In this exchange, Scott Douglas Jacobsen asks Rick Rosner about consciousness, identity, and the future of collective thinking. Rosner reflects on speculative brain–computer interfaces, imagining a “brain platoon” in which linked soldiers shift between individual and shared minds. He contrasts this with a hermit in Train Dreams, whose improvised worldview emerges from isolation rather than information overload. Jacobsen pushes back, arguing that philosophical frameworks differ across cultures, histories, and roles, while Rosner suggests that modern life’s torrent of facts fragments belief. Together, they explore whether unified consciousness—or unified philosophy—is still possible in a hyperconnected age.