Tip! That was very humanocentric. Just because someone isn’t a human or a product of human science doesn’t mean they’re not a person. Earth-native entity might be a more proper term to use here.
I’m interpreting Tip’s usage of “people” as roughly meaning “comparable and recognizeable to human-like minds”, with the implication that she isn’t remotely like us “under the hood” and her personality is a performance by something…else. Not necessarily lesser or hostile, but very alien.
That’s how I took it too. The same way Helen Narbon, or any really far gone Mad scientist, is just pretending to be people. They’re an alien intellect that happens to include a human emulator.
Yeah, it’s not what I expected, since so far just about everything sentient was pretty much a person regardless of origin, not like other settings with their incomprehensible minds or paperclip optimizer values. Speaking of which, civilization survived the invention of the computer, but smartphones are pure evil. They even designed the little hole that you insert a tool into to release the SIM tray had to be made just a little bit too narrow to admit a paperclip, presumably as a clear statement of war against all that is good and holy. If there’s an alien mind at the heart of global commerce, then one must assume it takes the notion of paperclip optimizers quite literally and has taken preemptive steps like Damien of the later Omen sequels trying to prevent the second coming of Jesus.
Given that it is Tip and Gavotte’s job (was their job? I’ve lost track) to assign or deny personhood to non-humans, I think there can be a lot of unknown background conversations on the matter (mostly but not entirely about the bureaucracy). In context, this has a very specific meaning which is not limited to the definition here: http://skin-horse.com/comic/will-be-provided/
“Person,” does have specific meanings in certain contexts that are not, “Human,” and only has a coincidental, if large, overlap with, “Human.” It is plausible to find a human that is not a person. It is plausible to find a person who is not in any way related to humans. It’s possible Gavotte is neither human (which we knew already) nor a person (which would be the surprising part), and that may be what Tip’s getting at.
This is interesting. Eusocial insects aren’t anything like the hive minds people always portray them as, and are quite literally just a bunch of individuals working together because very similar things benefit them. So maybe Gavotte is just the persona a bunch of individually sapient bees are working together to play, rather than an emergent mind.
Especially since, really, when you look at how human brains work? We’re no so much one singular entity as a collection of loosely coordinated independent subsystems. A person is what emerges from that interaction.
There’s more conscious design at work in human endeavors, but I think the extent of that is generally overestimated. It’s not just entities that behave this way, but belief systems as well, be they religions or political ideologies or what-have-you.
Seconded. Social insect colonies are not just random cooperating individuals: their hive behaviours are largely implemented via distributed algorithms crossing across large numbers of individuals. This only works because those individuals share those algorithms: i.e., they are genetically similar organisms and it is evolutionarily stable for this result to occur (i.e., doing so will spread the genes of those doing it). Since social insect individuals are mostly sterile, this implies that this only works because most of the time those executing the algorithms have close relatives in the hive that they are benefiting by doing so.
Otherwise it would be beneficial for nonreproductive workers to cheat and reproduce on their own rather than trusting to someone else to do it who might not be a relative, or who might be distantly-enough related that their genes would spread more if they reproduced themselves (some social insects do just that in conditions of strress: heck, some do so in conditions *not* of stress, and are hunted down by subcastes that kill such cheaters, because cheating degrades the overall effectiveness of the hive, i.e. of all the cheater’s sisters).
(Of course, they have no idea that they are doing this, or indeed that the algorithms exist: it’s just that if this were not so, the result would not be evolutionarily stable, and eusocial insects would not exist. They just do what they do because it is what they do, and success results. Self-awareness is overrated. Gavotte is self-aware as
a collective and it is strongly suggested that she has control over her individual members as well. This is *very* different from actual hives. Gavotte is not a social insect colony. Gavotte is… something else. Something strange.)
If you want a colony of cooperating, independently-reproducing individuals, look at a wasp nest. (This was probably the prototype for true eusocial insects other than termites, since bees and ants evolved from wasps.)
Bee hives are very much hive minds.
I think the confusion is because people don’t understand the concept.
Individual bees don’t decide to co-operate because it benefits them. They co-operate because they are genetically unable not to. There is no conscious effort involved.
The emergent behaviour of a bee hive is very different from the behaviour of individual bees. (And the hive very much acts like an individual, much like humans act as individuals despite their many different (and very often antagonistic to each other) individual neurons and glands. Most obviously: Bees are social; hives are not.)
Most people seem to think that a hive mind means that every individual thinks the same things. That is just nonsense. If every constituent individual thought the same, every individual would act the same. Imagine an orchestra where everyone played the same line on the same instrument.
darkstarling: The difference is that the beehive was evolved and fine-tuned over millions of generations to be a functional and self-propagating collective entity.
Governments and corporations are recent extensions of our own tribal and family dynamics, which are themselves a little rough around the edges by evolutionary standards. They are evolving faster because they’re now operating on a memetic as much as a genetic level, but even so they just haven’t had enough generations to work out a lot of the kinks in their collective behavior.
Or even for them to back-adapt from “makes a lot of profit” (recently a must-have survival trait) to “provides a living for its component workers” (a long-term survival trait, recently overshadowed but still matters).
