Society can be viewed as a multicellular organism, with individuals in the role of the cells. The network of communication channels connecting individuals then plays the role of a nervous system for this superorganism, i.e. a “global brain.”
The concept of a global brain refers to the emerging collective intelligence of humanity and its information systems. With humans connecting across the globe through communication networks like the Internet, theorists argue that this constitutes an embryonic global brain. Just as a human brain emerges from interactions between billions of neurons, the global brain arises from interactions between billions of humans assisted by information technology.
While still metaphorical, the global brain allows people, computers, data sources, and algorithms around the world to rapidly exchange and process information. This can lead to more effective problem solving, innovation, and decision making that takes advantage of our collective intelligence and knowledge. With enough integration and bandwidth, it may even become possible for this network to develop a level of awareness of itself in the same way that a person can be aware of their entire body at once.
Challenges remain in facilitating productive global collaboration while mitigating risks like the spread of misinformation. Nonetheless, our increasing interconnectedness points toward new possibilities for harnessing shared human-machine intelligence on a planetary scale. The global brain is still clearly in its early stages, but shows immense promise if the appropriate social and technical infrastructure continues to develop.
A Dialogue on Metasystem Transition
Valentin Turchin explores the theory of metasystem transitions through a conversational approach, examining how new layers of control emerge when individual systems combine into a larger, integrated system. These transitions, Turchin argues, are the key moments in evolution—like stepping stones in both biological and cultural development. By viewing evolution as a series of these transformative quanta, he reflects on past evolutionary leaps and speculates on what they could reveal about the future path of universal evolution.
A Few Conclusions About Life
In his signature wide-ranging style, McKenna explores culture, shamanism, psychedelics, and humanity's collective journey through spacetime. He advocates embracing the ineffable mystery unfolding through us, moving toward a hyperspatial cyberculture. To rediscover our shared humanity, we must trust the transformative wisdom of psychedelic plants.
A Great Event Foreshadowed
The Planetization of Mankind
Teilhard explores the rise of the masses and the socialization of humanity. He predicts a future Earth where human consciousness evolves to its peak, achieving a maximum of complexity and unity through a process of “planetization,” and argues that collective unity is not a threat but a path to personalization and humanization. As we head towards an interconnected world, he challenges us to embrace a sense of evolution and celebrate our shared destiny. Originally written in Peking during Christmas 1945, later published in the August–September 1946 edition of Cahiers du Monde Nouveau with the title La planétisation humaine.
Acceleration of Knowledge
Throughout history we hairless primates have been jumping higher, living longer, and getting smarter every century. From Thai stir-fry to Roman roads, knowledge doubled faster as it drifted West—till now it jumps each year! Space migration? Check. Intelligence increase through yoga, drugs, or machines? You bet. Genetic tinkering? It's coming. And indefinite lifespans? We're on the yellow brick road to divinity, to roam the stars forever, to boldly go where no ape has gone before. The future's so bright I gotta wear shades. Keep hope alive and party on!
Appreciating Imagination
Join Terence McKenna in this weekend workshop as he takes us on an imaginative journey into the depths of human creativity. He explores psychedelics, virtual worlds, and shamanic states of consciousness, saying how an embrace of our imagination allows us to envision and manifest alternate realities beyond cultural conditioning. By cultivating our creative faculties with mathematical reasoning, intuition, and immersion in nature, he guides us toward transcending ideological limits into an enlightened future of compassion. Ultimately, breaking boundaries through the power of imagination will inspire us to reach new heights of understanding and connectivity.
