Humans are likely to meet a dramatic evolution leap once Earth's population exceeds 10 billion, as estimated for the year 2100. This kind of evolution step will completely differ from any of the previous evolution processes on Earth, caused by different natural catastrophes, and may lead to a new era of human society and common consciousness on earth. The internet is just a small first step into this direction.
The charismatic Russian official, Professor Yuri Shankin, Lt.-General of the former KGB, and later highly honored chief executive and leading strategic thinker of FAPSI, the Russian Federal Agency for Communication and Information, devised about one decade ago the dramatic impacts of an upcoming population of more than 10 billion earthlings. I met General Shankin often in my position as president and CEO of Siemens Russia, after jointly establishing in 1993 a committee with high-ranking members of the Russian government and Siemens executive board of directors that took on responsibility for the development of the Russian digital information and communication network. We discussed in detail the impacts of a human population exceeding 10 billion, in case it will be possible to feed these people and to keep peace.
Shankin's revolutionary arguments, elaborated for the state security agency with direct reporting line to Russia's president, starts with the evolution leap that has been caused by the connections of about 10 billion cells that brought out complex life forms on earth, and further connections of 10 billion brain cells for a cerebral cortex, resulting in the development of human consciousness.
Today, our human brains have developed as many neurons as the quantity of the supposed 100 billion stars in our galaxy. Our neural connections even exceed this number by far. Having this in mind, we can easier brave the seeming cosmic infinity around us. Shankin predicted the next evolution leap, once the population on earth exceeds the critical mass of 10 billion. His outlook describes the era of a new group consciousness across all borders of states that has the potential to result in a new kind of world order that is far beyond any of today's imaginations. For the Russian president, this picture is as fascinating as it is frightening.
Shankin's considerations forced the Russian government to take serious precautions against the freedom of an unidentified use of voice and data networks and to control the information flow carefully with sophisticated algorithms and routines. The main target was the detection of intelligently hidden terroristic content and the protection against attacks. The solutions to hide hostile information in digital networks are endless. The megapixels of one lovely family photo could contain precise instructions for a terroristic network or mass exterminations. The Russian government decided to allow the continuous development of a global group consciousness via data networks, such as the internet, as long as it does not affect the integrity of the Russian state, or the Russian community spirit, or the omnipotence of the Russian president.
Sophisticated technical equipment traces suspicious activities inside and also outside of Russia. The same happens in other countries.
New official American attempts of getting hold of internet misuse and unwelcome foreign content are widely known by its abbreviations PIPA, standing for Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act, and SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act. In 2011 and 2012, PIPA and SOPA opened a wide arena of controversial public discussions, because of considerable expenses for the necessary network of agents and the holding up bureaucracy impact on existing and future internet business. But misuse and unwelcome content are not the only reasons. Any upcoming uncontrollable group awareness is in the focus, because it actually can lift illusory democracies and dictatorships of its hinges, as recently in Libya and in Egypt.
On 31 October 2011, we officially reached the 7 billion mark of human population, and there are 3 billion more necessary to pass Shankin's reported critical threshold of 10 billion. However, the prerequisite for such a new kind of group consciousness is the efficient integration of such a quantity with revolutionary innovations for a new kind of intelligence, far beyond today's simple applications of the global internet.
At the Technical University of Munich, there were already in the late 70s fascinating studies about a generation of endogenous patterns in the brains of subjects of scientific research. The brains were stimulated by electricity. The subjects reported to perceive exactly the same type of pattern, like various types of circles and squares, independently of their country of origin or language, just depending on the type of electrical stimulation. This experiment showed the possibility to generate simple forms of group consciousness by electronic means with subjects that have nothing in common, neither their culture, nor their language. The link of 10 billion people by more sophisticated intelligence has a huge potential of deep social impacts on mankind.
Despite the technological marvels of engineers, there is a chance that evolution could itself come up with biological communication organs for creatures in the far future. Is this science fiction only? Not at all, if we consider the amazing construction of an electric eel, in scientific language called electrophorus electricus. Despite its name, the electric eel is not related to true eels, but is considered to be a member of the so called neo-tropical knife fish family. This fish can be found in sludgy fresh water, low in oxygen, in northerly and middle South America, along the Amazon and the Orinoco.
It is capable of generating strong electric discharges, which it uses for both hunting and self-defense. Electric eels are astonishingly mainly air-breathers, with 80% of the oxygen taken in by surfacing and only 20% by their gills. The bio-electricity is produced by three abdominal pairs of organs: the Main organ, the Hunter's organ, and the Sachs organ. These three organs consist of reconstructed and lined up muscle-like cells called electrocytes.
The control of electrical current accumulates an electrical charge, giving this dangerous creature the ability to generate either low voltage or high voltage, just like connecting batteries in series or in parallel. Having located its prey, the fish's brain triggers an electrochemical signal and sends it through its nervous system to switch on its electric cells. This allows positively-charged sodium ions to flow through, reversing the charges momentarily. Any sudden difference in electric tension causes an electric current. 5,000 to 6,000 stacked "electroplaques" are then capable of accumulating 0.15 volts each to an electric tension up to 500 volts and 1 ampere of discharge current. The shock could be deadly for an adult human and even horses have been witnessed to drown by paralysis. Signals emitted by the Main organ and Hunter's organ can be modulated at the rates of several hundred Hertz, i.e. several hundred times per second.
Long distance radio communication and the start of an unpredictable common consciousness of a superior species could start for such types of creatures right away, just adding an innovative type of electrical high frequency organ or device. Having this in mind, large group consciousness and telepathy of humans or other life forms seems to be only a question of time:
A dramatic human evolution leap seems to be pre-programmed and may be linked to the number of at least 10 billion people on earth.