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W. Hofkirchner:
"Global Consciousness - the global brain in the perspective of a global sustainable information society";
Talk: ECCO Seminar, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (invited); 2013-11-29.

The Global Brain is the technological infrastructure for a global consciousness. In order to fulfil that function the Global Brain has to be designed in a deliberative way. The talk will focus on ICTs-and-Society research findings on the confluence of technological and social factors through Social Media and the way they interbreed for yielding emergent "socio-technical" phenomena. A distinction will be introduced between informatisation (the diffusion of any ICTs) and informationalisation (the process of raising collective intelligence). The latter is key to recognise the necessity to endow current societies with the capacity to create that knowledge that is needed to safeguard maintenance and further development against man-made system breakdowns. It forms an essential prerequisite for the survival and progress of humanity and belongs to the framework of conditions baptised by the author "Global Sustainable Information Society". Informationalisation has implications on the social information processes on the micro-level of a system where cognition and communication are located as well as on the macro-level where co-operation is concerned. Reflexivity of human actors and collectives as well needs to go beyond the restrictions imposed by the dominant competitive structure of societies and to extend to the common good of the emerging world society.

The Global Brain is the technological infrastructure for a global consciousness. In order to fulfil that function the Global Brain has to be designed in a deliberative way. The talk will focus on ICTs-and-Society research findings on the confluence of technological and social factors through Social Media and the way they interbreed for yielding emergent "socio-technical" phenomena. A distinction will be introduced between informatisation (the diffusion of any ICTs) and informationalisation (the process of raising collective intelligence). The latter is key to recognise the necessity to endow current societies with the capacity to create that knowledge that is needed to safeguard maintenance and further development against man-made system breakdowns. It forms an essential prerequisite for the survival and progress of humanity and belongs to the framework of conditions baptised by the author "Global Sustainable Information Society". Informationalisation has implications on the social information processes on the micro-level of a system where cognition and communication are located as well as on the macro-level where co-operation is concerned. Reflexivity of human actors and collectives as well needs to go beyond the restrictions imposed by the dominant competitive structure of societies and to extend to the common good of the emerging world society.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjBfRtqLeek&feature=youtu.be