Is Heaven a Hive Mind?

  • Thread starter Thread starter CaptBell800
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
C

CaptBell800

Guest
In heaven, our wills will be perfectly aligned with God’s and our thoughts will be devoted to serving Him. Because we will be totally devoted, we will let all our thoughts and actions be directed by God. And they will all serve the single ultimate purpose of worshipping Him and carrying out His instructions.

So if all our thoughts and actions are directed by God in heaven, will our consciences become unified? Will we be individual souls but with a collective mind? Will it be like an insect hive, with God acting the role of the queen and we as the subordinates?
 
CaptBell800 said:
In heaven, our wills will be perfectly aligned with God’s and our thoughts will be devoted to serving Him. Because we will be totally devoted, we will let all our thoughts and actions be directed by God. And they will all serve the single ultimate purpose of worshipping Him and carrying out His instructions.

So if all our thoughts and actions are directed by God in heaven, will our consciences become unified? Will we be individual souls but with a collective mind? Will it be like an insect hive, with God acting the role of the queen and we as the subordinates?
Click to expand...
Assuming you meant “consciousness” not “conscience.” Conscience, being our directive sense of right and wrong, will no longer be necessary in heaven since it will no longer be possible for us to sin.

I think the question is, will there be speech in heaven? I think there will.
 
Love4All said:
Assuming you meant “consciousness” not “conscience.” Conscience, being our directive sense of right and wrong, will no longer be necessary in heaven since it will no longer be possible for us to sin.

I think the question is, will there be speech in heaven? I think there will.
Click to expand...
Yes, I meant consciousness. Sorry about that.
 
Love4All said:
I don’t see why there would not be private thoughts. One of the joys of this world is sharing one’s mind with another through speech.
Click to expand...
But why will there be the need for individual minds?
 
CaptBell800 said:
But why will there be the need for individual minds?
Click to expand...
Because we will retain our individual souls. We will not become one big soul, but we will retain our individuality. SInce the working of the mind is at least in part a function of the soul, then we will retain individual minds.
 
I’ve thought about this before too, and here’s how I’ve thought of it;

Lets say I went to a club or a meetup for something I REALLY loved. Everyone there would love the same thing I do. Lets say it’s art. Now, we all love art…but maybe this person wants to talk about the beauty of abstract, and another wants to talk about watercolors, and another sculpting, and it’s all this great party. That’s not a hive mind. we’re all loving and singing the praises of one thing, but that one thing isn’t such a narrow, tiny subject that we all say the same things
 
CaptBell800 said:
In heaven, our wills will be perfectly aligned with God’s and our thoughts will be devoted to serving Him. Because we will be totally devoted, we will let all our thoughts and actions be directed by God. And they will all serve the single ultimate purpose of worshipping Him and carrying out His instructions.

So if all our thoughts and actions are directed by God in heaven, will our consciences become unified? Will we be individual souls but with a collective mind? Will it be like an insect hive, with God acting the role of the queen and we as the subordinates?
Click to expand...
How can anyone even speculate what heaven will be like? All we can possibly know is that whatever individual consciousness there is will be of a different nature and level than what we are accustomed to on Earth, and the experience of joy will be extra-temporal and extra-spatial.
 
CaptBell800 said:
But why will there be the need for individual minds?
Click to expand...
Need is a funny word. We don’t need to exist at all. But there will be individual minds because that is essentially makes us individuals (and resurrected glorified bodies for that matter, though what exactly those will be like is hard to say). Our will will be aligned perfectly with God’s, but we don’t get absorbed into Him. If God hadn’t wanted us to exist as individuals, He wouldn’t have made us as individuals in His likeness.

The best analogy that I can give is when a married couple, or close siblings or some such appear to be acting in tandem with the same goals and in pretty much the same ways without planning it or working out who does what. Not just the completing sentences thing, but working together on a project where each person seems to almost intuit what the other will do in response to any situation that occurs and act in a complementary fashion.

That’s always amazingly cool to see, but it would somehow be less cool if it was just one person with four arms (well, less cool if four armed people where considered as normal anyway).

So it won’t be that God is now controlling however many minds. Rather, it will be that however many minds know exactly what is best to do and how best to do their part in doing it, and just do it. Individuals cooperating perfectly for the perfect purpose.
 
Iron_Donkey said:
So it won’t be that God is now controlling however many minds. Rather, it will be that however many minds know exactly what is best to do and how best to do their part in doing it, and just do it. Individuals cooperating perfectly for the perfect purpose.
Click to expand...
Will this appear similar to a hive mind, for functional purposes? That is, even if they still have individual minds, this sounds like they will behave identically to if they did not.
 
valleylillies20 said:
I’ve thought about this before too, and here’s how I’ve thought of it;

Lets say I went to a club or a meetup for something I REALLY loved. Everyone there would love the same thing I do. Lets say it’s art. Now, we all love art…but maybe this person wants to talk about the beauty of abstract, and another wants to talk about watercolors, and another sculpting, and it’s all this great party. That’s not a hive mind. we’re all loving and singing the praises of one thing, but that one thing isn’t such a narrow, tiny subject that we all say the same things
Click to expand...
This is my best guess of what it would be like as well. Very well put!
 
CaptBell800 said:
Will this appear similar to a hive mind, for functional purposes? That is, even if they still have individual minds, this sounds like they will behave identically to if they did not.
Click to expand...
I would hesitate to say this. There is room for character and personality differences in how people should behave.

Perhaps I do not understand what you mean by hive mind. But to me, hive mind conjures up the image of a whole bunch of bodies behaving as though they were all controlled by one being with a homogeneous personality, etc.

Whereas in what I am trying to say each person is his own unique individual behaving in ways perfectly in accord with his individuality, his personality or whatever, just oriented towards a common goal.

It’s hard to describe. I have this image of my parents cooking together - my Mom has always been fairly energetic and sort buzzing around the room while my Dad has a slower more deliberate pace (at least until things need to pick up). And yet, for no discernible reason, occasionally one will pick up a random utensil and hold it out in the air, and it will turn out that the other has just decided that they need that utensil. Or you have the fact that they’re moving at completely different speeds in almost random directions, yet never bump into each other and are reaching past and over each other.

They’re definitely different people. You can tell, nearly everything about how they approach anything is different. They’re just sort of “in tune,” and working seamlessly towards a common goal.

EDIT: And also valleylillies20 point: we’re working towards the same thing, but it’s a big thing. Many people possibly doing many different (though related) things, and even those doing the same things doing them in different ways, but all harmoniously, and all with the same goal.
 
Iron_Donkey said:
So it won’t be that God is now controlling however many minds. Rather, it will be that however many minds know exactly what is best to do and how best to do their part in doing it, and just do it. Individuals cooperating perfectly for the perfect purpose.
Click to expand...
I disagree on the point about God’s control. One of the joys of heaven will be the total surrender to God’s Will in all things, which means, precisely, that God will control our every thought.

Think of Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, in a chariot with Arjuna. The chariot represents Arjuna’s soul, but Arjuna is just the passenger; Krishna is the driver.

This is a metaphor for total surrender to God, and those in heaven experience it perfectly.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top