Lifestyles of the Rich and Borganic

On Sun, 22 Dec 1996, Chris Hind wrote:
> Ughh! I don't want to become a borganism.

I'm not so sure it would be bad, if you could decide for yourself what kind of borganism you would become. I think most of us regard the classic "resistance is futile, you will be assimilated" borg invented in Star Trek as bad, but there are nice possibilities for borganisms too:

I have always wanted to do a lot of things: to learn to write calligraphy well, to develop huge artificial life simulations/universes, explore the Earth and the universe, teach and interact with children, compose grand symphonies, invent better ways to think and perceive the world, cook and eat delicious food, gather information into useful patterns, dedicate myself to studies in the occult, medicine, theoretical physics, nanotechnology and...

Obviously I can't do all this; even as a tremendously augmented transhuman I would just have a single channel of consciousness, and many of these activities takes enormous amount of time and training. The only way I could ever get close to my wish would be to split into a lot of clones/copies/xoxes, and then each of them would face the same problem again: my calligraphy copy would soon want to experience the wonders the mystic copy did, who in turn would like to be able to cook the great food my cook copy created.

The solution seems to be borganisation. If I could create/become a copy-clan where each dividual was an individual derived from me, and at the same time was linked into a kind of collective consciousness where skills, experiences and ideas could flow freely, then I could do everything (well, almost everything; I would have to wait for the Far Edge Party to learn what my space selves had done). The mystic would be able to cook by "borrowing" the skill of the cook, while the calligrapher would know intuitively what the mystic had understood.

This multi-Anders would be a metaorganism, presumably with its own personality and goals derived from the interaction and multiplication of my current goals. Probably it would be intensely curious, sending out dividuals to study everything new and unusual, and very fond of interacting with other kinds of beings (on all orders, from the ants to other metaorganisms).

So, to me being a borganism sounds like a great idea as long as you can choose what kind of borganism it is and who it contains.

Up to the Posthuman Page

Up to the Transhuman Page

Anders Main Page