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The Connected Society: How the Internet Will Improve Humanity By Julian Holmes Wilson

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Table of Contents o Abstract, 3 o Introduction, 4 o The Necessity of Communication, 5 o Language is the Tool, 8 o Communication Evolves, 10 o Current Technologies, 12 o Constant Communication, 13 o Optogenetics, 16 o The Crowd Sourced Brain, 18 o The Connected Society, 21

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Abstract The purpose of this essay is to discern why we have created the World Wide Web and the benefits that it brings to humanity. We live in an interconnected, communicative world that is allowing us to develop at a faster rate than ever before. We are driven by nature to be social creatures and without this human-to-human interaction we would have likely gone extinct as a species long ago. The Internet is only the next step in human connection, and further technologies are going to continue to push the limits of our minds. As neuroscience and physics continue to uncover the nuances of our brains and the universe around us, it becomes harder to deny the externalism of the world. The Internet is going to connect us more closely to each other, the planet, and the universe around us to increase our ability to survive as a species.

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Introduction We live in the age of computation, where our commonplace experiences are shaped by the technology around us. Every day we interact with some of the most advanced pieces of technology ever invented and yet we rarely realize its potential for us as individuals and collectively as a species. We are catching sight of a future time when human beings are more closely connected than any other time in history, a type 1 world. A type 1 society is the second level of civilizations technological advancement according to the Kardashev scale, placing us on the brink of a self-destructive state or unfathomable success as a species. The Kardashev scale, created by Nikolai Kardashev, is a theoretical scale of how far a species has progressed based off how much energy it produces (Kaku). Technology is what will determine whether we are successful or not. The technology that is pushing us in the right direction is the internet and it is only the beginning of what Michio Kaku calls a type 1 communication system (Kaku). The ability to share information quickly and easily is by far one of the most important necessities necessary to shift away from the type 0 societies that we live in today. Kaku describes how the Internet is the beginnings of an interplanetary communication system. This is possible given its success on Earth. We as a species are pushing our faculties of communication away from a strictly biological form. We no longer communicate solely by pushing air past our vocal cords and out our mouths. The first change was the invention of writing, but now the internet allows us to communicate exponentially faster than just 20 years ago (Carr, 51). Facts are at the hands of anyone with an internet connection, and with the faculties of the mind knowledge can grow at exponential rates. To access everything that one desires is still challenging, but it is far easier

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than finding a specific fact in a book. After experiencing the power of search it is often difficult to gather information traditionally. This power to access knowledge creates new ethical and moral debates about its uses and users. The connected mind is becoming a very important aspect of society and is only going to become more so as the technology evolves. There are already constant debates about the ethical uses of cell phones and the Internets endless databases of information, and is only going to become a greater issue as devices evolve. The devices will become smaller and more efficient, allowing for biological integration. This kind of futuristic thinking may not be outlandish and it is going to cause many extremes in class, beyond what we experience today. We wont just be concerned with who has money, but who has information and who can access it the fastest. A lot of people will be connected, as millions already are today, but there will still be many people unconnected and they will suffer from the lack of communication, connection and knowledge, only to experience a digital divide. However, being connected does not automatically give you power, you must have the intelligence to use it effectively, making your brain your most powerful asset. The Necessity of Communication When Homo sapiens first realized their ends were inevitable, they realized the importance of the passage of information. Perhaps other animals are aware of the horizon of death, but as far as we understand, humans are the only organism who strives to overcome it. Our premonition is one of our most amazing qualities as a species, but it is also the source of much of our misery. We are in an anxious rush against time, only for us to realize that we are nothing more than a speck of dust compared to the universe. Nonetheless, in our limited time we continue to thrive and expand the limits of our knowledge and our presence on the earth. In the

