There is one sense in which people conceive of the noosphere as a futuristic planetary-scale entity of some sort—a fully functional superorganism with a global brain and collective consciousness, brought into being as the Internet evolves into an increasingly powerful and capable interconnecting force.
In another sense, however, we live in the noosphere now—though perhaps not fully functional as a global superorganism at this point. In that sense, the noosphere has been evolving for hundreds of thousands of years. It began to form — albeit at much smaller local scales — when humans first used symbolic language to communicate, and reflect on their place in the universe using symbolic thought. Whereas life’s evolution up until that point had been biologically-based — mediated through information networks of genes — human evolution became noospherically-based, mediated through cultural information networks instead.
Though she might not state it in exactly those terms, Marta Lenartowicz seems to favor the second sense. She is studying the evolution of the global brain and collective consciousness as a member of the team at the Center Leo Apostel (CLEA) for transdisciplinary studies at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Free University of Brussels), led by Francis Heylighen.
Learn more: https://humanenergy.io/marta-lenartowicz/