Debugging the Noosphere
It looks like the noosphere is an idea whose time has come, and it may well be the idea that defines its time, and frames the time ahead—but is it a good idea? Is it a viable, sound idea in social, spiritual, and evolutionary terms? Widespread enthusiasm about the noosphere dominates the discussion over its importance; indeed, over its very nature. For many, it is unquestionably a boon to humanity, both the mark of “conscious evolution” and the supreme instrument of its attainment. But I wonder if lack of critical assessment among those who embrace the noosphere concept might be a serious detriment to the vision they hope to achieve with it.
One point is indisputable: the noosphere, whatever it will turn out to be, is manifesting in technological media. It is the ultimate tool of psychotechnology, if you will. The cybernetic control panel through which humanity realizes global awakening, etc. But how does such an extraordinary and complex tool get up and running? Consider the technology of the space shuttle. It is difficult to imagine what went into designing, engineering, and constructing that piece of high tech hardware, not to mention what it took to launch and navigate it. Additional to all the complex tasking the project required, there was an enormous amount of troubleshooting. Many problems were anticipated and avoided, others were solved after they showed up. Some problems, such as the faulty O-rings responsible for the crash of 1987, were not solved until after they had caused disastrous consequences.
Why should the noosphere be any different? In design, construction, and application, it presents a huge challenge to troubleshooting. Or debugging, as they say in IT. According to the Wikipedia entry, debugging is “a methodical process of finding and reducing defects in a computer program or a piece of electronic hardware, thus making it behave as expected. Debugging tends to be harder when various subsystems are tightly coupled, as changes in one may cause bugs to emerge in another.”
Debugging the noosphere is not going to be an easy job, or a fast fix when potential problems are identified. And disasters may occur before certain problems are detected. The telling phrase in the Wikipedia entry is “making it behave as expected.” With the noosphere, the first phase of debugging has to involve looking closely at what we expect from this medium. Expectations may have to be adjusted to develop the noosphere in a way consistent with our evolutionary arc as a species. And the definition of our evolutionary arc is, needless to say, a matter yet to be fully elucidated!
Contemplating this challenge, two factors come to mind. One is the notion of prosthetic substitution defined by Marshall McLuhan. The other is the Gaian concept of “coupling,” alluded to in the Wikipedia entry.
In his 1964 book Understanding Media, subtitled “The Extensions of Man,” McLuhan made a single critical observation that can now be applied to troubleshooting the noosphere. He said that new media can be extensions of human faculties, but they can also become prosthetic substitutes for our faculties. A prosthesis like a set of false teeth is useful if you lose your teeth. But imagine wearing false teeth over a set of good, functioning teeth. That is prosthetic substitution.
So far McLuhan’s point has not, to my knowledge, been applied to the noosphere. We must ask, Is the noosphere an extension of human faculties for communication, design, and networking, or it is a cybernetic prosthesis, a technological substitute for those faculties? How would we know the difference?
The second factor relates to tight coupling, or structural coupling, a concept found in Gaia theory, general systems theory, cybernetics, etc. The current view of the noosphere assumes a tight coupling between each individual mind on the planet and the emergent planetary mind. If psyche and cosmos are interactive—I reckon most readers would accept this principle—we expect to see the flowering of that interactivity in the workings of the noosphere.
But the dynamic of psyche-cosmos coupling is not so simple. It is not bipolar, but tripolar. The three components are psyche, cosmos, and psyche’s concept of the cosmos. I define psyche-cosmos coupling as the alpha mode of interactivity, denoting live, direct, spontaneous feedback between the two components, and psyche-concept coupling as the beta mode, denoting interaction between the mind and its concept of the cosmos, not the cosmos itself. I would then call the process in which the psyche-concept dynamic overrides and may even preclude the psyche-cosmos dynamic, beta mode blocking, or simply betablocking.
Human systems are tightly coupled, mind to mind, as well as coupled to the master mind console of the noosphere. The problems induced by betablocking will be immense and intricate, because each individual mind will have to adjust its interaction with the noosphere on the basis of its subjective concept of that medium. Objective agreement on the concept—read: the current consensus of what the noosphere is and how it works—may actually impede its development. Critical dissent over the concept, and debugging where required to “make it behave as expected,” will advance and improve our realization of the noosphere.
So far it is not clear if the noosphere is a concept in the mental realm or a process in the biosphere. Consistent with Vernadsky’s definition of the lithosphere and biosphere, the noosphere is widely regarded as a continuum existing in its own right, though based in human cognition. Does this make the noosphere a cognitive extension of the natural world? Is it a real component of nature, or a technological construct we humans are imposing on the planet?
It might seem that mounting enthusiasm about the noosphere will foster its emergence and insure a huge leap ahead for humanity, but there is a paradox in this particular instance of technological confidence. Without troubleshooting, the current concept of the noosphere may impede or distort its emergence. Right now there is no telling where this concept will take us, but the risk of prosthetic substitution is immense. That, to my mind, would be a wrong turn for our species.