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past 10,000 years we have proven to be resilient race, spreading to every nuance of nature all over the globe. If we consider the qualities of Homo sapiens that were selected for, we can recognize distinct traits that pull us away from other species. The formation of our advanced frontal cortex and increased brain mass allowed us to do something that few organisms likely do: imagine that which does not exist. Our ability to enter new states of mind has allowed us to be vastly creative with our survivability and most notably make tools that were far superior than anything else created before. We use our creative abilities to invent new strategies and ideas, which become technologies in the real world. Our most basic ideas led to the creation of something we dont usually characterize as a technology: language. How could language be a technology? Language is a technology that we use through our faculties of communication. We often misrepresent these faculties as language itself, which I argue are not the same. Communication is essential to life, as an organism that could not communicate in some form would not be able to explain the necessity of reproduction. This need for communication and our vast imagination burdens the complexity of our speech, for we needed to be able to speak abstractly, but also practically about hunting, gathering, and shelter. To do this we needed to invent one of our most important tools. While we did not form complex languages instantly, we did incredibly quickly. Homo sapiens depend on one another, both now and in our early stages and even in the beginning they were greatly dependent in their ability to connect with each other. While certainly other species group and distribute roles, humans are a distinctly social species. We travel in groups and form villages, towns, cities; we make networks of living spaces that we share and contribute to. We use each other for both means and ends. Usually we need each other for

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positive reasons, yet we do not have to look far to see where the imaginer has victimized other people. For the sake of brevity I will not focus on the unfortunate nature of sinful acts, but rather I will consider instead the reasons why people need connection in the first place. We are encouraged from a young age to find activities that make us happy, that trigger an emotional and intellectual response within us. People that never experience these responses are left searching and longing for answers to their void. At first technology was mostly to increase our ability to survive, but overtime has expanded to meet the desires of our bored minds. Board games, amusement parks, video games, television shows fill the gaps that were originally filled by our search for food and water. This has caused some of our newest technological addictions and has created new generations who are growing up slower because life isnt as demanding of them or they are overwhelmed by all the possibilities that technology provides (Steinberg 407). The Neuroscientist, Torkel Klingberg, pinpointed desire in our brain. Our brains are designed to want more information, more impressions, and more complexity (Carr 118). The internet is the newest technology to fill this innate human need and it does it far more effectively than any other before it. While radio and television filled this need in the past, the internet is the first technology to allow the user to be stimulated in the exact way one desires. A Google search has been shown to stimulate brain activity, far more than other daily actions provide (Carr 117118). This is due to the nature of the interaction; older information technologies stimulated only the receiving portion of the brain, but the internet stimulates the interactive parts of our mind. While one can use the web in a passive way, by sitting on facebook or youtube all day, if one has a focus for specific content, ones dopamine and serotonin levels are supercharged. However, there is another brain chemical internet use stimulates: Oxytocin. Studies have shown that social interaction on the internet boosts oxytocin similarly to touching another human (Zak 14:00).

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Oxytocin is an incredibly important chemical that is required to reallocate information and reorganize neural connections in the brain (Chorost 106). This helps remove harmful and useless neural paths that hinder brain function. The fact that the internet provides a means of connection that is nearly as close as human touch within the first 30 years of its integration into society, shows overwhelming potential for future iterations of the technology (Chorost 183). As I continue my writing, I will develop how the internet will increase the functions of our brain and prove its necessity for our communication. The faster we can share information, the more quickly we can solve problems and promote wellbeing around the world. Language is the Tool The ability for humans to communicate is built into the physiology of our processes; however, we actually communicate through the use of the language as a tool. When the species communicated using mere grunts and clicks we were only just beginning to create this tool, the first iteration of its design. As time went on and humans began to realize the complexity of the world and concepts around them, they had to structure and modify the language. As people approached new problems and explored different and farther regions of the world, the language had to adapt to help us describe everything we experienced. We needed ways to generalize about things, but also ways to be concrete and certain about what each person meant when they spoke. The growth of language comes directly out of the evolution of knowledge. As we grew our cultures and formulated new concepts about the world, we needed to create new words and names to describe what we were talking about. This necessity would not exist if we never needed to share this knowledge. However, our survival as a species is rooted in our ability to pass on knowledge that we have learned through our lives. We do this to prevent others from making the

