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Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century
"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 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.
386 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1999
61 people are currently reading
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About the author
Howard Bloom
26 books306 followers"I know a lot of people. A lot. And I ask a lot of prying questions. But I've never run into a more intriguing biography than Howard Bloom's in all my born days. " Paul Solman, Business and Economics Correspondent, PBS NewsHour
Howard Bloom has been called “next in a lineage of seminal thinkers that includes Newton, Darwin, Einstein,[and] Freud,” by Britain's Channel4 TV, "the next Stephen Hawking" by Gear Magazine, and "The Buckminster Fuller and Arthur C. Clarke of the new millennium" by Buckminster Fuller's archivist. Bloom is the author of The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History ("mesmerizing"—The Washington Post), Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century ("reassuring and sobering"—The New Yorker), The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism ("Impressive, stimulating, and tremendously enjoyable." James Fallows, National Correspondent, The Atlantic), and The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates ("Bloom's argument will rock your world." Barbara Ehrenreich). Bloom has been published in arxiv.org, the leading pre-print site in advanced theoretical physics and math. He was invited to tell an international conference of quantum physicists in Moscow in 2005 why everything they know about quantum physics is wrong. And his book Global Brain was the subject of an Office of the Secretary of Defense symposium in 2010, with participants from the State Department, the Energy Department, DARPA, IBM, and MIT. Bloom has founded three international scientific groups: the Group Selection Squad (1995), which fought to gain acceptance for the concept of group selection in evolutionary biology; The International Paleopsychology Project (1997), which worked to create a new multi-disciplinary synthesis between cosmology, paleontology, evolutionary biology, and history; and The Space Development Steering Committee (2007), an organization that includes astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Edgar Mitchell and members from NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Defense.
Bloom explains that his focus is “mass behavior, from the mass behavior of quarks to the mass behavior of human beings.” In 1968 Bloom turned down four fellowships in psychology and neurobiology and set off on a science project in a field he knew nothing about: popular culture. He was determined to tunnel into the forces of history by entering “the belly of the beast where new myths, new mass passions, and new mass movements are made.” Bloom used simple correlational techniques plus what he calls “tuned empathy” and “saturated intuition” to help build or sustain the careers of figures like Prince, Michael Jackson, Bob Marley, Bette Midler, Billy Joel, Paul Simon, Billy Idol, Peter Gabriel, David Byrne, John Mellencamp, Queen, Kiss, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five, Run DMC, and roughly 100 others. In the process, he generated $28 billion in revenues (more than the gross domestic product of Oman or Luxembourg) for companies like Sony, Disney, Pepsi Cola, Coca Cola, and Warner Brothers. Bloom also helped launch Farm Aid and Amnesty International’s American presence. He worked with the United Negro College Fund,the National Black United Fund, and the NAACP, and he put together the first public service radio campaign for solar power (1981). Today, his focus on group behavior extends to geopolitics. He has debated one-one-one with senior officials from Egypt’s Moslem Brotherhood and Gaza’s Hamas on Iran’s Arab-language international Alalam TV News Network. He has dissected headline issues on Saudi Arabia’s KSA1-TV and on Iran’s global English language Press-TV. And he has appeared fifty two times for up to five hours on 500 radio stations in North America.
Bloom is a former visiting scholar in the Graduate School of Psychology at NYU and a former core faculty member at the Graduate Institute in Meriden, Connecticut. He has written for Th
Howard Bloom has been called “next in a lineage of seminal thinkers that includes Newton, Darwin, Einstein,[and] Freud,” by Britain's Channel4 TV, "the next Stephen Hawking" by Gear Magazine, and "The Buckminster Fuller and Arthur C. Clarke of the new millennium" by Buckminster Fuller's archivist. Bloom is the author of The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History ("mesmerizing"—The Washington Post), Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century ("reassuring and sobering"—The New Yorker), The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism ("Impressive, stimulating, and tremendously enjoyable." James Fallows, National Correspondent, The Atlantic), and The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates ("Bloom's argument will rock your world." Barbara Ehrenreich). Bloom has been published in arxiv.org, the leading pre-print site in advanced theoretical physics and math. He was invited to tell an international conference of quantum physicists in Moscow in 2005 why everything they know about quantum physics is wrong. And his book Global Brain was the subject of an Office of the Secretary of Defense symposium in 2010, with participants from the State Department, the Energy Department, DARPA, IBM, and MIT. Bloom has founded three international scientific groups: the Group Selection Squad (1995), which fought to gain acceptance for the concept of group selection in evolutionary biology; The International Paleopsychology Project (1997), which worked to create a new multi-disciplinary synthesis between cosmology, paleontology, evolutionary biology, and history; and The Space Development Steering Committee (2007), an organization that includes astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Edgar Mitchell and members from NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Defense.
