Transitioning back to the Snow story line:

Q = qualia = the fundamental definition of what is. This isness does not imply existence in any material sense. It implies only spirit, thought, the idea of self and otherness as being.

The Q is infinite in extent, such that each point in the Q is its own unique dimension, distinct from every other point. (This implies that the Q is discontinuous, composed of discrete points. This appears to be true for the spirits comprising the Q. It is unclear whether it applies to the Q as a whole. The intuition is that the One is truly singular, infinite, complete, and individual. But we can't really know that at our level of being. Discussing this is pointless.)

Points in the Q, though unique, are definable by their similarities to other points. They are linked by these similarities. Thus segments of the Q can be defined by such similarities. The character of a Q dimension point is defined by its links to other dimension points. 

The establishment of such a link is a fundamental action. A Q point is a point of potential awareness. It can be considered to initially have no actual awareness, only potential awareness. A Q point by its linking actions establishes paths of actual awareness through a series of such links.

A Q point may be the source of linking actions that affect other points, or the receiver of linking actions sourced by others. These two flows tend to be balanced. As if the flow must be returned to complete the link. Such a link is a sharing, a recognition of an agreement and similarity between Q points. Memory is the ability to recognize and respond to received linking actions. The growth of awareness is the growth of beingness in the Q through consecutive links.

There are some fundamental types of similarities. Among these are entanglement and emergence. Entanglements are associations of points that share similarities. Emergence is the quality of a complex entanglement that distinguishes it from its component points.

The science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke famously said that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."  It turns out that he was more right in this assessment than is immediately obvious. Over the years since he said it, advances in science and technology have been in the direction of digging deeper into the nature of reality, exploring the quantum realm. This realm is itself indistinguishable from magic. Reality is, ultimately, indistinguishable from magic.

As this understanding grew, another understanding arose. This one was labeled "the problem of consciousness". It is called "the hard problem", because science and technology can't deal with it in the material terms they are built on. It appears that consciousness derives directly from the quantum realm. It is part of the magic.

At this point the word "magic" becomes itself part of the problem. Clarke's identification of magic with technology needs to be unpacked. Technology is assumed to be a mastery of the physical. The usual assumption is that he meant that all apparent magic could be explained as some form of physical manipulation. Slight of hand, misdirection, hidden machinery. Now we find that it is our faith in science and technology that is hiding something. And what it is hiding is that the magic is real.

Entanglement, Memories, and Links: 

Spacetime is a convenient label for the presumed universe of all possible events. It is the first order of infinity. 

Entanglements are links between individual events in spacetime. The collection of all possible links between spacetime events is a higher order of infinity than spacetime. It potentially forms an infinite web connecting every event to all other events.

Each individual event is its own entity. It is the starting point of a unique web of events with a singular focus. Memories are links between events in the unique web of an individual entity. Each such web is a subset of the infinite set of all possible links.

Awareness is a characteristic of an individual entity. It forms an overlay on the web of the experiences available to that entity. It has access to a subset of the complete individual web. Through this access it forms another higher order of potential infinity, because it may retrace existing links multiple times.

The hive mind:

In discovering the Q (in the story, via computer QAR: Quantum Augmented Reality) it was found that it gives access to selected points of awareness, or multiple such points. The number of such points selected turns out to be limited to the level of awareness of the viewing point. The viewer, being finite, has a finite ability to hold multiple points in mind and be aware of their relationships.

The level of awareness derives from the number of links to other points the viewing point has established, and from the ability to recognize and hold in mind their relationships. A physical mind is a tool for doing this. It offers a way of keeping track of such links, and of renewing access to them at need. It does this by offering a way to hold a collection of links in close association. And of segregating such collections from other similar collections. This is the hive mind.

How does this work? That is not entirely clear. But it may not be necessary for it to become entirely clear, as long as we can keep it working. There is the idea that a brain is a kind of "file clerk" that keeps track of links in the hive so they can be brought to mind as needed.

Some further speculation:

There is also the BEC, the Bose-Einstein-Condensate, which can be understood as the Stillness of absolute agreement, where multiple objects that are enough alike become capable of acting as One.  In the physical realm, such extreme balance is achieved only at extreme high density or extreme low energy. The intermediate realm is the realm of Fermi-Dirac statistics, in which objects find it impossible to merge, impossible to occupy the same space at the same time. This is the realm of Chaos, where balance is achieved only as a coordinated dance of the possible. Where History, while not lost, becomes in practice impossible to comprehend. Except by the All-Knowing One itself. 

This is the realm where the physical is subsumed into the ideal. This is the realm where Coyote and Eagle coexist, and from which all their avatars originate. This is the realm where, as Penrose perceived, the utmost extremes are interchangeable. Where a transition from an End to a Beginning can occur. Where the Eternal becomes the Moment. And the Cycle reaches a peak from which its only course is to rebound, and repeat. It is the End of Eternity. And a new Beginning.

Time is the stubbornly persistent illusion. Time is a lie. Reality is nothing more than a shared idea, and the realm of ideas is timeless. There is neither expansion nor contraction within the realm of ideas. There is only the possible. And within that infinite realm there is no beginning and no end. There is simply the concept of What Is.

The eternal mind, the One, hits Reset, and the End becomes a new Beginning. Let the Game begin. Again.

I am the Scribe, not the Master. But if I was the Master, I would be holding out my hand, and in it would be a pebble, and I would be saying, "When you can snatch this pebble from my hand, it will be time for you to leave."

Some references from the literature:

"As the quantum concentration depends on temperature, most systems at high temperatures obey the classical (Maxwell–Boltzmann) limit, unless they also have a very high density, as for a white dwarf. Both Fermi–Dirac and Bose–Einstein become Maxwell–Boltzmann statistics at high temperature or at low concentration."

"Bose–Einstein statistics was introduced for photons by Bose in 1924 and generalized to atoms by Einstein in 1924–25."

"Maxwell Boltzmann statistics is applicable to identical, distinguishable particle of any type spin. The molecules of gas are particles of this type. Bose Einstein statistics is applicable to the identical, indistinguishable particles of zero or integral spin. These particles are called Bosons."

"A boson is a particle which carries a force. It has a whole number spin (spin is a property of subatomic particles). Bosons carry energy. A photon is an example of a boson as it has a spin of 1 and carries electromagnetism. Mesons are also bosons as they carry nuclear force."

Sweepings from the cutting room floor: [Extreme energy expands, explodes (eludes exchanges).(particle probabilities = wave patterns) (fermions reject similarities, bosons accept similarities) (electrons and protons are fermions that combine to make bosons) (are all atoms bosons?) All regions of space are equally excitable. electron entanglement in atoms?] [Black atom = an atom of Mills' "dark matter"? Mind-matter partnership?]