I’m reading about change, especially the fast pace of change in technology.  It seems the significant thing is that the change is exponential rather than linear.  Perhaps we still think in linear patterns and fail to appreciate how the rate of change varies when the expansion is exponential rather than linear.  What prompted this bit of writing is the question around global intelligence.  Is the internet intelligent?  We hear it said that the power of the internet is growing at an exponential rate.  But surely we need to think slowly [not exponentially] about the difference in information or data and just what makes for power.  The power of the internet does not rest in the data stored.  Just as it is with our brains.  The power is not in all the data stored in memory.  No, the power is in the connections our consciousness makes of the data.  There will be no global brain from the data stored on the internet.  As I said, the power is in the ideas and expression of ideas through the text and graphics.  Yet again, the power is not contained in the text or the graphics.  The power is in the consciousness that takes in various ideas invoked from reading, seeing, hearing and makes connections; makes relationships from out of what Sam, Joe and Sally say about the world. So, I’m saying that it is the relationships between and among the data that may be known as power.  Of course, speed of data collection, speed of data access, the speed of our ability to input new ideas is vital. Timeliness counts when we see how a series of ideas funneled into our minds make connections and result in insights that form a whole.  Perhaps we could use the word emergence.  The connections and relationships that we make from the data results in a power that exceeds the sum of the parts, the sum of the individual groupings of ideas.

 

I realize that some of those who speak of the global brain and question whether the internet will become conscious are far more intelligent and aware than I.  However, I insist that creative thinking, creative expression comes out of consciousness and I don’t mean just humans.  Have you ever watched a crow use a serious of three different sized and shaped sticks to winkle out a morsel of food?  It is amazing.

Many scientists don’t speak of consciousness; probably deny that any such thing exists.  However, you can fill a person with data day in and day out and some will never gain an iota, a molecule of insight out of it.  Lots of people don’t see the forest for the trees.  The plight of the frog that will sit quietly in a pot of warm water and not jump out before the water boils and kills it so long as the heat is raised slowly and gradually.  Many people just don’t see relationships.  I like to call it connecting the dots.  Think of an old style raster image on a television phosphor.  What is there is simply a series of dots and that goes for colour as well as black and white.  The picture is formed by your consciousness. Right?  You weren’t watching Jack Benny or Johnny Carson, you were only seeing dots; a matrix of dots with a scan repeat so fast that it looked like movement of wholes, movement of pictures.  I expect all the data that we would ever need to understand the universe is available right now, but we don’t know because we cannot see the relationships of the great number of energy structures before us.

 

As I said, I believe we need to ponder the wondrous nature of consciousness, find out just where it resides and how it operates: find out where it goes, if it does go anywhere, when we experience what we call death.

Time will be better spent with these questions rather than be concerned that the internet will become conscious and we won’t even know it!  Finally, I say these things with all due respect to those who don’t share my interest or concerns.  Horses for courses!