Bloom explains that his focus is “mass behavior, from the mass behavior of quarks to the mass behavior of human beings.” In 1968 Bloom turned down four fellowships in psychology and neurobiology and set off on a science project in a field he knew nothing about: popular culture. He was determined to tunnel into the forces of history by entering “the belly of the beast where new myths, new mass passions, and new mass movements are made.” Bloom used simple correlational techniques plus what he calls “tuned empathy” and “saturated intuition” to help build or sustain the careers of figures like Prince, Michael Jackson, Bob Marley, Bette Midler, Billy Joel, Paul Simon, Billy Idol, Peter Gabriel, David Byrne, John Mellencamp, Queen, Kiss, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five, Run DMC, and roughly 100 others. In the process, he generated $28 billion in revenues (more than the gross domestic product of Oman or Luxembourg) for companies like Sony, Disney, Pepsi Cola, Coca Cola, and Warner Brothers. Bloom also helped launch Farm Aid and Amnesty International’s American presence. He worked with the United Negro College Fund,the National Black United Fund, and the NAACP, and he put together the first public service radio campaign for solar power (1981). Today, his focus on group behavior extends to geopolitics. He has debated one-one-one with senior officials from Egypt’s Moslem Brotherhood and Gaza’s Hamas on Iran’s Arab-language international Alalam TV News Network. He has dissected headline issues on Saudi Arabia’s KSA1-TV and on Iran’s global English language Press-TV. And he has appeared fifty two times for up to five hours on 500 radio stations in North America.
Bloom is a former visiting scholar in the Graduate School of Psychology at NYU and a former core faculty member at the Graduate Institute in Meriden, Connecticut. He has written for Th
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 64 reviews
January 5, 2016
I really don't know what to say about this book. I love the study of complex adaptive systems more than I could ever express. I loved that this author wanted to understand and write about systems, wanted to show the reader how things connect. And, while I truly loved so many aspects of this book, I wanted the author to engage in a bit more critical thinking. He was able to view E. O. Wilson's work from a critical lens. He was able to equally to take on the gene centered illusion of evolution. But, so often, his critical thinking skills were suspended when they were needed. When discussing Lynn Margulis' work (she is one of my favorite scientists), he failed to question some of her less solid ideas. There is a lot of evidence for many things posited by Margulis, a groundbreaking researcher. However, there is less evidence to support many of her ideas taken as a given in this book. Similarly, some of the conclusion the author comes to are well founded. Many of his diversity/conformity arguments were really enjoyable. However, other conclusions were far too ambitious and demonstrated a mind that was swayed by possible magical thinking and less by scientific rigor.
That said, there are not too many books on systems science/complex adaptive systems for the non-science reader. For that reason, this book is worthwhile. There are great finds in each chapter, but only for the reader who is able to really question each study, assumption, or conclusion put forward by the author.
That said, there are not too many books on systems science/complex adaptive systems for the non-science reader. For that reason, this book is worthwhile. There are great finds in each chapter, but only for the reader who is able to really question each study, assumption, or conclusion put forward by the author.
June 6, 2019
Similar to The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History, Howard Bloom has here concocted a powerful cocktail of popular science that manages to titillate the mind and challenge many of our preconceived notions. This time he tackles the notion of complex adaptive systems and the emergence of a global mind.
Although the book touches on many familiar (and less familiar) topics, it always has that idiosyncratic and unmistakable Howard Bloom feel to it. This is what happens when an independent scholar is let loose upon a vast literature. The author really likes group selection theory, so the book combines the focus on complex adaptive systems with an equally passionate focus on group selection. This sometimes devolves to harsh attacks on Dawkins and the individual selection group. Some of this criticism is justified, but some of the science is still unsettled, and I feel that the reader should not believe everything the author says on this topic. At any rate, the way the author weaves the group selection story into a cosmic saga about the evolution of life and the emergence of complex adaptive systems is fascinating and very thought-provoking.
The combination of good writing and bold original thinking elevates this book above your average popular science book. It touches on some vitally important themes, like the computational connection that binds all of humanity together, and ultimately humanity to the cosmic process of evolution: the complex adaptive process of the evolutionary competition and selection. Admittedly, some of the author's interpretations are controversial and occasionally built on insufficient or selective evidence. However, the central arguments seem to me solid and well-researched.
Structurally, the book is is split into various parts that are organized chronologically and thematically. Each part consists of contains thousands of fascinating stories and anecdotes that more or less mesh together. The writing is stunningly beautiful and mesmerizing. The ideas are uplifting and energizing. Some of the sections in the conclusion nearly brought me to tears. The sheer playfulness and erudition on display makes for an uplifting reading experience.
Although the book touches on many familiar (and less familiar) topics, it always has that idiosyncratic and unmistakable Howard Bloom feel to it. This is what happens when an independent scholar is let loose upon a vast literature. The author really likes group selection theory, so the book combines the focus on complex adaptive systems with an equally passionate focus on group selection. This sometimes devolves to harsh attacks on Dawkins and the individual selection group. Some of this criticism is justified, but some of the science is still unsettled, and I feel that the reader should not believe everything the author says on this topic. At any rate, the way the author weaves the group selection story into a cosmic saga about the evolution of life and the emergence of complex adaptive systems is fascinating and very thought-provoking.
