of the book, the
"cloud mind" had somehow become aware of humanity's presence, and settled
into an orbit around the sun that only blocked sunlight for a portion of
the year and not all of it. I don't recall why the cloud moved away from
its native star or any of those details, I was unable to find any useful
information on this book from Google.

I remember reading a book once, some of you will probably recognize the story.
It's a bit old and both the title and author escape me at the moment. But I
think it was published in the 50s or 60s, possibly the 70s and most certainly
before the 1980s. The premise of the book was that a huge "gas cloud" of some
sort (it may have been described as a nebula) was heading towards Earth's
general direction and threatened to extinguish all life by blocking out the sun.
At some point during the course of the story, it was found that the cloud
possessed some sort of "intelligence", but they couldn't figure out if it were a
community of individuals or one single large organism. They decided that with
the way internal communication would transpire within the cloud, they would
communicate so rapidly that even if they were individuals, they would be
virtually indistinguishable from one gigantic organism. By the end of the book,
the "cloud mind" had somehow become aware of humanity's presence, and settled
into an orbit around the sun that only blocked sunlight for a portion of the
year and not all of it. I don't recall why the cloud moved away from its native
star or any of those details, I was unable to find any useful information on
this book from Google.

In any event, the connection to my present thought stream is this: At what
point does one cease functioning as an individual, and begin functioning as part
of a larger whole? Judging by the pace of our technology, humanity is heading
there fast. We are becoming interconnected to a degree undreampt of in the
past. It's not the least bit unlikely that eventually, for all practical
intents and purposes, any one of us will be able to send out any thought or idea
or signal at all that we want to send out, and it can be received by anyone else
on the planet, possibly even off the planet by that time. With such
interconnectedness, will it still make sense to think of ourselves as individual
human beings? As the rapidity of our ability to exchange thoughts and ideas
with each other increases, there isn't going to be much difference between an
exchange among a group of people and an exchange among a group of nerve cells.
Information is information, regardless of the complexity of it, it's still what
drives intelligent processes forward. A nerve cell telling another nerve cell
that, for instance, "the big toe just hit the corner of the bed and would you
mind telling the brain to instruct the lips to say '@(&@#$@#$@#^%&%@!!!!'?",
isn't all that different from a receptionist telling her boss that the finance
department is reporting a net loss this year and he's going to need to whip the
workers into shape if productivity is to increase. The only real difference is
the shape of the cluster of atoms involved in the exchange.

Humans are connected in ways we've never been before. I sit at my terminal now
and can almost tangibly feel the connection with the rest of the
Internet-endowed world. It doesn't seem so far away that the Internet is
eventually going to become a public, freely accessible thing the world over.
That it's going to be available to anyone to connect to for free, that all
they'll have to do is buy their own equipment and perhaps pay higher taxes to
pay for its maintenance.

As an increasing number of people become so deeply interconnected - 24/7
accessibility to each other from anywhere to anywhere - we are going to at some
point experience a critical shift in social momentum. I don't think we're going
to be a "group mind" exactly, but a very complex, multi-faceted "macro organism"
of sorts, something which in some areas of the world and life in general, we
already are. Rather than being individual humans, we'll be in clusters of
humans acting as a united whole in what can only really be called a
"macro-human".

I don't know if my speculations have any real merit, though I'm sure that in the
near term, this sort of thing isn't even a possibility yet. It just seems to be
the direction in which human civilization as a whole is heading. Even if this
turns out to be correct, at that point any given human would still be able to
extricate themselves from the "cluster" and experience life as an individual.
But after decades or centuries of becoming habituated to such deeply
interconnected relationships with each other, at some point some "individual"
humans are no longer going to be viable outside of their group. At that point,
I'd say, their group would qualify as what I'd call a "macro human". Individual
consciousness wouldn't necessarily have to be lost, but communication among
"cluster" members would occur so rapidly that the entire group together would to
all appearances be acting as a unified whole. To the individuals themselves, it
might appear to be a very different thing. But then again, I doubt our own
bodily cells - were they conscious - would see themselves in terms of their
relationship to the whole, either. They know what they have to do, they know
the area around them, and that's all they need. But put all of these cells
together, and wallah! An awareness completely independant of any individual
cell emerges. Would a similar self-awareness emerge in a macro-human? Would it
perhaps be a kind of "macro awareness" of which we can't even begin to conceive?

I don't know if I've been able to properly convey my notions on this matter or
not. I hope so, because the concept and all its possibilities is a fascinating
one to me. It seems akin to the difference between a single-celled organism and
a multi-celled organism. This would be more like a single-organism being and a
multi-organism being, I suppose one could say.