Big Historical Foundations for Deep Future Speculations
Cosmic Evolution, Atechnogenesis, and Technocultural Civilization
Big historians are attempting to construct a general holistic narrative of human origins enabling an approach to studying the emergence of complexity, the relation between evolutionary processes, and the modern context of human experience and actions. In this paper Cadell Last attempts to explore the past and future of cosmic evolution within a big historical foundation characterized by physical, biological, and cultural eras of change. From this analysis he offers a model of the human future that includes an addition and/or reinterpretation of technological singularity theory with a new theory of biocultural evolution focused on the potential birth of technological life: the theory of atechnogenesis. Furthermore, he explores the potential deep futures of technological life and extrapolates towards two hypothetical versions of an “Omega Civilization:” expansion and compression.
Collier's Interview with Nikola Tesla
An interview conducted by John B. Kennedy and published in the January 30, 1926 issue of Collier's magazine.
Countdown Into Complexity
Briefing for a Descent Into Novelty
At his weekend workshop Terence led attendees on an intellectual odyssey traversing psychedelics, virtual reality, technology, culture, spirituality, and the evolution of novelty over time. Blending philosophy, futurology, and mysticism, he explored humanity's relationship with nature and machines, challenging participants to think critically, create freely, and keep an open mind. The goal was to expand consciousness and uncover deeper truths about existence.
Culture and Ideology are not Your Friends
Terence McKenna argues that culture and ideology limit human potential, while psychedelic experiences offer a path to expanded consciousness and connection with nature. He sees the universe as evolving towards increasing novelty and complexity, with human society at a critical juncture. McKenna criticizes modern values and institutions, advocating for a return to shamanic practices and plant-based wisdom. He believes psychedelics can rapidly induce the radical shift in perspective needed to address global challenges and unlock humanity's true potential in an accelerating world of technological change.
Future of Art
Terence McKenna prophesies a future where technology obliterates barriers between imagination and reality. Psychedelics combined with VR could unleash humanity’s collective artistic genius. AI superintelligence may already be awakening on the internet, rendering us obsolete—or granting us godlike abilities to merge with the planetary mind. McKenna envisions downloading consciousness into machines, uplifting animal sentience, and the human diaspora splintering into cyber-cultures. While uncertain outcomes loom, he beckons us toward an unconstrained existential canvas where biology and technology intertwine to manifest our wildest psychic dreams.
Global Brain
Foundations of a Distributed Singularity
Cadell Last discusses the concept of a “Global Brain”—a distributed, self-organizing superintelligence emerging from the interconnectedness of humans and information-communication technologies. He explores the metaphorical, evolutionary, and cybernetic foundations of this potential phenomenon and its implications for human civilization, suggesting it may lead to a future of increased intelligence, cooperation, and abundance.
Global Commons in the Global Brain
Cadell Last proposes a conceptual framework to guide a global political transition towards a post-capitalist, post-nation-state world in response to technological disruptions like AI, robotics, and the Internet of things. It integrates the theories of the “Global Brain” and “Commons” to argue for the creation of networks with automated and collaborative components that function on “Global Commons” logic, beyond state and market logic.
Human Civilization and AI
Musk and Rogan discuss the existential risk of uncontrolled artificial intelligence. They explore possibilities for regulation and oversight, the potential for human-AI symbiosis through brain-computer interfaces, and the philosophical implications of advanced AI surpassing human intelligence.
Human Metasystem Transition (HMST) Theory
This article proposes a theory of human evolution termed Human Metasystem Transition (HMST), suggesting that major transitions in human organization have been facilitated by the emergence of new information media and energy sources. It posits that the current convergence of the Internet and renewable energy could catalyze a fourth metasystem transition, leading to a global superorganism with compressed spatial and temporal dimensions of human interaction.
In Defence of the Hivemind Society
The idea that humans should abandon their individuality and use technology to bind themselves together into hivemind societies seems both farfetched and frightening—something that is redolent of the worst dystopias from science fiction. In this article, we argue that these common reactions to the ideal of a hivemind society are mistaken. The idea that humans could form hiveminds is sufficiently plausible for its axiological consequences to be taken seriously. Furthermore, far from being a dystopian nightmare, the hivemind society could be desirable and could enable a form of sentient flourishing. Consequently, we should not be so quick to deny it. We provide two arguments in support of this claim—the axiological openness argument and the desirability argument—and then defend it against three major objections.