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same mistakes, although we do repeat history nonetheless. This ability to counteract what previous generations and other people around the world do greatly increases our ability to move forward as a species. I hesitate to claim we have moved forward, as we may not truly understand the consequences of our actions, but under our standards of biology we have accomplished a productive timeline. As people spread out and formed stronger and bigger communities, we needed to be able to communicate efficiently and with a structure that many people could learn and understand. The complexity of language grew while the ability to teach it became easier through writing and grammatical standards. Languages such as English, Spanish and French quickly spread because of their teachability increasing their reception. Kaku argues that English is a type 1 language because of its wide reception and use around the world. It is already the standard for scientific articles, economics, and other globalized functions (Kaku). Essentially language becomes the most powerful tool in anyones arsenal. Being able to speak many languages gives you huge advantages all around the world. However, we may be moving into an era where you may not truly need to know more than one natural language. Language shows itself more clearly as a tool when looking at programming languages. These are the languages of the future, the tool you need to speak from human to machine. These languages are even more adaptive than our own languages and the complexity and range of languages has grown at exponential rates. Even more so, these languages are the same no matter where you are in the world. They are extremely standardized and each new language tries to fill a niche. Some languages are better for software engineers, others are for the web developers and even further for robotics and simulations. Every computerized machine requires a programming language.

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As Douglas Rushkoff explains in his book Program or be Programmed, programming is only going to become more important to every person. While non-programmers can take advantage of so many of the wonderful programs that people have made, lacking a fundamental understanding of how these languages work will hinder your interactions. A lot of what is happening on the software side already seems like magic to many people, but this is only going to become more extreme as time goes on. People will continue to use and take advantage of what programmers create, but the magic is going to become much more complex. Googles search algorithms already stump the thousands of people who try to skew their results yearly, so just imagine when Google is sending that information directly to your brain. You may want to have a better understanding of just how this information is organized, sent, and received. The modern era has created new necessities and a new mode of natural selection. We are no longer preoccupied with the requirements of life, but we are instead trying to survive on a social level. Every person now can attempt to appear as a benefit to society. Without many of the basic burdens of life, we have produced a population boom that has pushed us to the edges of the planets limits. Our issues have moved away from the self to the global. Superbugs, massive environmental catastrophe, economic collapse, nuclear meltdown: the complexity of our issues has skyrocketed, but our large population allows billions of minds around the world to work on all the problems. The next step is to connect all of these minds more thoroughly and thus the modes of communication must change. Communication Evolves As problems have changed and languages evolved, the way in which we transmit information has evolved along with it. We went from cave paintings to tablets, scrolls to paper, books to printing, typewriters to word processors, and on to the digital era of information

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transmission. The word processor has allowed us to massively boost our writing speed and the internet has given us the means to share this information as fast as we can type it (Blascovich 2533). This has created a vast increase in the amount of data available to each human on the planet. However, we have also created a great sinkhole of miscommunication, viral gossip and anonymous bashing. While we must protect the right of free speech, it becomes difficult to organize such masses of information, of which only a certain amount is relevant and useful. The way in which information has become so easily and quickly transmittable around the world is one of the shortest evolutions in our history. The ability to send information between person to person has sped up, increased in accuracy and consistency, and spread throughout the world. While we may say that this transmission started with cave paintings and eventually moved to mail (physical means of transmitting information), in the last couple decades we have moved onto a much less tangible form of this process. Telegraphs and phone lines allow for one on one communication, and radios and television allow for a global means of sharing information. The internet has combined both the means of receiving and sending, allowing us to receive and send global messages, but also communicate on a personal level (Blascovich 25-35). The internet truly is the most sophisticated faculty of communication on the planet. As described above, the technologies we have developed over time show how rooted our nature is in connection. We have a clear desire to share and take in. Just as externalism describes that a mind cannot exist without a world, a human cannot function without prior experiences with others. I feel that those who seclude themselves from cultures and communities around them are putting themselves at a great disadvantage. A fundamental part of modern societies is networking. Knowing people is one of the greatest benefits to wellbeing. While in the past networking involved knowing the richest king or the strongest warrior, today the people we meet

