Science Fiction
Dictionary Latest By
"There's a poetry in the materials we use to construct our world of artifacts; it speaks of our long history as a technological species."
|
Here is the ring-table in action:
"Good God!" I muttered at that astounding spectacle. "That globe of metal, Marlin — it hears him, answers him! The thing must be alive!"
"Not alive. Hunt," Marlin said swiftly, his own eyes startled, though. "Those conncctions that run from the thirty to the globe — they center in that globe's mechanism in some way the minds, the intelligence, of all the thirty!"
Swift light Hashed upon me at Marlin's words, and as I gazed astonished toward the thirty Neptunians and the central globe I knew that Marlin's explanation was the only logical one. Tnese thirty Neptunians, it was apparent, were the supreme rulers, the highest council, of all the Neptunian race. And since it was necessary that they use all of their differing minds as one in directing ±he destinies of their strange race, they had in some way devised a mechanism for that purpose, which synthesized the intelligence, the minds, of the thirty into one single mind by means of that strange mechanism. So that it was literally as one mind that the thirty perceived and thought, when gathered here together, the central globe speaking out the synthesized thoughts and questions of all the thirty!
Other examples of group minds (a version of the hive mind idea) can be found in the group ego from Methuselah's Children (1941) by Robert Heinlein and in Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke. See the entry for hive mind from Face of the Deep (1942) by Edmond Hamilton, probably the first use of the phrase.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
resources:
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
Athena Smart Security Guard Robot With Face Recognition
'You are who we say you are, Dr. Dakin,' Turner said.'
The FLUTE Project - A Huge Liquid Mirror In Space
'It's area, and its consequent light-gathering capacity, was many times greater than any rigid mirror...'
Robot Preachers Found To Undermine Religious Commitment
'Tell me your torments,' the Padre said, in an elderly voice marked with compassion.
SpaceHopper Microgravity Robot Lands On Its Feet
'...a slender-legged tripod surmounted by a spherical body no larger than a football.'
Brin's 1990 Novel Earth Still Full Of Predictions
'... making the point that their likenesses, every move they made, were being transmitted.'
Gaia - Why Stop With Just The Earth?
'But the stars are only atoms in larger space, and in that larger space the star-atoms could combine to form living matter, thinking matter, couldn't they?'
Microsoft VASA-1 Creates Personal Video From A Photo
'...to build up a video picture would require, say, ten million decisions every second. Mike, you're so fast I can't even think about it. But you aren't that fast.'
Splendid View Of Eclipse From Orbit Visualized And Repurposed By Arthur C. Clarke
'The area affected was five hundred kilometres across, and perfectly circular.'
|
Home | Glossary
| Science Fiction Timeline | Category | New | Contact
Us | FAQ | Advertise | Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™ Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved. |
||