The combination of good writing and bold original thinking elevates this book above your average popular science book. It touches on some vitally important themes, like the computational connection that binds all of humanity together, and ultimately humanity to the cosmic process of evolution: the complex adaptive process of the evolutionary competition and selection. Admittedly, some of the author's interpretations are controversial and occasionally built on insufficient or selective evidence. However, the central arguments seem to me solid and well-researched.
Structurally, the book is is split into various parts that are organized chronologically and thematically. Each part consists of contains thousands of fascinating stories and anecdotes that more or less mesh together. The writing is stunningly beautiful and mesmerizing. The ideas are uplifting and energizing. Some of the sections in the conclusion nearly brought me to tears. The sheer playfulness and erudition on display makes for an uplifting reading experience.
February 28, 2010
There are some interesting observations here, but it is largely a reworking of the Gaea hypothesis. It relies far to much on arguments from analogy, which pretend much but fail to get the yolk out of the egg since they won't break the shell. Way too much brain lint here.
March 26, 2023
Howard Bloom's "The Global Brain" is a thought-provoking and profound book that challenges our understanding of humanity's role in the universe. Through a meticulous analysis of the workings of biological organisms and human societies, Bloom proposes a bold new thesis: that the human race is part of a larger, interconnected entity that he calls the "Global Brain."
Bloom's arguments are both persuasively scientific and intellectually inspiring. He posits that the development of civilization and the internet have created a complex network of interdependence that is akin to the interconnected neurons in the brain. He argues that the Global Brain has enabled us to achieve incredible feats of knowledge and creativity, but has also amplified the negative aspects of human nature, such as greed and conflict.
What sets Bloom's book apart is his ability to synthesize disparate fields of knowledge into a cohesive and compelling narrative. From biology and neurology to sociology and psychology, he weaves together a tapestry of insights that challenge us to rethink our place in the universe. His prose is lucid and engaging, and his arguments are backed up by extensive research and analysis.
Overall, "The Global Brain" is a monumental achievement that will appeal to anyone interested in the nature of consciousness, society, and the future of humanity. Bloom's vision of a connected, self-aware Global Brain is both awe-inspiring and sobering, and his insights will undoubtedly shape the way we think about ourselves and our place in the world for years to come.
Bloom's arguments are both persuasively scientific and intellectually inspiring. He posits that the development of civilization and the internet have created a complex network of interdependence that is akin to the interconnected neurons in the brain. He argues that the Global Brain has enabled us to achieve incredible feats of knowledge and creativity, but has also amplified the negative aspects of human nature, such as greed and conflict.
What sets Bloom's book apart is his ability to synthesize disparate fields of knowledge into a cohesive and compelling narrative. From biology and neurology to sociology and psychology, he weaves together a tapestry of insights that challenge us to rethink our place in the universe. His prose is lucid and engaging, and his arguments are backed up by extensive research and analysis.
Overall, "The Global Brain" is a monumental achievement that will appeal to anyone interested in the nature of consciousness, society, and the future of humanity. Bloom's vision of a connected, self-aware Global Brain is both awe-inspiring and sobering, and his insights will undoubtedly shape the way we think about ourselves and our place in the world for years to come.
July 14, 2019
On the evolution of the planetary mind
Harold Bloom's Global Brain is one of those books, like Edward O. Wilson's Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1998), Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (1997), and Ray Kurzweil's The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence (1999), that presents the distillation of a lifetime of learning by an original and gifted intellect on the subject of who we are, where we came from, and where we might be going, and presents that knowledge to the reader in an exciting and readable fashion.
By the way, the very learned and articulate Howard Bloom (our author) is not to be confused with the also very learned and articulate literary critic Harold Bloom.
Bloom's theme is the unrecognized power of group selection, interspecies intelligence, and the dialectic dance down through the ages of what he calls "conformity enforcers" and "diversity generators." These diametrically opposed forces, he argues, actually function as the yin and yang of the body politic, active in all group phenomena from bacteria to street gangs. He is building on the idea that a "complex adaptive system," such as an ant colony or an animal's immune system is itself a collective intelligence. He extends that idea by arguing that a population, whether of humans or bacteria, is a collective intelligence as well. Put another way, intelligence manifests itself as an emergent property of a group. Furthermore, intelligence manifests itself as an emergent property of a collection of interacting groups.
This idea is certainly not original with Bloom--indeed it is part of the Zeitgeist of our age--but his delineation of it is the most compelling and thorough that I have read. It runs counter to the prevailing orthodoxy in evolutionary theory. In particular it is in opposition to Richard Dawkins's selfish gene theories and Ernst Mayr's insistence that natural selection operates on individuals not on populations. It is a synthesis of ideas that will, I believe, in the next decade or two, greatly alter the perspective of many of our scientific disciplines.
Bloom also posits "inner-judges" which function like biological super-egos; and "resource shifters" which function like neural nets, rewarding those strands of the group that are successful, punishing those that are not. To this he adds the playfully named "intergroup tournaments"; that is, war and other competitions between groups as close as human bands and as diverse as animals and their microbial parasites. Bloom defines these ideas on pages 42-44 and elaborates on them throughout the book with a summary in the final chapter.