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and befriend may be what guarantees our success in society. This has caused people to network intensely; grouping, circling, and friending every person they encounter. This easily translates into a new survival tactic that people have developed. Being inside the social network and a part of the information portals gives you advantages. Current Technologies The computer is debatably the most important invention of the 20th century, with its intricate design and capacity to do nearly any task that the mind can program it to do; we have opened the floodgates for the machinery to take over many of our mundane tasks. As computers are being put into nearly every piece of technology we interact with, it wont be long before the network of computers spreads throughout the whole world. While the internet is the network that connects most devices that we consider computers, there is still a wide range of machinery that is not connected to the grid. However, I foresee that nearly every piece of technology is going to connect to the internet in some way. This allows for an unbelievable amount of inbound data to be collected and reviewed for patterns to increase efficiency. While the devices we use and the technology around us continues to connect up to the grid, it will ultimately be up to the people to understand and use the data to produce further information, theories, and discoveries. I do not think that computers will easily be able to do everything the human mind is capable of doing. This leaves necessity for the human mind, which will certainly continue to contribute to the information grid. Search engines as they are now are the simplest form of organizing and retrieving data from the grid. It allows us to find the important data that everyone has contributed, but it certainly isnt perfect. Although, compared to its original stages, search and the organization of the amounts of data on the internet has made leaps and bounds. It is pretty difficult to type

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something into Google, or other major search engines, and not retrieve at least a few relevant results. Search engines are paving the way for future organization of information. As search engines organize our information, current technologies, such as what is developed at Facebook, are allowing for a searchable database of people. The current forms of social networks have put forth a platform that allows people to be searched and organized. This has greatly changed the way that we network with each other, as well as the nature of our relationships. It is clear that we have shifted our relationships with people from old standards. Making a friend is a much less intrusive endeavor, but it can also be less empathetic and the overall gain may not be as large as in the past. We have latched onto the ability to network easily, but we should not forget that we can still have these very real and loving relationships within the real world. Social networks have their positive side, but also their highly negative side. They currently move the social outside of the real world and instead return massive gains in a virtualized world that isnt necessarily beneficial to our real life interactions. Constant Communication Just as the brain is endless paths of neurons, the internet is a vast grid of data and connections (Chorost 74-80). We can easily see how the human brain and the internet have evolved in similar ways. The speed and capacity has increased and advancement allows for new possibilities. They are both built to store and retrieve data, but in different ways. We do not fully understand how the brain facilitates all the data it takes in, however we do understand what happens when we think, and to a degree, what each part of the brain does. As the technology advances we will continue to develop our understanding of our own cognitive functions. Many believe that once we have a fundamental understanding of how the brain functions, we will have a much better understanding of how to program and design future computers (Chorost 133).

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As the internet and the devices that connect to it continue to upgrade and evolve, many find that traditional means of communication will be too difficult, slow, and time consuming for our everyday lives. Email and instant messaging were some of the first uses of modern technologies to greatly increase the efficiency and efficacy of communication. It allows for us to avoid many of the nuances of communication by allowing us to research as we discuss. This places the burden away from the actual task of communication and puts it within the content and information being shared. As smartphones, tablets, 3g-4g-5g connections, Netbooks and Ultrabooks, and many other technologies force their way into our lives, we may see how they can be a burden, but more importantly we start to understand the benefit it has on our communication. We are constantly connected and able to respond at lightning speed. Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Tumblr and many other services have already had a huge impact on the way that information is distributed and organized. Twitter has helped pinpoint earthquakes, helped rescue-teams, and provided the means to organize a revolution in the Middle East. I believe that as time goes on, the number of connections and the speed at which we can communicate will increase to the point where we will be able to know when, where and why any event is happening in real time. It will simply be a matter of synergizing all the technologies that already exist. Part of what will allow this stream of communication to function so easily will rely

on the free platforms that promote its necessity. While we do pay for our internet connection, I foresee many of these prices becoming trivial and the internet will become regarded as a human right. There has been a lot of controversy surrounding the free and viral nature of the internet, and while many corporations have tried to fight for their rights, the freedom of the internet allows for less control. This ability to upload and share nearly anything you desire on the internet

