This whole idea is similar to the one Robert Pirsig explored in his book Lila, the less-well-known sequel to his famous "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenan

This whole idea is similar to the one Robert Pirsig explored in his book Lila, the less-well-known sequel to his famous "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." He explored the idea of evolution at many levels for a whole chapter, pondering about how the concept of evolution has itself evolved. From pure energy, atoms "evolved" in a sense. Those atoms accumulated in a sort of physical evolution into larger bodies; stars, asteroids, and planets. Stars fused atoms into larger, more complex atoms. Planets congealed and evolved on a geologic scale, the Earth specifically forming mountains, rivers, oceans. In that form, molecules evolved further and increased in complexity and organization into amino acids, and life itself, which evolved in the sense with which we're more familiar, from single cells, to multicellular organisms, to a myriad of forms, and finally into sentient humans. The evolution, however, has not stopped as we normally assume. Instead, humans are and have been only atomic parts of the phase of evolution in which we're currently taking part, where we surpass the limits of our biology and evolve in a social way, and then a technological way, to form a being far greater than any single one of us. We are networked like a giant brain would be, we have information from the far reaches of the world at our fingertips, the ability to coordinate and execute incredible feats, and surely the ability to grow and spread and prosper as never before. This is the evolution of the universe. Each phase happens at a more and more rapid pace than the one before, and each increases in the complexity and capability of the organism as a whole. For some reason, despite entropy and the supposed tendency of the universe to randomize, it turns out it has a surprising tendency to organize in spite of itself. So yes, the city is in essence a big brain that can solve big problems. The whole world is, and all of history has been leading up to this. What will we do with it? Here are two appropriate images. 1. Neurons as compared to cities: http://laughingsquid.com/wp-content/uploads/cityneuron3.jpg http://laughingsquid.com/wp-content/uploads/cityneuron3.jpg 2. Neurons as compared to the distribution of galaxies in the universe: http://3rdeyevisionblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/neuron-galaxy.jpg http://3rdeyevisionblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/neuron-g... Take them as you will. Is it a perfect analogue? Of course not, but it is a striking fractal self-similarity that illustrates the types of structures that tend to form in the universe. Who is to say that a city is not a form of brain; or the globe, networked in much the same way? Or the universe for that matter, massive clusters connected by vast filaments of matter held together by gravity and energy itself? Each part, at every scale, centers around the transfer and storage of information. What is this thing, this universe, that has formed these patterns at so many levels? It's fun to think about.