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

This lusty tome generated by Blooms voracious reading habit and extraordinary talent for explanation proclaims that groups of individualsfrom people to vervet monkeys to bacteriaorganize themselves, create novelty, alter their surroundings, and triumph 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 neo-darwinist dogma of individual selection.

Lynn Margulis, Distinguished University Professor,
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and
recipient of a 1999 National Medal of Science

The Thales of the Internet, H. Bloom thinks what he wants, writes what he thinks, and performs his synthesis with a good heart, uncompromising truth, creative brain, and mountains of evidence. From the bacterial web of Eshel Ben-Jacob to the scientific sidelining of Professor Ling, we see the daunting power of groups that interact and sacrifice their members in order to thrive and evolve.

Dorion Sagan, author of Biospheres and coauthor of
Into the Cool: The New Thermodynamics of Life

Howard Blooms 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 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, former President,
American Psychological Society, and author of
Witness for the Defense and The Myth of Repressed Memory

In a superbly written and totally original argument, Howard Bloom continues his one-man tradition of tackling the taboo subjects. With a marvelously erudite survey of life and society from bacteria to the Internet, he demonstrates that group selection is for real and the group mind was there from the start. What we are entering now is but the latest phase in the evolution of the global brain. This is a must read for professionals and laymen alike.

Robin Fox, University Professor of Social Theory,
Rutgers University, and coauthor of The Imperial Animal

A modern-day prophet, Bloom compels us to admit that evolution is a team sport. This is a picture of the universe in which human emotions find their basis in the survival of matter, and the atoms themselves are held together with love. I am awestruck.

Douglas Rushkoff, author of
Media Virus, Coercion, and Ecstasy Club

God, this is great stuff!

Richard Brodie, author of
Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme
and original author/programmer of Microsoft Word

Stunning! Howard Bloom has done it again. He is certainly on to something.

Peter Corning, Director, Institute for the
Study of Complex Systems; President, International Society
for the Systems Sciences; and author of
The Synergism Hypothesis: A Theory of Progressive Evolution

Howard Blooms work is simply brilliant and there is nothing else like it anywhereweve looked, as have our colleagues. Global Brain is powerful, provocative, and mind-blowing.

Don Edward Beck, Ph.D., author of Spiral Dynamics
and Codirector, National Values Center

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

My head is still spinning from so much eloquence and content.

Valerius Geist, President, Wildlife Heritage and
author of Life Strategies, Human Evolution, Environmental Design
and Toward a Biological Theory of Health

Bloom paints a spirited and wide-ranging picture of the importance of information-sharing and other forms of cooperation in organisms ranging from bacteria to humans. Arguments on group versus individual selection are normally conducted in dense prose, but Blooms overview is high, swift, and enjoyable.

Peter J. Richer son, coauthor (with Robert Boyd) of
Principles of Human Ecology and The Pleistocene and the
Origins of Human Culture: Built for Speed

HOWARD BLOOM

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

NEW YORK CHICHESTER WEINHEIM BRISBANE SINGAPORE TORONTO

Copyright 2000 by Howard Bloom. All rights reserved

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Published simultaneously in Canada

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 750-4744. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158-0012, (212) 850-6011, fax (212) 850-6008, e-mail: PERMREQ@WILEY.COM.

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Bloom, Howard K.

The global brain : the evolution of mass mind from the big bang to the 21 st century/Howard Bloom.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-471-29584-1 (cloth : acid-free paper)

ISBN 0-471-41919-2 (paper)

1. BrainEvolution. 2. Human evolution. I. Title.

QP376.B627 2000

576.8dc21

99-085976

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6

To

Richard Metzger

Florian Roetzer

Bradley Fisk

and

E. Barton Chapin, Jr.

There are few observers who possess a clear and comprehensive view of the revolutions of society, and who are capable of discovering the nice and secret springs of action which impel, in the same uniform direction, the bland and capricious passions of a multitude of individuals.

Edward Gibbon

DON JUAN [out of all patience]. By Heaven, this is worse than your cant about love and beauty. Granted that the great Life Force has hit on the device of the clockmakers pendulum, and uses the earth for its bob; that the history of each oscillation, which seems so novel to us the actors, is but the history of the last oscillation repeated; nay more, that in the unthinkable infinitude of time the sun throws off the earth and catches it again a thousand times as a circus rider throws up a ball, and that our age-long epochs are but the moments between the toss and the catch, I, my friend am as much a part of Nature as my own finger is a part of me. If my finger is the organ by which I grasp the sword and the mandoline, my brain is the organ by which Nature strives to understand itself.