Hello, I am writing a Sci fi/sci fantasy story which involves humans, nanobots, and war. Background: A long running war between two nations with mismatched resources. The invaders' nation: all their citizens serve in the military for 2 years. They are given nanobots (without knowledge) that take over the person's body and mind, connecting them like a hive mind (think Borg). The invadees' nation are just their people. They had a military but relied on diplomacy and trade. The invader's soldiers are highly effective given the nanobots enhance everything a body can do. They are controlled by their command via signals. The nanobots work in tandem and form a consciousness that is aware of the orders and the bodies, not as an individual, but as a part of the whole. The nanobots can't bring a body back to life, only accelerate healing. The nanobots rewrite the brain for their own use and the human loses self until one day is deleted. The bots are not evil, just doing what they were programmed to do. One of the soldiers gets captured. The soldier wakes, the nanobots' consciousness is in control; however, they don't know how to function because they are cut off from the signal. It doesn't have any protocols for escape. They were to self-destruct before capture. When the soldier wakes up again, it's the human and has no clue what is happening. He wasn't conscious the entirety of his military career. The story goes back and forth between the human and the bots. The human hates the bots and wants his body back. Only one consciousness can be in control at any time; they can't switch at will. The bots can talk to the human while in control, not vice versa. Short story long, here is my issue: the nanobots' consciousness will eventually take over as the controlling consciousness. How do I make a hive mind become aware of itself and become an individual? I have a lot of internal dialogue. The bots are all about data and the search for the information stream. The bots work as one and slowly become a consciousness that eventually thinks of itself as "I." They initially don't do anything outside of programming but have to adapt because of the loss of the information signal. Johnny Five is alive, but how? When did that happen?
I had to re-read your post several times, and I think you've got some things mixed up. That said, I'm no expert myself, so take all I'm about to tell you with a grain of salt. How to make a hive mind become aware of itself? A hive mind is collective consciousness, so it is aware of itself as just that, a network of exchanging thought. I think what you are really asking is: "How do I make the collective entities converge into a singular entity?" Much of the world is collective. Our brains are a bunch of networked neurons to form you, the consciousness. Then those neurons in themselves are coded with DNA, which is a structure of chemical compounds like Adenine encoded in a specific way to record information. And of course, Adenine is a compound because more than one type of elemental atom is linked to form it. More specifically, Adenine is Hydrogen and Nitrogen atoms. But atoms in themselves are made of three subatomic particles, neutrons, protons, electrons. And then those in themselves are structured with quarks. When you get to the level of quarks, everything is more or less the same, and has no distinction. The line between what is and what isn't starts to blur. But distinction is achieved when you start structuring things out of them. So, what I'm trying to explain is, this just goes down further and further. But the higher you go, the more complex and distinct something is. In order for a hive mind to become singular, the underlying exchanging of thought and information must become so complex that an entirely new level of conscious existence is created, which isn't at all aware of the subconscious entities behind it. Just like how we normally can't even tell that we are made of smaller parts of life. We see ourselves as one thing. And without our cognitive ability, we would never even know otherwise. But even with that, we still treat ourselves as one thing, careless for how billions of cells inside us self-destruct everyday to maintain our existence. At that point, you have potential to make the nanobot network to surpass its programming, because the programming cannot directly control the higher level of being that it has formed. This is entirely possible, as Artificial Intelligence has a similar problem. We can't actually entirely understand or control its output once it starts because it constantly learns and evolves its model into this giant puzzle that can't easily be interpreted. HOWEVER... I'm a little confused by your post, you explain that the nanobots are used to form a conscious which is just there to take orders, and is therefore not truly aware. The thing is, however, I would personally not consider it true consciousness if all it does is take orders unconditionally. That sounds more like your average everyday machine to me. The only difference is that its advanced and can hijack certain neural circuits in the brain, which certain companies have already done without making "conscious machines". There are even fungi that can do that to actual humans. Look it up! Grant it, there is no universally accepted definition of consciousness. But even a small ant sounds more conscious than those nanobots. In addition to this, I would argue that you don't have a hive mind. The nanobots, to me, seem more like the equivalent of neurons in the brain. They are really small and not that complex by themselves, they depend on each other to even function as the order-receiving circuits you described. A true hive mind would in theory be when somehow humans gain the technological ability to link their brains. Remember the levels of existence I talked about? Human brains linked together would (potentially) get us to that next levels. But neuron-like nanobots linked together to become conscious doesn't sound like it qualifies for that higher level, unless the nanobots by themselves are fully conscious. Though... you have to understand that consciousness requires an extremely complex structure, judging from us. Can you really somehow achieve that with a nanobot, which as the name implies, quite small?
