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Cyberneuroethics • 179
Network Consciousness
The idea of a collective consciousness was first proposed by the French soci-
ologist Émile Durkheim (1858–1917)364 in his 1893 book Division of Labour
in Society. He defined this collective consciousness as the set of shared beliefs,
ideas and moral attitudes that operate as a unifying force within society,
which includes the concept of the collective memory of the social group. For
Durkheim, society is not a group of individuals living in the same geographi-
cal place; instead, it is primarily a set of ideas, beliefs and feelings of all kinds,
which come into being through the individuals.365 It expresses a reality that
is produced when individuals act on each other, resulting in the fusion of
individual consciousnesses. In a social group, each individual’s mind is in
a relationship with another person’s mind, forming a whole interconnected
network of all the minds in the social and cultural assembly. Consequently,
each person becomes part of his or her own social group, which expresses a
sort of cooperative consciousness. In this way, individuals produce a collec-
tive consciousness, or a kind of hive mind, through their interactions and this
consciousness results in, and holds together, a society.
At the same time, social groups are formed as a kind of multi-
individual
social organisms in which communication generally takes place through
visual or oral means. The cohesive force holding the group together results
from a combination of the collective consciousness and the collective
memory. A kind of organic solidarity results where individuals become ever
more integrated and interdependent, while specialisation and cooperation are
extensive.
This reality is also irreducible to its component parts and impossible to
explain, except through its own means. In other words, the social group is
more than the sum of its parts. It transcends in every sense the existence of
any individual and is of a completely different order from the parts of which
it is composed. This implies that society and social phenomena can only be
explained in sociological terms.
One of the first to suggest a further integration and development of this
concept of network consciousness was the French Catholic Jesuit priest and
palaeontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955), who was a col-
league of the British scientist Julian Huxley.
Teilhard de Chardin maintained that human persons were evolving from a
state of being individuals to becoming a global consciousness or meta-mind
super-intelligence. The ‘Noosphere’ (from the Greek nous, ‘mind’ or ‘reason’,
and sphaira, ‘sphere’) would then come into existence.366 In other words, he
suggested that when human individuals become ever more connected to
this global Noosphere, to which evolution is developing, they would then
merge into ever greater and united collectives in which individuality would
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Buch Cyborg Mind - What Brain–Computer and Mind–Cyberspace Interfaces Mean for Cyberneuroethics"
Cyborg Mind
What Brain–Computer and Mind–Cyberspace Interfaces Mean for Cyberneuroethics
- Titel
- Cyborg Mind
- Untertitel
- What Brain–Computer and Mind–Cyberspace Interfaces Mean for Cyberneuroethics
- Autor
- Calum MacKellar
- Verlag
- Berghahn Books
- Datum
- 2019
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-1-78920-015-7
- Abmessungen
- 15.2 x 22.9 cm
- Seiten
- 264
- Schlagwörter
- Singularity, Transhumanism, Body modification, Bioethics
- Kategorie
- Technik
Inhaltsverzeichnis
- Chapter 1. Why Use the Term ‘Cyberneuroethics’? 9
- Chapter 2. Popular Understanding of Neuronal Interfaces 25
- Chapter 3. Presentation of the Brain–Mind Interface 31
- Chapter 4. Neuronal Interface Systems 43
- Developments in Information Technology 44
- Developments in Understanding the Brain 45
- Developments in Neuronal Interfaces 46
- Procedures Involved in Neuronal Interfaces 47
- Output Neuronal Interface Systems: Reading the Brain and Mind 49
- Input Neuronal Interface Systems: Changing the Brain and Mind 57
- Feedback Systems of the Brain and Mind 67
- Ethical Issues Relating to the Technology of Neuronal Interfaces 84
- Chapter 5. Cyberneuroethics 99
- Chapter 6. Neuronal Interfaces and Policy 217
- New Cybercrimes 218
- Policy Concerns 223
- Conclusion 229
- Human Autonomy 232
- Resistance to Such a Development 234
- Risks of Neuronal Interfaces 234
- Appendix. Scottish Council on Human Bioethics Recommendations on
- Cyberneuroethics 239
- Glossary 244
- Index 251