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The Global Brain
 Peter
Russell Your brain grew before you were even born, in weeks
eight to thirteen in pregnancy there was this explosion of nerve
cells, and then they start connecting up. And humanity seems to
have done the same thing, we've had this massive population explosion
and we now have about the same number of people living on the
planet as there are nerve cells in a human brain and we now are
beginning to connect up. First of all it was just with verbal
communication, then we invented things like writing, then printing
and the telephone and televison and now we have computer networks
and the World Wide Web. We're beginning to come together into
one, single communication system, which led me to the idea that
perhaps humanity is the brain of the planet, the Global Brain.
If we're the brain, what state are we in?
Peter Russell Well, we're a global brain, but we're also
like a cancer. I think both are true. If you look at a cancer
cell you find that what characterises it is that it's a very selfish
cell, it doesn't fit into the whole organism, it grows very fast
and it's stupid! If a cancer is successful it destroys its host
organism. What lies behind cancer, when the cell becomes malignant
is that the DNA programing is disturbed in some way, whether it's
a virus, or pollution, whatever, and so the cell no longer functions
as part of the whole, it goes off on its own track.
I think a very parallel thing has gone on with human beings, our
internal programming's got disturbed - not at the genetic level
but at a cultural level because of our minds.We've got an old
set of programs still ticking through our heads, and that's the
problem. We're like a global brain, but right now this brain is
malignant, and its a question of can we heal our own malignancy?
I think we can.
Maybe we're down an evolutionary blind alley. I have thought at
times that perhaps an intelligent species with hands doesn't work.
You can have creatures with hands like monkeys and chimpanzees,
and they're OK because they can make little tools and fiddle around
- or you can have creatures with intelligence, like whales and
dolphins, but they don't have hands, they just swim. If you put
the two together, if you give them intelligence and you give them
hands, then they start manipulating the world and that's what
human beings have done.
Maybe this was this planet's first attempt at an intelligent species
with hands. Maybe it forgot the consciousness, and in a few million
years time it will try again and this time it will have intelligence,
hands and consciousness and maybe that'll work!
Who knows what's going to happen? All we do know is that things
are moving faster and faster and faster. Which is an absolutely
natural part of evolution. Simple cells, bacteria, took a couple
of billion years to evolve, the first half of Earth's history
is just simple cells. And then much more complex organisms evolved
much faster, mammals, we're just talking about fifty million years
or so, human beings have been around just a million years or so.
Society is just a few thousand years old, the Industrial Revolution
a couple of hundred years ago and the Information Revolution just
a couple of decades. I think the consciousness change is even
faster, it may not need a new species to come along. We may actually
be able to develop the new values, the new way of thinking ourselves,
and so prove we can live in harmony with ourselves and the planet.
Computing power is doubling every eighteen months, but the World
Wide Web is doubling, now as I speak, every fifty eight days.
This means nobody knows where its going, not even in a years time.
Right now, there's people thinking up ideas which will be mainstream
in six months and which other people will use to create new things.
I think one of the most interesting things about the web is that
as well as giving us information it's also a spiritual vehicle.
The fastest growing area in the book business is now spirituality
and a lot of those people who are interested in spiritual things
are also people who are playing with the web.
There's no one guru out there who is telling us all the answers.
We're learning from each other, and the web is making that happen
much faster.
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© dprogram 1996>2008
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Originally broadcast on UK television's
Channel 4, dprogram is an award winning, mind expanding
trip featuring rare and exclusive interviews with leading edge
personalities from areas like cyber culture, consciousness research,
parapsychology, music and art.
Volume 1 includes:
• Dan
Mapes CEO of San Francisco's leading edge virtual
reality design company SynergyLabs on the metaphysics of VR.
• Jah
Wobble Musician and founder member of Public Image
Limited on Cockney mystics, creativity and the inspiration of
William Blake.
• Dr
Sara Parker UC Berkeley scholar on the New Age
'colonisation' of Native American spirituality.
• Bishop
Joey Head of the First Church of the Last Laugh
- the worlds fastest growing snack relgion!
• Burning
Man A unique four day experience exploring creativity
and consciousness in Nevada's Black Rock Desert.
• Willis
Harman Former president of The Institute of Noetic
Sciences on their 'conventional research into unconventional areas'.
• Dr
Edgar Mitchell Founder of The Institute of Noetic
Sciences and Apollo 14 astronaut on parapsychology experiments
in space.
• Nick
Pope of the British Ministry of Defence on why
he had to change his mind about the UFO phenomenom.
• Peter Russell Author, on the global brain, spirituality
on the net and our part in the evolution of the planet.
• Ann
& Alexander Shulgin Pioneer researchers into
psychedelics and the mind, on the politics of ecstacy.
And more...
Running time: 70 mins.
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