The key idea that needs emphasis here is that Bloom believes (as I do) that evolution, cultural and biological, operates on groups as well as on individuals--groups of people, groups of animals, groups of microbes--cities, tribes, gangs, herds, species, bacterial colonies and viral masses. He sees all forms of life as interconnected in ways that are not obvious, but discernable if we find the right perspective. Bloom's perspective begins with the physics of the big bang, continues through pre-Cambrian microbial jungle, to the dialectic dance of Sparta and Athens, even to pre-September 11th Afghanistan (perspicaciously, by the way), until he concludes that all life on earth is, and has been, plunging toward an emergent property which might be called Gaia with a planetary brain.
Some observations:
"Reality is a mass hallucination" (p. 193) or "Reality is a Shared Hallucination" (title of Chapter 8; see also page 2 and page 170). This declaration, expressed somewhat differently, is a tenet of Buddhism, but here Bloom makes the case from a scientific point of view, and he makes it very well.
"Humans have been outfoxed...by a collective mind far older and nimbler than any we've developed to this point--the 3.5-billion-year-old global microbial brain." (p. 115) What Bloom is asserting here and throughout the book is that bacteria constitute a superorganism with an intelligence superior to ours that expresses itself through its complex chemistry and tactile behavior.
"...[T]he brain we think belongs solely to our kind achieves its goals by tapping the data banks of eagles, wheat, sheep, rodents, grasses, viruses, and lowly E. coli." (p. 220) This dovetails with "We are modules of a planetary mind..." (p. 219) and "the global brain...is a multispecies thing" (p. 216), and the final line in the text, "We are neurons of this planet's interspecies mind." (p. 223)
In short, this is one heck of a book. And I'm just talking about the text, which is written in a spirited--sometimes even giddy--style that is infectious and thoroughly engaging. There are 66 pages of footnotes and a 62-page bibliography listing perhaps 500 titles. Some of footnotes contain multiple references, and of course there are errors. It is clear, for example, that human class did not exist 25 million years ago (as is asserted on page 148). When one looks at Bloom's footnote for the assertion, one realizes that he probably meant 25 thousand years ago. The point here is that we shouldn't be put off by all of his references. Those references allow us to check on his facts and gauge his interpretations. And, were any of us to actually read all of the approximately 500 titles he lists, I think we could at the very least apply for our own special ivory tower and some kind of honorary degree.
Bottom line: read this book.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
Harold Bloom's Global Brain is one of those books, like Edward O. Wilson's Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1998), Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (1997), and Ray Kurzweil's The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence (1999), that presents the distillation of a lifetime of learning by an original and gifted intellect on the subject of who we are, where we came from, and where we might be going, and presents that knowledge to the reader in an exciting and readable fashion.
By the way, the very learned and articulate Howard Bloom (our author) is not to be confused with the also very learned and articulate literary critic Harold Bloom.
Bloom's theme is the unrecognized power of group selection, interspecies intelligence, and the dialectic dance down through the ages of what he calls "conformity enforcers" and "diversity generators." These diametrically opposed forces, he argues, actually function as the yin and yang of the body politic, active in all group phenomena from bacteria to street gangs. He is building on the idea that a "complex adaptive system," such as an ant colony or an animal's immune system is itself a collective intelligence. He extends that idea by arguing that a population, whether of humans or bacteria, is a collective intelligence as well. Put another way, intelligence manifests itself as an emergent property of a group. Furthermore, intelligence manifests itself as an emergent property of a collection of interacting groups.
This idea is certainly not original with Bloom--indeed it is part of the Zeitgeist of our age--but his delineation of it is the most compelling and thorough that I have read. It runs counter to the prevailing orthodoxy in evolutionary theory. In particular it is in opposition to Richard Dawkins's selfish gene theories and Ernst Mayr's insistence that natural selection operates on individuals not on populations. It is a synthesis of ideas that will, I believe, in the next decade or two, greatly alter the perspective of many of our scientific disciplines.
Bloom also posits "inner-judges" which function like biological super-egos; and "resource shifters" which function like neural nets, rewarding those strands of the group that are successful, punishing those that are not. To this he adds the playfully named "intergroup tournaments"; that is, war and other competitions between groups as close as human bands and as diverse as animals and their microbial parasites. Bloom defines these ideas on pages 42-44 and elaborates on them throughout the book with a summary in the final chapter.
The key idea that needs emphasis here is that Bloom believes (as I do) that evolution, cultural and biological, operates on groups as well as on individuals--groups of people, groups of animals, groups of microbes--cities, tribes, gangs, herds, species, bacterial colonies and viral masses. He sees all forms of life as interconnected in ways that are not obvious, but discernable if we find the right perspective. Bloom's perspective begins with the physics of the big bang, continues through pre-Cambrian microbial jungle, to the dialectic dance of Sparta and Athens, even to pre-September 11th Afghanistan (perspicaciously, by the way), until he concludes that all life on earth is, and has been, plunging toward an emergent property which might be called Gaia with a planetary brain.
