Over the years, I've read several intellectual articles, most of them philosophical or mathematical based, which liken the World Wide Web to a giant brain with connections leading everywhere, and spontaneous new connections constantly popping up.
Consider if you will when you experience or observe a new event in your life.
A memory is formed, and that memory attaches to similar memories and information stored throughout your brain.
In many regards this is how connections are made on the Internet as well.
Okay so let's talk shall we? Could we consider the Internet a brain of human brains interconnected globally - almost in a fractal sense? I believe we should because the human brain has billions and billions of connections.
Right now there are 7 billion people on the planet, and probably 3.
5 to 4 billion who have connection to the Internet, we are all connected now, well almost all of us, but the old concept of the "digital divide" is quickly diminishing.
Is it possible that the Internet could become self-aware, as a complete deep compilation of human knowledge? If so could we someday allow the Internet to help us decide the direction for humanity on a global scale? No, I am not for centralized control, but in a way the Internet isn't centralized anyway, it's completely distributed, with nearly no place on earth unconnected or untouched.
It seems that schematic is so similar to all of our connected neurons in the human brain that the analogy fits quite well, and that's what makes it so intriguing for discussion when it comes to artificial intelligence, supercomputers, and mimicking this incredible electromagnetic organic apparatus riding around on the heads of all the humans on the planet.
What would it take for it to become self-aware? It would need the ability to ask questions.
However, if each neuron or human who is connected to the Internet is constantly asking questions of this artificial intelligent brain then in fact it is in a way self-aware already.
It is alive because each of its individual components are alive, and together it has complete faculties and unlimited cognition and computing ability.
When all the neurons get on the same page and focus on a single thing, well, isn't that very similar to crowd sourcing in a way? There is a reason why the Internet works so well for human communication, because it mimics our own brains.
Perhaps that's the thought I wish to leave with you today, and although it is an original idea, it's worth your time to consider, especially if you doubt the future of supercomputers capable of artificial intelligence.
Please consider all this and think on it.