Aphorism #6: Love in the Age of Transhumanism

An introduction to Couplepsyche

Distributed cognition, n. a psychological theory that knowledge lies not only within the individual but also in the individual's social and physical environment.

There are so many wonderful qualities I could panegyrise in my aunt. Frugality, alas, has never been on that list. Before my uncle passed away, she was known to sneak into Limerick and get some drippy clothes or jewellery (fashion taste being one of the aforementioned panegyrisable qualities). She never thought about the money; she thought only of how to hide it from my uncle (quite often, stashing it at our house was the solution).

After he passed away, my aunt was out shopping one day. She was eyeing up a nice jacket when, quite uncalled for, a thought intruded into consciousness: “is it worth it?” It came as a surprise. She told me she’d never worried about the money before — only about hiding it from my uncle. Their Couplepsyche had collapsed.

In 2015 Pais-Viera et al. crudely wired four rat brains together to form a “brainnet”. This quartet outperformed individual rats on tasks becoming a rat hive mind.

Bees communicate what they’ve learned using trails of pheromone chemicals.

Our brains do the same (but with the enhancement of electrical myelin sheath).