Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun In the philosophy of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a state of interconnected awareness among all minds, postulated as resulting from humanity's biological and cultural evolution.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A theoretical stage of evolutionary development, associated with consciousness, the mind, and personal relationships (often with reference to the writings of Teilhard de Chardin).

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French noosphère : Greek noo-, combining form of nous, mind + Greek sphaira, sphere.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

French noösphere, from Ancient Greek νόος (noos, "mind, spirit") + Ancient Greek σφαῖρα ("ball, globe").

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Examples

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  • "A Jesuit paleontologist and philosopher by the name of Teilhard de Chardin popularized the notion of the noosphere or "sphere of human thought" back in the early 1900s. Similar to the atmosphere and biosphere, the noosphere is composed of all the interacting minds and ideas on earth. It's a provocative and romantic concept. But is the noosphere real? Or is it just a metaphor, a figure of speech for relating our experience of the physical world to the ethereal realm of knowledge?" - Peter Morville in his book Ambient Findability

    January 4, 2007

  • Also: the sci-fi term: racemind.

    February 3, 2007