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has both allowed for a huge boom of data and information, but it has also created a huge sinkhole of garbage. For every useful piece of information on the internet there is going to be a much higher number of misinformed, misguided, and misdirected information. Although, why argue that there is good data and bad data? We should rather consider that any creation of data is good, whether it is innately useful or not. Limiting creation destroys the essence of what makes the internet and the human mind so profound. We do have to question the effectiveness of unlimited data generation. While it will become easier to find what you are looking for through search engines, the quality of searches may reach a maximum potential. Will we come to rely too greatly on the technology for our means of information? Will people stop thinking original thoughts because they believe all information is already on the internet? I do not believe that original thought could ever die out, as that would imply that all individuals have lost their sense of wonder and imagination. As the information continues to grow and knowledge is refined and organized, and as devices become cheaper, smaller, and are eventually integrated into the human body, I find it obvious that the internet will become a second brain. I (and many others) foresee the internet being integrated with the brain and I will describe certain technologies that will help accomplish this integration. The internet will feel nearly as close as your own thought process and will allow you to instantly access any information you desire (Chorost 163-164). No longer will you have to go to a search engine to find the name of that actor, it will simply come to you based on the other thoughts in your mind. You may know the name of the movie they were in or the other actors and it will automatically integrate the thoughts inside your own head! Your brain already does this on a neural level. Connected paths fire together. Everything you experience builds new connections that link to other paths. Over time as you gain more knowledge, your brain can find

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subtle connections to other things that have created related connections. It can be painfully inefficient, as you may absolutely know information, but be unable to reach it. My hope is that the second brain will help you to more easily reach the knowledge you are thinking. Optogenetics Optogenetics is one of the first technologies to hold the key to integrating the internet into the mind. Michael Chorost, in the World Wide Mind, describes how optogenetics could easily be a part of what connects your brain to the internet, but also networking in general. You will be able to sense other people through a wireless signal, almost like a sixth sense, as well as receive information that will trigger your own neural structures. It is a wildly fascinating technology that brings the ability to scan and manipulate the brain on a one-to-one neural level, which is one of the largest blockades in studying the brain (Chorost 119). You may be wondering how we could possibly be able to turn on and off the brains functions at such an accurate level. Optogenetics, in its basic form, controls cells using light. By using a tamed virus, scientists can break into cells and infect it with the halorhodopsin and channelrhodopsin genes. This is all the virus does and these genes are not dangerous to the cell itself, thus no damage occurs in the process. We can use the blue light spectrum to turn on, or excite, cells that have been injected with the channelrhodopsin gene. We then can use the yellow spectrum to turn off, or inhibit, the cells injected with halorhodopsin gene (Chorost 115-120). The process of changing the brain isnt as difficult as installing the light emitters into the brain; however, research is already booming in the optics community and it likely wont be long before they invent something small enough to fit in the brain (Chorost 137). Once our brains are properly genetically altered to react to blue and yellow light and the lighting system and electronics is installed into the brain, a scientist, doctor, psychologist, etc,