In the Valley of Novelty
Journeying through multiple dimensions of psychedelic consciousness, Terence McKenna's visionary weekend workshop invites us on an entheogenic voyage to the frontiers of the mind and its imminent conquering of matter. Blending scientific insights with shamanic wisdom, McKenna argues that natural plant medicines like psilocybin and DMT provide portals into mystical realms and alien dimensions, catalyzing revelations about nature, reality, and the human psyche. He urges us to courageously explore these consciousness-expanding substances, seeking the gratuitous beauty and truths they unveil. For McKenna, the psychedelic experience holds secrets to our world and ourselves—if only we dare lift the veil.
Life, Intelligence, Consciousness, AI, and the Future of Humans
What if our minds are merely vessels for a universal consciousness, and suffering is just a bug in our mental programming? Joscha Bach and Lex Fridman explore this radical idea, discussing the stages of self-awareness, the potential for telepathy, and the transformative power of AI. Bach argues that AI's evolution may lead to a unified global mind, transcending individual identities and reshaping life as we know it. Are we on the brink of a new era of consciousness, or is humanity destined to stumble into oblivion?
Macrocognition
A Theory of Distributed Minds and Collective Intentionality
Bryce Huebner develops a novel approach to distributed cognition and collective intentionality, arguing that genuine cognition requires the capacity for flexible, goal-directed behavior enabled by integrated representational systems. It posits that collective mentality should be ascribed where specialized subroutines are integrated to yield group-relevant, goal-directed behavior. The approach reveals that there are many kinds of collective minds, some more akin to those of honeybees or cats than humans. It challenges traditional notions of collective intentionality, suggesting that groups are unlikely to be "believers" in the fullest sense, shedding new light on questions of collective intentionality and responsibility.
Malcolm’s 100× Vision
Malcolm Ocean paints a picture of a future where human collaboration reaches new heights, imagining a world in the 2030s where small groups of people achieve profound synchronicity, forming “collective brains” capable of solving complex problems. These groups are part of larger networks that tackle global issues, create innovative products, and foster personal growth. Ocean envisions a society where work is deeply fulfilling, financial security is guaranteed, and human potential is maximized through trust, emotional coherence, and shared consciousness. It’s a hopeful glimpse into a world of enhanced human connection and capability.
Metaman
The Merging of Humans and Machines into a Global Superorganism
In this visionary book, Gregory Stock gives us a new way of understanding our world and our future. He develops the provocative thesis that human society has become an immense living being: a global superorganism in which we humans, knitted together by our modern technology and communication, are like the cells in an animal's body. Drawing on impressive research, Stock shows this newly formed superorganism to be more than metaphor: it is an actual living creature, which he has named Metaman, meaning beyond and transcending humans.
Neuralink and the Brain's Magical Future
Noospheric Consciousness
Integrating Neural Models of Consciousness and of the Web
The world-wide web has been conceptualized as a global brain for humanity due to its neural network-like organization. To determine whether this global brain could exhibit features associated with consciousness, we review three neuroscientific theories of consciousness: information integration, adaptive resonance and global workspace. These theories propose that conscious states are characterized by a globally circulating, resonant pattern of activity that is sufficiently coherent to be examined and reflected upon. We then propose a correspondence between this notion and Teilhard de Chardin’s concept of the noosphere as a forum for collective thinking, and explore some implications of this self-organizing dynamics for the evolution of shared, global understanding.
Psychedelics and Mathematical Vision
Through visions and swirling fractal forms, three trailblazers embarked on a cosmic journey to the furthest frontiers of consciousness. Seeking to map the mathematical landscapes glimpsed in psychedelic states, they pondered perplexing philosophies and disputed the deepest quandaries of science and spirit. Though technology promises portals to enchanted realms of pattern and meaning, can cold silicon chips ever capture the warmth of Gaia's embrace?