Some observations:
"Reality is a mass hallucination" (p. 193) or "Reality is a Shared Hallucination" (title of Chapter 8; see also page 2 and page 170). This declaration, expressed somewhat differently, is a tenet of Buddhism, but here Bloom makes the case from a scientific point of view, and he makes it very well.
"Humans have been outfoxed...by a collective mind far older and nimbler than any we've developed to this point--the 3.5-billion-year-old global microbial brain." (p. 115) What Bloom is asserting here and throughout the book is that bacteria constitute a superorganism with an intelligence superior to ours that expresses itself through its complex chemistry and tactile behavior.
"...[T]he brain we think belongs solely to our kind achieves its goals by tapping the data banks of eagles, wheat, sheep, rodents, grasses, viruses, and lowly E. coli." (p. 220) This dovetails with "We are modules of a planetary mind..." (p. 219) and "the global brain...is a multispecies thing" (p. 216), and the final line in the text, "We are neurons of this planet's interspecies mind." (p. 223)
In short, this is one heck of a book. And I'm just talking about the text, which is written in a spirited--sometimes even giddy--style that is infectious and thoroughly engaging. There are 66 pages of footnotes and a 62-page bibliography listing perhaps 500 titles. Some of footnotes contain multiple references, and of course there are errors. It is clear, for example, that human class did not exist 25 million years ago (as is asserted on page 148). When one looks at Bloom's footnote for the assertion, one realizes that he probably meant 25 thousand years ago. The point here is that we shouldn't be put off by all of his references. Those references allow us to check on his facts and gauge his interpretations. And, were any of us to actually read all of the approximately 500 titles he lists, I think we could at the very least apply for our own special ivory tower and some kind of honorary degree.
Bottom line: read this book.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
February 13, 2023
Excellent, expository without being preachy or jumping to conclusions. I really enjoyed this book.
October 7, 2012
Howard Bloom does it again! Well, he did it sometime ago with this writing. I was rather late with reading this but nonetheless, he did not fail to patiently stress the significance of the movement, the structure, the activity and the concerns of the Global Brain.
If we truly thought to ourselves for a long moment and asked if the insides of our body are similar to us, homo sapiens, on the outside of bodies, then we would possibly be in a better thinking position collectively. This was not perforating and abstractly honest to the brain like his first work: The Lucifer Principle. He does however, prod the evolutionary growth of the mass mind today and what it has been expected to do. He ranges from billions of years ago from speculation with bacteria to the times now, where we have gradually progressed to a different art form of bacteria- we now have brains! But he also mentions how it is imperative that we progress, challenge, thought-provoke, ascend and push our minds to become something so inexplicably profound that it would be the feeling of awe-inspiring to our soon-to-become evolutionary forms and descendants.
This became more understandable as I read within the middle to the ending of the work. He explains the functions and incentives of what is called the "complex adaptive system." This system of complexity is structurally compiled of five elements: Conformity enforcers (persuasion), Diversity generators (varietal influence), inner-judges (physiological thoughts), resource shifters (followers), and inter-group tournaments (sub-cultured war). These five components exist not only in the cosmos by, not only in the body of all living things, but also within each of us in particular that have a group of friends. He mentions how important and delicate the mind will always be and with the proper use of these five elements, the mass mind can develop into a greatness that the nomads may have possibly imagined ages ago.
One distinctive thought I picked up from reading this beautifully written work is the capabilities of the human mind. We have evolved into something that cannot be explained thoroughly to the point where we know what we are here for. But this has proven that evolution has to be considered a virtuous attachment to the essential product we have multiplied collectively to surface as today. If we continue to not further expand this surface of comprehension and not correlate the physiological function of our insides to the insides of the cosmos we are corralled within, then humanity will cease as a whole, no longer evolving into a god-like or extraordinarily way of living we quietly desire.
If we truly thought to ourselves for a long moment and asked if the insides of our body are similar to us, homo sapiens, on the outside of bodies, then we would possibly be in a better thinking position collectively. This was not perforating and abstractly honest to the brain like his first work: The Lucifer Principle. He does however, prod the evolutionary growth of the mass mind today and what it has been expected to do. He ranges from billions of years ago from speculation with bacteria to the times now, where we have gradually progressed to a different art form of bacteria- we now have brains! But he also mentions how it is imperative that we progress, challenge, thought-provoke, ascend and push our minds to become something so inexplicably profound that it would be the feeling of awe-inspiring to our soon-to-become evolutionary forms and descendants.
This became more understandable as I read within the middle to the ending of the work. He explains the functions and incentives of what is called the "complex adaptive system." This system of complexity is structurally compiled of five elements: Conformity enforcers (persuasion), Diversity generators (varietal influence), inner-judges (physiological thoughts), resource shifters (followers), and inter-group tournaments (sub-cultured war). These five components exist not only in the cosmos by, not only in the body of all living things, but also within each of us in particular that have a group of friends. He mentions how important and delicate the mind will always be and with the proper use of these five elements, the mass mind can develop into a greatness that the nomads may have possibly imagined ages ago.
