Wired for Thought

INTRODUCTION

The Internet Is a Brain

IN THE HISTORY OF LIVING THINGS, our species is unique in having invented devices that leverage and extend the powers of our own bodies. We have forged swords to extend the length and power of our arms; telescopes and cameras to extend the power of our eyes; artificial hearts to mimic the organic pumps that beat in our chests. We have come to understand that the human body can be reverse engineered. As Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker has said, “We understand the body as a wonderfully complex machine . . . The stuff of life turns out to be not a quivering, glowing, wondrous gel but a contraption of tiny jigs, springs, hinges, rods, sheets, magnets, zippers and trapdoors, assembled by a data tape (DNA) whose ...