Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century

"This lusty tome is a stunning commitment to scientific evidence."
--Lynn Margulis

Advance Praise for GLOBAL BRAIN "Howard Bloom believes that the Leviathan, or society as an organism, is not a fanciful metaphor but an actual product of evolution. The Darwinian struggle for existence has taken place among societies, as well as among individuals within societies. We do strive as individuals, but we are also part of something larger than ourselves, with a complex physiology and mental life that we carry out but only dimly understand. With this bold vision of evolution and human behavior, Bloom has raced ahead to explore possibilities that the timid scientific herd may well be forced to follow."
--DAVID SLOAN WILSON Coauthor, "Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior

"A soaring song of songs about the amorous origins of the world and its almost medieval urge to copulate."
--KEVIN KELLY, Editor-at-Large, Wired Author, "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World

"A fascinating new evolutionary theory that could deeply change our view of life, and a new worldview that could radically change our interpretation of social structures."
--FLORIAN ROETZER, Editor, "Telepolis, Germany

"You have not lived until you have interacted with Howard Bloom. He offers sweeping looks at similar functional patterns of organization at cellular, neural, social, and cosmic levels, combining them with powerful insights on social history and movements in human thought and rituals."
--JAMES BRODY, Ph.D., Founder, clinical sociobiology

"I have met God and he lives in Brooklyn. I could try to convince you that Howard Bloom is nexton a very short list that includes Darwin, Freud, Einstein, and Buckminster Fuller, but Howard can probably do a much better job of convincing you himself."
--RICHARD METZGER, Editor, "Disinfo.com Host of Channel Four(U.K.) TVs Disinfo Nation

"Howard Bloom's "Global Brain" is filled with scientific firsts. It is the first book to make a strong, solidly backed, and theoretically-original case that we do not live the lonely lives of selfish beings driven by selfish genes, but are parts of a larger whole. It is the first to propose that sociality was implicit in the start of the universe--the Big Bang. "Global Brain" is the first book to present strong evidence that evolutionary, biological, perceptual, and emotional mechanisms have made us parts of a social learning machine--a mass mind which includes all species of life, not just humankind. It is the first to take this idea out of the realm of mysticism and into the sphere of hard-nosed, data-derived reality. And it is one of the few books which carry off such grand visions with energy, excitement, and keen insight."
Elizabeth Loftus, immediate past president, American Psychological Society, author, "Witness for the Defense" and "The Myth of Repressed Memory"

"Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century" is the follow-up to Howard Blooms first book, "The Lucifer Principle: a scientific expedition into the forces of history," which "The Washington Post" called "a mesmerizing mirror of the human condition," and which critic Mark Graham of Denvers "Rocky Mountain Post" praised as "a philosophical look at the history of our species, which alternated between fascinating and frightening. Reading itwas like reading Dean Koontz or Stephen King: I couldn't put it down."

"The Lucifer Principle" was a shock to those who believe that the greed of genes turns us into selfish loners, but "Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century" will come as an even bigger surprise. It presents evidence that this cosmos has been "social" since its first microseconds of existence, and that the first communal intelligence appeared among colonies of cyanobacteria 3.5 billion years ago. These bacteria pioneered the first worldwide research and development system eons before the emergence of women and men. "Global Brain" follows the evolution of individual and mass minds from the multi-trillion member collaborations among our bacterial ancestors to the ten-thousand-strong mass marches and claw-to-claw showdowns of Mesozoic spiny lobsters. It demonstrates how the first birds of the Jurassic age gathered in flocks and how their descendants were so tightly data-linked that cultural fads could spread hundreds of miles through the avian grapevine in a matter of mere days.

Underpinning "Global Brain"'s rewrite of the evolutionary saga is a new approach to social theory, one derived not from abstract principles but from observation of the real thing--living communities of all kinds--including the most fascinating of the lot: societies of human minds. "Global Brain" probes the rise of Neolithic cities thousands of years before Ur and Babylon, and explores how these little-known urban centers changed the very nature of human identity. It shows how transnational subcultures arose in Greece a hundred years before the glory days of Athens, and how these havens forunconventional men and women transformed the mechanism of collective creativity. Then "Global Brain" reveals how the sometimes brutal political stances promoted by Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato still struggle for dominance at the turn of the 21st century.