One distinctive thought I picked up from reading this beautifully written work is the capabilities of the human mind. We have evolved into something that cannot be explained thoroughly to the point where we know what we are here for. But this has proven that evolution has to be considered a virtuous attachment to the essential product we have multiplied collectively to surface as today. If we continue to not further expand this surface of comprehension and not correlate the physiological function of our insides to the insides of the cosmos we are corralled within, then humanity will cease as a whole, no longer evolving into a god-like or extraordinarily way of living we quietly desire.
January 25, 2019
The first chapters, with titles like 'Creative Nets in the Precambrian Era' and 'Networking in Paleontology's Darg Ages' are by far the most interesting. Here Bloom explains his theory of how cooperation leads to group intelligence from the very beginning of evolution. Even microbes got together to form communicating, dataprocessing, intelligent, problem solving, creative, interconnected 'brains'. Later on, other forms of group brains evolved, like multicellular organisms, immune systems, neurological networks, eusocial insects and humanity.
Another very interesting chapter is 'Reality is a shared hallucination'. Artificial construction of reality among human beings became a new form of global intelligence. As Bloom says: 'If the group brain's psyche were a beach with shifting dunes and hollows, individual perception would be that brain's grains of sand. However, this image has a hidden twist. Individual perception, untainted by others' influence, does not exist.'
The rest of the book is a long, erudite but sometimes tedious exposé of all the supporting evidence for the global brain from biology and history (mainly classical Greek civilization), in which conformity enforcement and diversity generation in groups work hand in hand to enhance their knowledge and intelligence.
Of course all this tunes with group selection theory, pioneered by David Sloan Wilson (everyone should read his 'Evolution for Everyone'), which used to be considered heretical by Darwinian orthodoxy but is becoming increasingly mainstream. Bloom says he was the organizer of its 'only formal guerilla brigade – the Group Selection Squad, which shook things up considerably in the mid-1990's.'
Another very interesting chapter is 'Reality is a shared hallucination'. Artificial construction of reality among human beings became a new form of global intelligence. As Bloom says: 'If the group brain's psyche were a beach with shifting dunes and hollows, individual perception would be that brain's grains of sand. However, this image has a hidden twist. Individual perception, untainted by others' influence, does not exist.'
The rest of the book is a long, erudite but sometimes tedious exposé of all the supporting evidence for the global brain from biology and history (mainly classical Greek civilization), in which conformity enforcement and diversity generation in groups work hand in hand to enhance their knowledge and intelligence.
Of course all this tunes with group selection theory, pioneered by David Sloan Wilson (everyone should read his 'Evolution for Everyone'), which used to be considered heretical by Darwinian orthodoxy but is becoming increasingly mainstream. Bloom says he was the organizer of its 'only formal guerilla brigade – the Group Selection Squad, which shook things up considerably in the mid-1990's.'
November 16, 2021
The book itself is very interesting and deserves higher marks than the three stars I'm giving it, but I can't but help feel it suffers from trying to bite off more than it can chew. It presents a number of discoveries and theories from a vast array of scientific disciplines, ranging from anthropology, cellular biology, sociology, primate psychology, and much more. He then uses the information from all of these fields to put together a theory of an evolving "Mass Mind" (with examples of historical instances of this kind of "Mass Mind" appearing previously, something similar to the traditional "Gaia" concept but without the spiritual mumbo jumbo often associated with that concept.
While I applaud the scope of the book and the obviously deep wells of understanding that Howard Bloom is drawing from here, the book struggles a little because of the sheer breadth of the scope. Sometimes the reader is left with the impression that something is forced to fit into the overall concept without a proper explanation, other times we are left with the feeling that opposing evidence is being ignored.
It's very easy to find examples to support your theory if you're picking and choosing from everything in existence - I would have liked to have seen the author spend a little more time arguing against his own theory.
While I applaud the scope of the book and the obviously deep wells of understanding that Howard Bloom is drawing from here, the book struggles a little because of the sheer breadth of the scope. Sometimes the reader is left with the impression that something is forced to fit into the overall concept without a proper explanation, other times we are left with the feeling that opposing evidence is being ignored.
It's very easy to find examples to support your theory if you're picking and choosing from everything in existence - I would have liked to have seen the author spend a little more time arguing against his own theory.
February 11, 2022
I wanted to like this book. I really did. I made it through the first few chapters but struggled deeply with Bloom's poor misunderstanding of basic evolutionary principles; eventually, I had to call it quits. A great subject, in need of a more well-educated author.
May 28, 2016
one of the most dense and informative and amazing books i've read (nonfiction). every sentence is packed with info and this book changed my life.
March 23, 2023
The author of this book doesn’t even try to hide his biases. This would have been a great book if the information was presented in an objective way.
