We are a generation born into a world totally saturated by interactive computers, and networks. The organic-inorganic “suprabrain”¹ is composed of many individually networked nodes, with each node being a human-computer symbiosis, each human having their own network of organic nodes – namely, a brain – augmented and amplified by an inorganic implement – namely, the interactive computer that enters the symbiosis with man. Engagement with this suprabrain before even the formation of my own consciousness, both molded by it and subsequently producing a component of it, a medium to enable more seamless “consciousness-objectification”, so to speak – i.e. to concretise ideas and make them communicable – invites reflection on the nature of this symbiosis, and the emergence of the suprabrain.

But interactive computers are not the first implement of consciousness-objectification. Writing precedes it by millennia; speech by eons. What makes computers different – are they different? I cannot give a complete anthropological-historical outlook (yet!), but I can give a sketch based on what comparatively little – as of now – I know², in order to work in the trajectory given and transmitted from the past; at the very least, I ought to start somewhere.

Historical Sketch

There are two aspects to computers: the amplification aspect (mathematical, textual, visual, etc.) and the networking aspect. Amplification – that is, of human properties – is as old as Man himself, “Leaving out of consideration such ready-made means of subsistence as fruits, in gathering which a man’s bodily organs alone serve as the instruments of his labour, the object the worker directly takes possession of is not the object of labour but its instrument. Thus nature becomes one of the organs of his activity, which he annexes to his own bodily organs, adding stature to himself in spite of the Bible.”³ Networking also can be said to be equally old, for even speech presents, at a minimum, a network between two nodes. The seeds for the suprabrain have thus always been present, only historically developing into higher forms.

Even after the genesis of writing, it wasn't the primary form of dissemination of information, as it was time consuming and not necessarily accessible. Memorisation was the norm for the scholars of old, they maintained entire libraries in their brains. Texts served as useful supplements and authoritative sources. Gradually, men needed actual libraries, as the sum of knowledge worked on was larger than can be contained in a single brain. One can depend on the details of a proof to be supplied from elsewhere, presumably verified by the scholar himself or by consensus, and only remember the final result. What was before filled with lengthy poems, verses, and proofs can now be compressed into their final results, leaving ample space for combinations and subsequent proofs. It becomes clear, in a less rigorous manner, what information theorists mean when they equate intelligence and compression.

The printing press was probably – and I say probably until I can substantiate this thesis with real historical data – a qualitative leap in the history of information: it became far easier to accumulate a library, to depend on and refer to the brain-output of others, to augment one's brain by referring to knowledge outside of it. But: the information still needed to be physically there, and had to be owned. The medium of information and the content of information were identical, which had been true thereto.

As has been said in various ways, men are noisy, narrow-band devices, but their nervous systems have very many parallel and simultaneously active channels. Relative to men, computing machines are very fast and very accurate, but they are constrained to perform only one or a few elementary operations at a time. Men are flexible, capable of "programming themselves contingently" on the basis of newly received information. Computing machines are single-minded, constrained by their "pre-programming."

—J. C. R. Licklider, Man-Computer Symbiosis

A sole computer allows precise storage, accurate computation and information display; with man it enters into a symbiosis, a single man-computer superbrain. But previous tools also allowed, to an extent, a superbrain capacity. The abacus comes to mind, which allows calculations to happen significantly faster. The difference with computers is the symbiotic aspect, where there is a constant feedback loop of modification of the computer's program – or the data used by said program – by the human based on that very computer's output; a real-time, interactive system. This symbiosis, in principle, exploits the very best features of both organic and inorganic systems: human intuition's parallel, non linear nature allows unconventional connections between ideas – i.e. ingenuity – but is quite error prone; computers are rigid, “boring” and predictable, but fast in their comparatively basic (non-self-modifying and non-autonomous) capabilities.

More importantly, the networked computer represents a break in the identity of medium and content of information: a single computer's storage can be rewritten, for all intents and purposes indefinitely;⁴ one and the very same screen display thousands of books and hours of video. There is no need for physical proximity or wait times, only power and access to the network is needed, with solid state⁵ modification rather than any physical rearrangement needed on the part of the human operator. This truly paves the way for the suprabrain.