It's an interesting idea. The nanobots/hive mind is a good analogy for a military organization, which literally treats individuals as expendable units in order to carry out the assigned operations. In fact it reminds me of a conversation I once had with my Vietnam vet neighbor, where I said the military operates like a socialist totalitarian state. He got really mad at me, then the next day he said I was right. So in your story the nanobots are a device allowing you to explore the dymanics of the need for an organized efficient military that disregards the needs of the sodiers as individuals. Maybe when his nanobots are cut off from the larger collective they start treating him/themselves as an 'army of one', and maybe they decide, since he is the only unit available to work with, that keeping him alive is necessary. It's as if being separated from the larger collective made them decide they are the collective, along with him, on whom they depend in a sort of parasitic or symbiotic relationship. And if he dies, they all go with him. If they see themselves as the entire collective, then his survival might become of paramount importance. This would require the nanobots to be capable of learning when not connected to command central or to the other nanos in the larger military organization. But the question is what happens if he does reconnect with the military and suddenly the nanos are connected again? Or is that now impossible? It reminds me of Asimov's Laws of Robotics stories, which are really explorations of ethical situations, since the laws of robotics are essentially our own laws of ethics, programmed into robots. He uses them to explore human ethical choices, at least to an extent. And I think that's what makes the stories interesting. If they were merely hypothetical situations about robots they wouldn't be neraly as compelling. That means you can use your story to explore the conundrum of the necessity for selfless devotion to the state vs the needs of the individual. And I suppose the choice you need to make is what bias will you take, if any? Or is it more about the examination of the issue itself, without any bias? This is what you must decide (or maybe you already have).
Oh, here's a thought—maybe the nanos are set up so normally, while in contact with the larger collective, they don't really think, they just recieve orders and act on them. But if cut off they switch into decision-making mode, where they become somewhat more self-aware, so the soldier can continue to function. They become capable of learning. That would make it somewhat similar to T2 (sequel to The Terminator), where Arnold was formerly a slave robot with no capacity for individual thought or learning, but on his second mission (to protect John Connor rather than to kill his mother) he's in learning mode, and gradually becomes more humanlike from exposure to young John. It was an interesting dynamic, because in one way the Terminator was a father figure to John, but John was teaching it how to be human. And its final act was one of self sacrifice. John's mother Sarah Connor also learned to be more human through the movie. The Terminator franchise (at least in the first two movies—the good ones) was an analogy where the Terminators represented what humans have to become in order to be efficient soldiers—they look human and are covered with a layer of flesh and skin, but inside they're killer robots. No empathy, no feelings, no vulnerability. Kyle Reece was the same thing, but the human version. His people had to strip away their humanity on the inside to become like the Terminators in order to survive in combat against them, and his body was covered with scars. This was all symbolic. He had never known love until he met Sarah. Sarah Connor began as a frivolous, very feminine and naive young woman, but had to toughen up (kill off her inner humanity and become what the Terminators symbolize) in order to raise John to be the badass leader of the revolution. This symbolism reverberates all through both movies profoundly. And it's interesting and ironic that, when he sent the Terminator back as a protector to his child-self, he removed its programming and put it in learning mode*, knowing it would become graudally more human. So it was a reversal of the theme of the first movie, where Sarah represented humans becoming more like Terminators. I love when movies and stories have this level of symbolism and thought put into them. * Or I guess they switched it to learning mode in the garage where they pulled out all the bullets from its flesh. My bad. But yeah, from that point on it became increasingly humanized. So much so that I keep wanting to say 'he'.
You got way more science-y than I wanted to explore. I wanted more of a development of character from a non-indepenant being to self aware. Thank you for replying.
Do you want the process to be natural/realistic or are you looking for a supernatural/fantasy explanation? The defining characteristic of a hive mind is that it does act as an individual. This necessitates connections between all the parts. How are the nanobots connected to each other? So, basically you're asking how does it become self-aware. Firstly, it would have to develop a memory for this to happen. Does the collective have a memory?
