Collective Consciousness Supported by the Web: healthy or toxic?

We define the noosphere as the conscious level of the web, where global conversations are being held about collective challenges. To understand its dynamics, we review three neuroscientific theories of consciousness: in-formation integration, adaptive resonance, and global workspace. These suggest that conscious thoughts are characterized by a “resonant”, self-maintaining pattern of circulating information. This pattern should be suffi-ciently stable to be examined and dependably stored, yet sufficiently plas-tic to adapt to new input. The self-organizing dynamics of ideas circulating on the web, however, may settle in an attractor that is too resistant to ac-commodate new information. This results in a closed, toxic form of collec-tive consciousness exemplified by conspiracy theories. We review the global discussion of the COVID-19 pandemic to illustrate healthy and un-healthy forms of noospheric consciousness. We then argue for the need to promote the healthy form via the modelling of the dynamics of idea propa-gation and the dissemination of narratives promoting open conversation.