n, -shtôltn, -stältn, -stôltn) A physical, biological, psychological, or symbolic configuration or pattern of elements so unified as a whole that its properties cannot be derived from a simple summation of its parts.
Humans are a gestalt organism. Everything that combines to make us cannot define us just but looking at them individually or looking at them and adding them together. Its this particular quality, i believe, is why human beings haven't been brought back from the dead by using all the sum of our parts. Kind of like the story of Frankenstein.
I've been fascinated lately about the concept of Gestalt. Mostly seen in games I've played. A game called Nier is about a man who uses forbidden magic to save his daughter from a horrible affliction called the "Black Scrawl". Once you start the game you are immediately attacked by dozens of things called Shades. These Shades eventually forces the main character to use the forbidden magic of the book. After a cut scene that shows that the main character's daughter used the second book's magic to feed her father and herself it shows a caption saying one thousand years later and your playing as the same character in a wide prairie surrounded by large hills rather than a winter wasteland that has covered tall buildings in mountains of snow.(Spoiler Alert) As it turns out in the later parts of the game, the main antagonist called The Shadow Lord has kidnapped your daughter. Once you go to rescue her you find out that the main character is not human. He is merely a human shaped vessel to contain the soul/memories of the real human beings. The real human beings are the shades you've been fighting all along. You are now classified as a replacant human that was meant to house the souls of the true humans which are the the shades, the shades are the Gestalt beings that have the souls and memories of the human race. It is a sad end to the human race, how the combined memory and souls of human beings have reduced them to beings of jealousy and rage because they are unable to be housed within a human body.
Another Gestalt intelligence is the beings known as the Geth. This is in the game called Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2. The Geth were a race of synthetic organisms that resemble a race called the Quarians, their creators, except that they have a single eye that is sometimes referred as a "Flashlight eye" because of its brightness. They are machine like in appearance, though not much in known about them in the first game other than what your Quarian teammate, Tali, tells you. The Geth were created as a sources of cheap labor, they didn't have any sort of significant intelligence to begin with, they would be comparable with machines at an assembly line, doing a singular task continually. Eventually the had an upgrade that allowed Geth to "Share" their processing power whenever they were in close proximity. This allowed them to work more efficiently in groups. Eventually when their numbers grew large enough for their neural network, as Legion (Your Geth teammate in Mass Effect 2) put it, they woke up. They became sentient beings capable of making their own decisions and be independent. By being together in a group they are a Gestalt being, though the down side to this is that the being is technically spread over multiple bodies. An individual geth has the intelligence of an animal when it comes to combat. A small group of Geth can work as a singular unit or squad in perfect cohesion. A large group of Geth work as a city in their minds. They are able to look at data and exchange it at the speed of light, a product of this is that they don't "impose" consensus as humans do in their government. They actually have complete and total consensus on an issue, and when they have a disagreement they still accept one another as themselves.
Now looking at a single Geth platform called Legion. A geth platform is the body of the Geth, these can usually house about 100 Geth. When i say Geth i mean a singular program that has the intelligence of an a computer. What makes the Legion platform unique is the fact that it is able to house one thousand one hundred and eighty three Geth at once. Due to the large number Legion is able to operate on its own without reliance of the other geth. Legion is a Gestalt intelligence of over one thousand minds that speak as a single voice, Legion is able to analyze a situation better when one thousand eyes are viewing it at once. Legion is able to make better informed decisions when one thousand minds are reviewing the evidence. I thought about this fact and came to the conclusion that human beings are capable of this with certain sacrifices.
The first sacrifice of human beings would have to be individuality. A Gestalt intelligence is no individual, its and individual Gestalt but not a individual mind. An individual mind has no meaning in a Gestalt other than to add its own input of evidence and perception. The second sacrifice would have to be freedom. In the most likely scenario of this possibility, you wouldn't have your own body. You would have a singular body with thousands of minds/souls working in parallel. You wouldn't have the same freedoms of actions, privacy, or self. You would be a single drop in an ocean, all and all insignificant in comparison to the whole. It wouldn't be enslavement though, it would be interconnectedness and unity but without the freedom. You'd probably have your own thoughts but you'd also share them with everyone Else's, and everyone else would share theirs with you. With time, you might not even know the difference between your own thoughts and others.
I consider being a Gestalt intelligence better than being a singular intelligence. I consider it a higher state of being and existence. What do you think?
