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I have always considered (semantically) that the most significant component of "intelligence" is the ability to reliably access information. Think about it - this is how our brain works - information is stored in our memory and we access it (hopefully) within a very small fraction of time. In this respect, the internet is only an extension of our brains - this reliable access of memory banks and vast amounts of information that no single human being could ever hope to possess. For the longest time, people who read books or even possessed a library card (and used it) were considered "smart" people - why is that? Just because you read a lot or hang out at the library doesn't necessarily mean that you are wise or smart or intelligent - it's the ready access of information that makes somebody smart. Somebody has a question? They go to find the information - this is intelligence. So the internet is a sort of outbrain information retrieval system, as far as I am concerned - things like Wikipedia and Google, they bring our collective intelligence together in a fusion that could almost define human beings as a species. Also consider that cyberspace (god I hate that word, makes me feel like it's 1995) is infinite as far as the human paradigm is concerned - it has become the space that we can reach and it is the space within. It's unfettered by cold wars and fuel crises and government funding and it reaches far beyond the domain of any collective human consciousness.
Enough with the fanciful ideas though. The thing that makes the internet both wonderful and horrible is the human component - two sides of the same coin. Idiocy, ignorance, refusal to realize information and the widespread dispersal of lies and half-truths. It's very much just like the real world, which is understandable considering that it is populated with the same creatures and exists as a social organism as well as an intellectual organ. Maybe speculation isn't the most adequate way to address this topic though - perhaps more questions are what is needed.
- Is it easier to control people over the internet? Mind and body?
- Would it be possible for us to migrate to electronics? Digital copying of our essences and immortality in cyberspace?
- Does a collective consciousness truly bring people together or does it merely push them farther apart? As individuals or as a group?
- What will the internet be 100 years from now? 1000? Will we have forfeited our bodies in exchange for a different sort of electronic causality?
- Is the internet "fake" in the sense that the world outside of it is "real"?
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There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
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