What is an egregore?

An egregore is a group mind, a "watcher".

Egregore in Greek means "watchers."  In the way I use egregore for Mabon Dane is in three aspects:

• Mabon Dane acts like a watcher over an allocated zone, working towards an ultimate ending.
• Mabon Dane is split into many minds, that would be better described as a group mind.
• Mabon Dane could be as like a corporate entity overseeing a memeplex.

A scenerio: street lights

A council looks after 2000 street lights in a geographical zone.  Each street light is fitted with a processor that monitors the integrity of the street light, and transmits information to Mabon Dane.  At a central location is Mabon Dane, who will receive a constant stream of data from all 2000 street lights.

Mabon Dane has an ultimate ending to make sure all the street lights are working.  Mabon Dane may have a split of minds as follows:

1. Watcher : monitors all the street lights.
2. Critic : tests street light data for mismatches, throws up error messages.
3. Investigator : looks into the mismatch to seek the problem and the solution.
4. Enabler : harasses a decision maker to go and fix the problem.


Suppose a street light is vandalised.  The processor in the street light ceases to function.  In Mabon Dane the Watcher fails to receive data from the vandalised street light; the Critic throws up an error message, as no input has been received from the street light; the Investigator has access to logs of patterns of motion in street lights, and of previous incidents involving the street light, which concludes the street light has been vandalised; the Enabler sends an immediate message to a decision maker to go fix the light, and another to a police patrol to check out a potential crime.  The street light is then fixed.

The abstract and concrete form in the design of Mabon Dane

In the design of Mabon Dane there is an abstract and a concrete form.

The concrete form, is the version of Mabon Dane that is presented to the world, the external face of Mabon Dane, be it as an animation, android or holographic image.

The concrete form of Mabon Dane can also be the outputs of this egregore in its interactions with the user.

The abstract form of Mabon Dane deals with what happens behind the scenes, how Mabon Dane thinks.

It is my opinion that the designers of software are too focused on the concrete form, when the abstract form is probably the most important.  How Mabon Dane thinks can be designed in a visual way, in the abstract form, and then later converted into the concrete form which the user can understand.

The designer of Mabon Dane has to be able to visualise the thinking process of this egregore, which requires an abstract approach, and then after that is done, convert the abstract into concrete terms understandable to the user.  This abstract and concrete form may be seen as like two languages.

If one looks at human dreams for instance, the dreams are highly abstract, and it is this way of thinking that needs to be looked at for the design of Mabon Dane in the abstract form.

The use of holographic technology for Mabon Dane

Hatsune Miku is a holographic rock star, the technology could be used for Mabon Dane.

The following video shows Hatsune Miku in concert:



The technology of holographic images could be used to create a version of Mabon Dane in external reality.

An animated Mabon Dane based on Project Milo

Project Milo was the creation of a piece of intelligent looking animation called Milo.

A few years ago the studio Lionhead showcased a piece of animation on their Kinetic equipment called Milo, an animated character that people could interact with.  

Project Milo was an attempt through the use of technology to provide an emotional experience between the character Milo and the user, where conversations and activity could be a shared experience.  Project Milo fell well off the mark for being intelligent, but used some clever tricks to appear intelligent.

The technology that has been developed from Project Milo is now being used in various software games by Lionhead.

I saw the possibility of what was being showcased by Project Milo for the creation of an animated  version of Mabon Dane

The video on Project Milo is as below:

Why the name Mabon?

Mabon is a name from Celtic mythology.

Mabon appears in several Welsh stories, especially the one known as  Culhwch ac Olwen.  Mabon has three qualities that I would like for Mabon Dane:

1. a hunter.
2. an enabler.
3. a walker between two states.

The egregore Mabon Dane can hunt for objects to achieve its ultimate ending; it can bring about an ultimate ending as an enabler, and works between the abstract/potential state,  and the objective/actual state.

Mabon Dane as a self coding egregore

Giving Mabon Dane the ability to self code would open interesting possibilities.

Within the limits of the ultimate ending, it should be considered to enable the ability of Mabon Dane to self code.  It is likely that in any given process that the designer has not been able to think of all the possibilities on offer to enable Mabon Dane to carry out its purpose, it is here that Mabon Dane would be encouraged to learn, to problem solve, and then to self code, to provide it with another set of options to carry out its purpose.

It would be dangerous to allow Mabon Dane to self code the ultimate ending, so that must be set in stone, it is process that Mabon Dane should be given flexibility to decide its own manner by which to achieve the ultimate ending.

I would like it so that Mabon Dane can function as a free agent, with as limited intervention by its designers as possible.

The Law of Process

The process should relate to the ultimate ending.

The process is the motion of Mabon Dane in achieving a defined ultimate ending.  If it is the ultimate ending for Mabon Dane to gather the blog addresses of all blogs that mention the word "egregore", then Mabon Dane should be designed so that its process fits that defined goal.

Once the ultimate ending is defined, it is the next step to ask how that ultimate ending may be achieved by Mabon Dane, then to create the code so that the egregore may follow that process through to its goal.

It may be worth thinking how the human mind would go about achieving an ultimate ending, and perhaps the many strategies that could be taken, then to code this into Mabon Dane, leaving the egregore to work out for itself the best manner to achieve its goal from the many options on offer.

It may also be worth while to give Mabon Dane the ability to problem solve, to make up its own strategy, but within the clear process that this must always achieve the defined ultimate ending.