I've been fascinated lately about the concept of Gestalt. Mostly seen in games I've played. A game called Nier is about a man who uses forbidden magic to save his daughter from a horrible affliction called the "Black Scrawl". Once you start the game you are immediately attacked by dozens of things called Shades. These Shades eventually forces the main character to use the forbidden magic of the book. After a cut scene that shows that the main character's daughter used the second book's magic to feed her father and herself it shows a caption saying one thousand years later and your playing as the same character in a wide prairie surrounded by large hills rather than a winter wasteland that has covered tall buildings in mountains of snow.(Spoiler Alert) As it turns out in the later parts of the game, the main antagonist called The Shadow Lord has kidnapped your daughter. Once you go to rescue her you find out that the main character is not human. He is merely a human shaped vessel to contain the soul/memories of the real human beings. The real human beings are the shades you've been fighting all along. You are now classified as a replacant human that was meant to house the souls of the true humans which are the the shades, the shades are the Gestalt beings that have the souls and memories of the human race. It is a sad end to the human race, how the combined memory and souls of human beings have reduced them to beings of jealousy and rage because they are unable to be housed within a human body.
Another Gestalt intelligence is the beings known as the Geth. This is in the game called Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2. The Geth were a race of synthetic organisms that resemble a race called the Quarians, their creators, except that they have a single eye that is sometimes referred as a "Flashlight eye" because of its brightness. They are machine like in appearance, though not much in known about them in the first game other than what your Quarian teammate, Tali, tells you. The Geth were created as a sources of cheap labor, they didn't have any sort of significant intelligence to begin with, they would be comparable with machines at an assembly line, doing a singular task continually. Eventually the had an upgrade that allowed Geth to "Share" their processing power whenever they were in close proximity. This allowed them to work more efficiently in groups. Eventually when their numbers grew large enough for their neural network, as Legion (Your Geth teammate in Mass Effect 2) put it, they woke up. They became sentient beings capable of making their own decisions and be independent. By being together in a group they are a Gestalt being, though the down side to this is that the being is technically spread over multiple bodies. An individual geth has the intelligence of an animal when it comes to combat. A small group of Geth can work as a singular unit or squad in perfect cohesion. A large group of Geth work as a city in their minds. They are able to look at data and exchange it at the speed of light, a product of this is that they don't "impose" consensus as humans do in their government. They actually have complete and total consensus on an issue, and when they have a disagreement they still accept one another as themselves.
Now looking at a single Geth platform called Legion. A geth platform is the body of the Geth, these can usually house about 100 Geth. When i say Geth i mean a singular program that has the intelligence of an a computer. What makes the Legion platform unique is the fact that it is able to house one thousand one hundred and eighty three Geth at once. Due to the large number Legion is able to operate on its own without reliance of the other geth. Legion is a Gestalt intelligence of over one thousand minds that speak as a single voice, Legion is able to analyze a situation better when one thousand eyes are viewing it at once. Legion is able to make better informed decisions when one thousand minds are reviewing the evidence. I thought about this fact and came to the conclusion that human beings are capable of this with certain sacrifices.
The first sacrifice of human beings would have to be individuality. A Gestalt intelligence is no individual, its and individual Gestalt but not a individual mind. An individual mind has no meaning in a Gestalt other than to add its own input of evidence and perception. The second sacrifice would have to be freedom. In the most likely scenario of this possibility, you wouldn't have your own body. You would have a singular body with thousands of minds/souls working in parallel. You wouldn't have the same freedoms of actions, privacy, or self. You would be a single drop in an ocean, all and all insignificant in comparison to the whole. It wouldn't be enslavement though, it would be interconnectedness and unity but without the freedom. You'd probably have your own thoughts but you'd also share them with everyone Else's, and everyone else would share theirs with you. With time, you might not even know the difference between your own thoughts and others.
I consider being a Gestalt intelligence better than being a singular intelligence. I consider it a higher state of being and existence. What do you think?
Hmmm... Reminds me of Star Trek, can't recall the race (maybe The Cube?), but their famous statements, "We Will Ascimilate You, Resistance is futile!" would ring a bell with any trekkie.
ReplyDeleteAlas, I am resisting! Individuality is what makes us human! Excellent post, though! Sounds like an awesome game.
I'd say similarity as well as individuality makes us human, everyone is different yes but when you think in some ways many people are the same. They can develop the same manurisms like in a father and son relationship a father may do something and others may notice his child begin to mimic or copy the action because he wants to be more like his father, which isn't necessarily bad but it is probably split up pretty much half and half I'd say
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