Biological evolution is slow compared to the vastly increasing acceleration of technical and social evolution – this is fuelled by an ‘intellectual evolution’: or conscious evolution – our next stage towards unification/planetisation as information flows progress towards unifying us. Some thinkers see a future biotic interface between the brain and the virtual world that will mark a new stage in the emergence of a collective consciousness: 'a meta-consciousness capable of outliving the individual consciousnesses that make it up.’ (de Rosnay)

If we allow ourselves to consider evolution as a creative drive - then we may ask ourselves: is it goal-orientated? And if so, how can we address this question without the 'God' argument coming into play?

What is the purpose of convergence?

-Nature indeed abhors a vacuum. Thus, nothing exists in isolation – this concept is becoming more widely recognised due to findings in quantum physics and the notion of non-locality. Everything – it seems – is connected. Everything is in communion. This may be fine for those philosophically minded who recognise that consciousness can be ‘everywhere’: as Willis Harman said – ‘If consciousness is anywhere – it is everywhere’. Yet what if we push this idea towards terrestrial contexts: eg. Can human societies have non-local connection?

The answer due to modern technologies is – yes. Beginning with the Internet we are moving towards wireless connectivity: we can carry the World Wide Web around with us. Once we were only contactable – or found! – by mobile phone. Now we are contactable by video chat and by access to Net information wherever we may be. This leads us to ask – is human intelligence connected and what are the emergent properties of this? Will this lead to a collective global intelligence – or evolve into a collective consciousness? (see Peter Russell).

The question – when does non-local connectivity become conscious of itself? When does connectivity become intelligent? If information increasingly self-organises into greater arrangements of complexification – doesn’t this manifest an intelligence? And if so – what is the goal of such global connectivity in terms of species and social evolution? We are indeed at the edge of a significant leap in the human condition: the trouble is, if we don’t leap far enough, the abyss awaits below.

Although progress is deemed dynamic, at times unstable and complex, it nevertheless requires some degree of harmony. An orchestra is a complex dynamic whole: despite the kinetic contribution of each member, the emergent sound - in a functional orchestra - is harmonious. Just as in a balanced and functioning individual, both the left and right hemispheres should be in a balanced relationship. Both sides of the brain should be transferring signals, information, and be actively participating.

When great thinkers have stated that we should 'bring the wisdom of the East into the science of the West', they are symbolically referring to the entwining capacities of the brain hemispheres, such that the abstract wisdom teachings of Eastern traditions (which work upon activation of the right creative hemisphere) should be aligned with the linear, rational and analytic left-brain activity. Thus, the overall capacity should be greatly increased since the brain can function under emergent properties of a dynamic whole. EEG scans validate this as they show that participants undergoing meditation display a mirroring of brain waves between the two hemispheres: ie. they are in communication and alignment. This is what creates a sense of well-being in the individual.

If we are to examine the global brain metaphor of global communication technologies as mirroring the functioning of a biological living system in the capacity as the nervous system, then the left-right brain scenario could be said as representing the 'West and the Rest' - or the 'West-East' generalised split. Like a brain that is not functioning to true/full capacity, or even with a tumor?, it can be seen that unless the developing world is brought into line with the progress of developing countries a harmonious dynamic whole will not be achieved.

In a global body, all organs constitute a working network of interdependent participants. Would our hearts deny to pump blood to our lower regions because they couldn't afford the asking price? Would the stomach stock-pile food rather than donate it to less fortunate areas of our bodily metabolism? This would be absurd as it would affect the health of our entire body.

Yet in a global environment we do just this. The well-being of our whole planet, and our species, is being jeopardised by the greed of mechanistic thinking.

Intelligence increase requires greater complexity. Complexification leads to accelerated intelligence through increased speeds of information transfer and associated-thinking. Information is itself an energy-flow, as in all open systems. In order to retain more of the energy, which can be utilised in an interior manner for fueling conscious development, conscious lifestyle decisions must be made. Energy is constantly being wasted as thought and behaviour; through stress, negative thoughts, and uncontrolled physical movement.

Self-discipline is required to maximise one's quota of energy. Energy retained can be used for conscious thought processes that wire-up and connect further neural pathways. The greater the complexity of neural connections, the greater the potential for increased thought, intelligence, and associative (abstract) thinking.

In a work published in 1999 titled EARTHDANCE: Living Systems in Evolution by Elisabet Sahtouris - available online - she writes the following:

"DNA is virtually the oldest thing in Earth's evolution still alive on its surface -- propagating itself from the beginning in an unbroken chain, as surface rock transformed into endless creatures, who recycled it in turn into sediments that were subducted back into the magma of origin by great tectonic plates. All the while, DNA's species came and went, playing their roles and then disappearing, while it continued the dance.

There is little reason to think, from a biological perspective, that humans will change the pattern of species flux and survive for the rest of the life of our planet without further evolving. We haven't even the patience to wait for natural evolutionary changes, but are impatient to redesign our own DNA. What does this urgency signify? Do we sense that we are on the brink of a huge new leap in evolution? Do we think altering our own biology, rather than exercising our consciousness, is the way to get there?"

This questions our method of achieving accelerated change, or growth in consciousness/intelligence - yet it also, like other works highlighted previously, acknowledges the wealth of information that is now pointing towards this 'huge new leap in evolution'. The signs can no longer be ignored. Instead we should endeavour to learn how to incorporate them into an ethical path for accelerated conscious evolution.

How to go about this is where we need discussion. Finally, we are in an age where the barriers between religion and science are merging. Science is bringing to the fore new understanding that only a century ago would not only be thought of as heretical but also as mysticism. Lets drop our primate conditioning and learn to learn again, through wider lens.

The nervous system is wired up through synaptic connections – electro-chemical bonds that are ‘fixed’ during early imprinting. Reality is thus the result of the patterns in our neural connections. Rather than a Newtonian view of biological reality it is one of networking and flow. Reality is formulated through patterns and dynamic processes that are themselves open to re-imprinting, change, and thus evolution. Reality then is not static but rather a neural-negotiation. And the Internet?

Timothy Leary, although overlooked in his work due to adverse publicity regarding his experimentation with LSD, was ahead of his time in some of his social comments. As a result of his research into mind/consciousness expansion through reimprinting of neural circuits he was made to be aware of both the power of social conditioning and, more importantly, the power in the human species to self-advance their own evolution. In his work titled 'Info-Psychology' we have the following insightful passage:

“The biological “master plan” of organic evolution located in DNA directs the unfolding of the circuits of the nervous system. One major goal of life is for the individual to becomes Increasingly Intelligent in order to decode somatic signals within the body, within the nervous system itself, signals from the DNA code and metaphysiological neuro-atomic energy patterns. The history of life and of humanity is best defined in terms of the evolution of the nervous system and of knowledge technologies.”