Editing World Brain (section)

==== World Wide Web as a World Brain ====
{{Main|World Wide Web}}

[[Brian R. Gaines]] in his 1996 paper "Convergence to the Information Highway" saw the [[World Wide Web]] as an extension of Wells's "World Brain" that individuals can access using personal computers.<ref>{{Cite conference | first = Brian R. | last = Gaines | author-link = Brian R. Gaines | title = Convergence to the Information Highway| book-title = Proceedings of the WebNet Conference| year = 1996| location = San Francisco| url = http://algo.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/bibliothek/proceedings/webnet96/Html/KGaines/Gaines.htm| access-date = 7 November 2009}}</ref> In papers published in 1996 and 1997 (that did not cite Wells), [[Francis Heylighen]] and [[Ben Goertzel]] envisaged the further development of the World Wide Web into a [[global brain]], i.e. an intelligent network of people and computers at the planetary level.<ref name=Rayward/>{{rp|558}} The difference between "global brain" and "world brain" is that the latter, as envisaged by Wells, is centrally controlled,<ref name=Rayward/> while the former is fully decentralised and [[self-organization|self-organizing]].

In 2001, Doug Schuler, a professor at [[Evergreen State University]], proposed a worldwide [[civic intelligence]] network as the fulfillment of Wells's world brain. As examples he cited [[Sustainable Seattle]] and the "Technology Healthy City" project in Seattle.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Schuler |first=Doug |date=January 2001 |title=Cultivating society's civic intelligence: patterns for a new 'World Brain' |publisher=Information, Communication & Society |volume=4 |issue=2 |pages=157–181 |doi=10.1080/13691180122844 |s2cid=214651651 |url=https://www.academia.edu/2518107}}</ref>