(no subject)

[dsgood]

We Know All About You

If we could all read each other's minds, we would understand and love each other. And it would be wonderful to always know what everyone around us was thinking. Theodore Sturgeon loved this idea, as did some other science fiction writers.

It seems to have gone out of style. I suspect the Internet has something to do with this. Imagine having a direct-to-brain Twitter feed, with no way of turning it off.

If that doesn't make you uneasy, think about unstoppable access to erotic daydreams -- most of which bore you. To memories of eating foods you dislike, from people whose sense of taste is stronger than yours. To badly plotted nightmares.

Comments

[stardreamer]

And then there was Poul Anderson's "Journeys End" (yes, the title is spelled correctly). He made pretty much the same point you do here, on a more personal level.

Every workable fictional implementation of telepathy I've ever seen came with the assumption that you also had SHIELDS -- that you didn't have to listen to every thought of everybody for miles around, or project your thoughts to them.

[mindstalk]

The webcomic A Miracle of Science had a big groupmind on Mars. Alastair Reynolds had the Conjoiners, who are like cuddly and more fleshed-out Borg. So I'd say not completely out of style.

I fan-spin the Unison Devices of "Nanoha" as being a full merge of minds and memories, at least in the cases of full unison like Hayate/Reinforce and Signum/Agito. I've got various fic ideas exploring that, also an ability for Hayate to dip into and share minds with her knights. That wouldn't be always-on, though.


Julian May didn't get into what the coadunate metapsychic mind was really like, and she's older than the other two, if not as old as Sturgeon.