The Global Brain

I am officially a wiki contributor.

In my continuing pursuit for information related to information technology, an article about Google that I read this morning led me to H. G. Wells, who had coined the term 'world brain' way back in 1938. This soon led me to a Wikipedia article about a concept known as the global brain: "the name given to the emerging intelligent network formed by all people on Earth, together with the computers and communication links that connect them together."

This is virtually the same concept that I described last November as the digital world consciousness, so that gave me an idea to sneak my name in with those of some truly revolutionary thinkers. Since this was Wikipedia -- the online encyclopedia that can be edited by anybody -- why not see if I could add my name and a link to my essay? So check out that global brain link above and see if my name appears on the page. It should, unless somebody else has gone on there and removed it.

Back to that global brain concept for a moment. This term was coined by Peter Russell to discuss the emergence of a world-wide consciousness. He points to the early space programs, when astronauts saw the earth as a single body for the first time, as a key starting point for our awareness that the earth may very well be a living organism akin to an animal or plant. His essay can be read here. If, on the other hand, you prefer to visualize this and other concepts, go to Russell's video page and watch the streaming videos.

UPDATE: Well, some guy did go to the global brain page of Wikipedia and removed my name. Not totally surprising, I guess.