Conciousness As Hive Mind - Building Intelligence

Ok try and follow...

I remember watching a program about evolution and unicellular and multicellular organisms. Basically, there was the idea that some organisms formed such a strong symbiotic relationship that over time they became one organism. Based on this and the hive mind concept I have two ideas.

First, what if our conciousness is fragmented by the cell differentiation in our bodies? Obviously there is a leader mind - the concious mind that we recognize as our own. But I think that the specialized cells in all parts of our bodies contribute to that conciousness. Imagine on a cellular level that the cells come by some irritant. Each cell reacts to it, but it is only when enough cells react to it that we become aware of it or annoyed enough to do anything about it. Now bring this concept from this small case and apply it to all specialized cells in the body. How do you feel? I feel hot (skin) and my eyes itch (eye tissue) and I have a sore throat. Our idea of conciousness is defined by our cells other than our brain. What is more, what if things like disease and cancer are simply reactions to get the attention of the head conciousness? We can see that many things happen chemically in the body and we have drugs to relieve pain, but there are no universal cures or theories about the human body such as I am presenting here. What if disease is at it's core simply a way to notify us of trouble?

Second, the idea of conciousness building on each other by process of symbiosis might be a good idea for creating an AI. Create a model where there are a limited amount of resources and there are programs competing for those resources in different amounts. Somehow have rules set for replication of programs and the need for survival in memory (i.e. the system will not crash so programs will be exterminated). What could happen is that the naturally stronger programs could incorporate or protect the other programs, making them stronger as a whole. It is a little far fetched, but an idea.

i c wat u mean...

Hmm, interesting points you raise. Your first point about the distributed consciousness of our bodies: in my view, there is a difference between all our cells having consciousness, and all our cells working together as part of an organised system. My opinion is that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain. The brain is responsible for regulating our bodies, including directing things to be put right when they go wrong. In order to help it with its job, we have the peripheral nervous system which sends signals to and from the other parts of our body.

So if I feel hot, and my eyes itch, it means that the sensors in my skin and in my eyes are sending signals to my brain, which my brain interprets as there being something not quite right in those areas. I don't believe that my skin cells are wilfully communicating this fact to my brain; in other words, I don't think they are conscious. Likewise, I don't believe my knee is conscious when it gets tapped by a hammer and sends my foot flying into the doctor's groin. I think it's simply that we have evolved to have these connections because they're useful for our survival.

So I don't think that the human body is a collective consciousness in itself; but your second idea about a hive mind of AI sounds more plausible to me. I don't know whether you're aware of it but your description of a collection of programs competing for resources is very similar to genetic algorithms. Genetic algorithms model evolution by putting a collection of programs in a setting with limited resources and letting them replicate and mutate. Just like in real life, it's survival of the fittest, and gradually you see the programs evolve and get better and better at what they're supposed to do.

Similarly there have been plenty of artificial life experiments involving the simulation of ant colonies in order to solve problems; these may be a form of hive minds. So I don't think your idea is far fetched, I'm sure if you don't implement it, someone will soon.

About the reflexes and conciousness of cells...

Ok, conciousness may be a strong word. If you're coming from the idea that specialized cells in the body may possibly have not always been our own and that each one has different behaviors ... I don't know. I guess I just liked the idea of community within a single organism. Like though our minds dominate, our bodies can rebel and the differentiated cells compete for attention from the brain. I guess in this context, "listening" to your body more could help keep those cells healthy? Not sure ... just hit me hard when I thought of it.

I have heard of systems simulating the AI scenario I described, but it was more survival of the fittest than true AI development. I believe it involved people creating their own "fish" with certain traits and these fish would compete for food, space, and survival and there was also the "random" aspect of species mating so the system would introduce variants of the originals. After writing my last post, it sounded like a great organic OS. The most efficient wins out - although the most efficient may be locking the keyboard so I can't run my games. :)