[extropy-chat] Manifest Destiny for >H

[ben]

"Stathis Papaioannou" <stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:

 > On 4/17/07, John Grigg <desertpaths2003 at yahoo.com> wrote:

 > > Considering how bacteria have been found to communicate and even 
cooperate
 > > with each other at a surprisingly sophisticated level, do you think 
they
 > > might evolve over time into a roughly human level or better form of
 > > intelligence, but of the hive mind variety?  I could envision giant
 > > bacterial "brains/colonies" floating on the seas, rooted in the 
land and
 > > floating along in the sky.  It would be very interesting to see 
where the
 > > virus would fit in such an alien ecology.  This could make for a good
 > > science fiction novel but I bet it has already been done a number 
of times.
 > >
 > > Greg Bear's "Blood Music" comes to mind.


Reminds me of an idea for a fictional story setting i once had, a place 
where bacterial colonies cooperate to build 'robot' bodies and brains 
for the animals there, where all the functional parts were synthetic, 
but built and maintained by the bacteria. But that's just a setting, and 
i never came up with an actual story set there, and i suck at writing 
fiction anyway.

But i often wondered if it was a viable idea, with these 'evolved 
robots' walking around, some of which developed intelligence. i suppose 
there's a parallel with nanotech, with the bacteria standing in for 
nanobots. They'd be barely noticeable, just biofilms in and around the 
synthetic parts.

Anyway, there's a free idea if anyone wants to do anything with it.

ben zaiboc