Streams, Mirrors and Becoming

1) Internet = collective nervous system: OK
2) Web = collective brain: hmmm… the Web is an important part of the infrastructure of the global memory (collective brain is exagerated. It's only one of the first layers of it. Cyberspace is still in embryonic form)
3) Stream = global mind: definitely not. I understand the relation between the linearity or sequentiality of the digital stream and the linearity of the personal thought stream. But there is no “mind” without reflexivity or consciousness, and you know that. The “stream” has no reflexivity, it is not a mind, it is just the flow that will feed the future mind.
By the way, global reflexive collective intelligence needs full transparency. No global brain or global mind will be based on commercial secrets.

The reflexivity is already there – in the people themselves – who form a critical part of the Stream. The Stream is a cybernetic loop that includes people. Therefore it is effectively reflexively aware. Reflexive awareness will not come from software or machines or some kind of information, and it won't come from magical complexity either – it's already present, in us.

The global mind is a cognitive process, just like the human mind. The witness of the human mind is not “in” the mind, just as the witnesses of the collective mind (humans) are not “in” the Stream.

I agree with everything you just said, there is a misunderstanding here: I mean that there is still no “mirror” (or dynamic synthetic representation, if you want) of the global mind as such. Yes, as you say, the reflexivity will always be in the people, but the question is what is reflected? Any particular stream a is a very partial and tiny aspect of the global mind

I think about this question often too. We have several mini-mirrors already. For example, sites that reflect current trends – like Google Zeitgeist, or Technorati, or trending topics on Twitter, or services like Twitturl, Psyng, and others that map trends in real time. But those are partial views. Psyng is perhaps one of the most comprehensive, but still just a tiny slice. What would the comprehensive central mirror look like and do? Is it even possible or useful? Also – mirroring back to a user their own stream is possible, but no so useful perhaps – it seems that it would be more useful to see mirrors of others, or of large groups – views which might not be possible to know or see any other way…

I do think that mirroring back to the user (to oneself) is useful - provided that what is being mirrored back is the reflection of what one considered or planned to be the future (at a point in time) and that the mirroring happens in the “now”, when the planned future may or may not be about to bring itself into existence (to “become”, not just to “be”).

(the last paragraph is my comment)

Source: http://www.twine.com/item/128lzwnpc-5s/is-the-stream-the-next-new-metaphor - see the comments section. Paragraphs variously by Pierre Levy, Nova Spivack.