I recently finished watching all nine episodes of the first season of “Pluribus”, the new hit show on Apple TV, helmed by Vince Gilligan of “Breaking Bad” fame. I quite enjoyed it, but I do have some thoughts.
Before I go any further, this post contains a banal spoiler for the show: its premise, which is, of course, revealed in the very first episode. If you don’t want this essential fact spoiled and you intend to watch the show eventually, stop reading here.
Cool?
Okay, you were warned. If you don’t know, the premise of the show is that, through some unspecified alien technomagic, the entire human race is transformed into a hive mind, linked via an invisible psychic tether, sharing everyone’s memories, and adhering to a single species agenda. Everyone, that is, except for a dozen people, including our protagonist, a curmudgeonly author.
The show does a fine job of exploring the implications of being a shared global mind, and adds some interesting behavioural dynamics (which I will not spoil). Even so, I’m disappointed that our protagonist isn’t shown asking the hive mind some rather pressing questions.
In this post, I will list the questions I would like to ask such a mind. Here goes:
- What of the humans who were depressed and/or suicidal? Are they now cured by virtue of seeing all perspectives instantaneously?
- How is entertainment derived? Fiction, for example, would be impossible to enjoy since all narratives would be instantly known.
- Similarly, is art dead, since every creative mind produces a thought which is instantly processed and understood by every possible audience member?
- Does mental illness still exist? If so, it suggests something ultimately failing about psychotherapy, since a shared mind is the ultimate therapist.
- What about dementia? Is everyone now able to perceive the world through its demented residents, or are the dementia-afflicted immediately cured because they can perceive the world through non-dementia filters?
- You have access to all near-death experiences. Do you have a consensus on the nature of death, and is there still fear of it?
- Is there still sexual desire? If so, how does that work, since the desired and the desirer are now the same mind?
- Do sexual orientation and gender identity still exist?
- If everyone shares the same intellect, mood, and agenda, does this not represent stagnation? How can there be innovation and intellectual progress without diversity of thought and perspective?
- Since the joining was made possible by alien intervention, is the hive mind connected to non-human minds?
- What is the speed of shared thought? Is an observation made in China immediately understood by a person in Argentina, or is it limited by the speed of light?
- Is every individual simultaneously perceiving the universe through billions of sensory organs? If so, how is an individual able to navigate walking down the street while simultaneously perceiving a hundred million other streets?
- Does everyone sleep at the same time, or is sleep schedule gated by diurnal rhythms and daylight?
- Does the hive mind have a religious orientation? What are your specific beliefs? Did these beliefs come about by negotiating several billion beliefs, or were they conferred by the aliens who created the joining?
- Is there still a need for privacy? If not, why are clothes still worn, and how do trips to the toilet work?
- Is all culture now dead? Does the world have a monoculture?
- Clearly, workers are still maintaining the infrastructure of civilization. But what about discovery? Are some individuals still tasked with general R&D, beyond the specific needs of the agendas expressed in the show?
- What special kind of hell are babies experiencing? They have tiny, useless bodies, but the knowledge and intellect of a superconsciousness. How are they not all insane?
- Speaking of babies, is there an enterprise to produce more humans?
- Without giving more spoilers, the ethical challenge faced by the hive mind is akin to the philosophical challenges faced by Jains and similar schools of thought dedicated to extreme nonviolence. In some Jain stories, the most ethical thing one can do is to sit down and starve oneself to death to avoid taking any life, however microscopic. Is this a temptation of the hive mind, as well?
- Does the hive dream? If so, do all its members share the same dream?
- Is the supposition that consciousness must therefore be nonlocal, given that it is how shared wirelessly across multiple brains?
- Given nonlocal consciousness, does a deceased member cease entirely to contribute conscious thought to the hive, or does some contribution linger via an undefined nonlocal space?
- What emotion best describes the prospect of being reverted from the hive back to individuality? Is it terror?
- To the best of your knowledge, is the means of wireless mind connection a physical kind of communication, perhaps via electromagnetic waves, or linkage via an unseen medium beyond this layer or reality? Or is it something else?
- Human memory is not perfect, and recall is not instantaneous. Is this true for the hive mind, as well?
- Is the mind connection ever broken? If so, when does it happen?
- Does intoxication or consciousness impairment affect an individual’s ability to participate in the hive mind?
- You can now perceive the sum total of human behaviour and intent. In your opinion, then, is the human animal on balance “good” or “evil”?
- Are comatose people included in the hive mind? What about the profoundly hydrocephalic or mentally impaired? In other words, what is the threshold of human intellect and consciousness to warrant inclusion?
What about you? What questions would you ask the hive mind?
