Is there not in fact, beyond the isolated brain, a still higher possible complex: by that I mean a sort of ‘brain’ of associated brains? And, if we look at the problem carefully, is it not in this direction that the continually more unified mass of mankind is evolving organically, under the irresistible influence of a cluster of geographic, ethnic, economic, and spiritual factors? From this point of view, the natural evolution of the biosphere is not only continued in what I have called the noösphere, but assumes in it a strictly convergent form which, towards its peak, produces a point of maturation (or of collective reflection).
In our ‘entropic’ universe, to cease to advance is to fall back.