Maverick author and editor at Wired, Kevin Kelly, has written an interesting and insightful article on the birth-pangs and future plans of the Internet called 'We are the Web'. Some of the things he says are:

"The scope of the Web today is hard to fathom. The total number of Web pages, including those that are dynamically created upon request and document files available through links, exceeds 600 billion. That's 100 pages per person alive.

How could we create so much, so fast, so well? In fewer than 4,000 days, we have encoded half a trillion versions of our collective story and put them in front of 1 billion people, or one-sixth of the world's population. That remarkable achievement was not in anyone's 10-year plan...all its services, all peripheral chips and affiliated devices from scanners to satellites, and the billions of human minds entangled in this global network. This gargantuan Machine already exists in a primitive form. In the coming decade, it will evolve into an integral extension not only of our senses and bodies but our minds.

Today, the Machine acts like a very large computer with top-level functions that operate at approximately the clock speed of an early PC. It processes 1 million emails each second, which essentially means network email runs at 1 megahertz. Same with Web searches. Instant messaging runs at 100 kilohertz, SMS at 1 kilohertz. The Machine's total external RAM is about 200 terabytes. In any one second, 10 terabits can be coursing through its backbone, and each year it generates nearly 20 exabytes of data. Its distributed "chip" spans 1 billion active PCs, which is approximately the number of transistors in one PC.

This planet-sized computer is comparable in complexity to a human brain. Both the brain and the Web have hundreds of billions of neurons (or Web pages). Each biological neuron sprouts synaptic links to thousands of other neurons, while each Web page branches into dozens of hyperlinks. That adds up to a trillion "synapses" between the static pages on the Web. The human brain has about 100 times that number - but brains are not doubling in size every few years. The Machine is.

There is only one time in the history of each planet when its inhabitants first wire up its innumerable parts to make one large Machine. Later that Machine may run faster, but there is only one time when it is born.

You and I are alive at this moment.

We should marvel, but people alive at such times usually don't. Every few centuries, the steady march of change meets a discontinuity, and history hinges on that moment. We look back on those pivotal eras and wonder what it would have been like to be alive then. Confucius, Zoroaster, Buddha, and the latter Jewish patriarchs lived in the same historical era, an inflection point known as the axial age of religion. Few world religions were born after this time. Similarly, the great personalities converging upon the American Revolution and the geniuses who commingled during the invention of modern science in the 17th century mark additional axial phases in the short history of our civilization.

- the only thing we can say is: Our Machine is born. It's on."

YES - WE ARE ON. Now, how do we keep our soul mind firing?

Author John Battelle has written a book called "The Search" which contains some interesting speculations about directions and mediums that search can evolve into. He writes that

"In the near future, search will metastasize from its origins on the PC-centric Web and be let loose on all manner of devices. This has already begun with mobile phones and PDAs; expect it to continue, viruslike, until search is built into every digital device touching our lives. The telephone, the automobile, the television, the stereo, the lowliest object with a chip and the ability to connect—all will incorporate network-aware search.

This is no fantasy; this is simple logic. As more and more of our lives become connected, digitized, and computed, we will need navigation and context interfaces to cope."

In a sense I find these thoughts relevant: in a world of greater external information, with increasing data storage and retrieval necessary, we will also increase our dependency upon external tools and devices to aid our navigation. We are becoming awash with information, not all of it good or useful.

Yet what is missing here is the 'inner search'. These realms are far more extensive and require greater skills and discipline of navigation. Outer space, I state, is a manifestation of consciousness which is itself the very essence of the inner space. Perhaps a greater ability of inner navigation will help us to steer our way through the physical networks, traffic, and congestions?

A subject which I have not commented upon for some time, yet which is still close to my thinking, and I feel is linked to the subject of our species development is that of memes:

"What if ideas were viruses?

Consider the T-phage virus. A T-phage cannot replicate itself; it reproduces by hijacking the DNA of a bacterium, forcing its host to make millions of copies of the phage. Similarly, an idea can parasitically infect your mind and alter your behavior, causing you to want to tell your friends about the idea, thus exposing them to the idea-virus. Any idea which does this is called a "meme" (pronounced `meem').