It is widely agreed that the emergence of the noosphere involves a planet-wide open source discussion, but so far this great conversation is a one-party event. Radical critiques of IT (from Jeremy Rifkin and others) are not incorporated by proponents of the noosphere. (I haven’t yet read Lawrence Hagerty’s The Spirit of the Internet, which may be an exception.) The role, or even the acceptability, of critical assessment within the great conversation now underway remains to be seen. The long, complicated process of troubleshooting the noosphere has barely begun.
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- 7-13-07
- John Lamb Lash's blog
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examining the unfolding
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Beyond Concept
I learned the value of this distinction alchemical studies. What happens mentally, in cognitive and conceptual activity, and what happens in the biosphere of organic phenomena, are not the same, though they can coincide. Thinking and breathing are not the same kinds of events, but in pranayama exercises they can be brought together. The genuine alchemists merged their mental activity with actual processes in the biosphere. For example, they were able to discern photosynthesis before it was detected by instruments and a laboratory proof process. Von Helmont discovered carbon dioxide, emitted by plants, by direct engagement of his attention (not concepts) with nature. Alchemical code represented photosynthesis by the image of the Green Lion eating the sun. Adepts who understood this image were able to live directly from the vitality in the atmosphere, as some mystics and yogis are known to have done, not to mention “breatharians.”
You do not get to experience photosynthesis in your own mind and body by concepts that lead to further concepts and build into grand conceptual schemes a la Wilbur. I wonder if the noosphere is not a grand conceptual scheme that dissociates us from the very dynamic it assumes to represent. The test of every concept is the same: does it lead to yet other concepts, or does it lead, as Christopher Greenchild suggests, to “the lost story of what this planetary experience is really all about”?
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definition?
Hi John,
Just curious: What is your basic definition of the Noosphere? It might might the essay easier to read if you started with more of a definition.
What do you think of the Arguelles concept that we are passing through a biosphere - noosphere transition, and the technosphere is a transition inbetween, like a ladder we have built to attain the global mind, which we will then disassemble once we have activated or aligned with the noosphere?
Also what do you think of his concept that the noosphere has a physical location, shuttling like a weaving of patterns between the two radiation belts?
"Will the transformation."-Rilke
Locating Nous
As to your other questions: Frankly, I don't think much of anything Arguelles said. The notion of the technosphere as a ladder from the biosphere into the noosphere doesn't cut the mustard for me. As I understand nous, it is living intelligence. This is evident all through the biosphere, in the forms and activities of all species, plant and animal. Bio means alive, living.
The technosphere is not alive. It is a global depot of gadgetry. As a medium of communication and repository of information, it seems to be animated in its own way, but you really have to exaggerate to take this for a form of consciousness, much less a life-form. Roszak warned in the introduction of The Cult of Information about mistaking computational devices for an incipient form of superior awareness.
I don't see informational and cybernetic devices getting us into higher consciousness just because they facilitate communications and the exchange of (largely useless) information. For me the key question about the noosphere is, Can we define it in terms of the organic cognition of life that is evident all around us, and which we ourselves exemplify? In short, Is the noosphere to be regarded as alive in an evidential manner comparable to the biosphere?
As to your third question, regarding the location of the noosphere in radiation belts. I look for the global mind or living intelligence of the biosphere, and perhaps its noospheric extension, if such there be, within the limits of the habitable atmosphere. In that sense, I'm really old-fashioned. You could even say archaic.
JLL
spiraling into higher degrees of self-awareness?
>The noosphere as I see it is something that already is and that we are moving our center of consciousness into.
this is also how i have considered the notion... that humans have participated in the noosphere in the past but to a large extent, it has become a lost technology.
erik davis writes in "techgnosis" about how as we become cyborgs each of the prosthetics that we create seem to dull or limit a part of us... so the internet is our synthetic noosphere that we've used to replace our forgotten organic one and perhaps we are headed in the direction of consciously re-constructing an organic noosphere that contains a higher level of self-awareness than the previous one.
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I agree. With the help of
I agree. But I feel with the help of these "prosthetic substitutions" we are moving towards a condition that looks like, for all intensive purposes, clairvoyance. I feel these "prosthetics" will function much like bio-feedback machines. They will be "training wheels" that help us eventually wake up to our innate (yet dormant) ability to do these very same, seemingly magical things.
"Sitting on the outside, just me and my mate. I made the moon come up two hours late. Ain't that a man?" -- Muddy Waters
Noosphere Makes Me Want To Hurl (La Nausee)
L.D. Gussin, author of The Seeker Academy, a novel set at a holistic retreat.
