Link to latest version: https://steffen-roth.ch/2017/02/27/sneak-preview-a-global-brain-wave-measurement/ 1 Futures of a distributed memory. A global brain wave measurement (1800-2000) Accepted for publication in Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 10.1016/j.techfore.2017.02.031 Steffen Roth, La Rochelle Business School, France* Carlton Clark, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, USA Nikolay Trofimov, Russian Academy of Science, Russia Artur Mkrtchyan, Yerevan State University, Armenia Markus Heidingsfelder, Habib University, Pakistan Laura Appignanesi, University of Macerata, Italy Miguel Pérez-Valls, University of Alméria, Spain Jan Berkel, Independent, Portugal Jari Kaivo-oja, Turku School of Economics, Finland *Corresponding author: roths@esc-larochelle.fr Abstract If the global brain is a suitable model of the future information society, then one future of research in this global brain will be in its past, which is its distributed memory. In this paper, we draw on Francis Heylighen, Marta Lenartowicz, and Niklas Luhmann to show that future research in this global brain will have to reclaim classical theories of social differentiation in general and theories of functional differentiation in particular to develop higher resolution images of this brain’s function and sub-functions. This claim is corroborated by a brain wave measurement of a considerable section of the global brain. We used the Google Ngram Viewer, an online graphing tool which charts annual counts of words or sentences as found in the largest available corpus of digitalized books, to analyse word frequency time-series plots of key concepts of social differentiation in the English as well as in the Spanish, French, German, Russian, and Italian sub-corpora between 1800 and 2000. The results of this socioencephalography suggest that the global brain’s memory recalls distinct and not yet fully conscious biases to particular sub-functions, which are furthermore not in line with popular trend statements and self-descriptions of modern societies. We speculate that an increasingly intelligent global brain will start to critically reflect upon these biases and learn how to anticipate or even design its own desired futures. Keywords Global brain; Google Ngram Viewer; culturomics; secularization; capitalism; functional differentiation. 1 Introduction As researchers in technological and social change, we want to track and trace significant trends in past and future societies. One such trend is secularization, the declining importance of religion, which is so important to the self-concept of modern societies that the mere thought of a trend reversal brings back memories of the Middle Age. Another widely recognized trend is the growing influence or even dominance of the economy in our societies today. There is also discussion on further and sometimes competing trends, which include the prominent idea of an information society dominated by the mass media system. Yet another stable trend is that these and similar trends have been assumed and implied rather than studied so far, which constitutes a third order risk (Godet 1986) whenever we extrapolate the trend truisms into the future, thus using the right tools to meet the wrong expectations. Most of us