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would be able to control and read different parts of the brain. We could turn on cells that would increase or inhibit the production of serotonin and dopamine (Chorost 119). We could turn off specific neural paths that produced anxious and depressive thought processes, or we could turn them on to allow the person to more easily confront the problem. We could activate weak paths continuously to strengthen them, allowing for quicker learning. This is similar to how we already inhibit and stimulate different portions of the brain with chemicals, only we wouldnt have the side effects of these compounds. We may find that cyborgs will be the norm, just as most Americans are taking some sort of medication today. Chorost develops a very plausible version of how the mind can be hooked up to the network using these systems. In his research, we see just how important this technology is for the human race. He hints at the ability to innately feel other peoples emotions, such as their pain and distress (Chorost 159-160). He envisions squadrons that are all hooked up together to act as one cohesive unit. While many of his examples are grandiose and certainly a good deal into the future, it is nowhere as wild as other technological societies. Nonetheless it is easy to project how the technology could be used in our everyday lives. It is only a matter of time before technology becomes a part of our very being. We already install pacemakers, cochlear implants, heart pumps, and a number of other electronic technologies that have changed the path of human existence. People are more and more frequently upgraded with technological replacements and as medical science and nanotechnology progresses, we will easily see how upgrading could become enhancements rather than life savers. As I have described with optogenetics, we are going to have to greatly fine-tune our ability to modify the body in biological and technological ways. I believe people would most readily desire cell phones as part of their body. People carry

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them everywhere, adore them, upgrade them, and protect them with colorful skins. But everyone has one problem with them: theyre just too clunky. While the technology has clearly progressed and the software has made many previously unbearable tasks a complete breeze to perform. Anyone who regularly uses a smartphone (or even a computer) could imagine just how brilliant it would be if all this power was right inside their brain. The prospect of performing a search with just a thought, talking to people simply by thinking about them, or accessing other peoples research just by thinking about the subject is intellectually and pragmatically exhilarating. All of this may sound rather outrageous, but it may not be as near to science fiction as many may believe. Google is already developing their own wearable smart glasses known as project glass, which are a wearable HUD in the form factor of a pair of glasses, with microphone, speakers and more to place the device out of your hands and right on your head (Bilton). It may not be in the brain, but it is the next step. Augmented reality is right around the corner, with the possibilities unraveling a whole new realm of potential. Screens will both miniaturize to glasses and paper thin displays and grow to fill walls and windows. The size of the electronics that control the devices will vastly shrink and power and data will all be sent wirelessly from the grid. All devices will continuously connect and share with the grid to crowdsource data trends and in turn improve efficiency. The Crowd Sourced Brain The human brain is a beautiful biological wonder that allows us to do many complex and creative endeavors, but it is also quite inefficient at many tasks. While it regulates the body and lets us philosophize, it forgets what happened in class last week or what vitamins are in broccoli. Storing, processing, and returning data is exactly what computers were designed to do, and they do a magnificent job at it. Everyone would love to put this amazing power right into their own

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mind. We are quickly developing a crowd sourced second brain with websites like Wikipedia, deploying the power of many minds. While search engines have already changed the way you interact with the world, if you had the ability to access any possible information about your current environment at any moment, you would have a whole new world of insight. We find ourselves no longer needing to worry about arguing the data and information itself, but rather what we can do with said content. Being attached to the second brain will allow you to be completely free to hypothesize, theorize and philosophize about the world around you with all the crowd sourced data to back up your thoughts. Whether you are receiving ingredients for a recipe or a better understanding of the Allegory of the Cave from crowd sourced data, the potential is endless. As a society we have many millions of smart and educated people, but we are still limited by our biology and social standings. The internet is quickly closing the playing field, as people are accessing information and tools that simply did not exist in the past. The influx of data has allowed people to easily accomplish goals that would have once been impossible. Suddenly, anyone can create a musical composition or design an improved wind turbine. The data is available and the ability to discuss it with others allows amateurs in any field to become as sufficient as professionals (Dworsky). As this data becomes more quickly tangible in everyday situations, the users will adapt to it depending on their needs. I foresee engineers using real time data to determine structural integrity, musicians being sent notes to their brain when they would have otherwise forgotten, or policemen receiving inbound calls directly to their mind. People would no longer be required to learn a second language as the crowd sourced brain would translate in real time. The possibilities are endless and we have the potential to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of any task at hand.

