The Nooshpere was introduced by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin – the patron saint of the Internet – in 1922 … as we head to what he called the Omega Point.
But as usual, this highfalutin notion – of an evolution from the geosphere (inanimate matter) and the biosphere (biological life), to world wide intelligence and consciousness (noosphere) – when man gets his hands on it, turns back on us and spoils it.
Wiki says:
“As mankind organizes itself in more complex social networks, the higher the noosphere will grow in awareness.”
Well this awareness is snooping in on everyone’s privacy, like never heard of before, and has replaced God as listening in on everyone.
Has the world wide web – the noosphere – become a totalitarian’s (man-god) dream?
Has all the camera’s everywhere, and electronic communications – cell phones, email, etc. – replaced god as the ever watchful eye and listening ear?
Is the nooshpere not headed to the Omega Point, but to our ruin?
This might be a little (a lot) of a side step, but your query brought to mind a sci-fi writer, Harry Harrison, who produced a series (12) stories called the Stainless Steel Rat series and as I recall, speaks to many of your questions. The general theme of the stories is that as totalitarianism closes in, so does ingenious resistance. Basically, push = pushback. If you’re looking for answers and entertainment, you might Amazon him and look at the series. Beats blathering here…
And PRISM has been around since 2007. Dubya started it. It was in the news back then and even FOX news supported it. Fear makes people crazy. Fear says : “Fuck privacy … who needs privacy?” Who needs it? Congressmen need it. Judges need it. Lawyers need it. Chase Bank execs need it. Same with all financial institutions. The World Bank needs it. Law abiding citizens need it.
The other day alex jones on his radio station talked about what he called mass stockholm syndrome.
Also I’d say fear is definitely a less useful emotion than one of the better passions. Such as a passion for one’s family.
But any part of the human system which can become a cancer, eventually at some time will become such.
Fear is one of those cancers. It was meant to help our survival, but it can destroy us in another case.
I think fear of death is one of the sources of most evils. If we didn’t fear our destruction, we would be completely different people. Way less oppress-able.
That alone being said, I’m sure people will come up and say how fear of death is positive.
Well yes, I already thought of that, but I’m referring to the cancer types of fear.
I found out via Wiki that the Pope found PTC’s idea of original sin inconsistent with Augustine’s idea. Past the noosphere is the omega point. Are we near there yet?
Given that humans will be part and parcel to the noosphere will it be good or evil … or a mixture, like humans?
If the noosphere becomes a tool of those in power, like all this snooping presently going on (tip of the iceberg) I want nothing to do with the evil thing.
And the Omega Point? It may be a pipe dream. The universe may collapse on itself before then.
But hey, we may as well shoot as high as we possibly can. It might help …
The noosphere is supposed to be self-conscious. There is no evidence that the internet is conscious of itself. Therefore we don’t have a true noosphere.
“Teilhard holds that at all times and everywhere, matter is endeavoring to complexify upon itself, as observed in the evolutionary history of the Earth. Matter complexified from inanimate matter, to plant life, to animal-life, to human-life. Or, from the geosphere, to the biosphere, to the noosphere (of which humans represented, because of their possession of a consciousness which reflects upon themselves). As evolution rises through the geosphere, biosphere, and noosphere, matter continues to rise in a continual increase of both complexity and consciousness.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Complexity/Consciousness
