Homo Sapiens 2.0

How can we use information rather than be subjected to it? Does life have a digital logic? Is the internal structure of the universe made up of information? Is the Internet generating a collective brain?Ever since Homo sapiens, armed with his electronic machines, learned to unlock the secret of information and its alchemy by digitizing it, he has unleashed hyperinformation. This force is a subtle blend of matter and thought, animate and inanimate, virtual and real. For the first time in human history, technology seems to be generating a collective intelligence. Does this mean that reason is becoming truly alien to itself, potentially hostile and dangerous? Or are we witnessing the happy dawn of a new era?Homo sapiens 2.0 offers a journey into the mysteries of the human brain, the mysteries of genes and memes (their mental equivalent), and the secrets of language, religion and new technologies. From Rene Girard to Richard Dawkins, from Teilhard de Chardin to Joel de Rosnay, the author recounts the saga of thought in the age of the virtual. In-between each chapter, Interludes take us on a journey through literary works or enlightening scientific experiments. Gerard Ayache has taught communications at the University of Paris-I, worked as director of a public television channel and heads the Institut Infometrie.