"Global Brain" presents evidence that the shared intelligence of humankind is part of a larger planetary mind, one that combines the learning of microbes, waterfowl, predatory cats, idealists, militants, religionists, and scientists. The book predicts that the great world war of the 21st century will take place between the collective intelligence of humanity and that of a world wide web 96 trillion generations old and billions of years wise — the global internet between microbial societies. Finally, "Global Brain" anticipates some of the creative paths this planet's team of battlers and borrowers may take during the next hundred and fifty years.

Kevin Kelly, editor-at-large of "Wired" magazine and author of "Out of Control," says "Global Brain" is "a soaring song of songs about the amorous origins of the world, and its almost medieval urge to copulate." Evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson, author of "Unto Others: The evolution and psychology of unselfish behavior," adds that, "With this bold vision of evolution and human behavior, Bloom has raced ahead to explore possibilities that the timid scientific herd may well end up following." And Joseph Chilton Pearce, author of "Evolution's End: Claiming the Potential of Our Intelligence," says "I have finished Howard Bloom's two books, "The Lucifer Principle" and "Global Brain," in that order, and am seriously awed, near overwhelmed by the magnitude of what he has done. I neverexpected to see, in any form, from any sector, such an accomplishment. I doubt there is a stronger intellect than Bloom's on the planet."

"A soaring song of songs about the amorous origins of the world, and its almost medieval urge to copulate."
Kevin Kelly, Editor-at-Large of "Wired," author "New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World and Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World."

"Howard Bloom's "Global Brain" is filled with scientific firsts. It is the first book to make a strong, solidly backed, and theoretically-original case that we do not live the lonely lives of selfish beings driven by selfish genes, but are parts of a larger whole. It is the first to propose that sociality was implicit in the start of the universe--the Big Bang. "Global Brain" is the first book to present strong evidence that evolutionary, biological, perceptual, and emotional mechanisms have made us parts of a social learning machine--a mass mind which includes all species of life, not just humankind. It is the first to take this idea out of the realm of mysticism and into the sphere of hard-nosed, data-derived reality. And it is one of the few books which carry off such grand visions with energy, excitement, and keen insight."
Elizabeth Loftus, immediate past president, American Psychological Society, author, "Witness for the Defense and The Myth of Repressed Memory"

"This lusty tome generated by Blooms voracious reading habit and extraordinary talent for explanation proclaims that groups of individuals — from people to vervet monkeys to bacteria — organize themselves, create novelty, alter their surroundings, andtriumph to leave more offspring than loner individuals. A stunning commitment to scientific evidence, this sequel to The "Lucifer Principle" ought to purge the academic world of 'selfish genes' and the neodarwinist dogma of 'individual selection'."
Lynn Margulis, Distinguished University Professor, University of Massachusetts, recipient of a 1999 National Medal of Science, author of "Symbiotic Planet: A New Look at Evolution."

"Howard Bloom has a fascinating vision of the interplay of life, and a compelling style which I found captivating."
Nils Daulaire, President and CEO, Global Health Council.

"I have finished Howard Bloom's two books, &

Writing for the layman, evolutionist Bloom, argues for an interpretation of group evolution which would treat all of evolution and life on earth as the workings of an interspecies mass mind. He compares individual organisms to individual neurons, societal groupings to neural networks, and so on. Much of the work seems to be based on analogy, for instance when he points to a study in which birds which failed to master their environment tended to become less socially successful within their flocks and also tended to become less healthy and die earlier. This is then compared to the inefficient neuron, which commits cellular "suicide." The upshot of Bloom's thesis is that sociability, information solving, and problem solving are inherent parts of evolution which have existed since well before what we know as life originated.
Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

The author of "Lucifer Principle" introduces the highly controversial theory of "group selection", which portrays life on Earth as one macro-community of symbiant organisms working together for the benefit of all. Viewed from this perspective, the network of life is akin to a giant "global brain" in which each organism is a functional part, and of which the world Wide Web is only the most recent evolutionary step.

