[1]Principia Cybernetica Web

                    References on the Global Brain / Superorganism

   a collection of basic references, grouped by author, that explore the idea of the
   emerging planetary organism and its global brain, in the chronological order of
   first publication
     ____________________________________________________________________________

   This reference material serves as the basis for the [2]"Global Brain" study group
   which has been set up by some of the authors listed below. For a more up-to-date
   list of references, check the bibliography of the [externallink.GIF] [3]Global
   Brain Institute

   Herbert Spencer
          The Principles of Sociology (1876-96); (see [externallink.GIF] [4]intro
          and excerpt, including "Society is an organism")

     Remarkable to note how many recently fashionable ideas about superorganisms
     and evolutionary integration have already been proposed by this evolutionary
     thinker over a century ago. Spencer coined the phrase "survival of the
     fittest", which was later taken over by Darwin.

   Herbert G. Wells
          [externallink.GIF] [5]World Brain (1938); (see also: [externallink.GIF]
          [6]H.G. Wellss' Idea of a World Brain: A Critical Re-Assessment, by W.
          Boyd Rayward, [externallink.GIF] [7]Constructing the world mind, and
          [externallink.GIF] [8]Towards the World Brain by Eugene Garfield)

     a science fiction writer's prophetic vision of a world encyclopedia of
     knowledge that would provide a kind of global consciousness, like the
     world-wide web now does

   [externallink.GIF] [9]Pierre Teilhard de Chardin:
          "Le Phénomène Humain" (Seuil, Paris, 1955). (translated as : "
          [externallink.GIF] [10]The Phenomenon of Man" (1959, Harper & Row, New
          York)).

     the mystical and poetic vision of future evolutionary integration by this
     paleontologist and jesuit priest anticipates many recent developments.
     Teilhard popularized Vernadsky's term " [externallink.GIF] [11]noosphere"
     (mind sphere), denoting the network of thoughts, information and communication
     that englobes the planet.
     See also: [externallink.GIF] [12]A Globe, Clothing Itself with a Brain.

   [externallink.GIF] [13]Joël de Rosnay:
          several books in French, including [externallink.GIF] [14]"L'Homme
          Symbiotique. Regards sur le troisième millénaire" (Seuil, Paris, 1996),
          translated as " [externallink.GIF] [15]The Symbiotic Man: A New
          Understanding of the Organization of Life and a Vision of the Future", "Le
          Cerveau Planétaire" (Olivier Orban, Paris, 1986), "Le Macroscope" (Seuil,
          Paris, 1972), translated as: "[16]The Macroscope", Harper & Row, New York,
          1975.

     emergence of the " [externallink.GIF] [17]cybion" (cybernetic superorganism),
     analysed by means of concepts from systems theory, and the theories of
     [18]chaos, [19]self-organization and evolution. Applications to the new
     network and multimedia technologies and to questions of policy.

   [20]Valentin Turchin:
          [21]The Phenomenon of Science. A cybernetic approach to human evolution,
          (Columbia University Press, New York, 1977).

     cybernetic theory of universal evolution, from unicellular organisms to
     culture and society, culminating in the emerging "super-being", based on the
     concept of the [22]Metasystem Transition.

   [externallink.GIF] [23]Peter Russell:
          [externallink.GIF] [24]"The Global Brain Awakens: Our next evolutionary
          leap" ( [externallink.GIF] [25]Global Brain, 1996) (originally published
          in 1983 as "The Global Brain"). For an excerpt, see [externallink.GIF]
          [26]Towards a Global Brain

     development of the superorganism theme in a "New Age" vision, with more
     emphasis on consciousness-raising techniques like meditation, and less on
     evolutionary mechanisms and technology.

   [externallink.GIF] [27]Gottfried Mayer-Kress:
          [externallink.GIF] [28]several papers, including:
          Gottfried Mayer-Kress & Cathleen Barczys (1995): "The Global Brain as an
          Emergent Structure from the Worldwide Computing Network", The Information
          Society 11 (1).

     explores the analogies between global networks and complex adaptive systems,
     and the applications of the network to modelling complex problem domains
     for a summary see: [externallink.GIF] [29]The Global Brain Concept

   [externallink.GIF] [30]Gregory Stock:
          [externallink.GIF] [31]"Metaman: the merging of humans and machines into a
          global superorganism", (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1993). (
          [externallink.GIF] [32]order through Amazon)

     an optimistic picture of the evolution of society, with many statistics on
     economic, social and technological progress, in which humans and machines
     unite, and where the individual is increasingly tied to others through
     technology

   [externallink.GIF] [33]Brian R. Gaines:
          [externallink.GIF] [34]The Collective Stance in Modeling Expertise in
          Individuals and Organizations, International Journal of Expert Systems.
          7(1), (1994), pp. 22-51. (see also [externallink.GIF] [35]The Emergence of
          Knowledge through Modeling and Management Processes in Societies of
          Adaptive Agents. (Proceedings of the 10th Knowledge Acquisition Workshop,
          Banff, Alberta. pp. 24-1:24-13) and other [externallink.GIF] [36]Gaines
          articles)

     an in-depth review of the literature on sociology, cognitive science and
     systems theory about the social function of knowledge; its "collective stance"
     views humanity as an organism partitioned into sub-organisms, such as
     organizations and individuals; proposes a positive feedback mechanism for the
     development of expertise, and therefore division-of-labor.