Unlike a virus, which is encoded in DNA molecules, a meme is nothing more than a pattern of information, one that happens to have evolved a form which induces people to repeat that pattern. Typical memes include individual slogans, ideas, catch-phrases, melodies, icons, inventions, and fashions. It may sound a bit sinister, this idea that people are hosts for mind-altering strings of symbols, but in fact this is what human culture is all about." from Global Brain Group

Yet language is a virus - or rather, thoughts are. Just as RNA protein molecules act as transmitters of information between DNA, that carry information to instruct the DNA to develop and act/function; so does language in the human sphere act as the transmitter of our thoughts between human molecules within the global cell. If a bacterial virus is passed along, such as cancer, it causes the cell to decay, and this infected cell is liable to spread the disease.

Similarly, if a segment of the human population gets a virus-idea (such as 'kill all those people who do not believe as we do'), then this idea spreads through language and culture to infect and destroy. We, like cancerous cells, are wiped out.

Biology passes on genes; human culture passes on memes. During our childhood we are fed certain 'truths/rules/laws' etc that we learn to condition ourselves and abide by - our cultural 'genetics'. So too will our generation pass on our cultural/developmental genes (memes) to our offspring. The condition of our memes - our thinking and mindset - will determine the fitness for evolution of those that are fed with our ideological memes.

Thus, it is imperative, crucial that we establish a healthy and positive, forward thinking set of cultural genes (memes) to duplicate and pass on to our evolving species. Not to do so can have catastrophic results for the future. Let us not turn our language into a destructive virus - let it be a healthy organism.

Some 'experience' to consider:

"The great difficulty I have is describing the enormity of what is being birthed. The true focus of this creative process is not individuals but all humanity. It is actually trying to reawaken the entire species. What is emerging is a consciousness of unprecedented proportions, the entire human species integrated into a unified field of awareness. The species reconnected with its fundamental nature. Our thoughts tuned to Source Consciousness. Having moved beyond linear time into "Deep Time", I experienced this both as a projected destiny and also as a realised actuality. It was simultaneously something to be accomplished and something already accomplished. This quantum jump in our evolutionary status precipitated a wholesale reorganisation of global culture. It signalled a turning-point that would forever divide the human story into the before and after of THE GREAT AWAKENING.

I saw humanity climbing out of a valley and just ahead, on the other side of the mountain peak and beyond our present sight, was a brilliant, sun-drenched world that was about to break over us. The time frame was enormous. After millions of years of struggle and ascent, we were poised on the brink of a sunrise that would forever change the conditions of life on this planet. All current structures would quickly become irrelevant. All truths would quickly be rendered passe. Truly a new epoch was dawning. The lives of everyone living on the edge of this pivotal time in history had been helping to bring about this global shift."

Duane Elgin says that:

"Despite all our good intentions, without this coming era of collective distress and adversity, the human family is unlikely to awaken to its global identity and evolutionary responsibility. It is the immense suffering of millions - even billions - of precious human beings coupled with the widespread destruction of many other life-forms that will burn through our complacency and isolation. Needles suffering is the psychological and psychic fire that can awaken our compassion and fuse individuals, communities, and nations into a cohesive and consciously organised global civilisation."

This is a point which I feel holds much resonance.

In a similar manner, Peter Russell says:

" The set of global problems that humanity is facing presently may turn out to be as important to our continued evolution as 'the oxygen crisis' was. Never in the history of the human race have the dangers been so extreme; yet in their role as evolutionary catalysts, they may be just what is needed to push us to a higher level"

Again, in light of recent events, and the state of climate change overall; it is reasonable to predict that we have an unstable geo-political situation ahead. Do things happen without a reason?

For decades now voices have been predicting an imminent global crisis followed by the spiritual rejuvenation of the planet...some have claimed that a revolution is taking place in the depths of humanity's collective unconscious as we enter our greatest planetary crisis - a turning point of global survival.

