Depth of the Noosphere

It’s already April, and at Experience Writing that means it’s time for NaPoWriMo (National /Global Poetry Writing Month) and the A-Z Challenge. Continuing this year’s theme, I’m writing about the A to Z of Depth.

the formation, taking place before our eyes and arising out of this factor of hominization, of a particular biological entity such as has never before existed on earth — the growth, outside and above the biosphere . . . of an added planetary layer, an envelope of thinking substance, to which, for the sake of convenience and symmetry, I have given the name of the Noosphere.(from noos, mind: the terrestrial sphere of thinking substance.) ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin from The Future of Mankind

Mankind taken as a whole is becoming a mighty geological force. There arises the problem of the reconstruction of the biosphere in the interests of freely thinking humanity as a single totality. This new state of the biosphere, which we approach without our noticing it, is the noösphere. ~Vladimir Vernadsky

I first learned about the Noosphere during the A to Z Challenge and NaPoWriMo 2018 when my theme was new to me words. It is the sphere of human consciousness and mental activity, especially in regard to its influence on the biosphere and in relation to evolution. The Noosphere, alternately written Noösphere, is a philosophical concept developed starting in the 1920’s by Vladimir Vernadsky (Ukranian) a biogeochemist, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (French) a Catholic priest and paleontologist.

When I first learned about the noosphere, I thought it was a way of defining the human imagination. I pictured an individual in the noosphere as pictured in the video in my previous post. But now that I’ve looked at the noosphere more deeply by reading the original source material and listening to experts in the field, I realize that I had it wrong. The noosphere is defined as a physical realm of collective consciousness that affects the planet.

No one can deny that a network (a world network) of economic and psychic affiliations is being woven at ever increasing speed which envelops and constantly penetrates more deeply within each of us. With every day that passes it becomes a little more impossible for us to act or think otherwise than collectively. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin from The Future of Mankind

Collective consciousness sounds like it would be the opposite of Carl Jung‘s collective unconscious, but at the Institute of Noetic Science (IONS) I read, “Through intensive research and groundbreaking experimentation, we explore the interconnection between personal, inner space and the “outer space” of our shared reality.” This sounds a lot like Jung’s individuation process to me.

If you’re interested in learning more about Collective Consciousness, IONS offers a free series of webinars called Introduction to Consciousness.

At Human Energy they say that the Noosphere is a future vision that combines the ideas of cosmic evolution, Gaïa hypothesis, and the technological singularity.

At Human Energy they are mapping the Noosphere‘s major systems such as “the economy, trade, and transportation (the noosphere’s circulatory system), as well as human population distribution (the noosphere’s thinking and feeling component).”

At The Global Consciousness Project they are tracking the noosphere using random number generators.

Fun synchronicity: At The Global Consciousness Project I found A Global Consciousness Meditation, where they talk about Jon Kabat-Zinn’s book Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life which I mentioned yesterday.

As you can see, my depth of knowledge of the noosphere has deepened, but there’s much more depth to explore.

Today’s Poem

The Local Noosphere

When the sun unspools
it energizes humans to work
and their work has a music
the growling, vibrating leaf blower
rattle and crunch, clank, clank, clank
of a truck with an empty flatbed
ladders extend with a squeal of sliding metal
a shovel scrapes a wheelbarrow

The second I start writing
a radio comes on
the radio has no bass
truck tires on gravel
flapping of a small fishing
boat cutting a wake then
the whir of its motor
the radio plays a hollow
country twang
then it’s suddenly gone

The song of the house finch
a man’s laugh
The song of the spotted towhee
The whistle and whoosh
of a jet-engine overhead
a dog barks, a man coughs
he says, “I’ll take four bottles of that”
waves lap the ramp with the water
dispersed by the fishing boat
splash, glug, splash, glug, splash, splash

and every house I see has people
and those people have thoughts
those thoughts are influenced by
their pasts, imagined futures
inner lives and outer lives
colliding in every moment
and those moments are all
part of life on Earth, part
of Earth’s energy, mingling
beyond the biosphere, smearing
into one evolving noosphere
the human contribution beyond
physical existence where
a collective consciousness resides

This poem was inspired by today’s prompts at NaPoWriMo and Writer’s Digest’s April Poem a Day (PAD) Challenge.

Thank you so much for coming by and reading my post. Any thoughts or questions about the Noosphere? Come back tomorrow for more depth exploration and poetry.