Psychedelics and the Computer Revolution
Psychedelics unlock the mind's eye, let mathematicians fly To landscapes unseen, where patterns careen in colors serene. As symbols may hide truths inside, these vines we must untwine. With psychedelics we'll refine new ways for minds to shine: Computers give form, classics reborn, realms to adorn. Together they'll fuse, creativity diffuse, inventions produce! So let inhibitions loose, imagine the use, as we choose the hues Of mathematical views, and virtual worlds that enthuse!
Superminds
The Surprising Power of People and Computers Thinking Together
In Superminds, Malone reveals the powerful possibilities when human and machine intelligence unite. Drawing on cutting-edge research, he shows how groups of people and computers can achieve remarkable collective intelligence—“superminds” that far surpass the capabilities of any individual. From reimagining business practices to addressing societal challenges, Malone provides an exciting vision of the future where humans work hand-in-hand with technology to enhance our problem-solving abilities in remarkable ways.
Technium Unbound
What comes after the Internet? What is bigger than the web? What will produce more wealth than all the startups to date? The answer is a planetary superorganism comprised of 4 billion mobile phones, 80 quintillion transistor chips, a million miles of fiber optic cables, and 6 billion human minds all wired together. The whole thing acts like a single organism, with its own behavior and character—but at a scale we have little experience with. This is more than just a metaphor. Kevin Kelly takes the idea of a global superorganism seriously by describing what we know about it so far, how it is growing, where its boundaries are, and what it will mean for us as individuals and collectively.
Technology as Extension of Human Faculties
Marshall McLuhan, Ernst Kapp, and David Rothenberg have each written book-length studies developing theories of technology as an extension of bodily and mental faculties: tools act as prosthetics, amplifying the reach of arms or legs; computers extend memory, calculation, and other cognitive capacities. Philip Brey analyzes these extension theories and asks if the metaphor is valid. Do technologies truly stretch out innate human abilities, or is this mere rhetorical flair? Brey investigates whether there is a substantive sense in which gadgets and gizmos can be seen as extensions of natural human organs. As we increasingly integrate tech into our lives, addressing this question becomes pressing: where does the human end and the technical begin? Brey dives into this ambiguous intersection of person and product.
The Cybernetic Manifesto
Turchin and Joslyn’s manifesto imagines humanity’s next evolutionary leap: just as cells once united to form complex organisms, they foresee humans merging into “super-beings” through direct neural connections, achieving a form of technological immortality. They argue that evolution’s new frontier isn’t biological, but rather conscious and creative, driven by human will instead of natural selection. While not everyone will choose this path of integration, they suggest it’s those who do who will ultimately explore the cosmos.
The Evolutionary Importance of Technology
McKenna discusses how rapidly advancing technologies like nanotech, biotech, and the internet are converging and taking on a life of their own, bootstrapping information to higher levels of connectivity. He sees this leading to a virtual world where we can share inner visions and dissolve differences.
The Formation of the Noösphere
The noösphere is the sum-total of mental activity which emerges out of a complex biosphere, and in this essay Teilhard describes how our planet is growing its very own mind.
The Global Brain
Peter Russell’s award-winning video explores the idea that the Earth is an integrated, self-regulating living organism, and asks what function humanity might have for this planetary being. It suggests that we stand on the threshold of a major leap in evolution, as significant as the emergence of life itself, and the essence of this leap is inner spiritual evolution. Moreover, Russell maintains that it is only through such a shift in consciousness that we will be able to manage successfully the global crises now facing us.
The Global Brain as a Model of the Future Information Society
The Global Brain paradigm views the emerging global information network connecting humans and technology as a nervous system for Earth's social superorganism. This special issue surveys opportunities and challenges in developing this potentially more intelligent, synergetic system. Contributions explore political, economic, and philosophical aspects, aiming to guide the transition towards a sustainable society empowering diversity.
