This episode is from our YouTube series Story of the Noosphere.

With so many real problems besetting our Earth community, any talk of an
emerging planetary mind can seem naive. Already in the first half of the 21st century, pessimism has captured a great many.

To avoid the temptation of depression and despair, we need to take in the larger arc of history. In the modern era, trading networks exploded and changed the fabric of human life.

A keen appreciation of what trade has bequeathed to us will strengthen our faith in progress.

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Presented by Human Energy:
https://HumanEnergy.io

As a word, "noosphere" is a loose synonym for three different meanings: the history and destiny of Homo sapiens; an emerging planetary nervous system, an emerging superorganism.

Throughout this series, we explore the conditions that gave rise to the noosphere:
1. Heredity
The transfer of genetic and cultural information from parents to offspring, generation to generation.

2. Tools
Instruments and technological devices that aids in accomplishing tasks.

3. Self-Consciousness
Conscious of one's own acts or states as belonging to or originating in oneself : aware of oneself as an individual.

4. Communication
A process by which information is exchanged between individuals through
a common system of symbols, signs, or behavior.

5. Population
A body of persons or individuals having a quality or characteristic in common, the total of particles at a particular energy level.

6. Trade
To exchange (something) for something else, typically as a commercial transaction.

7. Cerebralization
The developing capacity of a species to form an idea, mental image or understanding something.

8. Convergence
To come together and unite in a common interest or focus.

Across five different stages of humanity:
• Paleolithic (300,000 - 11,000 years ago)
• Neolithic (11,000 years ago - 3,000 BCE)
• Classical (3,000 BCE - 1400 CE)
• Modern (1,400 CE - present)
• Future

This series of short films explores the ways humanity is building the nervous system of a superorganism, called the noosphere. Our series is narrated and hosted by Brian Thomas Swimme (
https://storyoftheuniverse.org/) and produced by Human Energy (http://humanenergy.io/
).

Human Energy was founded to share a new scientific and cosmic story introducing the Noosphere as a source of meaning for future generations in our globalizing world.