Global Brain is more than just a brilliantly original contribution to the ongoing debate on the inner workings of evolution. It is a grand vision, says the eminent evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson, a work that transforms our very view of who we are and why.

"As someone who has spent forty years in psychology with a long-standing interest in evolution, I'll just assimilate Howard Bloom's accomplishment and my amazement."-DAVID SMILLIE, Visiting Professor of Zoology, Duke University In this extraordinary follow-up to the critically acclaimed The Lucifer Principle, Howard Bloom-one of today's preeminent thinkers-offers us a bold rewrite of the evolutionary saga. He shows how plants and animals (including humans) have evolved together as components of a worldwide learning machine. He describes the network of life on Earth as one that is, in fact, a "complex adaptive system," a global brain in which each of us plays a sometimes conscious, sometimes unknowing role. and he reveals that the World Wide Web is just the latest step in the development of this brain. These are theories as important as they are radical. Informed by twenty years of interdisciplinary research, Bloom takes us on a spellbinding journey back to the big bang to let us see how its fires forged primordial sociality. As he brings us back via surprising routes, we see how our earliest bacterial ancestors built multitrillion-member research and development teams a full 3.5 billion years ago. We watch him unravel the previously unrecognized strands of interconnectedness woven by crowds of trilobites, hunting packs of dinosaurs, feathered flying lizards gathered in flocks, troops of baboons making communal decisions, and adventurous tribes of protohumans spreading across continents but still linked by primitive forms of information networking. We soon find ourselves reconsidering our place in the world. Along the way, Bloom offers us exhilarating insights into the strange tricks of body and mind that have organized a variety of life forms: spiny lobsters, which, during the Paleozoic age, participated in communal marching rituals; and bees, which, during the age of dinosaurs, conducted collective brainwork. This fascinating tour continues on to the sometimes brutal subculture wars that have spurred the growth of human civilization since the Stone Age. Bloom shows us how culture shapes our infant brains, immersing us in a matrix of truth and mass delusion that we think of as reality.

Global Brain is more than just a brilliantly original contribution to the ongoing debate on the inner workings of evolution. It is a "grand vision," says the eminent evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson, a work that transforms our very view of who we are and why.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 225-352) and index.

HOWARD BLOOM, author of the critically acclaimed book The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History, is a Visiting Scholar at New York University. He is a member of both the New York Academy of Sciences and the National Association for the Advancement of Science, as well as the founder of the International Paleopsychology Project. He has been written up in every edition of Who's Who in Science and Engineering since the publication's inception.

Creative Nets in the Precambrian Era.

Networking in Paleontology's "Dark Ages".

The Embryonic Meme.

From Social Synapses to Social Ganglions: Complex Adaptive Systems in Jurassic Days.

Mammals and the Further Rise of Mind.

Threading a New Tapestry.

A Trip through the Perception Factory.

Reality Is a Shared Hallucination.

The Conformity Police.

Diversity Generators: The Huddle and the Squabble-Group Fission.

The End of the Ice Age and the Rise of Urban Fire.

The Weave of Conquest and the Genes of Trade.

Greece, Miletus, and Thales: The Birth of the Boundary Breakers.

Sparta and Baboonery: The Guesswork of Collective Mind.

The Pluralism Hypothesis: Athens' Underside.

Pythagoras, Subcultures, and Psycho-Bio-Circuitry.

Swiveling Eyes and Pivoting Minds: The Pull of Influence Attractors.

Outstretch, Upgrade, and Irrationality: Science and the Warps of Mass Psychology.

The Kidnap of Mass Mind: Fundamentalism, Spartanism, and the Games Subcultures Play.

Interspecies Global Mind.

Conclusion: The Reality of the Mass Mind's Dreams: Terraforming the Cosmos.

Notes.

Bibliography.

Acknowledgments.

Index.