The Collective

TheCollective is the set of agents that cooperate either consciously or unconsciously to form a CollectiveIntelligence. The scientific community is a good example.

Trekkies also know this as the happy bunch known as TheBorg. However, TheBorg is some cross between a HiveMind and a CollectiveIntelligence. They are more like a DistributedMind.

Due to Star Trek or other reasons, the term "TheCollective" sounds ominous and foreboding. Maybe it should, who knows, but collectives form naturally in many places.

Some criteria for a collective are:

• Must be formed from autonomous, individual agents;
• Must be self-organizing;
• The agents must interact in some way;
• ...

A myth is that the agents must be willing to cooperate, but random interactions may cause self-organizing behaviour. See InsectBehaviour for a discussion of this.

A community or society is usually a collective.

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In the GoaTrance subculture, a group that meets to listen to GoaTrance and MindExpand? together is called a collective. -- SamLey

Like TheDiamondAge minus the nanotechnology, eh?

[CategorySociety]