Global Consciousness

'Global consciousness' is becoming a familiar expression that describes the growing general awareness of the interconnectedness of all events on Planet Earth. As a formal concept, it poses a challenge to some traditional notions of Mind, in terms of which the consciousness of globality is either impossible or, at best, artificial. These are notions of Consciousness based on a visual model, and the problem therein is obvious from pictures of the planet from outer space--that the whole earth cannot be seen all at once, so, whatever awareness that we might have of it is at best a construction. Of course, the visual perception of any object, terrestrial, or otherwise, is limited to the presentation of facets only. So, is an immediate consciousness of any globe at all possible? One common example demonstrates that there can be such a thing as an immediate comprehensive awareness--the full grasping by a hand of some object, which Whitehead anticipates with his prehensile model of consciousness. A more subtle example is one's constant awareness of one's inner body. Characteristic of this kind of consciousness is that it is de-centered, everywhere-at-once, and, hence, inaccessible to subsequent analysis, which fragments it and interjects a focal point. Such a consciousness is the product of the organism's neural network, the analog of which on a planetary scale is the Internet web. The large-scale consequences of the new technology are only beginning to occur, e. g. accelerating political and economic internationalization, global environmental awareness, etc., and so, too, are those of the globalization of personal consciousnesses, in what may be a profound epochal transformation of the human race, possibly an evolutionary leap.