June 5, 2021
This is an exercise in what is coming to be called big history; that is the situation of human history within large-scale cosmic history. When writing big history it is necessary to have some theme or argument to structure the effort so as to be able to filter the otherwise indefinitely large amount of information that might be included. Here, Bloom's theme is that of the emergence of a 'Global Brain'. Superficially one would think he was talking about the potentialities of the Internet as they appeared at the turn of the millennium. But in fact Bloom is aiming at explicating something larger, and unfortunately vaguer, that seems to be concerned with the history of life on Earth. It would seem that his 'global brain' is a metaphor for something that never really gets defined. In what way is the development of life on Earth akin to the processes of a brain, and in what way a brain might be akin to the progressive emergence of life on Earth is never really clarified, and thus the whole project leads nowhere.
Clearly he has marshalled a great deal of material from just about every discipline, as is typical with these projects. Some are surprising, some intriguing. But what the overall argument is remains elusive to the last page. There is also a certain amount of speculation based on what was cutting edge science at the time of writing in 2000, but the advances made in the intervening years render much of this specious.
If, like me, one has a deep interest in placing humanity within the big picture of its full cosmic context then there are plenty of additional factoids one might wish to integrate into one's own evolving big picture, but this book failed to provide me with any decisive revisions to my own big history model.
Clearly he has marshalled a great deal of material from just about every discipline, as is typical with these projects. Some are surprising, some intriguing. But what the overall argument is remains elusive to the last page. There is also a certain amount of speculation based on what was cutting edge science at the time of writing in 2000, but the advances made in the intervening years render much of this specious.
If, like me, one has a deep interest in placing humanity within the big picture of its full cosmic context then there are plenty of additional factoids one might wish to integrate into one's own evolving big picture, but this book failed to provide me with any decisive revisions to my own big history model.
July 12, 2024
You know, I was intrigued by the topic & excited to read this (especially after the last book I read), but found myself making wtf faces & arguing outloud with the author immediately (which I'm sure both amused & confused my coworkers--who could only hear my side.) He twists basic evolutionary knowledge & in certain parts more than pointedly declares intelligent design. He overtly cherry-picks aspects of an animals lifestyle & then declares the reason of it's success or failure to fit his narrative.
For example, he attributes Baboon's wildfire success against the dwindling of the intellectually superior chimps SOLELY to the fact that baboons live in far larger numbers, completely ignoring the more pressing fact that the habitat they (baboons) inhabit comprises exponentially more of the African real estate than the forests the chimps do (among MANY, interconnected other factors). In other areas, he makes the same argument when comparing a generalist species to a specialist one.
So yeah, I was beyond disappointed & in some areas enraged & exasperated.
You're free, & encouraged, to skip this book.
For example, he attributes Baboon's wildfire success against the dwindling of the intellectually superior chimps SOLELY to the fact that baboons live in far larger numbers, completely ignoring the more pressing fact that the habitat they (baboons) inhabit comprises exponentially more of the African real estate than the forests the chimps do (among MANY, interconnected other factors). In other areas, he makes the same argument when comparing a generalist species to a specialist one.
So yeah, I was beyond disappointed & in some areas enraged & exasperated.
You're free, & encouraged, to skip this book.
November 24, 2021
The author claims that evolution is not just limited to individual living things and genes, but sees it as a universal phenomenon that is manifested everywhere, including the evolution of the early universe. Like Richard Dawkins, who coined the term Memes to describe an evolutionary process at work in the evolution of human thought, the author here is extending it to the idea of a global intelligence that includes not only multicellular organisms, but also bacterial and viral networks, and even the subatomic particles.
I do not see anything illogical in his approach, but it all revolves around the definition of intelligent processes. If we broaden the definition to any system that appears to be goal-seeking then perhaps one can see any stable system, living or inanimate, that moves towards increased organization, as an intelligent process. However, I am not sure if this perspective provides any deeper insight into reality.
One thing that must be said, his prescience about political radicalism and the pandemic, sitting in 2001, is incredibly accurate.
I do not see anything illogical in his approach, but it all revolves around the definition of intelligent processes. If we broaden the definition to any system that appears to be goal-seeking then perhaps one can see any stable system, living or inanimate, that moves towards increased organization, as an intelligent process. However, I am not sure if this perspective provides any deeper insight into reality.
One thing that must be said, his prescience about political radicalism and the pandemic, sitting in 2001, is incredibly accurate.
August 19, 2022
[Audiobook] most interesting book I’ve read for a long time, especially the start and finish. Whether you agree with it or not, this book will make you _think_. The only plausible evolutionary explanation for depression (w/ decreased immune system and antisocial behaviour) I have encountered.
Genetics and memetics focused discussion of the evolution of life, from global colonies of single celled bacteria to modern society. The argument is that we are all nodes in a global processing system - something I’ve kind of pondered for a while - and the case is well presented. Middle of the book is more of a general overview of how societal norms evolved over the millennia, but it comes full circle in a very satisfying way.
Highly recommend.