Well, she _did_ tell Dr. Lee earlier that bees are from outer space, but I’m not sure how much we’re supposed to trust her claims. (What, after all, did the pollinating before bees arrived from Lovetron?)
There’s also my earlier theory that Lovetron is not actually a different planet, but merely a remote location on Earth – so remote that they think of it as a different planet. Perhaps a tropical island that now hosts a Mad Scientist’s home?
Lovetron is an odd name, really, given how bees reproduce, the males dying right after reproduction and nearly every individual member of the species knowing only the love of siblings. 🙂
Well, if you go far enough back in time, there were NO flowering plants. Many of our plants today are wind pollinated. It may just imply how long Gavotte has been around.
If that’s the case, as I said earlier, it’s not going to be good for the ecosystem when they depart. Ah well, I guess the Mads can fill in with robo-bees [1] or something. (And then Dr. Lee can reverse-engineer them so people can build versions that _won’t_ try to destroy humanity).
Historically? 50 million years before bees and other flying insects – the first pollinators were beetles. There are still many pollinating beetles – and more recently ants – that pollinate many species of plants. More recently, bats have been shown to provide pollination to some species of flowering plants. Here’s one article, mentioning beetles & ants. https://www.thoughtco.com/insect-pollinators-that-arent-bees-or-butterflies-1967996
Tea Time is Serious Business! ^_^
beesness*
Indeed! It must have been ages since she’s had any tea!
“Your just pretending to be people, aren’t you?”
That line is going to stick in my head for a while
But really: aren’t we all?
I know THAT feeling…
Given Tip’s apiphobia, his confrontational attitude strikes me as very brave…or foolhardy, considering the proximity of his bare shoulders.
Perhaps his rational thinking is overpowering his fear. Deep down, he knows she isn’t going to hurt him, and he wants to know more.
Either that or his curiosity overpowered his sense of self-preservation…
Tip! That was very humanocentric. Just because someone isn’t a human or a product of human science doesn’t mean they’re not a person. Earth-native entity might be a more proper term to use here.
I don’t think it is anthrocentric, though. Gavotte’s a collective, which means she isn’t an individual, which is what I feel Tip is getting at.
I’m interpreting Tip’s usage of “people” as roughly meaning “comparable and recognizeable to human-like minds”, with the implication that she isn’t remotely like us “under the hood” and her personality is a performance by something…else. Not necessarily lesser or hostile, but very alien.
That’s how I took it too. The same way Helen Narbon, or any really far gone Mad scientist, is just pretending to be people. They’re an alien intellect that happens to include a human emulator.
That’s how I took his meaning as well… but just because you mean a sentence one way, doesn’t make it less rude when it means something else.
Paul the Grey, “Her personality is a performance”
Correct, she is Gavotte, quite literally, a dance.
Yeah, it’s not what I expected, since so far just about everything sentient was pretty much a person regardless of origin, not like other settings with their incomprehensible minds or paperclip optimizer values. Speaking of which, civilization survived the invention of the computer, but smartphones are pure evil. They even designed the little hole that you insert a tool into to release the SIM tray had to be made just a little bit too narrow to admit a paperclip, presumably as a clear statement of war against all that is good and holy. If there’s an alien mind at the heart of global commerce, then one must assume it takes the notion of paperclip optimizers quite literally and has taken preemptive steps like Damien of the later Omen sequels trying to prevent the second coming of Jesus.
Given that it is Tip and Gavotte’s job (was their job? I’ve lost track) to assign or deny personhood to non-humans, I think there can be a lot of unknown background conversations on the matter (mostly but not entirely about the bureaucracy). In context, this has a very specific meaning which is not limited to the definition here: http://skin-horse.com/comic/will-be-provided/
“Person,” does have specific meanings in certain contexts that are not, “Human,” and only has a coincidental, if large, overlap with, “Human.” It is plausible to find a human that is not a person. It is plausible to find a person who is not in any way related to humans. It’s possible Gavotte is neither human (which we knew already) nor a person (which would be the surprising part), and that may be what Tip’s getting at.
It’s four?
When you’ve been through what she has – without any tea – any time can be tea time.
If you’re British enough, tea time is when there’s tea to be had.
I remember hearing that this nearly put Aliens over its production time.
She’s got nasty habits…
Speak for yourself. I happen to enjoy a cup of tea.
This is interesting. Eusocial insects aren’t anything like the hive minds people always portray them as, and are quite literally just a bunch of individuals working together because very similar things benefit them. So maybe Gavotte is just the persona a bunch of individually sapient bees are working together to play, rather than an emergent mind.
But is she a group of eusocial insects? Or is that just what she wants you to think?
What’s the difference between that and the emergent mind that is a government, or a corporation? Serious question. I don’t think there is much of one.
Especially since, really, when you look at how human brains work? We’re no so much one singular entity as a collection of loosely coordinated independent subsystems. A person is what emerges from that interaction.
There’s more conscious design at work in human endeavors, but I think the extent of that is generally overestimated. It’s not just entities that behave this way, but belief systems as well, be they religions or political ideologies or what-have-you.
