Message-ID: <4056@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 23-Feb-85 17:51:12 EST
Article-I.D.: ucla-cs.4056
Posted: Sat Feb 23 17:51:12 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 1-Mar-85 06:30:42 EST
References: <580@topaz.ARPA>
Reply-To: wales@ucla-cs.UUCP (Rich Wales)
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
Lines: 72

In article <580@topaz.ARPA>, victoro%Nosc@crash.UUCP (Victor O'Rear)
asked for pointers to stories dealing with racial memory or group minds.

One such book is "The Nitrogen Fix" by Hal Clement.  This story takes
place on Earth after a natural catastrophe has pulled essentially all of
the oxygen out of the atmosphere and locked it into nitrates.  Those
people who survive must either live in enclosed cities or use breathing
masks.  Some claim this state of affairs was due to a scientific experi-
ment gone wrong -- hence, such words as "scientist" and "invent" have
become vulgar insults.

The only other kind of animal life to be found on Earth at this time is
a large, highly intelligent fish-like being with lots of tentacles.  One
of these has befriended/been befriended by the main human characters --
a man, woman, and their young daughter.  They communicate by means of a
complicated sign language (which the humans also use among themselves,
since it's hard to hear someone who is wearing a breathing mask all the
time!).

The fish-like being is called "Bones" by its human friends.  The species
(which do not breathe, and thus don't care what is or isn't in the air)
is collectively called either "Natives" (by those humans who assume the
air was always like it is now, and that the "Natives" are Earth's true
original indigenous life form) or "Invaders" (by those humans who think
the fish-like beings prefer a nitrogen atmosphere and took all the oxy-
gen out of Earth's air so they could take over the Earth).

As it turns out, the fish-like beings actually comprise a group con-
sciousness which calls itself "the Observer".  Whenever two Observer
"units" meet, they embrace briefly -- which causes all memories of each
of the "units" to be copied to both.  The Observer has sent its various
"units" all over the universe in an insatiable quest for as much infor-
mation as possible.

Both the Observer and the humans have a great deal of difficulty under-
standing each other's outlook on the world; this difficulty is exacer-
bated by the fact that most of the humans are hostile to the Observer(s)
and make no real effort to understand it/them.

(1) The humans naturally assume that the temporary joining of two Ob-
    server "units" is a sexual act; conversely, "Bones" assumes that his
    two adult human friends periodically share memories.

(2) When "Bones" meets another, smaller Observer "unit" and they share
    memories -- and then the smaller "unit" returns to "Bones"'s human
    friends and acts just like "Bones" (including knowing their home-
    brew sign language), the male human assumes that the city-dwellers
    have done something to shrink "Bones", and gets quite upset.

(3) The Observer -- understandably -- has no conception of individuality
    or individual death as we think of it.  It is quite a revelation to
    the Observer that humans actually have no better way of communicat-
    ing to each other than visual and sound "codes" (i.e., sign language
    and speech).  The Observer is also thoroughly confused by the human
    assumption that different Observer units are not completely inter-
    changeable with one another.

There's a lot more to the book, of course -- I don't want to give the
whole thing away and deprive you of the fun of reading it yourself.
-- 

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                                                             Rich Wales
                           University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
                                            Computer Science Department
                                                      3531 Boelter Hall
                                   Los Angeles, California 90024 // USA
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Phone:    (213) 825-5683 // +1 213 825 5683
ARPANET:  wales@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA
UUCP:     ...!{cepu,ihnp4,trwspp,ucbvax}!ucla-cs!wales
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