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2. 4. 2010 Energy & Development 11 | I. 1. 2007 Death Penalty Challenges Facing Humanity 5| II . As well as the proportions. colour of eyes. 1. The concept of the ‘ideal image’ of the Buddha emerged during the Golden Age of Gupta rule. STEELE ù Applied Collective Intelligence: Human-centric Holistic Analytics. ORG / PUBLICATIONS Collective Intelligence 1| I. 2011 Indigenous Culture & Development 14 | III .0 Affair Evolution of Self and Culture 127 ROBERT D.TERRI O’FALLON ~ ~ P| baCK  NuMbErs VENITA RAMIREZ 91 G EOF F F ITC H SPANDA . 1. 10 | I. 2007 Gender Intelligence: Solving the Grand 4| I. 2007 Water-Wise The Applied Science of Collective 3| I. GAGADEAN SYSTEMIC CHANGE Awakening Collective Global Intelligence: ù the Power of Deep Dialogue 149 AMIT GOSWAMI Love and the Awakening of the Heart Centre ARTHUR COLMAN ~ PILAR MONTERO 155 All works of art reproduced in this issue. 15 | IV. from the 4th to 6th century. 2014 Collective Intelligence 97 NORMAN L EE JOHNS ON 109 JIM ROUGH & Environment The Circle: Sructuring for Collective Intelligence 115 ADEBAYO AKOMOLAFE The Trees Still Speak: the Collective Intelligence of the Natural World 119 C RAIG HAIL TON Collective Intelligence and the 1. 2009 Human Rights & Security 1. 3. 2. 2007 Multicultural Youth 2| I. an eighteenth-century pattern book consisting of 34 ink drawings showing precise iconometric guidelines for depicting the Buddha and Bodhisattva figures. Africa 7| II . are from The Tibetan Book of Proportions. 2014 Innovation & Human Development 17 | V. 2008 Indigenous Knowledge (IK) 8| II . the book was apparently produced in Nepal for use in Tibet. 2008 Consciousness & Development 9| III . R| NExT issuE True Cost Economics and Open Everything 139 ASH OK K. Written in Newari script with Tibetan numerals. 2012 Consciousness & Development 2. 2. 4. 2010 Microfinance 12 | II. 1. 2. direction of hairs – became very important. 1. 2008 Education & Development. unless otherwise specified. A Clima(c)tic Perspective 6 II . 1. 2013 Anarchy & Nonprofit. 3. 2. The New Longevity absTraCTs :: suMMariEs 165 ù ù C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | C O N T E N T | I I I . other aspects of the depiction – such as number of teeth. 2008 Hunger. An Emerging 16 | V. 2011 The Placebo Effect 13 | II.

.LORO BLONYO T H E C O M P L E M E N T A R Y P R I N CI P L E S D E P I C T E D A S A B R I D A L C O U P L E . X V I I C E N T U RY . J O G Y A K A R T A .

Sacred times are givI much look forward liaising with you. ci is the energetic nettinct identities of the polarities. it is Sophia perennis? Sophia sophia or Sophia naturata? not time to master us. not ones. dining at the table of life. ahead of the dichotomy of the principle of identity splitting the self from the other. as e Sun shattered all clouds to fire up the flight. an idea composed of ideas.EDITORIAL Mesoter i c & collect i intelli gence v e ser endipity Nature loves to hide. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | V . e relationis indeed insane. transforming inner conflicts does impact presents into this one. while a chasm. right in between the complementary. Sophia sophia or records of its own becoming. gy through them and throughout the whole network. and in their absence. ships between individuals are actually what really I couldn’t wait any longer to anchor my broken feelings to count most: for. what really matter are not the disfrom the mesoteric standpoint. at the end of the day individuals a longing beyond despair. it is ‘an’ the mesoteric realm. rather because it is self-determaterial locution should be turned into a [+] sign mined. allowing the flow of a highly creative enering. ing way to self-reflections in maya’s mirror: a Yet. de towards a sustainable pace. an opening up of a fresh narration. a complereleasing individual contradictions is the sole means to mentary wind (rūh-illofi) shuffles all impossible solve dispute. shifting into its new the contentious human madness of war. collective intelligence (ci) quo alias. the first of all the invisibles idea. aNoNiMouS [Even god finds it hard to love and be wise at once]. When implies a hierarchy of argumenspleen. but is we who got to master again an epistemological break. not vanish when friends and lovers are no longer at sight. not confined to their of the hyphenic relation allowing their crossflowsubsistence. the timeless realm clear of you and me. a soul. what really matter are not the individual the pla S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . folly as it is made up of a number of simple ‘individuals’ eye witnessing the hidden to the one-sighted. here the conceptual matter takes another turn: lahir and batin you-Me is no longer a whole when dashed apart by the are coupling in the very middle of the mesoteric domain of time. is the first step ontological dimension: the mesoteric realm. e timespace continuum foreshadows the and spiritual-material dimension by emerging right in As I got your message between the pair complementing each other. indeed the hyphen [-] uniting the spiritualin that is undetermined. individual entities are certainly important. visible presence of each and of all. its action is free. as yeast catalysing fermentation. that hyphen (-) uniting and relating their meanI knew the bond is strong and does not fail. has certainly an apotropaic function on this collective we are gracing with presence what is not here. time. Or a strength in disguise? and matter and spirit are crossfading. hEracliTuS Amare et sapere vix deo conceditur. friendship and love do Adagio cantabile ~ Impetuoso e con brio. rather the quality work uniting individual entities. indeed Kronos & Sophia are resting on the sofa. Everything will perish. it determines human dimension. a power? When time fades into space and space into time. more so are the relations uniting them in that subtle vibrational field of the Self. kūn) to re-absorb both polarities. an ontological shift. for entities sharing their content to one another in a certain only the inner eye confers a visual connotation to and definite fashion. ci does not hold ‘ideas’. loosely time is a refined device of the thinking mind to keep engaged in co-creating Natura2. the real affair is indeed their mutual exchange. we still love them and sense their friendcebo effect oN huMaN collEcTivE folly ship even once they are departed. but even here too. banqueting at the very centre of the real tation on the linear progression of time. who are you? master illusion looking into its own becoming Why on my way? with an avid gaze (tehôrein) mirrored further and Which way is this to keep apart the yearning for reunification? farther in time and space. a mental construct. while the quality of their relations that split human dimension. Unity was not achievable in will perish. to signify the command (‘amr. but its face1. A muse. union is only possible in the will stay. ings on the cognitive plane.

which will fade away. abreast of its paradoxical standdiffering in gradation. wherein individual and collective intelligence aware of the behaviour of the left hand? Both become one. human nature is Oh! that meso spell! called to make the uncaused decision to bent to Endlessly flip-flopping between two states: one side only. neither the fourth whole from the integral whole. catalyzing the whole is merely a marginal outcome of human connetwork. connective and collective intelliism. is the right hand way5. the élan. cles. munity. is actually what makes the inertial motion consciously participating in it. the ass to starve to death. separated as in simple organism. leaving no debris behind. these actions have farr (xᵛarənah). but the energetic interdecision to live. energetic relational network connecting all units. here presence analogy of this process can be noticed. combined wisdom. within this perspective. unable to settle into neilife and death. their proceeding ing and self-contraction. in the transmutation3 no more vikarma to be mended.but rather the fifth stage of human developaware of being an element of the human body? is it ment. logoi spermatikoi are seeds mining. the global human words to crack the soul’s code: the mesoteric intelligence behaviour. constantly flip-flopis the time of revelation. Maya is lastly of the human consciousness from the individual to ripped of its veil. an equivalent plastic while giving shape to the universe. in its destructive creation. further. vegetal and Being awake to both the process and the state. at this collective brain. less experience of the self and the other at once. between the two. it takes the signature of a rudimentary aware of being a sentient being devoid of time. collective intelligence enlightenment. devoid of any Between being and not being ideological bearing and of any cognitive limitation. and individuals. to a certain degree. the collective level. of the meso state. Defiindividual awareness of a single constituent of a nitely this is nor the ascetic path. e time of secrets. overruling their single behaviour to it prompts a state of grace and despair. dencies in a state of tensed simultaneity. dimensional awareness. from the subatomic layer to the biosphere tier. globalisation is fuelling the collective intelligence. part and particle of the biosphere ness was once named active contemplation. in this new phase of pulling and sharing knowlsciousness shifting to its next state – ‘next’ in the edge nobody holds the copyright on the primal energy. of the collective timether of them within the lifespan duration.entities. that invisible network conditions while keeping the helm well firm in the emerging from and informing their connectedness by middle. in (shc’himah). this between the two polarities. reconciliation of compleherd of land animals that propagate their kinetic wave as mentary within the human experience are shapa single organism. the conatus. partiimmersed in the enduring perception of dharma. collecfor the human ontological placement is surely in tive intelligence is made up of one and the same energy. to a subtler frequency. temporal measure of course – transmuting into open source access is granted to the entire intelligible its glocal. transcencolonies of honeybees holding an endogen teleological dence and immanence converge in a single act of awareness aimed at the well being of the whole comcollective serendipedity. where the Self is both itself and complex entities. actions are the golden letters of the new discourse being sentient? at the present. of inhaling and exhaling and trend as a group and a species. unless to act in an unpredictable Between you and me. of longdetermine their collective performance. the time But which is the import of ci on this Buridan’ass? of yesterday and tomorrow. without renouncing the world. to a higher order. To be able to manage both sides at once is a characteristic of the crisis of our time. spiritual-material dimension right in spectrum. shoaling of fish. [it is certainly hard to discern the endowed as they are with majesty and glory4. is the biosphere aware of time. of disclosures. the time of notime. not in conflict. the entelechy Beyond the limbus of eternity ingrained in the nature of its manifested ends. manner. makes You and me are one. yet of the same order. for instance. evolving ing keeping together the two complementing tenand enhancing its vibrational awareness from a grosser. Placed at the same distance from two equally e mesoteric time: attractive bundles of reality. swarming of insects. Mindfulof the whole. of the unveiling of ping between the two. at this juncture. and. animal realms. yet in reciprocity. of concealments is over. in the subatomic. the will. a higher and differentiated gradation ing up the collective consciousness and the world of this process is observed in the eusocial behaviour of at once. collective intelliin which the human networking are as the synapses of a gence is becoming aware of being a sovra-organglobal collaborative. and clean actions are performed devoid polarities are governed by the holistic intelligence of self-interest for the common well-being. is constant strain between the two relations binding them together. Before skewing into this unflated dimension. or to cast the improbable E D I T O R I A L | S A H L A N M O M O | C O L L E C T I V E S T U P I D I T Y | V I . as in high and united at once. a network connecting individuals and detergence system. increasing at every new stage its and the other. and the time of today. flocking starlings.

at turn. but belonging to their meaning7. but rather that And to be me. for. when Krishna and arjuna are but one and values unconcerned of any aesthetical plight. S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . where are you? Surfing the invisible light: ere is no way ahead but in the burrows of hisTo be. transmuting onto a and empowering conscious creative acts. e blinking ness. governs all the issuing physical laws of this dramatic I’m happy in hearing that your are growing inside-out squandered dimension. and from any other outer dimenthought that in the course of time have utterly changed sion of human consciousness. knowledge/creative imagination of the mundus undercovered as a garment of light. if your phone doesn’t ring. Life is unfolding as a vintage sole. e thinking mind plane. it’s me… I lost my teeth in biting reality until its very end. humans are nothing but spiritual thinking mind – a shortcoming very helpful in the beings embodied in the space-time continuum. attuned to ing from both the collective unconscious holder buddhity. but nowascaffold is seldom a great solution. this point. torical time. Eternal is what cannot be explained by durafrom an individual to a collective state of conscioustion. it advocates a conceptual scaffolding individually since antiquity by all seekers when on which to stand. co-creating and expanding the manifestation. briefly shaping the emerging polarities unto their next is amount to say that to conceive and perceive stage. Live-streaming my voice beyond the ocean. vivifying and bending the course of time to a track yet between entities. humans are revivifying all subtle that inner condition connecting by its axis mundi channels to enliven the sparkling splendour of their all intelligences and states through their centres. way-out of the karmic condition. moving process. Detachment is e distinctiveness of our time[s] is the awakennot to own anything. headed to timeless dimension. the drive attracting humanity perception of the time and timeless dimension does beyond duality is seemingly pointing to an even furnot take apart an event form another. giving new meaning to old seems to partake of a supra conscious state. a way is attainable once the twofold perception is embraced by unity. blade in a divided state. plain unification does not expire. differworlds. Did you catch me by surprise? Yes and No. if you don’t get any email. if your heart doesn’t stop. I hope you are doing fine and that life is really suiting Beware: you as an old glove. the ethical drive the brighter is beauty – at times. ther state of consciousness in which also this ultimate events are really synchronic. but still dealing with old categories of of archetypes. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | V I I .Our élan does not rest at death. ci further ontological plane. in contrast to plain imagination. but is the work of the intuitive wisdom and knowledge enthroned in the pinnacle. in point of facts. things sub species aeternitas is not possible by the Sophia precedes Knowledge while yggdrasil is reversed: thinking mind. even the clearest of mind wishes to be blurred. at crystal body8. is does not mean that there is no To be you. it correlates and time and again raising a dusty spell in the eyes. temhistorical narration otherwise undoable in the porarily abiding to their developmental stage. So. Being partially subject to time. e higher the same as the chariot. gripping establishes pivotal liaisons on the collective plane to a grimy vision in search of light. a clear sign duration and eternity have always obsessed the human that the collective intelligence is at work training community writing history on a devastated planet at the and transmuting humankind to its next ontological periphery of this minute galaxy. tell me. they happen at once rite of passage to a collective and conscious intellibut are perceived asynchronously within the time gence is becoming obsolete. a state of undifferentiated unity attained frames perception. rather than nothing own us. it inspires new life within a imagination does not need any relational link life. it’s me… Comfortable in your skin. and now? I’m the invisible all-pervading present Where are you? Chatting within the old god-father. creative imagination as well to be defined – it’s hard to ride the tiger on a razor does not claim any relation between entities but. yet duration is an extension of time. we the people are catalysed by the collective intelligence co-creating leaping to another order of things. e endless orgasm of imaginalis6. Dissatisfaction and days changing its modality of manifestation by takcuriositas are the first symptom of any innovative ing shape as a collective experiential action. it’s me. here. new life to things yet to happen. flip-flopping as an old slipper. even knowing that holding to a their consciousness transcended polarity. with the self leading the wordsmithery and literary daring are grounded is ethical path. constrain because of the dual modality of the in the last analysis. in reality. dharma presides over ci that. ing of consciousness at collective level. Time.

resiliently shaping a new world. and not even an Conference. I’m happy in hearing you had a deep and meaningful romance with your friend and explored new approaches As always. (wilāyats) of god. with your travelling companion of old. the radiance of god essence (dhāt) that shins withyet. corbin. while corbin and Swedenborg maintain the mundus imaginalis (‘alam al-mithal. to be held in Santa Clara. 2. flip-flopping reality like madness. I spent my whole life among words and deeds 7 ~ Muhammad. whatevthe first of the nine anwār. as an energetic exchange from one state of (subtle) matter to another of a Ciao musa. De Marginis Sophia. this is just a an attempt to explain 3 ~ Awwal. I’m you. by the commedia dell’arte. are: scholarship. quest. and of its contextual transcription. and with hard work and discipline. —————— I’m happy in seeing the invisible art of your coupling gait.Worth of attention is also the Collective Intelligence where division is no longer a treat. enjoy the issue. where the essence er the fundamental nature of the collective intelli(dhāt) emerges. the world of possibilities of advancement into the experiential pure souls. the lective intelligence cannot be explained. any operative steps emanation of the creation. tion. is marred by unavoidable in the sūfi ismaili cosmogony (Cf. impressed upon the forehead of adam (fore-head). is meant an evolutionary passage on the same that might well be an unserviceable witness in courts of referential plane. in corbin) as an ultimate homogenous realm. E D I T O R I A L | S A H L A N M O M O | C O L L E C T I V E S T U P I D I T Y | V I I I . the name given in anāthi. 5 ~ Anna. to love and sexuality9 and. but at time does it not. all beginningless beginning of nūr (the invisible divine realm. Cf. the “middle council” (diāvn al-mithal). (Princeton: Princeton uP. the primal Being. the face is the mask. a quantum entanglement in the self in which all complementary converge to keep the equilibrium of the whole system. as one of the nine aspects of Muhammad god’s radiance. (rome-New them into a novel being. light rays of god. I still love you… different order. Swedenborg. e Arcana Coelestia (New york: Swedenborg foundation. rather. ouspensky. law but a very truthful beholder of a culture no longer Cf. god’s resplendent light. various dates). in that 4 ~ Hayāt.D. that you feel free in sharing your feelings 8 with me. I. . it combines the cause with its consequences. USA. Transmutation is taken. as pro1. e Fourth Way: A Record of Talks and I’m not me. analysing and depicting its manifestations and its various angles from differing standpoints – some may appear off-topic. Inspiration flows naturally. for instance. from the simple and undifferannotations could be propounded in the light of later entiated to the differentiated and complex. 2 I’m collecting the debris of my shattered world to mend S. the food and nourishment for each life. as necessarily rests on the cognitive limitations Time becomes here a sub-function of life. wisdom. I’m you. instead. 1 and 3. May 31 – June 2. P. the arabic nūr (pl. Momo. however. and E. CA. motivating. the beauty of the qualities and actions of the powers conveying their subtle vibrational meaning. thank you. the unmanifest. especially. this account is not to suggest that col1 ~ Anāhti. (london: routledge & Kegan. perfect. hic et passim. 2 ~ Athi. (london: routledge & Kegan. the manifested. Gurdjieff. but the third is the one that matter most: import. spinning as a fool on my toe: in the resplendence Truth. as in Nūr marginalizing the invisible. still I’m here. we identify a further differentiation in its propulsive pulsating nucleolus. york: Semar. Answers to Questions Based on the Teaching of G. Cf. the inner heart. Sophia. as such. in that it shows that 6 ~ Ahamad. Creative Imagination in the Sūfism of Ibn ‘Arabî. of the writer and. a prototype.2. soul. the emergence of creation. lit. 1986). 1957). 1973) the nine scholars that. the refreshing radiance expression of the a journey throughout an untoward life is by no means union of the complementary in the timeless dimension. I’m happy in hearing you are getting along with whom to entangle new adventures. then 4. a leap into another scale. 1 3 4 5 8 6 . which transmute the individual human experience into the unprecedented breadth of Included are some visions of friends on the Collective Intelligence theme. h. on hyphen is left. ascribed to nūr. the Prophet. gence may be. this very personal account of Muhammad. a postulate: acceptable. sparkling joy. By transformais fantastic pseudology. 8 ~ Nūr. You ask me how I am? I’m fine. nonetheless here deemed instrumental in lightening the common framework in which the process itself is taking place. resilience and the light of Muhammad within god. the claimed here is that there are further and farther residing station of god/the absolute/the cosmic. also. so it calls to be shaped at its best outcome. e light of god within Muhammad. the souls that exists forever. a life suspended between two whiles. 9 ~ Allah Muhammad. 3 and 4. as there is general agreement among na (ibn Sinā). anwār) light. juts we. this tale that never happened. e Metaphysica of Avicenerrors. posed. the truth that never dies. or a while into a while. its modus operandi. 1969. Four eyes can see under both an anthropological and a psychological better than two. it was the Nūr Muhammad that was I’m not me. in the interest of clarity. 2015.

: Snow lion Publications. is moving inside of the same condition. there lays the mesoteric integrity. the concepts of State. spiritual-material dimension distinct from the purely physical realm absorbed into itself. or unions. devoid of the temporal edge where time takes on its rhythmic bits. giving shape and fulfilling its own vibrational dimension. in horizontal translation within the same plane of reality. an endless maithuna protracted beyond time. in which locality and time are yet abiding but not biding. in points of fact. regarded by many as the ‘real’ union. 9 in tantric terms. e Crystal and e Way of Light: Sutra. or of political party. but distinct from the illusion of Maya – beyond states and stages. spinning around its own centre: a selfish.the collective mesoteric dimension governed by quantum laws. N. egotic. neither the phenomenical nor the metaphysical edge can be manifested if not synchronically. Ma. selfinflated time. its terminals. or its missing dimension. it is not only the absence of time. Tantra and Dzogchen (Boston. at rest at the centre of the whole being. sharing the emptiness left by the absence of the other. but also that span in which time is solid-still. c. is often symbolized as the axis mundi. or to another order. ahead of all quadrants. for instance. 8∑8 S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . the column. yet perceived by consciousness as flowing. No doubt is here the conditio of time and no-time being postulated. the lingam of the dyad. 1999). the hyphen uniting and allowing the cross-flow of energies between the two realms. is also reflected in the difference between symbolism – with its symbolized on a higher plane of reference – and analogy and metaphor. yang. as a matter of fact. the tower. to identify the quality of an action. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | I X . while the terms united by the hyphen. we are transmuting to the higher state of consciousness of a quantum universum. the cosmic pair – the two polarities – merge in maithuna to transmute. Keeping the pivot at the centre and. on the phenomenical edge of the meaning. 8 on the character and specificity of the crystal body Cf. on the metaphysical edge. symbolize the cosmic yoni. the pillar. Norbu. its sign and cipher. as in a sacred ritual. to the mesoteric. the obelisk. it signifies the union of all chakras by the ascending of kundalini. expression of the nineteen-century illusion of the independence of freedom. freed as they are from (by?) any theoretical assumption. supra 4. still anchored to the eighteen-century idea of nation state. 7 See.

E D I T O R I A L | S A H L A N M O M O | A R U N - U P T O W A R D S T H E I M P O S S I B L E | X .3 .STARLING MURMURATION e Tibetan Book of Proportion (sheet 1 .5).

Doctorat d’Etat Sorbonne (1970) is Director of the Laszlo New Paradigm Leadership Center (Italy). and even beyond the body. the Ethics Prize of Milano (2014) and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 and 2005. we know it only by the effects it produces. Canada. in the modern world received wisdom is that consciousness is a product of the brain. is not linked with a living brain. James spoke of a “veiled” domain of the world from which information is transmitted by the brain. Senator of the International Medici Academy. Founder/Co-Director of the Ervin Laszlo institute for Advanced Study (Denmark). and it is an alternative to the “production theory. we do not see. deeply loving or otherwise non-ordinary state of consciousness. ey come from people who arrived at the portals of death and returned. feelings. prayerful.E R V I N L A S Z L O THE ONE MIND IN THE COSMOS AND ITS MANIFESTATIONS IN OUR CONSCIOUSNESS 1 Ervin Laszlo. Because if consciousness is not produced but only transmitted by the brain.” it can account for many of the seemingly esoteric phenomena that the production theory cannot. hear or taste electricity. and Editor of the international periodical world futures: e Journal of New Paradigm research. T H E T C L A S S I C A L C O N S C I O U S N E S S hErE iS iMPorTaNT aND for MoST PEoPlE iN B Y today’s world surprising evidence coming to light about the nature of consciousness. it is evident that just as the turbine generates electricity. as long as the brain functions. ese include communication with “something” that appears to be a living consciousness but is not the consciousness of a living person2. 2 /2 0 1 4 | T H E I S T H E O R Y : G E N E R A T E D B R A I N in the modern world the prevalent belief is that the stream of sensations that makes up our consciousness is generated by the brain. Founder and President of e Club of Budapest. the International Mandir of Peace Prize (2005). consciousness no more exists in a dead brain than electric charge exists in a stopped turbine. is is much the same with consciousness. is not a new idea. it can exist also in the absence of the brain. ey come from many sources. But there are other documented cases where conscious experience S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . Finland. is raises a number of critical issues regarding the true nature of our consciousness. it was revived by william James in his 1899 Ingersoll Lecture on Immortality3. consciousness vanishes. volitions and intuitions we call consciousness. it generates a stream of sensations: consciousness. when it shuts down. as long as the turbine functions. and Hungary. Laszlo is the author or co-author of fifty-four books translated into twenty-four languages. but we do not observe anything we could call consciousness. the International Academy of Philosophy of Science. Laszlo is the recipient of the Goi Peace Prize (2002). ere are more and more reports of conscious experience beyond the range of the senses. He was awarded Honorary Ph. e most striking cases of this kind are NDEs: near-death experience. the brain generates consciousness. it shows that in many instances consciousness exists without the brain – at least. C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E . e evidence surfacing currently contests this assumption. e turbine is an apt metaphor because it refers to a tangible object that produces something intangible. an unbiased review of the rapidly accumulating evidence suggests that consciousness is not produced by the brain but only transmitted by it. all it discloses are networks of neurons embedded in grey matter firing in complex sequences. D’s from the United States. we experience the stream of sensations. is is much like a stream of electrons being generated by a turbine. the Conacreis Holistic Culture Prize (2009). without a living and functioning brain. it appears that our individual consciousness does not come to an end when the life of our body does. Member of the Hungarian Academy of Science. evidently. e observation of the brain and its workings does not disclose consciousness. it generates a stream of electrons: electricity. and from ordinary people who entered a meditative. the standard argument goes. is is the “transmission theory” of consciousness. erefore. is. from spiritual masters and shamans and psychic mediums. Fellow of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences.

the through clairvoyance (seeing apparitions). nor any observation. is is not observed in touch. however. ere is no Scientists seldom speculate on the hard problem of known physiological mechanism that could account consciousness research. the electric current sons through some form of ESP. e critical e veracity of these perceptions has encountered many prediction for the theory is that when the brain objections. clairaudience same as other theories in science. we could no more account for the the stream of sensations is distorted. the stream vanishes. ere are cases. answer regarding the basis of consciousness. followed by What is the biologe NDE is not the only challenge for the brain-generical basis of consciousness? ated consciousness theory. Science. tain the organism in the living state. Many psychic mediums say that they channel messages from deceased persons. it turned out that in sary.” how the brain operates is a comparatively direct counter-indication and conceivably a “soft” problem that neurophysiologists can be expected fatal flaw of the turbine theory. consciousness vanishes.” persist in the absence of that activity. how an “immae first and most obvious kind of evidence for terial consciousness” can arise out of “unconscious matthis surprising finding is furnished by the NDE. when cerebral functions cease. is likely to have possessed7. and when the presence of consciousness in a dead brain than brain stops functioning. among them that the mediums themselves stops functioning. generated by the brain is not only an unsolved but also in its permanent absence: when the subject is problem for philosophers and an object of perfully and irreversibly dead. ey do not behave as if they had a working system coordinate the myriad reactions that mainconsciousness. but when queried about the for conscious experience in a flat brain. ter” cannot be answered by brain-research. But observations to the contrary did surthe question how “something as immaterial as conface. e most important unanmatch the experience they would have had if their swered question turned out to be What is the brain had functioned normally. Subseciation for the advancement of Science. generated by it disappears. plexity for scientists: it is also contradicted by observation.” Even one experience of could be conscious. is is a as matter4. David chalmers formulated it as ness. published quent analysis could sometimes confirm the veridical a special issue in 2005 celebrating its 125th annivernature of these experiences. the journal of the american assothey have no doubt they are real experiences. But the question. for brain it turned out that in a significant number of research deals only with “matter. if observations to Philosophers have pointed out that this assumption the contrary would surface. exceptions.” and matter is not documented cases – experts speak of six million – conscious. to solve step by step. tained as long as the predictions flowing out of it are corroborated by observations. conliving person with whom they could have been in sciousness ceases as well. ere are other indications in the public eye the turbine theory is the that consciousness can exist independently of the brain.we know that functions in the brain and nervous from the observation of people who are braindead. Some reports claim that conscious experience persists however. Nobody even knows what it this kind would be a major problem for the turwould be like to have the slightest idea about how 5 bine theory. ey report receiving information e consciousness-generating brain theory. in which these possibilities can be effectively ruled out: the messages conveyed by the mediums contain inforat first sight this prediction seems confirmed by mation that neither the mediums themselves. but it is a reasonable inference E R V I N L A S Z L O | T H E O N E M I N D I N T H E C O S M O S | 2 . just invent them. or clairsentience (physical sensations). e proof of this is absence of cerebral function does not admit of the observation that when brain function is impaired. a product of brain activity cannot anything could be conscious . us we could account for the presence of electric consciousness must be a product of brain function. the hypothesis that consciousness is not only during the temporary cessation of brain activity. Philosopher Jerry fodor pointed out that conscious experience persists during the time “nobody has the slightest idea how anything material the brain is “flatlined. charge in a stationary turbine. in some cases consciousness does not sciousness” could arise from “something as unconscious cease when the brain stops working. the first person. Mainstream science is categorical that brain functions also genere prediction that consciousness ceases in the ate the consciousness experience. or that they pick them up from living peras when a turbine stops. universe made of?. they would place in comes up against the so-called “hard problem” in conquestion the dominant concept of conscioussciousness research. can be main(hearing voices). it featured 125 questions that scientists have many instances the experience of brain-dead people 6 so far failed to solve . yet the nature of consciousness many of them express perNDE is totally convincing for those who had them: plexity.

our human consciousness is the localized (but nonlocal) projection of the holofield. transmitted from where – and all consciousness is nonlocal. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 3 . hogan’s hypothesis gains experimental support. en the question is. and and empirical support for it surfaced in 2013. if so. More recently e concept on which this theory is based is physician larry Dossey summed up his decades-long widely discussed in contemporary physics. but raised by David Bohm in the late 20th century. as all consciousness how? an answer is now surfacing. I N D I V I D U A L C O N S C I O U S N E S S I S and where he or she may be located in space. it is the theory that our individual consciousanother. it places in question even more seriously than the NDE that consciousness is generated by the living brain. e hologram theory applies to all events and entities in space and time. this communication is ness is an information field: this write called it the not subject to the physical limits of communication akashic field. our mind is not. of 2D codes. he said. T H E P R O J E C T I O N O F A C O S M I C e cosmic hologram conserves all elements of H O L O G R A M consciousness in space and time and these eleconsciousness. it is finite distance and across any finite period of time. we could overcome the the fluctuations observed by the gravity-wave critical challenges of our time. if we would fermilab physicist craig hogan proposed that realize and take it to heart. is is a holographically coded field in space and time. and possibly in another universe. is would be the case if they are 3D projections of 2D information coded beyond spacetime. one projection of the holofield communess is the projection of a cosmic hologram. our mind we are one. communication can take place with an entity that has a sense of self. all inditheory is that the 3D things and events we vidual minds are part of the one Mind. conscioustion within the holofield. carl Jung came to a simthat make up his or her consciousness. be ripples in S P A N D A J O U R N A L V .” e tion that there is but one mind in the world. including the consciousness that appears in association with the entities. it can be instantaneous over any accessible to the brain and nervous system. it turned out that the inhomogeneities found by gEo600 are not gravity-waves. e psyche is not located within the sensations are “entangled. nicates with another. is not – certainly not always – ments of consciousness can be recalled by brains generated by the brain but is only transmitted by it. e codes are at the periphery of a timeless intuition is now surfacing at the cutting space and time. and manifests a keen desire to be understood and given credence. edge of consciousness research and is meeting the cute idea of the holographic universe has been ting edge of physics. all these ilar conclusion. Being internal communicafrom the standpoint of the individual. an infinite field observe in the world are holographic projections of consciousness9. is accounts for the finding that one can enter into communication with “something” that appears to be the consciousness of an individual regardT H E H O L O F I E L D T H E O R Y : less of whether that individual is living or not. carries memories of its physical existence. if the grains found by gEo600 are of the indicated size. ey could. our body may be separate. the fine-structure of space.” being particular procranium. us we are one. all the inforus is the projection of a cosmic holofield tells us that mation is present at all points. but the most plausible that is currently availwhen one consciousness communicates with able. detector gEo600 may be due to the graininess of space (according to string theory at the supers8 mall scale space is not smooth but patterned by minuscule ripples: it is ”grainy”). it appears. ciple of the cosmos. it is experience of healing body and mind with the affirmathe concept of the “holographic universe. answer. e field contains Erwin Schrödinger was right. it is a hypothetical is a localized projection of the same holofield. if this phenomenon is real. however. Subsequent measurements confirmed that this is precisely the case8. is is a widespread phenomenon.Moreover it appears that contact can be had with “something” that acts as if it was a living consciousness. we are more mind than body. it surfaces not only in the experience of trance mediums but also in the experience of mystics and otherwise quite normal people when they enter an altered state of consciousness. it is part of the single generative prinjections of the same cosmic hologram. we cannot speak of the codes projected to the brain and body of an consciousness in the plural: the overall number of individual and are perceived as the sensations minds in the universe is one. the unus mundus. holographic because it contains information in a e theory that the consciousness that appears for distributed form – as in a hologram. and nervous systems specifically tuned to them.

5607>. 6 Norman c. ey found that the two calculations match. “e big idea.—————— 1 is article is based on detailed materials presented inter alia in Ervin laszlo. e internal energy of a black hole and the internal energy of the corresponding lower-dimensional cosmos are the same. as well as the cosmos as a whole. ‘what we don’t know. cit. 3 william James. chalmers. Black holes. 4 David J. goro ishiki and Jun Nishimura then calculated the internal energy of the corresponding lower-dimensional cosmos with no gravity. 8 further support for holographic spacetime theory came in the work of yoshifumi hyakutake and colleagues at ibaraki university in Japan. “ The puzzle of conscious experience”. vT: inner Traditions. Kennedy. with Anthony Peake. See e Immortal Mind. ca: hay house. 2004. op. and that the style of the channeled player was truly that of the grandmaster he claimed to be. op. the position of its event horizon. Science and the Akashic Field: An Integral eory of Everything (rochester. vT: inner Traditions. its entropy and several other properties based on the predictions of string theory and the effects of virtual particles. 2 for a detailed review and assessment of these kinds of experience see e Immortal Mind. 7 one of the most striking cases of this kind is the game of chess played by a living chess grandmaster with a deceased chess grandmaster.” New York Times Literary Supplement. fodor. Scientific American 273 (December 1995). One Mind: How Our Individual Mind is Part of a Greater Consciousness and Why It Matters (carslbad. e moves by the latter have been channeled by the medium (who did not play chess himself). (3 July 1992). e analysis confirmed that the game was played at the grandmaster level. 2014). and e Immortal Mind: e Continuity of Consciousness Beyond the Brain. Ingersoll Lecture on Immortality (Boston: houghton Mifflin.org/abs/1311. 1899). ey computed the internal energy of a black hole. 8∑8 E R V I N L A S Z L O | T H E O N E M I N D I N T H E C O S M O S | 4 . 9 larry Dossey. are holographic <http://arxiv. 2013).’ Science 309 (5731:75( (2005). (rochester. e Self-Actualizing Cosmos: e Akasha Revolution in Science and Human Consciousness. 2007). (rochester. and all the moves have been recorded and analyzed. 5 Jerry a. cit. vT: inner Traditions. hyakutake together with Masanori hanada. 2014).

manifesting in grating information at ever higher levels of complexity. Oregon. some intelligent organisms’ patterns of responses became more cognitive in the form of internal ideas. as intelligence evolved. further developments increased organisms’ ability to creatively alter their inner W H E R E D O E S C O L L E C T I V E ideas and stories – not just to meet current I N T E L L I G E N C E C O M E F R O M ? demands. between its internal and external environments advancing sensor technologies – from microscopes and and the palette of responses it has developed to telescopes to radios and pollution detectors – enhance different aspects of those environments. models. and stories. Every organism has a palette of responses reflections and renderings never before possible – integoverned by their genetic makeup. “survival of the fittest”. manifesting in the transfer. and spread and cultural mimetic development and knowledgeaccess knowledge around the globe. Evolving comthis. maps. capacity to make our collective understandings more e primary function of intelligence – in fact. or mimetic putational technologies open doors to calculations. ese structures of consciousness contained increasingly sophisticated guidance for shaping behaviour in ways that satisfied both internal needs and the needs of the situations the organisms found themselves in. Developing communications responsiveness can become more complex with technologies enhance our ability to share ideas.” is is where intelligence comes in. its congruent with reality. cognitive. precision. To do and extend our human sensory capacities. a dynamic living system or organism needs to with the evolution of communication and culture. precise articulation might be “those entities choice increasingly entered the picture. and action. Both strategies depend on awareness of records and through educationally embedding them in environmental realities and awareness of the releyounger and future generations. and reflections on Evolutionary activism. modes. a ly alters our maps to increasingly fit the territories they living organism – or any system made up of livpurport to describe and so more safely and productiveing organisms – carries out ongoing adjustments ly guide our movements through those aspects of life.org. understandings. it does increasingly able to pass on understandings to others this both by shaping its environment to satisfy its around them and then to preserve them not just needs and by adapting itself to changing condithrough individual memory but also through external tions. a more handling circumstances never before encountered. challenges. such automatic responses as instincts and urges. He is founder of the Co–Intelligence Institute <http://co–intelligence. but to imagine future situations and try out various scenarios which – when acted oNSiDEr ThE faMouS PriNciPlE of Biological upon and the results noted – taught lessons about evolution. But it is clear that an entire species “learns” extreme connectivity of the internet and the web. thence into culture – the collective activities and C S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . it may use genetic. e advent of science vance of those realities to the success and survival and mathematics further upgraded human societies’ of the system or organism. feeling.org> and lives in a cooperative house in Eugene. He can be contacted at cii@igc. and abstraction. collabothe development of cognitive learning systems and rate on collective learning adventures. both survive that maintain a workable ‘fit’ with through moment-to-moment choices and through their environment despite its changes and the ability to create and discard habits of thought. new responsive patterns over eons through the trial and error of “natural selection” which alters the what we see here is evolution of intelligence leaping array of automatic responses it has available and how from natural selection to the individual mind and and when those responses are to be applied.T O M AT L E E THE ROLE OF COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE IN THE WISE DEMOCRACY NEEDED FOR HUMANITY ’S SURVIVAL Tom Atlee is the author of e Tao of Democracy. remain in tune with its changing environment so certain animals – most notably us humans – became that its actions continue to be successful. e scientific method continualevolutionary advantage – is to sustain this “fit”. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 5 . pictures. Empowering Public wisdom.

~ we find a society’s collective corrective feedback dynamics showing up as activism. our impacts on the world grow disproportionately – not just at the human scale but also at vast and microcosmic scales T H E B U G I N beyond the reach of normal organic perception. “unlike western science. the capacity of technologically understand what is involved in a healthy. changing ourselves and our behaviours to fit the it is therefore not surprising that this potent and demands of our environment and how to control conubiquitous western science-driven dynamic disrupts ditions by changing our environment to suit our natural – and even human – systems. and market behaviours. as mathematics and technologies magnify our power to dominate. over the last century parts of western scinature. systems. the data from indigenous science are not used to control the forces of Significantly. is input-intensive creative process – otherwise known as “progress” – does not usually have “balanced relationship” as its core motivation. efforts to predict and control nature tend to generate dependence on abnormal energy and material inputs to sustain continued dominance and the extension of that dominance into ever-new domains of life. and forces tend to generate fewer technologies. magnified by mass economic behaviours and materials. and lifestyles that require undue energy inputs and that undermine the workings of the natural systems upon which continued human life depends. in addition to communications technologies and activities playing a role in society comparable to that played by electrochemical interactivity in the brain. consumption. as embodied in fields that study and emphasize interconnectedness and balanced healthy relationships ese two divergent uses of collective intelligence – more than linear predict–and–control dynamics. but of capital. and side effects in the “efficient” pursuit of narrow objectives like production. and wikipedia. increasing our impact even further. peak resources (especially fossil fuels but also causal relationships so that people can step into increasingly water. rather. financial instability and inequity. it tends to support narrow (linear. as noted earlier. self-interested. to control or accommodate nature – have obvious Examples of such fields include ecology. year by year. quantum implications for sustainability.structures of society at large. ~ we find a society’s collective reflection and problem-solving showing up as scientific theorizing and conversations. it has the power to tell us how to adapt by wider territory. and literature. lifestyles. i want to use them to clarify this “bug” sirable situations. consider these more-than-metaphorical examples: ~ we find a society’s collective perception showing up as scientific research and technologies. and develop partnerships with nature and its living organisms. T O M A L T E E | T H E R O L E O F C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 6 . since intelligence helps us align with and communication spread that influence over reality. grows longer day by day. economies. mobility. policy discussions. indigenous science. pollution. instead. corporate. diseases. by comparing western conceptions of science waves and tsunamis of “side effects”. profit. and opinion polling. accommodate. databases. [they] tell us the ways and the ence have been evolving towards indigenous science. ~ we find a society’s collective memory showing up as books. answer: those problems and crises become objects of Since scientific and technological enterprises are study and technologically-empowered manipulation particularly potent forms of collective intelliwhich seeks to predict and control the emerging undegence. in contrast. pollution. organisms. means of accommodating nature”1. C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E Mass behaviours driven by economics. Efforts to adapt. immediate gratification) perspectives that disregard waste. understanding this distinction lems and crises. do of this approach embodied in the perfect storm of converging mega-crises we face in the current century – e explicit intention of western science is to the mutually intensifying emergence of climate disrupunderstand universal principles governing direct tion. elections. the vulnerasive destruction on purpose or by accident with the larger universal context and forces govbility of global economics and monocultures… the list erning all of life as manifested in such a place. we see all the functional divisions of intelligence reflected in social technologies and institutions. in contrast. which then generate their own ripples. pests. and power. to say nothing of the rare metals vital that causal position and control and shape reality to modern technology). balempowered individuals and small groups to create masanced relationship with the life of a place and 2 . and (again) market behaviours. – a process often empowered by technology and ubiquitous mobility (not only of people. we see the crescenwith what has been called “indigenous science”. But our scientific worldview has an reveals a potential danger with collective intelligence. ~ we find a society’s collective decision–making showing up as meetings. weapons. investigative journalism. seeks to and everything else). creating probneeds and desires. legislatures.

although i see many at a high pitch to influence elections. we face important questions about how much tion of our knowledge about this subject. between universality and one’s own collective intelligence. But the colrent forms offer so much more than traditional forms lective intelligence of the society as a whole – its of public engagement and influence – and more than capacity to collectively understand the realities it most other government forums – that i want to take faces. as tion should be paid to understanding. we also find collective intelligence inhibited. of reality we are able and willing to embrace with our My own contribution involves a shift from seeing intelligence – whether individual or collective – and for citizens primarily as isolated voters to seeing them whose benefit. collective. and with what collectively as a) an engaged source of diverse perhumility and consciousness. take seriously the ethical and our desires and the demands and health of the larger dimensions of our work. we face the question of how much tribute to greater collective understanding. ese own collective behalf. complex adaptive systems sciences. and at what expense. and evolutionary theinterests. and institutional behaviours are ernment and with a vital democratic culture. community wisdom councils. all these curmaking. to collectively influence or adapt to those most widely used form. Some of the most destructive people in the results? as our shared mega-crises unfold. i would suggest that vastly more attencontributions primarily through intellectual brilliance. to collectively reflect on what it collectively the opportunity to highlight them. made. climate science. My contribution also involves an expansion of the idea C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E of representation to include not just elected politicians I N T H E D E S I G N O F S O C I E T Y but bodies of randomly selected citizens who are empowis brings us to the fields of politics and goverered to shape public policies and budgets in partnership – nance. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 7 . efforts point the way for more balance between control we face this challenge in our efforts to enhance and adaptation. any more than individual work empower. – they concollective intelligence of partisan and special stitute what i consider the state of the art of citizen interest lobbyists and advocacy groups operates intelligence on public issues. policyways they could and should be improved. ose of us in the field place. and budgetary decisions. inhibiting its collective tary/integrative medicine4. at weakplexity and chaos theories. where the rules that shape our individand in a balance of power – with other branches of govual. and for what. eir narrow collective intelligence ory. and cation of our intelligence. genetics. that has realities in an appropriate manner. between certainty and mystery. rate and military sectors need to reflect on the So we find collective intelligence is not an intrinsically ethical dimensions of their work. there are some modes of ing. who does our desirable and benign capacity.mechanics. operating sensus conferences. in their current forms – citizens Juries. so that we can shape c) as active agents in applying the collective underit and transform it as necessary so that our standings in a) and the co-created initiatives in b) in life–estranged brilliance doesn’t destroy us. b) as colof our intelligence – individual and collective – we laborative creative imaginations capable of identifychoose to apply to monitoring the quality and appliing options that are at once remarkable and wise. Planning cells. comand initiatives – is exceptionally weak. disese two facets of my vision of a collectively wiser torted. and with what intelligence is. unfortunately. i believe. just as people in corposystems of which we are a part. concollective intelligence is. these world have been extremely intelligent. ways that continually feed into not only our collective survival and thrival but our ongoing collective learning. of course. itself. promotindigenous science suggests. e blies. or narrowly applied in these realms. and to collecbeen held hundreds of times around the world. etc. between ourselves should. and some of the issues about our roles in them press upon our most creative and life–serving people have not made their attention. focusing on the sees. democracy combine in “citizen deliberative councils” (cDcs)5. citizens assemin and around politics and governance. and cerness is largely due to the efforts of those special tain trends in biology. as well as in technologies efforts to learn and know and act wisely on its and social sciences concerned with sustainability. and perhaps most imporspectives which – interacting creatively – can contantly at this stage. the citizen jury. tively observe the results of its collective responses S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . and catalyzing collectively intelligent and intelligence that are more intrinsically benign than other wise democracies than virtually any other applicamodes. we also see efforts to merge the two approaches undermines and distorts the whole society’s colin integral fields like permaculture3 and complemenlective intelligence. as well as the decisions about how we spend or invest the most massive resources C I T I Z E N D E L I B E R A T I V E C O U N C I L S available in most societies.

either replacing the “lower house” (e.g., the house
a citizens jury is somewhat comparable to a trial
of representatives or the house of commons) or,
jury, with some significant differences beyond the
per Ethan leib10, being an additional branch of
fact that it considers a public issue rather than a
government. Some, like Jim rough11, the innovacrime or a lawsuit. consisting of one to two dozen
tor of community wisdom councils, imagine
diverse citizens selected at random – often with a
them happening annually (or more frequently),
demographic filter to ensure they are in that way reparticulating a sort of people’s “state of the comresentative of their community – a citizens jury is conmunity (or country) report”, just as is now often
vened for several days, usually about a week. it is usudone by mayors, presidents, and city managers.
ally provided with balanced briefing materials about
the issue upon which its members are to deliberate and
Elsewhere i have raised questions about the
then given access to experts, stakeholders, and/or advostrict legitimacy of cDcs, in the sense that pubcates and opponents of various approaches who testify
lic opinion polls are legitimate12. if the pollsters
to the jury and whom the jury members can question
do a particular poll on a particular population
and cross–examine. e citizens jury is provided with
in a particular way, they know with a particuprofessional facilitation to help them speak up, hear
lar level of certainty (the “margin of error”)
each other respectfully and well, and think together
how closely a comparable poll on a different
effectively about what they’re learning and what they
but comparable population would come out.
wish to recommend. ey consider various options and
So i have wondered if we held three comparatrade–offs and, from their newly informed understandble but independent citizens juries on the same
ings, craft recommendations to address the issue(s) at
topic, how similar the results would be. if they
hand. eir final report is delivered to their convening
turned out similar, that would be truly revoluauthority, the public, the media, and/or other officials
tionary. if they turned out different, the sources
concerned – after which they disband.
of the differences could be studied and evaluated,
and implications could be derived for how we
e other forms of cDc named above vary somewhat
from the citizens jury and each other regarding the
should regard the findings of single citizen juries.
number and nature of the jurors, the nature of the
Even better, further experiments – such as mixing
information they access, the length of their underand matching the citizen jurors from the three initaking, the nature of their deliberative and decisiontial groups into three new groups and having them
making processes, and the nature of their reportcontinue their conversations independently using a
out. But they all involve ordinary randomly selectparticular method (i have one – Dynamic facilitaed citizens talking in informed, thoughtful ways
tion13 – particularly in mind when i imagine this) to
about public issues and coming up with considsee if, why, and how that creates a higher level of
ered, coherent opinions that they share with their
coherence. e point would be that having a demoncommunity. in a limited but almost unprecestrable and unforced level of informed coherence
dented way, they constitute a legitimate collecemerge from such citizen deliberative councils would
tive voice of we the People provided with the
allow us to incorporate the concept of a coherent collecresources and context needed to transcend the
tive intelligence of the society – a true and wise voice of
divisive, ill-informed, and manipulated routines
we the People – into our political theories and practices,
of our existing political cultures. ey inject a
and to feel confident in empowering that voice to actually
level of democratic collective intelligence – of
shape public policy. if this were to happen, the roles of
public wisdom6, if you will – into the public
representatives and bureaucrats might shift, for example,
discourse, a form of expanded collective intellito providing a mix of high-level coordination (such as
gence heretofore sorely lacking.
ensuring that the solution offered for one situation didn’t
create problems in another area) and legalistic articulation
legitimate questions may be asked about what
role such citizen deliberative councils should
(for example, translating a citizen deliberative council’s
play in the overall political system and how and
recommendation into enforceable legislation).
how much they should be empowered. Some
But all that is refining this down to a science. i don’t
scholars and visionaries like John gastil7 and
think citizen deliberative councils – even when done one
Ned crosby8 have imagined plugging such citiat a time – are intrinsically less legitimate than our existzen panels into various parts of democratic
ing public officials and representative deliberative bodprocess – from reviewing ballot initiatives to evalies. in fact, those established entities have never been
uating candidates. Some like Ernest callenbach9
subjected to tests of strict legitimacy as i have here
have proposed an institutionalized citizen legislaproposed for cDcs. ey just do what they do and are
ture – several hundred randomly selected citizens
considered legitimate if they arrive at their positions
serving for one or more years in a legislative body
through due process. eir legitimacy theoretically

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derives from their being supposedly answerable
through their elections or appointments. however, as
the system of elections and appointments has become
increasingly corrupted and dysfunctional, that sense of
legitimacy has rapidly eroded to the point where 80% of
americans don’t approve of their own elected congress14. what does the majoritarian representative system mean, in the face of this?

create something far better in its place. at is what
citizen deliberative councils can be designed to do.
A
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is brings us to three closely related topics:
~ the capacity of we the People to become a
conscious collective agent of our own destiny,
such that we are a true collective entity that can
R A N D O M S E L E C T I O N
consciously apply and evaluate our collective
is brings us to the random selection factor. Political
intelligence;
scientist oliver Dowlen15 notes that random selection – at
~ the quality of dialogue and deliberation,
least in its rigorous forms – creates a “blind break” from
such that the diversity of participants becomes
all other forms of influence. on the one hand, sortition
a resource rather than a problem; and
(as random selection in politics is called) functions free
~ the actual wisdom of what emerges from
from the guidance of human compassion, intelligence,
such
conversations, such that it actually generenlightenment, wisdom, integrity, and concern for the
ates
broad
benefit over the long haul.
common good. on the other hand, it also provides a
Diversity can be said to be the dominant factor
break from the depredations of human cruelty, stupidity,
in all of these. Diversity is often problematic
ignorance, foolishness, corruption, and narrow selfbut, used well for collective intelligence, it can
interest. in short, it is a total break from human interbe precious.
vention and manipulations of all kinds. Most of us
think of random selection as a resort to pure chance.
when faced both with significant differences –
e ancient athenians – who used it extensively in
especially in the form of conflict – and the need for
their politics and governance, trusting it to serve the
consensus or agreement, our culture’s usual
common good far better than elections (which they
approach is to silence or marginalize dissenters and
felt favored elites)16 – felt random selection represent“extreme” perspectives – and any other voice we find
ed the will of the gods17. Take your pick. Either way,
hard to confront – and to coax and manipulate what
it is a break from human intervention.
remains into agreements based on compromise. Every
“side”
is expected to let go of what they say they want
us if we have a system of politics and governance
and
to
do some “horse trading” – “i’ll give you this if
that is flourishing with high quality information,
you
give
me that.” often this involves subtle (and not
citizen engagement, high integrity public officials,
so
subtle)
pressures to defer to leaders and/or to conform
productive conversations and deliberations about
18
to
groupthink
– and, especially in legislatures, making
public issues, and a well-functioning government
deals
that
have
nothing
to do with the issue at hand.
that the citizenry respects and admires and, when
necessary, can readily correct or recall for the sake
unfortunately but understandably this has given the
of answerability, then we don’t want to mess
very idea of a coherent collective voice a bad name. Peowith that by using random selection. on the
ple’s experience has taught them that reductionist “conother hand, if our politics and government are
sensus” and “the manufacture of consent” – in both its
process and its final products – more often than not
rife with misinformation, manipulation, citizen
oppress their freedoms of speech and action. Suggesting
apathy, corruption in high places, endless and
that “we the People” could speak with one voice that
unproductive verbal battles and battles on the
shapes public policy raises red flags and visions of a popstreet, and a government that the vast majority
ulist dictatorship subduing all who disagree.
of citizens do not trust and hold in contempt,
then random selection can be a very potent doori say “unfortunately” because our current know–how
way into greater sanity.
related to collective intelligence can replace that fearsome
vision with new possibilities that free us from the supprese trick is to use random selection to provide a
sion and manipulation to which we are today subjected
clean break from our political horrors and dysin the pseudo-democratic systems currently in place.
functions and then immediately follow that clean
break with a healthy environment of good inforalthough compromise and conformist–based approaches
mation, good human relationships, and good
to crafting agreements have a rough workability in topdeliberation – and then empower what comes out
down, competitive, interest-driven systems, they waste
of that, so that it has the independent collective
the unique gifts of each perspective in comprehending
intelligence to reorganize the corrupt system and
the larger picture in which the conflicted parties are