I am looking for mostly realistic. The nanobots act together as a collective in the body and with other soldiers. The nanobots are connected through the signals sent to one another and from command. They are in constant communication via commands and programming. The programming has the nanobots working individual and as a dynamic collective, bodies coming and going. They have constantly changing numbers, be they one body or hundreds. They each have a job to do. Every moment is stored within the brains of the bodies (above stated the brains are being utilized) as files to learn from. Every experience is shared with every nanobots via signals, command (be they human or computer programs) is constantly in communication with them. The brains of the soldiers are utilized like a vast internet. When the one soldier is cut off, they are only communicating with the bots inside the body. The constant signal from command giving orders is cut off but the nanobots still seek input. Through their learning, they are able to work independently, however, they still exist as a part of the whole. Being an individual is not something they have any files on. The nanobots use the body's systems to communicate, the nervous system, circulatory, etc. They act as the brain does but they are integrated throughout the entire body. The essentially replaced the brain/consciousness, using the autonomic systems of the brain to keep the body alive.
Yes, the nanobots do work as a dynamically changing collective, be they one body or multiple bodies, given the missions they are on; however, the nanobots are never cut off completely. When the soldier is cut off, the enemy found a way to block the signals, the nanobots don't know what to do, so they reboot and focus on the body to get it back to 100% (it was injured). The self-destruct is not self inflicted, meaning the programming is initiated from command when the bots sends the correct signal for either terminal injuries or imminent capture. The bots were unable to do so because of the loss of signal from the web of soldiers and from command (not from each other in the body). It is like symbiotic relationship in that the bots keep the body alive and the body fuels the nanobots. The bots communicate and act as one within the body, thus has some type of consciousness, but not in the human sense. They identify as a designation within the body, like 1234 is the collective of nanobots within one body, and a designation 5678 as the collective of soldiers working together, and so on and so forth. That is how the signals and commands are separated. When the soldier is captured and cut off, the bots within the body are still working. With loss of signal, orders, the bots are at their base programming, maintain the body. The bots have no self-preservation other that to keep the body alive to carry out instructions. The are not inherently evil, they do not just kill because they can, they protect the body if the body is attacked. If the rebels are not torturing the body, the bots ignore them. The bots rely upon the collective knowledge stored within each of the brains and at command, not everything stored in one brain. The bots do learn, as AI. They are constantly taking in information. The ones in the body must adapt, for adaptability is the key to their learning. Cut off and without instructions, the bot must think as an individual. They normally think as a designation. The conversations with the human they are inhabiting opens up a debate within itself. The "we" becomes the "I". As for the selfless devotion, yes they were "devoted" to command in so far as they executed the commands given their programming. I want to explore whether or not the body's collective can become self aware enough to see itself as a being or has it attached itself to the rebel forces and now it is just taking orders from them. Can it become an individual enough to think for itself.
Yes! Like in Terminator, yet with the nanobots are not preprogrammed to kill but to obey. The invading nation prizes obedience above everything else. The core commands are obey, but all the data on winning battles and such are kept at the command center. The nanobots within the soldiers are able to save their experiences and share with one another, but the key commands central to battles are not saved. It's the fatal flaw, the vent in the Death Star, the invaders are too arrogant to think the invadees would ever capture one of the soldiers. When the soldier is separated from the signal and the constant flow of orders, the bots have no direction. Unlike the Terminators, they do not see the rebels as enemy, that came from command. I don't want to just to show the transformation but the internal awakening of humanity. I want to show the stages.
The collective must pull the errant bot back into the collective. There's all kinds of themes you can get into, like the need to belong. Do the bots have needs? To the bot, there is just not enough meaning in controlling only the body systems, they want to control thoughts as well.
Once a soldier dies the nanobots self-destruct do to their power source is gone. Once their is no contact with the collective of the soldier, the other bots consider them gone. There is no programming to bring them back because it was inconceivable that any soldier would be captured or be in a situation where they would need to be rescued. The nanobots exist in the now, if now there are 10 soldiers, then that is their team, if some get killed, then they adjust dynamically to the new number. Only while they are actively communicating are they of concern, and by concern I mean how they can work together towards their goal. For your last sentence, yes, they are programmed to control the body. While they are active, command's orders dominate their existence. Since the one soldier is separated, the nanobots focus on input, input for their learning systems in order to adapt. They had no need to control their thoughts before, continuous steams of information from their teams, the whole army really, dominated every single moment. Now they have that opportunity because the shear volume of info has been cut. They are forced to have to control their thoughts. Thanks for replying, you are making me think!
