Hive mind
From Memory Alpha, the free Star Trek reference.
A hive mind is the collective sharing of minds into a single consciousness, serving and driving the goals of its entire population. As such individuality in a hive mind is sacrificed for the whole, and its members/resources are assigned tasks according to how to best achieve those goals. Hive mind societies encountered by the Federation include:
- The Body of Landru (TOS: "The Return of the Archons")
- An species of neural parasite that infested Deneva in 2267 (TOS: "Operation -- Annihilate!")
- The androids of planet Mudd (TOS: "I, Mudd")
- The Borg Collective (TNG: "Q Who")
- The Borg Cooperative (VOY: "Unity")
[edit] Background and Theories on the hive mind
- There has been much speculation regarding the form and function of the hive mind, due in no small part to the limited ability of an individual consciousness to grasp a concept totally outside its own conception of self. However, to some extent the maxim that "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts" may offer good guidance. That is, a hive mind is not likely to consist of simply a large number of individual minds grouped together. Instead the hive mind exists on an altogether different level of consciousness wherein the very notion of individuality is as alien to the hive mind as the hive mind itself is to an individual consciousness.
- In this sense the Borg notion that the Collective has "evolved" beyond Humanity and other individually-oriented species may be literally true, though evolved should not be read as a higher or better state, just different in nature. Under this notion of a hive mind, the further addition or assimilation of individuals continually exposes the hive mind to new frontiers. The acquisition of this knowledge would eventually lead to the Borg hive mind encompassing all that is known by the individual, while simultaneously existing on a plane beyond the individual. In so much as that state is possible, the Borg would be closer to the "perfection" they seek because the hive mind would then contain first-hand experience of both the hive and individual mind and not be limited to either one.