Are we approaching the 'dark night of the collective soul' where geopolitical upheavals, disasters, catastrophes - both natural and human - create disorder and death...only to forge in the furnace of evolution the impetus needed to jump/shock us into a new epoch of collective cooperation and social species networking?

Can we ever go forward as individuals now? Perhaps we go forward collectively or not at all - we don't share our collective unconscious archtypes for nothing!

BIOCOMPUTATION: A Conversation with J. Craig Venter, Ray Kurzweil, Rodney Brooks.

This 12,000 word article examines the new work being carried out by the partnership of the above three leading thinkers in the world of biotechnology.

Here is an extract:

"Ray Kurzweil believes "we are entering a new era. Some of us call it the Singularity. It's a merger between human intelligence and machine intelligence which is going to create something bigger than itself. It's the cutting edge of evolution on our planet. One can make a strong case that it's actually the cutting edge of the evolution of intelligence in general, because there's no indication that it has occurred anywhere else. To me that is what human civilization is all about. It is part of our destiny, and part of the destiny of evolution, to continue to progress ever faster and to grow the power of intelligence exponentially."

It also includes web-broadcasts of their speeches: a recommended read/listen

Technology could grow beyond human control, warns Millennium report:

"The State of the Future 2005 report is produced by the United Nations University's Millennium Project - a global think tank of foresight experts, academics and policy makers. It analyses current global trends and examines in detail some of the current and future challenges facing the world.

Setting the scene, the report states: 'Future synergies among nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science can dramatically improve the human condition by increasing the availability of food, energy and water and by connecting people and information anywhere. The effect will be to increase collective intelligence and create value and efficiency while lowering costs."

Only 1,000 years ago, all of humankind, their livestock and pets, represented just 0.1% of the vertebrate life mass on the planet. By 2050, if we do nothing but survive, this number will exceed 85%. And if our computers spring to life and join us, our livestock and our pets, then in total we will represent 99.9%. In just 1000 years, the balance of life on planet Earth will have been inverted by us and our technology, and evolution will have taken a giant leap.

This scenerio seems to suggest a symbiosis, a merged evolution between our technology and us: the question is whether it will be a self-organising shift or one engineered by us.

'All biological organisms function as information processors. They take in information about their environment, process it, and use it to locate the necessary energy sources for survival' (Peter Cochrane).

This assertion is neither new nor surprising. We have known for a long time that the human being is comprised of the most wondrous information processes - DNA is our biological computer. So the question that raises its promethian head is about the shape of the next stage of our evolution.

Many voices call towards AI - robotic intelligence, perhaps met mid-way through cybernetic organisms (cyborgs) that merge the biological with silicon (or 'synthetic' as some refer to it). Perhaps a useful standpoint is to recognise that all materiality - whether 'natural' or 'synthetic' - is produced from an arrangement of atoms. If atoms can be arranged, engineered, to be more proficient information processors, then this might be the edge in terms of what signifies future directions. Molecular engineering is now working upon nano-computers, and work is being undertaken to merge this with the biological.

Nanoscientists and biochemical engineers are starting to play with DNA not as replicating code, but as physical tools for nanoassembly. This shift towards nano-computing entails a re-thinking of what is considered to be human. If our theological debates have entrusted us with the knowledge that our species were made in God's image, then what if this was a clue (omen?) to a future scenerio where the human is able to re-design itself in order to become a more efficient information-processor with computational-like abilities. The atoms, molecular level, of material existence is both more wondrous than we presently know, yet also the building blocks of our backyard. Perhaps the shift towards a silicon-based intelligence is merely a product of our present industrial-computational mindset yet misses the link. The link being that biological DNA will be tweeked and engineered into the most efficient computational system whilst securing the biological resonance and relationship with the environment that is afforded a species that has evolved for millions of years in conjunction with its mileu, unlike AI intelligence.

The question remains as to whether the future will be one of Info-Tech or Bio-Tech - or a symbiosis of both?