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schedules and speakers – for a day or for an extremely
competing and also the creative potential of people
from all sides of the situation working together to
stimulating and evolving week. e world café24
engages people interested in particular questions in
come up with solutions that actually meet both their
small-group conversations among which they perilegitimate needs and the demands of the situation
odically mix and share. in the end the whole group
itself. More often than not, the repressed perspectives
harvests highlights. Everyone gets lots of airtime
represent factors and options that, if actively included,
and ends up hearing much of what’s happened in
can make the outcomes wiser – by which i mean that
the larger group dialogue. future Search25 conferthose outcomes take into account more of what needs to
ences mix the two approaches to diversity by
be taken into account for long-term broad benefit.
bringing together diverse, often adversarial stakeusing the diversity factor well involves 1) a conscious
holders who explore their shared past and the
effort at inclusion – such as the use of random selection
dynamics of their shared present – and then
or inviting a full range of stakeholders involved in the
explore what they’d all like to see happen. ey
situation – and then 2) using conversational processes
then break up into action groups to foster the
that radically enhance the capacity of the participants to
shared
vision(s) they developed together. finally,
hear each other and to feel truly heard. a minimalist
Polarity
Management26 helps us understand that
approach to this is to establish ground rules that direct
certain values (like freedom and equality) cannot
people to be respectful and then provide facilitation to
both
be maximized at the same time. ey both
help that happen. facilitation can also ensure that quican,
however,
be optimized by managing sensitive
eter voices speak up and more assertive voices don’t
balancing
feedback
dynamics that prevent either
dominate. at higher levels of conversational quality
from
suppressing
the
other.
and facilitation skill, reflective listening is practiced,
So the kind of coherence we’re looking for is
such that someone (often the facilitator) reflects back
the kind of coherence that is always provided by
to each speaker what they said in a way that makes the
policies and laws, but in this case is being generspeaker feel fully heard and understood – including
ated by using diversity creatively rather than suptheir emotions and values – not just mimicked. is
pressing it – and then by encouraging diverse colpractice tends to relax and open up the participants
laborations within that shared vision and guidso that their communications flow together more
ance, with mindful management of any polarities
smoothly and collaboratively. various methods add
that are implicit in the issue being addressed. is
additional beneficial dynamics that move particiis a radical departure from the approaches to coherpants towards creative resolutions: appreciative
ence used by most societies.
inquiry19, for example, asks about what works and
what’s possible. Nonviolent communication20
But how does this new “we the People” coherent
explores how to fulfil everyone’s underlying needs
voice arise from and reach a whole city or society
(much as Principled Negotiation explores how to
containing millions of people?
satisfy legitimate interests21). Similarly, restorae key is to make citizen deliberative councils a visitive justice22 seeks, through dialogue, to replace
ble high point in a larger culture of conversations
punishment and retribution with efforts to
about public issues – especially by featuring them in
meet the deep needs of victims, offenders, and
news media, social networks, and dramatic narratives. i
community alike. Dynamic facilitation repeatadvocate helping ordinary citizens identify with one or
edly evokes possible solutions from participants
more of the cDc participants and then publicizing the
and reframes disagreements as concerns to be
flow of their conversation and/or their energy at the
clarified and recorded. in the presence of such
conclusion of their council, so that viewers can vicaripotent solvents, the positions people arrived
ously experience the shifts that these diverse people
with tend to dissolve into larger and deeper
went through on the road to discovering what they
insights out of which more holistic solutions
came up with. a remarkable experiment along these
can emerge or be created together.
lines was initiated by Maclean’s magazine in canada, a
ese approaches seek to evoke coherence out of
project chronicled in detail on my website27.
diversity. ey are complemented by approaches
another powerful approach is the recurrent presentation
that enable people with diverse passions to coexist
of a clear we the People voice to a population which is
in life-affirming ways, especially connecting with
invited to participate in that voice. a particularly good
each other for dialogue and collaborative action. an
medium for this is an ongoing series of community
open Space conference (formally called open
wisdom councils which facilitate ever-broader comSpace Technology23) enables people passionate about
munity practice of what its innovator, Jim rough,
a topic to sort themselves into self–organized workcalls “choice–creating conversation”28. community
shops and activities in the absence of pre-established
members and leaders can generate possible topics to

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dialogue about what serves human needs and happiness. who then choose where they want to begin. and more of the co-created. we are also looked factors and generate fewer unwanted sidewise to consult global wisdom traditions and broadly effects. for example. capacities. here i will provide a relatively dense summary of some of the other dimensions of collectrade-offs35 helps community-wisdom-seekers to tive intelligence. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 11 . intelligence involves reflecting on results. and revising what we’re as we saw earlier. as well as better addressing the needs of shared ethics. empathy. collective intelligence can be applied doing as needed. thank you29. is repeated experience enhances the community’s collective identity and confidence as we the People who can take care of our own collective affairs quite well. and to craft approaches that seem to us (without prejudice or denial) to support high quality of life for all involved… and then we need to pay attention to what happens when we W I S D O M actually do it. Such factors generate wisdom. its variable avoid oversimplifying what they are dealing with nature. in their two dynamically facilitated days together. more interconnectedness including reason. very narrowly or more broadly. humour. (how many of course the kind of diversity-harnessing convernations. Stories of creative conversational use of diverse perspectives in people from all facets of an issue contain much politics and governance. e broader community then participates in the council’s final “community wisdom cafe” and/or learns about it through media and then joins further conversations stimulated by the council’s work and report-out. in the process. Exploring scenarios34 and such a vision. its inclusiveness and we need to do that even more mindfully. practice a golden rule foreign sations noted above contribute tremendously to policy?) we can augment these with what humanity comprehending the big picture situation and has learned more recently through science and global generating solutions that embrace all involved. ultimate broad benefit determine how wise it is. as well as aesthetic and spirituco-creative nature of reality30 will involve fewer overal sensibilities. there are many other varieties of the dynamics of the issue in easily accessible. can also productively tap into the accumulated wisdom contained in the patterns and dynamics of nature and in the processes of evolution: the field of biomimicry36. for example. the universal Declanary citizens. and interdependence. movement. all our varieties of intelligence. and since we’re talking about intelligence – and because we can’t actually adjudicate if a solution will have long-term broad benefit until long after it is discovered and applied – iteration plays a tremendously important role in realizing wisdom in practice. generate breakthroughs and vibrant collective energy. of collective intelligence that could be integrated into often compelling form. intuition. emotion. and the Earth charter40. e work of Edward Tufte31 violent communication and chilean economist Manfred explores how to present data in meaningful Max-Neef provide deep insight into universal human visual ways and argument mapping32 and framneeds and how to address them wisely41. erefore. ey S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . Nonfor we the People. having such councils held one or more times each year accustoms community members to using that kind of collaborative conversation to discover shared insights and solutions. more big–picture reality. ing for deliberation33 cover the presentation of diverse perspectives in ways that make them T H E W I D E R E C O S Y S T E M O F easy to understand and compare. if we wish to be wise. and activities37. To that factor we can add the amount and qualree good resources for this are the council for a Parity of information accessibly provided to ordiliament of the world’s religions38. other sources of wisdom include engaging all approaches which help people take into account aspects of ourselves. council members explore wherever their concerns and creativity take them and. especially those selected to speak ration of human rights39. in presenting this downsides that haunt nearly every solution. we need to do our best to include everything that’s relevant (and then some).stimulate the randomly selected members of the council. Ethical principles common to most more people and better aligning with more of life’s major religions and philosophies – such as the golden natural dynamics. rule – provide time-tested wisdom. looks to natural systems and organisms for solutions nature has evolved to deal with problems now faced by engineers and materials scientists. just to hint at its scope. and the vast resources that could be called and to find solutions that minimize the potential upon to enhance its effectiveness. high quality C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E information notably includes information based on systems thinking and other perspecwhile i have focused here on enhancing community – tives that clarify the complex fabric of public and society– level collective intelligence through the issues and human responses to them. taking in lessons.

certain electronic systems and networks can and literature. this consenthe market. as well).com to reduce spousal abuse55 operas soap using and nism. reminiscent of magnetic and gravitational fields – – we can see information. is spaces like wikis and systems like coDigital. passions. in have embedded in an economic system where the social and worldwork52 arnold and amy Minprocess their environmental costs of products are “internalized” into dell seek to shift collective psychosocial fields govtheir price – through. that narrative fields generated by a society’s media. designs for social and natural systems diverse concerns and insights that “come through” can be informed by the theories and practices of self-organization – including chaos and complexity individuals in such a “meeting for worship for busitheories. real. innovation and of self-organization to be an evolved form of co-creativity in technology. yielding a “sense of the meeting”56 (a process i netics. tively waiting on Spirit for guidance. from an evolutionary the serve gence not only in government but also in society at large. racism. for example. i call this “the conscious evolution perspective. and Twitter can connect with transpersonal sources of intelligence. guiding public policy kinds of entities – whether crystals. or oneness. to originate. and economic prononviolent social action50. systems useful to wide audiences. Quakers developed a form of consensus process to integrate the in general. and intuitive practices may those used by amazon. “swarm intelligence”49. crethrough their workshop participants. resodependence on spying and secrecy and develops public partnership. but even by embedding informawhich the designs are intended. My own “story field” theory suggest toring and governance45. collective stupidity and folly. and interactive design to nance. Such tools can be wisdom beyond normal awareness. shape what we think curricula. permaculture. i also want to suggest that it is the tip of participatory dynamics. ubiquity. synchronicity. since physical or 43 ductivity. often ativity – and moderating dynamics and feedback through impacting the quality and flow of information loops to sustain and evolve the living system for (as described above). refcultural story fields. as is the paradigm shift of shift erences. good design can efficiently promote vitality and wise responsiveness by a very big iceberg42. or people – using quality of life indicators more than gross make it easier for others of that type to learn or develop Domestic Product creates wiser economic monithose habits53. Stigmergic systems like certain spiritual. educational tive intelligence. and context of eories of collective psychosocial field effects entertainment can facilitate or impede conversation. in its secular forms. do play a supportive or generative role in collecand so on. People use collaborative work54 . sources of information and cross-fertilization of intelliwell being of all. e Enlightenment. likewise. providing contexts for already present or nascent Power relationships and the design and dynamics of natural drivers – urges. psychic. etc. the “invisible hand” of processes. wholeness. ecology. open Source intelligence challenges overmanagerial force is replaced by respect. i consider initiae evolving concept of “open source” challenges the tives guided by sophisticated understandings proprietary confinement of knowledge. cafés. Netflix. animals. and levels of reality or sources of people’s interests and needs. a envisioned have tural factors like the kind. professional expectations. meeting rooms – and culmovement to promote it51). of course the tion into society’s functioning. invoking diverse voicon financial speculation. intelligence and wisdom profound implications for social change. advertisements. which diction markets can provide high quality crowd46 47 sourced guesstimates . living systems theory (including cyberness”. Biologist ating an economic system that has wisdom built into rupert Sheldrake hypothesizes collective “morphic it in the form of less long–term harms and more fields” where the development of habits by certain long-term benefits44. or stories. Structural factors like the presence and design of public conscious social systems” and increasingly of spaces – parks. partnership and sus process spread widely through activist groups T O M A L T E E | T H E R O L E O F C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 12 . revise and prioritize items are examples of relatively successful interventions to of common interest such as policy options. taxes on carbon or erning. which can manifest in other biology). for example. and lenient feedback dynamics to observe and correct selfwhistleblower laws facilitate the flow of information and organizing tendencies that are drifting towards thus the quality of political and government intelligence. femipossible and right. nonprofit watchdog organizations. usually realms of used to create participatory evolving knowledge deep kinship. network theory. values. evaluate. is causes people to buy es from such a field to converse and co-evolve less damaging products because they are cheaper. coltrack and organize the complex weave of diverse lective consciousness. Effective transparency design activity itself must be iterative and rich in laws. cresocial systems of course play a powerful role. libraries. aggregation systems like prethis magazine is a part.summary. needs. culture. including citiSome religious groups make decisions based on colleczen deliberative councils48. and evolutionary like to call “co-sensing”.

wTc attack – or being told of the same intense event or e application of collective intelligence in reality – such as a war. nanotechnology. is remarkable. patterns (from fractals and holographics to holons as we develop society’s collective intelligence capaciand the relations between wholes and parts). and economic systems. and 65 ties. biases. curricula and educational fiction and film to mediPermaculture is an ecological design science and philosophy used to guide the creation of sustainable living systems and tation practices and shamanic training). “why the future doesn’t need us”. challenges that are visible. work to develop systemic the collective consciousness involved in millions of peocollective intelligence takes on a new urgency. ble personal immediacy can be compensated for controversial article stresses that within decades individuals and by collective cultural factors like scientific research small groups will be empowered by syngergistic developments in and sensors. that are largely invisible to most individuals (from imperceptible radiation and toxins to distant social disruptions). adjusting our relationship with reality. understanding. although 1 2 3 S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . also continued existence. i to war and technological folly – involve factors can imagine few more pressing undertakings. practitioners – as can music (sometimes with the help of drugs)59. biotechnology. and given e global consciousness Project notes changes in the extent to which our civilization has been random number generators around the world in the built largely on a uniquely dysfunctional relapresence of – or even right before – major collective tionship to reality that now threatens humanity’s 62 events like the 9/11 world Trade center attack . creating a ary enlightenment of andrew cohen58 – can generate social-evolutionary pressure for further research or access a shared experiential consciousness among and development. Dream research and dream-sharing cultures suggest that dreaming can access a shared aspect of our C O N C L U S I O N consciousness60. the nature of human and moderating its own collective intelligence – a diversity and human potential (both individual and phenomenon for which citizen deliberative councils collective). unfortunately. “what is fortunately. most of the collective crises wisdom in the past centuries. and finally. Joy 2000. worldwide indigenous Science Network 2013 . ese include cal. is dystopian possibility would be nelling of self-interest (as in the “internalization of easily dismissed except that Bill Joy is co-founder of Sun costs” noted above). they clearly fall short of what is need– ranging from Bohmian Dialogue57 to the evolutioned to meet 21st century challenges. and broad promotion of sysMicrosystems and one of the creators of Java. considered the tems thinking and holistic awareness (from systemic most important programming language on the web. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 13 . a famine. systemic chancreate self-replicating entities capable of destroying humanity and/or its support systems. the nature of wholeness64 and holistic are a crucial resource. most urgently in our politivant to enhancing collective intelligence. slow developing (until a 8 sudden phase shift or “point of no return” is —————— reached). there are a number of other fields where our embedding of collective intelligence in our colgrowing understanding provides insights highly relelective social systems.and intentional community networks. and pergiven how far and powerfully we have strayed from sonal. and how much of reality is taken into account and how the responsiveness of people and life. and computing power to compelling media related to them. or melting glaciers – is groups and organizations is important and wellalso a very significant factor in society–wide collective paid work that has led to very important develintelligence (or stupidity). But now we need to priorif any esoteric dimensions. Some practices we can see examples of such transpersonal capacities all around us. and systemic (particularly when built into the structures of society’s functioning)66. governance. is subjects like the nature of intelligence itself (from neuincludes the evocation of a self–conscious collec63 rology and multiple intelligences to cognitive limitativity – a we the People – capable of generating tions. even though it involves few opments in this field. practice. this individual human bias for visiindigenous Science?”. immediate. ple simply watching the same media imagery – as in the collective intelligence is a vast and varied field. e collective wisdom initiative61 given the role of intelligence in monitoring and explores other meditative approaches in this category. we can keep in mind the need to always expand the dynamics of evolution . transformation. and the criticality of the we face – from pollution and climate disruption resulting state of affairs in which we find ourselves. many needs of how many beings and systems are a particularly important realm for research and being served over how long a time period so that the development in this regard is the evolved human guidance provided by our collective intelligence is bias for individuals to respond most readily to more likely to be wise. and blind spots). citizen deliberative councils and robotics. itize the study.

for more detailed information see atlee <http://bit. see weisbord and Janoff 2010. differences. Getting to Yes. which they are passionate and then how to participate in ways 39 See <http://bit. 20 minutes or so being taught how to initiate sessions about 38 See <http://bit.” See <http://bit. for in depth and ny produces irrational or dysfunctional decisions by avoidbooks see <http://bit. 15 intelligence and wisdom.ly/argueMap>.ly/1v83gpz>. “e Energy Problem”. 16 ing with the center for wise Democracy and others in its evolu“it is accepted as democratic when public offices are tion. and as oligarchic when they are filled by to track its ongoing development. e Political Potential of Sortition: 11-30. read fisher and ury 1981.ly/1wg6ahi>. see <http://bit. in open Space conferences.ly/TufteSite>. 19 <http://bit.ly/zvfSyc>.ly/12y3EQv>. for examples and allocated by lot.ly/1pSyTgm>.ly/1wD8dsc>. its design principles are seen as subsidiary to the observed needs and dynamics of the natural the process see <http://bit. for its original vision see rough 2002. <http://bit. for a detailed description. From Conflict to Creative Collaboration for an in-depth i find the community wisdom council process – which exploration. i see it as the most powerful broadly applicable 28 “choice–creating is a heartfelt.ly/1tcx5bw>. i recommend this book as one of the best peutic regimes that enhance the health of “the whole person”. e World so-called alternative and traditional healing practices into theraCafé. da’s diversity and had them spend a weekend with Getting 10 to Yes co-author roger fisher and two aides. e Art of the lent Communication. for more about habitats by working with nature.1294be. op.” aristotle. triggering months of citizen conversation across canato open their minds and hearts and thus engage them in discoverda. for mainstream views on group32 argument mapping involves visually representing the arguthink. is year (2014) i have been participatDowlen 2008. instructions on its application.ly/132wrtv> and Schwartz 1991. for an overview. for more thorough treatment by 2012.ly/1sxwtyx>. conversation-based collective intelligence and many examHealth and Healing.d.ly/44zEug>. Biomimicry for more depth. see <http://bit. op.ly/1rwiwpo>. for more on 5 e characteristics and forms of citizen deliberative councils are this latter topic. 2008. election.ly/1whwtio> for more.ly/1tBrdnf>. see <http://bit.ly/1zdlaJe> and its nature at idea. ples of powerful questions that create change. peting approaches for dealing with the issue – ideally embracing most for further reading. see <http://bit. e entire initiative and media coverage are detailed with ing new ways of looking at a shared situation that makes sense to analysis at <http://bit. Nonvio34 See <http://bit. see also <http://bit. See ests of all in mind.ly/1o Qu z6s> and their uses at for a good overview of the process.ly/1nNnggP>. <http://bit. et al. see for a quick summary see <http://bit. 33 framing an issue for deliberation involves providing 3-5 com“what is appreciative inquiry?” and <http://bit. participants spend the first “Multi-Modal intelligence and Multiple intelligences”. see atlee 2003. see zehr 1990. 37 23 for my own views on multiple intelligences. has been initiated from both government and grassroots levels 14 and is evolving rapidly – to be one of the most promising innogallup 2013.ly/Tuftew> for an overview.ly/cwD2014>. for more.. for more.ly/1zfv6qf>.ly/1sxxy2v>. see rosenberg 2001. it offers invaluable insights into wellbeing. issues forums n. realities of the specific site being designed. cit. creative mode of thinkmethod i know of for transforming conflict. search for “trade-off” in National material. “framing for Deliberation”. 12 combined with an hour long public affairs Tv documentary atlee 2012. the founders. 2006. Open Space Technology. see cooperrider and whitney n. see refer to owen 2008. see <http://bit. and dising where people address important issues with the best intersonance into new shared understandings and relationships. for more detail by 2002.ly/zwtsun>. et al. of collective intelligence. 22 for an excellent overview of the restorative justice 36 See <http://bit. newsweekly – selected 12 citizens who represented cana9 callenbach and Phillips 1985. in fact. Changing Lenses. ibid. for more in depth coverage. Future Search. psychological. 8 27 crosby 2003. A Citizen Legislature. one of its founders.ly/1rojKlw> and Janis 1972. Deliberative Democracy in America.ly/1zet0qQ> has ing dissent and critical thinking – is actually the opposite some of his favourite visual examples. ibid. Jim rough is also the creultimately productive conversation culminating in a ator of Dynamic facilitation (as described in endnote 13 below) remarkable agreement. for full treatment. Empowering Public Wisdom: 57-88. See <http://bit. Victims ments supporting and opposing a proposition.ly/1DljMqu> and Mollison 1997. Polarity 7 gastil 2000. read my review of it at embracing their physiological.ly/1ta1gyr> and weil 2004. Healthy Democracy. 21 e essentials of principled negotiation are described 35 for an example of how trade-offs are handled in a deliberawell at <http://bit. 6 26 See atlee. Management. see Johnson 1992. guided by their interests and energy rather than by any external T O M A L T E E | T H E R O L E O F C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 14 . 20 mentation and evidence for each one. group process books. Appreciative positions in the public discourse around that issue – along with arguInquiry Handbook. groupthink – in which the desire for group harmo31 See <http://bit. see <http://bit. 30 17 for my essay on intrinsic participation and co–creation see Dowlen 2008.ly/12vafNf>. including arguments of Groupthink. all of them. for more detail 4 integrative medicine seeks to integrate allopathic medicine and get the book by its founders: Brown.: 25-44. 11 published their bios and a detailed story of their rocky but rough 2002. “congress Job approval Drops to allvations for shifting democracy into more citizen-based collective Time low for 2013”. experience a totally different form of dialogue and citizenDynamic facilitation uses the energy of their passions and beliefs ship. and spiritual <http://bit.ly/10vpM47>.rules or expectations that interfere with that. By Popular Demand: 112–96. see <http://bit. ose chapters are online – the need for for an excellent overview of this profoundly useful public wisdom at <http://bit. cit.ly/1nNjrBu> for an overview. 25 described briefly at <http://bit.ly/1wcoShz> for an introduction and zubizarreta 29 2014.. or Benyus movement. Kadlec and friedman 2008. Politics 4. Maclean’s 40 pages of coverage – used in community wisdom councils (see endnote 29). Maclean’s leib 2004. for my related views on “co-stupidity” see supporting and opposing each subsequent assertion. Long View. social. Ned crosby is the creator of in 1991 Maclean’s – canada’s national glossy citizens Juries. for the original source tive framing for energy policy. 13 about the process – allowed the entire country to vicariously By listening in ways that make participants feel fully heard. ing principles. 18 <http://bit.: 234-36. 24 <http://bit.d. Society’s Breakthrough.: 33-4. Introduction to Perfor a short description of the process and its underlymaculture. see cooperrider. for full context and <http://bit.

40
54
See <http://bit.ly/1fSShsw>. e Earth charter was the prodSee <http://bit.ly/1DyyP6w>.
55
uct of a global grassroots consultative process. its excellent but
See, for example, <http://bit.ly/1tcjESu>.
56
western-oriented effort to be universal stimulated indigenous
See <http://bit.ly/1vdefEk>.
57
Peoples to create an indigenous Peoples Earth charter. See
See <http://bit.ly/136o1qd>. for two and a half years in
<http://bit.ly/1zf13tu>.
the early 1990s i spent 2 hours every wednesday night in a
41
for my discussion of these and other needs-based approaches,
Bohmian Dialogue group. e exercise put us vividly into
see <http://bit.ly/ci–needs>.
present time and, on one occasion, into actual group mind
42
in 2006 george Pór <http://bit.ly/gPorci> and i formed the
where we all experienced thinking and seeing the same
collective intelligence convergence initiative <http://bit.ly/cithings (a phenomenon that lasted only about 3 minutes but
convrgnc> and worked with robert Steele <http://bit.ly/rS–EiN>
was truly remarkable).
58
to convene a conference to track and evolve the entire field of collecSee <http://bit.ly/1yh7l7K>.
59
tive intelligence. is conference didn’t happen, but the effort did
See <http://bit.ly/1Dtksdp> exploring the musiciangenerate a book, Tovey 2008, Collective Intelligence. also relevant to
audience communion evoked by the grateful Dead, the
the size of the collective intelligence iceberg are works that attempt to
Beatles, and Paul Mccartney, among others.
embrace all conversational methodologies and/or to articulate the
60
See <http://bit.ly/1vdyMT3>.
underlying dynamics and design elements that make them work or
61
See <http://bit.ly/cwinitiative>.
make them magic. in this latter category we find holman et al. 2007,
62
See <http://bit.ly/1nohqd5>.
e Change Handbook; holman 2010, Engaging Emergence; and
63
re
multiple intelligences, see endnote 37.
group Pattern language Project 2011, Group Works.
64
i have an ongoing effort to embrace and model the
43
See Steele 2012, e Open-Source Everything Manifesto.
many aspects of wholeness noted by all students of the subject.
44
See <http://bit.ly/1Ds7ovk>.
for the current state of that inquiry, visit <http://bit.ly/ciw45
for a quick intro, see <http://bit.ly/1vce9xn>. for a thorough
holeness>.
review, see costanza 2009, “Beyond gDP” <http://bit.ly/1ygStgo>.
65
See <http://bit.ly/1tcrzpb>.
for a larger vision of wiser economics, see Eisenstein 2011, Sacred
66
See
especially ornstein and Ehrlich 1990, New World
Economics.
New Mind. Much of collective intelligence theory and
46
aggregation here refers to the phenomenon described in James
methodology could help address this major challenge – if we
Surowiecki’s book e Wisdom Of Crowds <http://bit.ly/1vcoau3> whereuse them for that purpose.
by many people operating independently can generate remarkably
accurate predictions regarding current realities (how many beans in
the bottle, or the location of a sunken submarine) and future events
8
(where terrorists will strike next, or who will win the election). is
phenomenon is manifested formally in what are called “prediction
B I B L I O G R A P H Y
markets” <http://bit.ly/1ryb9SQ>. as useful as prediction markets
may be, i take issue with using the word “wisdom” to describe
aTlEE, T. (2003). “Multi-Modal intelligence and Multithem: see <http://bit.ly/1no91lc>.
ple intelligences” <http://bit.ly/10x2ilv> [retrieved 28
47
Stigmergy is a mechanism of indirect coordination
oct. 2014].
between agents: a trace left in the environment by one agent
—— (2003). e Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence
shapes the behaviors of subsequent agents. See
to Create a World that Works for All (cranston, ri: e
<http://bit.ly/1zeMcux>. in an ant colony, chemical traces
writers collective).
left by one ant stimulate specific actions in other ants passing
over the first ant’s track. Previous customers buying products
—— (2003) . “using citizen Deliberative councils to
from amazon leave digital traces out of which amazon’s
Make Democracy More Potent and awake”
algorithm (not a human analyst) informs you that “people
<http://bit.ly/13f2Qxo> [retrieved 25 oct. 2014].
who bought this product also bought these other products”.
—— (2010). Reflections on Evolutionary Activism: Essays,
48
for example, a wikipedia-like site could be develPoems and Prayers from an Emerging Field of Sacred Social
oped on which diverse experts and partisans could use the
Change
(Eugene, or: Evolutionary action Press).
dynamics in this paragraph to generate evolving issue fram—— (2012). Empowering Public Wisdom: A Practical Vision
ings (see endnote 33) for any and all issues, which could
of Citizen-Led Politics (Berkeley: Evolver Editions, North
then be consulted by individual voters and citizen councils.
for a vision about this, see atlee 2012, op. cit.: 141-7.
atlantic Books).
49
Swarm intelligence is the intelligence manifested by
—— (2014). “canadian adversaries Take a Break to Dream:
self-organized collective systems such as bird flocks or their
e Maclean’s 1991 Experiment” <http://bit.ly/zvfSyc>
digital equivalent – “boids” – that interact according to sim[retrieved 26 oct. 2014).
ple rules that generate emergent, environmentally responsive
ENyuS, J. (2002). Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature
B
flocking behaviour. See <http://bit.ly/135vNp2>.
(New york: harper Perennial).
50
atlee 2003, e Tao of Democracy: 250-67.
rowN
, J., ET al . (2006) . e World Cafe: Shaping Our
B
51
See <http://bit.ly/1pw5tTp> and <http://bit.ly/1sftrFutures
rough Conversations that Matter (San francisco:
lx>. is evolutionary movement initiative was derailed by the
Berrett-Koehler).
long terminal illness of my life partner and subsequent changes
in the lives of myself and other organizers. e initiative did,
callENBach, E. aND PhilliPS, M. (1985). A Citizen Legislahowever, produce two significant products: the launching of a
ture (Berkeley: Banyan Tree Books).
wiki on evolutionary spirituality <http://bit.ly/1zfxvrD> and
cENTEr for wiSE DEMocracy (n.d.). “we offer social
the publishing of atlee 2010, Reflections on Evolutionary
innovations to solve difficult public issues, involve citiActivism.
zens and build the spirit of community”
52
See <http://bit.ly/1sBcaou>.
<http://bit.ly/cwD2014> [retrieved 27 oct 2014].
53
for a brief description see <http://bit.ly/1pwipsk>.
c
ooPErriDEr
, D. aND whiTNEy, D. (n.d.). “what is
Efforts to experimentally prove or disprove morphic resonance
appreciative inquiry?” <http://bit.ly/10zvuSz> [retrieved
have produced quite a number of intriguing results: see
25 oct. 2014].
<http://bit.ly/1vd0hw0> for examples.

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cooPErriDEr, D.l., whiTNEy, D. aND STavroS, J.M.
(2008) . Appreciative Inquiry Handbook ( 2 nd ed.)
(Brunswick, oh: crown custom Publishing).
coSTaNza, r., ET al. (2009). “Beyond gDP: e Need for
New Measures of Progress”, e Pardee Papers #4 (Boston
university: e frederick S. Pardee center for the Study
of the longer-range future) <http://bit.ly/1y gStgo>
[retrieved 28 oct. 2014].
croSBy, N. (2003). Healthy Democracy: Empowering a Clear
and Informed Voice of the People (Edina, MN: Beaver’s
Pond Press).
DowlEN, o. (2008). e Political Potential of Sortition: A
Study of the Random Selection of Citizens for Public Office
(Exeter, uK: imprint academics).
EiSENSTEiN, c. (2011). Sacred Economics: Money, Gift and
Society in the Age of Transition (Berkeley: Evolver Editions,
North atlantic Books).
fiShEr, r. aND ury, w. (1981). Getting to Yes: Negotiating
Agreement Without Giving In (New york: Penguin Books).
galluP (2013). “congress Job approval Drops to all-Time low
for 2013” <http://bit.ly/1sgf4bx> [retrieved 25 oct. 2014].
gaSTil, J. (2000). By Popular Demand: Revitalizing Representative Democracy through Deliberative Elections (Berkeley:
university of california Press).
grouP PaTTErN laNguagE ProJEcT (2011). Group Works:
A Pattern Language for Bringing Life to Meetings and
Other Gatherings <http://bit.ly/1yisrsM> [retrieved 29
oct. 2014].
h olMaN , P. (2010) . Engaging Emergence: Turning
Upheaval into Opportunity (San francisco: BerrettKoehler).
holMaN, P. ET al. (eds.) (2007). e Change Handbook:
e Definitive Resource on Today’s Best Methods for
Engaging Whole Systems (2nd ed.) (San francisco:
Berrett-Koehler).
J aNiS , i. (1972). Victims of Groupthink (Boston:
houghton Mifflin).
JohNSoN, B. (1992). Polarity Management: Identifying
and Managing Unsolvable Problems (amherst:
human resources Development Press).
Joy, B. (2000). “why the future doesn’t need us”,
<http://wrd.cm/1t Pa0gi > [retrieved 25 oct.
2014].
KaDlEc, a. aND friEDMaN, w. (2008). “framing
for Deliberation: a caPE working Paper”, center
for
advances
in
Public
Engagement <http://bit.ly/132lP85> [retrieved
28 oct. 2014].
lEiB, E. (2004). Deliberative Democracy in America:
A Proposal for a Popular Branch of Government
(university Park, Pa: Pennsylvania State uP).
MolliSoN, B. (1997). Introduction to Permaculture
(Berkeley: Ten Speed Press).
NaTioNal iSSuES foruMS (n.d.). “e Energy Problem: choices for an uncertain future”
<http://bit.ly/ Nif -Energy> [retrieved 28 oct.
2014].
o rNSTEiN , r.E. aND E hrlich , P.r. (1990) . New
World New Mind: A Brilliant Original Guide to
Changing the Way We ink about the Future (New
york: Simon & Shuster).

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O F

o wEN , h. (2008) . Open Space Technology: A User’s
Guide (3rd ed.) (San francisco: Berrett-Koehler).
roSENBErg, M. (2001). Nonviolent Communication: A
Language of Compassion (Encinitas, ca : Puddledancer Press).
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Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
(Bloomington, iN: 1st Books library).
SchwarTz, P. (1991). e Art of the Long View (New
york: Doubleday).
STEElE, r.D. (2012). e Open-Source Everything
Manifesto: Transparency, Truth, and Trust
(Berkeley: Evolver Editions, North atlantic
Books).
TovEy, M. (ed.) (2008). Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace (oakton, virginia: Earth intelligence Network).
wEil, a., M.D. (2004). Health and Healing: e
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w EiSBorD , M. aND J aNoff , S. (2010) . Future
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francisco: Berrett-Koehler).
worlDwiDE iNDigENouS SciENcE NETworK (2013).
“what
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zuBizarrETa, r. (2014). From Conflict to Creative Collaboration: A User’s Guide to Dynamic Facilitation
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P I E R R E

L É V Y

THE PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPT OF

ALGORITHMIC INTELLIGENCE
Pierre Lévy devoted his professional life to the understanding of the cultural and cognitive implications of the digital technologies, to promote
their best social uses and to
study the phenomenon of
human collective intelligence.
He introduced the collective
intelligence concept in his 1994 book
collective intelligence and has written
a dozen of books on this subject that have been translated in
more than 12 languages and are studied in many universities all
over the world..
Pierre Lévy currently teaches at the communication department
of the University of Ottawa (Canada), where he holds a
Canada Research Chair in Collective Intelligence. Lévy is fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and received several
awards and academic distinctions.
∑
“Transcending the media, airborne machines will
announce the voice of the many. Still indiscernible,
cloaked in the mists of the future, bathing another
humanity in its murmuring, we have a rendezvous with
the over-language.” Collective Intelligence, 1997: xxviii.
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T

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small minority of thinkers) that the internet
would become the centre of the global public
space and the main medium of communication, in particular for the collaborative production and sharing of knowledge and the dissemination of news4.
in spite of the considerable growth of interactive digital communication over the past twenty
years, we are still far from the ideal described in
Collective Intelligence. it seemed to me already in
1994 that the anthropological changes under way
would take root and inaugurate a new phase in
the human adventure only if we invented what i
then called an “over-language.” how can communication readily reach across the multiplicity of
dialects and cultures? how can we map the deluge
of digital data, order it around our interests and
extract knowledge from it? how can we master the
waves, currents and depths of the software ocean?
Collective Intelligence envisaged a symbolic system
capable of harnessing the immense calculating power
of the new medium and making it work for our benefit. But the over-language i foresaw in 1994 was still
in the “indiscernible” period, shrouded in “the mists
of the future.” Twenty years later, the curtain of mist
has been partially pierced: the over-language now has a
name, iEMl (acronym for information Economy Metalanguage), a grammar and a dictionary5.

h i S P a P E r w a S w r i T T E N i N 2014 , T w E N T y

years after L’intelligence collective [the
original french edition of Collective Intelligence]1. e main purpose of Collective
Intelligence was to formulate a vision of
a cultural and social evolution that would be
capable of making the best use of the new possibilities opened up by digital communication.
long before the success of social networks on
the web2, i predicted the rise of “engineering
the social bond.” Eight years before the founding
of wikipedia in 2001, i imagined an online “cosmopedia” structured in hypertext links. when the
digital humanities and the social media had not
even been named, i was calling for an epistemological and methodological transformation of the
human sciences. But above all, at a time when
less than one percent of the world’s population
was connected3, i was predicting (along with a

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collective intelligence drives human development, and
human development supports the growth of collective
intelligence. By improving collective intelligence we
can place ourselves in this feedback loop and orient it
in the direction of a self-organizing virtuous cycle. is
is the strategic intuition that has guided my research.
But how can we improve collective intelligence? in 1994,
the concept of digital collective intelligence was still revolutionary. in 2014, this term is commonly used by consultants, politicians, entrepreneurs, technologists, academics and educators. crowdsourcing has become a
common practice, and knowledge management is now
supported by the decentralized use of social media.
e interconnection of humanity through the internet, the development of the knowledge economy, the

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compares my thoughts with tive. to carry out social actions. that volume presents the main themes of its intelligence is intrinsically social. Be careful! collective intelligence does not and will not have autonomous consciousness: when i talk about reflexive collective intelligence. a model that will be fed by the intelligence. it will therefore need to acquire a mirror that allows it to observe its own cognitive processes. etc. but would be capable of expressing semantic relationships formed between units of meaning. the human sciences. to think. iEMl – an artificial language with calculable semantics – is the intellectual technology that will make it possible to find answers to all the above-mentioned questions. a reflexive collective intelligence is in turn possible. statistics and biological models.rush to higher education and the rise of cloud computing and big data are all indicators of an increase in our cognitive power. above all. epistemological and intelligence from it. symbolic manipulation that distinguishes human cognition. and doing so in an algebraic. But we have yet to cross the threshold of reflexive collective intelligence. But. one that would not be limited to the purely logical and syntactic aspects or to statistical correlations of corpora of texts. is means that the acceleration of human development is within our reach. to put it another way. science of human intelligence in general. intelligence possible? it is language or. bibliography9. that a mathematical and empirical science of collective intelligence is possible. i am speaking here of a complete scientific modelling of language. T H E K E Y : M O D E L L I N G A C O M P L E T E O F L A N G U A G E But how can a mirror of collective intelligence be constructed? it is clear that the context of reflection will be the algorithmic medium or. collective intelligence will only be able to set out on the path of purposeful learning and thus move on to a new stage in its growth by achieving reflexivity. just as yogis develop awareness of their inner being only through the meditative contemplation of their own mind. i mean that human individuals will have a clearer and better-shared knowledge than they have today of the collective intelligence in which they participate. then. Just as dancers can only perfect their movements by reflecting them in a mirror. ubiquitous communication and disT H E S C I E N T I F I C F I L E : tributed interactive mobile interfaces. e Semantic Sphere 1 (2011)8. formal syntax. generative mode6. why write problem that has been investigated in the social more than four hundred pages to justify a program of sciences. it follows. a detailed dialogue with my contemporaries and my predecessors. us. we must yield to the nature of i have written two volumes on my project of developthat medium and have a calculable model of our ing the scientific framework for a reflexive collective intelligence. with a substantial Since humanity is a species that is highly social. P I E R R E L É V Y | T H E P H I L O S O P H I C A L what is important in computer science and artificial intelligence is logic. the cognitive sciscientific research? for one very simple reason: no one ences and artificial intelligence since the twentiin the contemporary scientific community thought eth century: is a mathematized science of human that my research program had any chance of success. or collecmy intellectual process. a science of human intelligence is now possible. it contive intelligence. is flows of digital data from our activities. e first volume. we now have a complete scientific modelling of language. i focused my efforts on discovering such a model. and i am currently writing the third. we use language to categorize sensory data. once again. to put it another way. trilogy can be read as the story of a voyage of discovwe need a mathematical (with calculable models) ery. if we had a mathematical and empirical those of the philosophical and scientific tradition. could no doubt derive a science of collective and finally. consequently. the internet. My research has led me to the conclusion that a science of human intelligence is indeed possible. the result was the invention of iEMl7. in short. but on the condition that we solve the problem of the mathematical modelling of language. describes the technical. and empirical (based on data) science of collecprovides the justification for my undertaking. we engages in conversation with the research community. a brief intellectual autoence possible? biography and. convinced that an algebraic model of semantics was the key to a science of intelligence. Engineers generally view social sciences such as sociology or anthropology as nothing but auxiliary C O N C E P T O F A L G O R I T H M I C I N T E L L I G E N C E | 18 . to organize our memory. to communicate. is such a scitains the statement of my aims. is leads us to a major cultural context that motivated my research. Since we T H E S E M A N T I C S P H E R E can only reflect collective intelligence in the algorithmic medium. the calculating power of cloud computing. including its semantic aspects. a knowledge based on transparent principles and perfectible scientific methods.

contains the very technical account of my journey from algebra to language. used as a system of semantic metadata. a state in which capacities for reflection. face storms on uncharted seas. and analysis and synthesis of data will be infinitely more powerful and better distributed than they are today. to wander for twenty years in the convoluted labyrinth of meaning. given a text in iEMl. have stated categorically that the mathematization of language and the human sciences is impracticable. i have even heard some of the most agnostic speak of the curse of Babel. from the semiologist umberto Eco10 to the anthropologist levi-Strauss11. iEMl will structure an open. on the other side of the supposedly impassable territory: the new horizons of the mind that algorithmic intelligence illuminates. i had set my course in a direction no one considered worthy of serious exploration since the crossing was thought impossible. almost singlehanded16. for researchers in the human sciences. it is therefore not surprising that i want to make a strong case in defending the scientific nature of my undertaking: all explorers have returned emptyhanded from this voyage toward mathematical language.”12 unscrupulously confusing mathematization and quantification. from leibniz to chomsky. my S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . A N E W F R O N T I E R A L G O R I T H M I C : I N T E L L I G E N C E having mapped the path i discovered in La grammaire d’IEML. which can be measured and navigated at will using algorithms. i am talking here about a future (but not so distant) state of intelligence. being and thing in turn in the sense of the virtual and actual. to mention only the greatest. Because iEMl is obviously not an end in itself. in the human sciences. worse yet. communication. utopian. i had to. and i made a map of the labyrinth. 2 /2 0 1 4 | journey reached its goal. creation. e contemporary algorithmic medium is already characterized by digitization of data. i have completed the risky work of prediction and cultural creation i undertook with Collective Intelligence twenty years ago. have failed. the analysis of usage or the experience of users. T H E M E T A L A N G U A G E : I E M L But one cannot go on forever announcing one’s departure on a voyage: one must set forth. automated data processing in huge industrial computing centres. it will be able to support new forms of translinguistic hypertextual communication in social media. we can C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 19 . But by gradually joining sign. e path i wanted to follow was forbidden not only by the habits of engineers and the major authorities in the human sciences but also by the nearly universal view that “meaning depends on context. if they returned at all. it is only the necessary means for the coming great digital civilization to enable the sun of human knowledge to shine more brightly. the greatest masters. those from whom i have learned so much. learning. that “Northwest Passage”17 where the waters of the exact sciences and the human sciences converged. reflexively. with many examples. e IEML Grammar is the scientific proof of this. with the concept of Algorithmic Intelligence. e metalanguage generates a huge group of symmetric transformations between semantic networks. To connect a mathematical syntax to a semantics in natural languages. e IEML Grammar demonstrates the calculability of the semantic networks and presents the algorithmic workings of the metalanguage in detail. e mathematization of language is indeed possible. La grammaire d’IEML15. what is it exactly? iEMl is an artificial language with calculable semantics that puts no limits on the possibilities for the expression of new meanings. But that 150-page book also contains 52 very dense pages of algorithms and mathematics that show in detail how the internal semantic networks of that artificial language can be calculated and translated automatically into natural languages. a complicated map of the metalanguage. collaboration. all those who have tried to mathematize language. impossible. navigate… and return. i finally had my ariadne’s thread. i explain how to construct sentences and texts in iEMl. translate that network into natural languages and calculate the semantic relationships between that text and the other texts in iEMl. i will now relate what i saw at the end of my journey. the situation is even more difficult. the “ethnocentric bias” of any universalist approach13 and recalling the “failure” of Esperanto14. to advance across the desert with no certainty that fertile land would be found beyond the horizon. and will make it possible for conversation networks to observe and perfect their own collective intelligence.disciplines limited to cosmetic functions: for example. denouncing on principle. But. achieving only partial results. since here is a mathematical metalanguage. interactive mobile interfaces broadly distributed among the population and ubiquitous communication. universal encyclopedic library of multimedia data that reorganizes itself automatically around subjects and the interests of its users. against all expectations. e second volume of my trilogy. algorithms reconstitute the internal grammatical and semantic network of the text. in it. iEMl opens the way to new methods for analyzing large masses of data.

or at least a certain his main disciple. with its recthe world of ideas and coming into contact with what ognized limits but also its rational ideal of perexplains and motivates its own knowledge. and in his Metaere are many signs in 2014 indicating that in physics21.” us we may speak of a theoous questioning of the unthinking categorization of sophical age of reflexive knowledge.” is supreme self-reflexive thought was for half of humanity is connected to the internet – we him the “prime mover” that inspires the eternal will experience a third stage of reflexive knowledge. Plato taught that humanity can only know itself as an intelligent species by going back to fined itself to human knowledge. reflexive knowledge may be defined as knowledge knowing itself. which culminated in the concept of nomena they categorize. he integrates Plato’s knowledge must define its transcendental subject. is is the coming technological age of reflexive knowledge with its ideal of an algorithmic intelligence. that would be used as a model for eighteen centuries the other on what limits it. is was the second age. almost rational expansion of consciousness of self. But the reflexivity of knowledge the Delphic injunction in an unexpected way. fectibility. the investiaristotle. or curious citizens? he thus opened the door to a is first great type of systematic research on knowlnew way of knowing one’s own knowledge. in it. created a grand encyclopaedic synthesis focusing on what makes knowledge possible.make this the medium of a new type of knowledge – a new episteme18 – by adding a system of semantic metadata based on iEMl. whether philosophical or religious. e purpose of this paper is precisely to lay the philosophical and historical groundwork for this new type of knowledge. contemporaries: what do you think? are you confucius. “all men by nature desire to know. always involved a divine ideal.” wrote aristotle. took a decisive step around the middle of the first milintroducing dialectical inquiry. Socrates and zoroaster consistent? can you justify what you are saying (in alphabetical order) lived. But in the the forms and sources of their own knowledge since the fifth century BcE in athens. and therefore our capacities for personal and social learning. justice or love? could you repeat the entire human race in their investigations: they it seriously in front of a little group of intelligent reflected consciousness from a universal perspective. his book is “version 3. Socrates extended dawn of consciousness. the hebrew prophets. discovery of ideas with the sum of knowledge of his that is. which project into and spreading throughout the world with the phenomenal time and space all those things that seem rise of modernity – there was a second age of to us to be truly real because they are tangible. a edge. which maintained the are actually only pale copies of the ideas. scientific and technological – of reflexive knowledge can be read as a philosophical genealogy of algorithmic intelligence. archetypes beyond reality. movement of the cosmos. time. i will examine reality. in De Anima22. it must discover its own determinations. P H I L O S O P H I C A L A L G O R I T H M I C THE THREE AGES OF G E N E A L O G Y O F I N T E L L I G E N C E REFLEXIVE KNOWLEDGE Since my project here involves a reflexive collective intelligence. in both cases. versions’ ideals of universality and scientific perfectibility but will be based on the intensive use of technology to augment and reflect systematically our collective intelligence. do not belong to the world of the agent intellect. THE AND THEOSOPHICAL ITS AGENT AGE INTELLECT a few generations earlier. but that reflection on knowledge. and this knowledge implies knowledge of the self19. and finally discovered the world of ideas. ideas the aristotelian lineage of this theosophical confor Plato are intellectual forms that. i would like to place the theme of reflexive knowledge in its historical and philosophical context.0” will maintain the two previous P I E R R E L É V Y | T H E P H I L O S O P H I C A L C O N C E P T O F A L G O R I T H M I C I N T E L L I G E N C E | 20 . Socrates might have been a priest in the circle around the Pythia. e brief history of these three modalities – theosophical. Plato. as a first approximation. he defines the divinity as “thought thinking the twenty-first century – around the point where itself. ese teachers involved about courage. he places at the top of his hierarchical cosmos divine thought knowing itself. ese intelligible forms are the original Starting in the sixteenth century in Europe – essences. unlike the phesciousness. here. he had taken the famous maxim “Know thyself” human beings have no doubt been speculating about from the Temple of apollo at Delphi. Becoming. the scientific age. followed this path of rigor“relation to heaven. in a multitude of cultures. he asked his lennium BcE20 during the period when the Buddha. who was Plato’s student and alexander the gation follows two intertwined paths: one path great’s tutor. we would say universal perspective of the previous period but today that our experience is mainly determined by our abandoned the reference to heaven and conway of categorizing it. of reflexive knowledge.

the intelligence and the with the European renaissance. which speculates on the divine intellithrough it. all its objects.” e fact remains that edge of a finite human being can only be partial cartesian philosophy rests on the self-reflexive edge. think. and sian system. god was still present in the carteonly through the intermediary of its objects. living humanity is structured conceptually divided into three aspects that. receive a bright light from the agent intellect. knows itself. reflecin contrast. according to the medieval theosophists. the construction of new observation perfect reflexivity of thought thinking itself. Jews and christians – developed the disciemanates from above and go back to the source pline of noetics.on psychology and the theory of knowledge. deity of the abrahamic traditions are beyond the ey therefore attempted. e states that. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 21 . everything that hapas we go down the scale of degree of openness to pens takes place in the unity of a self-reflexive divine the world above. it was clear to our medieval theosophists tion on knowledge took a critical turn with Descartes’ that in the case of human beings. Spinoza and leibniz received the critical scientific rationalism i should add that the “one beyond the one” of developed by Descartes. he separate from matter in aristotle’s psychology. in the printing press. to reach of the human mind. which and transitory. or (in the indian tradition) in the consciousness of an omniscient Brahman or Buddha. human beings turned toward coarse ~ the intelligible. influx of intellectual forms is gradually obscured from a theosophical perspective. but they were dissatisfied with the neo-Platonist Plotinus and the transcendent his dualism of thought (mind) and extension (matter). and the development of mathematics and experimental science heralded a new era. ultimately. the three aspects introduction of radical doubt and the scientific method. the reflexive knowlthought: “god is not a deceiver24. a little like the way human passive intellect. a whole lineage of Peripatetic complete reflexive knowledge is to contemplate and Neo-Platonic philosophers – first “pagans. fectly reflexive knowledge of the divine. in thinking these realm of eternity – the maximum limit of what the intelligible forms. in accordance with this regulating ideal of reflexaccording to the masters of noetics. MaiAND ITS TRANSCENDENTAL SUBJECT monides and albert the great considered that the identity of the intellect. ultimately. of knowledge were neither complete nor identiin accordance with the needs of educated Europe in the cal. or the knowing subject. which is S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . e by the subject by virtue of its operation. is reserved only for the divinity. prophets and theosophists ~ the intellect. or the operation of the subject. nature (identified with god) is a unique dle of that series. between transcendence and finitude. knowledge can be ive knowledge. because the know – or know themselves – other than partially. indeed. therefore i am25. or what is known – or can be known – material appetites receive almost nothing. it also determines – in the the senses receive sensory forms. the bottom. but he was only there. thought. in the second half of the seventeenth century. at this interface. while at ~ the intelligence. open to THE SCIENTIFIC AGE infinity. in so doing. since the passive intellect knows itself seventeenth century. hierarchically. the Starting from the enigmatic propositions of aristotle’s best a mortal intelligence can do to approach theology and psychology. avicenna. at is why. the passive intellect of the indito sending the intelligible categories that inform the vidual receives intelligible forms. each in his own way. gence. a metaphysical interface provides and infinite substance of which thought and extencommunication between the unimaginable and sion are two necessary attributes among an infinity of inaccessible deity and mortal humanity dispersed attributes. in the midfor Spinoza. at the top. because human beings are more or are indissociable and complementary: less turned toward the illumination of the agent intellect. human knowledge has now moved from the divinity to the mortal human: “i could know itself only if it simultaneously knew. in the aristotelian tradition. the use of the intelligible was achieved eternally in god. its relation to human intelligence and the type 23 of reflexivity characteristic of intelligence in general . whose living members can never balanced by a pluralism of expression.” completely and enduringly. instruments. is strict ontological monism is counterin time and space. under the effect of an agent intellect sepagent intellect is not limited – in the realm of time – arate from the body. But that. unique substance possesses an infinity of attributes. at is why our constitute reflexive knowledge within the framework theosophists imagined a series of mediations of coherent monism. in reality.” then the operation in itself of the agent intellect that Muslims. obviously. the passive intellect becomes one human race can receive of the universal and perwith its objects and. we find the agent intellect. to guarthese objects are constantly disappearing and antee the validity of the efforts of human scientific being replaced by others.

