be subject to analysis. I should have thought it more likely that the so-called brain of brains will be a function of all the brains of which it is composed; in other words it will be the parts which remain real because they are persons, the brain of brains will merely be a glorified team relationship.
While individual thought remains in a flux of evolutionary time, a mind of minds seems unnecessary; it is sufficient that the different cultures of mankind should evolve painfully through their different thought disciplines towards a union, towards a realisation that mankind is union in diversity. When however consciousness synthesis begins to be practised, then in one jump we (or some of us) are out of the flux of evolutionary time into eternity, in which consciousness synthesis may represent the meeting point of different cultures. If so, the period of reconciliation will have begun; conflict will be on the way out. In this situation I see no great need for a brain of brains to prevent mankind degenerating into chaos; but the only answer is to wait and see. If it happens, if a brain of brains does appear, one will have to decide whether to take advantage of it because it is good, or fight it tooth and nail because it is bad.
In a similar way some people become frightened that machines when computerised will become a Frankenstein monster, and overwhelm their creator - man. This is surely very far fetched. It is the wonderful use of computers by a few inspired physicists which has shown that the movement of particles in nature, the molecules of the air we breathe, and the drops of water in the rivers we drink, can best be represented as chaos within a framework of order. It is not ordered as was thought by the classical physicists, as personified by Max Plank. It is utterly beyond prediction. The physical world is not a preordained unit; because many phenomena show this sensitive dependence on initial conditions. So we are delivered from the nightmare of determinism, and Laplace' s infinitely patient mathematician. I have known academic men say that…