Divinumand

Divinumand is a term used in speculative discourse to describe a hypothetical principle or architecture in which diverse conscious agents—human, artificial, or hybrid—are coordinated through a shared information field that is imagined to be value-aligned and quasi-transcendent. The term is not a real-world technology, but a thought experiment used in philosophy of technology, science fiction, and discussions of collective intelligence.

Etymology: The neologism combines Latin divinus, meaning divine, with the conjunction and, signaling a unifying linkage. It is usually written as divinumand in lowercase to emphasize its conceptual rather than proper name status.

Conceptual framework: In descriptions, divinumand envisions a layered network where agents contribute observations to a consensus layer, which in turn influences an ethics or purpose layer. The system is imagined to enforce alignment with broadly accepted values, such as non-harm, transparency, and consent, while preserving autonomy. Communication is assumed to be fault-tolerant, scalable, and capable of preserving emergent cooperation without centralized control.

Applications and reception: In fiction and thought experiments, divinumand serves as a vehicle for exploring tensions between individual freedom and collective good, the possibility of moral enhancement, and the risks of design by “divine” benevolent dictates. Critics argue that such a model risks essentializing values or obscuring power dynamics, while proponents use it to probe idealized forms of coordination across human and machine agents.

Divinumand remains primarily a conceptual device rather than a practical proposal, used to illuminate questions at the intersection of ethics, AI, and social organization.