The Global Brain

There is convincing evidence that suggests that the world is a set of self-regulating systems that resembles the human body. The human body is a set of systems that are controlled and regulated by a central co-ordinating organ -- the brain (which is also a system in its own right). It is clear from simple observation that the world consists of systems within systems within systems, just as does the body. However, one thing is missing from our model of the world as a replica of the human body -- the brain. Clearly all the systems that make up the world as we know it work more or less in synchrony but there does not seem to be any co-ordinative force holding the whole thing together and keeping it going. There must be a "brain" somewhere within the global system that makes up the world.

So where might the brain that regulates and controls the world be located? Hmmm, that's a difficult question to answer. There is clearly an intelligence at work in the Cosmos. We can see it in the ebb and flow of life, the changing of the seasons, the movement of the stars. Everywhere we look we can see Cosmic intelligence at work. But the brain is about more than maintaining systems. The brain is a living entity that communicates within itself, that creates thoughts apparently out of nowhere, that thinks, reasons, evaluates and motivates. Within the brain, neurons are capable of communicating over comparatively vast distances and the brain is constantly alive with such communications.

So if the Cosmos provides us with the autonomic aspects of the brain, where are the neurons? The answer seems to us to be clear, obvious, and unequivocal -- we are.

In acknowledging our role as part of the global brain we are responding to one of the most fundamental and powerful laws that shape the Cosmos -- the law of evolution. It is evolution that is the gasoline that drives the entire Cosmos forward. It is evolution -- the act of rising from a lower state to a higher one -- that is at the very heart of the universe. Indeed, there is nothing that the Cosmos wants more than for us to evolve to a higher state. And there is nothing that gives the Cosmos more pleasure. In this time of high speed scientific and technological evolution that empowers and connects us all what could be more natural than a parallel evolution in global human consciousness?

As the world spirals into ever-increasing crises, an evolutionary quantum leap in global human consciousness seems impossible. But is it? There is a precedent for such a quantum leap and, what is more, it is within living memory. In the last years of the 1960s, a number of events took place that changed global consciousness big time. For many of us, the world changed at that time. Although there were many social changes that are still with us today the biggest change was in how those who had been a part of the silent revolution perceived themselves, the world and their place in it.

It all starts with the improvement of one's self. After all, the great Admiral McRaven once said succinctly, if you want to change the world, start by making your bed every day. Although this may seem like a trivial, meaningless task, it's the attitude of continuous improvement that's important. By making your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of the day and therefore you are better positioned to take on additional tasks. If you can't do the little things right, you'll never do the big things right.