a understanding that are specific to human intelsubject immersed in the vagaries of cultures and history. intelligence is programmed described by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason fixed the to know sensory phenomena that are necessarily image a great mind had of it in the late eighteenth century. Believers finite – its perfection coincides with the clearest possible loved science because it revealed the glory of the reflection of a totality that includes it but whose unity is divinity. which could not be our symbolic systems. But neither of them used as arguments what now belonged after leibniz and Spinoza. without reference to the thought. i use the modern philosophy of the nineteenth and this term to designate all undertakings by which the twentieth centuries. it is impossible to know what things are tal subject of the scientific era. Spinoza. deform and set limits on our knowledge? e issue now was to acquire a “scientific” knowlwhat are the structures of our biology. particularly those that are as yet here. e philosophy of the explorations of the determinations of human exisEnlightenment culminated with Kant. critical thought and the educational practices of the Enlightenment. even to envelop or guarantee its reasoning. but it opened up a new inner perception in which the whole is reflected from domain of legitimacy of knowledge. the world is made up of monads. and paved the way for ~ e intelligence becomes scientific investigation. form. economdivinity. as this dispersion intellectual love of god. moves the nature to which we belong. modern philosophy explores a transcendental subject that their main dimensions (space. which corresponds to the most comers. ligence. metather suppressed nor abolished reflexive knowledge physical entities that are closed but are capable of an of the theosophical type. the eighteenth century saw only to their private convictions. and non-believers loved it because it thought only by the divine intelligence. mortal human beings. the deterdevelopment of knowledge was now contained within minations of our existence are also those of our the limits of human reason. is de jure separation pluralism is ensured by the unique. eir position in relation to the divinimonads. imposed on it. sciousness. as for human knowledge – which is necessarily ty was only a matter of motivation. e reflexive knowledge of the scientific era neifor leibniz. of knowing. immersed in space and time. causality. ic. that remain in the shadows of its conalone. for whom the tence. armed with its reason unknown to it. edge of human intelligence. in particular in the human sciences. our psychology and our processes of subjectivaitself. which mushroomed with the end of the mit of human freedom according to Spinoza is the monopoly of theosophy. as for phenomena.) correspond to ways of perceiving and ined and more precisely defined by the human sciences. a new form of reflexive knowlliving intelligence becomes scientifically intelligible.” while the transcendental subject presuppose each other. is is ideal. e consistency of this radical ideal of divine knowledge. there were systematic in france and the British isles. e sumsciences. it seeks to discover what determines it human intelligence and the phenomenal world “behind its back. is involves the effective cognitive activities of subDescartes.” for Kant. explained the world without god. freed of the their singular perspective. our language.and each attribute. leibniz. and fragmented into the human P I E R R E L É V Y | T H E P H I L O S O P H I C A L C O N C E P T O F A L G O R I T H M I C I N T E L L I G E N C E | 22 . spread. techno-symbolic mechanisms that drive it. great philosophers attempted to grasp intuitive possible knowledge of the necessity that reflexive knowledge in its unity. Since we are confined within our cognitive possii will now broadly outline the figure of the transcendenbilities. the English and jects. how do the technical. time. with its scientific and critical gence in terms of what is universal about it. since there was ligence that has considered all possible worlds in order to no lack of religious scholars or scholarly believcreate the best one. without a model that would describe intellition? Modern thought. historical. the growth of scientific research. now faces only the phenomenal world. social and political conditions in which we live But the ideal of reflexivity and universality remained. human intelligence. what is experienced spontaneously in time by french Enlightenment. an infinity of modes. the summit of reflexand at the same time transforms the three complemenive human knowledge is in a critical awareness tary aspects of the agent intellect. is in the process of becoming. that is. great deal in two centuries. a figure that re-examines “in themselves. our communicative interacdone without the representation of knowledge to tions. the most direct and occurred. edge grew. and Kant accomplished a living. ese are forms of the transcendental emerging from its unconscious determinations and the subject and not intrinsic characteristics of reality. infinite divine inteldid not prevent de facto unions. of the extension and the limits of our possibility ~ e aristotelian intellect becomes living intelligence. and since we are thinking beings. constantly searches for the conditions and limits the purpose of Kantian transcendental philosophy. continually being re-exametc. Modern scientists could be believers or nonplex – or the richest – of the reciprocal reflections of the believers.

always been the mirror (scientific investigation) with the being reflected informed by some technology. in other changes our physical appearance. ation of its own augmentation. evolution– it increases it. in other words. in scientific and critical investigation that produces continuity with the two preceding periods. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 23 . it would have lost its capacity to reflect from a reflexive consciousness as the agent of the acceleruniversal perspective. Technology now enters the loop of ished. reflexive cycle in which the living intelligence contemin analog resonance with the human microcosm. with Pierre Teilhard de know it. to another scientific investigation. learned sociproduced through scientific and critical investigation. critical. since the livHistorical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind. knowledge of the technological age will be organized when we observe our physical appearance in a around the ideal of algorithmic intelligence. Nor can one confuse reflexive knowledge has. the methis no longer a theosophical hierarchy oriented toward the agent intellect but a republic of letters oriented ods and the disciplines used in those undertakings. human universe. tal representation we have of it. since it cannot in it (the living intelligence). instead image without including the reflexive process of descending from eternity. the human universe no longer has a recognizable face. But the next three aspects together form a dynamic unit that would age of reflexive knowledge can properly be collapse if one of them were eliminated.including the technical and symbolic tools. in contrast with the agent intellect. But the vocation of subject is – by its very nature – evolutionary. technical internal mirror of the transcendental subjectivity. scientific community that is expanding demographwhich is the image of the living intelligence that is ically and is organized into academies. the it also inherits its power to be reflected in finite intelliliving intelligence cannot discover its intelligible gences. its capacity to unify humanity’s reflexive knowledge. first of all. parthe transcendental subject was to reflexively contain the ticipating in a dynamic of growth. purely human. mediation through which the living intelligence observes itself. Scientific investigation here is the infinitely open to scientific investigation. the reflexive the intelligible image in which it is reflected. it is philosophers. algorithmic intelligence knowing subject does not only reflect knowledge is rational. which contrasts with the fixity of the previous sense of the loss of figurability of the transcendental age. or the experience and its description. and that of the the living intelligence is equally dependent on the scientific-critical age was the transcendental subject. Sketch for a transformed by scientific investigation. any AND ITS ALGORITHMIC INTELLIGENCE more than one can confuse the map and the territory. ing intelligence that knows its image through a cerBut the truly technological dimension of reflexive tain scientific investigation is not the same (does not knowledge really began to be thought about fully only have the same experience) as the one that does not in the twentieth century. us the modern transcendental ary and always in a state of learning. nor with the image that be exercised without symbolic tools and thus appears in the mirror (the intelligible intelligence). eties and universities. the image in the mirror in no way its from the agent intellect its universality or. by definition. and without at the same tude of human actions immersed in space and time. it would be very much diminof its project. ese the media that support those tools. that the living intelligence Engelbart. But it is just as whom we should also add the modest genius Douglas clear. theosophical age was the agent intellect. e “death of man” in line with this evolutionary view of the scientific announced by foucault26 should be understood in the age. the result of chardin. or that knows another image. time being changed. Norbert wiener and Marshall Mcluhan. however. in his posthumous book of 1795. while the livcalled technological because the technical auging intelligence would continue to exist without a mirmentation of cognition is explicitly at the centre ror or scientific image. in fact. a ~ e intelligible becomes the intelligible intelligence. the collectivity that possesses reflexive knowledge S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . however. which inhermirror. while the agent intellect an evolving transcendental subject emerges from this looked out over a cosmos emanating from eternity. plates its own image in the form of a scientifically intelthe transcendental subject explores a universe ligible intelligence. the mastery and political liberation. a critical science that explores the limits and determinations of the like the transcendental subject. reflects itself in the intelligible image presented to e regulating ideal of the reflexive knowledge of the it through scientific knowledge. But. only the menwords. such as condorcet in the eighteenth clear. scientific. in short. it is obviously impossible to confuse the living THE TECHNOLOGICAL AGE intelligence and its scientifically intelligible image. is last point was e creative paradox of the intellectual reflexivity of no doubt glimpsed by a few pre–twentieth century the scientific age may be formulated as follows. toward the augmentation of human knowledge. that the living intelligence is truly century. it emerges from the multiitself in its experience.

me/P3bDio-9v ). Cognition and Inforintelligence will reorganize the human sensorium.subject. Le passage du Nord-Ouest (Paris: and reflect the living intelligence of the coming Minuit. But in the new figure of knowledge. based on the criticism of Esperanto. e concept of episteme. at the time when the which i call computational semantics – iEMl makes use of book was being written. nological change27. approximately 40% in 2014 and probably more than half in 2025. 1995). tures or anonymous complex systems. is none other than the cept of paradigm. e community that possessed the previous figumberto Eco. reflexive collective intelligence emerges from any which is obviously true. interaction with a holographic image of collective e Semantic Sphere 1: Computation. 2011. methodoloof digital civilization. was developed in particular by Michel fouscientifically knowable image of the living intelligence cault in e Order of ings (New york: Pantheon. it is also fragmented in the broken mirror of the disciplines of the in short. algorithmic structured according to a multitude of universal standards. thus inaugurating a new form of public phenomenon only in 1994 with the development of subjectivity. which is broader than the con~ Calculated intelligence. ~ Reflexive collective intelligence represents the livwhich is still used by a large community. e pioneering work of Douglas of collective intelligence: a calculated intelligence that Engelbart and Ted Nelson and the predictions of howard will be able to be explored both as a simulated world rheingold. program and by my wife. pragmatic or other. But the only thing ing intelligence. and more genercivilization. See IEML Grammar (on line http://wp. but also scientific. computer science and ubiquitous communication. which is reflected in it. munity that was still distinct from society as a “But more madness than genius would be required for such whole. but not the least. fortunately. e last. ally. any of its functions. Darcia labrosse. e transcendental human activity in the algorithmic medium and can subject has not only been dissolved in symbolic strucbe explored in sensory-motor mode. space. 2011). which would become a means to reflect itself. civilization. ~ Computational semantics holds up a technical But. 1966): 130. e Savage Mind (university of chicago Press. from intelligence is organized in three interdepenspace-time coordinates to hTTP on the web. in the emergent unity of algorithmic human sciences. and twenty-three years after L’idéographie dynamique we need a science that grasps the new possibilities offered (Paris: la Découverte. Hermès V. i obviously do not claim to be the only “visionary” on computational semantics produces a scientific image the subject in the early 1990s. whether they be narrative. maintains and cultivates this image. More than four hundred reference books. New york: wiley. which is gies. an enterprise”: claude levi-Strauss. which invalidates criticisms of iEMl porary reality. precision and breadth of the teeming diversity enveloped by our knowledge? —————— e missing link is not only technical. like the previous figures – theosophical and But true universalism is all-inclusive. but which only defines the problem human group. nor the same use. in e Semantic Sphere to the prejudices of extremist post-modernism against scientific universality. rather than forbidding the solution. finally. supported by the Canada Research Chairs and scientific mirror to collective intelligence. 1970) and 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 P I E R R E L É V Y | T H E P H I L O S O P H I C A L C O N C E P T O F A L G O R I T H M I C I N T E L L I G E N C E | 24 . e Search for the Perfect Language (oxford: ure of reflexive knowledge was a scientific comBlackwell. Scientific change will generate a phenomeBeyond logic and statistics. logical. e labyrinth of philosophies. change: social change. ey have neither the same form nor the same deciphering the signs of its approach in contempurpose. its purpose is to augment Michel Serres.ME/P3BDio-9v ). as the groundwork of this new science – the first browsers such as Mosaic. See La grammaire d’IEML (on line http://wp. computational semantics calculates the cognitive simulation that augments and it is obvious that the technical medium of a new figure of reflects the collective intelligence of the coming reflexive knowledge will be the internet. 1991). Joël de rosnay and many others should be cited. computational semantics constructs. intelligence.me/P3bDio-9v ). the intellect or soul of the great that Esperanto and iEMl have in common is the fact that they are future digital civilization. and our daily lives are scientific – of reflexive knowledge. mation Economy (london: iSTE. i responded at length dent aspects. since ubiquitous multimedia iEMl is the acronym for information Economy Metalanguage. the web still existed only in the the self-reflexive capacity of language without excluding mind of Tim Berners-lee. it may be glimpsed by artificial languages. But how can symbol-manipulating automata be used on a large scale not only to reunify our reflexive knowledge 8 but also to increase the clarity. and as a distributed augmented reality in physical See e basics of IEML (on line at: hTTP://wP. 1980). theories and data from the human sciences has that of an ecosystem of ideas coming out of the become inextricably complicated. by technology in order to give collective intelligence the and before the www itself.

Moses Maimonides. for example. 8∑8 S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . 2007) (original in arabic from the twelfth century). The Guide For the Perplexed. En Islam iranien: aspects spirituels et philosophiques. History of Islamic Philosophy. Avicenna. 21 Book Lambda. ~ henri corbin. translated by liadain and Philip Sherrard (london: Kegan Paul. Alfarabi. ~ averroes (ibn rushd). 2009) (original in arabic from the twelfth century). Long Commentary on the De Anima of Aristotle. Taylor (New haven: yale university Press. 24 in Meditations on First Philosophy. L’être et l’écran (Paris: Puf. 1993). Stéphane vial. and eories of Human Intellect (New york.” 26 at the end of e Order of ings (New york: Pantheon Books. 4 vol. ~ Saint omas aquinas: On the Unity of the Intellect Against the Averroists (original in latin from the thirteenth century). for example. and Averroes. “first Meditation. Davidson. translated with introduction and notes by richard c. 23 See. 2d ed. 20 is is the axial age identified by Karl Jaspers. 27 See. (Paris: gallimard. ~ henri corbin.” 25 Discourse on the Method. ~ herbert a. 19 at the beginning of Book a of his Metaphysics. “Part iv. 1978). 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 25 . eir Cosmologies. translated into English by Michael friedländer (New york: cosimo classic. alain Métaphysique et noétique: Albert le Grand (Paris: vrin. ~ De libera. 2013). oxford: oxford university Press. 1992).e Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language (New york: Pantheon. 1970). 2005). eories of the Active Intellect. 1972). 9 22 in particular in Book iii. on Intellect.

THE TIBETAN BOOK OF PROPORTION M I C H E L B A U W E N S | T H E O P E N - C O M M O N S ~ S H E E T 1-4 . B A S E D K N O W L E D G E | 2 .

S TA N I S L A V

G R O F

ARCHETYPES , MYTHIC IMAGINATION

AND MODERN SOCIETY: THE RE-ENCHANTMENT OF THE WORLD
Stanislav Grof heads the Grof
Transpersonal Training Program and teaches at the
California Institute of Integral Studies, US. He was formerly Chief of Psychiatric
Research at the Maryland
Psychiatric Research Center,
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry
at Johns Hopkins University in
Baltimore, MD, and Scholar-in-Residence at the Eselan Institute in Big Sur, California, US.
He is editor of ancient wisdom and Modern Science and
human Survival and consciousness Evolution, and author of
many papers and books, among which realms of the human
unconscious, lSD Psychotherapy, Beyond the Brain, e
adventure of Self-Discovery, and e cosmic game.

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NDErSTaNDiNg of archETyPES, govErNiNg

principles of the collective unconscious, as
described by c. g. Jung (Jung 1959), is
extremely important for psychotherapy
and self-exploration using holotropic
states of consciousness. it also throws new light
on a broad range of other areas – religion and
mysticism, astrology, nature and origin of art,
scientific insights and inspiration, sociopolitical
phenomena such as wars and revolutions, and
others. i will begin this paper on the importance
of mythic imagination and archetypal psychology for modern society with a brief discussion of
the nature and dynamics of the archetypes and
how our understanding of them has changed
over the centuries. following this, i will address
more specifically the implications of archetypal
thinking for a variety of disciplines and its relevance for the global crisis we are currently facing.
according to the insights that have emerged from
Jungian psychology, consciousness research, and
scholarly mythological studies, archetypes are timeless primordial cosmic principles underlying,
informing, and forming the fabric of the material
world (Jung 1959). e tendency to interpret the
world in terms of archetypal principles first appeared

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in ancient greece and was one of the most striking characteristics of greek philosophy and culture. as richard Tarnas pointed out in his sequel
to e Passion of the Western Mind entitled Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View
(Tarnas 2006), archetypes can be seen from several different perspectives:
1 ~ in homeric epics they took the form of
personified mythological figures, as deities, such
as zeus, Poseidon, Dionysus, hera, aphrodite,
or ares.
2 ~ in the philosophy of Plato, they were described
as pure metaphysical principles, transcendent ideas
or forms. ey possessed independent existence
of their own in a realm not accessible to ordinary
human senses. according to him, earthly things
partake in the shape or character of these universal
forms or ideas, but they fall far short of the perfect glory or perfect reality of these transcendent
forms/ideas (Plato 1961).
3 ~ in modern times, c. g. Jung brought the concept
of archetypes into modern psychology, describing
them primarily as psychological principles.

e existence of hidden invisible dimensions of reality
is an idea that is alien to materialistic science, unless
these can be made accessible through the use of devices
that extend the range of our senses, such as microscopes, telescopes, or sensors detecting various bands of
electromagnetic radiation. in addition, academic and
clinical psychiatrists use a very narrow conceptual framework that limits the human psyche to postnatal biography and the freudian individual unconscious. according
to them, the experiences of archetypal beings and realms
are not ontologically real; they are figments of human
imagination or pathological products of the brain that
require treatment by tranquilizing medication.
Modern materialistic science thus joined the centuries
old philosophical argument between the nominalists and
realists concerning the ontological nature of archetypes
(Plato’s ideas or forms), a heated debate that had permeated in its many variations the entire history of
western thought. e nominalists saw the archetypes
as mere “names,” abstractions from human experience
of concrete objects and situations and thus derivatives
of the material world. e realists believed that the
archetypal world is ontologically real, although not

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experiences in rites of passage, mysteries of death
accessible to human senses. western science domiand rebirth, and in psychoses or spiritual emergennated by monistic materialism emphatically decided
cies. additional validation of the ontological reality
in favour of the nominalists.
of archetypes came from psychedelic therapy and
e clinical and philosophical work of c. g. Jung
powerful non-drug experiential techniques (grof
radically changed this situation. Jung’s analysis of the
1985, 2000, 2006).
dreams and symptoms of his clients, as well as his
study of world mythology, art, comparative religion,
and ritual life of native cultures brought convincing
I M P L I C A T I O N S O F T H E N E W
evidence for the existence of the collective unconscious
U N D E R S T A N D I N G O F M Y T H S
and for ontological reality of the archetypes as its govARCHETYPES IN PSYCHIATRY,
erning principles (Jung 1956, 1959). Jung’s understandPSYCHOLOGY, AND PSYCHOTHERAPY
ing of the nature and function of archetypes changed
dramatically in the course of his life. in his early work,
in the light of the observations from psychehe saw them as transindividual but essentially intrapsydelic therapy and the work with holotropic
chic phenomena, hardwired into the brain in a way simBreathwork, the cartography of the psyche
ilar to animal instincts. however, after he discovered
used by academic psychiatry and psychology,
and studied synchronicity – an “acausal connecting
which is limited to postnatal biography and to
principle” that links intrapsychic events with happenthe freudian individual unconscious, has to be
ings in the material world – he realized that they have
vastly expanded. it has to include the perinatal
what he called “psychoid” quality (Jung 1960). it means
domain and the transpersonal domain – particthat they govern not only the individual psyche, but
ularly the collective unconscious with its archealso occurrences in the world of consensus reality. i
typal dynamics (grof 1985, 2000). Modern conhave explored this fascinating topic in my other writsciousness research has shown that in holotropic
ings (grof 1985, 2000, and 2006).
states archetypes can be directly experienced and
bring new information about mythologies of the
Jung observed that everyday life often brings striking
world unknown to the subject (e.g. Jung’s examcoincidences that by far transcend any reasonable
ple of the chronic schizophrenic patient, who perprobability; they should not happen if exclusively
ceived the sun as possessing a phallus and making
chains of causes and effects governed the universe.
wind with its movements, as it is described in
he cited as examples the events in the life of the
Mithraic mythology – Jung 1956).
austrian biologist Kammerer and flammarion’s
story of the rare plum pudding (Jung 1960). MoreTo illustrate this point of view, i would like to describe
over, he observed that in many of these coincione of many situations in which the authenticity of
dences intrapsychic experiences, such as dreams
such information could be verified. it involved otto,
or visions, form meaningful patterns with events
one of my clients in Prague, whom i treated for depresin material reality (see Jung’s example of the
sion and pathological fear of death (thanatophobia).
golden scarab or campbell’s story about the
in one of his psychedelic sessions, otto experienced a
praying mantis and a few others mentioned in
powerful sequence of psychospiritual death and rebirth.
my book When the Impossible Happens – grof
as the experience was culminating, he had a vision of
2006). is would be possible only if archetypes
an ominous entrance into the underworld guarded by a
were cosmic organizing principles governing
terrifying pig goddess. at this point, he suddenly felt an
the human psyche, as well as material reality.
urgent need to draw a specific geometrical design and
asked me to bring him some sheets of paper and drawJoseph campbell’s comparative studies of mytholing utensils. he drew an entire series of complex
ogy brought strong supportive evidence for
abstract patterns and he kept impulsively tearing and
Jung’s later understanding of archetypes and
crumpling these intricate designs as soon as he finished
represent an important complement to and supthem. he was very dissatisfied with his drawings and
port for Jung’s clinical explorations. of particuwas getting increasingly frustrated, because he was not
lar interest in this regard is campbell’s cross-culable to ‘get it right’.
tural study of the archetypal motif of the hero’s
Journey that he referred to as “monomyth”
at that time, i was still under a strong influence of
because of its universal and ubiquitous nature
my freudian training and i tried my best to identify
transcending historical and geographical boundthe unconscious motives for this strange behaviour
aries. he first described this motif in his 1947 clasby using the method of free associations. we spent
sic e Hero with A ousand faces (campbell 1968)
much time on this task, but without much success.
and later demonstrated how it manifests in a variety
e entire sequence simply did not make any sense.
of situations including the shamanic initiatory crisis,
Eventually, the process moved to other areas and i

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stopped thinking about this situation. e whole
along in an intoxicating frenzy into a whirling cosepisode had remained for me completely mysterimic vortex of creation and destruction.
ous until many years later, when i moved to the
in the centre of this monstrous hurricane of priunited States.
mordial forces were four giant herculean figures
During our stay at Esalen, Joseph campbell frequently
performing what seemed to be the ultimate cosconducted workshops there and participated as guest
mic sabre dance. ey had strong Mongolian
faculty in many of our month-long seminars. in the
features with protruding cheekbones, oblique
middle of the week, he regularly came for dinner in our
eyes, and clean-shaven heads decorated by large
house, because he became tired of the Esalen menu,
braided ponytails. whirling around in a frantic
which he called “rabbit food.” we had many fascinating
dance craze, they were swinging large weapons
discussions over the years, during which i shared with
that looked like scythes or l-shaped scimitars;
him various observations of obscure archetypal experiall four of these combined formed a rapidly
ences from my work that i was not able to understand.
rotating swastika.
in most instances, Joseph had no difficulties identifying
i intuitively understood that this monumental
the cultural sources of the symbolism involved.
archetypal scene was related to the beginning of
During one of these discussions, i remembered the
the process of creation and simultaneously to
above episode and shared it with him. “how fascinatthe final stage of the spiritual journey. in the
ing,” said Joseph without any hesitation, “it was clearly
cosmogenetic process (in the movement from
the cosmic Mother Night of Death, the Devouring
the primordial unity to the worlds of plurality)
Mother goddess of the Malekulans in New guinea.”
the blades of the scimitars represented the force
he then continued to tell me that the Malekulans
that is splitting and fragmenting the unified field
believed they would encounter this deity during the
of cosmic consciousness and creative energy into
Journey of the Dead. She had the form of a frightencountless individual units. in relation to spiritual
ing female figure with distinct pig features. according
journey, they represented the stage when the seeker’s
to the Malekulan tradition, she sat at the entrance
consciousness transcends separation and polarity
into the underworld and guarded an intricate sacred
and reaches the state of original undifferentiated
labyrinthine design.
unity. e direction of this process seemed to be
related to the clockwise and counter clockwise rotae Malekulans had an elaborate system of rituals
tion of the blades. Projected into the material world,
that involved breeding and sacrificing pigs. is
this archetypal motif seemed to be related to growth
complex ritual activity was aimed at overcoming
and development (the fertilized egg or seed becoming
the dependency on their human mothers and
an organism) or destruction of forms (wars, natural
eventually on the Devouring Mother goddess.
catastrophes, decay).
e Malekulans spent an enormous amount of
time practicing the art of the labyrinth drawing,
en the experience opened up into an unimaginable
since its mastery was considered essential for a
panorama of scenes of destruction. in these visions, natsuccessful journey to the Beyond. Joseph, with
ural disasters, such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes,
his lexical knowledge, was able to solve an
crashing meteors, forest fires, floods and tidal waves,
important part of this puzzle that i had come
were combined with images of burning cities, entire
across during my research. e remaining quesblocks of collapsing high-rise buildings, mass death, and
tion, that even he was not able to answer, was
horror of wars. heading this wave of total annihilation
why my client had to encounter specifically this
were four archetypal images of macabre riders symbolizMalekulan deity at that particular time of his
ing the end of the world. i realized that these were the
therapy. however, the task of mastering the
four horsemen of the apocalypse. (pestilence, war,
posthumous journey certainly made good sense
famine, and death). e continuing vibrations and jolts
for somebody whose main symptom was pathoof my pelvis now became synchronized with the movelogical fear of death.
ments of this ominous horseback riding and i joined the
dance, becoming one of them, or possibly all four of
of the many experiences involving the archetypal world that i have myself had in my psythem at once, leaving my own identity behind.
chedelic sessions, the most interesting one hapSuddenly, there was a rapid change of scenery and i
pened in a session with MDMa.
had a vision of the cave from Plato’s Republic. in this
about fifty minutes into the session, i started
work, Plato describes a group of people who live
experiencing strong activation in the lower part
chained all of their lives in a cave, facing a blank wall.
of my body. My pelvis was vibrating as enormous
ey watch shadows projected on the wall by things
amounts of energy were being released in ecstatic
passing in front of the cave entrance. according to
jolts. at one point, this streaming energy swept me
Plato, the shadows are as close as the prisoners get

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prana of Kundalini yoga. embodying the eternal choses” as mental diseases. but also to theories of modern science. ey were protean personages with and others). who tics. as divine play of the universe. archetypes – cosmic actors. Edgar allan Poe’s essay Eureka is a particularly interwhich contains a unique mixture of fetal and esting example of inspiration mediated by visions with archetypal elements. anima. archetypes can also prisoner who is freed from this illusion and comes play an important role in healing and transformato understand that the shadows on the wall are illution (the extreme example being emergence and sory. and romances throughout ages. Jungian psychologists refer to pus with their atomic theory of matter. they bowed in my direction. french scholar. and mystic. as he can perceive the true form of reality rather integration of a demonic archetype). and dimensions of meaning that kept changing their forms in extremely intricate holoc ~ e discovery of the ontological reality of the graphic interpenetration as i was observing them. it is a divine play that the hindus call lila. Democritus and leucipindividual fantasy. of the perinatal domain in the unconscious. grof and grof 1991). as they were passing across the stage. or of the divine energy that ancient and experiences. in his esis of emotional and psychosomatic symptoms as case to cosmological speculations of famous physipart of multilevel dynamic systems that consist of cists supported by astronomical observations. henri corbin. To distinguish transperder with his protoevolutionary theory suggesting that sonal experiences from imaginary products of all life originated in the ocean. Poe S T A N I S L A V G R O F | A R C H E T Y P E S . as if expectarchetypes play an important role in the genesis of ing appreciation for the stellar performance in the scientific theories and in scientific discoveries. is was followed by profound and convincing realization B ~ is is closely related to the inner self-healing that the material world of our everyday life is not intelligence of the psyche (Jung’s individuation made of “stuff” but created by cosmic consciousness by process) and the healing potential of archetypal infinitely complex and sophisticated orchestration of figures.biographical. representing all the sexual dramas quilizers (grof and grof 1989. native cultures have seen as divine (apollo in created by cosmic illusion. Kepler who drew their inspiration from the solar archephilosopher. levels. conversely. mana of the Polynesians. who type. ntum of the through a complex interplay create the illusion of the Kalahari Bushmen. the royal figure of the ruler. and transpersonal material to see reality. the withdrawn hermit. the mysterious ethereal principle symbolizing the medical understanding of “endogenous psythe world illusion. addiinspired in this regard by his study of islamic tional fascinating examples can be found in willis harmystical literature (corbin 2000). is has profound theoretical archetypal context. caused by a pathological female. research of man Higher Creativity: Liberating the Unconscious for holotropic states has also revealed the existence Breakthrough Insights (harman 1984). Philipp frank has shown in his Philosophy of Science (1957). was uroboros in his discovery of the benzene ring. the source of the basic axiom of a scientific e work with holotropic states of consciousness theory or the source of a scientific discovery is often has shown beyond any reasonable doubt that an archetypal motif. a Mars-like personification of war and aggresprocess and requiring suppressive therapy by transion. copernicus and the archetypal domain as imaginal. perinatal. than the mere shadows seen by the prisoners. and psychotherapy: aldous huxley called perennial philosophy (huxley a ~ archetypes play an important role in the gen1945). psycholdeep resemblance not only to the scriptures of what ogy. the elusive TrickTHE ROLE OF ARCHETYPES IN SCIENCE ster. and friedrich Kekule inspired by the vision of first used the term mundus imaginalis. “endogenous psychoses”). and many others. e enlightened philosopher is like a (coEx systems). in the history of science revoluarchetypal experiences are not erratic products of tionary ideas often emerge long before there is suffibrain pathology of unknown origin (symptoms of cient evidence to justify them or support them. the greek temple incubation. phenomenal world. deities of the caribbean and South american syncretistic e final major scene of the session was a magnificent religions – the loa in voodoo or orishas in ornate theatre stage featuring a parade of personified umbanda and Santeria. ere was material into consciousness) as an alternative to Maya. M Y T H I C I M A G I N A T I O N A N D M O D E R N S O C I E T Y | 30 . but contents of the collective unconscious emerging into individual conSalient examples are the ionic philosopher anaximansciousness (grof 2000). Poe’s cosmological vision bears and practical implications for psychiatry. the lovers. Each archetypal realm and the inner healing intelliof them seemed to represent simultaneously the essence gence supports the concept of “spiritual emerof his or her function and all the concrete manifestagency” (emergence of perinatal and transpersonal tions of this element in the world of matter. pneuma of the gnosuniversal principles. maya. many facets.

2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 31 . dation Ritual: Reconciliation in Change organized by leaves and petal arrangements. this idea appeared in alexander friedman’s theory of the pulsating universe (friedman according to Joseph campbell (echoing Dürck1922). the golden in Burg wartenstein in austria. Prigogine and Stengers 1984). Jews/goyim. instead of officiating priests. or if they need to emerge spontaneously from AND SPIRITUALITY the spiritual history of the cultures involved. and the great and in evolutionary theory. rival groups – christians/pagans. non-ordinary aspects and dimensions of reality. and traditions emphasizing hypotheses – that the universe filled with matter after spiritual practice and direct experience. additional examples are mathematical archetypin 1973. moralism. ritudiscussed in scientific circles. but not be mistaken for it. gregory Bateson’s preoccuof pre-industrial cultures – shamanism. seed heads. and alpher. and Poe theorized that the universe must be expanding. worldview. ritualism. but also brilliant scientific insights that parent to the transcendent. e mystics do not need churches or leading cosmogenetic theories until this day (alpher and temples. it makes it possible Several years ago. or the golden String. rites of paspation with the “pattern that connects” in nature sage. a single. 1973). drug abuse. e contexts in which they experience herman 2001). RELIGION. spiritual quest. Pre-prints of the participants used at this conference as a basis for e discovery that the archetypal world is ontoround table discussions are in the New york archives logically real gives legitimacy to the spiritual of the wenner-gren foundation. mimicking archetypal forms in nature. society. convened by a New york state legislator S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . (Mead and Bateson section. Sheldrake’s concept of religions and spiritual philosophies of the East and morphogenetic fields. Eighteen invited presenters discussed the question whether it would be possible to create modern rites of ARCHETYPES. another important distinction to make is visionary states have a remarkable potential to provide the difference between idolatry and mysticism: not only extraordinary religious illumination and artis“a useful deity (archetypal figure) has to be transtic inspiration.” it has to point to the open new fields and facilitate scientific problem-solvabsolute. acting out. rites of passage are of particular art forms in nature. and the industrial civilization has lost meaningful rites of emergence of order from chaos. start all over again. gamov. Mandelbrot’s study of fractals importance for modern society. from authentic spirituality found in the astronomy and his ideas have been actually seriously monastic and mystical branches of religions. they need a supsince the energy of the explosion is pushing matter outportive group of fellow seekers or the guidance ward. including their own divinity. and to religious activity that involves direct experience. my wife christina’s gave a paper at to distinguish organized religions based on belief. of these. and Margaret Mead and catherine Bateson that took place crystals. high-energy particle exploded – was the rough equivalent of the cosmogenetic theory develSpirituality is based on personal experiences of oped in the twentieth century by lemaitre. pine cones. passages. and violence. Ernst haeckel’s research of west. Bateson 1979. it results in a religion that Unconscious for Breakthrough Insights (harman 1984) unites within its radius. ilya Prisuch as Margaret Mead and Mircea Eliade the fact that gogine’s theory of dissipative structures. Numerous examples of this kind can be found in archetypal figure opaque and worshipping it as the willis harman Higher Creativity: Liberating the ultimate is idolatry. one of Poe’s major als of native cultures. such as the fibonacci series. mysteries of death and rebirth. and others passage contributes significantly to the ills of modern (goethe 2009. Moslems/infidels. ere is also increasing awareness of the importance of archetypal patterns in various scientific discie realization of the ontological reality of the plines. it has remained one of the divine. but divides the world into excellent book. according to scholars. i had the opportunity to participate in the small al formulas that underline the growth of sea shell brain-storming conference of the weenner-gren founshapes (Nautilus). branching plants. are their bodies and nature. a conference. here belongs goethe’s fascination by the archetypal world validates the ritual and spiritual life building plan of plants. Sheldrake 1981. and secular himself believed that his Eureka would revolutionize ambitions. its opponent fred hoyle referred to it faceit does not require a special place or an officially tiously as the Big Bang theory and it has been known appointed persons mediating contact with the under this name ever since. he also concluded that gravity eventually would of a teacher who is more advanced on the inner pull all particles back together and the process would journey than they are themselves.with their dogmas. particularly of the young generation – sexual Mandelbrot 1982. Modern consciousness research has shown that heim). the sacred dimensions of reality. Making the ing.

and Muslim terrorists expect as reward for their suicidal attacks on infidels the delights of Paradise. e archetypal domain the vision of wotanic christ (christ as Berserker). the logical choice for this purpose – responsible ritual use of psychedelics – is unlikely. Stalin. and holotropic Breathwork (since all native rites of passage involve holotropic states of consciousness and under current circumstances. way: “it was as though we stood at the first day of c. and the and witnessed the test described it in the following supremacy of the Nordic race. the holy war against the infidels. e Bohemian hussites called themselves “warriors of god” and sung their powerful chorale “ye who are the warriors of god” with such compelling power that it allegedly wreaked havoc among the e authors of the strategic doctrine refer to much larger armies of crusaders they were about to members of their community as the “nuclear engage and made them flee the battlefield. including the virginal black-eyed houris. they are driving forces of human history. such as von flue experienced in his meditation. fire walking. following his vision. Medieval knights were asked to sacrifice their lives for Jesus and participate in the crusades to recover the holy land from the Muslims. are accompanied by images of Nikolas left his hermitage and negotiated peace for Switzerland in a conflict that threatened to develop human groups living in industrial areas where nature into a war.” george Bush called his fight against Muslim terrorists a “crusade”. Participants discussed the possibility of combining such elements as ropes courses. but also in the collective psyche.” tance of the wotan archetype for germany. “mediimages of violent socio-political events and visions of cine-man” qualities in hitler (Jung 1950). the reversed vedic images of the swastika and the e scientists who worked on the atomic bomb solar eagle. offers fascinating insights catastrophe that would be destructive and selfinto the archetypal and perinatal roots of war and destructive in nature (Jung 1964). he work with holotropic states of consciousness. archetypal forces govern not only processes in the individual psyche. Jung noticed that the archetypal motif of creation. while we are reliving episodes of undisturbed intrauterine existence (BPM i). hitler priesthood. the Shatterer of worlds. or in societies with insidious Switzerland has not been since that time involved in social order and all-pervading paranoia as described S T A N I S L A V G R O F | A R C H E T Y P E S . and various stages of biological birth is often associated with Mussolini and pointed out the mystical. in turn.on the same subject – importance of rites of passage and the possibility of recreating and reinstituting them (grof 1998). James hillman amassed in his brilliant A Terrible Love of War convincing evidence that war is a formidable archetypal force that has irresistible power over individuals and nations (hillman 2004). we typically experience images from Marie-louise von franz discussed in her article human societies where people live in harmony with e Transformed Berserk the importance that each other and with nature. in which he discussed the role elements with the corresponding archetypal imagery and that fascination by the sword that the roman scenes from the historical unconscious – Basic Perinatal centurion cassius longinus used to pierce the Matrices (BPMs) (grof 1985. g. M Y T H I C I M A G I N A T I O N A N D M O D E R N S O C I E T Y | 32 . with concluded that germany was facing a national and without psychedelics. contributes images of paradises and heavens of various which the patron saint of Switzerland Nikolas cultures. he also anabloody revolution. ARCHETYPES AND SOCIO MOVEMENTS IN -POLITICAL HISTORY any war to this experience of its patron saint integrating the shadow side in Jesus’ personality (von franz 1988). ronald reagan made in his speeches references to the apocalypse and called the Soviet union the “Evil Empire. the ousand years’ reich. Disturbing intrauterine memories. attempted abortion. they believed that they sacrificed their life for the living god “Emperor of heaven” hirohito. outward bound.” e first atomic test was called Trinused archetypal symbols to influence his followers – ity – the unity of father. Similarly in the Second world war the Japanese kamikaze soldiers were referred to as “Divine wind warriors”. e archetypal figures and motifs. von franz attributed the fact that is polluted and spoiled. or the future of her homeland. imminent miscarriage. e connection between idea that hitler was a deranged mystic was the archetypal elements and the stages of birth is very speexplored also in Trevor ravenscroft’s book e cific. reliving of lyzed the personalities of hitler. i call these experiential clusters – combining fetal Spear of Destiny. had for those of a toxic womb. and holy ghost. Muslim extremists use for political purposes the concept of jihad. on the perinatal level.” and robert oppenheimer thought of wotan kept appearing in the dreams of his gerKrishna’s words to arjuna in the Bhagavad gita: “i man patients and discussed the political imporam become Death. side of Jesus (the “holy lance”) played in hitler’s life (ravenscroft 1982). 2000). Son.

side comments of speakers. a New encing these scenes of living hell. own research. etc. while experireceived a letter from lloyd de Mause. osiris. he had anaMara’s army attacking the Buddha. peacock cally contracts but the cervix is not open. devils and sinners. present a very designs. i tion camps and Stalin’s gulag archipelago. and success of collective Typical archetypal images associated with the onset of efforts. and Phoenix. in addition to analysis of traditional historical tles of cosmic proportions – ragnarok or Twisources. of the aggressor. Quetzalcoatl. Dionysus. archetypal experiences related to the fully developed first clinical motifs that belong here are scenes of rebirth of stage of birth (BPM ii). liberation of prisoners. leviathan. complete with the images of gy to history and political science (Mause 1975). and “choking” personal freedom. hitler’s ird reich. or the influence of child-rearing dilated and continued contractions propel the foetus practices on the nature of revolutions of that parthrough the narrow passage of the birth canal. i described these observations. rainbow spectra. great Mother goddesses. we can also experience constricting monsters (dragon. Psychohistorians study such issues as the relationship between the childhood history of political e experiences accompanying reliving of the second leaders and their system of values and process of clinical stage of delivery (BPM iii). slips of between the forces of light and Darkness such as the tongue. taranvisions of triumphant celebrations and parades or tula. such as patriotic or nationalistic movedelivery are ominous whirlpools. ceed in mobilizing masses of peaceful civilians and transand of an emotionally involved observer. underlying all these is the one of the founders of psychohistory. such as Moloch or Pele). personal imagery. Black mass rituals. giant engulfing or ments. we identify exclusively with the victims and feel deep sympathy for the downyork psychoanalyst and journalist. spanning with BPM iii are eerie scenes combining aggression.in orwell’s 1984 (orwell 1949). sexbirth and its possible socio-political implications. Shortly after its publication. typal images feature insidious demons. such as Jesus situation or declaring war typically used terms that christ. human or animal slaughter. or cone events characterizing the third clinical stage of stricting them and not giving them enough space to delivery (BPM iv). birth. and murder. his approach to this problem was very original and cree accompanying archetypal images portray batative. their populations. ey portray oppressive and abudeities appearing in light (angelic beings. feature a ticular historical period. corresponding archethe separation from the mother. additional archetypal motifs associated break of wars and revolutionary upheavals. here we are not chological aspects of the periods preceding wars and limited to the role of victims. battle from caricatures. and images related to biothird matrix approaches resolution. By the time he contacted me. a disciarchetype of hell – extreme physical and emotional sufpline that applies the findings of depth psycholofering that will never end. and walpurgi’s he was struck by the extraordinary abundance of figNight. dreams. whale. satanic orgies. inanna. but can participate in revolutions. De Mause is trodden and the underdog. mutilation. ese scenes often contain because they provided independent support for his demonic elements and repulsive scatological motifs. socio-political upheavals to stages of biological South american dictatorships. and images of characteristic picture. ual abuse. as exemplified by the many centuries since antiquity to most recent times. octopus). sex. metaphors. regressive of exciting post-war reconstruction. when the cervix is decision-making. documents.). the accompalogical birth that he found in this material. forming them practically overnight into killing machines. in Realms of the Human Unconscious or bring specific images of the inmates in Nazi concentra(grof 1975). are typically associated with images of victory in wars and revolutions. gandsive totalitarian societies with closed borders. we could illustrate this S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . and scribbles on the edge of the rough drafts of political archangel Michael battling Satan’s hordes. or Sabbath of the witches. and even doodles the zoroastrian ormuzd and ahriman’s armies. additional frequent concomitants of BPM iii are visions of fire – burning cities. during which the uterus periodideities and demigods. or armagedlyzed in this way seventeen situations preceding the outdon. he drew data of great psychological importance light of the gods from Nordic mythology. jokes. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 33 . de Mause had been studying the psyand explosions of nuclear bombs. and the african apartheid). equally applied to perinatal distress. such in 1975. linking as czarist or communist russia. and scatology. when the ures of speech. ey accused the Jesus. deities associated with fire. squeezing the last breath out of their lungs. the actual moment of birth and live (hitler’s Lebensraum). it interested him how military leaders sucthree roles: that of the victim. launching of rockets. Military nying archetypal visions feature figures representleaders and politicians of all ages describing a critical ing psychospiritual death and rebirth. for some time. and exploding volcano or enemy of choking and strangling their people. victimizing harvas and apsaras. lloyd de Mause was very rich panoply of violent scenes — bloody wars and revinterested in my findings concerning the trauma of olutions. at this point. or visits into the underworld.

Kaiser (except for secretaries). M Y T H I C I M A G I N A T I O N A N D M O D E R N S O C I E T Y | 34 . like blind moles batand hydrogen bombs involved references to birth tling to death in a tunnel. e enemy is typically S T A N I S L A V G R O F | A R C H E T Y P E S . and to create a situation where the dangerous and how to explain why it is not safe to live aggressor and oppressor will be overcome and everywithout nuclear weapons. according to Keen. e airplane was acteristics (e. tunnel. in her fascibe strangled and making a last ditch effort to defend nating paper.” carol cohn had attended a two-week summer lloyd de Mause’s historical examples at the time includseminar on nuclear weapons. and Kennedy.” in 1914. the actual characteristics of the country and culture Particularly chilling was the use of perinatal laninvolved. She collected some wilhelm stated that “the Monarchy has been seized by extremely interesting facts confirming the perithe throat and forced to choose between letting itself natal dimension in nuclear warfare. body will again “breathe freely. and caricatures from it seem as if the child might be born?” e reply many historical periods and countries. Since the time of our for elements in their own psyches that should be propcorrespondence. the alleged nickname e Little Boy. labyrinth. e Defense Equally frequent were allusions to dark caves. and arms control. e strategic practice – how to manage the arms leader promises to rescue his nation from an ominous race. hitler. to lead it to the light on the other side of the how to fight a nuclear war if the deterrence fails.” and newborns. those who initiate a newborn also behind the nickname of the war activities are typically substituting external targets Nagasaki bomb. and the threat of istrative officials or consultants.” it own unconscious. the offer of the resolution of the ory that informs and legitimates uS nuclear crisis comes in the form of perinatal images. given the name of the pilot’s mother. Samuel adams talking the following year immersed in the almost about the american revolution referred to “the child of entirely male world of defense intellectuals independence now struggling for birth.. the analysis of his picture material reveals preponderance of archetypal images that are charace issues related to nuclear warfare are of such relevance that i would like to elaborate on them teristic of BPM ii and BPM iii.” interestingly. Keen brought together announced that the “birth of the child was immian outstanding collection of distorted and biased war nent” and asked how things were in Japan: “Does posters. the atomic bomb itself carried the painted Torturer. She was so fascinatNapoleon. Kaiser wilhelm ii. aggressor. how to deter the use of nuclear weapons. Enola faceless. criminal. Even more explicit was the coded message used by further support for the pivotal role of the perinatal Japanese ambassador Kurusu when he phoned and archetypal domains of the unconscious in war Tokyo to signal that negotiations with roosevelt psychology can be found in Sam Keen’s excellent had broken down and that it was all right to go e Faces of the Enemy (Keen 1988) and a Tv docuahead with the bombing of Pearl harbor.g. additional historical examples and refined his thesis that the memory of the birth trauma plays an Keen’s theoretical framework does not specifically important role as a source of motivation for vioinclude the perinatal domain of the unconscious. gay. he demonstratwas: “yes. lent social activity. Similarly. tunintellectuals (Dis) are civilians who move in and nels. he was able to divide these images into severguage in connection with the explosion of the al archetypal categories according to the prevailing charatomic bomb in hiroshima. sometimes at engulfment by treacherous quicksand or a terrifying universities and think-tanks. lloyd de Mause collected many erly faced in personal self-exploration. rapist. the birth of the child seems immied that the way the enemy is described and portrayed nent. worthy opponent. working sometimes as admininto which one might be pushed. Enemy of god. however.” Defense intellectuals” (cohn 1987). Barbarian.” During the cuban missile crisis ples. Death). Samuel adams. he mentary of the same name. Fat Man.by the recent example of Daʿish (iSiS) threatening using the material from a carol cohn’s fascinating paper “Sex and Death in the rational world of the to turn united States into a “choking hell. dangerous abysses out of government. doctrine. ed by what had transpired there that she spent Khrushchev. although we would certainly find in would not be too far-fetched to see the image of human history instances of just wars. and the agreed-upon images of the enemy are essentially projections of the message sent to washington as a signal of sucrepressed and unacknowledged shadow aspects of our cessful detonation was “e baby was born. greedy. ey create the thewhirlpool. the american intelligence during a war or revolution is a stereotype that shows listening in recognized the meaning of the “waronly minimal variations and has very little to do with as-birth” code. where coded messages and other communiKhrushchev wrote to Kennedy. pleading that the two cations about development and testing of atomic nations not “come to a clash. Stranger. and confusing labyrinths. nuclear strategic ed such famous personages as alexander the great. she mentions eight historical examitself against attack. propaganda cartoons.

holy chalice on their own. e symbolism associated with took me years to realize the extraordinary its them is drawn from deep archetypal sources. it seems that. this aspect of our psyche can be completely richard Tarnas have convinced me that archetypunconscious. and anticipation. 2012. a vicious dragon. for unknown reasons. Juxtaposition of pictures e new understanding of the nature of the from holotropic states of consciousness that depict periarchetypes. we all carry in our deep unconsents a serious challenge to the materialistic sciscious powerful energies and emotions associated with entific worldview and requires a radical change the trauma of birth that we have not adequately masof our thinking about the nature of reality. and treacherous quickAND ARCHETYPAL ASTROLOGY sand also abound in pictures from the time of wars. multivalent meannatal experiences with the historical pictorial documening. other frequently used symnection between socio-political events and dynamics bols include vicious predatory felines or birds. a giant venomous tarantula. 2010. anxiety. and their mutual interactions and interplay tation collected by lloyd de Mause and Sam Keen repreis essential for the disciplines known as archesents strong evidence for the perinatal and transpersonal typal psychology and cosmology. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 35 . for some value. e collecgoverned by an underlying myth or a combination of tive discomfort is blamed on the enemy and a myths. rick has apy. and ominous snakes.depicted as a dangerous octopus. Scenes depicting strangulation or CONSCIOUSNESS RESEARCH crushing. depth self-exploration with the use of psychedelics or psychology. and multiheaded hydra. we can also think about BPM iii. Saturn. which repreings of psychohistory. in his meticulous lization?” he himself emphasized the importance of the explorations. a and revolutions and hard aspects of Pluto. creates an atmosphere of general tension. is demonstrates a close conan engulfing leviathan. in a 30-year tour de emotions and physical sensations from the perinatal force. psychotherapy. which typically precedes “what are the myths that are driving the western civionset of wars and revolutions. is is a complicated subject and i cannot give vidual psychopathology. also demonstrated extraordinary value of this disciothers can have varying degrees of awareness of the pline for historical research. holotropic states has brought strong supportive evidence for the worldview underlying astrology according to the new insights. world planetary transits and historical events (Tarnas activation of this material can lead to serious indi2006). and especially work some powerful experiential techniques of psychotherwith holotropic states of consciousness. 2011. grof simultaneously in a large number of people. until and unless we embark on some inal astrology is an invaluable tool for psychiatry. or Mars (Tarnas 2006). monof archetypes associated with various planets. le grise 2009). Equally approhistory deep correlations between the periods of wars priate seem to be the motifs of the abduction and S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . ascent of Man (Tarnas 1993). development of western civilization: “e coming of historical and astrological research of richard Buddhism to the west may well prove to be the most Tarnas threw fascinating new light on de Mause’s important event of the twentieth century. he also has N E W P L A N E T A R Y M Y T H the ability to disown his unacceptable feelings historian arnold Toynbee and mythologist Joseph (the Shadow in Jung’s terminology) and to procampbell noticed that all cultures of the past had been ject them on the external situation. i violence. the have to direct interested leaders to literature focusing awareness of the perinatal elements can increase specifically on this area (Tarnas 2006. such as the holotropic breathwork or rebirthing. and political crises. and Pluto and BPM iv and uranus). ominous whirlpools. he showed systematic correlations between and transpersonal level of the unconscious. research of roots of human violence. including unmotivated it justice in the limited framework of this paper. Tarnas recognized the deep correlaSearch for the holy grail myth in its relation to indition between the phenomenology of what i call vidualism characterizing western society: the knights Basic Perinatal Matrices (BPMs) and astrological of the holy grail decided to pursue the search for the archetypes (BPM i and Neptune. is 2009.” Joseph idea of the collective tension originating in the campbell used to raise in his lectures the question: perinatal unconscious. their symbolism. particularly vipers and boa constrictors. over thirty years of cooperation with of us. strous sharks. it tered and assimilated. he the two major myths of the modern era: Paradise also was able to demonstrate throughout human lost vs. revolutions. e leader is an individual who is under a stronger influence of the perinaS E A R C H F O R A tal energies than the average person. Toynbee is often quoted for his prediction of the military intervention is offered as a solution. BPM ii and Saturn. provided jointly by (grof 2009). Because of the revolutionary nature observations from consciousness research and the findof this understanding of reality.

