It started as a comment to Starwalker’s post but in the course of writing it gained the volume of a post. So here it is…
Though there are so many good examples (more than we commonly imagine) of intelligence which is collective, there are many counterexamples as well. When more than just a few individuals congregate (say above 10) the combined intelligence tends, more often than not, to decrease relative to the sum of individual intelligences. It seems that somewhere between 2 to 5 persons coordinating their mental and emotional states is a kind of an optimum and a limit for a full scale continuous integration. Beyond that limit, unless people are a-priori organized, the combined intelligence swiftly drops into redundant flock intelligence.
The kind of emergent collective intelligence we see in institutions, governments, corporations and armies is a result of strict hierarchy and/or imposed mechanical order made to channel and restrict the full spectrum of human intelligence and creativity at the individual level. Such order that allows the coordinated behavior of organizations and groups is either consensual or enforced by physical, psychological or economical means. Usually, the acceptance of order is a combination of consensus and submission. Indeed the web seem to represent some new options that lean towards the consensual but most of the really interesting kinds of collective intelligence emerging on the web are actually based on very (very!) simple rules of local agent behavior and communication. It is no coincidence that the most popular metaphor to these emergent patterns is flocking (coordinated movement of sardines...?). The principle common to this type of collective intelligence is that the higher levels of organization, whether designed or emergent, are based on limiting the spectrum of behaviors allowed to the lower participating levels. Beyond collectives organized according to this principle, we meet the limit mentioned above.
But why should we accept this limit? The way I envision collective intelligence it must allow, at least by potential, the full spectrum of the mental and emotional intelligent capacities of the participants; the participating agents allowed a free space of creative expression and interaction. In the light of this, I believe we haven't yet tapped into the profound potential of what one would call a many agent full blown collective intelligence as it is possible to sentient agents (human and other). At best, we have a glimpse of what it could be like when we occasionally make it work with very few participants. The kind of collective intelligence we have achieved to this day is nothing special. In fact it is ubiquitous among many social and flocking species from bacteria and other single celled agents (the cells in our body and other multi-cellular organisms), fungi, corals, plants, insects, fish, birds, primates etc. In all these cases the emergent collective patterns are grounded on very simple local procedures/behaviors. Yet even simple rules can bring forth emergent complexity which accounts for the levels of symbiosis and coordinated intelligence achieved by very primitive organisms. It seems this kind of collective intelligence is as ancient almost as life itself
Slime mold
Though there are so many good examples (more than we commonly imagine) of intelligence which is collective, there are many counterexamples as well. When more than just a few individuals congregate (say above 10) the combined intelligence tends, more often than not, to decrease relative to the sum of individual intelligences. It seems that somewhere between 2 to 5 persons coordinating their mental and emotional states is a kind of an optimum and a limit for a full scale continuous integration. Beyond that limit, unless people are a-priori organized, the combined intelligence swiftly drops into redundant flock intelligence.
The kind of emergent collective intelligence we see in institutions, governments, corporations and armies is a result of strict hierarchy and/or imposed mechanical order made to channel and restrict the full spectrum of human intelligence and creativity at the individual level. Such order that allows the coordinated behavior of organizations and groups is either consensual or enforced by physical, psychological or economical means. Usually, the acceptance of order is a combination of consensus and submission. Indeed the web seem to represent some new options that lean towards the consensual but most of the really interesting kinds of collective intelligence emerging on the web are actually based on very (very!) simple rules of local agent behavior and communication. It is no coincidence that the most popular metaphor to these emergent patterns is flocking (coordinated movement of sardines...?). The principle common to this type of collective intelligence is that the higher levels of organization, whether designed or emergent, are based on limiting the spectrum of behaviors allowed to the lower participating levels. Beyond collectives organized according to this principle, we meet the limit mentioned above.
But why should we accept this limit? The way I envision collective intelligence it must allow, at least by potential, the full spectrum of the mental and emotional intelligent capacities of the participants; the participating agents allowed a free space of creative expression and interaction. In the light of this, I believe we haven't yet tapped into the profound potential of what one would call a many agent full blown collective intelligence as it is possible to sentient agents (human and other). At best, we have a glimpse of what it could be like when we occasionally make it work with very few participants. The kind of collective intelligence we have achieved to this day is nothing special. In fact it is ubiquitous among many social and flocking species from bacteria and other single celled agents (the cells in our body and other multi-cellular organisms), fungi, corals, plants, insects, fish, birds, primates etc. In all these cases the emergent collective patterns are grounded on very simple local procedures/behaviors. Yet even simple rules can bring forth emergent complexity which accounts for the levels of symbiosis and coordinated intelligence achieved by very primitive organisms. It seems this kind of collective intelligence is as ancient almost as life itself
Slime mold
Thu, Jul 22, 2010 Permanent link
Categories: collective intelligence, freedom, Individuality
Sent to project: Polytopia
Categories: collective intelligence, freedom, Individuality
Sent to project: Polytopia
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