Noosphere

Noosphere is a term invented by Pierre Tielhard de Chardin, a french Jesuit born in 1881 who studied science. He was a paleontologist and discovered the Peking Man, the so-called synantropus pekinensis. De Chardin was also known as a mystic. Science and religion was for him two perspectives of the same goal: understanding the universe. Some church officials didn’t like his ideas and tried to prevent him to spread his thoughts. For example, he believed in the evolution of human from apes. This idea was controversial for a Jesuit. His principal theory was that evolution is not random but it has a goal fixed by god.

For him, evolution is not only ruled by natural selection where only the fittest stay alive. Evolution is for him a progression in complexity and consciousness independently of the environment because the environment depend of the evolution of the organism living in it (it is a whole). The first evolution step was non biological (mineral), then biological cells appeared with increasing complexity. It was followed by living organism composed of multiple organized cells (plants), then more complex organisms appeared (animals). In the same time, the environment become more and more complex. After these steps, a new kind of life appeared, the self conscious one, represented by humans. These new kind of life created what De Chardin call the “Noosphere”. The sphere of thoughts.

In fact, each of the evolution step is characterized by a sphere of existence. First, the lithosphere, the hydrosphere and the atmosphere represent the birth of the Earth, then comes the biosphere representing the life and finally the noosphere which represent the self-consciousness. The noosphere is composed of the thoughts, it is a system of thoughts. The biosphere is the biological system present on Earth. It represents the interaction between all the living organism (the food chain). Comparatively, the noosphere represents the system of thoughts and the interaction between these thoughts. Politics, Internet, wars, ideologies are concept of interaction inside the noosphere. According to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the noosphere will enter in what he called the Omega point, where the noosphere will become One. It could be compared as god. All the thoughts will work together to perform the ultimate goal of evolution: god itself.