World Wide Brain 321

12 World Wide Brain 321

This writer’s notion of the superorganism as a fungus is humorous, but it also conceals a serious point. Yes, the fi ctitious Dr. Viermenhouk is wrong; the superor- ganism is not here yet, at least not in full force. But when it is here, will it necessarily

be a boon to humanity? Or will it, indeed, be a fungus, a parasite on humans, suck- ing the life-blood from human-created technology for its own purposes? Heylighen himself appears to have taken the parody in good cheer. But not all global brain advocates have been so charitable. Valentin Turchin, for one, was deeply annoyed. In a message posted to the Global Brain Study Group2, he stated that he thought the “fun” of the article actually conveyed a genuine outrage by the idea of direct brain links—a relatively common view which Turchin himself had run into before, and with which those who seriously explore this fi eld must be prepared to deal.

Turchin believes that the global brain will have deep, positive, profound human meaning. That it will provide a way of bridging the gaps between human beings and fusing us into a collective awareness—something that spiritual traditions have been working on for a long time. From this point of view, direct brain–computer links should not be viewed as tools for escape from human reality, but rather as gateways to deeper connections with other human beings. And, from this point of view, Williams’ remarks are destructive, pointing the readers of Wired away from something genuinely valuable—they are about as funny as someone going into schools and teaching children that vegetables are bad for your teeth.

It is not only the fi ctitious Dr. Viermenhouk, however, who has a negative attitude toward the global brain. Related fears have been voiced by Peter Russell himself, who started a thread in the Global Brain Study Group on the striking

topic: Superorganism: Sane or Insane. Russell says 1 ,

I fi rst explored the notion of superorganisms in my book “The Global Brain”—written back in the late seventies before the Internet really existed. There I showed that, from the perspective of general living systems theory, human society already displays 18 of the

19 characteristics of living organisms (the missing one is reproduction—we haven’t yet colonized another planet, although we have the potential to) … The interesting question for me is not whether a global brain is developing. It clearly is. But will this growing global brain turn out to be sane or insane? If civilization continues with its current self-centered, materialistic worldview, it will almost certainly bring its own destruction.

I have long been fascinated by the striking parallels between human society and cancer. Cancers have lost their relationship to the whole, and function at the expense of the organism—which is insane, since a successful cancer destroys its own host. This is what we appear to be doing, and very rapidly. Our embryonic global brain would seem to have turned malignant before it is even fully born.

I believe the reason for our collective malignancy comes back to individual consciousness. We are stuck in an outdated mode of consciousness, one more appropriate to the survival

1 All quotes from the Global Brain Study group are archived at (http://www.fmb.mmu.ac.uk/ majordom/gbrain). Reprinted with permission of the authors.

322 Ben Goertzel

needs of pre-industrial society. Thus the real challenge is for human consciousness to catch up with our technology. We need to evolve inwardly before any of our dreams of healthily-functioning global brains can manifest.

This is more intelligently and respectfully stated than Williams’ parody, but in the end, it is somewhat similar. Instead of fungus, we have cancer—a far better metaphor, because cancer cells come from within, whereas fungus comes from outside. Russell believes that we are on a path toward the emergence of the global brain, and that the Web is just one particular manifestation of this path. But, observ- ing that we humans ourselves are riddled with neurosis and interpersonal confl ict,

he wonders whether the collective intelligence that we give rise to is going to be any better off. On one hand, Russell believes that the global brain will go beyond individual human consciousness, with all its limitations. In response to a post of mine, ques- tioning whether the Internet might eventually develop a sense of “self ” similar to that of human beings, he responded as follows:

The question is whether this superorganism will develop its own consciousness—and sense of self—as human beings have done. Back then [in “The Global Brain”] I argued that there were close parallels between the structure and development of the human brain, and the structure and development of the global telecommunication / information network, which suggested that when the global nervous system reached the same degree of complexity as the human nervous system, a new level of evolution might emerge. But it would be wrong to characterize this new level as consciousness. It would be as far beyond consciousness, as we know it, as our consciousness is beyond life, as a simple organism knows it. So I don’t think discussions as to whether the global social superorganism will develop a self akin to ours are that relevant.

Despite this conviction that the global brain will be far above and beyond human consciousness and human mental dynamics, however, he is worried that the fl aws of individual human consciousness may somehow “poison” this greater emergent entity, and make it fatally fl awed itself.

Responses to Russell’s pessimistic post were mixed. Gregory Stock (1993), for instance, took issue with Russell’s generally negative judgment of the psychol- ogy of the average modern human. A biologist, Stock views human selfi shness and shortsightedness as biologically natural, and believes that modern society and psychology, for all their problems, are ultimately wonderful things. Russell’s book MetaMan (1996) treats contemporary technological society as a kind of superorgan- ism, and views this superorganism in a very positive light. In his book, he says:

Turchin (1997), on the other hand, agrees substantially with Russell’s pessimistic view of human nature and its implications for the mental health of the superorganism. He believes, however, that it may be possible to cure human nature, at the same time as developing new technologies that extend human nature, overcoming its limitations. We need to evolve inwardly before any of our dreams of healthily functioning global brains can manifest.