Another take on the "hive mind" perhaps? Collective Intelligence : Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace by Pierre Levy, Robert Bononno (Translator) , New York : Plenum Trade, c1997, 277 pp., ISBN: 0306456354. The number of travelers along the information superhighway is increasing at a rate of ten percent a month. How will this communications revolution affect our culture and society? Though awed by their potential, we've feared computers as agents of the further alienation of modern man: they take away our jobs, minimize direct human contact, even shake our faith in the unique power of the human brain. Pierre Levy believes, however, that rather than creating a society where machines rule man, the technology of cyberspace will have a humanizing influence on us, and foster the emergence of a "collective intelligence" - a meeting of minds on the Internet - that will validate the contributions of the individual. -- ___________________________________________________________________ http://publish.uwo.ca/~mcdaniel/
