Over the next several hundred years, as mankind grows in numbers, progresses in technology, and generally, learns how to control its environment with more accuracy and efficiency, the structure of society is likely to change in some very significant ways.
According to Wikipedia –
Prior to the widespread internetworking that led to the Internet, most communication networks were limited by their nature to only allow communications between the stations on the network, and the prevalent computer networking method was based on the central mainframe computer model. Several research programs began to explore and articulate principles of networking between separate physical networks. This led to the development of the packet switching model of digital networking. These research efforts included those of the laboratories of Donald Davies (NPL), Paul Baran (RAND Corporation), and Leonard Kleinrock's MIT and UCLA.
The research led to the development of several packet-switched networking solutions in the late 1960s and 1970s, including ARPANET and the X.25 protocols. Additionally, public access and hobbyist networking systems grew in popularity, including unix-to-unix copy (UUCP) and FidoNet. They were however still disjointed separate networks, served only by limited gateways between networks. This led to the application of packet switching to develop a protocol for inter-networking, where multiple different networks could be joined together into a super-framework of networks. By defining a simple common network system, the Internet protocol suite, the concept of the network could be separated from its physical implementation. This spread of inter-network began to form into the idea of a global inter-network that would be called 'The Internet', and this began to quickly spread as existing networks were converted to become compatible with this. This spread quickly across the advanced telecommunication networks of the western world, and then began to penetrate into the rest of the world as it became the de-facto international standard and global network. However, the disparity of growth led to a digital divide that is still a concern today.
Following commercialization and introduction of privately run Internet Service Providers in the 1980s, and its expansion into popular use in the 1990s, the Internet has had a drastic impact on culture and commerce. This includes the rise of near instant communication by e-mail, text based discussion forums, and the World Wide Web. Investor speculation in new markets provided by these innovations would also lead to the inflation and collapse of the Dot-com bubble, a major market collapse. But despite this, the Internet continues to grow.
Because, of its already noticeable impact on the every day lives of many people, the Internet has attracted attention as something which may well bring about significant changes. The tendency of the Internet to promote connectedness between individuals and its ability to disseminate large and diverse quantities of information has led many theorists to advocate the concepts of the super organism and global brain as descriptions of future human society.
Bill gates, one of the visionaries of our times (and the richest individual for a long time on Forbes Listing) outlines the importance of Internet as –
“The main advantage of any new technology is that it amplifies human potential. In the 20th century, electricity, the telephone, the automobile and the airplane all made the world more accessible to more people, transforming our economy and society in the process. The Internet has the same revolutionary impact--individuals and businesses can overcome geographical, cultural and logistical barriers and improve the way they live and work. Because it amplifies our potential in so many ways, it's possible that the long-term impact of the Internet could equal that of electricity, the automobile and the telephone all rolled together. The Internet brings people closer together. Before the Internet, it was possible to keep in touch with relatives and friends across the country or around the world--but it was also expensive. Today, communicating with a friend in Japan is as easy and cheap as communicating with a friend across town, and families regularly use the Internet to keep in touch with far-flung relatives. Millions of people with shared interests--no matter how obscure--exchange information and build communities through Web sites, email and instant-messaging software. Using innovative accessibility aids, people with disabilities can use the Internet to help overcome barriers that prevent them from leading more productive and fulfilling lives”.
However, the internet is being thought of being much more than just bringing connectedness. What this interaction between individual “cells” represented by individual people and the global mass populations as super organisms has profoundly greater potential than being recognized as such.
Ideas of the human super organism and global brain first appeared in modern form in Herbert Spencer's The Principles of Sociology (1876-96). The super organism idea gained scientific support from the work of the notable Russian biogeochemist Vladimir Vernadsky. He performed groundbreaking studies of the large scale biochemical processes of the earth, and was the first to think of the Earth and all living things as a single biosphere.
While the biosphere concept deals with the Earth as a whole, Vernadsky also coined the term, noosphere, which more specifically denotes "the network of thoughts, information and communication that englobes the planet." This network could only be a phenomenon attributed to humans, and in 1955, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin published his work, The Phenomenon of Man, in which he popularized the term, noosphere, and the concept of the human superorganism and the global brain. Since then, a wide range of thinkers has taken up these concepts and developed them using today's knowledge of the world and humanity.
The most straightforward way of approaching the concept of the human superorganism is through trend. By examining a significant trend throughout the development of living creatures and humanity, in particular, it is possible to extrapolate the development of the human superorganism. This trend has been for systems of single entities acting separately to combine into systems of many entities acting in cooperation. The many-entity system can then be viewed as a single, larger entity, often with significant qualities which cannot be attributed to the individual entities making up the system.