Popular blogosphere blogger Joi Ito reports on a conversation with Dr. Roger Payne, the president of Ocean Alliance, a MacArthur-winning whale researcher. It turns out that Humpback whales riff off each other, remixing one another's songs, and developing trends and fashions in their singing over time:

"He explained to me that Humpback Whales sang beautiful songs. They copy from each other, remixing the songs and add to the songs. These songs evolve over time and riffs get passed from whale to whale across the world. The songs have lots of interesting variations and even have rhymes. He made an interesting observation that the whale songs of the 60's were much more beautiful than the whale songs these days." Posted at Joi Ito's Web

Also - link to Ocean Alliance's site.

So, why are the songs not as beautiful anymore: is the web of life becoming corrupted? Polluted? Singing, after all, reflects our happiness - like when we sing in the shower/bath... I hope our evolutionary shift is not losing it's beautiful song...

There is an interesting article/website called 'Building the Noosphere Network'

- this belongs to the Noosphere website which has some interesting information on our evolutionary shift towards collaborative intelligence:

"The Noosphere is an image that describes the consciousness of people who are aware --at the highest possible level-- of the sense of life and existence, and of their vocation and active role within this process. An essential characteristic of this Noosphere is that de people who are part of it communicate with each other --by several means, but nowadays mostly by Internet--, thus enhancing each other's consciousness about this fundamental information, and strengthening their sense of responsability and active involvement in the global evolutionary process.

The notion "Noosphere Society" includes all people on earth that are wholly conscious of the meaning of cosmic evolution, and aware of the personal implications of this reality, this evolutionary vocation. Those people spontaneously interact with each other, widening this circle and bringing people with the same vision in contact with each other. They communicate spontaneously, on a local, direct physical basis, but most probably primarily by Internet. Their meetings and contacts can be organized, but due to their sense of a "maximal" responsability, an essential aspect of the universal constructive attitude, they most probably elaborate such a synergy without official structures. So, probably, it's better to speak about a Network than about a Society, because the latter implies specific structures."

Washington Post writer Joel Garreau has an extract from his forthcoming book titled "Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies -- and What It Means to Be Human" in an article today called 'Inventing our Evolution'

It looks at some of the projects underway to affect the inner side of our evolution in terms of tampering with our metabolism and DNA. Again, a sign that science is asking the questions about the future but forgetting the central question: what it means to be human.

News channel NBC is running an interesting report called: 'Fast Forward - The Future of Evolution' - one of the recent articles is entitled 'Human Evolution at the Crossroads: Genetics, cybernetics complicate forcast for species'

Extract: 'Some think the rapid rise of genetic modification could be just such a circumstance. Others believe we could blend ourselves with machines in unprecedented ways — turning natural-born humans into an endangered species.'

On this site there are links to such interactive reports as: 'Before and After Humans' will looks at the possible genetically modified human species.

Interesting read

This is an interesting, surprising little book (mentioned earlier on this site) which demonstrates, using crystalline photo images, the effects that words and environments have upon the crystal-structure of water. Gentle words and environments create beautiful, geometrical, and harmonious arrangments. Whereas, harsh words and disruptive environments result in blurry and fuzzy molecular blobs of water. A wonderful way to see how one's thoughts and actions are reflected, received, and absorbed into all living structures around us. Thus assuring us once again that separation is an anthropocentric illusion.

The noosphere commentator and transhumanist Mark Pesce has created a wonderfully engaging full-length film called 'Becoming Transhuman' which runs for 1hr, 11 mins and is a free download from the site. It contains some wonderful cosmic images, as well as the thought-provoking narration.

If you have the time, Realplayer, and fancy a lesson in Transhumanist thought....

A new MA course has been set up by Andrew Cohen (founder of magazine 'What is Enlightenment) called: 'Master of Arts Degree in Conscious Evolution' - in conjunction with 'The Graduate Institute' in Milford, Connecticut, US. Interesting.....!

Although it does feature some of the authors previously mentioned on these pages, such as Duane Elgin, Elisabet Sahtouris, and Brian Swimme...

