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: information 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 sufficiently stable to be examined and dependably stored, yet sufficiently plastic 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 accommodate new information. This results in a closed, toxic form of collective consciousness exemplified by conspiracy theories. We review the global discussion of the COVID-19 pandemic to illustrate healthy and unhealthy forms of noospheric consciousness. We then argue for the need to promote the healthy form via the modelling of the dynamics of idea propagation and the dissemination of narratives promoting open conversation.