Toshiro said:
hijacking or disrupting this communication network might prove nearly impossible
This terminology (nearly impossible, almost invincible, etc) is quite frowned upon in submissions. Say it is extremely difficult, but please avoid this particular wording.
Will fix.
Toshiro said:
and some of the more recent have a small STL capability (often Subspace), limited to between 1 and 3 light years.
Do you mean FTL here?
Yeah, FTL. Thanks for pointing it out, sorry.
Toshiro said:
And every time anyone learns something that is new to said body of knowledge, he adds it to the database, for the benefit of all.
This was in regard to collective memory...is this automatically done, or do Freespacers stop and intentionally update their wiki pages manually? Please elaborate.
It's not automatically done, because not everything is important or relevant. But it's sorta semi-automatic.
It's really just like when your brain decides what to upload from short-term memory to long-term memory and what not to. It's one part conscious choice and one part automatic brain procedure.
Toshiro said:
During the scarce few hours of sleep that a Freespacer enjoys, while his body rests, his mind is temporarily put aside (in a virtual reality) as his brain's computational power is made available to Polysentience.
Hence, a Freespacer's “dreams” are actually recreational activities played by his conscious mind, while the bulk of his brain is kept busy processing everyone else's information. Not a single moment goes wasted.
How does this effect the Freespacer's perception and cognitive faculties in the dream? Does it dull or just operate slower due to the lesser resources available? Also the Freespacer aware of what his mind is being used for and can he decline to give up resources if he knows they will be needed soon?
Well, when a Freespacer is sleeping, he's sleeping. Their sleep is far deeper than a human, and it's harder to wake them up by force (you'd need the classic bucket of water, probably), because their brain is actually busy doing something else and their conscious mind is fooling around in a digital realm far more realistic than any human dream.
Freespacers who think they might need their resources soon might refuse to let others use their brainpower. Personal use is usually granted a higher priority then external use.
Of course, if for some reason their brainpower is needed for something incredibly important, then the 'spacer will usually offer their brainpower "for the common good" anyway, despite their personal needs.
Toshiro said:
Even if a starship would get cut in two, the two pieces would not only still work, but be able to coordinate their efforts as if nothing happened.
I find this very hard to believe unless redundant systems were placed in both halves of the ship to make it operate if cut in half.
Yeah, it's exactly how it's supposed to work. Freespacers use little or no high-energy techs at all (shields, for example) because using low-cost, low-tech, easily replaceable systems is the only way to have such sturdy ships.
Toshiro said:
Individual Freespacers, while they still retain their individuality, are so acutely aware of “society” as a whole that they identify themselves more with the Free State than they do with themselves.
Reincanration procedures, the ascetic style of Freespacer life, and the effectiveness of Polysentience communications enhance this sentiment: When one Freespacer has the dozens, sometimes hundreds of previous incarnations in him, and can access the mind and memories of everyone else in the Free State, he has an higher opinion of the common collective than he has of himself. After all, he, as an individual, comes and goes, while the Free State endures.
In many ways, Polysentience and the Free State as a whole are remarkably similar to a single, titanic intelligent creature. Every single part of this creature works for the good of the creature itself, much like every single organ of the human body contributes to the well-being of the body as a whole.
Or, to make another example, Freespacers take on the role of individual neurons in a brain, and that brain is Polysentience. Just like a brain hosts (and not merely “is”) a mind, this composite “brain” hosts its own “mind”.
This structure (Polysentience as a sapient mind formed by the holistic union of many lesser sapient minds) is sometimes called “the Overmind” by Freespacer sociologists.
In spite of the comments to the contrary in this thread, this sounds alarmingly like what Andrew was concerned about. While everyone maintains their individuality in theory...it is all too easy to lose themselves in the hive mind and simply become an extension of the mind's will, especially if they rank the State above themselves.
Like Jes said, it just means that Freespacers are... well, they're communists. And the main difference between them and real-life communism is that their particular brand of communism WORKS.
It works because people actually care for each other, and actually believe in the greater good. This couldn't be possible without Polysentience and its gift of "social awareness".
The point is that the Overmind isn't some kind of external mind that dominates individual Freespacer minds. It's not hierarchical or top-down. It's bottom-up: it's the individual choices and reactions of every single freespacer that make up the Overmind.
Try and think it like Democracy: suppose that every American citizen is called to the ballot box to decide whether, let's say, to invest in research for non-fossil fuels.
Suppose that the majority of American citizens vote in favor of the research. Now you could say that "America wants to research non-fossile fuels".
Now, "America" is not a person: it's an abstraction. But, in this case, this sentence is an expression of a democratic choice of its citizens.
Single citizens could be pro-research or against it, but now America as a country is in favor of it, and this means that every citizen must accept this.
This is not a choice that "America" made and then imposed on its citizens, but a choice the citizens made and, since the total sum of all American citizens IS "America", is also "America"'s choice.
It's a lot like that, really. It's not an invasive hive mind but more like a supreme expression of democracy, where the citizens decide for the state up to a point where there is a "will of the state", that is simply the sum of all the individual wills of its citizens.