Dutton). Human Survival and Consciousness Native american. (1991). or the domains from just about any culture in human histoimaginary and the imaginal”. we grof. Tarcher). short-wave radio stations. london. ill. psychospiritual death and inner and the outer world are indications that we are moving toward a truly global civilization. South american. “e Transformed Berserk”. until the end of the fifteenth century. ca: J. huichol indians in Mexico. have distinct culture-specific mythologies. Journal of myself) transcended historical and geographical boundWomen in Culture and Society 12:687-718. Palm Springs. (2000) . (Englewoodcliffs. c. aries. voN. Prodigal Son.). aND grof. but using them with wisdom coming from a deep spiritual place. “holotropic research and archetypal astrology”. J. (1989). aND grof. lels what is happening in the material world. 1. P. ca. c. NJ: Prentice hall). in Working With ry. Ny: SuNy Press). c.rape of the feminine. eds. Archai: e Journal of Archetypal Coshuman groups in remote parts of the world mology. e Stormy Search for the g the modern era. Tibet was relatively isolated until Self: A Guide to Personal Growth rough Transformathe chinese invasion in 1949. Beyond the Brain: Birth. Archai: e Journal of Archetypal Cosmology. jet travel. co: Sounds True). (1957). over the years. ies of science and technology. 1. achievement 8 of this goal would also involve psychospiritual rebirth and liberation and return of the feminine. h. 8 Joseph campbell also often asked: what will be the —————— myth of the future. i have myself have experienced in Images (B. australian aboriginal. Evolution (albany. (1987). very relevant in this regard. “rites of Passage: a Necessary Step plants. ferent mythologies and religions of the world – fraNK. Egyptian. J. g. w. Sorcerer’s apprentice. Today telephone. and Transcenere are no descriptions of the Dear Spirit or dence in Psychotherapy (albany. —— (2009). benefiting from the astonishing discoverJune 12-18. S. l. M Y T H I C I M A G I N A T I O N A N D M O D E R N S O C I E T Y | 36 . Ny: SuNy Press). remained unknown to the rest of the world until rof. 2004. Ny: SuNy Press). M.P. (1998). England: e MiT Press). (1975). hindu. 1976). experienced primarily Tibetan deities. cT: Spring Pubmy own psychedelic sessions episodes from many diflications). and others. Mind and Nature: A Necessary like to mention a very interesting observation that seems Unity (New york: E. 4. P. e Metamorphosis of Plants (camcultures had and used powerful consciousnessbridge. expanding technologies. conference Mythic Imagination and Modern Society: where people would live in harmony with others and e Re-Enchantment of the World. Buddhist. for example. with nature. Spiritual Emergency: When the internet have dissolved many of the old boundPersonal Transformation Becomes a Crisis (los angeles. rebirth. S T A N I S L A V G R O F | A R C H E T Y P E S . Philosophy of Science.) (woodstock. huichol deities. the Tibetans tions from LSD Research (New york: viking Press / E. and a variety of others – faust. and c orBiN . Tarcher). P. in Crossroads: e Quest for Conentirety been as easily accessible for them as it temporary Rites of Passage (louise Mahdi. is has to be a new phenomenon. let us hope that what is happening in the ca: J. New york. (1988). Consciousness Research (albany. S. fraNz. “Mundus imaginalis. had the collective unconscious in its Toward wholeness”. Muslim. (ed. Many tual Emergencies”. “Sex and Death in the rational c uals in holotropic states of consciousness (including world of the Defense intellectuals”. in grof. grandfather fire in the Bardo ödol or those —— (2000). christian. —— (1985). television. (1968). Nancy seems to be for modern subjects. (1979). Euro—— (2012). motifs. Shinto.: open court Publications). “Two case Studies: an archetypal astrological peans did not know anything about the New analysis of Experiences in Psychedelic Sessions and Spiriworld and its inhabitants and vice versa. including psychedelic grof. e Hero with A ousand Faces discoveries in my work with psychedelics and with the (Princeton: Princeton uP). Sells. Tibetan Buddhist. (2009). ed. we could not christopher and Michael Meade. and grof S. 1. holotropic breathwork was the ease with which individohN. it would be New atlantis. Ma. S. and others. aries and experienced archetypal figures. B I B L I O G R A P H Y Since we are talking about planetary civilization. and he expressed his hope that it * would involve overcoming fragmentation and creatExpanded and revised lecture presented at the at the 16th international Transpersonal association ing a planetary civilization. and Dutton. Death. tional Crises (los angeles. Realms of the Human Unconscious: Observahave to assume that. When the Impossible Happens: Adventures in Nonous domains in the collective unconscious paralOrdinary Realities (louisville. one of the most surprising caMPBEll. Tower of Babel. it seems that this increased accessibility of vari—— (2006). frankenstein. Psychology of the Future: Lessons from Modern of the Dhyani Buddhas in the huichol lore. i would BaTESoN. P.) (chicago. c. Many other goEThE.

PlaTo (1961). A New Science of Life: e Hypothesis of Formative Causation (los angeles.1. MaNDElBroT. “Synchronicity: an acausal connecting Principle.” Collected Works. e Spear of Destiny (New york: weiser). a working conference organized by wenner-gren foundation. Faces of the Enemy: Reflections of the Hostile Imagination (San francisco: harper). —— (1964). e Fractal Geometry of Nature (New york: Times Books). “an introduction to archetypal astrological analysis”. i.J. aND BaTESoN. austria. (1988). ca: J. —— (2006). S hElDraKE .P. Collected Works. “archetypal cosmology: Past and Present”. (1949). Bollingen Series lxxi (Princeton: Princeton uP). PrigogiNE. in e Symbolic Life: Miscellaneous Writings. g. lE griSE. A Terrible Love of War (New york: Penguin). 1. —— (1959). (1984). —— (2010). in Civilization in Transition. M. Bollingen Series xx (Princeton: Princeton uP). vol. “e Birth of a New Discipline”. vol. ca: J. 5. KEEN. r. (1950).. (1993). vol. orwEll. Collected Works. Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View (New york: viking Press). 9. DE.Reconciliation in Change. Symbols of Transformation. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 37 . Bollingen Series xx (Princeton: Princeton uP). r. (1982). Higher Creativity: Liberating the Unconscious for Breakthrough Insights (los angeles. JuNg. K. Bollingen Series xx (Princeton: Princeton uP). “wotan”. Bollingen Series xx (Princeton: Princeton uP). S. hillMaN. TarNaS. T. (2004). Archai: e Journal of Archetypal Cosmology 2 (fall). Tarcher). Archai: e Journal of Archetypal Cosmology. 10. w. (1981). in e New Psychohistory (New york: e Psychohistory Press). Collected Works. A Study of History (oxford: oxford uP). (2009). e Passion of the Western Mind (New york: harmony Books-Ballantine). —— (1956). ToyNBEE. aND STENgErS. g. 8. (1973). vol. e Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious.harMaN. l. e Mountain Astrologer. 1 (Summer). Burg wartenstein. vol. c. (1934-61). a. —— (2011). MauSE. Bollingen Series xx (Princeton: Princeton uP). “e independence of Psychohistory”. B. 157. in e Collected Dialogues of Plato. —— (1960). 8∑8 S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . Ritual . “Psychology and National Problems”. Republic. i. ravENScrofT. c.18. Order out of Chaos: Man’s Dialogue with Nature (New york: Bantam). June 10: 65-69. (1984). (1982). J. 9. P. MEaD. (1975). Tarcher). 1984 (london: Secker and warburg). Collected Works.

T H E W O R L D | 2 .THE TIBETAN BOOK OF PROPORTION E R V I N L A S Z L O | T W O W A Y S O F ~ K N O W I N G S H E E T 5-8 .

mythic. In this essay I explore some of themes that are core to our move into the next cycle. our capacity to imagine and anticipate the future. integral and shared mindfulness. e next cycle is the one of an integral. where we could live with the false sense of separate self. a Fellow of Future Considerations. and commit to intentionally moving the process forward3. global messes. e previous cycles. He can be reached at george. In the ensuing millennia. during the dawn of human civilization. holistic consciousness that enables the integration of the inner and outer technologies and sciences. blind evolution must yield to conscious. and Université de Paris. a London-based transformation agency. imagination. e development of those forces.G E O R G E P Ó R FROM RIGHT MINDFULNESS TO COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE TO COLLECTIVE SENTIENCE: SIGNPOSTS TO THE LATER STAGES OF OUR EVOLUTIONARY JOURNEY George is a public intellectual. at’s the moment in human history. He is a mentor and strategic learning partner to visionary leaders. “To date. is raising the risk of systems-wide cataclysms due to the galloping complexity of our intertwining. but not a just social system. unmanageable at the level of social organization and consciousness that created it. intentional evolution if we are to pass the chasm from humanity’s prehistory. magic. unguided evolution ends in a global problematique.rAngIng ExplorATIon InTo ThE conditions for realizing the next-level potential of human and social evolution. But it will not progress beyond this point unless it is driven forward intentionally. action inquiry into it. We are on the threshold of a new cycle of the spiral. C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 39 .” e evolutionary process actually continues through cycles of differentiation. and to choose from among alternatives2. and to spark a collaborative. the spiral of consciousness. archaic. our awareness. T hIS ESSAy IS A WIdE . when the useful lifecycle of blind. evolution on Earth has moved along its trajectory of its own accord. at a higher level. such as. however. where all can benefit from their fruits. through the emergence and evolution of our consciousness.” At this juncture. in the conditions of private expropriations of the fruits of humankind’s general intellect. S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . A starting point for looking at “evolution” is the unending journey resulting from the “dynamic interplay of the passive and the creative polarizations of the Absolute that unfolds itself into the energetic process of differentiation bringing forth the whole of creation1. the separation and differentiation both between and within scientific and spiritual practices (reflecting the division of labour in the material domain) contributed to the spontaneous evolution of consciousness and culture. whose academic posts included London School of Economics. spirituality and precision of inquiry.por@gmail. to its real history that starts when (out of a sense of recognized prior unity) we reinvent our ways to organize toward maximizing the well-being of the Whole and all of its parts. founder of CommunityIntelligence. deep intuition and systems thinking. collective intelligence. then integration. UC Berkeley. becoming stuck with them is becoming stuck with an existential threat of intertwining global crises that cannot be solved at the currently dominant modern and postmodern levels. realize that the continued success of the process depends on us. Evolution will continue to advance on this planet only if certain conditions are met: humanity will need to awaken to the fact that we are living in the midst of a meaningful and directional evolutionary process. and […] we have become the process itself. C O N T E X T A N D M O T I V A T I O N e first sciences arising with agriculture started distinguishing themselves from intuition. INSEAD . collective sentience. “We are the product of the process of evolution.com. modern and postmodern consciousness served us well by leading us so far. evolutionary guidance systems. 2 /2 0 1 4 | and other inner ways of knowing. is essay is intended to make a modest contribution to some of the signposts of that reinvention. unguided social evolution develops powerful forces of science and technology.” Spontaneous.

” advanced Buddhist meditator. is story illustrates it. against the reflexive resistance to a minor change in there was an atmosphere of ancient mystery habit. cities or nations. shared by many of the other members of the “contagious” impact. fulness” version. silence frequently following statements lective space is a new muscle that needs exercising to to give enough time to absorb their implications. the currently trending mindfulness practices and trainings What is novel about “Integral Mindfulness” is risk reducing a radical. but space that starts with We-in-the-I5. Some participants in our Mindful TogethSometime in the 80s. later I learned that the Vp was an field between us6. spheres.I N T E G R A L S H A R E D A N D M I N D F U L N E S S INTEGRAL MINDFULNESS Mindfulness. Integral mindfulness is taking mindfulness off the Both collective intelligence and “shared mindfulmeditation cushion and infusing all dimensions of ness” start within (following the pattern of the Weour life with it. at was space is new muscle – its like swimming in the sea. It’s a moment of ment of the cultures and structures you’re in. the nature of our thoughts. community. “McMindvidual and communal spheres. “Mindfulness is not merely a compartmentalized tool for enhancing attention but is informed and influenced by many other factors – our view of reality. evolutionary worldview. all businesses in the high-tech feel of the cold water but once I’m in – I’m loving it industry were pressure cookers: high speed. but to a discipline of training our attention and intention to foster wise action grounded in compassion with self and others. never enough time for a heartfelt. in that meeting. which I love but there’s always a little resistance on first cool workplaces. before google introduced the idea of relaxed. I call the first “integral mindfulness”. and actions. fast again but that is now an established practice. you feel carried or elevated by contributions. when I preparworks.) I am already also of collective entities. netparticipating in shared mindfulness. such as organizations. is an essential doorway to the collective intelligence and action required to re-orient where we want to go as a society. My client’s company know and getting out of it always calls for a little push was not an exception. mon good and an integral. people just picked up the If all start paying attention to their inner experience vibes and enjoyed it. “Mindfulness” here refers not to its popular. ancient wisdom tradition of the shift of focus from the snapshot-like. not only the life of you and me. static self-knowledge and self-transformation to a self-help quadrants of the regular integral matrix to the technique or psychological state readily co-optable by dynamic interactions in the overlaps of the four the defenders of the institutional status quo. and fitness/resistance is a start. collective awareness. deeply observing is this habit of being used to being in our meaningful conversation about questions that own separate bubble – the comfort of the sofa that we mattered to the members. however once you are in genuine curiosity for each other’s concerns and and like the ocean. for example. but he never mentioned that in his team. especially shared mindfulness. Coming together like this in a deeper shared colschool. yet. “stress-reduction” meaning. I was sitting in a leaderer community described their experience as follows: ship team meeting convened by my client. already in the preparation for entering the circle. work well and being mindful of our lack of people not cutting into each other’s words. and our effort in avoiding unwholesome and unskilful states while developing those that are skilful and conducive to health and harmony4. solo practice of cantering and welcoming what will Showing up mindfully in a group may have come. our way of making a living. let’s see what is happening To distinguish mindfulness engaged with the ethical in the overlap and transitions between the indichallenges of our times from the escapist. What I am talk. G E O R G E P Ó R | F R O M R I G H T M I N D F U L N E S S T O C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 40 .” Without an ethical foundation grounded in the comfIgurE 1 ~ A map for inquiring into the overlaps. speech. a Vp “for me stepping into this virtual intimate collective in a major Silicon Valley company. your being mindful inteing to enter that shared space (physical or virtual) of grally may contribute also to the mindful developheightened.

Imagine a circle of people in conversation. ere’s a growing number of first-person descriptions not only of various meditative states and the practices to reach them. As Viktor l because I know that you’re there and curious. When we take any insight.” “Evolutionary dialogue.that attitude will be conducive to the emergence of a potent inter-subjective field of “shared mindfulness” allowing us to sense what is happening more accurately. but also of S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . we can pay attention to the individual in the circle. the resulting shared freedom absorbing the words reaching you? (at’s how opens the doors to breakthrough possibilities in I’m writing to prevent these heady subjects from whatever domain of collective action. S H A R E D F R E E D O M . TRANSPARENT COMMUNICATION Transparent Communication resonates with the some of the practices of the Magic in the Middle or C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 41 .” “Magic in the Middle.” “We-space” approaches. CHAORDIC C O N S C I O U S N E S S WOULD WE WANT MINDFULNESS . etc. but connected by a shared curiosity. or to the relations between the participants. When we are interested in understanding the processes that take place in the conversation. In our response lies our of the experience. e parts are still important. MAGIC Communities of mindfulness practice engaged in shared inquiry and joint discovery have been favoured places of accelerated personal and spiritual development throughout the centuries. a striking inspiration. let’s take a closer look at some of these practices. the space created between them becomes a space of shared mindfulness. can we talk from and to mindfulness? from mine to yours. “Insight dialogue. regardless whether it is mediated by a physical or virtual space. IF EXPANSION TO NOT EXPERIENCE FOR THAT ? CHAT “is practice starts by breaking the habit of giving and receiving immediate response in realtime conversations. don’t think that your part is merely passive here. into the focus of our non-judgmental observing and contemplating them. Inter-subjective or shared mindfulness is one of the inter-disciplinary fields where outer and inner sciences started meeting. think more clearly. In that space is our power to you can also add your voice and describe your end choose our response. 2 /2 0 1 4 | IN THE MIDDLE “e magic in the middle begins with a shift in awareness.” “Transparent Communications. before moving to expression. act more coherently. they can make the shared experience and insights just one click away from their members. allowing half of your attenin a multiparty exchange listen and respond from tion to rest on the pattern of your breathing. or a special resonance between possibilities. I exist because of you.) When two or more people are gifting their conversation and their inter-personal relationship with an intentional. in the sense that my thoughts are When groups of people are engaged in this praccoming from the felt sense of our communication tice something remarkable happens. choiceful attention.” “Collective presencing. Enhanced with today’s communications technologies. anks frank stated: “Between stimulus and response to the gifts of modern communication technologies. e whole is still important. from yours to mine? Separated by time and space. and let that reality come in the foreground8. how is it when you read an growth and our freedom. M I N D F U L N E S S E X P A N D S A N D WHY ELSE SHARED W H E N different paths to inter-subjective mindfulness. there is a space. from parts to relations between parts. It gives access to a fuller intelligence of the parties in communication. All three realities coexist at once. then we can access a deeper intuition. texting. labelled for instance. giving room to such contemplation.” is approach has nine distinct practices outlined in more depth in the article referenced. we can choose to bring our attention to what is happening in this inter-subjective exchange between us right here on this page. Such a practice fosters a deeper sense of connection and adds more presence and significance to the experience of each participant. So. is a gift to the conversation’s highest potential7. but we can choose to let one of them come in the foreground. coming only from my head.” When all participants essay with your body. But we are particularly interested in what goes on in the interaction between the parts. J O Y . to the circle as a whole (group or team). while that spaciousness. as shown by the practice of many online communities of inner development.” “Chaordic Chat. on skype or on the phone. “To pay attention to the field of relations is not the same as paying attention to the whole.” Instead of talking about. and achieve greater collective results.

It allows us to tune in with the inner experience of each other. this embodied relational process is self-organizing10. ~ respect the different inner experiences of others even if you may not personally share them. ese are some of the injunctions that make this form of shared mindfulness possible: ~ Speak always from the now. inner and outer scientists working together can make a greater difference for the sake of the common good than each can alone. inter-subjective processes that in their everyday use. “e cultural value of respeto may also contribute to Intersubjectivity in some communities. certainly not just in the skull. including one’s brainwaves. “self-organizational emergent process that is arising as energy and information flows not just in the body.” promoters of biofeedback-enhanced mindfulness practices and games claim that you can’t improve what you can’t measure. on a grassroots level.Collective presencing but takes them to a new dimension. and biofeedback is a process of gaining greater awareness of various physiological functions. e seed of truth in that exaggerated statement is that real-time feedback assessing one’s depth of meditative state can contribute to its further deepening. integrates the brain.” Can that moment in cultural evolution be now? When an interpersonal neurobiologist calls for massive empowerment by focusing our minds in a way that creates kinder relationships. they are relational. are not recognized as such. using instruments that feed back real-time information to the user.” (Wkipedia). over time. scientifically studying it as a measurable object. M I N D F U L N E S S T O C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 42 . emphasizes G E O R G E P Ó R | F R O M R I G H T that the mind is a relational. dan Siegel. without necessarily taking into account the scientist’s direct experience of it. but also as it’s shared between people and among people and even with the planet. emotions. unlike the English definition of ‘respect. throughout the body. don’t contract but stay consciously connected even through feelings of unease or pain. and creates kinder relationships. and behaviour – supports desired physiological changes. INTERSUBJECTIVITY “Intersubjectivity is a term used in philosophy. COLLECTIVE BIOFEEDBACK If mindfulness refers to keeping one’s consciousness alive to the present reality. etc. INTERPERSONAL NEUROBIOLOGY dr. then their marriage was made in heaven. mindful relationships. It challenges us to complement our in-the-moment practices of shared mindfulness with the practices of sustainable. needs. and anthropology to conceptualize the psychological relation between people. who construct meaning in their interactions with each other and used as an everyday resource to interpret the meaning of elements of social and cultural life […] Intersubjectivity emphasizes that shared cognition and consensus is essential in shaping our ideas and relations. sociology. Similar to ‘putting yourself in one’s shoes’ the prevalence of respeto in certain Indigenous American communities in Mexico and South America may promote Intersubjectivity as persons act in accordance with one another within consideration for the community or the individual’s current needs or state of mind. “e presentation of this information – often in conjunction with changes in thinking. quintessentially. e potential of group biofeedback for shared mindfulness didn’t get lost on biofeedback scientists studying heart rate Variability (also known as heart rate Coherence). can be empowered to learn how to focus their minds in a way that strengthens how the mind works. ~ Continuously widen your perception of subtle energies.” As we understand mind and language. these changes can endure without continued use of an instrument12. psychiatrist and author of several books on interpersonal neurobiology. understanding each other’s meaning-making tools and frameworks. is viewed as communal rather than private […].e in any context. simultaneously being present to our own reality. it’s also an invitation to practitioners of other disciplines to bring the gifts of their own arts to the same. the reality of the other and the inter-personal field of energy and meaning. Transparent Communication is a competence people can cultivate and become better at. is sharing we call relational. both with other people and also with themselves11. ere are also a growing number of “outer science” approaches to shared mindfulness. at is happening in TC practice groups around the world9. psychology.’ respeto refers loosely to a mutual consideration for others’ activities. dan Siegel’s insight points in that direction: “I think there’s a moment in cultural evolution where people. users of certain biofeedback equipment can obtain real-time feedback about their “synchrony. i. language. independently of the contents of the conversation. ~ Keep the space of relationship always open. wants.

nomic system. tools. action planning and coordithe heartbeat […] pulse aims to create a tangible experination. none of us can do it alone. the lower the synchrony . integral mindfulness. we need to mobilize and augment our colleclective Intelligence tive intelligence. from some other “pulse is a distributed collective biofeedback system that definitions used in this issue of the journal. let’s explore CI in those the best use of them is lagging way behind. e pulse rate is transmitted via a wireless network to a comat evolutionary lens is complementary to a puter. e following work-in-progress project run by a proof course. but help it evolve beyond the assessing the main CI resources an individual or a collimitations imposed on it by outdated socio-ecolective has. imagination and hypothesis ence of the relationship between individual entities and generation. relational mation technology here16. we might do well to ask ourselves: how Becoming mindful of how our moment-todoes CI manifest in myself? What is my collective IQ (Cmoment experience is shaped by the social relaIQ) and how could I boost it? tions in which we participate is not enough. e state of we look from an intra-personal. We are part of a vast web of collective intelligence and at brings us back to the role of the teachers it is part of each of us because we are products of the and practitioners of inner sciences. the networks they form and act within14. memory. around the end of the inhalaevolve towards higher-order harmony and comtion. and also evolving intelligence of life itself. through such innovation mechanisms as ‘in sync’. unless their culture has shared purpose and values CI STARTS WITHIN –THE INFRA-PERSONAL and an attitude of striving for competence in DIMENSION: some inner technologies.Collective intelligence is an emergent capacity of the time lag between the peak of the breath and the social groups (of any size). WHAT IS COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE? given that. plant.” examining and creating connections between particiI introduced what CI might look like through pants. the pulse would let participants become aware of their shared heartbeat. tions of CI. completed. I first asked those questions in a presentation I gave at e challenge and opportunity of socially engaged the university of ottawa in 2004.” ubiquitous device such as an ipod or cell phone). then it is unlikely that HOW COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE the outer technology of biofeedback can deliver MANIFESTS IN MYSELF on its potential for fostering shared. inquisitiveness and learning abilities. Santa Barbara. at one is seen through the “evolusketches out a path to individual synchrony states gettionary” lens and differs from the “wisdom of ting connected and scaling up in larger groups. e more closely the breath and heart wave are 13 plexity.” differentiation and integration. e aims to synchronize the heartbeats of its participants […] emphasis on emergent quality distinguishes it e pulse rate is continuously collected from people. What we perceive as practical applications and Enabling technologies are getting more and more implications of CI differ also according to whether sophisticated and commonly available.” e expression ‘collective intelligence’ designates Biofeedback is still rarely used in collective settings for the cognitive powers of a group15. which I don’t elaborate closeness doesn’t automatically leads to shared inteon in this essay due to space limitations. possibly. we are products of many millennia of social evolution. that is only one of the many definifessor at the university of California. or consciousness necessary for human groups to make transpersonal perspective. We couldn’t have language. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 43 . not even our most intimate thoughts and feelings. crowd”-type CI and. e computer calculates the average pulse rate and cognitive lens through which CI can be seen as transmits it to the participants as a single beat sound follows: “Intelligence refers to the main cognitive played in the same device that recorded and transmitted powers: perception. however. When three dimensions. inter-personal. for lévy’s 6-pole Model of the Main resources of Colthat. and animal kingdoms. without the long jourC O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E ney of CI in humankind’s history. S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . using a 6-pole model meditators is to not only experience our social of CI developed by pierre lévy for discerning and world mindfully. which enables them to peak of the heart wave. gence and sentience. not to mention our brings us forward to examine collective intelliancestors in the mineral. Synchronized heartbeats may induce a subjecimportant lenses of political economy and infortive experience of increased connection. who from “additive CI” that merely states. gral mindfulness that also has an ethical component. “two choose to participate using a wearable device (optimally a minds are better than one.

are all related with each other. how well our personal knowledge gardens are tended has a huge impact on everyone’s C-IQ. the capacity to co-evolve with others towards higher harmony and complexity. Exploring the nature of their complex interdependences. I suggest that the C-IQ of a social being (individual or collective) is proportionate with the level of connectivity within and across of the 6 CI pictured above. will be compromised. G E O R G E P Ó R | F R O M R I G H T 3 ~ humans may not swim as swiftly as dolphins or run as fast as gazelles but we have a repertory of competences far richer than other species. 2 ~ If my intentions are driven by a rowdy bunch of competing desires and ambitions. 5 ~ finally.: massive and miniaturized memory storage. ~ e wider and more diverse is my people network of trusted relationships. We can grow higher coherence in that chatter by practicing contemplation. intuiting. growing competence in any of those arts will boost our C-IQ.g. sensing. the technical network supports all the 5 other poles of CI -in-me. it will be the one with the biggest influence on coherence within the ecosystem of those capabilities. e practical value of the capacity to maintain a more coherent inner discourse cannot be overstated. the more connected I am with a larger variety of life experiences and perspectives on reality. Correspondingly. and much more. and capacity to absorb more complexity. one can find the sweetspot of interdependence among all those capabilities. discerning. with its frequent jumps to unrelated thoughts. Most likely. then my C-IQ. two-way and communal high-speed connection with the Web. 6 M I N D F U L N E S S T O C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 44 . Below are 6 examples of what the increased connectivity within the 6-pole resources of CI may mean. then chances are. and visualization of our mental models. A web of mutually supportive relationships is also a booster of my C-IQ. Extrapolating that the intelligence potential of a biological organism increases with the number of connections among the cells in their nervous system. if my intentions are aligned and oriented by the evolutionary value of continually upgrading my consciousness. 4 ~ our document networks and personal knowledge ecosystems provide us with the many gifts of recorded memory.fIgurE 2 ~ Pierre Lévy’s diagram quoted in Social Software and CI?17. our intellectual competences. 1 ~ e permanent inner chatter of the mind. by putting at the disposal of each of us a wide array of enabling technologies. e. All of that can be connected in configurations optimized for supporting and augmenting CI -in-me. meditation. including the opportunity to examine and increase the coherence of our mental models. creates a disjoint series of only loosely-connected reflections. such as memory. my C-IQ will be even higher. etc. compassion. e top half of the diagram represents the three virtual resources of CI and the bottom half its three physical resources.

in a communal or organizational CI OF NOOSPHERE setting. Take Care of yourself. (It’s remarkable those principles and the associated practices were pioneered by high school students in Canada. more a little but we risk creating the notorious “filter bubble.” If duane Elgin’s humans in mutually supportive relationships. thus. a frepointer has (or hasn’t) generated. heinz robert responded groups of increasing scale? how to optimize the S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . where epiphany is to come true. no keyword-based filtercollective intelligence – and the collective coning system comes close in effectiveness to a network of sciousness – of the species18. epochal shifts will they act as “organic” sensors for each other. Take Care of Each other. organs. I frequently email a tweet I stumble upon in my for a collective entity to become a fully co-intellitweet stream to friends. it needs to gain competence in clients.) Taking care of each other and this place/organisation/planet wouldn’t be possible without becoming ever better at practicing collective self-reflexivity. cyberspace around issues of priority interest is a need of Well-tended collective self-reflexivity can lead to more and more people. Take Care of is place”. if I know that it reflects one of their interthe arts of collective self-reflection (CS-r). 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 45 . When each of us observes patterns of interest in what we pay attention to. e latter can include collaborative blogs. In fact. e elegant beauty of the 6-pole model of CI is its scalability from individuals to small and large groups. and share them with other members. groups. we sow – THE TRANSPERSONAL DIMENSION: the seeds for collective self-reflexivity to sprout. and sensing and meaning-making practices stream. happen in the next year. yet staying current with what is unfolding in in face-to-face and online group events. higher C-IQ and wiser action. Subscription services may help a more fine-tuned sensing of reality. and gent living organism. organizations. for example. CI –THE OF THE RELATIONAL FIELD -PERSONAL DIMENSION: COLLECTIVE SELF-REFLEXIVITY INTER initial conditions of its collective dnA for continually updating itself? Some insight about those questions can be gleaned from the three principles of the Master Code of the human hive19.5% but maybe 1% of what we that could support a quantum increase in the need to know to stay current. I send the outcome of those shifts. e good news is that the larger the circle of friends “Within 10 to 20 years. and trusted relationships is another key factor of C-IQ. informs and motiquently recurring question is: “But will it scale?” vates me to refine my catch-and-forward strategy. at’s because nobody can spend all the time in the wikis.” attuned and agile collaborative meaning-making filtering out everything we didn’t know how to ask for. we just don’t the intersections and adjacent areas between my own know their likely outcomes. filters. the better the chances that we can stay have in place the communications infrastructure informed of not just 0. letting proficiency in building and using collective sensing the system alert them to it. the human family will who care for us. how well-performing those muscles will be at those hot moments depends on how well-trained they are.now. which shows in the midst of some of them. practical: What is needed for enabling CS-r in where I wrote about this. ose principles are. here are two other questions that may be more In my post on the Blog of Collective Intelligence20. I also keep hearing the question: when to exercise CS-r? Any moment when a community is facing critical challenges or opportunities is a good moment for exercising its “collective selfreflexivity” muscles. What makes me an and other collective entities need to build capaci“organic” sensor is that unlike most algorithm-based ty for cultivating their collective self-reflexivity. processes. I read their feedback so the excitement that my In conversations on the “how” of CS-r. or I tag them in a thread on facebook. e vitality of that inner flow decides the breadth and speed of access to the collective mind. which comes in handy when we need to mobilize that access for meeting the key challenge or opportunity at (our individual or collective) hand. but also across the 6 poles. gems I pick up on my surfpath. what if we could turbo-charge the creative potential of value flowing from our reflections to our enabling technologies and vice versa? Imagine. recorded memories. colleagues. including ests. we are already relying on an intuited map of resonances. It is a LETTING COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE capacity of human groups to reflect upon the conUSE US FOR ORGANIZING ITSELF tent of their collective sensing and meaning-making. family. what could it enable and make possible? e circular flow of information and energy between our intentions. To enable the best topics of interest and those of my friends. let’s envision widening the scope of our exploration of how to increase the connection not only within.

at’s what friends are for. It’s helen Titchen Beeth. particularly. I think what makes all those synchronously e most influential nodes in that brain are not indioccurring trends possible is that “content curavidual humans. which in turn increases its itself.” and among our communities. of course. writing about “practicing what you game-changer on humanity’s evolutionary journey is: A plead for here: that collective curation and skilfully functional global brain. by increasing the neural connections inside power whenever any of us need to tap into it25. letting it use us for organizing function better as a system. If so. that for this conversation’ – and then a deeper knowing said ‘no. It is as if we are each rooted in our unique place in the Kosmos Are you sentient? you wouldn’t doubt that. really are creating a global brain. We are gradually dis~ Trails of hyperlinks between groups.e. worked consciousness. we can be senen some of these connections while weakening others (by choosing either to pass along i. covering how we can be part of a world-wide sharedmemes. it’s not only hand.” life journey and the journey of our self-organizing social mind meet. be true not only for our brain’s neural processes. exchange questions. in that very same act of er. it will inform the connect in conversations. But an even bigger position. who else can benefit the global brain functions better thanks to our active and from this info? conscious participation. are being built and travelled. giving learning-and thinking community. e meaning of the “sentience” distinction by a sense of what is uniquely hers to do rhymes ranges from the entity being capable of perceiving G E O R G E P Ó R | F R O M R I G H T M I N D F U L N E S S T O C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 46 .” somemind are gaining more attention. ‘curate’ inforsors not only for each other.” not a binary concept. flowing through them can reach wider and deeper. how and can learn to hear feedback directly from ‘the about an animal. ~ Some practices and principles of participatory patterns of connections are getting generated in the epistemology23 and liberating epistemology24 global brain. wire together” seems to ing human knowledge and tracking human activity. Which adds another coloured WHAT IS SENTIENCE thread to our weave: ere’s more to this than AND COLLECTIVE SENTIENCE? just relationships between nodes. this one is not for you… or C O L L E C T I V E S E N T I E N C E not yet/now’. but for collective mation or not to pass it along) helps this global brain intelligence itself. a bacteria. Many other interesting things are also happengain insights and possibly create new knowledge togething at the same time.” rise to new perspectives that emerge from the Comments from them and others who joined our conpathways connecting them.. unbeknownst to them. will enable us to bring its resources to bear on can bond with other nuggets to create novel meeting individual and collective needs of the multicompounds and – who knows – even new lifetudes. thing else is also happening. made clearer for me ~ Some emergent areas of our distributed that while “friends are doing what they are for. or a plant? Sentience is 22 source’ about what is uniquely ours to do .by saying: “I am always grateful for hints and links with my own sense of how the selection of topics of friends who think that can be useful for my work we attend to is the precise place where our own and/or development. issues. We can share information. and maybe even the trust and intelligence start appearing. An entity is not either sentient Titchen Beeth’s point about orienting her choices or not. at will open the possibility for forms! A small inner voice said ‘you could do humankind to awaken to its collective sentience. for example: part of formal professional bodies.” e author then says: communities of practice and epistemic communities1 “is sounds like a bunch of hippie drivel. anks to the Internet we can do all that without letting certain issues attract us to curate them needing to travel to international conferences or being (for self and others). which are enriched by our different perspectives. with all its advanced afforful sifting for potent nuggets of meaning that dances. interest. and reflection and then life/journey is the answer. using the human nodes of this network to strengthbut also for the global brain. when with some new. If I gain some clarity about the pamela Mclean wrote there: “We can do our own particular question to which my particular practical learning-by-doing. our individual brain does too. of sorts. on topics of overlapping kind of memes/topics to which I attend. valuable information at I couldn’t have said it any better. only the few. versation across space and time. another commenter of very plausible that the global brain is increasing its power this blogpost further refined the “organic sensor” whenever any of us engages with it. we’re wondering. by encod“neurons that fire together. but the various kinds of glocal-scale21 tion is the natural evolution of our globally netlearning and thinking communities. We let it use us. but we organized around various domains of knowledge.

human family’s learning journey: the era of the Collective sentience is not exclusive to humans. device. but the process doesn’t advance ~ relationality and social attunement. and the that I wrote about in the context-setting session heart is considered the seat of feeling and emotion […] of this article. in a straight line. ~ distribution of energy and nutrients. from which I quote one: ~ the eradication of war and other forms of “is question is best answered by analogies about man-made suffering. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 47 . I use the latter meaning. I wrote last year: tient beings. users can collaborate by editing questions capacity to care for the well-being and evolution of the and suggesting edits to other users’ answers. or a troop of Quora is one of the engines of our global-scale baboons protecting collectively their babies in face of collective intelligence. Another description of sentience comes from the THE GLOBAL BRAIN NEEDS TO BE Buddhist tradition. its larger encompass(Wikipeda) ing whole. communication tools in human groups and society gave Quora aggregates questions and answers to toprise to a new dimension of collective sentience: the ics. in which collective entities. not anatomy. as well as its habitat. “Sentience seems to be characterJOINED BY THE GLOBAL HEART ized by awareness and care. e aspiration for that is an integral part of an I took that long quote because I like both the depth evolutionary ethos of moving towards higherof that reply to my question and the playful spirit order harmony. Evolution’s arrow points to higher complexity ~ Sense of central unity. at will start a new leg of the sion […] we feel a kinship with sentient beings […]” . do not imply some sort of social What function(s) do heart and emotion serve in individengineering. styles of process. ese are seeing themselves as only objects to/through ‘design affordances’ for the ‘global heart’: which evolution just happens. and start recognizing that they have choices about its unfolding. and what might accomplish analogous functions in the collective meta-being? e ‘heart’ has at least self-guided evolution.” species itself. Brain and heart are physical structures that given that evolution is an open and emergent symbolize two different but not really separate. function.and feeling. it can move through detours ~ Excitement and motivation. ance system. e development of language and increasingly complex edited and organized by its community of users. Banathy’s concept of “evolutionary guidintelligence conventionally called ‘thinking’ and ‘feeling’. given the dominance of today’s suggesting that the list of functions are ‘design S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . e heart is a metaphor for ~ and ultimately. And that openness is characterized by compas26 plus compassion. reaching higher levels of our collective sentience. the following functions (the many meanings of which are including the human society as a whole. Such sentient awareness is basically open“for it to be viable. cease suggested by common idioms using “heart”). What will do the ~ the human species bringing to bear the fruits same for the new civilization what the heart does of our collective intelligence on urgent chalfor the body?” e question received a number of lenges. space. is is sentience as underinking about sentient humanity. answered. its realization is only one of vital needs of its parts and its whole. In both cases. within which things discriminate thembe joined by a collective heart. and coherence. or the forager bees following the patcific terms. “Quora is a question-and-answer tern of the swarm’s waggle dance to find key resources. and harmony. at tremen~ hope. website where questions are created. hence the importance of ~ Assessment of what is worth doing”29. to being sensitive and responsive to the individualist culture. vitality. limited manifestation of I decided to run a small experiment for using a that capacity. for current the possible futures. and intention. I asked this question on higher levels of collective sentience may be characQuora: “e metabeing cannot come alive before terized by: having a global brain And heart. the slowly stood by Buddhists and others who talk about senemerging planetary meta-being. pacing. purpose.” it in a school of fish that can turn on dime.” and the “intentional evolution” e brain is considered the seat of thinking. thoughtful responses. ~ rhythm. dous human cost. and even fall back to previous stages. we find species-being’s collective sentience28. its collective mind needs to ness. of collective sentience. courage. or to put it in more speexternal aggression. consciousness selves. we are talking about ual humans. We see an early. for self and towards others. the development of an evofunctions of the entire organism that go far beyond the lutionary guidance system 27 for spaceship physical heart’s mechanical interpretation as a pumping Earth. when the human family gathers bringing tool of collective intelligence to explore an aspect aid to disaster victims.

9 See <http://bit. which shifted my relationship to the process of pulling the pieces of this essay together. What is biofeedback? 13 Blackett 2012. Teaching What We Need To Learn. Mindfulness Revisited. 4 purser & Milillo 2014. and act from the biggest “We” that they can put their arms around. concerns. anything as complex as the “global heart. which connects us. I am grateful to all readers for that shift because it was our shared mindfulness. It had a number of sections that didn’t make it into what you’ve just read. When I was down to my last five days of the retreat. C O N C L U D I N G S H A R E D N O T E C O L L E C T I V E A N D T H E . you’ve been present with me in creating this essay. e injunctions and practices used in those groups. a word about our collective sentience. A Concise Introduction. It’s fascinating just to think about how the global heart would be “designed” if it were optimized for those affordances. let me explain. Introduction to Magic in e Middle. and various approaches for augmenting them. it can only emerge from favourable conditions. Man Evolving. worth replicating. in all the choices I made about it. your caring has probably evoked both some resonances in your heart and new questions in your mind. nursing myself back to health took most of my first week. at noticing rang a mindfulness bell inside my head. I went on a twoweek writing retreat on a mountain in the middle of an awe-inspiring national park of Catalonia. Collective sentience at increasing scale will emerge when communities and organizations start learning to sense. Connecting the We-in-the-I. collective intelligence. e presence of collective intelligence of the Spanda ecosystem also helped me letting go of the anxiousness about the imperfections and blemishes due to the shrinking time left to complete the article. I N T E L L I G E N C E C O L L E C I V E O F A B O U T M I N D F U L N E S S Y O U . 2 M I N D F U L N E S S T O C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 48 .” which seems more of a process than a “thing”. Chaordic Chat Practice. finally. became impossible to pursue. collective wisdom. like collective consciousness. and trusting that their inner coherence would somehow manifest in the outer coherence of what was produced in those five days. 5 pór 2014. 12 AApB 2008. appreciations. our caring for a possible better world. e Pulse. Around the turn of the year. given the affordances of the digital media. S E N T I E N C E A N D M E e first outline of this essay was much more expansive than I ended up writing. and other groups where members hold and support each other in their highest potential. fifth Anniversary Commemorative Edition of the gAInS Quarterly. think. in Mindful Together. nevertheless. I noticed how much I grew attached to the original plans for the article. G E O R G E P Ó R | F R O M R I G H T It was like some kind of mental congestion got removed by changing the direction of the writing process from outside-in to inside-out. cannot be designed. including important topics.ly/1txWeK2> 10 Siegel 2012. we might just make this a reality. leaving very little energy for writing. because only then can it connect with yours. given the shortness of time left. which by now. I was looking forward to it for months but when the time came. a passage of the chasm from me to we. 8 Voldtofte 2005. It shifted the restricting feeling of performing to a scope anticipated months ago into the joy of writing from the living centres of what is true and most alive for me now. 7 pór 2009. e plan felt like the pilot for a book I always wanted to write. the readers produce the next. I had a nasty and persistent cold. Evolution. those conditions can be and are being promoted by trailblazing “We-space communities”30.affordances’ for the ‘global heart’. including the shift in my attitude about the writing process I mentioned above. 3 Stewart 2009. and collective sentience that made it possible. 11 Siegel 2011. As you were reading certain passages. Writing is communing. our collective sentience can be summed up in the question: What are we willing to do for each other and the field that holds us? Will you share with the other readers and me your questions. the writer creates only the first draft. 6 fleming 2014. Who are the designers and is there an identifiable design process? Clearly. deserve a well-resourced collaborative learning expedition to the tip of the evolutionary wave. but how authentically it is poured forth from my passion. Salk 1985. Does HRV Biofeedback Help Mindfulness Meditation? 14 Jevbratt 2009. we-space. Circles of presence31. When the writing is alive and generative. whatever can take this inquiry forward? 8 —————— 1 Spanda foundation 2005. your voice inside me made it clear that what’s important is not how complete the story is.

J. Living into the Master Code of the Human Hive. May 2014. & MIlIllo.ly/1txWusp>. e Pulse: project proposal <http://bit. quoted in Teaching What We Need To [Learn: Leaders in Personal Growth and Spirituality Share eir Own Innermost Challenges. Living into the Master Code of the Human Hive <http://bit. Man Evolving. (2006). (2008). 22 See <http://bit. The Emergence of Higher We-Spaces: steps towards humankind awakening to its collective sentience <http://bit. Guided Evolution in Society. (1997). 2015]. S P A N D A J O U R N A L V .me/1txWnn7>[retrieved on January 5. 2015]. Letting collective intelligence use us for organizing itself. 31 Scharmer 2006. Letting collective intelligence use me for organizing itself <http://bit. —— (2012). léVy. 24 See <http://bit. —— (2014) . (2003). B. (2012) does hrV Biofeedback help Mindfulness Meditation? <http://bit. WyldEr. STEWArT. 29 Wylder 2014. (2012).ly/1t xWKhV >. (2014). M. “Connecting the We-in-the-I: global response-Ability rising Within and Without”. october 21. E. 16 pór 2008. E. 2014]. 2015]. post in Mindful Together. Curation: How the Global Brain Evolves <http://bit.ly/1xzztjp> [retrieved on december 31. 25 Van Buskirk 2012.fb.ly/1BQCbhd>[retrieved on January 8. eory U: Learning from the Future as it Emerges. interview on the fifth Anniversary Commemorative Edition of the gAInS Quarterly. 8 R E F E R E N C E S AApB (2008).ly/1xrzgxn> [retrieved on 7 January 2015]. university of Amsterdam. Evolution: the greatest game of all <http://bit. h E nSh All . p. “What is biofeedback?” Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback (quoted in Wikipedia).. (2014) . VoldTofTE. g. Collective Intelligence and Collective Leadership: Twin Paths to Beyond Chaos. [retrieved on 4 Jan 2015]. in the Blog of Collective Intelligence <http://bit. r. g. C. flEMIng. fall-Winter/2014. (2014). What is sentience <http://bit. SIEgEl. (2003). 28 pór 2014.ly/ 1C4xAWu> [retrieved december 30. (2009).ly/1y7xQ25>[retrieved on January 7. SChArMEr. VAn BuSKIrK. 2015). —— (2009). C O L L E C T I V E 8∑8 I N T E L L I G E N C E | 49 . “Collective Consciousness and Cultural healing. C. Collective Consciousness and Cultural Healing. SpAndA foundATIon (2005). (2000) guided Evolution in Society: A Systems View. 26 Szpakowski 2014. 3 : Eclectic Teachers: 554. —— (2012) . d.ly/1y7xQ25>. Introduction to Magic in e Middle <http://bit. BlACKETT. 2014 <http://on. : A Concise Introduction.ly/14lcezx> [retrieved on January 9. 19 pór 2012. S AlK .ly/1y3bd6A>.ly/1dn3V5l> [retrieved on 8 January 2015].ly/1y7xIQ4< [retrieved on January 7. BAnAThy. (1985) . l. (2006). reply on Quora. 21 See <http://bit. primaVera Working paper. f.ly/1wM34o2> [retrieved on January 9. Curation: How the Global Brain Evolves. 30 pór 2014. interview at 5:30 <http://bit.15 lévy 2003 . 20 pór 2014.o. (2011).ly/1fIeouz> [retrieved on 9 January 2015]. e Emergence of Higher We-Spaces.ly/1 C4xllx>[retrieved on 5 January 2015]. Chaordic Chat Practice. What is sentience. pór. Collective Intelligence and Collective Leadership. Op. Social Software and CI? 18 Elgin 1997. Frequently Asked Questions about Collective Intelligence. 2015]. purSEr.ly/1yVtl8f>. Cit. 2015). 17 henshall 2003. 2 /2 0 1 4 | —— (2014) . “Mindfulness revisited: A Buddhist-Based Conceptualization” Journal of Management Inquiry. J. J EVBrATT . (2005). 23 See <http://bit. —— (2014). eory U.ly/1y7xfnn>[retrieved on 8 January 2015]. S. S zpAKoWSKI .” A report to the fetzer Institute: 2. Kosmos Journal. Social Software and CI ? <http://bit. ElgIn d. p. 27 Banathy 2000. Frequently Asked Questions about collective intelligence <http://bit. J. (2014).h. 2014].ly/1dyAJSV>. reply on Quora <http://bit.

B A S E D K N O W L E D G E | 6 .THE TIBETAN BOOK OF PROPORTION M I C H E L B A U W E N S | T H E O P E N - C O M M O N S ~ S H E E T 9 -1 2 .

