Indeed, this is fertile ground for speculative fiction, especially science fiction. One author I particularly admire, an author who has thought a great deal about the ramifications Daniel and Jed point out, particularly how it might play out on the level of human "hive" consciousness, is Joe Haldeman. One of my favorite Haldeman novels is a story where he explores the ramifications of humanity confronting another alien species that strongly operates on the collective conscious level. The novel is called the "The Forever War". The reason behind the "forever war" we eventually learn is due to a massive misunderstanding that exists between the way individual humans communicate with other human individuals, and the collective consciousness of the alien race that doesn't know how to communicate on the level of individual human beings. Meanwhile, humans don't know how to communicate on the collective consciousness level either with the alien race. Fortunately, both parties eventually figure it out their misunderstandings, so you might say there is a happy ending - with some reservations. ;-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forever_War A question I often find myself asking is where does the mechanism (the "soul" if you will) of self-awareness / self-consciousness reside? Does consciousness or awareness, particularly some level of SELF-awareness, an awareness of being able to make independent choices reside within a single cell paramecium? How about a jellyfish, or within the collective colony-body of the entire ant colony. We assume individual human beings possess the self-awareness trait, though I suspect certain cynics might beg to differ. What about on the level of The Borg? IMHO, certain eastern philosophies, such as Zen seem to do a good job of describing the nature of collective consciousness, or more precisely collective awareness. IMO, the best way to "sense" such awareness is to stop thinking for a while. Just be. One may soon discover that the "you" one has always identified with is nothing more than a brief figment of one's own fickle imagination. When that happens one has an opportunity to confront an even more interesting mystery: Why do "I" still exist. That's when the fun starts. ;-) Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
