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In search of the Noosphere
A typical human brain has about 100 billion neurons, and each on average has about seven thousand synapses connecting to other neurons. The neurons receive impulses, and upon reaching a threshold level of synaptic activity, will pass on an impulse to other neurons along it's path. Our consciousness stems from the collective organization of the neurons in our brain; specifically from it's incredible complexity. The more complex a brain, the higher the level of conciousness of the organism.
The structure that is interesting here is that of a message passing node connected to many other message passing nodes. In computer science, this construct is a neural network, and can be used for (relatively) simple behavioural training, like pattern recognition. We have only been able to create networks that are orders of magnitude less complex then our human brains, as we do not yet have the computational resources. However, already this model of consciousness has proven useful at certain tasks, which hints that in the future, neural networks will be a powerful tool at our disposal.
So if the model of a node, multiply connected to many other nodes, passing messages and changing internal states, allows for the emergence of rudimentary consciousness, can it be brought into the macro world of human civilization? Can we substitute the simple neuron with a human, the synapse with a relationship, the impulse with a meme, the state with memory, the human consciousness with global consciousness? I believe it can, and it's called the Noosphere.
The structure that is interesting here is that of a message passing node connected to many other message passing nodes. In computer science, this construct is a neural network, and can be used for (relatively) simple behavioural training, like pattern recognition. We have only been able to create networks that are orders of magnitude less complex then our human brains, as we do not yet have the computational resources. However, already this model of consciousness has proven useful at certain tasks, which hints that in the future, neural networks will be a powerful tool at our disposal.
So if the model of a node, multiply connected to many other nodes, passing messages and changing internal states, allows for the emergence of rudimentary consciousness, can it be brought into the macro world of human civilization? Can we substitute the simple neuron with a human, the synapse with a relationship, the impulse with a meme, the state with memory, the human consciousness with global consciousness? I believe it can, and it's called the Noosphere.
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