The Mideast Protests, Social Networks & the Global Brain

The future of the Middle East looks like a race between the mullahs and the iPad—and despite recent setbacks, social networks are rewiring our brains to topple traditional barriers, says Deepak Chopra, author of God: A Story of Revelation.

 

There’s a fascinating connection between the social network and where the human brain is going. For a long time, neuroscience held a wrong belief—several, actually—about the brain. The number of brain cells we have was seen as a fixed number that declined over time. No one realized that stem cells in the brain can renew lost neurons at any time of life. But the most exciting discovery was that everyday experience rewires the brain.

Even though it looks like a thing, your brain is a process. It is always in a state of dynamic flux. New connections and new cells are being born, and as the rewiring occurs, something astonishing happens. Your personal reality changes. The brain processes reality, and when new pathways are formed, the world becomes different.

We are witnessing a global test of this thesis in the Middle East. The future there seems to be a race between the mullahs and the iPad, between sermons in the mosque and tweets on a smartphone. After the Bush administration’s disastrous invasion of Iraq, the number of cellphones in that country exploded, even amid social collapse. Young people desperate to be part of the wider world started expressing their yearning through social networks. Tweets and texts were critical during the Arab Spring, especially in getting large numbers of protesters to gather in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

When the moderate, progressive elements in Egypt lost to the Muslim Brotherhood, it seemed like a huge setback for social networks and a massive victory for the mullahs. Yet the long view is far more hopeful. Millions of tweets, texts, emails, and phone calls have one thing in common: they are neural signals in the global brain. A cabdriver talking all day on his cellphone in Manhattan is weaving himself into the society back home, and the more he communicates, the stronger the neural pathway he is creating.

Silent opposition brought down the Berlin Wall because consciousness, although invisible, is incredibly powerful. Social networks have the capacity to swiftly alter the global brain. On the surface, most tweets are small passing events. But stand back a bit, and you see that a new identity is being formed, a global “we” that anyone can participate in. This newly shaped global brain can topple the traditional barriers of religion, tribalism, nationalism, and political oppression.

Before the social network, think of what it took to escape the mindset of a repressed culture. You had to physically move away, plant yourself in a foreign country, and probably continue to fear for your relatives stuck back home. Now, in the darkest hours of Syrian resistance, as in Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt, anyone can send and receive messages from the global brain. As this stream of messages continues, it reshapes the individual brain, too.

What I’m saying isn’t mystical or hypothetical. The destiny of the whole planet depends on reaching beyond the narrow interests of rich nations and multinational corporations. A community of humanity needs to be formed. It’s completely possible for that to happen. In fragile, hopeful ways, it already has.

Pakistan test fires Hatf-VII Babur cruise missile

Babur cruise missile is low-flying, terrain-hugging missile, which can strike targets at land and sea.

RAWALPINDI: Pakistan conducted a successful test fire of the indigenously developed multi-tube cruise missile Hatf-VII (Babur), having a range of 700 kilometers, Inter-Services Public Relations said in a statement on Monday.

Babur cruise missile is a low-flying, terrain-hugging missile, which can strike targets both at land and sea with pin-point accuracy, the statement added.

According to ISPR, the missile carries stealth features – equipped with modern cruise missile technology of Terrain Contour Matching (TERCOM) and Digital Scene Matching and Area Co-relation (DSMAC). It can carry both nuclear and conventional warheads.

The missile was launched from a state-of-the-art Multi Tube Missile Launch Vehicle (MLV), which enhances the targeting and deployment options of Babur Weapon system.

The test was witnessed by Director-General Strategic Plans Division Lieutunent General (retd) Khalid Ahmed Kidwai, Chairman National Engineering and Scientific Commission (Nescom) Muhammad Irfan Burney, senior officers from the armed forces and strategic organisations.

In today’s test, National Command Authority’s fully automated Strategic Command and Control Support System (SCCSS) was once again employed. It enables robust command and control capability of all strategic assets with round the clock situational awareness in a digitised network centric environment to decision makers at National Command Centre (NCC).

The system has the added capability of real-time remote monitoring of missile flight path. The test consolidates and strengthens Pakistan’s deterrence capability and national security.

The successful test has also been appreciated by the President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf and chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, who congratulated the scientists and engineers on their success.

Indian ministries at odds on Pakistan ties

NEW DELHI  - Indian National Security Adviser (NSA) Shivshankar Menon has briefed Indian diplomats that India may have a record number of terrorist infiltrations from Pakistan.

Briefing Indian Heads of Missions (HoMs) here, Menon told them that terrorism from Pakistan was a never-ending affair, but despite this, India needed to engage with different quarters in that country, even as New Delhi enhances its own security proactively.

The NSA’s assessment of Pakistan matched the Home Ministry’s briefing to Indian diplomats. But these were at variance with the Ministry of External Affairs take on India’s ties with Pakistan.  Foreign Minister SM Krishna gave a fairly positive spin to the Pakistan relationship, describing it as a “democracy”.

Giving an account of his recent visit to Islamabad for talks with his counterpart Hina Rabbani Khar, Krishna felt a new atmosphere in Pakistan and is confident that the relationship was on the upswing. Pakistan, he said, wanted to take steps forward.

On the question of whether the powerful ISI and Pakistani Army was on the same page as the civilian government there, Krishna said, he believed that if the civilians were moving forward with India it would have the “blessings” of the military.

But these were very different from Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde’s assessment. In his speech to the diplomats, Shinde explained the different ways in which Pakistan continued to foment terrorism inside India.

Analysts said the diplomats listening to the top levels of policymaking in the government would be forgiven for believing that the establishment was speaking in different voices.

But though there is almost no one willing to bet that Pakistan had given up terrorism against India, there is an understanding that India needed to engage with some of the main players in Pakistan.