Book Review: Wired for Thought

Here's my latest book review for Wired for Thought: How the Brain is Shaping the Future of the Internet by Jeffrey M. Stibel (@Stibel). Let me share some thoughts about this extraordinary book.

Brain scientist and Internet entrepreneur Jeffrey M. Stibel (@Stibel) presents a provoking hypothesis: “The Internet is a brain. By this I mean that the Internet is more than a reflection of intelligence; it actually manifests intelligence.”

What the book is not

Wired for Thought is neither a grand unifying theory nor a comprehensive explanation of everything you need to know. Not with respect to the Internet and not with respect to the brain. Stibel (@Stibel) eloquently connects some of the dots that form his seemingly far-fetched hypothesis. Yet, there are too many dots for a book with roughly 200 pages and the interested reader is left with many unanswered questions. Indeed, Wired for Thought is not the holy book of the Internet, yet it is inspiring – tremendously inspiring.

“The Internet is a brain”

Let me give you one example, inspired by Jeff Stibel’s (@Stibel) book, which will show you how the Internet is like a brain. Consider the words apple, mobile and cell...

If you are now thinking of the iPhone you mastered a task that is too hard for most computers. You realized that apple refers to a company rather than a fruit and mobile and cell are short forms of mobile phone and cell phone, respectively. What happens in your brain is that a set of neurons is activated and this set of neurons is connected to the set of neurons representing the idea of the iPhone. Consequently, these neurons are activated too and you come to think of iPhone. That sort of intelligence is what makes us intelligent and computers – well, computers.

Entry of the Internet: The Internet has that form of intelligence. If you follow hyperlinks containing apple, mobile and cell you will eventually hit a website with information on the iPhone. Advanced search algorithms are even able to recognize that you might be looking for an iPhone by crawling through the pattern of hyperlinks. These hyperlinks are the dendrites of the Internet and the websites are its neurons. The structure of the Internet eventually resembles the structure of the brain.

Are we doomed?

OK, the Internet is a brain. Are we doomed? Will it hook our brains up to machines and create a matrix-type of future? Fortunately not. But Stibel’s (@Stibel) book does provide us with some insight about the evolvement of the Internet, its strengths, weaknesses and its eventual limits. While I cannot write about all of these insights here I have discussed the limits to network growth in an earlier blogpost. If this does not satisfy you, get the book! It is a great read and definitely worth your time!

Currently I am reading Brainsteering: A better approach to breakthrough ideas by Kevin P. Coyne and Shawn T. Coyne. Follow me on Twitter to get the news about the book review!