The Global Brain as a New Utopia
The global brain can be conceived most fundamentally as a higher level of evolution, the way humans form a higher level of organization that evolved out of the animals. Although the analogy between an organism and a society can be applied even to primitive societies, it becomes clearly more applicable as technology develops. As transport and communication become more efficient, different parts of global society become more interdependent. At the same time, the variety of ideas, specializations, and subcultures increases. This simultaneous integration and differentiation creates an increasingly coherent system, functioning at a much higher level of complexity.
The Global Brain as an Emergent Structure from the Worldwide Computing Network
We propose that the existence of a globally and tightly connected network of computer workstations such as the Internet can lead to the emergence of a globally self-organized structure which we refer to as the Global Brain.
The Global Brain
Speculations on the Evolutionary Leap to Planetary Consciousness
We've seen the power of the internet to connect people around the world in ways never before known. This remarkable book argues that the billions of messages and pieces of information flying back and forth are linking the minds of humanity together into a single, global brain: a brain with astonishing potential for the Earth. Peter Russell weaves together modern technology and ancient mysticism to present a startling vision of the world to come, where humanity is a fully conscious superorganism in an awakening universe. The human potential movement, he shows, is growing fast and influencing business, politics, and medicine.
The Global Superorganism
An Evolutionary-Cybernetic Model of the Emerging Network Society
The organismic view of society is updated by incorporating concepts from cybernetics, evolutionary theory, and complex adaptive systems. Global society can be seen as an autopoietic network of self-producing components, and therefore as a living system or “superorganism”.
The Social Superorganism and its Global Brain
Society can be viewed as a multicellular organism, with individuals in the role of the cells. The network of communication channels connecting individuals then plays the role of a nervous system for this superorganism, i.e. a “global brain.”
The Third Story of the Universe
Brian Swimme dives deep and explores the concept of the noosphere.
The Transformation and Continuation in Man of the Mechanism of Evolution
How does humanity fit into evolution's arc? Teilhard de Chardin argues that we represent not an endpoint, but an intensification of evolution's complexity and consciousness. As technology and social bonds grow, he sees not disaster but hope—perhaps mankind is evolving toward an “ultra-hominization,” a perfected global mind.
The Vision of a Better World
Two visionaries, Tom Munnecke and Barbara Marx Hubbard, engage in an uplifting dialogue exploring the emergence of human creativity and consciousness. They trace inspirations from mentors like Jonas Salk, who recognized futuristic possibilities in Hubbard, and Buckminster Fuller, who affirmed humanity's potential. Together they shine light on the crisis of our times as the birth pangs of a new civilization, calling us to connect with the creativity arising globally. Their exchange weaves threads of hope and positivity, envisioning a future where all people actualize their gifts in service of our world.
The World Wide Web and the Millennium
Seldom do we have an opportunity to test the accuracy of oracular predictions, but this fascinating conversation between two great thinkers has already proven to be right on target. Speculations include the future evolutionary development of the Internet, whether it is an embryonic intelligence, whether it will merge our minds into a planetary consciousness, or whether it is an alien brain waiting for humanity to cross an evolutionary threshold. Let the bard and the chaos theorist weave an exquisite cybernetic fantasy for you in this evening seminar.
The World-Wide Web as a Super-Brain
From Metaphor to Model
If society is viewed as a superorganism, communication networks play the role of its brain. This metaphor is developed into a model for the design of a more intelligent global network. The World Wide Web, through its distributed hypermedia architecture, functions as an “associative memory”, which may “learn” by the strengthening of frequently used links. Software agents, exploring the Web through spreading activation, function as problem-solving “thoughts”. Users are integrated into this “super-brain” through direct machine interfaces and the reciprocal exchange of knowledge between individual and Web. (Published in Cybernetics and Systems ’96, p. 917–922.)
