I would be willing to accept Twitter as a brain in the circumstance where it acts as the “head” of the organism. I think that, if you consider the Twitter community as the start and end of the being, it could in fact act as both brain and nervous system. Our analogies really only differ in the placement of the neurons. And, in the context of this metaorganism, perhaps there is no distinction between the two structures; that may very well be a chiefly-biological phenomenon.
However, when one includes those outside of the Twitter community as part of the system, then it seems more peripheral than central in nature, to me at least, because many groups of people/body regions remain relatively unaffected by it. This would be those whose lives have yet to intertwine with the Internet on the same level as the rest of us, be it by choice or incidence.
Granted, the number of these people is rapidly shrinking. As the network grows, the uninitiated (typified by but not limited to the previous generation) will either be subsumed or fall by the wayside. Not that this is an inimical evolution, but as with all adaptations, certain traits are favored over others. On that note, I love Pat’s idea of a “digital survival”—I have a feeling this will become the new rubric for people’s lives going forward. In essence, the digital revolution is causing us to “start over” as a species—we haven’t relinquished any previous accomplishments, but by becoming a new being we are essentially perpetuating the cycle of life. Think of what this could mean not only for our future, but our history. If the components that make up humans were formed in the same fashion that we are now forming something else, we could very well witness and record a macroevolution for the first time.
I have more comments concerning free time and generalization, but I will save those for another post (or two).
There will be no separation between Facebook and Friendfeed and Twitter.
It's in our interests to let people share. Twitter has had a lot of success in letting people taking their data and sharing it externally.
We'd love to be able to let people tap into that.
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