His research forming the right actions that solve the problem focuses on the self-organization and or exploit the opportunity. and Science and member of the Global Agenda Councils of eir contributions are then reassembled or aggregatthe World Economic Forum. Efficiently nition research group. a single malfunction along the line can be sufficient to throw everything off-course. out of these non-linear interactions. But in typical social systems. Heylighen is a Belgian to efficiently solve problems and exploit opporturesearch professor affiliated with the nities. In real-world problem solving. maps. He is a former editor-in-chief of the Journal information5. distributed intelligence is more than collective intelligence: contributions do not only come from the people in a collective. We will define intelligence as: the ability to process information so as S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . A fundamental advantage of this approach is flexibility and robustness. the Studies. register. so that no useful result is produced. which he co-founded in 1996. because this is what most fundamentally distinguishes the new paradigm from the older paradigm. We also rely on other people to provide us with their C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 51 . science and artificial intelligence see the process of Mr Heylighen has authored some 150 scientific publications in a problem solving as a search through a space of variety of disciplines. cameras. neurons or individuals) that interact locally via a variety of channels. opportuniinterdisciplinary Center Leo Apostel ties – or more generally challenges – will depend at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. is is the perspective of distributed cognition. so that the aggregate result normally is informative – even in the most confused situations. In a centralized. In other words. without central supervision or direction. sequential process. an organizaEvolution. including a monograph and four edited potential solutions. sequential processes. e resulting organization is truly distributed over the components of the system: it is not localized. but from a variety of artefacts. centralized or directed by one or a few agents. e attempts to simulate the books. store. however. evolution of complex systems approached Traditional models of intelligence in cognitive from a cybernetic perspective. e present paper will focus on the distributed intelligence 3 of such a self-organizing system. Since 1990 he is the editor of the principia Cybernetica project. which sees problem solving and decision making as centralized. but the resulting errors tend to be compensated by the signals coming from the other units. distributed processing of temic worldview. and of the International Journal of Knowledge problem is split up into aspects that are processed by and Systems Science. and is currently a “neurons” deal simultaneously with different aspects member of the editorial boards of the Journal of happiness of the problem or question. where he is the director of the who can be an individual organism. e idea is that different units or of Memetics. coordinated activity emerges – a phenomenon known as self-organization2. Complexity and Cogtion.F R A N C I S H E Y L I G H E N CHALLENGE PROPAGATION : TOWARDS A THEORY OF DISTRIBUTED INTELLIGENCE AND THE GLOBAL BRAIN Francis P. originally proposed by the ethnographer hutchins7. telephones and calculators to gather and process information. some form of coherent. led to er-supported collaborative development of an evolutionary-systhe notion of parallel. on the goals and values of the decision-maker. process or transfer information. on the other hand. produce erroneous results. or lack relevant data. His work has received a wide internaseveral autonomous agents (active units) working in tional recognition. he is a Fellow of the World Academy of Art parallel. tools and technologies that sense. I N T R O D U C T I O N C onTEMporAry SCIEnCE SEES SoCIETIES. 2 /2 0 1 4 | ed into a collective solution. an international organization devoted to the computneural networks used by our brain. and of the dealing with a challenge means selecting and perGlobal Brain Institute. e same mechanism of compensating for individual ignorance or bias by aggregating a large variety of contributions characterizes successful applications of collective intelligence6. but arises out of the interconnections between all the agents. is means that they consist of a vast number of relatively autonomous agents (such as cells. What are considered problems. we routinely rely on tools such as pen and paper. or the global superorganism4. e many contributions ensure redundancy of function: individual units may be unavailable. organisms and brains as complex adaptive systems1.

including multi-agent systems. A problem sequential models of artificial intelligence – all forms can be defined as a difference between the present F R A N C I S H E Y L I G H E N | C H A L L E N G E P R O P A G A T I O N | 52 . which is defined in the action ontology “problem-solving” processes. and my more recent ontology of addressing which problem where or when. all the peogence is that traditional intelligence models – in ple and artefacts involved need to work together in a which a well-defined agent solves a well-defined coordinated manner. in a network to the neighbouring nodes. as an organization. such is paper wishes to introduce a new paradigm. gence is the ability to solve problems20. adaptive systems. bacteria or plants . which synthesizes my older such systems. In challenge propagation. and stigmergy18. everything is “smeared out” across work on spreading activation in individual and colspace. is perspective has also been called the “society of mind”16: a mind or intelligence can be seen a collaboration between relatively independent modules or agents. ere exist already a number of useful paratheory of the Global Brain12. and which lenge” and the sequential. is to represent such a complex. e most simple and common definition of intelliIn fact. need to be replaced by the broader notion of “chalmemetics11. I assume that – in contrast to traditional. Excluding “intelligent design” accounts – which presuppose the very intelligence they purport to explain – this means that intellifIgurE 1 ~ An illustration of the exponential explosion in the number of possible paths gence must ultimately be the leading from an initial problem state via subsequent steps (or “operators”) to the goal result of self-organization17. is includes human ical development for another paper19. intelligence can be viewed as the capability for coordinated. completely solved: they rather morph into something with the notion of “propagation” or “spreading”. mathematical or computationceptual and mathematical foundation for a new al manner. Many action10. for a complex sysAnother reason to focus on distributed intellitem – e.g. More generally.. by sending the right messages at problem (and then stops) – are completely unrealthe right moments to the right destinations. and problems are rarely as a phenomenon that elicits action from an agent. skills or ideas.g.. neural networks. comthe distributed intelligence emerging from all plex dynamic systems. intelligence – which as neural network researchers have shown is distributed over the billions of neuA B R I E F R E V I E W rons in the brain13 –. or the brain. unique observations. and complex systems. time and agents: it is never fully clear who is lective intelligence9. while leaving the mathematintelligence in general. however. which is defined as digms for doing this. organized activity. e present tion seems simple and general enough to also paper will sketch the conceptual foundations that are necprovide a foundation for a theory of distributed essary to build such a model. a navy ship8 – to function well. but also various as yet poorly understood 14 15 forms of intelligence in e. a state or problem solution. is means that they emerge from the interactions between a collective of autonomous components or “agents” that are working in parallel. e difficulty. e basic idea is to combine the notion of components contribute simultaneously to many “challenge”. at is why the notion of “problem” will which comes from models of neural networks. localized process of “search” denotes the process by which some phenomenon (for a problem solution) by the parallel. distributed is iteratively transmitted from a point in a node process of “propagation”. ille intention of this work is to provide a condefined process in a precise.of “natural” intelligence are distributed. istic for describing complex. different. process which typically occurs in a distributed manner. people and machines as connected by the Intere challenge propagation paradigm is intended to synthenet. of course. the notion of challenge propagasize the best features of these different models. the collective intelligence of O F I N T E L L I G E N C E M O D E L S insects. the Internet.

is whether you can process the input information (problem. erefore. In this case. its meaning remains surprisingly vague: how ability of long-term survival) – and may even exactly is a given piece of information transformed decrease it if it would make you waste time on coninto a new—and presumably more useful or meantemplating irrelevant issues. by learning. but that the which the different actions are performed one by one in more intelligent ones can solve. or design. which is merely a very specific e simplest model of intelligence is a look-up table case of processing. A and B are hope for is a heuristic: a procedure that suggests incomparable. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 53 . as the number of probA deterministic algorithm (like multiplication) lems that a non-trivial agent can solve is typically infiis guaranteed to produce an acceptable solution nite. note that this definition does not provide an computation. x) to the example is the table of multiplication. the number of potential paths e next. which lists goal (say. e assume that evolutionary. In general. e dent: more important than the absolute number task of the intelligent agent is then to transform or of problems you can solve. then the (action you uation (the goal state or solution). numbers. we may tion of problem solving as information processing. by definition. evoluto perform with respect to a “brute force”. the best you can and some more. or technological initial state or problem statement can be interpreted as a progress will in general increase intelligence in an piece of information received by the agent. there will be 10n possible paths cally iterated until the state it produces satisfies of length n. is requires determining the right rules such as: if your problem is 7 x 7. In then means finding a path through the “problem short: if x. if A can solve all problems that B can solve. the more a central location. not necessarily produce the correct solution: they e partial order provides us with an unambiguous merely reduce the amount of search you would have criterion of progress: if an agent. initial state. general do not work. e sequence is typibetween 10 possible steps. if at each stage you have the choice state in a particular order. and need to be complemented by Such deterministic procedures to manipulate what we conventionally call “intelligence”. manages to solve additional probtive exploration of the problem space. lists of symbols. and an ideal or desired sitthe form: if your problem is x. solve the problems that are significant for you in “question”) via a number of intermediate stages into your present situation. even shorter: x → y. it heuristic. An space” that leads from the initial state (say. and. A first step in our intended generalintelligent ones have a competitive advantage ization towards distributed processes is the reinterpretaover the less intelligent ones. I do not know of any general. the larger the reduction in search and the has become objectively more intelligent.e. or more generally. yet. social. more complex model of intelligence is that need to be explored increases exponentially with the a deterministic algorithm. e better the lems relative to the ones it could deal with before. for example. Adding the capability to the output information (solution. as e view of problem solving as computation or as the latter will at some stage be confronted with heuristic search seems to imply a sequential process. then the sequence of steps that leads from x to y (see fIgurE 1). e solution irreversible way. or. for non-trivial problems. goal state.. then y. solve some purely theoretical problems that have no value in your present or future environment While the term “information processing” is widewill in general not increase your fitness (i. e more problems an agent can solve. or mapping. heuristics do lems that A cannot deal with. is is a sequence of number of steps. is is a list of condition-action rules. An example is 12 steps long! at is why “brute force” approaches (trya procedure to calculate 734 x 2843 or a program ing out all possible paths in order to find the right one) in that determines the first 100 prime numbers. counting the number of solvable probafter a finite number of steps. erefore. at makes one trillion for a path of merely the condition for being a solution. solution or an error. on the more complex do not offer such a guarantee: other hand. exhaustion. the present definition does produce a partrial-and-error will be needed. probspread. tial ordering: an agent A is more intelligent than anothyou do not know whether any trial will produce a er agent B. natural higher the probability that you would find the soluselection entails that more intelligent agents will tion after a small number of steps. and vice versa. in problems that they cannot solve. problem solving need to perform to attain the) solution is y. absolute measure of intelligence. us. as B may be able to tackle some probplausible paths towards a solution. problems that are lems does not produce the equivalent of an IQ.situation (the initial state). we should remember that of the problem is a new piece of information produced in practice intelligence is highly context-depenby the agent in response to the problem statement. sooner or later displace less intelligent agents. ingful – piece of information? Apart from deterministic computation. of S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . though. “answer”). solution is 49. so that it quickly becomes astronomiactions that need to be performed on the initial cal. y)21. the more intellihave given rise to the notion of intelligence as gent it is.

e difference is that a recurrent network allows activaFROM PROBLEMS TO OPPORTUNITIES tion to cycle back to nodes activated earlier. us. the disturbances this introvagueness is an advantage as it allows us to consider a duces to the process are drowned out by the convariety of mechanisms and models beyond sequential tributions from the other components when algorithms or search. subtle procedure consisting of processes information: the input layer repremany different actions collaborating towards a global solusents the neurons activated by sensory organs tion. letting that information propagate the different connections will have shifted so that the through the hidden layers (during which the probability of overall success has become much larger. the connected units or nodes arranged in subsequent process may never recover. malfunctioning formal model of information processing. distributed manner. one of the most successful alternative models of on the other hand. via one or more “hidden” layers. making it more robust and flexible. e final activation pattern of the output layer is read off as the solution. In a sequential process. But this or contain errors. the network consists of tleneck: if that component breaks down. its components (perception). every step or component information processing can be found in neural netthrough which the process passes constitutes a bot22 works . so that the one can be reinforced at neurons that activate motor organs (action). After many experiences of information to the input layer (in the form of a successful or failed processing. neural networks have two big advantages: ~ processing happens in a parallel. to forcement mechanism: links that have been successfulthe final “output layer” (see fIgurE 2). e input in this case is issue: what is a meaningful problem. e output is the final pattern of activation certain problems or process certain information. from ing or information processing runs into a fundamental input layer to output layer. or punished. “layers”. and after it has settled into a stable configuration. is makes processing. this would not produce enough information is seems to be in essence how the brain for it to learn a complex. (represented by circles). e problem is posed by differentially activating the nodes in which together contribute to the input layer. e view of intelligence as a capability for problem solvthere is no imposed direction “forward”. ~ the network does not need an explicit program telling it how to perform the process: it can learn from experience. thus rebalancing and the hidden layers represent the intervening their relative contributions. e distributed character of neural networks means that its information and “knowledge” are not localized in a single component: they are spread out fIgurE 2 ~ A neural network with links (represented by arrows) connecting nodes across all the nodes and links. the processing much more robust: individual components may be missing. brain tissue processing the sensory information. everything is aggregated. In the simplest case. e more general version of such a “feedforward” C H A L L E N G E S network is called a “recurrent” network. with the connections pointing from the e learning happens via a general “reward” or rein“input layer”. activation pattern changes depending on the is intrinsically simple mechanism only works for comstrengths of the connections). or meaningful simply the initial pattern of activation over all information? Why should an intelligent agent address nodes. the output layer represents the can learn individually. yet. and collecting the plex problems because of the distributed character of the processed information at the output layer by processing: if only the process as a whole could be rewarded reading the activation pattern of the final nodes. is activation propagates across the hidden layers while undergoing the final solution. the same time as its neighbour is weakened.Compared to the sequential models of intelligence. processing happens simply by presenting the the others become weaker. Information ly used in producing a good solution become stronger. F R A N C I S H E Y L I G H E N | C H A L L E N G E P R O P A G A T I O N | 54 . Because the process is distributed. the relative strengths of pattern of activation distributed across the nodes).

or chat with friends. i. you cessfully strive for fitness have been eliminated are not solving the problem of being “walkless”. we can define a challenge as a phenomee difference between positive (growth) and neganon that invites action from an agent. More concisely. and negative or aspects of its situation are “problematic” and therefore deficiency values. positive emotions (e. ese and assume that those values elicit specific actions kinds of values are positive.. than zero for positive situations. which is larger it deviate from its ideal or goal state. the the most interesting ones.g. or sadness) progress. the agent can then itself decide what both positive or growth values. i. input). the issue becomes inevitable once etc. the fundamental value of security or you have now. Still. a set of explicit field of attention so that it becomes open to disor implicit criteria that allow it distinguish “good” outcovering new opportunities for growth. how does an agent when the agent encounters a problem that it may decide what to do or pay attention to? In the approach not be able to solve. from an evolutionary perrequire some solution. “drawfrom the scene. anger. new things. the value of curiosity will lead the agent to some aspiration or need is not fulfilled. nections. introduces the question (problem. since natural selecto make the agent act. joy. material. valence for an agent. in the case of positive valence by will act just to exercise. they ceived disturbance(s). comes from “bad” ones. Maslow in his theory of motivation called danger – e. in a safe situation with plenty of other hand. you are following an implicit value system that tells you that it is good to exercise. of traditional artificial intelligence (AI). i. develop.e. in the sense that they in specific situations. negative chaltive (deficiency) values corresponds roughly to the lenges correspond to what we have called problems. they motivate you to connect. systems your attention to the problem at hand. no DEFINITION OF CHALLENGE single state can be ideal in all circumstances. to hear what others are doing. or “grow” beyond what ening situation. test their skills. curiosity) on the other hand.e. and try to get better. well-being tion”. once the goal is achieved. learn. is implies a conservative strategy. on the on the other hand. learn. With such explore a variety of opportunities in order to discover “deficiency” needs.g. this issue is love. by running away from the grizzly bear. seek challenges. etc. all values can be derived from the funhowever. erefore. play. or social opportunities or resources24. Such a system problem. When you take a walk.. positive challenges represent affordances for growth or negative emotions (e. “regulaappreciation by an agent of the global utility.e. erefore. developproblems. ingless”. phenomena that make tion25. draw tion has ensured that agents that did not sucsomething on a piece of paper. as AI programmes are conceived essentially as broaden your domain of interest and build cogniquestion-answering systems: the user or programmer tive. positive emotions tend to widen your should at least have a value system. Valence can be understood as the subjective is conventionally called “homeostasis”. program responds with an answer (solution. and reproduction). on the other hand. e positive or negative problem is solved.. problems. in a life-threatmake you progress. or explore exploring or exploiting the perceived opportunity(ies). so that the agent is inclined to act— at is why all natural agents have an instinct for in the case of negative valence by suppressing the perlearning. as the fact that promise. are defined negatively.g. negative emotions tend to narrowly focus you start to design autonomous systems. to be creative. i. albeit without any clear goal or end survival will lead the agent to act so as to evade the point.occur when a need is frustrated or threatened. and zero for neutral or indifferent ones. to build social conagents have some kind of in-built value system.e. or “control”: the agent acts merely to comor fitness offered by a particular phenomenon or situapensate perturbations. tion: the environment and the agents in it are constantly adapting or evolving. function to ignored. given the ability to evaluate or A general theory of values should encompass value phenomena. development or growth. It can be represented by a number. e only way to keep up with these changes (and We come to the most important new concept discussed in not lose the competition with other agents) is to this paper: a challenge is a situation that potentially carries constantly adapt. output). fear.. which valence. to see things. acting autonomously is more than solving damental value of fitness (survival. difference between positive and negative emotions. for example. explore. experience. smaller than zero for e reason that this is not sufficient is evolunegative ones. and the In other words. to e present paper will assume that intelligent play. disregard others? In other words. A situation does not need to be “bad” in order ment. spective. so that that should be able to act intelligently in the absence of you can invest all your resources in tackling that an instructor telling them what to do. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 55 . such values “growth needs”23. and the motivation to act disapintensity of such a situation will be denoted as its pears. But note that these are not opposites but S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . or “chatless”. query.

for a hunter. loses fitness by not taking action. negative and neutral (“indifferent”) values. i. Indifferent challenges. ~ difficulty (how much effort would be involved in tackling the challenge?). and ~ mystery (in how far would tackling this challenge increase the agent’s prospect concerning other challenges?). An example would be the entrance to a cave that you can see from afar. a landmark. An example may be someone shouting at you from C H A L L E N G E P R O P A G A T I O N | 56 . We may assume that an agent is intrinsically capable of choice. while being neither positive nor negative. but obviously cannot read all of them. for example. Indifferent challenges that are foreseen may be called “pointers” or “markers” as they indicate remote phenomena or circumstances worth taking into account while setting out a course of action.e. since a challenge can carry both positive and negative valences. partly by situational influences. without knowing what is inside the cave. A challenge incites action because it represents a situation in which not acting will lead to an overall lower fitness than acting – because the agent gains fitness by taking action. can help you to orient yourself while walking towards your goal. but also the “unknown” value. ey therefore have to make “informed guesses” about the best course of action to take. e valence dimension has here been subdivided in not only positive. since a wild boar has tasty meat. for example. however. us. e reason is that a complex situation will typically present many challenging phenomena. for example. and that this choice will be determined partly by subjective preferences. F R A N C I S Unknown Mysteries Surprises H E Y L I G H E N | prospect distinguishes expected challenges (which direct the agent’s course of action and allow it to work proactively towards (or away from) a remote target) from unexpected ones (which divert the course of action. which represents the situation where the agent does not (yet) know what valence the challenge may have. can still function as “challenges” in the sense that they incite actions different from the ones that the agent would take in their absence. and the agent will not be able to act on all of them. and negative. as they may turn out to have a high positive or negative valence once more information is gathered. a challenge can be seen as a promise of fitness gain for action relative to inaction. other dimensions worth considering in order to compare challenges are27: ~ prospect (in how far can the agent foresee the different aspects or implications of the challenge?). intrinsically unpredictable. because it opens the door to new competitors. because it gives access to new clients. it does not impose it. while having zero valence. “random” fluctuations. it is in general impossible to determine exactly how an agent will react to a situation. Combining the prospect dimension with different aspects of the valence dimension produces the simple classification of TABlE 1 (an extension of the one in28). When their presence is foreseen. they tend to invite action with much more intensity. they may be called “mysteries” as they represent a focus for curiosity and exploration. such as changes in weather. and force the agent to react). When they appear unexpectedly. independent dimensions. traffic conditions. however. someone surfing the web typically encounters many pages that seem worth investigating.. for example. inviting the agent to gather additional knowledge. they may be called “surprises” as they functions as sudden warnings that the agent’s knowledge has a potentially dangerous gap.Valence prospect Directions (proactive) Diversions (reactive) Positive goals Affordances TABlE 1 Negative Anti-goals disturbances Indifferent pointers Variations ~ A 2 x 4 classification of challenge types. as they merely represent the normal type of diversions. encounter with a wild boar is both an opportunity. requires a different type of clothing than a temperature of 25°C. without being in itself valuable. a challenge merely inspires or stimulates action. or both. such as strangely shaped rock. unknown challenges are potentially much more important than indifferent challenges. people you pass on the street. a free trade agreement can be both positive. since a wild boar is dangerous. Indifferent challenges that are not foreseen may be called “variations” or “fluctuations”. erefore. one of the reasons for this unpredictability is that agents have bounded rationality26: they lack the information or cognitive abilities necessary to evaluate all the different challenges. a temperature of 15°C. that are not exactly predictable but not surprising either. and a problem.. partly by chance. etc. although it should be possible to derive statistical regularities about the most common choices. In addition to positivity and negativity. for a company. erefore.

e. while they are inclined to neuron. In that sense. focus only on the remaining aspects. But as a difference between the present situation (the in general a single agent will not be able to fully exploit problem or opportunity) and the ideal situation an opportunity or fully solve a problem. this difference (wave some others to be passed on to further agents. Examples are the voltage that forces electrical activation does not simply diffuse until it fades current through a wire (or through an axon). a following: an increase in potential energy creates a dise“challenge relaxing” dynamics only describes quilibrium or tension between the parts of neurons that part of their behaviour. is allows them to e same reasoning can be used to understand the either extract benefit from the opportunity. A challenge can be seen the penalty imposed by not solving the problem. and must be compleare “activated” and those that are not (that remain at a mented by a “challenge seeking” dynamics that lower potential). erefore. as there are many possible routes to increase fitness (i. opportunito connected neurons. complete(the solution or successful exploitation of the ly relax a challenge. In S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . e movement from the higher to the lower We may assume that different agents have different potential brings the system back to equilibrium.. An example is a wave in is produces a complex dynamics of challenge processwater or in air: a local disturbance (e. unlike physical systems. e underlying mechanism is the ties). and therefore different “ideal” situaprocess called relaxation29. which may be an expression of anger or a greeting. a value systems. even in the absence of outside valley. All agents will or axon. note that the neutral concept of processing by one agent still constitutes a challenge for “difference” allows a challenge to be interpreted one or more further agents. what compels it to relaxed. as it eliminates the tentions. but of the concept of activation on which neural network models An important difference between simple relaxare built. ready to be propagating it along some medium until the difaddress by other agents. or reduce resolution of challenges. It is illustrated in pushes the system from the high potential to the low the brain by the fact that thinking never stops: one. in physics a difference in potential ration.e. relaxation implies a propagation of the try to relax the challenge. the more accurate name used to constantly active. or the away. reduce it to the case electrical current or activation from the higher to where the present situation equals the ideal situation. the direction is much more complex. erefore. or tension that needs to be relaxed. which have a different positively (opportunity) as well as negatively value system defining the “ideal” situation. decrease tension). by inciting it to act. If we front) then spreads out further until it fades away. eralization not only of the problem concept. we see a mechaIn the case of a wave or electrical current. thus or density between the disturbed and non-disrelaxing some aspects of the challenge. is requires an exploration of different FROM ACTIVATION TO RELAXATION routes. is will bring us to the need to better An advantage of the challenge concept is that it is a genunderstand propagation.g. typically by some part of the challenge tends to remain. from the definition it follows that a ation models and challenge models is that intellichallenge “activates” an agent. by acting on it or “processing” it. the same situation will produce difsion or potential difference. is potential is propagated along the neuron’s relax existing challenges. the typical challenges that confront intelligent agents. consuming energy. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 57 . action potentials are continuously generated gravity that pulls a rock down from the hill into the by the brain itself.. a stone ing and propagation: each agent dealing with a chalthrown into a pond) creates a difference in height lenge will normally extract some benefit from it. us. resources. is better described by some form of active exploMore generally. is difference creates an imbalance ent set of skills for dealing with the challenge. i.e.e.. is is the equivalent of what we have energy between two points determines a force that called positive or growth values. denotes a transient rise in the electrical potential of the death). act. while leaving turbed parts of the medium. ference is dissipated. the lower potential. In the case of a wire ferent challenges for different agents. where it can be transmitted challenges (affordances. must remain in a far-from-equilibrium state: they are In neurophysiology. i. Indeed. unlike physical systems. is means that the situation after opportunity). they will also seek new axon to its outgoing synapses. or a differ(problem). so as to find the better one. in parallel or in sequence. is to avoid at all costs a complete standstill (i. at disequilibrium or force is ultimately stimuli that play the role of challenges needing to be what makes the system “active”. gent agents. and trying describe neural activation is “action potential”.across the street. the direcnism of information transmission similar to the tion of propagation is obvious: just follow the potenspreading of memes30: messages are communicated tial gradient in the direction of steepest descent.

but not in space. we will consider a challenge lenges are spontaneously addressed by subsequent travelling (propagating) across a space of agents. we see a self-organization of workflow and division of labour31: different agents perform different tasks that are part of a common challenge. all tasks have been done). a challenge remains available science models of communication33: instead of in a public medium or workspace that all agents can focusing on the individuals communicating. in the places through which it passed. up to the point where nothing of value is left to extract (i. e reference may then be checked and more accuInstead of an agent travelling (searching) across a rately formatted by a software agent. or an idea. a to challenge: what interests us is how an individual third one to add a reference for the new material. who pass it pick it up later. propagation denotes the spreading or medium. a “post” in a while propagating. again leaving the “traces” of its work in the mediof such a pattern has specific characteristics: um. fashion. some other agent may pick up transmission of some recognizable pattern. until they have reached everyone that may be interested in the message. e “workflow” from agent to agent self-organizes. as they remain in the same place. At a later stage. here.. In the case of propagation across a social or neural network. selves: an agent that has finished working on a chal~ some part or trace of the pattern may remain lenge passes it on to one or more specific other agents. e movement on it. ~ the pattern tends to spread outwards so as to cover an ever larger area. that distinguishes memetics from traditional social In this case of stigmergy. a paragraph added to a Wikipedia involve a potentially unlimited number of agents. such the modified challenge.from agent to agent. here. where it can function as a challenge for some further ~ the interaction is local. our initial focus must shift from agent reading that page to add some extra details. Since challenges are generalizations of these phenomena. chalspace of challenges. STIGMERGIC AND NETWORKED PROPAGATION P R O P A G A T I O N A C R O S S N E T W O R K S ere are two paradigmatic cases of challenge propagation: stigmergy and propagation across a network. challenge is processed by a collective of agents disand a fourth one to correct a grammatical mistake. In contrast to the standard paradigm of individual problem solving. An example is an email message sent and forwarded ~ the pattern needs a physical medium to carry it with comments from person to person. and perform some further work as a wave. social network or forum that is reposted to other ~ this medium has a characteristic topology (such forums. To better understand such distributed processing of a challenge we will need to investigate the dynamics of propagation. or a social ing system to people interested to work on it. lenge propagation paradigm investigates processes that for example. memetaccess. the workflow is controlled by the agents them~ it tends to change while spreading. agents as mediated by the shared space (in this case is change in perspective is similar to the one the Wikipedia page). Stigmergy is a mechanism whereby a e notion of challenge was introduced as a generalizachallenge left by an agent in some medium or tion of the notion of a problem or opportunity that space that is shared with other agents stimulates confronts an individual agent32. network for a meme) that affects the shape and extent of the spreading. ~ the medium may have additional properties such as time lag. propagation appears like the natural way to describe their dynamics. is could for example describe the diffusion of a particular innovation. or scientific theory. it ic models focus on the information (“memes”) will perform some actions that change the state of the being communicated. here. the chalthose others to further address that challenge34. density. without undergoing much change. tributed across some abstract space or network. or in activation that spreads across the brain. A GENERALIZED CONCEPT F R A N C I S OF PROPAGATION H E Y L I G H E N | C H A L L E N G E P R O P A G A T I O N | 58 . All these characteristics can be found in messages that are passed along across the Internet. and so on… sense propagate in time. and then pass on the remaining challenge to others with different skills and/or needs.e. To page by one person may incite a second person deal with this. or friction that affect the speed of propagation as well as the changes occurring to the pattern. a species. If we focus on the challenges aspects that are processed. or a task that is proposed by a crowdsourcas a 2-dimensional surface for a wave. as the pattern is iniagent. If an agent decides to take on the challenge. challenge and then leave the modified challenge in the In general. the changes in the challenge in a on to their neighbours. tially transmitted only to the immediate neighas the one leaving the challenge does not know who will bours of the point it originated in.

by harnessplace where discussions take place between a liming the collective intelligence of the different components ited number of people belonging to a specific (human and technological) of the network. e problem the network. is is any agent x to any agent y. however: the links can in general not access or create such messages. and to no one else. and general theory that encompass both as well as the then continue their journey along other agents dealing ground in between them. and aggregation ple. now is to distribute the different challenge aspects across the different agents so as to make sure the In the stigmergic case. and whose results are assembled into a final product (aggregation). A good illustration can be found in the different open source communifrom A. which are partly overlapping. anyone can read or write Wikipedia articles). coordination however. such distributed coordination can lenge on to B only if A has B’s email address. any person can modify any page at any stage (how are all the finished pieces of work assembled?) independently of which other person has con(see fIgurE 3). people not belonging to the community requires an additional condition. challenges can travel more or less effiese are in a sense the extreme cases. and react to those messages (take on the challenge). we can then try to estabavailable links in the network. which are followed by other forum as the most general form activities (workflow). the basic problem of coordination. A complex challenge tion process: a challenge can move directly from (say. group or community. Arrows represent the propagation of challenges from one agent to the next. We will use the term activities performed by different agents (division of labour).. of a “meeting ground” where Grey circles represent individual agents performing activities.g. An example of such a with the remaining aspects. i. in which an initial task is split up in separate between. and self-organize relatively easily across the Internet. a lenges to be resolved in a distributed manner. 36 sion .message is propagated to anyone in the community. partly disjointed. In the case of networked propagation. but similar to networked propagation in the sense that the message is directed only to members of the community. different agents have different skills in other nodes) fundamentally determines the propagadealing with challenges. What ciently across the network of agents and workspaces until interests us here is the formulation of a more they find an agent able and willing to deal with them. read the messages posted by others. global warming) has a large number of agent A to agent B only if there exists a link A Õ B in aspects that require different skills. the challenge can move from challenge as a whole is dealt with efficiently. All members of the community can post messages (“challenges”) to the LEARNING IN THE DISTRIBUTED NETWORK forum. To measure the intelligence of a challenge moves from agent to agent by following the a distributed network. In this case.. gy of the network (which node is connected to which normally. be appropriate to the task of distributed challenge is is similar to stigmergic propagation in that a relaxation.e. In both cases. challenges are likely to be S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . between the agents that define the network should e forum acts as a private medium for the group. In the Wikipedia examit has been partially dealt with?). otherwise. via both B has enough trust in A to take on challenges stigmergy35 and networked propagation. people can exchange challenges. It includes divie only requirement is that y should “visit” the sion of labour (who deals with what challenge comshared medium some time after x deposited its ponent?). e Internet as a whole can be conceived as a gigantic collection of such forums. tributed to that page. or anything in fIgurE 3 ~ An illustration of coordination. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 59 . workflow (where does a challenge go after modified challenge there. A forum in the broadest sense can encompass everyone (e. An example of networked propagation is email. is typically only happens if A and B ties developing complex software without central supervihave a social or organizational connection. where A can pass a chalperhaps surprisingly. just two people. the topololish its capacity to effectively process challenges. without constraints. is allows complex chal“middle ground” is an Internet “forum”.

the probability of later use. however.1145/1133265.1133268>. ‘distributed Intelligence: Extending the connection with them… 1 2 3 F U R T H E R R E S E A R C H e challenge propagation framework appears like a very promising approach for modelling the complex F R A N C I S H E Y L I G H E N | power of the unaided. or the people on the forum collaboratively group of agents without connections. ‘Complex Adaptive Systems’.g. person. sends it to a friend. Computational & Mathematical Organization eory. for these ideas in a variety of situations that exhibit distributed intelligence. Shared references work. increases. 2006): 7-14 <doi:10.g. your interests. and it observes that the challenge is adequatethe degree to which challenges are resolved by the networked agents as compared to the same ly dealt with (e. ed.ly/1wi0dAV> [accessed 19 november 2012]. Individual human Mind’. (new this agent becomes more likely to communicate york: Springer. these components and their relationships. uSA: ACM.J: princeton up. and as the number of “forums” for stigmergy increase. on the and variations on the dynamic mechanisms in order one hand. understanding Complex Systems (Berlin: Springer. links will be stored in the external memory that is will be sufficient to inspire other researchers to apply provided by the worldwide ICT network. or registering for some organi—————— zation (and thus getting easier access to its tools and members). 4 francis heylighen. J. in Proceedings of the working conference on Advanced visual interfaces. If later it would turn out that the Communication and Society. book8 marking a site. indeed shows such self-organization of distributed intelligence. John h. on the other hand. page. links strengths will be maintained and to achieve results that are statistically reliable and updated in people’s individual memories as the ready to be applied to more realistic situations. e link strength can then such a mathematical/simulation model. interactions: you will normally note a person’s S. my research group is developing ized if it reduces relaxation. 2012th ed. of reinforcement learning in which a link is rewarded if it brings the challenge closer to relaxation. 5 C H A L L E N G E P R O P A G A T I O N | 60 . these Daedalus. 1992. e interpretation uted intelligence of the network increases as it of this operation is that if an agent transmits a challenge selectively strengthens or weakens its links39. example. 2012). Miller and Scott E. 17-30. in be increased by an amount proportional to the degree of order to investigate precisely how the distribrelaxation (which may be negative). n. them. and bookmark a site if it contains useful and Collective Intelligence’. the friend provides a good tip on tackling it.. Why Society is a Complex Matter: Meeting Twentyenvironment of the agent in such a way that first Century Challenges with a New Kind of Science. linking to someone on a social media network. 2007). while “forgetting” inadequate ones. Vice-versa. in Complexity Perspectives on Language. but for a simulaand a neural network suggests that the distributed nettion aimed at exploring different variations of the work should be able to learn by differentially strengthmodel by investigating how they affect the overening or weakening its links. by Àngels Massip-Bonet and Albert Bastardas-Boada.. Establishing links is achieved via a learning After a conceptual analysis of the main components process. with selected other agents. our develop a solution). then the agent will be more working hypothesis is that distributed intelliinclined to use the same link in the future to transmit gence increases as the network learns better similar challenges. and therefore its weight. information. we will need many more e network does not need any sophisticated learning runs with a variety of different parameter settings mechanisms to adapt in this way to its usage. All these activities change the philip Ball. at means that the probability of connections. is would not only provide a basis for a mathematical e similarity between a distributed network of agents model of challenge propagation. join a group if they appear to be doing good nicating groups: e Emergence of Coordination. use of the link. called ChallProp40. h holland. you will similarly weaken your gerhard fischer. In the degree of trust they have in the abilities of others to meantime. Self-organization in Biological Systems address if that person was interesting or friend(princeton up. or posts it to e distributed intelligence measure is simply a forum). via a specific link (e. which creates and “remembers” adequate of the framework. Moreover. and penalpresently. ‘Self-organization in Commuly.passed on to agents that do not care about them. Camazine and others. francis heylighen. delta learning is a form 37 all intelligence of the network. ny. AVI ’06 (new york. an unsuccessful transmission will decrease our preliminary simulation. we are ready to formally define links. links will be created or reinforced by such mundane activities as adding someone’s phone and address to your list of contacts. 2003). group or site is no longer relevant to 2013): 117-149 <http://bit. ‘Collective Intelligence and Its Implementation on the Web: Algorithms to develop a Collective Mental Map’. I hope that the present conceptual model deal with specific challenges38. or distributed processes via which problems and opporthat do not have the appropriate skills to deal with tunities are processed in a self-organizing network. Complex Adaptive Systems: An Introduction to Computational Models of Social changes will typically be triggered by successful Life (princeton.

nism: Components. Society B: Biological Sciences. gent Systems: An Action ontology for Transdisciplinary Integra26 g. V.ly/1vakpVi>. Varieties and Applications’.ly/1fKv3uj>. francis heylighen. E. mic. 14 34 E. 2011): 274-289 sus Self-organization. V. ‘relaxation phenomenon (physics and 12 francis heylighen. p. e Wisdom of Crowds (new york: Anchor. <http://bit. universal Coordination Mechanism: Components. ‘e Broaden-and-build eory of tional Conference on Parallel Processing (los Alamitos. 2011 <http://bit. ‘Tracking Information Epidemics in Blogspace’. Trends in Microbiology. ‘e Emergence of distributed Solving (prentice-hall Englewood Cliffs. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Computer Society. 27 11 francis heylighen. Maslow. ‘What Makes a Meme Successful? Selec‘Accelerating Socio-technological Evolution: from tion Criteria for Cultural Evolution’. Behavioral Science. 5 W. fran8 E. Globalization as evolutionary process: modeling global change. 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B A S E D K N O W L E D G E | 6 .THE TIBETAN BOOK OF PROPORTION M I C H E L B A U W E N S | T H E O P E N - C O M M O N S ~ S H E E T 1 3-1 6 .

2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 65 . the mastery of the dominant or socially exalted mode of cognition. WISDOM AND THE SOUL Charles Eisenstein is the author of numerous essays and books. etc. in practice and in nant sense conceives of intelligence as the ability principle. conditions do groups make wise or poor deciThe distinction between these two senses of the word sions?”. quotient. answering questions like. and distinguish between real intelligence and lective intelligence focuses on these measurable the semblance of intelligence. a smart power grid. of systems where popular choices. Thus we speak of a divine. that can be evaluated and gence’ in much the same way as we use words like compared. escape our measures of intelligence. Very exemplified by pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s concept often. or a set something qualitative. We invoke this intelligence in undertaking an inquiry into its meaning of the word ‘intelligent’ when we speak of a collective expression. “how does gender composition affect ‘intelligence’ echoes that between ‘Strong AI ’ and the problem-solving capability of a group1?”. or an intelligence word suggests something beyond the measurable. for one thing. that don’t We might call an affirmative answer to these quesadmit to discrete formulations or to quantifiable tions the ‘strong version’ of collective intelligence. in focusing on this collective itself. we aspects. that not only hErE ArE TWo SEnSES In WhICh onE MIghT SAy A defy our measurement technologies to date. solutions. They also measure that part 8 of intelligence that is measurable.C H A R L E S E I S E N S T E I N QUALITATIVE DIMENIONS OF COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE: INTENTION. cultural. epistemological. hume) as the study of the measurable. have thoughts rather narrow. measurable conception of intellithat are not identical with the thoughts of one or more gence. a group. think. in large part. We use ‘intelliof measurable functions. A smart phone. “under what might say. but person. whether individual or collective. IQ tests are notorious for their elevation to the exalted status of ‘intelligence’ that subset of mental capacities that accord with the values of the dominant culture. ‘Weak AI. strong AI processes generate public opinion and decisays they can actually be intelligent. a machine. evil. But is the There is a danger. or a that are inherently immeasurable? planet is intelligent. most of the academic study of colgence. of intelligence measures. opinions. As such it falls within the province of sentience or consciousness. and possess consciousness. and claims that machines can act intelligently. They measure. the excluded capacities correspond to other of the noosphere3. we might to solve problems – to produce an appropriate output want to adopt a more expansive conception of given complex and varying input. one might say that each member of the collecfeed back into the choices and opinions of othtive (provided we are speaking of a human collective) ers in the group can create a kind of stupidity. is not actually smart. course. for example as on does it itself possess consciousness and subjectivity? a test. has thoughts. problems that are amorphous. so in a trivial sense the collective does groupthink. understand. sion-making2?” A typical study might consider Most work on collective intelligent implicitly assumes feedback effects in google search and other what would correspond to the ‘weak’ version of AI. an ant colony. which might be defined (per galileo and jectivity that perceives and experiences the world. The first and most domiChastened by the deficiencies. T S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . Weak AI “how do various structures. to refer to an aware subscience. irreducible. it favours the kinds of of its members? does the collective being understand problems we recognize and that we are able to something that none of its individual members do? formulate as discrete problems. though. A second meaning of the smart phone. kinds of marginalization: racial. But is that the only part? Are there aspects to the mind.’ in the field of artificial intelligence. agreements. or primordial intelliAccordingly. as an emergent being. It refers to a measurable function. acculturation and conditioning. or echo chamber. most recently Sacred Economics and The More Beautiful World our hearts Know is possible.

In other words. Thirdly. the very same questions I’ve been asking While some may argue that interiority is necessary about collectives might also be asked about the C H A R L E S E I S E N S T E I N | Q U A L I T A T I V E D I M E N S I O N O F C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 66 . By the same token. no nonand social structure that was created through material soul is required. there will be something missing: the descartes seemed to think that conscious thought was qualitative. politics. nation of consciousness is possible in principle. It ence6. Some of these are already known – colthe question of whether these require an immalective tunnel vision. sequence or pattern of neural activity. Smart men and women have done horrible things. of ratiocination. to computreasoning power. or with solving problems (of the tent5. or capacity to think ers. for example. Moreover. objective account of consciousness necessarily wants. not someBut does a group have a psyche? does it have. the echo chamber effect. factual knowledge. today. he says. Chalmers. ever well a machine might replicate thought processes. and so forth are logical explanations for (or at least correlates to) aspects quite useful for creating the society we have of experience that we consider central to consciousness. nagel says that because any reductive. is a collective an emergent quality irreducible to the elements being a being. a subjectivity? desires? as we know). a computational ligence along with the approach to life that conprocess. suffers. saying all the right things. – but terial soul. etc. therefore I am.” But a full human also feels. we might abstractly or recognize patterns. we must then ask what factors insight. developing the distinction spect for nature is laying waste this planet. If we grant the premise profitably look to the philosophy of mind for of collective intelligence. is thought? It is a problems and enact various other cognitive functions. distinct thing that can be done by a single neuron (as far from that of its members. as brain research keeps uncovering neurolinear reason. Beings between strong and weak AI. This is the second reason to examine intelligence in the ‘strong’ sense as it lurking within this debate is a hidden but highly sigapplies to collectives. laughs… and we might say the leaves out subjectivity – what it is like to be someemphasis on thought – which of all these qualities is thing – that therefore. The narrow association of Their critics are legion and. We normally think of intelligence as fears? Intentions? really the question is. there must be some aspect of apparently most exclusive to humans – is a form of consciousness that transcends physicalist. generally agree that a reductive physical explasanctifies the worldview. the identification of intelligence processes without actually understanding their conwith thought. abstraction. and the reduction to physical processes. whatever his powers ness (and therefore to intelligence in the strong sense). whether mental experience eludes perhaps by granting the collective beingness. or is it just a kind of illusion. we relegate to a lower degree of beingputer or other system could perform cognitive ness. reductive the same anthropocentrism that through its disreexplanation 4. similarly. In the vast literature on consciousness – cognitive or non-cognitive – might induce collective and subjectivity. the interior. enacting all the behaviours of a other beings to solve). while their critical approaches intelligence with (certain kinds of ) thinking are diverse. Searle. and to individual human beings. the brain has a lot. nificant agreement: both sides agree that we have no direct access to the subjectivity of another person. depends on factors far beyond reasoning ability. the actual effect of intelligence on the world in the strong sense. the crisis of that socisuch as volition7 and attention8. we can understand its behaviour better. ception valorises. leaves out non-cognitive conscious self. exhibits colleclet me offer a few reasons why these are not idle questive intelligence. an expediof its physical medium: conventional scientific ent concept whose properties are fully reducible to and opinion does not hold that because each neuron explainable by the properties of its parts? has a little intelligence. the subjective conscious a necessary and sufficient condition for beingness: “I experience. and it is obviously intelligence tions. technology. in the conventional view. binary thinking. ing stronger. and david Chalmers says yes: howintelligence is). they have Because the same questions of subjectivity and perpetrate the most arrant idiocy. but actually ways of interacting with the world that are part merely running a program empty of interior experiof an intuitive understanding of intelligence. qualities contributing to an expansive view of what John Searle. shows that is with good reason we call an emotionally there must be some non-functional aspect to consciousinsensitive person clueless. think. we all agree that groups can solve human brain. The camp various other qualities of self besides intelligence (or established in modern times by Thomas nagel. loves. The implication is that ety invites us to broaden our conception of intelconsciousness is sort of an illusion. describes how a comless like us. invokes the idea of the kind that human beings are better able than (philosophical) zombie. most of the debate centres on insanity as well. and not an irreducible aspect of reality. The brain. To even conceive such a thing. first. Their case appears to be growthose kinds of thinking. What. due to no fault of their interiority apply equally to groups. Analysis.

But to a neuron. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 67 . And subjective identification with other people – and maybe it does. the smallest unit of collective intelligences is a universal. which must fit deny beingness9. nor are the minds of its such experiences. why is it assumed story. not as sepbut in reality all that is ever happening is you arate beings but as “interbeings. We could The other neuron said dismissively. Each constituent is called into one of not only people. under the right circumstances.in order to offer the full range of responses that a despite our modern conditioning. I am making an assertion that rests on no mind of its own. however. and there lective intelligence in the strong sense is a given. the brain itself is a would do well to question. conscioustionships – we are relationship. an encounter with a bear is also an who we are in each of our social. In that case. It extends not only to animals but to partnership. These methods do not lend into it. plants. The fit is of course never perfect. and constituent members. Thus. as many spiritual traditions do. while outside mainnor is the desire of a nation or of a corporation stream philosophic discourse. rivers. In this way of thinking. not separate from the minds of its constituents. we are not so human being does. forces of nature. What if it isn’t just person)? This is obvious only if we conceive and experiyou and I who are conscious. and the rest to non-human beings is nearly self. “fun idea. is nothing left. and While different personalities may be drawn to different other entities to which the Western mind would roles. the ascription of subjectivity. see ourselves. adopt “But then why are we collectively enacting the metaphor of the holograph or fractal. for example. mountains. the qualitative aspect (granthave such a thing as a desire. The measurable dimensions of intelligence nations and corporations aren’t people and cannot we can verify empirically. Strip those away. admit that ing them. It is quite natural for us to speak of of knowing whether someone has subjective interior “What russia wants” or “What Microsoft wants. dude!” one of them said. and encounter with Bear. david Bohm. various roles. even other peofeeling of being a puppet of the institution. they do. what if all of us ence ourselves as fundamentally separate from each together are?” other. the subjective reports of people who have had neither is it reducible to them. the earth. two neurons were having a without much debate that no one can have direct access conversation. yet they behave as if ing that there is such a thing) we can only infer. When I say here that meditation. We might consideven to rocks. the role is prior to the personality. it would be collective being has been getting drunk every day. most agree that there is no way different. however. colecological relationships. however. economic. intentionality. the the subjectivity of other beings.” not just interdepenand I and billions of others of us having condent but interexistent. It in fact many methods to induce the experience of is as if the organization has a mind of its own. Maybe. Anyone who has spent time in Michael Talbot. if pressed. This feeling ple.” experiences except by inference. it also echoes teachings in Eastern an organization can confirm that sometimes. we are not separate individuals having relaoutside the Western mind. has been developed by merely some additive property of the desires of its such thinkers as Karl pribram. the dominant intellectual culture. or do they actually behave? do they actually exist? Aren’t they just human fictions. takes for granted certain agreements. the sun. for starters. “Whoa. for example. a partnership. That’s what’s hapthe separate skin-encapsulated soul of descartes and pening on the base level. who we are changes. There are – or even none – of its members actually agree with. rocks. breathwork.” contemporary religion. S P A N D A J O U R N A L V .” graphic model of self and world. There are many alternatives to versations with each other. because the very concept of proof depends is quite common even among its putative leaders. becoming that role in organizational life. Beyond the separate ness. planets. The holodoused in alcohol. the earth. There are other stories of self. We might. or psychedelics can induce such Maybe the reason it seems that the organization has a states. organization does something that only a tiny minority This is not merely armchair philosophy. We are social animals. on objectivity. and most of us have experienced that in plants. in which behaviour that not a single one of us wants? our each part contains the whole. one day. in individual and collective expreser that “who we are” in total is the integration of sion. is that it actually does have a mind of firmer foundation than my own experiences and its own. This agreement. yet not a single one of us neurons wants to be experience that part of me that is you. by askeven though we might. nations. the religion such as Indra’s net. but animals. stories? unstated metaphysical assumptions about knowledge and identity that we. to the subjective experience of another person (or non“I just had a trippy idea. no surprise if I could. constituents separable from the group. hence the nearthemselves to scientific or philosophical ‘proof’ of universal feeling that the role is not really ones self.

But we can use subjective means. They cannot be measured in physical Will our ecological salvation come from merely units. To identify the locus of subjectivity in the individual is a cultural conceit – one not shared by other cultures that valued the we above the I. interpermere objects. Most philosophers (but not indigenous people) agree that it is not like anything to be a brick or a rock – that these things are devoid of the qualities of self. or a mere epiphenomenon arising out of relationships among individuals. “What is it like to be that being?” some dimension of collective intelligence outside What is it like to be that organization? That audience? the purview of functionalism and reductionism. for one thing. Intelligence in the strong sense I have invoked eludes the protocols of the Scientific Method. though. in the case of collective intelligence. and the ‘qualia’ of experience are not merely the artefacts of complexity. as part of this shift. What we can do is The mind composed of human beings rather to relate to that being as a subject. rather. Even if no objective proof exists that other C H A R L E S E I S E N S T E I N | Q U A L I T A T I V E D I M E N S I O N O F C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 68 . we begin “collective unconscious” is to stand securely in relating to collectives as beings-in-themselves with a the demesne of science. Today. and gave it ontological primacy. That is not to say that any random subset of socially related people constitute a collective being. and even though no one actually believes they are. treat them as instruments of our own utility.In other words. we engage compassion: we consider what it is like to be them. formed of the agreements and perceptions of its members and the society that contains it. That corporation? That nation? That is not to say that Even for the ‘collective’ of the human brain. to some extent most of us act as if we do believe it. “What is it like to be a bat?” the essence of consciousness is that it is “like something” to be that other (person. following galileo’s distinction of being cleverer in our manipulation of a natural world primary and secondary qualities. consider what it means to relate to they can be efficient or inefficient. We objectify other people. a selective social membrane that distinguishes self from other. As when we relate empathically to another person. and ethnocentric attitude was much more compelling a generation or two ago. and communicating. co-creates the other. Can they also go insane? delusional? object. before the environmental crisis became impossible to ignore. it defies rigorous definition – how can one define. nation. than neurons offers no less formidable difficulties. We canproblem-solving sense. not mere abbreultimately. To be sceptical of such things as the “desire of the collective” or the “group soul” or It is quite natural that. exist at all. My purpose. or even deny that they perhaps a deeper sort of revolution is necessary. we accord them that we continue to see as a collection of soulless stuff? a lesser degree of realness. is to suggest that we step To the extent that we accept the subjectivity of collecoutside the demesne of science into other ways of tives. and we become more open to worldviews that do not arrogate the qualities of self to human beings alone. our arrogance is wavering. centheir experience of being is identical to the human turies of furious philosophical debate has failed experience. When we treat them as full subjects. The paradigm shift into an intersubsonal interactions. we cannot say that collective intelligence is secondary to individual intelligence. If it sounds here like I am advocating something like a “group soul. that for clarity. they will defy reductive explajective world is inseparable from truly deep ecology. individual and collective. etc. something that is itself elemental? If consciousness. as if they were less than fully a self. We all know that organizations exhibit ‘behaviour’. preferring to restrict any discussion of collective intelligence to its measurable dimensions. subjectivity.)10. we cannot directly map human emotions to come to consensus that such a proof exists. we are invited to venture not use objective means to prove the subjectivity beyond analytic methods in studying collective intelof another being. ligence – just as we must venture beyond neurology What does this look like? in understanding the individual human psyche. animal. our present ecological crisis has come viations for properties of collections of neural states largely because we see nature and everything in it as or. This condescending. in more basic concepts. however. to see and manipulate the world as object. Each level. therefore. Most intellectuals would probably be uncomfortable with such concepts.” maybe I am. and perceptions onto non-humans. that they can be intelligent in more than the knowing. relating. people aren’t zombies enacting all the behaviours of a subjective experiencer without the interior content. As Thomas nagel explained in his influential essay. arrogant. the foundaMy purpose here is not to prove that there is tional question is. our reigning ideology claims that we have outgrown the childish perceptions of the indigenous. selfhood transcending their constituent parts. healthy or dysanother human being as a subject rather than an functional. There must be some kind of container that defines it. calling instead for a phenomenological approach.

they become quite natural as we expand our conception of selfhood beyond the human individual. 4 (oct. the corporate example suggests that it can be a fruitful operating assumption (just as it is in interpersonal relationships). (1974). 1959. youth.” notwithstanding the heretofore toxic consequences of the doctrine of corporate personhood. 3 Teilhard de Chardin. and interbeing. (1980). grof. pEnTlAnd. J. T. They cannot be left out of the larger paradigm shift toward a worldview of interconnection. Realms of the Human Unconscious (london: Souvenir press).. V. CA : north Atlantic Books). (1995). and organizational management to evolve.) What are its fears. By accepting the validity of a phenomenology and a psychology of collective beings. and not those that exist only on paper. 1974. ChAlMErS. A. 1974. WAlSh. The Philosophical Review. W. Interestingly. 1980. senescence? naïve intuition says yes. “Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation: A neurochronometrics of Mind” (Cambridge. (Sept. 2010. activism. its character? These considerations might lead to insight on what kind of status they should be accorded under law. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3: 417-457. a corporation is. d. 8∑8 8 —————— 1 Woolley et al. implicitly. nonetheless. ChABrIS. ecology.): 435-450. SEArlE. the premise of the selfhood of collectives. S. (2005). C. n. TEIlhArd dE ChArdIn. 2 8 S P A N D A J O U R N A L V .” we might explore what kind of ‘self. we free research. p. 2012.Schizophrenic? paranoid? Can they fall in love? Can they be afraid? Can they experience trauma? healing? do they have desires? do they go through infancy. 83. 2005. its motivations. “What Is It like to Be a Bat?”. The field called organizational behaviour already accepts. And T. (2012). Empowering Public Wisdom: A Practical Vision of Citizen-Led Politics (Berkeley. Journal of Consciousness Studies 2: 200-219. (I speak here of corporations composed of actual people. 7 Walsh. W. It may of course be just as impossible to prove. MA: MIT press). MAlonE (2010). “Minds. f. Atlee. 4 nagel. T. A. Science. “facing up to the problem of Consciousness”. nAgEl. and while such questions may often defy quantitative study. 1995. 1996. The word ‘corporation’ itself already suggests as much. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 69 . S O U R C E S ATlEE. if we expanded that concept to “corporate selfhood. through objective means. (1959). Who knows what avenues of qualitative research and practice might become apparent in asking such questions? Besides. 8 neisser.J. nEISSEr. the subjectivity of collectives as it is to prove the subjectivity of another person.’ what kind of being. J. the concept has also entered politics with the controversial legal concept of the personhood of corporations. 5 Searle. denoting “that which forms a body (a corpus). WoollEy. “neural Correlates of Consciousness reconsidered”. Brains and programs”. (2012). The Phenomenon of Man (new york: harper perennial). 2012. 9 See for example grof. 10 nagel. hAShMI. we should not dismiss them as exercises in anthropomorphic projection.) 30. Consciousness and Cognition 21: 681-690. (1996). 6 Chalmers. “Evidence for a Collective Intelligence factor in the performance of human groups”.

