planetary-brainThe Planetary Brain
/TIMELINE · 时间轴

3.5 Gyr of intelligence.

智能的三十五亿年

Every leap in intelligence has been a leap in the number of things that could talk to each other — from inside a cell to across a planet.

−3.5 Gyr
Cellular chemistry
nodes ~ 10¹⁴

Molecules learn to coordinate inside a membrane.

−600 Myr
First nervous systems
nodes ~ 10⁴

Cnidarians use electrical pulses to coordinate cells across a body.

−530 Myr
Cambrian eyes
nodes ~ 10⁶

First high-bandwidth sensors emerge — predators and prey coevolve.

−200 Kyr
Symbolic language
nodes ~ 10⁵

Two human brains can now share an internal state.

−5 Kyr
Writing
nodes ~ 10⁶

Memory survives the body that produced it.

1450
Printing press
nodes ~ 10⁷

Ideas spread faster than the population reproduces.

1844
Telegraph
nodes ~ 10⁵

Signals decouple from couriers. Continents talk in real time.

1969
ARPANET
nodes ~ 4

Packet switching makes the network a substrate, not a wire.

1993
Web
nodes ~ 10⁶

Civilization gets a shared visual interface.

2007
Smartphone
nodes ~ 10⁹

Every human pocket becomes a planetary sensor.

2017
Transformer
nodes ~

A new architecture learns from the planet's writing.

2022
Foundation-model era
nodes ~ 10¹⁰

Cognition can be rented by the second.

Now
Planetary brain emerging
nodes ~ 10¹⁰ + 10¹¹

Humans, machines, AI, sensors converge on one substrate.