Is this another 'Mickey Mouse' education course, or is it a move in the right direction?

I have no experience of the course...so my judgment is in suspension.

Conscious evolution: in today's terms, literally and figuratively, we should consider: information, network, social connectivity, globality.

One response towards a networked global world is to see a shift from embedded, or mechanical, consciousness towards a self-reflective consciousness as a new basis for social relations. In the words of writer to Duane Elgin:

'A social system is composed of individuals. Thus, the behaviour of our social systems must of necessity mirror and embody the behaviour of the individuals who inhabit those systems... In contrast, the predictable outcome of self-regulating behaviour that flows from self-reflective consciousness seems to be a more gentle touching of people and the environment, coupled with a more self-organising social order at the grassroots level... the growth of social systems complexity is making the Conscious Evolution of consciousness necessary... as a society becomes ever more complex, and demands for self-regulating behaviour grow commensurately, that society must begin to draw out of its citizenry more expanded dimensions of human consciousness if it is to cope with that complexity democratically. In short, the growth of social complexity creates the necessity for an unfolding of human consciousness. This means that in order for a civilisation that is experiencing growing social complexity to continue to allow individuals to be relatively self-regulating, the individuals therein must develop their capacity to be effectively self-regulating at a pace at least equal to that at which the social order is becoming more complex. Self- reflective consciousness moves from the status of a spiritual luxury for the few in a more rudimentary and fragmented social setting to that of a social necessity for the many in a highly complex and enormously enlarged social setting ... Self-reflective consciousness represents both a simple and a complex response to the problems of mounting social complexity.'

Here, we are seeing a call for increased social agency through an increase in social learning due to the increased availability of information. We are being encouraged to become more self reflexive, which in turn implies more individual self-remembering and to be more conscious in our moment-to-moment lives. In this manner, we can be more creative, constructive, and influential both in our own lives and within a more networked, collective life. This is maybe one approach towards what has been referred to as the 'collective social Mind'. It is worth examining the phenomenon of blogging and mobile information users / receivers/ transmitters within this context of a more Conscious and Self- reflective, networked global world. It is the opinion of this writer that we, as individuals, need to become more conscious of our actions and to increase our self-consciousness within a participatory world.

If the human biological body has come to a pinnacle in its design (not incorporating genetic or molecular manipulation), then one must invariably look towards conscious development as the next realm...

individually we can see this to lie within our very own experiences:

'the purpose of human life must be to develop the entity by experience. In short, we are alive to learn...we are alive not merely to learn but also to develop our individual potential to the utmost' - Edward W. Russell - 'Design for Destiny'

And much of our experience is increasingly coming through social connectivity:

‘When we communicate and reflect among ourselves as citizens—publicly learning about and affirming our shared sentiments as an extended community—then we “know that we know.” In our dangerous and difficult time of global transition, it is not sufficient for civilizations to be wise; we must become “doubly wise” through social communication that clearly reveals our collective knowing to ourselves. Once there is a capacity for sustained and authentic social reflection, we will then have the means to achieve a shared understanding and a working consensus regarding appropriate actions for a positive future. Actions can then come quickly and voluntarily. We can mobilize ourselves purposefully, and each person can contribute his or her unique talents to building a life-affirming future. (Duane Elgin)

As our great metaphysical poet John Donne reminded us - no man is an island:

'No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde'

We are neither alone nor isolated - but must communicate, as a larger social body/organism, in order to evolve our collective consiousness. We must keep in touch.

Timothy Leary, in his book 'The Intelligence Agents' refers to Crowley when he says that:

"There are three ways to increase your intelligence:

1. Continually expand the scope, source, intensity of the information you receive.
2. Constantly revise your reality maps, and seek new metaphors about the future to understand what's happening now.
3. Develop external networks for increasing intelligence. In particular, spend all your time with people are smart or smarter than you. We assume that you are the Intelligence Agent from you gene pool, so you will seek Intelligence Agents from other gene-pools who will stimulate you to get smarter.

For further reference on Leary, check out the 'Fusion Anomaly' site