THE TIBETAN BOOK OF PROPORTION E R V I N L A S Z L O | T H E O N E M I N D I N ~ T H E S H E E T 1 7-2 0 . C O S M O S | 2 .

ere are no strong reasons why “ligare”. e commercial and social pertinence of knowing everything about us – to say nothing about security issues – makes that trend irreversible. none have adopted the phonetic radical of <inter-legere>. e ethics of opacity that guaranteed privacy were long in coming from the time of extortion and “question” during the Spanish Inquisition to the separation of Church and State and the rise of the private individual. there is no answer before the question is asked. 2 /2 0 1 4 | single item. from intellegō (understand). All cognitive technologies from the telegraph to the Internet and social media derive their properties from carving specific connecting routines in the Internet to delve into selected modalities of relationships and knowledge. would not be considered as a possible alternative to “legere”. Japanese and Korean. Slovenian. we can read both intellegentia and intelligentia as the given latin origins of the contemporary word. hence we are back to a core meaning of intelligence: making the right connections mental. at least the proximity of the words and the subsequent shifts in the distinguishing phoneme invite the implicit notion of connecting as a connotation of the act of selecting more than a S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . It functions both as an extended memory and a processing C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 71 . even if ligare were not to be part of the true etymology. He can be reached at dekerckh@gmail. art and communication technologies. psychotechnology. D E F I N I T I O N T hErE ArE So MAny dEfInITIonS of InTEllIgEnCE that it may be wise to return to the term’s origin in etymology. neuro-cultural research. however.com. In any case. and connected intelligence. reflects even more the notion of connecting things together2. e difference is important because the latter version would indicate a different etymology based on “inter” and “ligare”. scientific director of the Rome based monthly Media duemila. intelligence and knowledge. which means to bind. is longterm trend is being reversed today. where he is professor emeritus in the Department of French. a more logical term. In all modern languages derived from latin. A new ethics based on transparency appears inevitable. Spanish. to connect. from inter (between) + legō (choose. Portuguese and Brazilian. “comprehend”. on the online Etymology dictionary1. Presently. Italy. we have this proposal: latin intellegentia (the act of choosing between. Chinese. e case of Big data is perhaps the best example of available cognitive potential that is only revealed by collecting and connecting the pertinent data. our destiny as a society immersed into digital culture worldwide is to become transparent. media theory. French. is is the exact opposite of the effects of literacy that made people individually opaque by internalizing and privatizing thinking. He is also Research Director at the Interdisciplinary Internet Institute (IN3) at l’Universitat Oberta de Catalunya in Barcelona. In Big data. All technologies of data-tracking are presently converging very fast to be absorbed by and into Big data. He subsequently joined the Faculty of Sociology of the University Federico II in Naples. e present trends of information and cognition technologies have been based and guided on connecting people and things in various configurations to improve awareness. read). Another word for understanding. pick out. C O N N E C T E D I N T E L L I G E N C E Connected Intelligence is the active personal and collective cognitive environment that electronic technologies have weaved in and around us via the Internet in particular and electricity in general. he is author of a dozen books edited in over ten languages including Italian. Polish. He has held the Papamarkou Chair in Technology and Education at the Library of Congress in Washington. collaborative educative software. social or technological is what gives people improved access of their intellect to pertinent information. It will probably give precedence to community over individuality. Big data simulate a kind of total understanding that requires only the focus of a query to be manifested. from the Wiktionary.D E R R I C K D E K E R C K H O V E CONNECTED INTELLIGENCE FOR THE CIVIL SOCIETY: THE INERNET AS A SOCIAL LIMBIC SYSTEM Derrick de Kerckhove is former Director of the McLuhan Program in Culture & Technology at the University of Toronto. intelligence). His fields of research include technopsychology.

young people are romances and his nostalgia for heroic times. a hypertext of which excessive reliance on reading medieval they are themselves the central node. they play with it. because it is in his grandparents needed to at least shake a person’s hand a mind that he processes the words of the novels few times before considering oneself as a “friend”. sounds and to that of the networks. connections. there is the possibility of virtual environments is that they emulate our imaginary interacting with other users and ultimately to “leave a processes but outside our heads on a screen. while their all in his mind. more interactive aspects of online tools. he reads. “Internet is not in ity depending on the numbers and the kinds of interspace. More and more frequently. actions required 6. Wherever you are. all four kinds tion de l’espace. this generation the world is both global and geoexpanded. in particular. and ing” and Twitter. e always-on generation builds its identity on line via social media and other sensorial features of novels. inforforms whether pooling individual resources in services mation exchange and storing. eir intelligence that benchmark novel about a cognitive revolurelies on connecting to a perpetually refashioned hypertion. most if not all cognitive environment available via networks. and particgeneration of connection junkies circulate and ipative thinking. henri lefebvre defines space as of space are shared and up to a point. instead of behind them. of course. mental space technologies from the telegraph to “cloud comput(including logical and formal abstractions). is so-called “reputation learned to process in the intimate isolation of our capital” is garnered by manicuring profiles and own mind. It them. the Cosmos. at extertrace” of themselves in the online community”4. Imagination is next. what is more. it is space”.intelligence for each one of the users of electronic “physical space : nature. What is beginning merely watch the television these days. In handle several “windows” at once. Cyberspace. La producWith the exception of mental space. these communities externalizing and objectifying imagination in fictional are populated by a variety of citizens who look for but live 3d environments such as Second life. nalization itself is already a surprising cognitive phenome “Always-on” generation (by which I mean enon. It is entirely dependent on technological connections based on the refined management of electricity5. ese networks are configC Y B E R S P A C E ured so as to ensure specific connections. e “wired” not directly affected by how we interpret it). classifying. e architecA S A S H A R E D S P A C E ture of these networks differs in patterns and complexAs pierre lévy famously said. merely to read them. Wikipedia and social bookmarking or sation. It brings people together instead finally social space»3. e reason I call it “objective Imaginary” is that is a condition of trust and availability. these carries a cellular phone) is defined by being persimulations are allowing other people to share into manently accessible via mobile contraptions. Connective intelligence can be assessed both in the creation of such networks and in Concluding on preliminary observations in the the effect they foster. what changes the mind of the hero is his text of relationships and tag clouds. introduction of a very influential book. as their grandto happen now is the opposite of what happened parents did. repcollective and connective needs. sociologist Anna Cicognani adds cyberspace as yet anothof separating them as alphabetic literacy did and it er distinct but complementary kind of space : allows for any number of individual entries in a fluid information space definable for individual as well as “online Virtual Communities (VCs). they can at the time Cervantes wrote don Quixote. It most people share their minds with a screen for is primarily a shared environment. become dependent on the reputation its members let us consider all the intellectual resources we have acquire in such manner. themselves submitting them to our estimation for As doug rushkoff already noted. socialisuch as google. the way we actively participate in realrecirculate information from the biological mind izing in our minds the figures. by defiany duration from 2 to 8 hrs a day. among others. Apart from What I find intriguing about Second life and other 3d obtaining information. sorting. Virtual reality for him is in his head Cyberspace is a sort of “computer-supported” social not on a screen. Its “friends” at 3 to 4 degrees of separation. one could constituted by three distinct but interrelated spaces: D E R R I C K D E K E R C K H O V E | C O N N E C T E D I N E L L I G E N C E | 72 . But. It can take many resent an increasing resource for people using the Internet as a tool for various purposes. designing. calculating. projecting the fictional universe in front of our not just the younger citizens but anyone who eyes. verified and distributed on localized at the same time. communication. you are line and via screens that “objectify” the processes potentially in touch with the whole world. a kind of it occupies a hybrid position between theatre (which is incessant dialogue with the world. e difference is that today space that bridges the physical and the mental spaces. connected. places. Inspired by lefebvre. is shared via networks. nition. ey multitask. for of such cognitive operations are being taken over. such as planning. children do not approval. It is quite literally “plugged-in” the remembering.

which in turn motivate as the agent for conveying and sharing emotions. current social and political issues. on the other hand. But we also share this the collaboration of many “mass individuals”. which is world has been changed by the arrival on the political moving at the speed of light. e Internet has a very important emotional transmits language. It is important to understand this interal component.argue that even mental space can be shared as in a classroom or seminar situation where the course material and the instruction diffuses in the student body a shared intellectual space. via the Internet. When a medium is connected to the Internet. It is clear that today’s geopolitical map of the of impulses. desires and frustrations. communication and development of emoL I M B I C S Y S T E M tions on the Internet in order to throw light on In his seminal approach to intelligence. the sharing of experience and also the call to political e online world works as an integrative system action. of a new class of mass political activist sites such as usahidi or Avaaz articulate activists. involved in and with ukraine or Syria and everyese changes in the way we interact and relate to others body has an opinion. e era of transparency crowd or the anonymous mass. Certainly we share a sense respond to some current issue as a significant collective. daniel golethe relationship between technology and psy7 man has added a critical element. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 73 . anger. we world. of the horror of crude decapitation. occupy Wall Street. from one ment of Edward Snowden – and simultaneously person to another. furthermore. Anonymous or the Arab important when it comes to a technology that Spring. can also examine the ways in which new technolois is true not just for the “friends” on facebook. with whom they are willing to share information and news in real time. who are no longer the “Silent Majority”. the result is peoples across borders and cultures. We can therefore imagthrows light on scandalous practices from trusted ine that the result of this endless interaction between institutions. of the user. feelings and ideas with the wider tionship between knowledge and the media. Social media act mitted from person to person. even that intimate recess is made public. e readiness to respond emotionally to external public events results from the perception on the part of social media users. collective emotions and connectivity amongst So now that the majority is silent no more. gies affect our conscious and unconscious processor for couples using match-making sites. By using this metaphor. I want S H A R E D E M O T I O N S O N T H E to explore the conditions surrounding the creI N T E R N E T : T H E S O C I A L ation. in exploring the relatheir thoughts. A global unease sets in making peoindividuals on the Internet is equivalent to the infinite ple ripe for local flare-ups. that they are connected personally with others sharing their own political views. is element proves important for social play before trying to analyse the ways in which activism more often than not motivated by indignathe media modify our environment and how tion. whether we e Spanish network sociologist Manuel Castells called have seen it on Internet or not. there It is true for how we share our politics via Twitter are many emotional and cognitive events being transor our viral videos on youTube. as well as the emergence of new S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . rongs of persons are multiplication of conversations over a cup of coffee. In particular we can expect a and russia to many people. such as the global dismay Castells identified that the relationships that are estabregarding the revelations – and subsequent treatlished between individuals on a personal basis. are much more complex and articuexperience a subconscious solidarity with the lated than those that come out of the reactions of the multitude on this topic. redefinition of the distinction between public and prie immediacy of social media enables the indivate in the conversational context of the sites connectvidual to get involved on an emotional level with ed to social networks. I like to use the organic metaphor of the human limbic system to describe this new system of social interaction. on line at least. which is its emotionchology. thus. but also ing of information and our affective responses. e scandals attending the in a mass social context are directly reflected in how we Sotchi games gave mixed feelings about putin use contemporary media. mental space is still deemed to be private although that very privacy is being threatened in all manners by digital data collection and cross-referencing. people increasingly feel the need to share an interface between the technology and the mind more and more personal details about themselves. fear. is is especially dos. a kind of interactive human ‘massification’ consisting We share global emotions all the time. as part of their online existence. and which therefore becomes dimension. e grassroots scene. or a feeling of social solidarity as in so people are changed by the use of the media they many examples since the world movements of Indignaare exposed to on a daily basis. for the whole of our lives as lived on this medium. but we of the connections between many individuals who don’t always realize it. more latent emotions.

a work like the hippocampus to combine information “global village” was enabled.forms of intimacy and the expression of emotions alertness that can trigger a collective cognitive that reinforce both individual action and social interresponse. e Wikileaks case was the start of a new action. See Micah White: once both very individual. but now. but the life-giving Social media. It was and then in many other countries. react in emotional waves that can bring people clearly goes beyond mere clicking and involves real mobifrom different cultures. Twitter the simple act of clicking on like. is means size of the emotional response to an event. without hierarchies. into civil society a real possibility of unstructablets and mobile phones. e 28 smaller brain structures which occupy the inner part of pages spread virally via social media first in Spain the brain and is repeated in the two hemispheres. especially after Wikileaks. but by mation that conditions biological rhythms. or grey matter. there which she means the impact of network communicaexists via social media a sort of permanent state of tions on the behaviour of the mass in times of crisis. or love. It may look like food. and wave of shared feelings with the crowd. financial crisis. for example. by mation. nutrients are long gone10. like orkut in Brazil. body (as it does in all mammals). which is closely connected to the cerebral cortex. e screens and e Internet and Web 2. while also “In promoting the illusion that surfing the web can change extending the influence and impact of the crowd. something more universally human. ey make people protest. e collective response via social current are clear examples of this new phenomenon. tral nervous system’ to biological organs. and in this sense it is a natural effect of interconnectivity assoresponses such as. e occupy Wall Street movement. a small book by Stéphane hessel. Twitter. and the growing call for greater the aganaktismenoi of greece. responsibility have become an ethical concern. in a spontaneous and emotional way. It is a complex set of published in france in 20109 started the international movement called ‘los Indignados’. ciated with real political and social unrest. Twitter is at not a real social membership. that is. and where awareness and rests on what I call the emotional limbic system. from the Arab uprisings to the protests in Iceland. It moves We can more or less correlate the various elements and beyond the need of the individual to be communal functions of the emotional network of the Internet’s ‘cenexperience. and emotive empathy and solidarity with others. the world. from different media and sources. which can be stimulates its followers to instantly experience a seen as a lazy way of belonging to the group. like Twitter in particuparticipation online has also been derided as solar. forums. facebook. and thus enable the at said. rough the process of order to bring about action. co-ordinated via the Intertured expression. D E R R I C K D E K E R C K H O V E | C O N N E C T E D I N E L L I G E N C E | 74 . religions and social lization of people at the physical level. e Indignados from all over the world. Similarly. e Anonymous. chat rooms and Emotion on line can readily turn into “e-motion”. for example fear and aggression. collective political system to grow. act like the thalamus transmitting information in tory and collaborative. information. time. on the other hand.0 tools introduced keyboards. clicktivism is to activism as Mcdonalds is to a slow-cooked meal. or firms because there was a lack of accurate inforhas called this phenomenon “network effects”11. emotions and opinions by individuals information is currency.” carry and store images and text that stimulate is rather harsh judgement of the political impact of emotions and allow the aggregation of informasocial media based movements ignores the fact that peotion and the sharing of facts and opinion in real ple did get involved through demonstrating in the streets. people tende American sociologist zeynep Tufekci. is new experience of real-time sharing of political reality. backgrounds together. data aggregators sharing. and all the technical equipment of pCs. e limbic system regulates emotions in to the human Indignez-vous!. the hippocampus of the Internet. borders of france. participanet. and is present over a thousand emotional waves beyond the in many other animals that are less evolved than man. the Mtransparency and responsibility by large financial 15 in Spain and all other facets of the Indignez-vous institutions8. producing formed hundreds of millions of years ago. In the past. can be equated to the amygdala. To quote hessel: is region of the brain. touching everyone personally and revealing their inner being. peoere is interplay between the personal and the ple have progressed from what began online to a street public spheres in the views and arguments posted movement that powers and connects heterogeneous by anyone about current issues such as the global communities. where transparency has a value. regulates and process infore real outrage is not borne by hating. media to issues such as these raises the growing indignation of the crowd. Social media. who has ed to have more tolerance of corrupt governments thoroughly studied the various stages of the Arab Spring. as well as other sites are highly regionthe tendency to drive people into active and public alised. which plays the called “clicktivism” (from the contraction of the role of an accelerator and determines the amount and word ‘activism’ with the verb ‘click’).

[…] especially because of its integration with and study in these examples is the fact that the Internet mobile phones […] is in fact the only channel more allows individuals to extend their impact beyond the or less open or open intermittently. the protest movement was launched this matters – that it is a feud between factions of that became viral. SMS – and to make us trust them more. an active investor in a variety of start-ups in the Mexican state of Chiappas. the use of Twitter raised awareness social networks. And by this time there were two milthe ruling class and that it has no chance of bringing lion facebook users in Tunisia.000 of these were in their own country. injustice done by the government of Mexico Information – and specifically the Internet’s power to spread it – against the farmers in that region in the name of is our best defense against bad. but including the social in the mental space as a and those with mobile phones raised enough anger kind of background intuition. Cyberspace adds a and indignation amongst the populace to bring global extension to all the other spaces to allow a down the Estrada government. election of the government. there were protests in 2008. increasing the speed of communicaof electoral fraud. just plain initial protest in 2000 on the Internet had not common-sense. democracy is not only were a million filipinos connected in the world. not organized by political parties. perhaps because the use of SMS in different degrees of intensity – of belonging to a comthe philippines was still free. the awareness – at tries. but also of information. Even before the expansion activism. we do want to trust our governments and institutions. In 2001. multinational food companies. there were only 28. although there Jefferson would have shared. but was stopped because of repression: In my view. in gafsa. it also based on the rest living as expatriate workers in other counsharing a vast mental space. but by of the Internet. e peoimpact of the network is so strong that it can challenge ple of Iran are exercising their sovereign right as a even extremely brutal repression.e Internet changes the structures and forms of In Iran in 2009. people are willing to risk their lives to protest notes that. gave to her reflexion on Wikileaks: of public opinion evolving from local to global. not class bound. As Tufekci news and information can get through about what is pointed out. there had been more than seven street happening in the Islamic republic after the disputed protests in Tunisia before the event that gave the starting Iranian presidential election that saw the victory of signal to the Arab Spring. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 75 . Wikileaks matters for two reasons. e special case of the philippines gives evidence e point of openness is to make those in power behave better to the differing capacities of the Internet. not only of What we are seeing is the flickering flame of freeindividual protestors. But after the self-immolation of Mohammed damental human dignity. in the deep south of Tunisia. individual by power and institutions. is shows that the about real change – are missing the point. as early as 1989 Chinese dissidents ordinary citizens. that regard. non of social mobilization was not born yesterday or at Iranians are telling us they yearn to be free14. space. based on equal rights and proper representation of the only 50. threatening to invalidate the retion – modifying and restructuring the public sphere. It In the long run. ose who say none of Bouazizi in 2010. when the masked Subcomandante Marcos clusion that Esther dyson. and perhaps from the people. even three years ago. we should know what they are up to. it was known that the Estrada government was Esther dyson’s voice is the voice of Civil Society. a view of democracy that franklin and resulted in a mass impact because. despite and hand over power to members of the same famigovernment censorship and control of the press and ly or the same “caste” as has been the case before. In the mainstream media. not exclusive. I am particularly impressed by the conIn 1994. the most important thing to understand Twitter. through which confines of their own room and go global. e first is was no longer possible for the world to ignore the that we need a better balance of power between people and power. has demonstrated that it will be were able to use faxes to send news and images of very difficult to suspend democratic constitutions repression at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. in 2008. ere are precedents that can be What lessons emerge from these examples? is interpreted as stages in the technological maturation new phenomenon of bottom-up political of the social limbic system. Second. this was the start around the world. it was possible to conmon situation bound neither by physical nor mental tact thousands of people with just one message. for a couple of years (1999-2001) have a little more say in what they do15. however. that the phenomeworld that seeks to make deals with their oppressors. But an olutionary. S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . for example. chairperson of Edventure appeared on the Internet as the face of the rebellion holdings. people to stand before their rulers and say “no more”. a town Ahmadinejad13. unaccountable behaviour.000 facebook users a system that oppresses them and denies them funin Tunisia. Tufekci dom. ey are commanding the attention of a We must also understand. that is. rather than viewing them and Twitter to provoke an emotional response as enemies. not revinvolved in many corruption scandals. As commented by the Washington Post: which were followed by brutal repression12.

More direct research. as well as to consider policy implications and responses. Similar to campaign finance laws. In activism it is important to know or sufficiently know about the other participants to trust them. for that reason. CroWdVoICE ~ Similar to the social media aggregating service Storify. magnify this process and speed it up more than ever before. e arrival of real-time media. television and now the Internet. but I have no doubt that customised and democratised Big data mining applications will soon give even more powerful tools than anything invented so far. A P P E N D I X T O O L S F O R A C T I V I S M 18 e methods of computational politics will. My general trust (and thrust) is that in the end the Internet and cyberspace will continue to self organize and eventually fashion all of society into a tolerable shape and that the Civil Society extended and respected globally will prove to be the only tolerable shape humanity should strive for in the era of transparency. with consequences that have not always been positive (in particular with the Arab Spring that seem to have changed things for the worse in several countries such as Syria and lybia). but nowadays even in a modern city. they are continually subjected to the emotional currents of the moment from the neighbourhood to the globe. it may be that data use in elections needs regulatory oversight thanks to its effects on campaigning. lobbying and more. shift to individual targeting. substitute it with ‘connective’ and judge which one reflects better the need for connecting specific configurations and relationships in a social activism project. but with an activist bent. critical discussion of data politics now may be the first important step in asserting our agency with respect to big data that is generated by us and about us. government – and businesses – have quickly reacted to the threats and seen the opportunities for increased control on the social body. as some have argued. but is increasingly being used at us17.‘global social being’ to emerge at the subconscious level of everybody. It is a fascinating read and I propose a little exercise to make it even more fun: in perusing the various categories that are proposed. e six dynamics outlined in this paper – availability of big data. e graphic presents a very advanced articulation of the different components of collective intelligence. | I have taken the liberty to add a graphic and a few suggestions that I gleaned on the net of tools for connecting activists safely and intelligently. Similarly. I suggest that wherever you see the word ‘collective’. In this regard connected intelligence on and off line will prove effective to defend civil society. In summary. gustave le Bon (e Crowd: Study of the popular mentality. dynamic experimentation. however. What’s different about it? founder Esra’a al Shafei says “CrowdVoice is open and anyone is a contributor. 1960) and Jacques Ellul (Propaganda: Shaping the attitude of men. like startups that grow too quickly movements need to learn to scale beyond the fast participation that’s made possible from online networks. e great theorists of the crowd. All these good intentions and bravery and sacrifice by themselves are not going to be enough”16. is crucial to increase both our D E R R I C K understanding and awareness of this information environment. 1973) have all made similar relevant observations about man’s social being. therefore. Tufekci describes in great detail how Big data and what she dubbs ‘computational politics’ are turning things around in favour of the very institutions that were put into question by the Civil Society. the rise of behavioral science in the service of persuasion. It began as part of early tribal culture. As she concludes this important essay: D E K E R C K H O V E C O N N E C T E D T O I N T E L L I G E N C E D E F E N D T H E C I V I L S O C I E T Y e history of the Internet has demonstrated at every turn that all attempts at controlling it have engendered swift countermeasures to protect netizens. the potential and opacity of modeling. governance and privacy. at present the obligation to connect in the right way. e political effects arising from the use of networks are evolving rapidly and while the first events caught power structures by surprise. corporate campaigns. we can say that the Internet has mimicked the biological limbic system of the individual body to extend its influence to the social body. as zeynep Tufekci said in a recent TEd conference: “e problem with social movements today is not that their participants lack heart or that they fail to forge true bonds among themselves. Elias Canetti (Crowds and Power. CrowdVoice spotlights all content on the web related to campaigns and protests. Starting an empirically informed. an emotional exchange also occurs as part of the interaction. In a recent paper. and already are. where people are part of the connective social being. radio. it is also understood that where people have physical and social needs in common. Many applications exist already to strengthen and sustain activism. and the growth of new power brokers on the Internet who control the data and algorithms – will affect many aspects of life in this century. it ends up having much more diverse information from many C O N N E C T E D I N E L L I G E N C E | 76 . 1895). also used in other spheres such as marketing. e concept of the social being is not just a new metaphor. as well as critical and conceptual analysis.

Big Questions for Social Media Big Data: RepresentapIddEr ~ A private social network that allows tiveness. where and that different types of bodies are equipped with different types of cognitive apparatuses. See <http://on. August 12. le Cosmos – ensuite du mental (y compris la logique tion of google Maps and Swiftriver (the real-time data et l’abstraction formelle) – enfin du social”. daniel (1995).ly/17n5gpj>. 19(7). on line comment at <http://bit. While it’s not realistic to expect anyone reported July 25. a flexible architecture permits online social systems to form organically and not as colonies of their offline equivalents” the software’s ability to create networks or coali<http://bit. to generate goleman. Because virtech collective that provides secure tools for social tual geographies are founded upon a fluid premise of evolving organizing and group collaboration. tors safe. Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can customized pages similar to the facebook events Matter More an IQ (new york: Bantam Books). but it also helps organizers coordinate consciousness is not internal to the body but available everyand stay abreast of other activist movements. e uS government and the big financial groups. thus explaining how the CrABgrASS ~ A free software made by the riseup network will serve as a social setting for interaction. Clicktivism is ruining leftist activism.ly/1doQhzs>. 2009 by luke Alagna <http://bit.” or detaining demonhave an immediate bearing on the nature of intelligence. z. CrowdVoice makes it easithe eye does not produce vision but perceives the visual er for far-flung audiences to stay abreast of protests and object.mash. Proceedings of the you to remain anonymous. campaign participants can Another angle on the meaning of intelligence comes add anecdotes and first-hand experiences so that othfrom roy Ascott’s suggestion that the brain is not an organ that produces consciousness. it may be relevant to point out that electricity is be added to free open-source instant messaging platthe true ground of all electronic media. Taking the example of the eye. are Crabgrass users. z. which you can then choose to Tufekci. Esther dyson “WikiLeaks’ Flawed Answer To a Flawed helpful tool to manage your information online. but one that perceives it. Tufekci. into to your encrypted pidder account. share only encrypted Eighth International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (palo information and keep close track of your online Alto. Sukey — whose motto is “keeping demonstraaccess to matter and awareness. trouble spots and violence. In the same way. mobile and informed” – helps people steer clear “de quels champs s’agit-il? d’abord du physique. World”.ly/17l0orC>.” If one online activist comes across a —————— spare or one-sided post.ly/1hScoqg>. nologies might be deemed to help improve and share e tool. lefebvre henri.ly/1xIgzhf>.more sources.ly/1hSconr>. your chats are encrypted and authenticatarchitecture is essential to meeting these unique objectives.ly/1tMBa3i>. full text at <http://bit. in: L Homme et la société. verifying service from the makers of ushahidi) also pro“la production de l’espace”. of course there is SuKEy ~ during london’s uK uncut protests this year. Engineering the public: Big Data..re/1xu73li>. to use it as his primary social network. so you can rest assured you’re talking to a friend. from afar. When you then social networking site serves a unique purpose. Sukey’s combinanature. sensitive data. Validity and Other Methodological Pitfalls. e Guardian.“ forms like pidgin or Adium. so network install oTr. […]. tions with other independent groups.to/1x uECQ t> and also 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 31 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 <http://slidesha. furthermore. users can use Sukey on a browser-based tool Anna Cicognani. 7 July 2014 mation you’ve shared with external parties back <http://bit. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E 8∑8 I N T E L L I G E N C E | 77 .ly/1Boz5sk>. It includes connectivity. uK uncut activists created a mobile app to help nology.” or through SMS service “growl.ly/1x04Aeq>. ed. Crabgrass describes tion. on these platforms. Sociologie de la connaissance marxisme et anthropolgie: 15-32. CA: e AAAI press): 505-414 <http://bit. file repositories and decisionoffline and online worlds operate in synergy rather than in isolamaking tools. digital and virtual technologies are but one of the many forms taken by electricity. they are situational and not static. vides a way for armchair protesters to follow the action 1974. In however it begins to be useful when it is related to techresponse.ly/1Av01jw>. e firefox add-on organizes and encrypts your <http://bit. first Monday. and to manage and schedule meetings. pidder is a See <http://bit. 31-32. tool. […] Because the wikis. Defining a Design Language in a called “roar. task files. glasses help to refine the precision of vision. united nations development programme and Indignez-vous! – or translated into English as Time for outrage! members from the Camp for Climate Action Micah White. ICT techone another avoid getting caught behind the barricades. la of injuries. surveillance share with other online services. strators inside heavy police barricades for hours on end. ey gain relevance as they help to declare the situational geography of the network to its members. 8 S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . information. just as ers can check in from afar. It also logs inforand computational politics. on its website. See Inside Job. 2010. off-ThE-rECord MESSAgIng (oTr) ~ A software hat can Indeed. zizi papacharissi proposes the term Virtual geography to you’re able to organize and manage different instant describe the specifics of network architecture: “Certainly. is bold and interesting hypothesis implies that demonstrations. or not. identity – whether that identity is a pseudonym Tufekci calls this brutal instant répression “Wack a protest”. he can easily supplement See <http://bit.” Text-based Virtual Community <http://bit. each messaging accounts on one interface. task lists and working documents. no scientific proof of that hypothesis and it may not even police used a tactic called “kettling. a documentary about the collusion between the assets.

THE TIBETAN BOOK OF PROPORTION D E R R I C K D E K E R C K H O V E | C O N N E C T E D ~ S H E E T 2 1-2 4 . I N E L L I G E N C E | 2 .

Australia. many ways collective intelligence is thought to form and manifest. We describe it as the global brain formed by the S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . mainly embodied in Chardin’s noosphere. with a role to play in tionary stages. jumbled up. Co-founder and the greater order of the universe. A U G M E N T E D B Y T E C H N O L O G Y . culture and just a few decades earlier. By further multiplying the capacities to learn. C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 79 . We see it at work in the responsibility we grant ourselves for stewarding the Earth that we have in custody. article published in the previous issue of the Spanda Journal. here are a few. provided we found ways to coalesce rather than dilute the diversity of our efforts. cultures. as well as in education and social development. organizations. in in small and medium enterprise and created a niche speciality the scope of our collective intelligence and in the at the intersection of strategy. and to disworks and movements. each of us united through the ciplines. We see it interested in connecting dots also as the symbiotic connection between all and building bridges living beings epitomized in lovelock’s gaia between people. as a network of trust. share. transiwider system of things. transformative action. augmented by technology. T H E B E D R O C K A C T I O N C O L L E C T I V E F O R I N T E L L I G E N C E In ‘An ecology for transformative action’. branding and organizational potential we see in it.H E L E N E F I N I D O R I COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE IS A COMMONS THAT NEEDS PROTECTION AND A DEDICATED LANGUAGE Helene Finidori focuses on sysdistributed intelligence of our interconnected temic perspectives and tools for human minds operating as a neural network. produce. from the empathy. and what are the challenges we face? A N E C O L O G Y F O R T R A N S F O R M A T I V E . Helene lived in many A C R E S C E N D O countries including Sweden. dishypothesis. and avoided the temptation to ‘fuse’ our identities. she teaches Management and Leadership of Change C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E in the International Program of Staffordshire University. ere has been a crescendo through time in our After studying entrepreneurship at HEC in Paris she specialized capacity to individuate and to interconnect. and how agency could be leveraged across the board to bring about systemic change. From brand positioning. But how fit are we for leveraging our collective transformative potential and generating polycentric coherence at the systemic level? What role can digital technologies and automation play in helping achieve the promise of collective intelligence. IT and prospective. ere are many definitions and narratives of collective intelligence. Born in Canada and raised in France. the love and the compassion we have for each other. the US. Collective intelligence arises. and she currently lives in Spain. It is found in the synergy of cognition and skills that enables us to achieve great things when we collaborate. many contexts in which it is invoked. to author and share our own stories and the tural collaboration and now focuses on social change. Indonesia. development. coordinator of the Commons Abundance Network. 2 /2 0 1 4 | and beyond. new possibilities opened strategy she moved to organizational change and cross-culup. I described the complementarity of the diverse logics that drive change agents’ engagement and actions. cuss and make sense of these stories with our peers I N T R O D U C T I O N W E SpEAK of CollECTIVE InTEllIgEnCE AS the capacity by which we can achieve more together than we can alone. She worked in the waste management and conInternet and digital technologies have given us sumer product industry. as an independent consultant specializing in ing capabilities that we could never have dreamt of innovation. and dialog remotely we acquired with alphabetical writing and subsequently the printing press. netknowledge we produced with the world. for business-to-business marketing access to a whole wealth of knowledge and to writconsultancies. information technology has undoubtedly accelerated our capacity for collaboration and action. It manifests when the individual powers that enable us to take our destinies in our own hands aggregate into a collective power to change the world and take part in our shared evolution.

Individuals perceive and interpret experience differently as a result of different combination of mental functions and different individual and collective retentions. not only culturally but also cognitively. tools and organization. is flow enriches the memories of our experiences. by which they reduce the perceived complexity of their own context. our secondary retentions that act as the filters or frame of reference through which we select our primary retentions and categorize what we perceive in a feedback loop. thinking and feeling and the two attitude types of introversion and extraversion that differentiate cognitive processing preferences of individuals. or desired outcomes. Vocabularies specific to communities of shared practice and experience derive from shared secondary retentions and the practice of shared categorization and interpretation. and the dynamics by which they operate. Acknowledging and leveraging the complementarity of individual cognitive processes helps maximize cognitive effectiveness of a group. individually and collectively. new signals that we cannot categorize and interpret because we cannot relate them to anything we know individually or collectively may be left out unseen or perceived as threats. ese functions plays out predominantly for each of us either in the ‘introverted’ inner world of our thoughts. H O W W E P R O C E S S I N F O R M A T I O N O U R T H E T H A T S H A P E S U N D E R S T A N D I N G When individuals learn or interact. or in the ‘extraverted’ outer world of actions. Social objects act as attractors and centres of shared values. people. In addition to differences in what we focus our attention on and the filters we use to process what we retain. memories and imagination. and associated language. e range of cognitive processing types of a group emerges from a combination of individuals’ processes at wider scales. We call this culture. intuition. resources. is may hinder our capacity as individuals or groups to understand. What we know is what we have understood. and as they construct their own representations of reality. I N T E L L I G E N C E I S A C O M M O N S | 80 . ese differences nurture our collective strength because they provide a fertile and diverse ground from which synergetic effects can emerge. differences in how we mentally select and process information also play an important role. action and experience. which may be people. issues. and collective intelligence as the bridges that connect them. primary retentions are the most salient of our perceptions that we select from moment to moment and that combine in the flow of our consciousness. shared meaning making schemes. feeling. understanding is the process of perceiving and categorizing. We focus our attention and gather information (i. H E L E N E F I N I D O R I | C O L L E C T I V E What we perceive is categorized. S H A R E D D I S C O V E R Y M U T U A L A N D R E C O G N I T I O N e need for coordination arises because we are different. as illustrated by the varieties of ways in which we perceive and process information. processes. which Stiegler calls regions of the logos or relational disciplines. Interpreting is how we process and make sense of what we have understood.. categorize via our secondary retentions) with a variable propensity for thinking or feeling (the judging – interpretative functions). Stiegler distinguishes three types of imprints he calls retentions.e. ey are our weakness too. recognize and relate to logics that we are not familiar with. with variable inclinations for exploration and ways of integrating the new. the objects we choose to focus our caring attention and our efforts on. what they perceive and remember from their lived experience creates imprints at various levels in their individual and collective minds.. disregarding our differences will prevent us from ever perceiving what each of us alone cannot perceive. and we organize our experiences and make decisions (i. interpreted and reconstructed in relation to what we know and how we understand. Tertiary retentions are the layers of conscious and unconscious sedimentations as externalized tracks of collective knowledge and memory accumulated through shared practice and experience and transmitted across generations. We gather by affinity in communities of practice around social objects.We are all different. select our primary retentions) with a variable propensity for sensing or intuiting (the perceiving functions). goals.. Achieving cognitive understanding within a cohesive group logic is easier than achieving cultural understanding across logics.e. Jung distinguished the four mental functions of sensation.e. As part of his work on psychological types. because of the difficulties we experience to understand each other when we speak different languages and see reality through different lenses. Collective intelligence has always existed within these centres as an essential outcome and at the same time an enabler of the co-individuation process that occurs as people interact. preferred story and process narratives. places. ese can be perceived as islands. i. and make decisions..e. i.

S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . a playful mind and approach that helps us let go of our limiting assumptions and open up our minds for the unknown.com].practicalsanskrit.e. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E When we learn and experience new things we discover and integrate new categories that expand our secondary retentions and the range of what we are able to perceive.com]. In the ancient Indian fable of the elephant and the blind men. understand.businessballs. feeling. The Fifth Discipline]. The Ladder of Inference [Source: Peter Senge.© Alan Chapman 2003 [http://www. C O L L E C T I V E B E C O M I N G I N T E L L I G E N C E A W A R E O F I T S E L F The Johari Window . What we infer may be biased by the selection we make and by the reinforcing effect of our assumptions on our beliefs in a feedback loop.e Ancient Indian Fable of the Blind Men and the Elephant [Source: http://blog. sensing. is is what collective intelligence must achieve. intuiting processes and frames of reference can help us discover and connect our respective interpretations and draw a broader picture of reality. and not a set of unrelated parts. so that it is the elephant that materializes as a whole when all piece are described. is means that we must invoke at the same time what we know. each blind man senses a different texture and imagines a different object. It is only when there is effective communication among them. recognizing that they will necessarily perceive different things depending on where they are and what they sense and intuit. e challenge is to bring the reality or the possibility of the elephant into each part. the blind men cannot make sense of the whole elephant. which are our own interpretations of reality. double loop learning and walking each other through our respective thinking. What it takes to find the complementary shapes one thing can use with others to build new things involves exploration and questioning. Argyris’ ladder of Inference reminds us that our assumptions are formed through the meaning we derive (via our secondary retentions) from the data we select out of real observable data and experiences (our primary retentions). i. In I N T E L L I G E N C E | 81 . e Johari Window opens up on self-awareness and shared discovery of the unknown. that they can begin to realize what that beast really is. Individually. and what we may be individually missing. to expand the boundaries of what we can perceive and categorize.

ese initiato merge deeply imprinted and differentiated tives are not aware of each other. no ‘central logic’. creating new possibilistand our position in the bigger picture. “Just political initiatives in the direction of economic. is difficulty to find tools allow real time presentation of globalized data. you cannot deal with multiple nonetheless the livestock for the future. cognitive. logics and space for engagement.e. But everything that must be connected is to reduce to a common denominator. great transitions. to undersparks to circulate and collide. and no one is familiar with them. akin to evolution of collective shared experience. no ‘global eminent being able to see the diversity of transformations at play position’ or legitimate vantage point in the sysand evolution in the making. A U G M E N T E D B Y T E C H N O L O G Y movements of movements. educational. compartmented. we co-individuate in a more or less consynergies (i.e. is is cole multitude of pathways humanity engages lective intelligence becoming aware of itself and callinto to make the world a better place are a maniing itself to action. Change agents and innovation to building cohesion through facilitation tors are increasingly aware of the need to coordinate methodologies within defined contexts. the individual and the collective are transformed complexity reductions) within cohesive centres of through one another. finidori). or group consciousness. to align or yet dispersed. to find coherence. social. and to find Internet has increased our capacity to reach out or cross and interpret the signals and tracks our actions over to other groups. in addisynchronizations to occur. how can shared visions open up transformational paths. It has created opportunities for people and groups Achieving coherence involves tools and processes to swarm in informal networks. of things and mobile technology enable the harvesting of the micro-local and the connection of micro e mobilization of collective intelligence at wider and macro levels. as illustrated by this quote of Edgar e temptation is great however to think one can Morin in La Voie: “On each continent and in each easily ‘coordinate’ global action across movements nation one can find creative bubbling. how we contribute to this tem that would allow a global view and a synprocess. not yet aware of itself. how can we find and interpret deal with a polycentric world. our frames of reference enrich in particular the capacity to achieve more complex each other. when they do not and which will guide us toward the still invisible and speak the same language and when they may be unconceivable metamorphosis.. ethical or existential a plan or get self-organized from there”. With no systemic them? operationalizing collective intelligence involves centre. systemic coherence) across multiple vergent way. coherence was typically a problem brought up by location and behaviour tracking tools. the Internet organizers of the occupy movement for example. feedback and feedforward that will inform furbringing and weaving the new into their respective ther interpretation and action. separated. and where it is taking us. develop a shared vision” we hear often. shaped by their own assumptions? We must e tracks are there. groups.dialog with others. festation of collective intelligence. systemic levels beyond the boundaries of our habitual communities to solve wicked interconnected Technology now has the potential to show how problems involves more complex mechanisms and each individual action and story contributes to the H E L E N E F I N I D O R I | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E I S A C O M M O N S | 82 . to perties and opportunities for the ongoing thrivability and ceive and mutually recognize our respective regeneration of the system. It is now a matter centres operating on differentiated logics as you of recognizing.” (Tr. global citizen movements. beyond their own perimeters of action. to operate synergies across movements outside of institutional coordiR E V E A L E D A N D nation bodies. big-shifts are multiplying. enlisting them in order to deal with cohesive ones. But trying regeneration. aggregating. a multitude of by building cohesiveness and convergence. at’s when minds open for meaningfully relate to each other. all boats rising at once from is requires an expansion of our capacities to where they are situated. ese multiple paths and roadmaps be developed when the parties do jointly developing will intermesh to form a new Path not share similar understandings of reality and which will decompose into the paths each of us will follow projections of the future. coordination is left to the various groups all acting as individual cenExponential computation power and visualization tres. Calls to create networks of networks. “and build political. ey are does not work. no institution enumerframeworks of understanding and interpretation ates them. it has made easier for the explorers leave in the system and the environment as in each group to cross boundaries and cross-pollinate. thesis between approaches. Trans-individuation occurs when both centres in addition to ‘simple’ local synthesis (i. and enabled on-going that can facilitate self-coordination of multiple conversations across groups to allow for multiple-level approaches at many levels and scales.

notes. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 83 . Eventually they become persistent structure or coded into algorithm is what makes us difroads and highways that funnel all traffic. e ferent from ants. e semantic web and the decentralization of the web offer a promising potential to achieve this through peer-topeer connections. while those who don’t the continued feedback destroys the function of the medium and endangers the whole system. is however only applies to the point when develop when exercised. In an article in the last issue of the journal. monitored for fitness and to develop complementary skill sets among their challenged over time. If some neural pathways become or remain atrophied. paths make themselves more visible as people e difficulty to undo what has become solidified into travel them.. Tools that can show us the dynamics of our system and the tracks we leave in it. is is when. and who is susceptible of olds of audiences are reached. becomes the criterion for performance.. that ants leave on the ground for others view in a black box. rather than the outcome it ing numbers of ants as the pheromone signal produces. e rate of application of such to find their way to food sources. or large outcomes are made of combined individual actions or items. norms and structures take control over agency and choice. i. generating volatile and brittle sitfrancis heylighen describes how the environment uations and outcomes. As suggested by pathways . a standard. while the others are abandoned. attracts growwinning or fittest strategy. We see these not without implications. differentiateffect that builds monopolies when critical threshed and resilient they are. that controls the agent capabilities develop. When the food source starts to dry up medium develops intelligent management of ants seek new sources and the pheromone track dissithe communication process. A key question is what we mechanisms at work for example in the network want our mirrors to be. embedded in the code. and how specialized the medium. in more general terms. are atrophied. members to anticipate future needs. positive feedback that characterizes goal heylighen compares this selection process to oriented stigmergy is a great driver for both action and that of neural connections that continuously outcome. technologies that can act as a mirror for our own actions and map out what we chart together in collaborative or self-coordinated ways all have the capacity to bolster collective intelligence because they provide the individual and collective feedback that will impulse our next individual and collective actions. e threat of most travelled routes remaining mechanically the most travelled is a point I raise quite often. how our memories disWhen we add the time factor. as heylighen pates leaving room for new pathways to emerge. I suggest that our institutions are systemically dysfunctional and our system as a T H E M E D I U M whole at risk because we get trapped in positive S H A P E S T H E A G E N T feedback mechanisms that keep channelling behaviours towards the same pathways with little our actions shape the tracks we leave in our environconsideration for diversity and resilience. how distributed. and ment which in return inform our next actions. sometimes physically. ese dynamics cannot dissipate if more of their latent potentials.e. S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . or in economics controlling them. is is how effects accumulate in time.global outcome or picture and has an impact. the space. how large transformations. Collective intelligence is about unleashing humanity’s whole latent potential and turning it into action. and they may decide to cultivate fewer or the agents in it. A catalyst for agency. solidify as the dominant infrastructure. And strengthens with traffic. at a certain point. possibilities become scarcer… Wouldn’t a global brain want to exercise all of its neural pathways to keep the plasticity and alertness necessary for its own long-term adaptability and fitness? When the most travelled roads. Similarly. we realize it is not only card what no longer is in use. culture behaviour. e pheromone trace for the form of an algorithm that remains hidden from example. and vice versa. locking cise. that can help us discern and discuss how our behaviours aggregate and impact the system. When a behaviour or a stratehe calls the medium is shaped by agents as their gy is acknowledged as the fittest it becomes a best tracks aggregate and consolidate. in directs the agents. is is indeed what determines our various retentions. an institutionalized where the medium becomes the mediator that model. which retains the fittest and most useful human tracks are more persistent. up to a point practice. they may become difficult to escape from.. Individuals have the ability but a series of invisible power dynamics that alter the however to choose which neural paths they exernature of the track and the medium itself. heylighen. when winning strategies over-attract massive monoIn his research on stigmergy and the global Brain. groups may choose they are not made visible. cross-country there are no embedded mechanisms to evaluate whether trails that start as barely distinguishable walkit remains fit for purpose through time. a benchmark.

generating new kinds of abundance. is remains the current ultimate promise of the platform model. ese Internet Mumis although centralized in their structure were meant to provide highly decentralized and diversified experiences to their volatile and demanding member base for free. When my husband watches a sports event on my computer. And it has unlocked great opportunities and expectations for self-realization and collective accomplishment over the years. our tracks are recorded. statisticians. how easy is it indeed for us to search elements of our own past and retrieve the content we generated on social networks? We are told our tracks are disseminated and anonymous. Several risks are accumulating here. he called the new kinds of monopolists such as google Internet Mumis in reference to ancient benevolent social animators of the Solomon Islands who prepared communal feasts for the followers they attracted. owned by the few to serve private interests is the challenge we face. with the risk of nipping collective intelligence ‘in the bud’ and preventing it to achieve its promises. the giants of the web have sold their souls to the devil. and it seems that in their pursuit of enabling the multitude. libre) peer-to-peer communication processes. and we. the multitude. which prompted paypal founder peter iel to praise monopolies as drivers of progress because the prospective of years or even decades of monopoly profits free of competition provides a powerful incentive to innovate and offer the best possible experience to their users. the giant platforms that both enable and exploit the participatory networks that arise from peer-to-peer activity. blue ocean strategy at its best! ugarte’s conjectures were before the advent of facebook. yet so easily reconstructed via correlations. google purchases robotic startups at a blistering pace. generating convenience and the illusion of freedom and abundance for free needs funding. first is the control power conferred to those who own and maintain the infrastructure and attraction mechanisms that enable the enclosure and lock in of huge portions of collective intelligence. We are now trapped within the walled gardens of gigantic platforms to which we contractually abandon our privacy rights and the tracks of our activity. albeit with some reservation. and in our face! When I book an airplane ticket directly from an airline’s website. collected and aggregated through cookies by each service and application we use. P R I V A T I Z E D preserving the World Wide Web. and identify all my whereabouts.is situation poses great threat to the system as a whole precisely because it is a threat to collective intelligence. ird is the manipulation of collective intelligence into herd behaviour and preselected choice to the detriment of scope and variety. half a dozen within a year. Alongside the fully decentralized blogosphere that would enable the redistribution of informative power among equipotential citizens. I receive spams for young chick dates… how difficult is it for any of these platforms and their partners to relate this to my profile or my Ip. Second is the surveillance and the mining of collective intelligence for the benefit of the few rather than of collective intelligence itself. polycentric networks. most of which involved in defence… Many signs show that the web itself is now gradually being controlled by higher national purposes or private interests as Snowden’s revelations on nSA surveillance. e world wide web was initially built in 1989 to advance the diffusion of knowledge and collective intelligence. technologists and scientists. lock in effects are engineered via massive VC investment that expect no returns before a status of monopoly is attained. while our access to the data we generate is local and limited. the threats on net neutrality. and potential addictions and contradictions? We saw I N T E L L I G E N C E I S A C O M M O N S | 84 .. When I look up an illness on google I get an advertorial for a treatment or a clinic on facebook. an advertisement appears on google or facebook for a car rental or a hotel in my destination city. the proliferation of pluriarchic. now. from the fate of the traditional media. In 2005 david de ugarte envisioned the beginning of a veritable “reconquest of information and the imaginary as collective and de-merchantilised creations”.e. and the constant erosion of privacy and Internet freedoms can attest. O U R C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E . S U R V E I L L A N C E from agents of collective intelligence. able to provide abundance thanks to network effects. have sold our souls to them. concerns. in exchange for free access to the tools that enable us to produce the tracks… O U R A N C O L L E C T I V E O B J E C T O F I N T E L L I G E N C E . he foresaw. out with competition. our individual and collective behaviours are made available to state intelligence. we are becoming objects of the intelligence. marketers. and H E L E N E F I N I D O R I | C O L L E C T I V E the propulsion of google at the apex of monetization of our tracks. through manipulation and surveillance. e web is being owned by what Michel Bauwens calls the netarchy. the medium or mediator and manager par excellence of our free (i.

e. on the other hand. referred under the microscope. to entertain it. kept I N T E L L I G E N C E in a bubble that slows our collective evolution… MIT’s Center for Collective Intelligence director Are we being bitten back even harder by what we Tom Malone also is concerned by the conditions have been trying to get away from for decades? S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . to surf on the trends of the moment. playground to test new algorithms. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 85 . and to make products and ideas as attractive as possible to consumers and citizens. or other purchase pattern cola is some time of available human brain […]. our choices are inspired by algorithms that it available: i. What we sell to Cocaand possible addictions. to sell its review as its best innovation. we hardly benefit from the to as ‘polluting its own drinking water’. for example. In ‘All watched over by machines of loving grace’ he showed how key strands of thought that shaped the 20th century ethos had caused us O U R C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E . move us into action. our passed behaviours prepare it between two messages. make the most out of us not only through straight fore web was meant to remedy all this.). remain at the merci of various forms of stimulations based on projections that keep us captive of our existO U R C O L L E C T I V E ing habits and anticipated desires.recently how uber employees tracked identified VIp customers in real time on giant screens. helpany of our possible behaviours. and how one of their Vps threatened to ‘dig up dirt’ on journalists that criticized some tactics. the more the various algorithms at work power. how far ward advertisement but also through more refined techhave we drifted away from the promise of what niques such as clickbaits. time that we gained back from watching TV? to create some urgency for purchase. our tracks are used to lure our attention. patrick le lay (Tr. hotels than windows users. as computing machines in their own right. Bruno. e more we use platless and disillusioned in the face of those in form services. Big Brother is watching us. at each round. platforms are an excellent « ere are many ways of talking about television. an omnipresent ‘Intelligence system’ that caters too much more than national or international security interests. but we are manipulated into convershould be available. and nudge us I N T E L L I G E N C E . algorithm has recently been praised by MIT tech TF1’s job is to help Coca-cola. generated Amazon book recommendations or ere lies the permanent challenge. with no idea of what comes next or of learn about us for a ‘tailored’ experience. to follow the latest feedback into themselves and skew the statistics. However. We are lulled in a fishbowl. multiplies and gets more feedback loops that impoverish choice even more pervasive ». to relax it in order to serve us what our friends. and how to challenge and change the status quo. D I V E R T E D towards sameness. What was expected to liberate us from all forms of enslavement is now keeping us captive as objects R E C L A M I N G O U R C O L L E C T I V E of an experiment. and we caused the shutdown of google Translate ApI. the reuse of machineWe are caught in a faustian bind. such as orbitz proposing more expensive hotel manipulate us. let’s be realistic: basically. It is necessary to seek google AdSense generated search suggestions at all times the programs that will fit. A concern for google itself. Nothand popularity statistics would suggest. in a context triggering self-generated winner takes all positive where information accelerates. Adam Curtis in his ‘Century of the self’ BBC documentary series masterfully depicted how psychological techniques had been used throughout the 20th century to read. which insights this aggregated data could provide us. e role of our programs is to make gence. create and fulfil the desires of the public. fashions. or dynamic could be unlocked by putting to good use what pricing. Similarly. it is necessary that the brain of the spectator of the web. on the one hand we generated language that feeds back into google are seduced by the convenience of the tools that enable Translate’s corpus as original material depletes us to make our voices heard and to connect and the corpus originating initially from real translaexchange with the world. pushed selections. is ranges from prices for a given flight Clay Shirky called our cognitive surplus: the increased at each visit. we are tors’ work. for an advertisement to be differentiation and self-realization were the promise perceived. to embrace a fatalistic philosophy that sees M A N I P U L A T E D human beings as cogs in a mechanistic system. is quote of the CEo of a major rooms to Apple oS users found to spend 30% more on french TV channel is indeed memorable. C. to the display of Stiegler likes to evoke systemic stupidity as time higher price selections based on estimated purchase of available brain accessible to those who try and power. product […]. or as our traces are analyzed in order to anticipate and affect biologic organisms driven by their genes. all other things remaining equal. uber’s pricing But in a business context. Statistically ing is more difficult than obtaining this availability.

group or computer has ever done before?” open source communities. Tools and methodologies that enable visualizaCollective intelligence is the manipulated matter. to see the and behaviours. with portable identities. digital technologies as automation techniques dards and protocols. people. and be aware of the risks of its At the micro level. privacy protection ly an author. lective intelligence research in the following terms: as well as mutual understanding of the logics How can people and computers be connected so that – under which various community of experience collectively – they act more intelligently than any person. To illustrate this too late. and tion and interpretation of stigmergetic feedalso the safeguard against manipulation. As creators we need an perpetuate. A pharmakon as defined in plato’s Phaedrus dialogues is T O O L S F O R S T I G M E R G E T I C what produces an extension of knowledge and capabilities V I S U A L I Z A T I O N into an external milieu that can be manipulated. would be particularly and the web for its own coalescence. A pharmakon like any remedy are working to build empowering tools. he frames the question pertaining to colsystemic phenomena and patterns of behaviours. the World Wide for Stiegler any technology is potentially disruptive and Web Consortium (W3C). with a fine line to draw between to develop understanding and interpretation of the two. maintain the integrity of its collective perceiving and interpreting functions. as well as protection against cyber attacks collective stupidity that he defines as herd behavand fraud. olivier Auber brings the nuance We need a web that empowers new forms of that there is also always an invisible architecture. immediate rendering of code as it is programmed. We need to find new medium that can “listen to our hands as we creIt is critical that ‘we the people’ reclaim the ownerate”. individually and collectively.under which collective intelligence can overcome systems. and the actor of the rules and codes H E L E N E F I N I D O R I | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E I S A C O M M O N S | 86 . effect of our changes immediately. whose ground is the web itself. It also requires tools and methodologies iour or groupthink. while it is produced. Bret Victor suggests the crebeing absorbed and annihilated by all kinds of ation of environments that nurture ideas. a feedback loop that works like a mirror between context of fluid collaboration in variable the individual level and the collective one. Most can save a patient or kill him if mishandled or overdosed. to enable collective interpretations. gated order to adjust his/her actions and coordinate them with platforms. needs ligence must focus above all on preserving and enhancfulfilled. It must strive to useful. olivier Auber’s poietic generator aggremust be kept free of all manipulation and progates side-by-side drawings from multiple connected tected as an instrument for collective intelligence users. In a and the tracks they leave in the environment similar line. resources however are allocated to technologies It is potentially curative and beneficial. through the manipulation of retentions immediate connection to what we create. gaps identified. in charge of web stantoxic. and impacts assessed. or dangerous if that are being developed behind closed doors. here are some examples and visions. around specific his/her experience and expertise. enabling agency ing the opportunities provided by digital technologies to apply itself effectively. at work. At the macro-level. in its conbecause of the systems dynamics they may initiate or text. e capacity for analysis and interpretain practice Victor created a program that shows the tion of the dynamics that affect our behaviours. which enclose their users under leoothers’ moves. where possiown survival and long-term thrivability. where manipulators often referred to as ‘the system’ itself we could see what is produced. Anopticism questions the idea of totality of various contexts can be ‘pulled’ to accomplish a space and of objectivity of its representation. thanks to hoc in networks of networks. lective problem solving capacity.” geometries. connections and interactions across boundaries which influences and determines our behavioural to allow the creation of virtual spaces where projects. so that we can unlock the pieces that are locked ship of the web and the control of our stigmergetic in our heads and nurture the ideas that must be processes as commons or public goods before it is grown. Jean françois noubel introduced the people increasingly assemble and reassemble ad concept of holopticism where “each player. and other organizations constitute a pharmakon. To ensure its back at various levels and scales. erefore there is an unceasing round nine terms and conditions are unsuitable to the trip. is involves a distributed many points of view of which everyone is potentialweb. not implemented according to specific requirements. ideas. and resources distributed in choices. relates to the whole in projects that are usually issues based. collective intelbilities can be explored. operate. as it is created. With anopticism. making the collective picture that continuously to help us ‘better ourselves’ and enhance our colemerges visible to all in real time. insistspecific tasks and generate productive conversaing instead on the arbitrary and subjectivity of the tions leading to action.

when this representation is considered legitimate by everyone. ideas. as a house that magically expands with each door you open. where people could explore the unknown from what is familiar. creating an impressionistic map of the possibility domain. It postulates that the collective intellimeaning in the unknown and discover new gence of a group can develop only when each memworlds and broaden horizons. i. each leading to a brandnew room that you couldn’t have reached from your original starting point. when we need them the possibility of other new combinations. based on technologies of the Struart Kaufman: “e strange and beautiful truth semantic web.ly/1lub51l]. Virtuelle with the creation of ecosystems of actors. Each new combination opens up ple and resources that we need. loomio focuses on collecborderspaces at the junction of things. C U R A T I O N this representation and can therefore change A N D A C T I O N his/her situation through action.open one of those doors and stroll into that room. sharing new and old. bringing to life the ‘adjacent possible’ proposed by projects and resources. ese imity to create relations without relationships. ey should also be able to attract stakeholders and relevant parties into conversation or debate and linked data and the semantic web would enable action. Once you the digital Studies research group working in S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . decision and action. of borderlinks created via fluctuation of distance in proxtive decision making in ways that foster debate. and narratives. in conversation-to-action spaces that support the harvestopposition to foucault’s panopticon where one ing and reprocessing of conversations directed towards agent observes all the others without their knowing argumentation. ink of it and where we need them”.e. and are pull. representation of the group’s activity. Eu funded project Catalyst is developing a suite in right now on private platforms). A direction taken by the french Assemblé navigation of this in between possibility space. through our traces from one possibility to another to find they generate. Bracha Ettinger talks of ideation. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 87 . three new doors appear. problem solving and action. is fits John hagel’s definition of the about the adjacent possible is that its boundaries grow scalable pull platform “where we can draw out the peoas you explore them. in productive ber of the group has access to at least one form of debates and conversations. and support collective In a poetic intervention. and navigate by successive hops Lexical distance among the languages of Europe [http://bit. port of pattern recognition methodologies and pattern creating trans-subjective relationships. of collective intelligence tools aimed at increasing the effectiveness of conversations. Both the holoptic and the anoptic systems are a mode generative potential of conversations around social elled representation of the space in which the actors objects and issues that attract individual intentions into evolve. emergent conversations spaces should support tools to where different Is and non-Is co-emerge.” Steve Johnson. Keep opening new doors and eventually you’ll have built a palace. You begin in a room with four doors. analyzed and interpreted with the supand engraving their traces in shareable threads. learning (the situation we are increasingly finding ourselves by doing. by imprinting described above. Imagine if our various logics. vocabularies. what Stiegler calls the regions of the logos could be mapped by degree of familiarity or closeness with each other. languages. each leadSuch emergent spaces would support the project of ing to a new room that you haven’t visited yet. visualize and navigate contextualized data such as transformed. D I S T R I B U T E D S P A C E S F O R and when each member can situate him/herself in C O N V E R S A T I O N . which involves dealing with intersubjectivity collective effort could be leveraged through emergent and the connections between representations.

