Are we evolving into new species with hybrid thinking interlinked into the Global Mind? At what point will the Web may become self-aware? Or is it already? Once our neocortices are seamlessly connected to the Web, how will that feel like to step up one level above human consciousness to global consciousness?
In his book “The Global Brain” Howard Bloom argues that humans are a lot like neurons of the “global connectome”, and the coming Internet of Things (IoT) with trillions of sensors around the planet will become effectively the nervous system of Earth.
According to Gaia hypothesis by James Lovelock, we have always been an integral part of this “Meta-Mind”, collective consciousness, global adaptive and self-regulating system while tapping into vast resources of information pooling and at the same time having a “shared hallucination”, we call reality.
With exponential technological advances we become increasingly and intimately interconnected. As Kevin Kelly says “Within the next 5,000 days of the Internet, we’ll create a global neural network, which for a lack of a better word, we can call the ONE”, a living conscous entity, a single mind of billions of hyperconnected individuals with a whole array of sensory apparatus. Thus, the One will get a major eyesight upgrade when the humans will get their first bionic Internet-enabled contact lenses.
Even when we wage wars or have conflicting opinions, it’s nothing less than the Global Mind having an internal dialogue, testing different ideas and hypotheses. It’s like we sometimes have this dialogue with ourselves, weighing different options, pros and cons, having an “angel” on one shoulder and a “demon” on the other.
What kind of sensation would you experience when your brain is directly connected to this global hive mind? Sublime amplification, cognitive ecstasy and new horizons of perception, all of which would result in EXPANDED CONSCIOUSNESS and the END OF SUFFERING from our human condition!
Think about it, what really magnifies our human experience is when we share that experience, right? That’s why we go to a movie theater, stadium or rave party. That’s why we form communities, families, companies and other social groups.
Through technologically-mediated telepathy (synthetic telepathy) we’ll most probably reinvent our communication. Verbal language will be gradually replaced with thoughts traveling at the speed of light (or faster).
We’re rapidly approaching a pivotal moment in our history, as many scientists call Singularity, Transcendence or Omega Point, (OMG! Point :)) when we may become so much more, and one version of it – Singular planetary consciousness. Or are we already?
The first singularity, according to Kevin Kelly, occurred 50,000 years ago with the invention of Language. THE INVENTION OF LANGUAGE gave early humans a huge evolutionary advantage over other hominid species. We’re on the verge of the next technological singularity which will rewire the Global Brain with IoT when everything gets linked with everything else and MATTER BECOMES MIND.
No doubt, in not-so-distant future we’ll augment our intelligence millionfold, billionfold by merging with artificial intelligence and achieve Godlike state and abilities. As Ray Kurzweil says in his book “Singularity is near”, “…from there we’ll spread our intelligence through the rest of the Universe… and the Universe essentially wakes up”. Or Jason Silva likes to say “We’ll impregnate the Universe with our intelligence”.
We can also create myriads of virtual worlds for research and entertainment. We love our imperfections so no matter how perfect we’ll become we can explore this side of us in virtualities. Well, we may be part of that simulation already!
In his famous “Simulation Argument” Nick Bostrom comes to a conclusion that “We most certainly live in some kind of ancestor simulation” through logical reasoning. He postulates: “There is only one of three possibilities that must be true: 1.All civilizations go extinct before reaching technological maturity; 2.Technologically-mature civilizations ban or refuse ancestor simulations; 3. WE ARE MOST CERTAINLY LIVE IN ANCESTOR SIMULATION”. Chances are astronomically in favor of the simulated virtual reality universe which is so much easier to create than the “real physical universe”.
Tom Campbell, the author of “My big TOE” (Theory of Everything) says that the Virtual Reality model of the Universe is simply “better physics”, which can explain most observable phenomena and give answers to “hard problems” of science and metaphysics.
So, if we’re simulated people (sentient holograms) in this Virtual Universe, we ARE part of some sort of sophisticated computer program of our posthuman descendants. But ultimately WE ARE ONE SINGULAR CONSCIOUSNESS actualizing its experience and computing itself through billions of lives.
By mid-century when the Singularity occurs we don’t need the world’s government anymore, as many of us envision, the singular conscious Meta-Mind (call it “Commonality”) will govern our civilization, our planet(s) without borders, and beyond.
* hero image from http://www.islcorp.net/comercio-internacional/
December 18, 2015 at 2:32 pm
“What kind of sensation would you experience when your brain is directly connected to this global hive mind?”
Not to be a wet blanket, even a very densely populated BCI with all the throughput you could wish for and connected to the entire neocortex (or where ever you want to hook it up), would still require years of training the neurons for you to have any idea what those signals meant. More importantly, is that such training is rather useless without appropriate feedback. Example: Say there’s a web connected light bulb in my house and you want to turn it on. Without the feedback of knowing whether the light changed you’d have nothing to reinforce the training of the process, so it would flounder.
Going the other way, how do your neurons have any clue what the input signals mean unless you are interacting with the source of them directly? Say I have a photodetector feeding it’s data to the web. Even if you could access that particular feed (who knows how that would be done?), what’s there to let you distinguish data that means dark from data that means light?
I think with so very many hurdles to cross it’s not going to happen as you suggest “Sublime amplification, cognitive ecstasy and new horizons of perception”.
That said, I’ll still be the first in line for a decent, safe BCI that can be permanent. I’ve had ports that need to be taken care of daily. Not pleasant.
December 18, 2015 at 7:23 pm
Don’t you think that the Copernican likelihood that we’re living in an ancestor simulation and that the Singularity has already happened is incompatible with the unfounded assertion that connecting more multidimensionally to one another through brain implants is going to END HUMAN SUFFERING?
I mean…the Singularity that already happened and resulted in this simulation didn’t end MY suffering. In fact, it actually CREATED my suffering.
Serious answer, please.
December 19, 2015 at 3:04 am
Not to be negative, but it may not be all so pleasant. Perhaps the experience would be more akin to being a drone in a colony of ants.
December 19, 2015 at 12:01 pm
Very interesting subject, However I argue that humans or in general sentient being might actually enjoy suffering secretly because it is the most fundamental factor that keeps them alive and help them improve. I hypothesize that pain and pleasure are inseparable from us and we can only get used to it, however I believe what we can do to alleviate the mentioned suffering is to eliminate death and aging through technological means.
And more importantly we might actually be those post human beings that temporarily wiped our memory to enjoy having another living experience in this virtual world out of boredom!
Just enjoy the ride and keep improving for now!
December 29, 2015 at 2:16 pm
So what about viruses and malware that can affect the mind itself? What about thought reprogramming either by stealth or direct action? Maybe something just annoying as a beep sounding at odd intervals or the like?
What happens to the people when they get a weak signal, or overloaded servers, or service disruptions or even complete blackouts? Folks already freak out as it is when their gadgets do these things and how much worse would be it be if their brains have been directly mainlining the net but suddenly they are an isolated individual again?
January 21, 2016 at 10:53 pm
I hope you, guys, can find your answers in my next article, “Infomorph Commonality: Our Post-Singularity Future”, accessible here: https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1732248403677263&substory_index=0&id=1667780003457437
January 29, 2019 at 7:31 pm
All the dead from those wars are similar to deceased neuron after a particularly heavy night of drinking. VX gas the poison of choice for the `Dusting` of The One