If the internet disappeared tomorrow, and all digital information was lost forever, what would happen to humanity on planet Earth ?
How much science, math, knowledge, data, and collective understanding of humanity would be forgotten and lost in time. Some experts believe this is exactly what happen when the library of Alexandria in Egypt was burned in 48 BC.
The internet has developed into an artificial fractal network of connected computers which is bigger and more complex than many living organisms. The internet has become bigger than any individual computer, any individual person, and in many ways bigger than any individual country.
(For example, China has the biggest population of almost 1.5 billion people. Facebook has 2 billion users)
In the last 30 years the internet has become the main interface for publishing, accessing, and sharing information. Access to the internet can provide an instant connection between any two conscious human minds almost anywhere on the planet.
The internet has become humankind’s collective mind and a digital representation of the collective consciousness.
In this article we seek out expert perspectives to gain a deeper understanding for the internet as the central collective consciousness of the world.
Let’s Dive In.
First, What Exactly Is Collective Consciousness ?
The Collective consciousness is the overall combined understanding which arises from the grand sum of all human knowledge, perspectives, behaviors, thoughts, and ideas.
In the eyes of Carl Jung, (one of the founders of modern day psychology), humans have a collective unconscious… Meaning that human beings share a subconscious perception of reality. (basically he says that subconsciously we humans all want the same things)
As humans, we naturally use a universal ‘collective consciousness’, (understanding for right and wrong) to assign structure and meaning to the world.
The collective consciousness is the baseline to our beliefs, values, and norms.
As we spend more time interacting with people, (physically and digitally) we begin developing a link to the collective consciousness. The more we experience new people, beliefs, norms, the more we absorb the deep-seated beliefs and commonalities that all humans relate to.
The internet has the capacity to influence individual minds and unify our experiences.
The internet helps to unify all of our individual thoughts, ideas, morals, and beliefs. Access to the internet has allowed these pieces of information to develop rapidly into a new modern form of the collective consciousness of humanity.
If anyone uses Twitter then you’re familiar with the trending page. Trending topics on twitter are determined by the collective consciousness. If certain words or phrases are simultaneously appearing from accounts worldwide, Twitter recognizes this subject as a collective trend.
This inter-connectedness of thousands of computers (and the humans that operate them) acts as the collective conscious network which provides an outlet for publishing and accessing information from humankind’s unified knowledge and beliefs.
The Internet And Collective Consciousness
Smartphones and social media are enhancing and accelerating the internets ability to connect people and centralize our individual thoughts, beliefs, and unified state of being.
our common beliefs and ideas are being shared on social media platforms, organized by data analytics firms, reshuffled and rearranged instantaneously all thanks to the internet. With new AI technology optimizing the digital landscape, the internet is slowly becoming in some ways, more aware of itself.
Our bodies disappear on the internet, but our minds, thoughts, and ideas travel instantly and can last much longer than our own lifespan.
The Benefits (Pros and Cons) of The Collective Consciousness on The Internet
Books, scripts, and the printing press all allowed us to share our ideas, literature, and philosophy. But not everyone has had access to books in past history.
With the internet, almost everyone has access to a majority of human knowledge at right at our fingertips. This advance in technology created huge opportunity for those who are willing to educate themselves, thus making man’s untouched potential widely accessible.
As this new era of information accessibility advances, more and more people have been waking up from lack of knowledge and information. Which had previously been denied to them.
This new awakening and self educating is re-shaping our collective consciousness and our shared understanding of reality.
Cyberspace has evolved our collective minds from ancient cave paintings in humankind’s most primitive form, to a collective mind more powerful with knowledge than anytime in known history.
The former divide between individuals and social groups is shrinking, as our common wants, desires, secrets, beliefs, and insecurities are all emerging on the forefront-the internet as common knowledge.
For many people around the world, lack of information has prevented them from an education and larger understanding how things work in the world on a large scale. The power of the collective consciousness through the internet has sparked generations of new ideas and concepts to previously unsolvable world problems.
For example, when people share ideas and new perspectives on social networks, it can easily inspire someone with a new idea or contribution thousands of miles away.
The internet is and will continue to be a vital vehicle for our collective consciousness to build upon, grow, and evolve.
Unfortunately there are also cons. With paid online advertising , falsehoods, fake news, bad ideas, and corrupt agendas, can be used to manipulate massive amounts of people who are unaware.
For example, the Qanon conspiracy.
The internet was able to foster this false narrative and present it as true. Manipulating millions of people on the internet along the way.
The vast amount of information and addictive videos has also sparked a new era of internet addiction –
ARE YOU ADDICTED TO THE INTERNET ?
Using The Collective Consciousness For Peace and Social Change
The internet has connected people globally and created countless new opportunities.
Today’s wars and pandemics have made humans understand that we need to override our in-born ego’s to connect and collaborate more if we want to survive as a species.
This desire to connect for survival helps us finds like-minded individuals through our online interactions that give us purpose and a sense of belonging.
This sense, and the realization that we are interconnected with borderless strangers on a level deeper than social media, creates a more collaborative atmosphere.
A great example is the facilitated philanthropy through online platforms like GoFundMe.
These platforms leverage our collective consciousness, tap into our humanhood, and prompt us to want to do better for people. The desire for social change has aroused our collective consciousness, challenging us into creating groups to fight for civil rights, the environment, and equality for all humans.
Sharing The Collective Consciousness Experience.
Although our individual experiences may differ in content and character, humans on the internet act pretty much the same.
We like the same funny memes, we all role our eyes at the self-centered Kardashians.
We all experience the same good and bad vibes from people.
Cyberspace is proving to us, that our minds, character, and behavior on social media are from different individuals, but a lot of the same thoughts.
As we are becoming more bound and connected online than ever before, the growing internet dominates over all facets of our lives.
The fact that we draw our beliefs and thoughts from the same pool makes all of us alike more than we could imagine.
Nothing else but our actual bodies, including the brain, eyes, and fingers, get a grip on the social media world when texting or posting. And, once we click the share button, we connect emotionally with other people’s bodies in our social groups.
Although no one might visually observe our bodies during this time, everyone accessing our posts can sense our body’s state of being.
Through the brief texts and ideas we put out in cyberspace, the social groups get a sense of each-other.
Final Thoughts
The internet has proved that our species has a unique characteristic: The ability to use tools to amplify our connectivity.
The Internet has allowed us to transition from close-knitted communities into mega-cities sprawling across the globe, interconnected and interacting through one unified entity.
We can now develop into a more unified global civilization of humanity because the internet harmonizes our actions and allows us to work towards a shared purpose.
The internet’s great aid to humanhood is collecting the universal consciousness’ abstract fiction and consolidating it into something almost tangible.
It is nature’s database and man’s shared conscious web of thoughts, ideas, beliefs, history, and future of consciousness.
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And hey, don’t miss out on our curated list of must-reads in the recommended books section.
Big thanks for diving in with us today!
