Trying to understand the global brain with the same objectivity that science explores the human brain is difficult, because every society is enmeshed in the global brain. None of us occupies a privileged position outside and apart. Our personal perceptions are often overwhelmed by influences from collective consciousness -- this is why so few people are able to separate themselves from fear of terrorism, for example, and why the vast majority don't even try. Yet the more objectively we observe the global brain, the more understanding it yields.
Let me continue with describing some of the salient features that are common to an individual brain and the global brain.
-- The entire brain is invisibly correlated..
Brain scans enable researchers to watch as separate regions "light up" when different actions, sensations, and emotions occur. It takes a village of neurons to give birth to a single thought. The chemicals that jump across synaptic gaps are visible evidence of the brain's interconnectedness. Yet it remains a mystery how brain cells separated in various locations know how to act together spontaneously. Their correlation is both instantaneous and invisible. If you remember the house you were born in, see your family back then, and feel the sensations of being a child again, half a dozen brain regions were involved. Yet they didn't send telephone messages to each other to coordinate their activities. Each region lit up at the same time. Just as mysterious is how one thought leads to the next; The stream of consciousness contains a seemingly random array of thoughts that sometimes are connected but often not. If I think the word "rhinoceros," my next thought could be associated with that animal, or it could be anything at all.
In the global brain the same mysteries arise. There is random activity everywhere around the world, and yet trends develop and sudden discontinuities break them down. An impoverished country like India, bound by a bewildering multitude of languages and traditions, can suddenly decide to use its collective intelligence in a new way, as is presently happening. The allure of modernity abruptly becomes irresistible. And yet an oil- rich society like Saudi Arabia or Iran, with much closer ties to technology and far more opportunities for advancement, can decide collectively to remain trapped in a reverie of past glories, looking upon modernity as an adversary.
To a materialist, these connections must be visible. Numbers and data must tell the tale. This doesn't explain sudden transformations, however, which become clear after they happen but emerge from a swirl of random events in the present. According to predictions in the early '90s, a united Germany should be economically dominant over the U.S. today, with the former Soviet Union a functioning Western-style democracy. A recent theory that all of history has been shaped by totally unpredictable events comes close to describing how the human brain works, also. Patterns and lines of communication show up on a brain scan (so-called hard wiring), but their invisible source is hidden from sight. What your brain was doing five minutes ago says a lot, but five minutes form now it could be doing something totally unforeseen. Like it, the global brain is a machine for processing the unknown.
-- The global brain evolves from within itself.
Even to assume that the brain is controlled by outside forces is a half truth. The human brain and the global brain have a mysterious capacity to grow from within, often in startling leaps. Ten years ago, China exhibited few signs that it was capable of taking a huge leap forward in terms of education, technology, and wealth. A billion underused brains had been stifled for generations. Yet somehow Chinese society woke up within itself. A portion of the global brain decided to evolve. Nothing like this happens in isolation, however. Just as each area of the human brain is aware of the whole brain, even when that area is showing no activity, the global brain moves forward as a whole even when parts lag behind. At a deeper level, no message is lost.
At the present moment, many observers witness enormous leaps in information technology. That activity leads to innovation, and together they create new wealth.
It's as if the global brain has gotten the message that planetary survival depends on a jump in intelligence. It may appear that part of the world isn't listening -- I don't mean just the Third World, since the current administration in Washington exhibits its own stubborn resistance. National boundaries can't keep new ideas isolated and cut off from outsiders. The phenomenon of millions of people on the move symbolizes global brain signals on the move. A society can choose to lag behind, but that is an illusion. It is impossible for any area of the human brain to isolate itself in total ignorance of the brain as a whole. The same holds true in collective consciousness. We are all entangled in the teeming activity of every other person on earth.
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