- Image by brian glanz via Flickr
Right now, your brain has thoughts. Your brain is aware of itself and what these thoughts are. This is your consciousness.
Now, stop thinking about your consciousness as only what you’re thinking at this given moment. Think of your consciousness as a singular thing–a flow of thoughts and self-awareness.
We can then go one more step: imagine your consciousness, this flow of conscious thought, running like water into a river of other people’s consciousness. This river ultimately will flow into an ocean that includes all the thought of human history.
This is our “collective consciousness.” And all humans have an implicit desire to be connected to this collective consciousness. (This is a more interesting way to model and think about the human desire for connectedness to other people as well).
I’m not so sure that everyone has a desire to tap into the full, uninhibited pool of the collective conscious. I imagine some people would be uncomfortable with this. But, I do know we all have a desire for some part of this consciousness. Facebook feeds, Twitter, Wikipedia, and blogs point to this desire. But to go further, the internet is an incredible reflection of this collective consciousness (and that is a topic for another day….).
What about people that find solace in solitary work? Many great thinkers were content to live in isolation where they could focus on their work. Did they care about the collective consciousness? or were they so smart that they were making completely new things? They absolutely did care, and perhaps thought about it more than anyone. They wanted to know the thoughts of the masters. They may have even wanted to command the collective conscious. And in order to do that, they had to come to understand it.
Personally, the collective consciousness enthralls me. And I can’t wait to see it continue to materialize. If we implicity desire this, and we do, we’ll eventually make it.
-Kevin
8.3.2010