Genetics and memetics focused discussion of the evolution of life, from global colonies of single celled bacteria to modern society. The argument is that we are all nodes in a global processing system - something I’ve kind of pondered for a while - and the case is well presented. Middle of the book is more of a general overview of how societal norms evolved over the millennia, but it comes full circle in a very satisfying way.
Highly recommend.
October 22, 2022
This book comments on modern versions of superbrains that follow either polyistic or monoistic traditions by comparing them to Spartan and Athenian practices. My good friend Stuart Armstrong once gave me a lecture on how the Spartans were actually a very inefficient society and they were only praised because the Athenians lost to them and had to make them seem grand and great through the arts so they could justify the loss.
Now back on this book, it deftly goes through an array of different cases where cognition is transferred from the single-cell organisms to human superclusters. It starts out in the past and ends in the now. Quite an alright book.
Now back on this book, it deftly goes through an array of different cases where cognition is transferred from the single-cell organisms to human superclusters. It starts out in the past and ends in the now. Quite an alright book.
December 26, 2022
A fairly light weight zoom through aspects of biological and cultural evolution leading to 'mass mind'. In parts a bit dubious but always entertaining and informative. And don't believe everything you read. Loud and gushing. A bit repetitious. Notably lacking much discussion on the the last few decades of tech evolution. Data, Computation, Networking, AI and Machine Learning, Augmented and Virtual Reality. Which you would think to be the current peak of the supposed progression. Maybe the author felt he didn't know enough about this part. Yeah right.
March 8, 2019
I already agreed with the book’s premise at the start so I don’t know how it reads to someone who is full-on, religiously committed to the ��selfish gene” hypothesis for all of their conceptualization of the driving forces of evolution. I think it needs a feminist critique (immediately), but enjoyed the science and the exploration of the idea. The idea of selfishness has so much cultural traction that sometimes it seems as though we’re projecting values on genes.
April 22, 2022
This is heavily dosed with the techno-hippie singularity-embracing-orthodoxy Kool Aid, so be careful to swallow it with many grains of salt. But the fructose is backed with much more evidence and solid citations than most of the new age babble that you hear about this subject matter. Bloom presents another useful lens that I still find helpful for looking at human behavior and social trends and evolution.
November 6, 2020
Three takeaways
1. The world is an interplay of Complex Adaptive Systems.
2. The science and history of CAS's gives fantastic insight into the future of man, as well as individual paths forward.
3. Paints a good picture outside of the anthropocentric one. We have always interfaced with other species and must continue to do so to live in accord with the world.
1. The world is an interplay of Complex Adaptive Systems.
2. The science and history of CAS's gives fantastic insight into the future of man, as well as individual paths forward.
3. Paints a good picture outside of the anthropocentric one. We have always interfaced with other species and must continue to do so to live in accord with the world.
May 18, 2021
this and Lucifer Principle was a catalyst to what I consider the 2nd half of the journey im on ...
I was inspired to research related subjects which further caused my Lucidity & intuition to blossom exponentially
if Bloom was any more technical, like some suggest ...the purpose of introducing people of all backgrounds to this line of thinking would be defeated
I was inspired to research related subjects which further caused my Lucidity & intuition to blossom exponentially
if Bloom was any more technical, like some suggest ...the purpose of introducing people of all backgrounds to this line of thinking would be defeated
May 20, 2022
In my opinion, Bloom only provides data that’s consistent with his theory of mass mind but never any data that directly proves it. But nonetheless, his scientific approach to the question of a planetary consciousness is itself admirable. Never once had the suspicion that he was pushing some kinda new agey bullshit! Love it 👏🏿😊
October 16, 2018
CONTINUE FROM the lucifer principle to further develope the ideas int eh structure of groups. Uniformity inforcers, VS diversity creators. Athens vs Sparta. also, the ideas of the microbs as globe spanning response machine is interesting.
June 4, 2019
When I read non-fiction, it occurs over weeks or months, a chapter here and there, to absorb and avoid over-loading, when a good book with lots to impart grips and gives. Such as this one. Scientific, well-written, smart. And enlightening, stimulating.
March 9, 2022
Brilliant
This high altitude view of the interconnectedness of things & the dynamics of group selection is nothing short of brilliant.
I rank this with books like Guns, Germs & Steel in it's explanatory power.
This high altitude view of the interconnectedness of things & the dynamics of group selection is nothing short of brilliant.
I rank this with books like Guns, Germs & Steel in it's explanatory power.
February 16, 2024
My favorite part of this book is when he tries to make the case for how humans will successfully prevent pandemics (: but that’s the only part of the book that didn’t age well. It is an ambitious book that sometimes feels meandering, but it does get across the message that it sets out to.
May 18, 2024
This attempt to bring together a bewildering mix of cellular biology, ancient history, behavioural sciences into a theory of mass mind didn’t really work for me. I enjoyed the enthusiasm and the writing style, and learned some stuff but it didn’t seem to come together as a whole.
December 22, 2017
One more decent way to show, based on evolutionary research, that the most interesting is yet to come.
June 5, 2018
pretty disappointing
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