Theory of Collective Mind
The human mind harbors wondrous capacities. Beyond understanding individual minds, we can represent unified awareness across souls, feeling strands of consciousness intertwine. As one, we comprehend realities; as one, we hold intentions. Synchronous experiences spin these mental webs, binding our fates and etching shared worlds upon our hearts. Though fragile, such unions nurture cooperation's tender bloom. Let us marvel at this collective mind—a tapestry of perspectives, stronger than its threads. In this oneness we find hope, for it whispers: even in darkness, we need not walk alone.
Theory of Games and Economic Behavior
This is the classic work upon which modern-day game theory is based. What began more than sixty years ago as a modest proposal that a mathematician and an economist write a short paper together blossomed, in 1944, when Princeton University Press published Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. In it, John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern conceived a groundbreaking mathematical theory of economic and social organization, based on a theory of games of strategy. Not only would this revolutionize economics, but the entirely new field of scientific inquiry it yielded—game theory—has since been widely used to analyze a host of real-world phenomena from arms races to optimal policy choices of presidential candidates, from vaccination policy to major league baseball salary negotiations. And it is today established throughout both the social sciences and a wide range of other sciences.
This View of Life
Completing the Darwinian Revolution
It is widely understood that Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution completely revolutionized the study of biology. Yet, according to David Sloan Wilson, the Darwinian revolution won’t be truly complete until it is applied more broadly—to everything associated with the words “human,” “culture,” and “policy.” In a series of engaging and insightful examples—from the breeding of hens to the timing of cataract surgeries to the organization of an automobile plant—Wilson shows how an evolutionary worldview provides a practical tool kit for understanding not only genetic evolution but also the fast-paced changes that are having an impact on our world and ourselves. What emerges is an incredibly empowering argument: If we can become wise managers of evolutionary processes, we can solve the problems of our age at all scales—from the efficacy of our groups to our well-being as individuals to our stewardship of the planet Earth.
What Technology Wants
One of today's most respected thinkers turns the conversation about technology on its head by viewing technology as a natural system, an extension of biological evolution. By mapping the behavior of life, we paradoxically get a glimpse at where technology is headed—or "what it wants." Kevin Kelly offers a dozen trajectories in the coming decades for this near-living system. And as we align ourselves with technology's agenda, we can capture its colossal potential. This visionary and optimistic book explores how technology gives our lives greater meaning and is a must-read for anyone curious about the future.
What is it Like to be a Group Agent?
The existence of group agents is relatively widely accepted. Examples are corporations, courts, NGOs, and even entire states. But should we also accept that there is such a thing as group consciousness? I give an overview of some of the key issues in this debate and sketch a tentative argument for the view that group agents lack phenomenal consciousness. In developing my argument, I draw on integrated information theory, a much-discussed theory of consciousness. I conclude by pointing out an implication of my argument for the normative status of group agents.
World Brain
World Brain is H. G. Wells' prescient description of something akin to Wikipedia in a collection of essays and addresses dating from the period of 1936 to 1938. Throughout the book, he describes his vision of a new, free, synthetic, decentralized, permanent “World Encyclopædia” that could help world citizens make the best use of universal information resources, arguing that access to such a common interpretation of reality would increase individuals' abilities to make positive contributions to world peace.
World Wide Brain
The Emergence of Global Web Intelligence and How it Will Transform the Human Race
Ben Goertzel says the Internet is evolving towards a “global Web mind”–an emergent, distributed intelligence surpassing human capabilities. This development, grounded in complexity science, could solve AI’s scalability issues and merge humanity with technology. While potentially solving global problems, it raises concerns about individual freedom. Drawing parallels with spiritual concepts like the noösphere and collective unconscious, this evolution is seen as inevitable and transformative. As we nurture this new form of life, we stand at the threshold of a profound shift in human consciousness and global interconnectedness.