   [37]Francis Heylighen & [38]Donald T. Campbell:
          [externallink.GIF] [39]Selection of Organization at the Social Level:
          obstacles and facilitators of Metasystem Transitions, "World Futures: the
          journal of general evolution", Vol. 45:1-4 (1995), p. 181.

     a critical examination of the evolutionary mechanisms underlying the emergence
     of social "superorganisms", like multicellular organisms, ant nests, or human
     organizations; concludes that humanity at present cannot yet be seen as a
     superorganism, and that there are serious obstacles on the road to further
     integration

   [40]Francis Heylighen & [41]Johan Bollen:
          [42]"The World-Wide Web as a Super-Brain: from metaphor to model" in: R.
          Trappl (ed.) (1996): Cybernetics and Systems '96 (Austrian Society for
          Cybernetic Studies), p. 917.

     discusses the precise mechanisms (learning, thinking, spreading activation,
     ...) through which a brain-like global network might be implemented, using the
     framework of the theory of metasystem transitions;
     see also [43]learning, brain-like webs and F. Heylighen: "[44]The Global
     Superorganism: an evolutionary-cybernetic model of the emerging network
     society", an extensive, in-depth review of the superorganism/global brain
     vision, and its implications for the future of society

   [externallink.GIF] [45]Ben Goertzel:
          [externallink.GIF] [46]World Wide Brain: The Emergence of Global Web
          Intelligence and How it Will Transform the Human Race

     the concept of the WorldWideBrain as a massively parallel intelligence,
     consisting of structures and dynamics emergent from a community of intelligent
     WWW agents, distributed worldwide, with a discussion of social and
     philosophical implications, including a review of the discussions in the
     [47]Global Brain Group;
     See also: [externallink.GIF] [48]an older version of the previous paper, with
     some additional material, the [externallink.GIF] [49]webMind software
     developed by [externallink.GIF] [50]Intelligenesis, a software company
     co-founded by Goertzel, and " [externallink.GIF] [51]Wild Computing: Steps
     Toward a Philosophy of Internet Intelligence", an electronic book expanding on
     Goertzel's ideas.

   David Williams
          [externallink.GIF] [52]The Human Macro-organism as Fungus, Wired 4.04
          (1996).

     an intelligent parody of the superorganism view of society: "Pull Bill Gates
     out of his office and put him in the veldt - in four days he's a bloated
     corpse in the sun. ";-)

   [externallink.GIF] [53]Lee Li-Jen Chen and Brian R. Gaines:
          [externallink.GIF] [54]A CyberOrganism Model for Awareness in
          Collaborative Communities on the Internet, International Journal of
          Intelligent Systems (IJIS), Vol. 12, No. 1. pp. 31-56. (1997)

     an awareness-oriented framework for the web, based on [55]Miller's "Living
     Systems" theory and a collective intelligence model, to conceptualize the
     Internet as an organism; particular emphasis on tools for time awareness;
     see also: [externallink.GIF] [56]Modeling the Internet as a Cyberorganism: a
     Living Systems Framework and Investigative Methodologies for Virtual
     Cooperative Interaction, Chen's 1997 PhD thesis

   [externallink.GIF] [57]Howard Bloom:
          [externallink.GIF] [58]The Lucifer Principle: a Scientific Expedition Into
          the Forces of History and [externallink.GIF] [59]Global Brain: The
          Evolution of Mass Mind From the Big BangTo the 21st Century

     two popular books, which describe animal and human social groups as
     superorganisms, whose members merge their minds into a single mass-learning
     machine; explores the biological, evolutionary and historical origins of
     collective minds, before modern information technology; see excerpt "
     [externallink.GIF] [60]Superorganism" and a series of papers on the
     [externallink.GIF] [61]history of the global brain; see also "
     [externallink.GIF] [62]Beyond the Supercomputer: Social Groups as
     Self-invention Machines".

   [externallink.GIF] [63]The Symbiotic Intelligence Project:
          a group at Los Alamos National Laboratory which studies self-organizing
          knowledge on distributed networks driven by human interaction. It has
          produced a few papers such as [externallink.GIF] [64]Symbiotic
          Intelligence and the Internet.

   [externallink.GIF] [65]Parker Rossman
          [externallink.GIF] [66]Research On Global Crises, Still Primitive?

          an online "book in process", about how humanity's knowledge can be
          organized through collective intelligence in the form of a "world brain"
          system, to tackle various global problems, such as education, health care,
          peace, the environment, poverty and ethics.

   John E. Stewart
          " [externallink.GIF] [67]Evolution's Arrow: The direction of evolution and
          the future of humanity" (Chapman Press, Australia, 2000):

          argues that evolution progresses in the direction of cooperative
          organisations of greater scale and evolvability, up to global society.

