How can we explain the sudden transformation of our society in the last 200 years.

For as long as historians can remember, humans cannot survive alone. For 300 000 years we were dispersed into small groups, all over the world. Our survival depended on small villages in the forest or nomadic bands. Our main concern was to find food and survive.  It took us a long time to notice that some seeds were falling on the ground and produced more seeds.  We became conscious that it was a process of Nature that we could amplify.  The shift to agriculture was not merely a technological innovation but a social revolution. It was our first step to freedom.  Agriculture gave us a guaranty to survive.  Our next step was to move to cities. The creation of networks of minds made collective creativity possible. 

Many brains, close together, can generate what isolated individuals could never achieve. A computer is made of many simple ideas from many different people. In other words, we needed many people to put together many simple ideas. Isolated, those same people would not have made computers. Even Newton would soon be forgotten if he were born in a small village in the forest. We would not have a list of famous people in our dictionaries.

This clustering of minds is analogous to a gravitational pull.  Planets don’t go their separate ways in the universe.  They get assembled into solar systems and galaxies.  They are attracted by their sun.  Atoms are bound to form molecules.  There is attraction between the brains like there is sexual attraction between bodies.  If, someday, we can measure the attraction between brains, our concept of love may change.

Internet culture provides a striking illustration. We use our freedom to create social platforms that gain value as their user base keeps growing. They can reach a point where the network can trigger explosive effects.

Our evolution follows a law of nature. The human body needs a certain level of development before puberty becomes possible. To start burning wood requires some heat.  A match may not suffice. We may need a small fire to start a bigger one. To start an association (book reading, alumni, bird watchers) requires a minimum number of participants.

Radioactivity comes to mind.

By increasing the quantity of radioactive material, you reach a point where an explosion becomes possible. It is simple. The energy generated increases with the quantity of radioactive material (V=4/3 πr^3). The losses are function of the surface (S=4πr^2). As you increase the radius of a sphere, the volume increases faster than its surface. You reach a point where the energy generated is higher than the losses. This is the critical mass that triggers the explosion.

Our human development follows the same process. Population growth and urbanization paved the way for an explosion of communication between the brains.

This is where we reach an important transition in our evolution.  We are leaving the material world to start exploring the immaterial world.  By reaching our critical mass we can break our glass ceiling. We can get access to the consciousness level above us. We are leaving the 5% of our material reality to start exploring the other 95%.  The digital age does not only connect the bodies but also the minds and spirits. It blends individual thoughts into a shared intelligence. After the puberty of the body comes the puberty of the souls where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

With freedom and power comes responsibility.  How are we going to use  our new power?

By introducing machines, we amplified the quantity of work a human body can produce. We used this new power to remodel our environment. That was good. We also used it to develop powerful ways to kill each other. That was a mistake. Today AI is introducing a way to amplifying human thinking. AI does not come with a notion of good and bad.  It can be used to amplify anything dormant in the human subconscious. We may not be the master of our ship anymore. We are only trying to master the wind blowing in our sails.  As long as we limited ourselves to studying the laws of nature, we could do experiments and seek nature’s approval. With AI we are leaving the 5% of the material world.  We don’t have the resources to do experiments. Are we sure that we don’t need the guidance of Nature anymore to keep us on the right path?

The general rule seems to be that we can only amplify what already exists in Nature. We could multiply the seeds that already existed and develop agriculture, but we could not create a single seed. Man cannot create something from nothing in the material world.

Is it different in the immaterial world? Can we create ideas out of nothing? It would be surprising that something important can happen to the body without any effect on the soul. We were born as isolated individuals, in different bodies, inside different skins. However, we could be different drops falling from the same cloud. After watering plants, we will be reunited in the same ocean. Our stay on Earth is only a preparation before reaching the critical mass of our thinking.

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