John's unwillingness (from what I could tell) to give Daniel a basic definition set me on a hunt. Once I'd boiled noosphere down to "global mind," I felt sarcastic and then sick.
My feeling of sarcasm comes from my belief that Daniel's "technosphere" is being built as much by commercial forces as idealistic debuggers in IT. I see our great change in techne and thus in ordinary life as beyond big-picture understanding. I'd instead listen, approach with a stick, poke, see what happens, flee, stop shaking, reflect, and check in with my village. Then I'd begin to listen anew.
My nausea comes from seeing noosphere as a link in a chain that includes other models of group mind or human-machine rule over life, like consilience and singularity. I believe such models tyrannize us. Wendell Berry, writing to oppose E.O. Wilson's Consilience, called his book Life Is A Miracle. He meant, first, the lives of individual people. Thus my moral nausea.
The mind-over-nature models leave me also with existential nausea, as they may come true. Venture capitalists abound!
Sartre's 1932 novel La Nausee was, as part of a dialog with Camus on existentialism, a guiding text for the Beats. A central character feels nausea realizing that he exists and has a kind of freedom beyond ordinary life, the world of forms. It is almost more than he can handle.
My nausea thinking of mind over nature is the hall of mirrors variety. I feel a need for some freedom, and I know I find it, partly, in the world of forms.
Mind In Nature
The purpose of my article was not to define the noosphere, but to explore how it is being defined. I personally have no definition to offer. I don't operate with a noosphere concept, and so far I don't find a satisfactory formulation of that concept in books and internet discussions. Starting from Vernadsky and Teilhard de Chardin is helpful, but the concept has shapeshifted enormously since their time, and I am trying to work out the current outlines.
There is an odd twist in the works here. In my writings on Gnosis, the Sophianic vision of the Mysteries, and what I call the Gaia-Sophia principle, I often refer to nous, a key word in Gnostic teachings. I translate it as, not mind, but intelligence. More specifically, nous is the germ of divine intelligence implanted in humanity and other species. (Nous is not a "spark of divinity" mired in matter and in need of liberation. I have argued endlessly against such disinformation on the Gnostic worldview, its supposed anti-material spin, rejection of this world as the creation of an inferior deity, etc.) In humanity, nous is the latent potential for evolutionary genius, higher adaptation, culture creation, and novelty. This at least is my personal and professional understanding of the Gnostic term.
With nous as the germinal theme, I propose an approach to "the global mind" but without equating it to the noosphere. I share the concern that mind over nature is basic to our sickness, alienation, and dissociation. Is the noosphere about mind over nature, or some extrapolation of our cognitive faculties thought to be superior to the planetary intelligence of Gaia? I sense that the noosphere concept veers at times in that direction. I reject this view as a specious ploy inspired by human arrogance.
My entire work is about understanding the mind of nature, so the human mind can coevolve with the planetary intelligence that produced it in the first place. I do not see formulations or proposed applications of the noosphere concept moving in that direction. Mind-over-nature models also leave me wanting to vomit. I look cautiously at who hypes the noosphere, and why. Sartre's novel consumed me when I read it at 17, but I now understand that the distancing from nature that produces existential nausea is not the hallmark of the human condition, but a side effect of our singularity. We as a species are free to dissociate from the Gaian mind as other species are not, but we are also endowed with a singular potential, a rare strain of nous, that allows us to contribute novelty to Gaia, and enhance her adventure.
Will the noosphere concept increase our dissociation from the global mind, or assist us to coevolve with it? More news at eleven.
I'm Interested Now
L.D. Gussin, author of The Seeker Academy, a novel set at a holistic retreat.
You've gained a reader with your clarification and caution.
Wendell Berry Cautions To Go Slow
L.D. Gussin, author of The Seeker Academy, a novel set at a holistic retreat.
From Life Is A Miracle
"But if, as in fact we know, the creature is not only in its environment but of it, and if the relationship between creature and environment is mutually formative, and if this relationship is a process that cannot be stopped short of the creature's death, then how can we get outside the relationship in order to predict with certainty the effects of our participation?
"Religion begins with such questions. But even reason can see that they define the issues of propriety and scale. If we can't know with final certainty what we are doing, then reason cautions us to be humble and patient, to keep the scale small, to be careful, to go slow."
What did Vernadsky actually SAY?
Vernadsky's View
Syntax proves its worth when it can lead to clear formulations of pertinent questions. I would ask, for instance, How does "the new, contemporatory stage of the biosphere" that Vernadsky foresaw as developed by human cognition relate to the pre-existing biosphere? How does it effect it? Specifically what sort of human cognitive activities will produce this enhancement? Will the new growth of the biosphere be consistent with the spectrum of life on the non-human planet, or will it preclude or displace other life-forms?
In particular, I would ask, Will the cognitive activities of humanity impact the biopshere in the way we have seen technology do since the Industrial Revolution, or in some other, more planet-friendly way?