Introduction

1. The Noosphere

noosphere (n.) the sum of human thought, knowledge, and culture.

I came across the the concept of the noosphere back in 1990, after reading the novel Hyperion, by Dan Simmons. It was described as an abstract layer surrounding the earth (or wherever humanity resides) that encompases human thought, knowledge and culture.

At the time, it seemed quite far-fetched and fantastical, but having discovered in the last few years that the noosphere concept actually originated and theorized at the beginning of the 20^th century by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Vladimir Vernadsky, made me dive deeper into the topic and research it further.

Vernadsky, a biologist and geologist, defined the noosphere in his book Scientific Thought as a Planetary Phenomenon (1938) as the changes and alterations the Earth is being subjected to, based on the actions of humankind. This description is very similar to the definition of the unofficial – but highly debated – Anthropocene Epoch (Schmidt, Brown, and Orr 2016) which states that changes on the environment implemented by humans since the 1950’s have altered the natural balance of the Earth’s evolution. This idea is supported by the concept of the Great Acceleration (McNeill 2014) which illustrates the extremely rapid growth of mankind’s technological advances, and the negative impact it has had on our environment and societal fabrics.

Teilhard approached the noosphere by balancing the two worlds he existed in – the first as a scientist and the other as a Jesuit priest. His methodologies included that the evolution and expansion of human thought is an exponential scaling of consciousness, and thus unable to fall into decay and disappear, but rather stay for eternity (Levit 2000). The noosphere was then presented in theory and later expanded upon in his essay Le Phénomène Humain (1955), as a conscious, living superorganism that encompasses the Earth, that grows from human’s cultural and technological interconnection, and that would ultimately reach a unifying, all-encompassing state he termed the Omega Point.

One of the challenges imposed by the concept of the noosphere is how to represent it in a sensorial manner. The noosphere is undefined by shape or form, yet capable of hypothetically holding human thought and evolve with it. This slides into realms of vagueness and abstract interpretation at best, especially when trying to envision a structure that spans and surpasses the dimensions of the Earth.

An aspect in this challenge is the concept of scale. The noosphere is envisioned in planetary terms, which can defy the capacity of humans to relate to elements in that magnitude. Rather than explore this from a macro, top-down approach, this project proposes to visualize the noosphere from the micro level, bottom-up  perspective, with smaller components building up a larger form.

 One of the challenges in doing that is falling into the traps of social media that are impacting the way we think and experience the world such as echo chambers and filter bubbles. In other words, can we truly think clearly or are we reflection of the noise that we consume?

2. Movile Cave

In 1986, a geological research crew in Romania stumbled across the Movile Cave. It was sealed and isolated from the rest of the world for approximately 5.5 million years. It is made up of a network of tunnels, with a lake in the central cavern. In order to survive, the lifeforms trapped in the cave had had to adapt and evolve to a new way of life different than the one on the surface of the planet. In the cave, there was an almost alien ecosystem that was dependent on chemosynthetic bacteria that leaves a frothy film on the surface of the lake. Small creatures would eat the bacterial film, and in turn provide food for the larger creatures in the food chain. A diverse and unique habitat was thus created within the Movile Cave, with unique evolutionary traits and metabolisms. These new systems provided the lifeforms the necessary survival skills, senses and mutations needed to adapt to that particular ecosystem.

This concept leads to the question – can an enclosed digital system, encoded with austere “life” conditions, be able to support the organization of elements needed to simulate artificial life? Will this artificial life need to be programmed with genetic and evolutionary computing algorithms based on existing organic living systems to thrive, or can a new evolutionary process be autonomously evolved?

Furthermore, can an anthropomorphic narrative be assigned to it, with understandable symbols that can be decoded by humans?

3. The Metaverse (+Gaming Industry)

Yet another unclear term with widely differing visions, depending on whom you ask. The reason this term is brought up into the conversation is because at some point in the foreseable future, some form of it will exist.

It is a like a slow-moving juggernaut that has begun to slowly roll, and will eventually reach critical mass and alter everything it its path. What form will it take, what kind of impact it will have on a modern, digital world – it is currently still all speculative. But impact it will have.

The main critique that I present to the idea of the metaverse, at least within the concept of this snapshot, is the lack of personality. Personality in the sense that the proposed virtual meta-worlds are extensions of the designers who created them and who invite the Players to explore, interact, play and navigate within them. Yet they do not hold any true, unique direct connection to the Players themselves. These worlds become a framework within which the individual Player exists essentially as a guest, a captive audience that is bound to the limitations previously set by the virtual game environment.