Anyway, just some thoughts. Merci pour votre attention!

I remember reading a book once, some of you will probably recognize the
story.
It's a bit old and both the title and author escape me at the moment. But
I think it was published in the 50s or 60s, possibly the 70s and most
certainly
before the 1980s. The premise of the book was that a huge "gas cloud" of
some sort (it may have been described as a nebula) was heading towards
Earth's general direction and threatened to extinguish all life by
blocking out the sun. At some point during the course of the story, it was
found that the cloud possessed some sort of "intelligence", but they
couldn't figure out if it were a
community of individuals or one single large organism.

with the way internal communication would transpire within the cloud, they
would communicate so rapidly that even if they were individuals, they
would be
virtually indistinguishable from one gigantic organism. By the end of the
book, the "cloud mind" had somehow become aware of humanity's presence,
and settled into an orbit around the sun that only blocked sunlight for a
portion of the
year and not all of it. I don't recall why the cloud moved away from its
native star or any of those details, I was unable to find any useful
information on this book from Google.

In any event, the connection to my present thought stream is this: At
what point does one cease functioning as an individual, and begin
functioning as part
of a larger whole? Judging by the pace of our technology, humanity is
heading
there fast. We are becoming interconnected to a degree undreampt of in
the
past. It's not the least bit unlikely that eventually, for all practical
intents and purposes, any one of us will be able to send out any thought
or idea or signal at all that we want to send out, and it can be received
by anyone else
on the planet, possibly even off the planet by that time. With such
interconnectedness, will it still make sense to think of ourselves as
individual
human beings? As the rapidity of our ability to exchange thoughts and
ideas with each other increases, there isn't going to be much difference
between an exchange among a group of people and an exchange among a group
of nerve cells. Information is information, regardless of the complexity
of it, it's still what
drives intelligent processes forward. A nerve cell telling another nerve
cell that, for instance, "the big toe just hit the corner of the bed and
would you mind telling the brain to instruct the lips to say
'@(&@#$@#$@#^%&%@!!!!'?", isn't all that different from a receptionist
telling her boss that the finance department is reporting a net loss this
year and he's going to need to whip the
workers into shape if productivity is to increase. The only real
difference is the shape of the cluster of atoms involved in the exchange.

Humans are connected in ways we've never been before. I sit at my
terminal now and can almost tangibly feel the connection with the rest of
the
Internet-endowed world. It doesn't seem so far away that the Internet is
eventually going to become a public, freely accessible thing the world
over. That it's going to be available to anyone to connect to for free,
that all they'll have to do is buy their own equipment and perhaps pay
higher taxes to pay for its maintenance.

As an increasing number of people become so deeply interconnected - 24/7
accessibility to each other from anywhere to anywhere - we are going to at
some
point experience a critical shift in social momentum. I don't think we're
going to be a "group mind" exactly, but a very complex, multi-faceted
"macro organism" of sorts, something which in some areas of the world and
life in general, we
already are. Rather than being individual humans, we'll be in clusters of
humans acting as a united whole in what can only really be called a
"macro-human".

I don't know if my speculations have any real merit, though I'm sure that
in the
near term, this sort of thing isn't even a possibility yet. It just seems
to be
the direction in which human civilization as a whole is heading. Even if
this turns out to be correct, at that point any given human would still be
able to extricate themselves from the "cluster" and experience life as an
individual. But after decades or centuries of becoming habituated to such
deeply interconnected relationships with each other, at some point some
"individual"
humans are no longer going to be viable outside of their group. At that
point,
I'd say, their group would qualify as what I'd call a "macro human".
Individual consciousness wouldn't necessarily have to be lost, but
communication among "cluster" members would occur so rapidly that the
entire group together would to
all appearances be acting as a unified whole. To the individuals
themselves, it
might appear to be a very different thing. But then again, I doubt our
own bodily cells - were they conscious - would see themselves in terms of
their
relationship to the whole, either. They know what they have to do, they
know
the area around them, and that's all they need. But put all of these
cells
together, and wallah! An awareness completely independant of any
individual
cell emerges. Would a similar self-awareness emerge in a macro-human?
Would it perhaps be a kind of "macro awareness" of which we can't even
begin to conceive?

I don't know if I've been able to properly convey my notions on this
matter or
not. I hope so, because the concept and all its possibilities is a
fascinating
one to me. It seems akin to the difference between a single-celled
organism and
a multi-celled organism. This would be more like a single-organism being
and a multi-organism being, I suppose one could say.

Anyway, just some thoughts. Merci pour votre attention!