In the phenomenon of man, written in 1938, the idealist philosopher and Jesuit priest,

Pierre Tielhard de Chardonn, makes the claim that evolution is a process that gives rise

to increasingly complex organisms which in turn leads to expanded consciousness.

At the book's core is the theory that as humans evolve and society becomes more elaborate,

a collective space is formed that allows us to hold and share our ideas in order to

better communicate with one another.

Although an abstraction, Tielhard de Chardonn imagined this thinking layer as he called it,

much like the atmosphere and the biosphere to be as integral and real as any material

aspect of the planet.

Borrowing a term from the pioneering biochemist Vladimir Varnatsky, Tielhard de Chardonn

called this space the newosphere, taken from the Greek, newsp, meaning mind.

He believed that through this organised web of thought as he termed it, our disparate

cultural knowledge and perspectives would become so diffused and universally understood

that they would effectively converge into one singular point of human awareness.

In late October 1969, in the University of California's computer lab, 21-year-old

UCLA student and programmer Charlie Klein sat on the phone in front of a keyboard, connected

to a computer so large it would barely fit inside a garage.

Shortly before 9.30pm, Klein pressed the letter L on the keyboard and waited.

A moment later, the voice of fellow programmer Bill Duval came down the line from his base

at the Stanford Research Institute, letting Klein know that the L had been received.

Next, Klein typed the letter O. After a moment's pause, Bill came back on the line to confirm

that it too had been received.

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