What I like about the universal c...onsciousness things - the
  gaia mind - is it explains a lot of world history. Perhaps the
  mechanisms used by the world mind is due to commerce (chinese
  ships trading spices with ancient greece, bringing the idea of
  the Tao to Plato (as the Tao and Plato's "Word" are very nearly
  identical concepts and they sprung up within the same generation
  of people geographically separated by thousands of miles - about
  500 BC))"