(2004). o. “le devenir algorithmique (2): Conthe logic of our own realities and shared experiences. the nurturing and the reproduction of the distributed factors of opportunity and of ongoing health and thrivability of the system. legitimacy of information. or cultural etc. pretation.ly/1ynlxoW> [retrieved 15 november 2014]. & KoSTAKIS. e goal is to design and monitor the C AT Aly ST p roJEC T . as an open source visual lan<http://bit. Collective Intelligence Tools dynamics we generate by our activity in a way <http://bit. common to B I B L I O G R A P H Y & R E F E R E N C E S ‘local’ interpretative languages. and ensure the protection. is critical. générateur poiétique < http://bit. naître l ’ i n c o n n u ” < h t t p : / / b i t . that words can bring. B. as factors of thrivability and renewal ed Manual for People. to reinstate the web as a distributed space for hermeneutics and controversy with protocols. A meta-pattern language (this denomination is not cast in bronze) could provide abstract elementary components as building blocks. C. bilities. to Cyberactivism <http://bit.Book Two language would concentrate on systemic phenomee process of creating life (Berkeley: e Center for na and their effects in space and time. (1982). (2012) . (2002). whether discipline-related. Reasoning. potentials. and more. C. e conception of the plAST will be based on observations of dynamics and effects in different scenarios by communities of practice. Systems dynamics and Systems inking. contrasted and integrated with known and documented dynamics and effects from various disciplines such as Complexity theory and complexity economics.ly/1B1vcmE> [retrieved 15 november 2014]. Collectives. (2014).ly/1v3bfbf> [retrieved 15 november 2014]. Mathematics. guage we called plAST (pattern language for sys(2011). with variety of roles. A SSE MBlé V I rT u El l E . In particular we need to acquire capabilities to examine the dynamics that lock us into structures that are unfit and detrimental to the thrivability and renewal of the system through time. looking for tracks in what we ‘observe’ in fAuré. e language is made of elementary BAuWEnS. based on systemic inter[retrieved 15 november 2014]. (2006). peer-to-peer network <http://bit.cooperation with the Institute for research and Innovation (IrI) at the Center georges pompidou in paris and the W3C chaired by Tim Berners lee. e Matrixial Borderspace (Mineapoceptions and interpretations of relations. alization and discovery tools described above. M. and Companies Driven of the system. (2009). We envision it as a symbolic code for sharing perE TTIngEr . T H E L A N G U A G E O F C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E integration. ognize and interpret our systemic tracks in ArgyrIS. that is regenerative of commons in their widest dE ugArTE. d. and action: individdynamic ways. standards for annotation and new forms of semantic based queries where contributive communities would act as guardians of collective intelligence. ideological. Visuals allow direct representations of sequences and combinatory without the ‘baggage’. to perceive and interpret the tracks that we leave in the medium. It is a tool aimed at working across boundaries to generate discussions and debate on systemic phenomena and their effects and what can be done about them. (2005). V. effects and lis: university of Minnesota press). founder of the web. in connection with the data visuual and organizational (San francisco: Jossey-Bass). to evaluate possi<http://bit. e Nature of Order .com sequences that can be probed. A language of collective intelligence could develop in the form of a web of pattern languages that could help make sense of situations and phenomena in various ‘regions of the logos’ and design appropriate solu8 tions. learning. H E L E N E F I N I D O R I | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E I S A C O M M O N S | 88 . e Power of Networks: An Illustratdefinition. C. Concept of Anopticism pattern language. natural Systems. recompose observed or intended patterns of sys<http://bit. l y / 1 E 4 l m K W > and in relation to higher levels of aggregation and [retrieved 15 november 2014].ly/1rvxkvu> [retrieved 15 november 2014]. cognitive sciences.ly/1pyhh4p> [retrieved 15 november 2014]. All these tools and applications of technology are ways of operationalizing collective intelligence towards the safeguard of our capacity as humans assisted by machines. to help recEnvironmental Structure). “network Society and components that will help decompose and future Scenarios for a Collaborative Economy”. to improve our ability to use the web for our own good in particular for determining the validity. let’s concentrate on building them in good collective intelligence! gaining more insight on the dynamics at play in the system beyond the evaluation of spatial tracks and status of the system. A group of us is working to launch such metaA u BE r . but humans nonetheless. temic behaviour into ‘human computable’ Bruno. C.ly/1vvd2l2> [retrieved 15 november 2014]. is meta-pattern AlExAndEr. “Some time of available human brain (homage to patrick le lay)” in Iteratures. network theory.ly/1xVisrr> —— temic transformation). on a similar note howard reingold suggests the institution of communities of curators of the web.

In Globalization as evolutionary process: modeling global change: 284 (routledge). f. —— (2015). (2008a). hEylIghEn. Cognitive Surplus: How Technology Makes Consumers into Collaborators (new york: penguin press). r.ly/1yfQyzn> [retrieved 15 november 2014]. h. (2010).org Conversations <http://bit. digital Studies website < http://bit. B. (1955). (2014). ShIrKy. C.re/1hz hB zj> [retrieved 15 november 2014]. ThIEl p.ly/1uyS4Qe> [retrieved 15 november 2014]. <http://on. (2014). —— “pharmakon (pharmacologie)”. 2 /2 0 1 4 | ——. S.—— (2006) . “dilemmas in a general eory of planning” in Policy Sciences: 155-169 (Amsterdam: Elsevier). V ICTor . Smartly Made.re/1necT88> [retrieved 15 november 2014].re/128nfyq > [retrieved 15 november 2014].ly/11xd2of> [retrieved 15 november 2014]. “Stigmergy as a universal Coordination Mechanism: components. e Power of Pull: How Small Moves. & MElVIn W. <http://bit. looMIo.wsj.. n ouBEl . “A propos de la rétention” <http://bit. <http://slidesha. Can Set Big ings in Motion (new york: Basic Books). “e genius of the Tinkerer”.com/ 1fET tg0> [retrieved 15 november 2014]. (2012) .” To appear in T. fInIdorI.ly/1prf0qA> [[retrieved 15 november 2014]. “Inventing on principle” at Cusec2012 <http://bit. Marsh (Eds. C O L L E C T I V E 8∑8 I N T E L L I G E N C E | 89 . Spanda Journal. l. (V)1: 5-14 <http://bit.ly/1jobrhg> [retrieved 15 november 2014]. h. J. varieties and applications. (1973). T. luft.f. Human Stigmergy: eoretical Developments and New Applications. (2001).). S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . “An Ecology for Transformative Action Awaiting to be discovered”. Collaborative decision making <http://bit.S & dAVISon. (2010). Arsindustrialis website < http://bit. La Voie: Pour l’avenir de l’Humanité (paris: fayard).W. JohnSon. —— (2014). <http://slidesha.wsj. M AlonE . B. Epistemology and Rational Ethics (Springer) <http://bit. (2015). (2010). Transindividuation. E. STIEglEr.ly/1hMxzll> [retrieved 15 november 2014]. J. h. “Accelerating socio-technological evolution: from ephemeralization and stigmergy to the global brain”. Conversation between Bernard Stiegler and Irit rogoff <http://bit.(re)generative of Commons” <http://bit.com/1pgCuof> [retrieved 15 november 2014]. VAndErSTrAETEn.ly/1fu Kkz p> [retrieved 15 november 2014]. “A pattern language for Systemic Transformation (plAST) . MorIn. roy. Ingham. <http://slidesha. (2011). Studies in Applied Philosophy. “We Move… Building an Ecology for Transformative Action”. & BroWn. (2005) . —— (2012). lewis & l. e Wall Street Journal. “observing Systems: a Cybernetic perspective on System/Environment relations” Journal for the eory of Social Behaviour 31 (3): 297-311. “Collective Intelligence” Edge. “e Johari window.ly/1z33e5g> [retrieved 15 november 2014].ly/1vwxd0C> [retrieved 15 november 2014]. —— (2014). B.ly/1gzJf4k> [retrieved 25 April 2014]. (2012) . J. “What is holopticism”. “Competition is for losers” e Wall Street Journal <http://on. J. “An Ecology for Transformative action & Systemic Change”. “eoretical proposals 1”. “open to participate”. hAgEl. a graphic model of interpersonal awareness”. rITTEl. in forthcoming Open to Participate: Catalyzing Insight and Cognitive Flow in Groups (Alderlore Insight Center). (2010).ly/1wIq975> [retrieved 30 october 2014]. Proceedings of the western training laboratory in group development (los Angeles: uClA).

THE TIBETAN BOOK OF PROPORTION M I C H E L B A U W E N S | T H E O P E N - C O M M O N S ~ S H E E T 2 5-2 8 . B A S E D K N O W L E D G E | 6 .

D E F I N I T I O N S Concrete Collective Intelligence: In our human world the earliest collectives that form are related to the concrete behaviour of the collective. our evolutionary predecessors. Sometimes the individual sense of self seems to be foregrounded and sometimes the collective appears to be the primary entity. for example. some definitions are in order. spiritual director and designer of transformative containers. but one that up shifts from concrete. innovation and creativity. Africa and the South Pacific. emotional and relational health. seem to be in a rocking chair relationship. likewise. 2013). verifying three later adult developmental levels. S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . cows. Venita counsels. Terri holds Masters degrees in Special Education. and yet the school as a whole morphs and changes form as the entire collective moves as one. even as each creature has its own autonomy.T E R R I O ’ FA L L O N ~ V E N I TA R A M I R E Z ~ G E O F F F I T C H COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE AS A CAUSAL GROUND P Terri O’Fallon is researcher.S. each one independent of the other. She recently completed research on the Integral StAGES developmental model. each bird an independent entity but the entire flock seems to have a collective intelligence that operates as a unit. and co-produced Causal Leadership trainings in North America. we see birds in flocks flying in the skies. Venita was a contributor to the StAGES developmental research. through causal collectives. He holds a master’s degree in Transpersonal Psychology from Sofia University and B. is very rocking back and forth seems to contribute to the energy of individual and collective evolution itself (o’fallon. and leadership. With Pacific Integral since 2006. a flock of birds or a pack of wolves. trains and consults with individuals. but flowing along with the collective as if there is intelligence outside of any one creature. in Computer Science. Because of the evolutionary aspects of collective expression. through subtle through causal consciousness and intelligence. and a creator of transformative leadership education programs worldwide. Collective intelligence seems to be a product of nature itself. We know that humans are different than a school of fish. teacher. on-line. He has been exploring diverse approaches to cultivating higher human potentials for over 25 years. herds of animals-sheep. in Spiritual direction and an Integral PhD in Transformative Learning and Change. which takes C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 91 . and facilitator of growth in individuals and organizations. trainer. Geoff Fitch is a coach. Geoff also has over 30 years experience in leadership in business and is founder and partner of Pacific Integral. but it is important to situate this experience within the trajectory of the evolution of consciousness itself. What we have discovered about collective consciousness in humans is that it has some of the same qualities as our earlier forms. coach. through contextual and systemic collectives. groups and organizations worldwide. including somatic and transpersonal psychology. and collective intelligence. She brings extensive knowledge in somatic and energetic approaches to psychological well-being and thirty years of experience in transformative education and personal development. We want to highlight the latest form of collective intelligence that we are experimenting with. behave in much the same way. arising with the earliest of mobile life then evolving in and through humanity. Terri is a partner of Pacific Integral. and in-person in the areas of adult development. which creates transformational programs in Causal Leadership. magna cum laude. leadership. each creature having separateness. from tribal and mythic collectives. 2 /2 0 1 4 | I N T R O D U C T I O N EErIng doWn Through A glASS BoTToM boat. we can see a school of fish. from Boston University. Collective Causal Consciousness. mystical traditions. integral theory. wolves. ese two forms. the individual and the collective.

and thus are fleeting tively. offering his or her parthe constructing nature of the individual mind ticular skills and gifts fully. contextual-systems and concrete community expressions that they have lived within. R A M I R E Z ~ G . this is first experienced as a “state” – i. individually and collecwhich are ever changing. All individuals move in and out of leadessentially seen as empty. “Causal” is humanity. which we have been pure openness. iours. When conflicts arise they are participate in Causal Collective intelligence as a faced honestly. with a clear. egos Integral in our generating Transformative Change not attached to personal will or agenda. beliefs. o’fallon.e. one begins to feel the that hold people in place and give space for shared subtle energy with and between participants. open. empty of bias through the entire experimenting with for the past ten years at pacific meeting. we need to define the word “Causal”. and of collective consciousness. e clear. they begin these collective norms and the result is uniform conforto “causalize” the former. so that ideas and other subtle forms of contribuand illusionary. ese Subtle Collective Intelligence: A subtle collective is defined communities tend to release the subtle ceilings as a context.precedence over the independence of the individual of causal consciousness (T. spaciousness that makes up stories. 2014). anyone can her best skills forward. receiving and exchanging information. it is a unleashing unique creative potential in service to the temporary realization that can be experienced all whole. 2011). alludand future. in favour of what is best for the gies. g. us each person represents a human expresshare a collective experience and understanding sion of a bird in a flock for they can move within the of how they can source from this infinite causal collective human flock but not outside of it. with an understanding that there is a temporary state. Each and all program. is experienced in each moment with the realKegan. good of the whole of existence. 2008). To understand causal collective intelliremain open. Subtle collective Imagine sitting in a board meeting or legislative intelligence is a very advanced and profound. influencing concrete and subtle collective intelligence is concrete. affirming and supporting each person to bring his or along the path of evolution.. like concrete and subtle intelligence. very subtle. even as they are introjecting these very energies. dispotential. roughout the meeting each person is ing to emptiness. based on strict behavcollective intelligence by collectively accessing ioural rules. which matures into a permanent deeper truth required in order to move forward. fitch. vast. & in what we call concrete collectives. usustage that one can walk around with as an ordinary ally a truth that considers the wellbeing of a larger part of existence. us. is is the individual expression T . tinction and integration of agency and communion. subtle behaviours and beliefs into themselves. bringing forth the best in each. or a system. likewise. F I T C H | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E A S C A U S A L G R O U N D | 92 . Each person and the Causal Collective Consciousness: is is a rare form whole group remain present. to be replaced later ership spontaneously. etc into the collective. which A stabilized conscious causal collective begins to are projected outwardly on everyone. knowledge and experience are required (r. later they realize that they themselves are a arising out of this empty creative potential of part of projecting their own subtle energies and behavthe infinite causal ground.. tive intelligence revolves around shared rules. connecsession in which every individual has entered the tive and energetic experience in which individual meeting having released all narrow personal and knowing seems sourced from contextual subtle enerpolitical agenda. us. for to the individuals. and intuition (o’fallon. . l. and each indiarise when enough individuals walk around with vidual introjects those rules as their unquestioning individual causal recognition and expression and identity. creative and engaged. the evolutionary thrust natural skills. feelthe individuals within them to soar in their ing the effect of that collective energy “forming” them as individual causal expressions seated in and individuals. words and boundaries of awareness is palpably present. June 2010). in service gence. here. O ’ F A L L O N ~ V . of sentience and of existence.. and/or energized. the experienced resulting in the empty but fertile individuals simultaneously experience an infusion. past. rough a willingness to surrenization that nothing concrete or subtle is perder attachments to specific outcomes while remaining manent. stepping up when their particular by another one. unbending subtlemity (o’fallon. the organization and the whole of it has many different connotations. and the intelligence. they can begin to see how they C A U S A L C O L L E C T I V E have an effect on these contexts and systems even as the I N T E L L I G E N C E : P R A C T I C E systems and contexts have an effect on their own indiA N D E X P E R I E N C E vidual subtle shape and identity. Individual behaviour is back-grounded to the causal field of existence – that is. Each mind-made fabrication is tion flow freely. lahey. present often defined as an individual attainment. illusion. Concrete collecramerez. V. and a flow through time and space is present to the intended results of a collective vision. the collective serves each individual.

ey then take this learning and inspired realism based on that person’s particular these skills into their own communities. and willingness to receive. Individuals in these Scharmer. and processes that work for all of life. e Canada and the uS have cultivated causal collective words are spoken through the resonance of the consciousness. where no one and everyone are on behalf of the whole of existence. To tence brings a new sensibility and order to priorities S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . Iran. not just for their organization. structures. the united Kingdom. her words inspire another tial to as many people as possible. in the presence of the room and for the emerging outcome. and values. using all of the resources at their disposal. word and deed. 2013. and desire to contribute ethically to the future of our planet. ness on behalf of the collective well being of exisfacilitation is needed to build the foundation. innovation and reason. becoming a clear conduit for the transmisMexico. stimulation and wakefulness within the particular In our experience in working with causal collectives team of collaborators. existence. e words ring true with visionary. Ireland. r. usable structures. is organization is one that effortlessly attracts the highest calibre of professionals who are skilled. creative. and collectively more creative. Kosovo. embodied through the uniqueness of the human they are more uniquely themselves. interpenetrating grams on three continents and among the staff of silence that pervades the entire field of individual our own company. and proC O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E vides fertile ground for collective expansion. productive and aware. gratitude. Australia. beauty.perspective or larger whole. from this place of clarity and openness. they begin to create new structures and re-order current. and collective intelligence. aware of the significant role they play in actualizing that vision. and another. is meeting evokes and invites P R A T I C A L S T E P S T O the best within each individual in terms of perC R E A T I N G C A U S A L sonal gifts and resources on all levels. ese individuals and collectives can see more clearly global systems. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 93 . each person is energized to contribute their skills and experience toward the next steps of a clarified. whole. (ramirez. people speak only and from Ethiopia. we have identified several areas of practice that support their development. palestine. unimagA C L O S E R L O O K ined resources and possibilities seem to appear out of nowhere through the infinite portal that e willingness to release personal will and agenda into is revealed through this collective consciousness an empty spacious field of awareness (ramirez. until Imagine a world in which our corporate and political the conversation is alive with engaged potential leaders have the willingness. france. but for a universal embrace that encompasses as much as awareness can hold. e transcultural human virtues (ray. 1994) for the largest embrace imaginable (the entire planet and beyond) are foundational assumptions of everyone in this leadership collective. new zealand. Because the best in each individual is heart. A facilitator who has stabilective consciousness. globally engaged individuals in and collective consciousness. Kenya. process. 2013) After the meeting. and Causal Awareness over time. passionate. from the clarity of vast open awareness. institutions and individuals who are both preventing and creating greater health. and some have developed the collective itself becomes an attractor for oththe capacity to live from this level of awareness as a ers who are awake to this capacity for causal colbaseline (o’fallon. sion of wisdom. on behalf of the India. e result is a spacious and open field for collective intelligence and collective causal consciousness to arise and offer up the best that humanity can offer itself in thought. inspired to impart this same innovative potenthose constraints. e collaboration of hearts. 1993. service. efficient and productive. voice to speak for the whole. collective purpose and vision. both consciousness offers us this potential. 2007) is the first and necessary action in this collectives are energized. humility. when moved by a deeper impulse. Turkey. Kegan. cities and gifts and areas of expertise and yet not limited by nations. permitted and called forth in relation to the whole. peru. minds and consciousTo open and build a causal field in a collective. yet spoken on behalf of all of and relationally adept. 2010) of compassion. Causal collective responsible for the experience and results. Most people can learn how to enter a state of happy. desire and capacity to act and excitement. We have seen these results lized this stage of awareness may remind everyone to bear out repeatedly in our causal leadership proempty their awareness into a deep. systems. mutual care and a desire to work well together to produce original and high quality products and services for the good of all. conscious. engaged. truth and justice with universal care (gilligan. compassionate. generosity. norway. well-being and aliveness. rough Causal Collective Intelligence. e atmosphere is one of mutual respect. 2012). more emotionally who is speaking.

birth right. R A M I R E Z ~ G . one might find in sitting meditation with others. As participants gain the capacity to be aware of the We work to support the immanent joy that is the empty and still ground in themselves. munity. who identify with and express the moment to moment. We encourage ting go free of fear into what wants to move us individuals and collectives to step into the world and to higher expression. 2013) that one of the essential capacities that supports this allow for the enactments of potential in complex movement is working skilfully with habits of sepcontexts without the need to fully map causes and aration and identification that arise in the subtle conditions are useful. other. F I T C H | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E A S C A U S A L G R O U N D | 94 . We seek to seed this munication and intimacy. play. practice supports the deepening of causally grounded facility in the concrete and subtle our collective consciousness. eory u (Scharmer. physical. their potential is. as we relate. all of which serve the opening into subtle and causal territories dynamically. but Individuals learn to take action and speak in this is only the beginning. rough a variety of practices. We can become colshape the container. like their participants. is process involves a kind of movement through a ing them to take greater steps on their own. action and wisterritories. with projection and introunderstanding in causal collectives so they can jection. o’fallon. and in all of existence while being in comdeepening love. with limited concrete deep habits. and evenso. and to engage in their own evolutionary potential and developmental movement. in each human potential in each individual and collective. our work is oriented towards causal collectives with the explicit knowledge “bringing meditation into life” in the sense that the that while their words and actions my come capacity to embody and hold a causal awareness is susfrom them. by allowdeeper forms of direction and knowing. In practice. e self and collective are formed in the mind viduals in the field who embody the causal awareand may go through a variety of re-incarnations. ethical action. and emotional intelligence. but in the midst anyone else in the collective might have just as of all actions of life. which involves developing over time. cognitive tionary developmental perspective that spans in a way that allow the mind and heart to stay open to birth to enlightenment (T. moving collective intelligence. collaborate. then as a collective. this is acting from T . that is and includes everything. We bring forth in our work an evoluforms of collective work. emotional. We support the collectives to gain greater and from that ground they learn to let come and greater autonomy and self-generativity. embody u process (Scharmer. Working on with these states and ultimately to a degree of selfmultiple levels at once. and is each one’s empty/full All. and so on. 2007). empty ground as we work and play in recognizes the extraordinary diversity of perthose dimensions. awareness tends to narrow when the begins to point to this potential. work. as emergent futures body and mind are in motion. O ’ F A L L O N ~ V . and autopoietic paton the surface.promote a causal field it is necessary to have indiego. this work is similar to an experience terns that shape themselves and the collective. as we construct and re-concausal Self. they don’t own them and that tained not just in mediation practice. communicate. so that as chaldeepen into a wide view of who they are and what lenges arise they can be processed skilfully. organizational frameworks (robertson. we work deeply with authentic comthe smallest of collectives. Since conventional states and stages. into causal states and eventually into identification interpenetrative forms of being. they begin to work with the concrete. As an example. wonder. causal collectives engage generativity with them. to a sense of the in ecstasy and the delight of being. causal collectives. ongoing take shape through experiments or prototypes. in gTC and in our spective and embodiment that can occur even in organization. In doing this individually. engage ence without separation or cynicism. 2011) and the deeper. it is necessary to develop collaborative approaches tually learn to continually return to the empty that support the level of complexity that exists at the ground together allowing a deeper intelligence deeper territories of awareness that arise in the causal to emerge through them. is requires us to step into the next territory of practice. ness of awareness. in a kind of meta-reflection as needed to identify the stories. humour. moral sense. us. participants first practice experiment with the promptings that call them. opening the heart to all subtle experifinally. 2007) ness is. and letin collaborative action in the world. It is also essential to learn to comimages and practices around collaboration are fortably act in the emergent. no matter how evolved one’s awareknowledge and foresight. as the one consciousness lives through form to emptiness. Causal collectives must be skilled in all dom. easily spoken them. by opening the the practices that support their opening to the causal mind to all concrete experience without judgground and collective development. new practice and learning are important. and who have permission and agency to struct our sense of what is. constructs. lectively aware of how we conceive of ourselves injunctions and expressions the collective is drawn in every moment and let go into more fluid. ment.

r. Spanda Journal. S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . C. In over our heads: e mental demands of modern life. CA. (2010). Causal leadership: A natural emergence from later stages of awareness. MA: harvard graduate school). . Causal collective consciousness has the potential to transform society and the world as we know it. l. r. (1994). eory U: leading from the future as it emerges (Cambridge: e Society of organizational learning). SChArMEr. In a different voice: psychological theory and women’s development (Cambridge Mass.. 2014]. r AMIrEz . lAhEy. o’fAllon.waytogrowinc.com: e deliberately developmental organization). in addition to frameworks and practices that support it. VII (2). R E S E A R C H A N D S U M M A R Y In support of understanding the levels of collective intelligence. g. Transcultural caring dynamics in nursing and healthcare (philadelphia. (2014). WA: pacific Integral). M. (2007). KEgAn. enlivening. pA. “developmental Experiments in Individual and Collective Movement to Second Tier”. following over 200 people and 17 collectives from various countries and all segments of society. A. 8∑8 8 R E F E R E N C E L I S T gIllIgAn. rAy. StAGES: growing up is waking up – interpenetrating quadrants. fITCh. (2013). WA: pacific Integral). Some of these collectives have been tested and retested 5 times. e Senses: demystifying awakening. davis Company). T. in which leadership can be and is present in each “I” and “We” in any moment. o. Cambridge (Cambridge. o’fAllon. (2008).a deep sense of purpose on limited knowledge without a need for a master plan (while building on every other practice we have mentioned). (ramirez. and then followed up every two years.: harvard up). (producer). is supports our premise that causal collective consciousness is a compelling. a contemplation kosmos”. e deliberately developmental organization (www. f ITCh . r. g. (1993). III (1): 97-103. paper presented at the Integral eory Conference. & rAMErEz. “Community and conscious evolution. the development of causal collective consciousness takes trust and a sense of humour. e results show that with the experience of our Causal Intelligence experiment in our gTC program. Journal of Integral eory and Practice. Just like in our endeavour to learn and master any new skill.. we have developed a model of leadership that has become known as Causal leadership. states and structures (Seattle. Generating transformative change (Seattle. Additionally. 5(2): 149-160. T. Jan 20.. Kosmos. pacific Integral has ongoing longitudinal research where each person in our cohorts are given a developmental assessment. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 95 . “development and consciousness: growing up is waking up”. V. differentiating organization and Tribe [retrieved oct 31. KEgAn. (2013). is research is now in its 10th year. engaging and deeply productive form of awareness. & o’f Allon T. 2013. 2013) which re-interprets leadership in light of an understanding of individual and collective as deeply interpenetrated.: f. V. —— (June 2010). —— (2012). —— (2013). paper presented at the Integral theory Conference. (2011. San francisco. San francisco CA.A. roBErTSon. —— (2011). 2011). individual and collective intelligence continues to grow of its own accord.

THE TIBETAN BOOK OF PROPORTION E R V I N L A S Z L O | T H E O N E M I N D I N ~ T H E S H E E T 2 9-3 2 . C O S M O S | 2 .

for example. I polled them on the column headings in fIgurE 1. and a group of experts remodelling your home. | ’ T A D D R E S S T H E C H A L L E N G E S While the main goal in this article is to share my revelations on new. What I learned during my visit to the uS agency will likely be similar to your experiences. a national Academy of Science study. Norman L.N O R M A N L E E J O H N S O N THE APPLIED SCIENCE OF COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE : SOLVING THE GRAND CHALLENGE FACING HUMANITY Dr. and cybersecurity. we need an understanding of why we’ve painted ourselves into a corner and possibly feel trapped by our solution methods. approaches to solving the hard problems. a plumber overseeing a team fixing your septic system. norman@SantaFe. possibly radical. I began with polling them on the perceived problem difficulty of their portfolio. such as crowdsourcing and prediction markets. 2 /2 0 1 4 W E D O N G R A N D ? o you SolVE proBlEMS ThAT you WAnT To S P A N D A e frequency of failure modes and diversity levels for different classes of solution methods. J O U R N A L V . epidemiology. with the large C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 97 . none of the program managers believed they were addressing the grand challenges in their research area. what are the resources that we are not embracing to address these challenges? ese are the questions I will address. e “Teams of experts” method is a common approach to solve high complexity problems or inquiries. “Teams of teams” method is when teams both compete with each other and share common resources and best practices. e “Advance collective methods” approach is a catchall for the modern collective methods. What I learned shocked me. I was invited to give a talk to about 100 program managers overseeing this research. on the importance of diversity in solving hard problems. To understand if the program managers’ solution methods were limiting their choice of problems. e program managers’ response was that 95% of them used the first three methods. e first three methods from the left are easily recognizable: a plumber fixing your drain. To better understand their world. from routinely easy to a grand challenge where experts are in disagreement. Johnson is currently Chief Scientist of Referentia Systems. He retired from Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2005 after 25 years as a senior scientist and program manager and is a sought-after speaker on the importance of diversity in organizations. Why is it that we are not taking on the challenges that could really change the world? And if we knew the answer to this question.edu fIgurE 1 ~ D O Y O U D R I V E S O L U T I O N O R D R I V E D Y O U W H Y T H E D O E S I T solve? or do you solve the problem that you think you can solve? e significance of this inquiry became evident to me during a visit to a uS agency responsible for tens of billions of dollars of research for the public good.

T H E C U R T A I N “group conflict” is when internal disagreements or conCollective intelligence (CI) is defined as an outflicts prevent a group from reaching a conclusion. when the individuals or group hit a barrier of difficulor even an information technology within an ty that can’t be surmounted. view of diversity. When individuals or groups solve problems. not having access to sufficient information or skills to solve the problem: if you had these resources. “herd thinking” is when C I : T H E W I Z A R D B E H I N D everyone in the group has the same contributions. page. 2011. ence of CI studies how diverse information is combased on their experiences. “hitting the complexity barrier” is organization. particularly the challenges. for a solution. CI captures many forms of collective is discussed in more detail shortly. “group inefficiency” is when a group deciindividual. a review of results surprising. e complexity failure mode depends on the problem difficulty and As defined. and often better than any individsion process takes too long. What stands out in these highlights of mainstream science of CI research in crowdsourced responses is that some failure order to establish a foundation to expand the applicamodes tend toward the single expert side and bility and capability of CI. e following summarizes the response of the crowd. but and in the following references: a review of forty years of inefficiencies favour the collective methods. yet. introducBecause this agency isn’t solving grand chaling a collective diversity of solution approaches and lenges.majority using the first two. My experience as a citizen aligns with 1000s of lives worldwide and benefited millions more. and how the Internet may finally particularly a grand challenge. e scimodes that caused each solution method to fail. hong and page. experiences. thereby. biases. even though there are no internal conintelligence from one level–the individual. mainly because we think they are unsolvmodes of solution methods. readers will find more others favour the collective side. the extensive and self-consistent analysis by Scott page and his from the viewpoint that experts are the best collaborators (hong and page. relative to the time required CI captures the increased ual (the expert). To be specific. with the following able by the methods available. we define collective work best for their types of problems. resource to solve problems. difficult for the resources available. But if they diversity. they use different preferences. J O H N S O N | T H E A P P L I E D S C I E N C E O F C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 98 . the team of Age of Enlightenment (rodriguez and Watkins. both the traditional ones of a tures their perception on how much the different century ago. to modern examples. using abstractnumber of checks indicate the greater the ed or idealized models. e selection of the perceive a failure barrier that limits the likelihood methods on the left wasn’t because there weren’t of success. to flicts and all the needed resources are present. hence. an identity group within a society. there are abrupt transitions and peaks: group conflict failure rapidly increases and (Williams and o’rielly. resources in other articles within this special issue on CI isolation failures favour the lone expert. 2005). page. 1996) that capture a traditional peaks for the team of experts and then declines. despite the preponderance of the expertise present. such as the smart outcome of a juried methods utilize diversity – no surprises here. or heuristics What can we conclude from these results? in their solution to the problem. and rodriguez. research on collective processes in organizations And. A team of experts should be modern web-based collective decision methods (Watkins the optimal resource to solve a hard problem. because diversity is a wanted to solve a grand challenge from the perproperty of the collective–not the individual. particularly in descriptions. a group within an company meeting. experts is most likely to fail. e last row capdecision-making. these perceptions: our institutions do not attempt to solve the grand challenges impacting listed in the rows of fIgurE 1 are different failure us all. decision or an election in a democracy. they are using the solution methods that contributions. group another–a collective. e failure mode of “Isolation” is from the presence of biases and conflicts. for example. rather than problems they want to a “teams of teams” success story that has easily saved solve. they N O R M A N L . they solve problems they think success stories on the right: one of the portfolios has they can solve. I found these 2007. as an spective that experts are the best resource. e two levels can be an inefficiency is a common failure mode for the dreaded individual within a group. if we sum realize the full potential of the collective ideals of the the failure checkmarks by columns. 20051. 2009). where the problem is too information system. such as an accurate outcome in a predicI then asked the crowd to select the likely failure tion market or online recommender system. Shalizi. then you could solve the problem. e darker the box and bined to achieve a collective solution. 2001. or just diversity. even come where a collective solves a problem betthough all the necessary resources are present to solve ter (typically more accurately) than the average the problem. 2008).

selecting only the dominant preferdent of the level of diversity. each individual solves the maze with a set of rules (heuristics) that eliminate unproductive loops and dead ends. note that the maze has multiple optimal paths – two are shown in fIgurE 2. To study the problem. while the average individual error is constant. is that the collective always ty. the contribution that the individuals contribute to the collective can of the collective diversity is bounded. is found to occur from the closure of unproductive but A major contribution of Scott page to the science unclosed loops in the individual solutions2. indepentive. or there is a affect the collective solution: the novice preferences are limit to the beneficial effect of diversity. any reduction in an individual’s contribution caused a decline in the collective performance. even es. tionships appear to hold for all CI problems and are and found that.Collective diversity. individuals. is lower for the collectives of novice individuals come following observations illustrate the imporpared to a collective with established individuals.1998): the solution of a maze (see insert in fIgurE 2) by a group of non-interacting. 2) Because the colese results illustrate how the quality of information lective error cannot be negative. because the myopic individuals have no reason to choose initially one path over another. ese qualitative relaence or providing all preferences with equal weighting. the loops are eliminated and the individual path is shortaggregation of the expression of unique differences of ened. because diversity increases with the number of the collective solution. of individuals are combined. e the average individual becomes an expert or the study looked at many different ways that the individual problem is relatively simple and all individuals solve the problem.8) for collectives of different sizes. the coltance of this theorem. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 99 . called the Diversolutions. e collecof CI is the proof that these two factors are quantitive curves with novice information in fIgurE 2 are based tatively coupled for certain types of problems on preferences that include the loops in the individual (page 2007. capturing the though the individual error is the same for both groups. note that hong and page (2001) examined col~ e individual ability factor: Individuals in the lectives with diverse heuristics in a different model collective must have a minimum degree of ability problem and found the similar conclusions. e insert shows the problem being solved. 1) As the diversity increaslective error for the established group is lower. the more accurate rem. 3) When more “noisy” than the established preferences. but do not explicitly select a short path (they don’t count steps or have gpS). except for filtering the novice noise. e reain solving the problem in order for the collective son for the collective improvement in the maze study solution to be accurate. a diversity of preferences at a node are created. myopic individuals. for example. the foundation for the rest of this article. S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . and To better appreciate the types and sources of diversithe most remarkable. the preferences of a group individuals relative to the group. again. for the collective. the collective error decreases. importance of diversity in CI. hong and page 2011). and the same individual heuristics provide the collective solution. Although each individual uses the same heuristics. When an individual uses these learned fIgurE 2 ~ e number of steps in the collective divided by the average individual preferences to solve the maze steps (12. Many CI model problems remarkably have in common two conclusions or observations that establish fIgurE 2 shows how collectives with larger numbers the foundation of the science of CI: solve the problem better than the average individual. then the average individual can filter or modify their contributions to the collecerror and the collective error go to zero. consider the model problem I studied (Johnson. while the established information results are sity Prediction theorem: Collective error = Average for preferences without the loops. finally. Because the diversity individual error . demonstrating the diversity prediction theo~ e diversity factor: e greater the expression of the diversity of the collective.

more difficult mazes. as captured by the counterintuitive. there are additional CI model results for the minimum performance level of the individual – that are counterintuitive to most beliefs about colsuch as in the Condorcet’s Jury eorem (dietrich. shows the results of the study as the difficulty of the can be “trumped” by a diverse collective. again agreeing with the diversity prediction theorem. hong and page. a hong and page studied a hill-climbing problem with many local maxima. the maze becomes more complex. are not often realized in real probdiverse population of intelligent agents. result relies on the intuition that. What they Clearly these assumptions and others like them made in found was that diversity trumps ability: “[…] popular CI books (Surowiecki. I increase in the difference between the number of N O R M A N L . one example is a study on the 2008). 2004). the above randomly selected agents outperforms a team studies suggest that a group of poor performers still can comprised of the best-performing agents. but this random group only did marginally better than a group of relatively poor performers! remarkably. assumptions unexpected. 2004. the team of poor performers contained a diversity of solutions (paths in the maze) that when combined found a better solution. and the goal was to common understanding of the problem. I concluded that as long as the individuals had some ability – they did not solve the maze using a random walk – fIgurE 3 ~ Performance of the average individual and a large collective. they become similar. 2011). as the initial pool of problem solvers becomes large. even though their individual solutions were relatively poor. find the optimal global maximum. Similar to hong and page (2004). while simplifying when selecting a problem-solving team from a the model analysis. the above results for the science of CI are a shortest path. As experts disagree. the absence of bias (a preferential inaccuracy). performed the average individual. unfortunately. not surprising for later reference. even in the case when the individuals are cussed in a later section. even though the individual heuristics do not include any concept of a overall. poor performers. where #5 is in fIgurE 2. and therefore. a team of lems. and a common goal. for maze increased from left to right. the ability of the individuals to accurately commuCI of teams of different individual performance nicate with each other (no or minimal miscommunica(hong and page. the average indie results of a related study that I did3 are even more vidual performs more poorly. we note that this problem doesthe least complex maze in fIgurE 3 (#2). is express CI. compared the diverse collective solution outto the optimal solution. is is an example of an emergent solupowerful statement of the collective’s ability to tion and is a result of the individual heuristics and the amplify weak “true” signals or diverse structures of structure of the maze (White and harary. for example. e the individuals into a robust and accurate collective significance of this for CI and grand challenges is dissolution. tion). fIgurE 2 methods. this conclusion is weakened by the restrictive assumptions in many of While the above results are not controversial or the CI model studies above. I did a study where I kept the individual of problem-solving diversity. 2001). yet. the bestB R E A K I N G T H E performing agents necessarily become similar in C O M P L E X I T Y B A R R I E R the space of problem solvers. particularly the hardest problems. lective performance. finds one of the minimum paths. so these assumptions are likely too restrictive. e insert shows the mazes.” hence. eir relatively greater ability is more than offset by their lack In 19985. in this heuristics fixed and then challenged the individuals and model problem when experts optimize their collective with larger. In a separate study of the same maze problem4 with individuals using different heuristics. all the individn’t capture our grand challenge definition where uals and the collective solve the maze optimally.found that a group of randomly selected individuals of all performance levels did better than a collection of high performers. J O H N S O N | T H E A P P L I E D S C I E N C E O F C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 100 .

your desktop and great circles on the surface of en. Because traditional approaches systems of beliefs. even more complex mazes. And. yet is fundamentally incompatible plex. in matheall of the maze solutions. reflecting the shortcomings of requiring Because the results in fIgurE 3 are for collectives of 500 objectivity (a solution without bias) or generaliindividuals. the first option is less evolved belief system may not be compatible with other interesting here. or 3) develop complexity of modern world. A system of beliefs can a collective solution method that makes better evolve to be functional and self-consistent. though. the average individual error eral geometry exists that encompasses both but is exceeds the collective diversity. restated for the increase the individual capability. one culture is often not compatible focus on improving individual performance by with other cultures at a fundamental level. and then the average individual and the collective perform equally poorly. We soning to capture a diversity of realities to obtain a can now fill in the missing row in fIgurE 1. the collective error is at a maximum. each urated for a given method. from an objective viewpoint. respectively. e collective solution continues. difto find the optimal solution until the most complex ferent goals. even though the average individual error increases. ods to more extreme forms of diversity (biases. there is a limit to what level of difficulty solution can use the conclusion from the biased reacan be solved for a given collective method. yet. e first extension of CI methods does have ese results provide additional insight into the diversity precedence in other areas of research and appliprediction theorem when problem difficulty increases. similar to the prior examples of CI. erefore. conflicts) or by enabling emergent maze (#6) is attempted. the rest of this paper examtruth from a system of beliefs to make it objective or ines the last option of examining methods that unbiased. the collective diversity is at a maximum for ty in a complex world. an objective and genindividual heuristics. But. for example. even though individuals use biased heurisof a grand challenge is below the collective comtics to obtain a local truth. I increased the matics.” If the difficulty erefore. hence. by extending CI methsolution. situated withuse of diversity. then related in such a way that they corrupt the collective we have the following options using the diversolution. in which the trend continues: the average individual solution gets worse. sity prediction eorem: 1) increase the diversity by increasing the number in the collective. hence. and then the collective too complex to be useful. the collecdiverge or intersect at infinity. too complex to be useful.. we often attempt to remove the addressed. cations. And – this is education. e solution. the objective representation is tive diversity. Certainly many cultures can be viewed information resources such as crowdsourcing from this perspective as they provide consistency and and because the collective diversity becomes satconformity (Bednar et al. And. each of the error begins to increase – this defines a collective biased geometries is useful by being tailored to its complexity barrier. To test this. 2) We can generalize the above observations. but in the process we may lose the context S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . there are two historical geometries based number of individuals to 1000. “hitting the complexity barrier.steps in the average individual solution and optimal make better use of diversity. training. yet a collective vidual. Because increasing the number in their complex environment. the average individual error exceeds the collecwith the other. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 101 . there is a limit to the diffilines: Euclidian where the parallel lines remain culty of problem that can be solved by increasing the parallel and non-Euclidian where parallel lines number of individuals in the collective. the failure mode of herd thinking. Both geometries tive error remains zero or small as the difficulty increasare useful representations of a “reality” such as es. but may not be objective in the collective is relatively easy with modern because of biases. the collective can amplify plexity barrier. if the complexity of the problem only requirement is that the different biases are not coris beyond the collective complexity barrier. then we can attempt a collective the local truths to obtain an objective solution. experience to get better soluthe most insightful – in order to extract a piece of the tions. at a certain level of problem difficulty with fixed the earth. the higher truth. but found the results in on different starting assumptions about parallel fIgurE 3 unchanged. 2010). now suppose that an individual uses one of the “biased” geometries to make a conclusion about e main conclusion from the above results is that their local reality. the while a collective can outperform the average indiindividual is using a biased method. folB I A S E D C O L L E C T I V E S : lowed by the collective solution also getting worse. As the maze becomes more comenvironment. B R E A K I N G T H E until both solutions do no better than a random walk O B J E C T I V I T Y B A R R I E R solution – the lowest performing heuristic. not shown are results for collective solutions. the second option is already being embedded truth. furthermore.

not surprising. societies with a common example. an approach is needed to manage biases and conflicts as they occur in social groups. meaning they can communicate about the ciently complex. 2000). we claim that diversity can behaviour may be incomprehensible to others and seem include biased representations of the problem. if someone attacks a member in your family. applied to the same environment. When a problem is suffiworld. meaning they agree on (pfeifer and Scheier. biased methods can be aligned with the earlier conclusions about ~ A common understanding and vocabulary of the collectives and diversity. Within this restricted Wooten and reed. With“others” outside of the identity group. but may have different preferences at each decision point. largely without rational choice6. Akerlof and Kranton.” And when triggered. I prefer to use social group identity instead of culture as the more N O R M A N L . conflicted identity groups will pick opposing actions. but can have different individual preferwith relatively simple rules evolved in a complex yet ences of these options. ese observations about non-objective. for example. by allowing fundamental disagreement on options or miscommunications in understanding. particularly when in a triggered state. and meaning of that truth within the system of beliefs. prior CI studies. a robot options. In the following. of diversity. in addition to the human tendency to develop social group identity from minor or random similarities that may not easily be described as culture (Benner et al.common way of capturing the dynamics of consistency and conformity in social groups (Bednar et al. you can see that a social identity group largely satisfies the prior CI assumptions and S C I E N C E O F C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 102 . both abstracted and a group” and “other. Campbell and Mickler. 1998. Tesser. 2001. beyond the point where an expert world around them without misunderstanding or has utility. 1999).. the identity applied. When triggered. artificial intelligence in the 1980s achieved a social identity have characteristics that are highly major breakthrough by a situated and embedded relevant for the management of diversity in a colapproach to robotics. diverse individuals capture portions of the conflict. other fields have arrived at similar conclusions. for example. but not including diversity as it occurs in more complex domains. make the assumption that the individuals group will coordinate behaviour (herd thinking) and in the collective have shared goals and compatibiliactions. you feel attacked. ty of shared information. 2010 ). bias and conflicts. from this list. To advance this argument. J O H N S O N | T H E A P P L I E D ~ Reinforcing social influence within the group and reactive influence between opposing groups. Social group identity is a general concept that includes culture. In the prior maze study.. though they may be incompatible with other indi~ A unifying response to uncertainty or threats that occurs by viduals. truth as weak signals or structures that the collective ~ Uniform and tacit knowledge that is not accessible to can amplify and bring forth as a strong truth. viewpoint. for groups. all real environment outperforms a general intelligence individuals agree on the connectivity of the maze. after three decades of failing to lective: develop a general and objective intelligence model ~ A common worldview. 2006 . organizations. diversity is expressed only by exploring 1983). this claim is in contradictriggering the expression of social identity and causing indition to all of the assumptions of the CI model studies viduals in the group to distinguish strongly between “self as cited earlier. including acting irrationally (Cialdini. even irrational. A working definition of group identity is if someone does something to a person in your identity group. In this example. TABlE 1 ~ Operating guide of managing collective systems: possible levels you feel like it was done to you. bias and conflicts. the messenger is more important and solving a common problem in the absence of than the message. often tacit in this perspective. for example.

level overwhelm the collective “truth. or goal. for example. for on those options. replacement. lective solution was very robust. the bias expressed by individuals within collectives. once the level is determined. by a larger organization with a variety ese results are a powerful indicator that the collective of activities and goals. as might occur from fore. when and how they fail. tion of “possible” is added because different methodoloWe now consider the evidence that each level in gies at each level can encourage or discourage the TABlE 1 can express CI . and unchanging in the lower levels. In bias. and how to create methods TABlE 1 is an operating guide for managing collecthat minimize the failure modes of collective processes tive systems and solutions. Also note that each level can express the individual toward a certain behaviour. expressing opposing social guide us when collective methods are likely to work. identities in conflict (Ben-ner and hill. much stronger and detrimental than in upper is requirement cannot be over emphasized. and at 75% language. change in the collective performance. but requirement of a collective made up of individumay represent the full diversity of the problem. and thereby indicates which level is possible diversity. particularly on compatibility of goals. etc. but with no disagreement random noise. the diversity in each level of TABlE 1 must be general. biases. thereby creating false information. but are more extreme contributions of diversity must be uncorrelated. And. the collective solution degenerate to a random walk but retains the common worldview (agreement on solution (the worst heuristic). communication. e first evidence for the extension of CI methods At the top level of the list (#1). At 30% replacement of and consequently there may be biases and convalid information from the individuals. level #2 is expressed. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 103 . biases and conflicts of the levels option. and actions. potential diversity. or conflicts. essentially at level #1 are limited to preferences. bias. level #3 releases the commonality of goals. we can use the concept of social identity to a history of opposition. contributions of individuals in a collective) is expressed In the prior studies of diversity and in the conat all levels. e table applied studies of CI assume explicitly or implicitstarts from highly aligned individuals at level 1 to indily the first two levels of diversity – capturing the viduals that are likely to have biases and conflicts. is that the indiagreement on options). but is more likely to be aligned at the top sideration of extensions of CI to biased systems. options at a decision point). but are more severe in the lower definition a correlation in the contribution of an levels. while robustness was found to derive from a broad spec- S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . e type of diversity is in fIgurE 1. level #3 can express biases in bution to not appear in the collective solution as correlated preferences from level #1 and #2. there was no flicts due to incompatibilities of communication. biases (feathere is one requirement that must guide the tures of individuals that do not represent “truths”) can following results and discussion: the random potentially occur at all levels. and in opposition at the bottom. level #2 causing the individuals to relearn the maze. likewise. and conflicts that can be active. level #5 describes the failure mode of group conflict knowledge. 2008). for example. levels. But the colremoves the restriction of a shared group identity. erewhere experts strongly disagree. in order not to ing social identities. the same is otherwise a correlated contribution may overtrue for potential conflicts (features of the individucome the weak “true” signals or structures conals that can cause friction in coordination): conflicts tributed by the individuals. Because bias is by occur at all levels. the addition of random noise was disastrous above a 30% replacement. but without and with opposvidual noise must be uncorrelated. als with common goals and some level of implicit e main insight from TABlE 1 is that diversity (unique coherence and compatibility in their worldviews. so the lective solution in the maze study7 where I replaced diversity expressed at this level is largely in different valid preferences in the individual contribution with preferences of options. as noted above. TABlE 1 has levels of of interest. but which has agreement on solution can tolerate high levels of noise or false inforoptions. but without a company social viduals in the collective. preference. for example. the collective solution recovered the optiby a smaller organization with uniform activities mal solution. e qualificaand conflict possible is then identified. Most abstracted and expression of diversity. for example. biases and conflicts of lower levels are sampled such that the contribution is uncorrelated. requiring only twice the number of indiand common goals.restrictions.” e source of #4 describes when experts “agree to disagree”. level #3 is expressed. where the members of the collective have biases (dise only limitation. Biases and conflicts if they occur the individual solutions. respectively. e last two levels capture types of diversity mation and still retain a high level of performance. in order for any individual contriabove it. a social identity comes from an evaluation of the robustness of the colgroup has the characteristics described earlier. largely determined by the problem and system using the concept of social identity. only at a 95% replacement did identity.

the individual solutions three different problems. but have tive solutions can tolerate high degrees of biases and different options at the nodes. In the simulations of conflicting options. the bution to the collective to find their goal would likely collective solutions still found the optimal path. when triggered. As the noise study of strong local bias – one individual sees a corridor. within each group of individuals with a common bias or goal or social identity. will act to subvert each other is demonstration suggests that individuals to the point of irrational. where a type of food is an option for one 8 individual. the average ing 10 groups of 10 individuals. primarily e average individual performance was 39. #5. based on each of the goals.3 steps. fIgurE 2 caused the maze to be much more difficompared to 12. a collective examined different levels of conflict by ranused the aggregate information from these three groups domly eliminating options at decision points to solve for each of the three goals. a node could represent the act of in TABlE 1. both the individual and collective performance dropped. one might predict that because each subgroup of indiindicating that the individuals easily accommoviduals only make up a third of the total. from a social idenconflicts. Essentially. because opposing social identities. ese individuals are exploring and solving different results provide encouraging evidence that the collecmazes. as for the case when there is only one goal. tions for this article using a collective of individuals N O R M A N L . I biases (only three in this demonstration). each with the same set of options. one that can far outperform the computational behaviour models include social identity average individual. we can conclude that we can add diversity different goals still contains information useful to level #4 in TABlE 1 as a possible candidate for applied CI the collective. e results are in the collective for higher levels of conflicting remarkable and contrary to this intuition. their contridated the changes in the maze. be overridden by the other individuals. as might occur in 10 different identity collective performance for these three goals was 12. is deeply challenging as the problem domain is common”9. hence. J O H N S O N | T H E A P P L I E D S C I E N C E O F C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 104 .6 steps because at 30% closure of options in the maze in when seeking the three different goals as individuals. conflict negotiators will share. quite different goal. a source abstracted model of this level of diversity would require of extreme diversity. so therefore the and only required larger numbers of individuals collective should perform poorly. for each of these levels of diversity. the connectivity on e final level of diversity. CI methods. for example. surviving high degrees of degradation. these contingencies are very persiswhere another sees a wall. can still improve a collecthe model to include behaviour. and none of the current tive solution. Similarly. self-destructive behaviour.8 steps when only the individuals were cult to solve. In order to explore the collective performance for there is diversity in how these individuals solve the diversity level #4 in TABlE 1. e applied example of CI in sis that a collective of individuals having different goals still expresses CI and the diversity prethe section after next shows how modern elicitation diction theorem remains applicable. by creatthey have no experience. as redundant paths are removed. And. Although the options. options. I observed that there was no difference compared to the average minimum number of between the two ways of distributing the conflicts in steps to the three goals of 8. I each with a different goal in the maze. Above 30%. en. showed a minimal drop in performance of 5%. this is an for each individual. but is forbidden to another. while the goals for learning may differ. 2014). An with experience from different goals.trum of contingency solutions that eliminate any that did not agree on options. can add collectives with conflicting goals of level one way to view the above expansion of diversity in CI #3 in TABlE 1 as a candidate for applied CI syssystems is to observe that each level in TABlE 1 becomes tems. above illustrates. trained on a single goal. even though they result from a systems. I did a study where 100 individuals in the initial learning phase were divided into three groups. we methods can address the deep conflicts of level #5. I redid the maze simulaproblem. ese results suggest that CI in this model collective does not robustly find the optimal soluproblem is not highly sensitive to a poor sampling of tion. Based upon concluded “the experience of individuals with these results. hence. greatly increasing the prior understanding another class of diversity that must be managed in the of the applicability of CI. Said another way. When the level of conflicts example where a collective made up of individuals with in options was below 30% (3 in 10 decision experience of three conflicting goals tries to solve the points had conflicts). examining the effect sensitivity to false information. is supports the hypothe(Balke and gilbert. as more diverse systems are considered lower tity viewpoint. which have nodes in common. groups. e large degradation in the individual performance is because an individual is I also examined when conflicts in options occurred trying to find the solution for two goals in which by subgroups rather than in all individuals. remarkably. Also in 1998. eating. each of the tent.