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We have to question whether a computer aided mind would be able to keep up with all the data being driven to it. Many people already experience massive sensory overload, the experience of having an overwhelming amount of information being driven to your senses and brain. I question the ability for us to be able to keep up with all of our thoughts. I may think about my dinner for the night and consider a part of the meal only to receive information about that item that I didnt really need, then that triggers other thoughts about nutrition or about another meal that can be made with that same item. The chain goes on and on. Just as one may become lost in an endless link-chain online, one may become completely lost in their thought processes. It is becoming increasingly difficult to clear ones mind. Our lives are driven to a machine like existence and it may prove to be a difficult transition. However, there is amazing potential in this possibility of losing some of our animal self. While what will drive us for millennia to come is our biological mind, what will keep us surviving is more likely a technologically enhanced biology. People will adapt and trends show that the generations who grow up with technology thrive with it. Children today are using touchscreens as if they were always a part of humanity. We find it difficult to have our own developed minds be driven by means that are outside of our biological existence, but the first children who are raised with the second mind will have no concept of what having only one mind is like. They will be vastly smarter, incredibly sharper and more connected than ever thought reasonable. The first humans who will truly experience the power of the second mind wont likely be the ones who invented it, but rather the future generations who evolve with it. In order for this to be successful the data that is being driven to our brain has to be beneficial, but just as people have to continuously build their understanding of everything in their lives, the crowd-sourced brain is a continuous project. The internet is filled with

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misinformation that can cause confusion and mistrust, but for all the bad information there is a far greater amount of good knowledge. Bad information quickly loses its integrity as people knock down its fallacies and redirect the correct information. We have all been misinformed at some point in our life, whether it by parents, teachers, books or the internet; the source does not truly matter, but rather the fact that one can receive the correct information at a future time. People will have to understand that they should not take all the information as truth, just as one does not follow a GPS exactly. As time goes on the information will only become better and more accurate. As people are born and grow up into adults they will dynamically feed into the information network, allowing for others to benefit from the knowledge they share. The Connected Society Life as we know it is only a glimpse into the future of society. The human species is built around an inherent need for connection and the structures for this have continued to develop over time. We connect through our means of communication, and as I have claimed, we gain such means through the use of tools. The internet is only the newest portal by which we communicate, but it is certainly the most potent. Everyday more people connect and find their place in the global society. Facebook has over 800 million active users, close to one seventh of the worlds population within only eight years of its creation. We strive to connect and feed directly off the information of others. The internet is not something that people should ignore in their lives, as the benefit it brings greatly outweighs any reasons to not use it. The overall benefit of having a connected society should be obvious, but many people will still be skeptical of its potential. The constant war on privacy is important to our freedom, but a connected society cannot live in a private state. We need a certain amount of transparency while still allowing for the anonymous quality that currently exists on the web. The transparency

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will arise out of peoples willingness to share with others; just as you may tell a story to a friend, now you can tell that story with the world. Not all content should be shared with the whole, but not all information should be private either. Science shows how closely connected we are by biology, physics, and chemistry and as such we are finding how problems affect the whole of society. Global warming, water quality, and energy efficiency are only a few of the full picture problems that a connected society should work together to solve. Many problems are outside the realm of any one persons expertise, and as such we can employ the power of many minds. Whether people will actually use the technology to solve global problems may be an important question to ask, but I believe that it is already happening. Many people are already hooked into the global system, where their means of living is directly based off their connections with others halfway across the globe. A better question to ask may be whether people will actually continue to add original thoughts to the grid of knowledge? When a person has all the facts they could ask for, it becomes harder to bring out original ideas. People become homogenized by the equal access to all facts of life. Although, I find this to be the beauty of the entire idea of a second brain: if we all have equal access to the knowledge of all individuals in the world, the only limitation becomes the mind itself. The individual must still be able to make use of this information if they desire to be a beneficial part of society. In all this greatness, there is still a looming question: will we become too reliant on each other and our technologies? There is always this potential, but I argue that we are already reliant on technology, and thus we have pushed to the point where we must trust our ability to create beneficial technologies. We must place trust in each other to use this power to benefit the whole and not become wastrels in the virtual realities of the World Wide Web. If we continue to

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connect in order to unravel the mysteries of the world we will step into the next stages of our evolution.

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