Global Brain

From P2P Foundation

Global Brain, concept, but also the title of a book by Howard Bloom.

Concept Definition

From the Global Brain FAQ of the Principia Cybernetica Project:

"The global brain is the name given to the emerging intelligent network formed by all people on this planet, together with the computers and communication links that connect them together. Like a real brain, this network is an immensely complex, self-organizing system, that processes information, makes decisions, solves problems, learns new connections and discovers new ideas. It plays the role of a collective nervous system for the whole of humanity. No person, organization or computer is in control of this system: its "thought" processes are distributed over all its components." (http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/GBRAIFAQ.html)

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Review of the Book

Book: Howard Bloom. Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century.

URL = http://howardbloom.net/

"Howard Bloom's first book, The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into The Forces of History, was a shock to those who believe that the greed of genes turns us into selfish loners. But Bloom's second volume, Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century, will come as an even bigger surprise. Says Elizabeth Loftus, past president of the American Psychological Society: "Howard Bloom's Global Brain is filled with scientific firsts. It is the first book to make a strong, solidly backed, and theoretically original case that we do not live the lonely lives of selfish beings driven by selfish genes, but are parts of a larger whole. It is the first to propose that sociality was implicit in the start of the universe--the Big Bang. Global Brain is the first book to present strong evidence that evolutionary, biological, perceptual, and emotional mechanisms have made us parts of a social learning machine--a mass mind which includes all species of life, not just humankind. It is the first to take this idea out of the realm of mysticism and into the sphere of hard-nosed, data-derived reality. And it is one of the few books which carry off such grand visions with energy, excitement, and keen insight."

Global Brain says that a world-wide web has been with us since the first moments of life, and that global connectivity isn't a product of our technology, it's built into our biology. It's in our cells, our bodies, and our brains." (http://howardbloom.net/)

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