AMKent books

As I begin writing a new book called ‘Void Around Sunlight’, a book that looks into the hive mind, exploring its identity through the experiences of every human to ever exist. It conjures one final war, so that both extreme acts of the void (evil) and sunlight (good) can be examined. Unbeknownst to the hive mind, it has been infected by an evasive alien species, a cosmic parasite that lies outside of its all encompassing consciousness, and so a conversation between the two ensues. I thought it would be interesting to discuss the research I am stringing together as points of inspiration. I am by no means an expert on these matters, and the book is still in its infancy.

Andy Weir created a beautiful short story known as ‘The Egg’, this story essentially posits that all humans are the same soul, from the start to the end. Each existence experienced in Weir’s tale is merely for the soul to mature, it was Hitler, and the millions he killed, it was Jesus and so on. According to physics, time has all happened at once, and we, as primitive three dimensional beings merely experience it in a lineal fashion. We move forward, but to something outside of this, say a ‘hive mind’, time would be in its fourth dimensional, accessible state. I find this story also interesting in aiding my story, as it discusses the nature of a single soul countlessly experiencing all facets of existence. The only thing I find myself disliking, in all honesty, is this idea of ‘maturing’, but that is just the postmodern nihilism in me.

Lets move on to Carl Jung, as a Christmas gift I was given ‘The Red Book’, light reading for sure ! However, Jung and his hallucinations, visions, past lives, synchronicity and general mysticism fascinate me and have played a huge role as inspiration. Now I have a lot to learn about Jung, and I doubt my peanut brain will ever truly comprehend his work in its entirety. Jung’s theory behind the ‘collective unconscious’ in his archetypal psychology work is my specific inspiration. I know, however, not everyone thinks Jung was discussing a ‘hive mind’, but as I interpret it for my own fictional benefit, it is like a rope around all our ankles tying us together. I further think synchronicity is an indicator of this rope, like quantum entanglement, or the old proverb “speak of the devil and he shall appear!”.

Now for Jaynes, and his very scary theory of the bicameral mind, I personally find the idea of being a schizophrenic before we learned consciousness pretty terrifying. However, a grand and immensely interesting theory, especially when it comes to early understandings of death, and why we kept feeding them, clothing them and washing them. Well, as far as the bicameral mind is concerned, this is because the god voices were telling us to do so. He references Troy and although I cannot remember if he mentions this also, Socrates Daemon springs to mind. Now how does this relate to a hive mind ? Well, at least in my new books opinion, before humans learned how to speak to themselves through language and literature. The hive mind would direct us, it would guide us before it tweaked humanity enough that it could apply introspective inquiry on its own, like an automatic update. I know humans have a habit of comparing consciousness to the current technology of our time (see epiphenomenalism), and I am not trying to compare the hive mind to a computer with that statement. However, evolution is undeniable, and proceeds us in technicality, even if my phone can recognise my face and unlock itself when I do not want it to.

Finally, and briefly, as this is way above my capacity of understanding right now, the Boltzmann brain. Essentially, during a thought experiment by Ludwig Boltzmann (clue was in the name all along), it was concluded that it is more likely a singular brain would be created from nothingness, then say an infinite universe. When thinking about it, our infinite universe encompasses all of our brains also, and whatever alien brains may be out there. If you are a duality fan, consciousness may be a frequency that our radio’s (our bodies) pick up, thus playing the songs of our life. Interesting stuff, and if consciousness lies beyond the brain, then who knows where sentience stops, photons birth themselves from the wombs of stars (they essentially navigate through a maze). Nebulas birth stars from in their wombs, black holes have points known as event horizons so powerful that only Matthew McConaughey can escape, and also matter that somehow quantum leaps out of it ?!? I am no physicist, I am a sociologist, which is much less impressive, but if Ludwig was right, then we may be apart of the Boltzmann brain, a hive mind.

Whilst my story is still young, and it is subject to much change that I imagine it will suffer. I thought it would be interesting to condense what I am looking at to formulate my own take on a ‘hive mind’. I have probably butchered these intelligent people’s theories, and there are most likely even more obscure ones out there. I am all for learning, so feel free to rip me a new one, or educate me, either way.