The Global Brain Awakens

Book excerpt: Not too many philosophers have taken a serious crack at explaining what the advent of the Internet means to the future of human society. While technology takes a back-seat to spirituality in The Global Brain Awakens, author Peter Russell takes all the recent hype about global interconnectivity to a fascinating extreme: The Internet as the central nervous system to a newly evolved global organism. Russell draws parallels between the development of the central nervous system in living organisms and creation of Web communications here on Earth, which he argues is the biggest living organism of them all. Unfortunately, this intriguing line of thought is undermined by the book's conclusion, which collapses into a mire of hokey higher consciousness that lacks the same critical reasoning. getAbstract recommends this book to anyone interested in an alternative vision of a Web-enhanced future, provided you are not turned off by its new age clichés.