   Robert Wright
          [externallink.GIF] [68]Non-Zero. The Logic of Human Destiny (Pantheon
          Books, 2000)

          A very well-written book that develops a similar argument as Stewart of
          evolutionary progress towards greater complexity, intelligence and
          eventually global integration of humankind, on the basis of a retelling of
          human history.

   Michael Brooks
          [externallink.GIF] [69]Global Brain, New Scientist magazine, 24 June 2000,
          p. 22.

          /archive.newscientist.com/archive.jsp?id=22444400> A rather sensationalist
          feature article about the work of global brain researchers, based on
          interviews with Heylighen, Bollen, Joslyn, Johnson and Goertzel. It
          emphasizes the scary, "Big Brother"-like possibilities, while minimizing
          the in-built protections against such abuse. For a somewhat more balanced
          view, read the accompanying [externallink.GIF]
          [70]editorial/archive.newscientist.com/archive.jsp?id=22440100>.

   NSF/DOC
          [externallink.GIF] [71]Converging Technologies for Improving Human
          Performance: Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology and
          Cognitive Science (2002),

          a 400 page report by a large group of specialists about how these
          technologies working together can change our life during the next twenty
          years, and turn society into an "interconnected brain"

   Global Brain Group
          [72]Papers from the 1st Global Brain Workshop

          a collection of abstracts, Powerpoint presentations and papers of the
          talks held at this workshop in July 2001, using a variety of perspectives
          to look at the Global Brain idea

More links

     * newspaper articles on the Global Brain in [externallink.GIF] [73]Die Zeit,
       and [externallink.GIF] [74]Le Monde,
     * [externallink.GIF] [75]The Global Mind Hypothesis: comparing Teilhard's idea
       of the noosphere with the Global Brain vision
     * [externallink.GIF] [76]Future Mind : Artificial Intelligence : The Merging of
       the Mystical and the Technological in the 21st Century, a 1989 book by Jerome
       Clayton Glenn, about how to solve the ethical and political consequences
       which could be brought about by a technocratic, value-free vision of a
       unifying model of the World Brain
     * [externallink.GIF] [77]George Pór: [externallink.GIF] [78]The Quest for
       Collective Intelligence: a practical approach inspired by systems ideas to
       the development of a "nervous system" for a community, viewed as a
       superorganism
     * [externallink.GIF] [79]The Semantic Web, a Scientific American article by T.
       Berners-Lee, J. Hendler and O. Lassila
     * Bob Fink: [externallink.GIF] [80]The Evolution of the Social Brain (excerpts
       from the book "Continuum", Greenwich Publishers)
     * [externallink.GIF] [81]Flocking Together Through the Web : Bird Watchers May
       Be a Harbinger of a True Global Consciousness: a Washington Post article
     * [externallink.GIF] [82]The SuperOrganism Home page: using superorganism ideas
       to build a community
     * a collection of [externallink.GIF] [83]philosophical papers in Russian about
       the vision of society as a super-organism, including work from Vernadsky,
       Turchin, Teilhard de Chardin, Dawkins and Bergson
     * [externallink.GIF] [84]The Global Super-brain: connections with AI and
       philosophy
     * [externallink.GIF] [85]John Champagne's essay on " [externallink.GIF]
       [86]Gaia Brain"
     * Anton Kolonin's [externallink.GIF] [87]Webmind project
     * Pierre Lévy on [externallink.GIF] [88]Collective Intelligence and its
       Objects: Many-to-Many Communication in a 'Meaning World'
     * [externallink.GIF] [89]Alexander Chislenko has several relevant essays,
       including [externallink.GIF] [90]Semantic Web - a vision of the future of
       intelligent Web, [externallink.GIF] [91]Networking in the Mind Age and
       [externallink.GIF] [92]Automated Collaborative Filtering and Semantic
       Transports
     * Andreas Carlsson: [externallink.GIF] [93]The global super-brain - A digital
       dream within an indifferent society: a short master's thesis critically
       discussing the possibilities for collective intelligence within the web
     * [externallink.GIF] [94]The Impact of the Internet on the Global Brain, an
       honors course paper by Christian Wenger
     * Some further references may be found in the abstracts submitted to the
       [95]Symposium "Theories and Metaphors of Cyberspace"
     ____________________________________________________________________________

   [96]Copyright© 2003 Principia Cybernetica - [97]Referencing this page

   Author
   F. [98]Heylighen,

   Date
   Apr 17, 2003 (modified)
   4 Oct 1996 (created)

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                                    [105]Discussion
     ____________________________________________________________________________

     * [106]Engelbart's Collective IQ, Comment by Linda Kemp
     * [107]My book about the Global Brain in German , Illustration by Levan
       Gvelesiani
     * [108]Global Mind Change: Consciousness as Causal Reality by Willis Harman,
       Ph.D. 1988, Illustration by Robin FInney
     * [109]Olaf Stapledon, Comment by David Weisman
     * [110]Olaf Stapledon, Comment by David Weisman
     * [111]Olaf Stapledon, Comment by David Weisman
     * [112]Olaf Stapledon, Comment by David Weisman

                                  [113]Add comment...

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