What Can We Learn From the Hive Mind of Strader VI?
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How are the 'individuals' which make up a hive mind to be categorized? Are they merely dumb components of the larger, intelligent organism; or is the larger 'mind' merely a product of the independent organisms? Can it be both?

We define organisms by their traits, but find invariably that these traits depend on those of their environment. The concept of a tadpole is meaningless without the concept of the frog it will develop into. The idea of a predator is empty without an understanding of its prey. This begs the question: if we define everything by reference to everything else, what are have we actually explained?

An illustrative experiment was recently performed on the hive mind colony discovered on Strader VI. A device was placed outside the nest which would electrocute individuals approaching it. An ant colony would have lost many individuals before a basic danger signal was successfully communicated between them, resulting in 'learnt' avoidance of the device. Successful, but costly.

The Strader VI colony quickly formed into two factions:
 - One attempted to move the device by brute force, sacrificing individuals as they did so
 - The second attempted to cover the device in sand.

These two goals being mutually exclusive, a fight ensued. The first faction was beaten, in virtue of their reduced numbers. The device was safely buried, and the survivors called a truce. From the perspective of the individuals, this experience must have been horrific. From the perspective of the hive mind, a nagging problem had been overcome with the most effective solution. Which perspective is the 'correct' one?

I suggest that it is neither. By attempting to fit such entities into our rigid set of concepts we are painting onto the world a false impression of concreteness and meaning, which is a reflection of our concepts of ourselves.

We describe Strader VI individuals as 'attacking' one another, just as we describe microbes in the human body as doing the same. Yet the Strader colony, like the body, cannot be healthy as a whole without the 'aggressions' of its components. We describe neurons in the brain as being dumb, but brains as a whole as intelligent - but when an idea takes hold in the brain, and forces out inferior ones, do we describe this as an act of aggression? Do we mourn dead neurons?

When a philosophy, or a technology takes hold in human society... when wars are fought over them and people die... is that rightly seen as being good, or evil? This is not to undermine the meaning of our existence. From where we stand, our existence is very serious indeed. But is our civilization, and our universe, really any different from the colony on Strader VI? Is intelligence something limited to things of flesh and blood? Or is the universe truly one giant intelligent system, and we but amoeba blowing self-important potholes in its surface?

We would do well, as scientists, to remember that our goal is not to paint the world as we see it, but to see it as it truly is.