And, as we all know, corporations are people, my friend…
Social insects aren’t a “hive mind” a la Borg, but they aren’t exactly freely associating individuals, either: they’ve evolved into something else https://www.amazon.com/Superorganism-Beauty-Elegance-Strangeness-Societies/dp/0393067041
Seconded. Social insect colonies are not just random cooperating individuals: their hive behaviours are largely implemented via distributed algorithms crossing across large numbers of individuals. This only works because those individuals share those algorithms: i.e., they are genetically similar organisms and it is evolutionarily stable for this result to occur (i.e., doing so will spread the genes of those doing it). Since social insect individuals are mostly sterile, this implies that this only works because most of the time those executing the algorithms have close relatives in the hive that they are benefiting by doing so.
Otherwise it would be beneficial for nonreproductive workers to cheat and reproduce on their own rather than trusting to someone else to do it who might not be a relative, or who might be distantly-enough related that their genes would spread more if they reproduced themselves (some social insects do just that in conditions of strress: heck, some do so in conditions *not* of stress, and are hunted down by subcastes that kill such cheaters, because cheating degrades the overall effectiveness of the hive, i.e. of all the cheater’s sisters).
(Of course, they have no idea that they are doing this, or indeed that the algorithms exist: it’s just that if this were not so, the result would not be evolutionarily stable, and eusocial insects would not exist. They just do what they do because it is what they do, and success results. Self-awareness is overrated. Gavotte is self-aware as
a collective and it is strongly suggested that she has control over her individual members as well. This is *very* different from actual hives. Gavotte is not a social insect colony. Gavotte is… something else. Something strange.)
If you want a colony of cooperating, independently-reproducing individuals, look at a wasp nest. (This was probably the prototype for true eusocial insects other than termites, since bees and ants evolved from wasps.)
Bee hives are very much hive minds.
I think the confusion is because people don’t understand the concept.
Individual bees don’t decide to co-operate because it benefits them. They co-operate because they are genetically unable not to. There is no conscious effort involved.
The emergent behaviour of a bee hive is very different from the behaviour of individual bees. (And the hive very much acts like an individual, much like humans act as individuals despite their many different (and very often antagonistic to each other) individual neurons and glands. Most obviously: Bees are social; hives are not.)
Most people seem to think that a hive mind means that every individual thinks the same things. That is just nonsense. If every constituent individual thought the same, every individual would act the same. Imagine an orchestra where everyone played the same line on the same instrument.
Gavotte: the Being formerly known as “Poppins”! 😉
I love it. XD
MAKE THEM SUPPER
ALIEN BEES!
STAND BACK I’LL SHOW YOU HOW IT’S DONE.
OVER THE PROVERBIAL RIDGE.
darkstarling: The difference is that the beehive was evolved and fine-tuned over millions of generations to be a functional and self-propagating collective entity.
Governments and corporations are recent extensions of our own tribal and family dynamics, which are themselves a little rough around the edges by evolutionary standards. They are evolving faster because they’re now operating on a memetic as much as a genetic level, but even so they just haven’t had enough generations to work out a lot of the kinks in their collective behavior.
Or even for them to back-adapt from “makes a lot of profit” (recently a must-have survival trait) to “provides a living for its component workers” (a long-term survival trait, recently overshadowed but still matters).
Tip’s being awfully humanocentric, isn’t he? Who says people have to be either human or created by humans?
definition A4537Zcl4-vx of the shadow psychologist manual
Well, she _did_ tell Dr. Lee earlier that bees are from outer space, but I’m not sure how much we’re supposed to trust her claims. (What, after all, did the pollinating before bees arrived from Lovetron?)
Maybe butterflies did it all before. And then the bees made a deal with them. But then we don’t know exactly when the bees arrived, either.
There’s also my earlier theory that Lovetron is not actually a different planet, but merely a remote location on Earth – so remote that they think of it as a different planet. Perhaps a tropical island that now hosts a Mad Scientist’s home?
Lovetron is an odd name, really, given how bees reproduce, the males dying right after reproduction and nearly every individual member of the species knowing only the love of siblings. 🙂
Well, if you go far enough back in time, there were NO flowering plants. Many of our plants today are wind pollinated. It may just imply how long Gavotte has been around.
“I’ve been around forever…and I wrote the very first song…”
If that’s the case, as I said earlier, it’s not going to be good for the ecosystem when they depart. Ah well, I guess the Mads can fill in with robo-bees [1] or something. (And then Dr. Lee can reverse-engineer them so people can build versions that _won’t_ try to destroy humanity).
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myOTp1wr3Bg
I figure when they depart, it’ll mean that the world was doomed anyway, so it really won’t much matter what happens to the ecosystem after that.
Historically? 50 million years before bees and other flying insects – the first pollinators were beetles. There are still many pollinating beetles – and more recently ants – that pollinate many species of plants. More recently, bats have been shown to provide pollination to some species of flowering plants. Here’s one article, mentioning beetles & ants.
https://www.thoughtco.com/insect-pollinators-that-arent-bees-or-butterflies-1967996
Gavotte’s pre-planning as references the giant robot: http://skin-horse.com/comic/fewer-people/