Human Energy Podcast

Why stop here? Expanding the scale of life through noospheric geography - Parham Pourdavood & Michael Jacob - N2 Conference 2023

Parham Pourdavood, Michael Jacob Season 2 Episode 31

Presented by Parham Pourdavood & Michael Jacob
N2 Conference 2023
University of California, Berkeley

An approach to noospheric geography is proposed to examine the possibility that human populations, technology, economics, and flows of culture and information reflect components of a unified, living system. Extending our prior multiscale, biological model of interdependence, we present initial evidence of functional interaction between these phenomena at a planetary scale. To accomplish this, we have simultaneously mapped the growth of human populations, roads, telecommunications technology, access to the internet, global trade and internet search content. By combining these maps according to organizational principles of biological function and examining development over time, we are able to identify evidence that the noosphere may be operating like a type of nervous system. That is, a highly interconnected system that expedites communication to support the survival of the organism. From maps of infrastructural and technological growth we find evidence that like a nervous system, an initial period of growth in ‘structural’ connectivity is necessary. Second, maps of dramatically expanding access to global information flow and communication technology supports what is typically termed ‘functional’ connectivity in the field of neuroscience. These first two phenomena are reminiscent of a ‘critical period’ for nervous system development. Lastly, we find recent evidence for interdependence between economic trade and communicative search content on the internet. We refer to this type of connectivity as ‘meaningful’ because it connects information flows with the survival of humanity on the whole. Therefore, noospheric geography provides new tools to examine collective humanity as a singular, coherent, meaning-making organism.

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