In evolutionary terms, this tendency of individual entities to combine to form larger, more complex entities manifests itself further in the structure of multicelled organisms. The single cell organisms, which existed before the development of multicelled organisms, realized a distinct survival advantage by cooperating with other single cell organisms to satisfy their basic needs. The level of cooperation between single celled organisms evolved until the cooperative units could be viewed as single entities or multicell organisms.
Speculating about the future development of humanity, proponents of the superorganism concept notice this same trend in human societies with modern free market economies. In these societies, individuals acting for their own benefit often find that cooperation with another individual serves to further the individual interests of both parties. Indeed, this concept has been developing for millennia and has reached the point where people spend the majority of their lives specializing in one area of expertise. People provide work in narrow areas that somehow benefit others and contract with others to provide for their needs in all other areas.
The incredible rate at which scientific discoveries and technology advances are made today ensures that the need to specialize will only increase. As humans become even more specialized in narrow fields of expertise, the need for cooperation becomes even greater. In general, the more a person has specialized in one field, the less they know about other fields, and the more they must rely on others to provide knowledge or services in other fields. In this manner, the complexity of societal interactions and cooperation is constantly increasing with developments in science and technology.
Thus, we are reminded of the single cell organisms whose level of cooperation increased to the point where all cooperating cells could be seen as a single, more complex multicell organism. In the same way, if one assumes that the progress of humanity will continue in the manner we have seen throughout history, we can extrapolate the development of a human superorganism. Such a superorganism would result from the highly complex interactions and cooperation of the human individuals as they each act naturally in their own best interests.
The guiding intellect of this human superorganism can be defined as the global brain. This global brain is likely to have qualities which cannot be attributed to individual humans. Just as a cell cannot comprehend the concept of a human or of sentience, we may not be able to fully understand the nature of the superorganism and the global brain. However, one can hope that our sentience and investigative nature might give us more success than the cell.
To understand the influence of the Internet of the global brain it is necessary to understand the current state of the global brain. As witnessed to by all the present strife in the world, it is evident that the global brain, if at all existent, is still in a very primitive form. While there is a reasonable level of cooperation among members of some countries, cooperation among member of different societies is still quite limited by language and cultural differences. We see fighting, terrorism and general strife in many parts of the world in the name of language, religion and culture. Also, at least half of the people in the world are not in political or economic situations in which they can participate in a superorganism and global brain. Clearly, humanity has far to progress and many obstacles to overcome before the global brain can emerge as a coherent entity.
The advent of the Internet in the past decade has caused quite a stir among thinkers sympathetic to the global brain concept. It is thought that the Internet might be the ingredient needed to bring about the emergence of the global brain as a coherent entity. The reason the Internet inspires such optimism is due to its likeness to human brains and to its globalness.
Firstly, the organization of information on the World Wide Web in hypertext format closely resembles the associative connections formed by neurons in the brain.
Secondly, the Internet network encompasses the entire globe, holding the possibility for linking all humans with a means of virtually instant interaction.
Thirdly, it could conceivably store all human knowledge and provide instant access to that knowledge to its users.
This is an unparalleled trend in human evolution. Never have we, as a species, had instant access to such amount of information. Besides simply noticing the trend of today's civilization toward developing a global brain, some thinkers have suggested specific ways in which this might come about through development of the Internet. This is important for the healthy development of the global brain. The global brain must develop as a natural process that benefits individuals and never as an end in itself. This helps to guarantee that human individuals will not find themselves being oppressed for the "good" of the global brain.
Various information gathering mechanisms can be viewed as ways of improving the efficiency of interaction between people who are cooperating to perform various actions. The knowledge provided by a person with a certain specialty is more readily available for use by others who might need it. As such, the Internet, by dramatically increasing the level of cooperation between individuals, could possibly lead to a solidification of the global brain as a coherent entity.
In fact, some thinkers argue that the advent of internet may have even more profound impact on humanity than splitting of the atom!
“The fact that everything is possible on the Internet reveals mankind's true essence, the aspiration towards freedom.” Pierre Lévy, “Collective Intelligence: A Civilization”
The ubiquity of computers and access to the Internet has put the greatest libraries, image databases, and interactive tools at the fingertips of most artists working today. As a result, traditional artistic practice is exploding as artists explore the potential of these new technologies and incorporate them into their working methodologies.
I-Mod talks about the concept of Meta-brain - Mankind and it's Meta Brain, the Internet.
There is however, as usual, a contrary view as well as this article on cracked.com highlights it - 7 Reasons the 21st Century is Making You Miserable… or this one - Internet: Amazing tool of mankind in the 2lst century but…
As Bill Gates puts it - The Internet has already revolutionized the way we live and work, but it is still in its infancy. In the coming years, a combination of cheap and powerful computing devices, fast and convenient Internet access, and software innovations could make the Internet as common and powerful a resource as electricity is today.
Mankind would never be the same again… although that may not always be a good thing all the time. But as history of dinosaurs has shown us… what does not evolve, perishes!