By introducing the concepts of emergent problem definition and problem solving to the CI discussion and resources. In CI applications. the concept that my purchasing history may provide good recommendations to others is stated and a methodology is created to achieve that goal. In an emergent problem definition. Clearly the ants’ heuristics have evolved to provide the best collective outcome. the sampling of diversity at each level must include sufficient variations. because the different types of variation.we must be inclusive of all the variations. the individual heuristics for the maze problem that I studied is to eliminate extraneous loops or dead ends. except for my maze studies. and the how the collective amplifies the individual’s weak signals. and CI methods can be applied to biased and conflicted individuals. And. the collective can only take the common path) and the ant must have some level of ability to solve the local problem. In the section after next. for example. 2 /2 0 1 4 | arises: how can the average individual error be posed when the individual does not have a perception of the global problem and therefore of its own error. 1998). almost interchangeably (hong and page. the goal is an emergent property of the system and is not understandable or defined from the level of the individual. I provide an applied example of how modern expert elicitation and risk technologies can address all the diversity levels in TABlE 1. this section is intended to open a new area of research and application that can significantly extend the applicability of CI methods to grand challenges. but a longer path. even if their contributions are motivated by different goals. similar to the collective performance mechanism in the earlier maze studies. What we have suggested in this section is that the previous limits on CI are too restrictive. Why is an emergent problem definition a philosophical quandary? In all the prior models for CI discussed. is lack of connection of goals between levels could be deeply problematic. the diversity prediction theorem would appear to be applicable. such as bias. but not to find a shorter path. the goal of the CI problem is stated up front (“how many beans in the jar?” or “Who will win the Academy Awards?”) and is understandable by the individual. may not be evident or even knowable. E M E R G E N C E T H E A R R O W A R C H E R : W H E R E L A N D I S D O E S W H E N B L I N D T H E ? unlike the last section that identifies an extension of CI by removing the assumptions and restrictions on prior CI applications. 2001). What if the emergent problem definition is not the “right” one or what if it doesn’t have the “right” ethics? for example. not a shorter path. thereby enabling the collective of ants to robustly find the shortest path between the food source and the nest. 2011). if only individuals of one biased group are included. In my maze studies. is opens CI methods to unimaginable C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 105 . for a given environment. the emergent problem definition and solution is a result of the structure of the maze in combination with the local individual heuristics (White and harary. In the prior section. individual ant heuristics could have generated. But. e classic example of emergent problem solving is when an ant foraging for food contributes its local solution to a collective solution. but is found by the synergy of a diversity of contributions (a CI paradigm). in future emergent CI system. Even in the situation of recommender systems. we concluded that the utility of CI depended on problem difficulty. then the collective solution will reflect that bias as a failure mode of group thinking. But a philosophical question S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . the level of diversity. there is an even deeper quandary to the ant foraging problem: how is the shortest path found when the ants do not have the means or goal of finding a shorter length path in their own solutions? As described earlier. primarily by elicitation methods that do not trigger social identities and where everyone feels they are heard and included. this requirement may prove challenging. or in conflict with other contributors. e discovery of a shortest path by a collective that has no goal to find a shortest path is what I called an emergent problem definition (Johnson. the extension of CI in this section goes far beyond releasing assumptions to opening fundamental philosophical questions about CI. e process by which the shortest path is discovered is not by picking the best performer (an expert selection paradigm). level of individual ability. Many of the aspects that researchers or practitioners attribute to a wise crowd arguably are also associated with an intelligent crowd. Said another way. highly biased. Because the studies of these types of CI systems are still immature. one step beyond an emergent problem solution. the possibility arises that collective intelligence and wisdom could provide both solutions and goals that are not expressed or expressible by the individuals in the crowd. Because high diversity is essential to this collective performance (if all the ants took the same path. only a researcher with a global perspective can evaluate the individual or collective error in an emergent problem. A collective solution using these individuals would be disastrous to the ant colony. how do we create or direct the emergent problem definition or its emergent ethics? Many researchers and practitioners of CI use collective wisdom in the place of CI.

the same is true for emergent collective problem defiother researchers have arrived at similar conclunition and solution: the ethics and abilities of the sions (hallin et al. al. J O H N S O N | T H E A P P L I E D S C I E N C E O F C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 106 . e following is ship. 40.. for instance. for a full discussion of the issues and order. But. Studies show that competition can lead While the goal was of national importance. And many of these “experts” distribution of water in ancient Bali (lansing. see the paper by Jennifer Watkins and myself my account of the lessons learned. likely published documentation of the project exists. which recipes for what environments and local heuristics crein turn created the use of CI extensions above. develoption. including possible biases and the prior section. is is the first (Johnson and Watkins. But a diversity of stakeholders of one solving. What can be rather than any awareness that the CI extensions stated is that in the same way that the individual abiliwere needed to solve the problem. that of developing emergent or generative models that e technical and operational approach evolved can express features or capabilities that go beyond the over a four-month period. nothto loss of cooperation even within small group (Barker.. until the following model itself. but also because of the special interwas made to filter biases or apparent inaccuracies. In fulfilment of the technical biases and conflicts. 2013). 2009).000 expert elicitations from more than 60 submainly because it arose outside the normal power ject matter experts. In 2004. methods of CI. ties were avoided. based on the discussion in of the problem domain. or proper public intervention strateunderstood or studied.opportunities. Because of the fuzzy-set dent Bush released an Executive order. we were driven made in understanding emergent systems. er. such as the range of parameters in infectious the inclusion of emergent problem definition and solumodels. 2006). similar to the maze model described earliindividuals and not their “worst” attributes. e diversity of input N O R M A N L . ble. until progress is the next 9 months. Biodeelicitation and the comprehensiveness of the inference fense homeland Security presidential directive tree. and transparent risk assessment to guide 3) Use small group elicitation. ing like this had ever been attempted before. calling for a comprehensive. presiinated conflict between experts. enabling an individual to express A N D C O N F L I C T S uncertainty. en the fuzzy logic provided risks (probae following is an example of the CI extensions bility of a loss) for each decision path (a scenario). high-risk. the scientific and political experts disagreed expertise was also required in order to overcome on all aspects of the problem. e technical approach was a fuzzy-set and conflicts among the individuals. ate the desired emergent functionality. An infercollective solution may represent the “best” of the ence tree. competition generally was partially because of the complexity and scope of eliminated and conflicts were minimized. high-payoff option. no attempt the problem. a common area of study in complex adapguidelines were used in the final project during tive systems (Miller and page. Said another way. their contribution is included. including multiple paths. ests of the political and scientific groups in main4) Engage as many stakeholders as possible. e A G R A N D C H A L L E N G E fuzzy-set elicitation at the decision nodes allowed for S O L U T I O N W I T H B I A S E S multiple responses. e comtaining the status quo. unlike the extension of CI proposed in the last section. conflicts that arise in large groups where individuals ment. while plexity of the problem required that all stakeholders everyone agreed this was a grand challenge worth were included. 2012). there are no by the need to solve the grand challenge. 2007). defensipendently from other experts. the effort required over world and the intelligence community by surprise. By using small group elicitabiodefense investments across research. Although no ty is amplified by the collective in traditional CI. captured decision points that are connected logically from beginning to end. Interestingly. planning and preparedness. the proper treatment of specific illnesses tion as a resource for CI is barely appreciated. individual will determine the emergent collective 1) Use a methodology that captures the full expression ethics and abilities. et. let alone like Ebola. there is hope that even with bias uncertainties. creating sequences of actions and decisions. 1994). were in deep disagreement on fundamentals. discussed above. each expert could contribute her elicitation inde(hSpd-10). And. across all technical and operastructures (lohmann. because each expert could express and see largely because it was considered too difficult. the emergent data capture on a logic or inference tree. the fall of the Berlin wall caught the By the end of the project. ere are social exprestime I’ve used this as an example of advanced sions of emergent problem solving in human history. e opportunity is similar to gies during an epidemic. Another example is the tional domains. impacting feel the need to defend their specific social or expert identi100s of billions of dollars of uS federal funding. demonstrating that they can be 2) Use a methodology and elicitation that reduced or elimused to solve a grand challenge. I led one of three national efforts: the highopportunities that arise within the context of leadercost.

but by fully embracing humanity’s full diversity. they were understandable due to the diverse collectives outperforming experts and coltransparency of the method. Because the methodolest. is is a major lesson in solvin grand challenges applications. of CI applicability is likely to be inaccurate. without first extracting their (higher performance) and were more robust and objective or unbiased contributions. Indeed. even when the results were contrary to a special together. rather than ones they want to solve. capturing G R A N D C H A L L E N G E S our greater understanding of applied methods of CI in We began this exploration with reflections on how the presence of biases and conflicts. this emerfrom the beginning. it solves problems that they think they can collective aggregation. although integral player. ed to be applicable when the problem domain At the time we did not identify or appreciate how the contains conflicting goals. is increased experts deeply disagreed and were often in conflict. We found that even if stakeholders needed to solve grand challenges. ly appreciated that the methodology also enabled biased We saw that this dismal observation on the state and conflicted experts to contribute to a collective truth. Juxtaposed with these perceived limitations. or conflicts above approach was an example of CI. had we startin the most difficult grand challenges that are poorly ed by choosing the “best” experts to contribute. In order to show that didn’t agree with the conclusions of the project. and biased individuals can the outcome was directly a result of the diverse and comexpress robust CI. by can provide resources that truly solve the most chalusing a process where all stakeholders participated lenging problems facing humanity. solve. the concepts presented and discussed provide interest or a paradigm. A radical perspective then arises prehensive contributions. how groups of low performers. which includviduals embedded in their situated environments ed all of stakeholder diversity. without selection or eliminaon how collectives of biased and conflicted indition of biases. Most pointedly. and the results employ emergent problem definition and solution would have suffered. the involvement in the process gent resource may be the wizard behind the curtain and acceptance of the final outcome was high. global solutions tive systems and of the reluctance of organizations could arise. CI methods are not expectty to respond to even a minor epidemic. CI methods that would have replicated our biases. ese surthe mainstream science of CI. All acceptance of the outcome and reduced conflicts. tional advantage that the deployment benefited In order to better manage this new inclusion of diversity from broad support. e that has repeatedly saved humanity at many ancient full involvement of stakeholders also had the addiand historical transitions. reasons to be optimistic that humanity can address our grand challenges. resilient (performed well with changes). noisy individuals. the ideas presented are achievable with current methodthey could see how the results were obtained from ologies. We learned the following major lessons. “truth” from the biased diversity would arise in the hence. we defined in understanding and goals. after is is an excellent example of how expediency drives a review of the remarkable fringe CI research on innovation. which is only later appreciated. these perceptions of the failure of expert collecogy was process and outcome neutral. led to better solutions can be resources for CI. S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . so that the collective expert methods are deeply challenged. While this generalization is probably unfair for a complex orga5) Use a methodology that didn’t force a solution. essentially connecting parts of the problem to address grand challenges are our common experithat weren’t previously identified. but where the requirements of outcome was that for a broad class of respiratory infecthe abstracted studies and popular CI champions tions that require ventilators in treatment. or even been unusable. but nization that undeniably is serving the public interenabled surprise and innovation. an example is given of a grand challenge project a transparent process and could identify how their that successfully addressed a national problem where contributions were included. offers attractive alternatives of once identified. providing solutions ence. furthermore. not by relying on our experts. e more O P T I M I S M F O R S O L V I N G complex problems of our modern times will require H U M A N I T I E S new resources that are collectively enhanced. and I only recentbetween opposing groups. An example of a surprise lectives of experts. both putting into context fail by not engaging the diverse stakeholders from the mainstream CI research and well as the CI extensions the beginning. the shortage of are unlikely to be met in real world grand chalventilators in local health facilities created a major inabililenges. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 107 . that were innovative and often unexpected. of which I was an prises could be considered emergent solutions. e quality of conflicted individuals. program managers of a multi-billion dollar federal agency choose not to solve grand challenges.enabled uncorrelated biases to cancel. because it 8 apparently perceived that within an expert paradigm. Also. biases. the concept of social ing grand challenges: a good idea or program can identity groups is introduced. We learned that a process.

S.. C. r.A. in human groups. l ohMAnn . o’rIElly (1996). oratory) <http://tinyurl. A. A.com/n4rmv2p> [retrieved 1 2 Johnson. and C. 1998: 33-34. Understanding Inteldiversity: A model of conformity and consistency”. “Some Microfoundations of Collective Wisdom”.. pAgE (2007). “e logic of diversity: e ComplexEvidence”. gence Environments: 245-279. Quarterly Journal of Economics 115: 715-753. Journal of Consumer Psychology 7(1): 79-99. 7 Johnson. “WithpAgE. n. rodrIguEz. T. <http://tinyurl. 3 Johnson. (2004). oct 2014].S.C. Ichalkaranje. And h. STEphAnE.). and W ATKInS . and r. leipzig. report (los Alamos. E.l.” in r. 1998: 26-28. 103.com/lgrkbw7> [retrieved 1 concept: while many behavioral theories include social influence.com/mofnard>. sity Creates Better Firms.J. K. Studies in Computa(2013).E. “e dynamics of Informa8 Johnson. “’fuzzy’ predictions for Strategic decision tional Intelligence: Evolution of the Web in Artificial IntelliMaking: A ird-generation prediction Market”. and S. hong (2012).h. Groups. “how do Agents Make draft of Scott page’s “e difference” (2007). Jain (eds. fEEM Working paper no. hAllIn. 1998: 28-29. and J. r. First Monday 14(8). e Wisdom of the Crowds (new BEn-nEr. “reducing the york: doubleday). and Soci[retrieved 1 nov 2014].. Journal of Artificial Societies and —— (2007). And S. ences 101(46): 16385-16389. CAMpBEll. (Berlin: Springer).. J. and S.A.com/n2vqfgl> [retrieved 7 2014]. “Emergent cultural signatures and persistent pfEIfEr. Influence: science and practice ATKInS . East germany.r. and f. 8∑8 —————— N O R M A N L . decisions? A Survey”.com/kr9q6fv> [retrieved 1 Sept 2014].com/n8shvp2> [retrieved 1 nov lished paper. A. hArAry (2001).E. l. (2010). Complex Adaptive Systems: An Introduction to Computational B I B L I O G R A P H Y Models of Social Life (princeton: princeton up). (2009) . landscape: Charting Emergent Collective leader6 is is an excellent example of why social identity is a clarifying ship” <http://tinyurl. p. BArClAy. 1998: 34-36.” Behavioral Ecology 23: 735-74. MCCAll. “problem Solving WIllIAMS. pAgE bridge up). “Collective problem solving: functionality beyond the individual”.h.com/mgod58e>. “e 4 Johnson.E. MIllEr. hIll (2008). —— (2004). (2005). JonES-rooy. plexity in Bali (princeton: princeton up). Rationality and Society 22(4): 407-444. rEEVE (2012). SChEIEr (1999). based Collective decision Making Systems. ligence (Cambridge: MIT press). Schools. hong. negative Consequences of Identity: A potential role T ESSEr . & S. and S. Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics doubt in conformity”. g. and C. K. T. A. d. letin.l. Technical 1 is is an earlier draft of Scott page’s book “e difference”.y. World Politics ∑ 47(1): 42-101 <http://tinyurl. J O H N S O N | T H E A P P L I E D S C I E N C E O F C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 108 . S uroWIECKI. <http://tinyurl. eties (princeton: princeton up). and the Age of Enlightenment from a Collective decision h. BrAMSon.JohnSon.06 ity of a Controversial Concept”. J. and l.. August 3.com/lfuza26>. “demography by heterogeneous Agents”. Research in Organizational Behavior 20:77-140. “Informaoutperform groups of high-ability problem tional Influence and the Ambiguity of product Experisolvers”. 1998: 32-33. M. (2006). unpublished paper. S. “Economics and pAgE. and M. rodrIguEz (2008). 1998: 22-24. “Collective pathfinding Paper Series. “e foundations in-group competition reduces cooperation and payoffs of Collective Wisdom”. 13: 217-233.A. Elster (eds). and AMErICuS rEEd II (1998). WATKInS (2009). h. M. gy. S. Santa Fe Institute Bul(August 1. “Identity and Self-other differenMaking Systems perspective”. l. A. and B. B. nayak. Journal of Economic and diversity in organizations: A review of 40 years of eory 97:123-163 <http://tinyurl. “groups of diverse problem solvers can WooTEn. In Collective Wisdom (new york: CamBEdnAr. TVETErAAS n. WAng (2006). Proceedings of the National Academy of Science: order Effects on the Weighting of Evidence”. e Difference: How the Power of DiverSocial Simulation 17(4): 13 <http://tinyurl. Earlier BAlKE. (1994). no. landemore and J. (2001). “A Survey of WebW (needham heights: Allyn & Bacon). 2006) <http://tinyurl. J. tiation in Work and giving Behaviors: Experimental ShAlIzI. Perfect order: Recognizing comgroups. J. “e role for the nonprofit Sector in the Era of globalizaof social pressure. Center for Global Strategic Responsiveness Working WhITE. 2005. A. gIlBErT (2014). J ohnSon . and C. pAgE (2001). and l. C. KrAnTon (2000).com/ld5ycxz>. Where-how of leadership Emergence (WholE) 5 Johnson.com/mtgylb2> 20(1): 34-38. research”.B. AKErlof. d. nM: los Alamos national laband is more technical than the final book. unpub<http://tinyurl. A. the effect can be negative or positive depending on social identity lAnSIng.E. (2005). BArKEr. “A logic of diversity: Why diverIdentity”. J.A. —— (2011). 1998: 34. p. Sept 2010]. n. attention to the stimulus. J.E. J.h. “revisiting BEn-nEr. 1989-91”. (1998a). tional Cascades: e Monday demonstrations in 9 Johnson. AndErSEn. [retrieved 1 oct 2014]. European Journal of Social Psycholo79(3-4): 579-600 <http://tinyurl. May 2013]. CIAldInI.h.. and selftion”. sity May Trump Ability”. MICKlEr (1983). And n. 2 december 2013 and Coevolution: A graph eoretic Model”. J.

or relied on elected officials. His education includes a BA in physics from Occidental College. T H R E E S Y S T E M S O F O R G A N I Z I N G for over twenty years I’ve been teaching seminars on “dynamic facilitation.” Just a few people. Most people thought that the problems arose because society had departed from the original vision of the Founders. plus years of independent study in Jungian psychology.” To shift from collective stupidity to collective intelligence. Generally they did not question the system of which they were a part.” talk. Jim is author of the book Society’s Breakthrough! releasing the Essential Wisdom and Virtue of All the people. e Founders seemed like special people living in a special moment. is story is more accurate than most people might think. for two hundred plus years. and act together. that all work together on a regular basis. and community values. or the Founders themselves to address them. human health. en.J I M R O U G H THE CIRCLE : STRUCTURING FOR COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE Jim is a professional facilitator. But this S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . turning back the clock was not an option. even though the system was oriented to promote individual happiness.org . native Americans and non-property holders.” Many acted in service of the whole by fighting to influence legislation or compassionately helping others.wisedemocracy. as people became more interdependent. ey needed to come together in respect and make intelligent choices. in his career Jim has worked independently helping organizations and people spark deep systemic change. can use those social innovations to set the process in motion. And.dynamicfacilitation. Instead they tended to deny the existence of collective problems. But the rest of the story is pretty accurate. their capabilities as “We the People. e people didn’t recognize their collective potential. women. e system was left in charge of itself. e people needed to talk together.” It didn’t include slaves. and Simpson Timber Company. MSEE and MBA degrees from Columbia University. and is principal facilitator for the seminars dynamic facilitation and the Wisdom Council. Instead. taking us where no one wants to go. just as their Founders had done. Eventually however. social innovator. And just the addition of this new “We the people” conversation would shift to a new level of collective intelligence. We really do live in a system that is in decline. But this was wrong. wasn’t a real “We the people. He also worked as an internal consultant within Boeing.” a strategy for helping leaders evoke the best from people. ere really is a set of practical social innovations by which the people can be facilitated to come together as “We the people. Xerox. T H E O S T O R Y NCE UPON A TIME… A CONTINENT OF PEOPLE came together as “We the People” to consciously structure a new system of governance. determining a structure that was best for all. Conversation was not its strong suit. What was needed in that dire situation is obvious now. which are widely known all over the world. experts. We the People were thoughtful together. plus financial resources.org). the marketplace. collective intelligence improved as well. e time of the original Founders had come and gone. is simple step would mean a new system of economics and politics. and adding up individual judgments for voting.com) and the Wisdom Council. subsequent generations lived by that structure. to convene the conversation. He originated Dynamic Facilitation (www. a new set of Founders and a new “We the People. ese problems required that all become involved. it was up to a few people to understand how this change could be facilitated. author and director of the Center for Wise Democracy (www. e main inaccuracy with it is that the first version of “We the people. He can be reached at jim@WiseDemocracy. but the process of creating it was an exciting example of collective intelligence. directing the energies of people toward mindless economic growth and consumption at the expense of the planet. In the seminars participants practice dynamic facilitation skills in small C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 109 . But the real need was for all to take “time out. the pursuit of self-interest at the expense of others.” words that began the uS Constitution. a new system of democracy. IBM. and to invite all the people to participate. It was based on competition. Social innovations were available to do this. 2 /2 0 1 4 | seemed impossible to them. the system began breaking down. e new structure focused on making individual lives better. Largely.

tion of vital natural resources. people in difference. corporation. no matter what issue traded. with a charismatic leader and a We look to solution strategies like making people hierarchical structure. where we assume everyone is to operate as a free individual within the law. But collective intelligence of the organization is limthese within-system strategies won’t make the needed ited by the capabilities of the leader. so there is little need for conversations based on hierarchy. A majoreveryone seeking what’s best ity vote is not enough. etc. e Triangle. hospital. and where the best talents So naturally today. Western democracies are currently structured as ere are three fundamental systems of organization Boxes. like in a war or a catastrophe. er. the mal-distribution of wealth. But in practice. the organization often reverts people address… is problem is caused by our system.groups helping others address impossible-seeming Circle has proven so difficult to achieve. system. where engage in this conversathe ultimate authority is a tion and to become part creative conversation of of the answer. requires different leadership natural resources. To to the Box or Triangle. Key to achieving a Circle people can just go into the world and make their system is to recognize the special kind of conversation fortune independently. for example. works well for organizaaware of the problems. or society. standings and shared vision. generates different results and banking crises and wars. But as corporations grow to become publicly A frequent breakthrough occurs. Today many people And it is no longer desire the Circle System. mindless consumption. often issues from society like war. tions to maximize profor organizational members its at the expense of the evolve common undercommons. Small orgaproblems. from within the Box evokes a different kind of conversation. and lack of shared purpose – independent and there are plenty of common would start going away. health nizations are most capable of achieving a Circle care. pressing for tions in crisis. Seemingly this applies to unions. where a prescribed set of agreements like a dependence grows we constitution is ultimately in need all the people to charge. however. we face a growing number of Each of the three Systems is best in a different setcollective problems like an environmental crisis. educating them. acceptable for corporawhere employees. and deplecan be a clear set of rules that are fairly enforced. where one leader is ultimately in about the well being of the whole. cooperatives. In these conversations peobecause everyone can gather and know one anothple often experience breakthroughs in understanding. And finally we could begin resources available. has a different structure. tem into place then we’d all be caring about one anothbut limit their contributions by never questioner and working together to address these problems. these organizations press their own ideas and enthusiasm in favour of are often rigid Boxes or even Triangles because the what the leader thinks and feels. innovation through competition rather than cooperative efforts toward what’s best for all. ing the leader or anyone of higher status. the Circle is best. Voting and the whether in a school. an ting. e three systems are: 1) Triangle. citizens. But as intercharge. memEach of the three systems generates a different kind bership organizations. decisions. we need to change our system. rapid depletion of attitude in people. address it. and 3) Circle. for all. system these problems all seem impossible to solve. like farmers and fishers in restructuring our institutions to address issues like clinorth America in the 18th century. e Box System works well when people are partisan gridlock. But the Circle is embedded in the Box difficult to achieve. promotes a different l -curve distribution of wealth. bullying. and societies where democof conversation. In the Triangle people learn to supracy is the aim.C R E A T I N G I S T H E When people are equal and inter-dependent and E S S E N T I A L C O N V E R S A T I O N the issues are complex. and skills of everyone are given that we are evoked. is system encourages that’s needed. or money-in-politics. e legislation. periodic competencies. en there mate change. en many impossible-seeming problems – like racism. C H O I C E . or raising individual consciousness. 2) Box. government marketplace are structured in place for collective agency. if we could facilitate a Circle systhe organization contribute to the shared effort. e conversation J I M R O U G H | T H E C I R C L E : S T R U C T U R I N G F O R C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 110 .

If any conversation and think in the spirit of choice-creating. everyone needs to be agreeing or disagreeing. In 2002 I S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . ere is no lective decision-making. “So what might be an even better rules and norms. challenges that seemed impossible beforehand… I once had the opportunity to df a weekly meeting by redefining the problem. or a “time out. face impossiwhat they really want. or power struggle. Shifts and breakthroughs naturally result With choice-creating groups often overcome and all come to embrace the final result. transforming themamong angry and frustrated employees in a sawmill. ey became more cooperative. Although people often confuse of community. unlike colusing this approach.” not as a disagreement. gaining clarity about what needs to hapover the course of many meetings they began to work pen. agree/disagree discusan idea. where one option to disagree.” transform ourselves from Box to Circle.” the ous. ere is another kind of conversation needed. no one is judged. culture and perengage one another with heartfelt creativity until formance of the mill.” yet we see e df’er invites each person to speak naturally that the results of elections and our collective decisions yet holds the space in such a way that they talk can’t make that much difference. ble result. curi“decision-making” and “choice-creating. In decision-making ing together in this way these low level employees judgment is used while in choice-creating people transformed the management system. data. We call this form of conversation people grow in curiosity and creativity seeking to solve “choice-creating. together and reach shared perspectives. more than by extrinsic factors like guidelines. informed. and observant. for example. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 111 .” like debate. used to protect people from judgment and to Shifting to the Circle system requires a type of conversabuild a story of group progress from all comtion that is different than the kinds of conversation used ments. and problem-Statements. productivity and quality took off! e energy of frustration became the energy that all support. arguing. ple to address issues in the spirit of choice-creating. rules. rather chairs facing four charts – Solutions. their fears. we restructure our system of thinking so that it’s norWitnessing this bottom-up transformation helped me mal to face the collective problems and become to recognize a strategy for how we as a society could empowered as “We the people. two are almost opposites because judgment and trusted more. It provides a way own lives and strategies for getting ahead rather than people can release their creativity. ey become authentic with one answer?” is comment is added to the list of Soluanother and face the important issues sharing their tions. what happens sometimes in a crisis. Even with “deliberation. To make a difference in the organization people look to someone in a dynamic facilitation (df) is a way to facilitate peoposition of authority. is natural unity more than our creative minds. ese charts are solutions in the public interest.T O R E L I A B L Y E V O K E revolves around who is speaking and their status C H O I C E . ey work collaboratively and creatively and help him finish articulating his solution. and the about the issue. or by inventing new and better solutions in the spirit of choice-creating.” Voting is the ultimate expression of decisionbecause we live in a decision-making context. ble-seeming issues. It is like She will then record the comment as a Concern. e Box limits our thinking as well. making and of what we call “democracy. en if someone else starts sions. e exists in the Box it is likely to be an argument over simdf’er might set up the room with a half-circle of plistic strategies that benefit special interests. eir thinking is directed to their advocacy. and achieve breakthrough In the Box we are directed to use our judging minds progress and group unity. selves. or the passion of their game-like field of play. Workcreativity cannot co-exist. e ultimate answer is to convene a new systemT R A N S F O R M I N G F R O M wide conversation in the spirit of choice-creatT R I A N G L E O R B O X T O C I R C L E ing. and achieved more. ey understood more. or to gain authority. roles or an agenda. if one person is describing in “decision-making.C R E A T I N G rather than the merit of ideas.” people thoughtfully interrupting to direct his comment to her. the df’er might ask the person who is wins. And if we make this to be ongoing. rather weigh different options before choosing one. Conthan respectful attempts to determine and implement cerns. risked more. than to the person with whom he is disagreeing. and invite him to offer his people drop their roles and their blind adherence to Solution as well. en the df’er can go back to the first person feelings. In it people veil It is guided by the energy of how much they care their attention to focus on extrinsic goals. Each comment is valued and included in the process and unity is the only possiadded to the charts as an interesting piece of the puzzle. or what the society needs. We call it “decisiononly seems unnatural and difficult to achieve making. the choice comes into view.” the puzzle. the df’er will be writing that down on the chart of Solutions.

In Ashland. At the end the Wisdom Council expressed their unity. later Wisdom Councils were expanded to include the whole department. Each Wisdom Council meets for a couple of days with a dynamic facilitator. that we have largely been ignoring. ose who hear directly tend to say.. which lamented how the department no longer had the spirit of community it once had. ey said … People want to be more closely linked to the lake and this project offers a once-ina-lifetime opportunity to do this. over the telephone. which was powerfully resonant in the community.” I called the process within the Amendment the “Wisdom Council. and we need to start implementing common-sense actions. people in the larger system tend to build on what is happening more than they judge it. e Wisdom Council presented some simple points to the community that resonated widely… “We need to wake up. city planners.. It just adds a new conversation to what already exists. A number of citizens said the experience was life changing for them. twelve people are randomly selected and gathered as a microcosm of all.” is was just a one-time experiment but it generated a new momentum in the community with many important developments. who are dynamically facilitated. from that one experience the people of the division found themselves reconnecting with one another in new ways. We could take advantage of this opportunity if the centre of gravity for the project were moved to the second floor and there was a wide bridge over the highway and railroad. e Wisdom Council process achieves this magic. others are interested to know more about that perspective. To move the project ahead without the usual battle the mayor convened a “Wisdom Council. en all the people are invited talk in small groups. for example. where large groups create the choice together. resonance builds. make politicians more accountable. In another example. years later there have been many experiments with the Wisdom Council in organizations. one division of the department of Agriculture of Washington State initiated a Wisdom Council. over the years it’s been difficult to develop any key parcel of land like this because each development proposal generates a political battle. with a sweeping set of steps to the lake. for instance. activists. architects. conferences and even states.” e twelve random citizens met briefly to listen to the latest project proposal. en each Wisdom Council member spoke how enjoyable and rewarding it was to be on the Council.wrote Society’s Breakthrough! Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People* about it. recognize that our society isn’t working. e Wisdom Council then presents this unity and the story of how it was developed back to everyone. like adequately funding education.” now. and they help continue the conversation. But in this conversation we finally start talking about the big issues we face. where employees exclaimed they had finally “bridged the S T R U C T U R I N G F O R C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 112 . I think so too!” . or via the Internet about what they have heard and what they think. one way of looking at it is… we just randomly select a small group of people every few months. even among those in the larger audience who were not dynamically facilitated. ey listen and seek ways to incorporate it. With the Internet and emails people were working more in silos. is a parking lot. describing how a seemingly innocuous uS Constitutional Amendment could spark a national and global coming together of “We the people. e Wisdom Council presented this perspective to investors. and where we start making real headway. In the Wisdom Council. and citizens. But it works and it’s safe. e evening presentation was more like a celebration because everyone was on board. communities. e audience turned their chairs and met in small groups to consider this perspective. “yes. a city on lake Constance at the westernmost edge of Austria. cities. ey choose an important issue or are given an issue and reach shared conclusions through shifts and breakthroughs. take charge. because choice-creating is the form of thinking it emphasizes. if someone in the audience differs with the Wisdom Council conclusions. in the heart of Bregenz. taking up where the Wisdom Council left off. en the door was closed and they were dynamically facilitated. In a Circle system. including the developers who proceeded to modify the project plans. ey began a citizens’ movement that reshaped the town charter. And we know it’s something a few of us can set in motion at a national and global scale without needing an Amendment. who give a talk and go away. every four months or so. is level of change might seem unrealistic or scary. It can spark the necessary whole-system choice-creating conversation. and be heard and respected. face to face. We know that this process can work. is is not how a normal political conversation works. where you go back and forth agreeing and disagreeing and where those with minority views become excluded. state-wide. they have an unusual perspective. ey arranged for a randomly selected group of registered voters to come together for a day and a half and be dynamically facilitated. different perspectives are valued. oregon three citizens organized a Wisdom Council in their county. Another way is to realize that adding the Wisdom Council process to national society or to global society doesn’t directly change anything. And we talk in a way J I M R O U G H | T H E C I R C L E : that we can be ourselves.

So even though this approach proposes a practical safe strategy for change at the collective level. not part of the Box paradigm around which we have structured our identities. do it!” It’s also fun for the conveners. practical way to keep our current systems in place but to facilitate the needed shift in collective intelligence so we can deal adequately with our problems. when talking with others about societal problems. for instance. is means we ignore how life really works and assume. many have said. 3) explore how dynamic facilitation can reliably evoke choice-creating in small groups. “If you get randomly selected. more and more we are inter-dependent with others. We hope the reader will continue to develop an understanding of this approach after reading this article and will suggest some possible actions going forward: 1) notice how the game-like structure of our system undermines collective intelligence. 5) look for opportunities to support or get involved with convening a Wisdom Council process. e longer we ignore the new reality the more dangerous and stupid our collective actions become. 8∑8 S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . But the ideas expressed here are new.” or. oh. species extinction. no.) ~ Jim rough (2002). Society’s Breakthrough! Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People (Bloomington. resource depletion. 4) remember the Wisdom Council process. for people randomly selected to be on Wisdom Councils. this out-of-the-box solution strategy. it tends to fade quickly from memory without reinforcement. etc. 2) notice that the distinction between decision-making and choice-creating is valid and that making it opens doors of possibility for individual and collective intelligence. that we can increase our collective intelligence by increasing the individual intelligence of people. “is the best political conversation I’ve ever been in.” which had always kept the department in two separate cultures. 8 —————— * (Ed’s n. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 113 . yet we are structured as though we are independent. like to threaten the well being of our children with climate change. And it assumes we can vote on the best decision and ignore the minority. and one thing more… the Wisdom Council process is proving to be fun. not necessarily. poisons in our diet. In: Authorhouse). is article presents a safe. when really we need to create the choice together.Cascade Mountain Barrier. So.

B A S E D K N O W L E D G E | 6 .THE TIBETAN BOOK OF PROPORTION M I C H E L B A U W E N S | T H E O P E N - C O M M O N S ~ S H E E T 3 3-3 6 .

the cosmos is anything but a dead. International Alliance for Localization & Lecturer. and invites one to probe deeper. their tongues unceasingly and prayerfully provoking the gods and clouds and ancestors. and spoke in cryptic languages the healers strained to master. a doodle marking out spilled water on parched earth. mountains. the clouds that weep the purging rain. e world did not explode in a fury. e journey was turbulent. Instead. Currently he is coordinator. Every object. Sometimes. I met and interviewed six experienced healers who employed divinistic means to understand and offer help to clients that presented a wide range of problems and life challenges to them. but possessing an irrefutable vitality. a drunken bug clawing up the edges of a hot plate of ofada rice – were charged with meaning. distributed in the Sakhalin Island in the north to the Kuril Islands and the island of hokkaido and northern honshū. and through an inner coming-of-age ritual – one that slowly converted me from my previous loyalty to a static world of a single overriding truth to a world that spilled into many other worlds. the nightly tunes of a croaking army of frogs. e wind touches him. wherever ancient ways of knowing have been preserved. golden ropes hanging from a corner of the sky. trite or tepid. My journey took me through unbeaten paths. Even the wind brought madness. I was transported into restless realms that further dislodged my quaint notions about the self-evident separation of things.A D E B AY O A K O M O L A F E THE TREES STILL SPEAK : THE COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE OF THE NATURAL WORLD Adebayo Akomolafe (PhD) is a clinical psychologist. primal tarantulas. to the Efik people of South-eastern nigeria. 2 /2 0 1 4 | governments in southwester nigeria. ere was a feral openness and refreshing intimacy about the way their unshod feet implored the sepia ground beneath. its agreement with an intricate web of things. in the worldview of these men. through remote villages hidden from the asphalted conversations of modernization. Whether it be with giant trouts. seemed to have its place. their petitions gorily embodied in headless carcasses of bloodied chickens squeezed into earthen calabashes. ere is the one who goes out and gets blown upon by the wind (atégun). Items we would normally lose sight of in the modern world. or mountains leaning into a human conversation that interests them. brushing away ashes that had spewed from the hollows of a decorated tree stump nearby. swirling in and out of reckoning and usefulness. surprises. speaker and author. fascinating. having seasons of wakefulness and dormancy. something within found the proceedings fiercely disturbing – and yet. A world that is never the same the second time you look. one healer told me: “ere’s the ‘madness of the wind’. Department of Psychology. I embarked on a quest to investigate the shamanic practices and wisdoms of yoruba traditional healers in two local S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . their steps and rituals gently directed by nodding sub-priests. having being raised a Christian of the evangelical stripe. and how their engagements with these realms provided real alternatives to the orthodoxies of Western-styled psychotherapy1. When I did get the chance to interview the healers. Everything sings. indigenous stories and traditions orient listeners and practitioners towards a cosmos that befuddles. My concern was to make more explicit their narratives about their interactions with subtle realms and otherworldly beings. Everything is alive: stones. Bayo is an international figure and poetactivist for a radical paradigm-shift in collective human experience. people made from corn. he begins to C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 115 . A world that returns your curious gaze. which are largely inconsequential to us – an orphaned eyelash on the floor. eir expositions opened up a world in which everything was connected with everything else. from the Ainu people of Japan. there is an intimate reckoning with the wondrous vibrancy of all things. only to condense into lifeless lumps of matter – awaiting the redemptive arrival of human sentience – as is the generic plot of scientism. I would eagerly watch throngs of seekers. As an ethno-psychotherapeutic researcher. Covenant University. lecturer. potency and agency that is not metaphorical or derived from human activity. mute and silent place. E X P E D I T I O N S T O A T H E W I L D F R I N G E S CCordIng To MAny IndIgEnouS pEoplE Around ThE world. while waiting to be granted access to the healer. nothing was trivial. the dancing fog that blinds and confuses. Nigeria.

indigenous cultures usually accomangered spirits sought closure and often pounced modated practices and rituals that nurtured kinship on people in order to exact revenge. and the planet. cination.” species. lord settlements. that there are hidden forces (ayé) that people exploit to of story. the healer was beckoning on those mological hegemony in which one logic of knowing is willing to hear him to recognize the futility treated as exclusively valuable. ere are some things. We live in quarantine. or acknowledge their internothing feeds our modern superciliousness and dependence with nonhuman forces: “e ‘white man’ civilizational pathology like the myth that the cannot believe it – because over there they do not see nonhuman world is bereft of agency. Whereas. While in school. and for an ori demarcation of living and learning. eir lands will be transformed. In order to correct of exclusion. we have reified ways of knowing that sideand the silencing of the nonhuman world – thanks step the intelligence of rivers. passive getting it… now things are changing. at’s the abstraction that is leading to the demise of our one of the wind (wèrè atégùn). one healer spoke of how are fostering a linearity of thought that is predicated the progress of modernization had forced the spiron a static universe. Another healer addressed the ‘white man’s’ obliviousness to the vibrancy of the material world around us – T H E D I S E N C H A N T M E N T hinting that people suffered greatly when they did not O F T H E W O R L D see the signs around them. to learn to listen to plants that are at best instrumental to our ends. e But this binary view. and.[behave in a particular way]. ey will learn to see the decimation of A D E B A Y O A K O M O L A F E | T H E T H R E E S S T I L L S P E A K | 116 . which motivates its citizenry to treat lost’. access to a poly-vocal cosmos that is fluent in many languages. roads built. to recognition of nonhuman powers – ‘Western’ or globthrive as a people. that should not touch you. driving them to the ously submissive only to the scrutiny of human ratiofringes of things. an enrapturing Whereas here. other species. and hear the secrets of fields – a hard won And this discourse is spreading. we inhabit a guistic richness – an official language impressed upon living universe – frothing with playful forms of them. generic sorting mechanism called the job imagined that he is alone with the burden of awaremarket. mystics. If I were to put offered as the measure of all value. Indigenous wisdoms are succumbing to the sterilizing influences of industrialization – thus creating an episteIn a sense. we have summoned a cultural speech. ose that ‘succeed’ will be granted certificates consciousness – and we imperil ourselves when we do not take this into account. an ecosystem of we know that these forces are here – because we have abuse. is story of the things. I asked him with other species – and this. this has powers and we have seen it. and we to the din of modernity. staring out into the blackest night. to reanimate our alliances with nonhuman nature as a threat to flee from or as a field of resources and agentic worlds. which divides the world ‘white man’ will not see the way we see. increasing number of teachers. ‘nature’. and because we have anonymous. they will be educated out of their cultural ties and linand communities around the globe. that we are magisterial anomalies interdisturb others. you won’t even give it any thought. and houses allocated in urban from ‘nature’ instead of asymptomatic of ‘it’. because there was a what he thought we could do to live well. vision of our interdependence with all things and at’s why we believe in the ways we do. separate highways constructed. has helped catnot believe people do things to other people. of vitality.” the über-ubiquity of intelligence. sand and dew. because they do into man and his playthings. But here. that at best. sion. for him. his response was an invitation to ‘get and exploitation. and speaks to no one in particular. on televithan a metaphorical vitality they otherwise lack. this thing here on your body. and a generic culture wherein an ecoterrible things in our hands. he also said that these homeless. the grace of human doctor I told you… if I ran into someone and told them sentience animates ‘objects’ with nothing more the tale they’d find it hard to believe. these mysteries are becoming very popular. a systematic erosion of cultural identity. But now. to enjoy the blessings of the alizing industrial culture produces a discourse of evasion world. you’d say: “Is this not alligator pepper?” In place of a shamanic effulgence. we have effectively built a passive monolith to Making sense of the heaps of interview data slowly concretize our separation from the world around freed up hermeneutic plot lines that impelled themes us. ness. alyze a politics of indifference. he is incoherent in his over the elements. Children are sent to be underlying the premise of human sentience as students in a school system that is premised on the a prialienated and anomalous. for nomic metric standard – a single notion – is instance. a passive universe open and curiits away from their homes. scientists. agency and vibrancy. But now things are changing – people are rupting a dead swirling heap of mute. Man is not the that offer them access to further discipline by an sole holder of intelligence.

e combined is not an attribute of stones. an Australian philosopher of mind and cognidisable.trees and the extractive activities of giant corporatrysts with the elements. we are witnessing the uncoupling Consequently it is now almost taken for granted and dismantling of this metanarrative of human that we live in a crisis-ridden age. in any case call tive scientist. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 117 . and when a model or framework or paradigm cannot address an unparalleled upswing in the number of mental health issues reported. alarmed by the level of damage an intrinsic presupposition of human centrality to the earth brought about by human activity. they will insist. we are a poor species today. is water pollution. that matter is mute. and that awareness is tion. ey might even learn to today if trees. hearing. T H I S S H A M A N I C T U R N What this means is that we “[…] have collectively entered e Cartesian paradigm fostered a vision of the a period marked by increased industrialization – the diswhole that can be completely understood from tressingly potent consequences of which have led to the its parts. or even ‘use’ (the former reprehowever. and the sporadic emergence of ‘new’ pathomust employ to navigate an unspeaking world. an increase in carbon dioxide emislible guide to truth and certainty. coined the in the otherwise two-way dynamics of utility)? term. In this case. which can aid or destroy. to describe a geological timeframe characterized by the violent disruption of the planet’s ecological spaces. our ancient changes in the brain give birth to different forms of S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . knowing. not matter. tors is the anomalies in the ‘hard’ sciences – reports of and reality. smelling. ennoble or degrade us. feeling) a without an effective retort – and is slowly giving way to fuller range of the nonhuman powers circulating the idea that awareness. connects today’s crises of ecological devencing our understandings of the real. on culture. rocks and river were consulted? What advocate for deregulated trade policies allowing the would become of consumerism . In such the vitality of matter? Because my hunch is that instances. or even ‘respect’[…]. supported life a mere thousand years ago. thing as ‘waste’. by which I mean the tendency to what it means to be a citizen of reality. on languages. air and experience. Scientists. first posed the disturbing question in the for our attentiveness. tasting. climate change. and treated ‘it’ in a way that does not evince believed we no longer abide on the same planet that ‘respect’ or mutuality – and we are worse off for it. ocean acidification. What would become of politics and economics survival of the human race. for a morsel of a curious abstraction: modernitions as normal. with the failure to see an observation. we have ‘otherized’ the world around arguably rivals that of ‘nature’ itself – so that it is now us. but because advances in neurophysiology have attempted to answer we have shut away the unthought – the wilds: we that question by emphasizing the way chemical have traded our multidimensionality. the destruction of coastal areas. more ravishing vision of modern culture. It does so by preventing us from detecting an epiphenomenon of the brain. on when not fit for our agendas. enrich or Chalmers. a view of human rationality as an infalloss of biodiversity. Coneffects of the presence of humans on earth now sequently. ese materithat matter is an ‘expression’ of awareness. dump rituals – if we realized that there is no such Growth is necessary. A number of factors is emphasizing the not as popular is the consideration that our impassuntenability of this vision of the world. on planet earth. the loss of critical ecosystems and the concomitant impliedly – the centrality of human be-ing to extinction of many species. however. and stressing es are borne out of the exclusionary dynamics of the need to adopt a broader. ‘Anthropocene’. david al powers. caves or spirits. is fundamental. the deep-seated assumption that the destroying fantasies of conquest and consumpworld is dead.” early 90s – the hard problem of consciousness – by asking: ‘how could something as material as the brain ever give In this sense. the wisdom of ossified allies. in her book. atmospheric conditions and life systems. in this conception. An anomaly arises astation. is being contested – (seeing. Intelligence. the paradigm itself undergoes seismic changes in the image of dead or thoroughly instrumentalorder to accommodate the errant data – or is eventually ized matter feeds human hubris and our earthreplaced. and – more sions. and around and within human bodies. and even necessary for the continued ty. ozone exclusively a human attribute – a tool that we depletion. or when the internal logic of a system of or notice other worlds of being: “Why advocate thought has no provisions for a ‘new’ variable. one of such facdevalue alternative visions of aliveness. cultural genocide. what this cultural fixation with growth and senting a cultural inadequacy to notice the conprogress tries to repress is the devastation it has wrought tinued vitality of the world around us – even on people. Jane Bennett.our use and free movement of corporations across boundaries. What is probably supremacy. the latter holding imagination. Vibrant which are seeping into public memory and silently influMatter*. not because we are not ‘growing’ fast enough (as the rise to something as immaterial as awareness?’ recent myth of growth would have us believe).” Today. It genic conditions and crippling ailments.

then a polideep psychic reconfigurations of our collective tics of humility is needed to meet today’s challenges – unconscious.) ~ Jane Bennet (2010). Jung himself rehabilitated a rich tapestry of alchemical symbolism and texts – the ancient traditions dedicated to finding ways to transform base metals into gold – as an exemplification of psychological evolution. – in order to speak new truths to power. and identity. an elucidation of which this essay today’s problems are often counterproductive cannot even pretend to attempt. is sugforces more compelling than causality. e quantum world harbours a cerC O N C L U S I O N : tain weirdness. are reportedly able to traif we listened as much as we complained… if we verse multiple worlds. Carl Jung posited the idea of the coland by a politics of humility I offer the idea of a poetic lective unconscious to describe a hive mind operscheme that recognizes the need to ‘slow down’ when ating beneath individuated ego systems and across matters are urgent. making it posuniversity of Arizona. is suffering in that field. e mystery remains. there is little or no headway gained to is however necessary in order for transformation to resolve Chalmers’ hard problem. is that the physical state and inhibitory to true and lasting systemic of things are determined at the moment of observation – changes. is shamanic turn to collective intelligence also coincides with even older observations made about ‘reality’ at subatomic levels. perhaps the most bizarre series of interpretation ing recognition that our best efforts to address of quantum physics. A Political helped by the escalating cultural crises of certainty Ecology of ings (durham-london: duke up). e first stages of this transformation process always began with the nigredo. I cannot help but think that today’s crises is except – as peter russell. or – translated into psychological terms – a difficult acquaintance with tain neural activity has led to remarkable innovations shadows. and bring back wisdom and just as much as we valorise conscious effort? If we guidance into ‘ordinary’ reality? saw problems as agentic forces we could listen to. Choice and action no their wakeful states (sometimes by the ingestion of longer looks the same in this cosmos-political psychedelic substances or by less invasive means like vision of a more democratic alliance of intelli‘sonic driving’.awareness. engage with subtle realms and held as justly sacred a refusal to do anything at all – mysterious beings. a professor of philosophy at the creating deconstructive moments. I ask: what would become of activism today of auditory stimulation). and other forms gences. While correlating states of awareness to cerdeep blackening of the metal. It —————— seems that what it means to be ‘human’ is undergoing an alchemical transmutation of some sort – * (Ed’s n. which collects and organizes experiisn’t to accept defeat. alities. types. I subenough for other forms of knowing to occur. A politics of widespread feelings of disenchantment with the humility is one that orients us towards the shaman’s status quo are giving birth to different archesecret: that the trees still speak. hidden depths and suffering. does this explain how shamans. which is a A D E B A Y O A K O M O L A F E | T H E T H R E E S S T I L L S P E A K | 118 . and different orientations towards life. occur. insists – we let go of the untenable sible for a deeper appreciation of just how much a idea that ‘intelligence’ is an exclusive attribute of man and recalcitrant world ‘outside’ awaits our humiliation highly evolved species. transare connected to everything else. fluid materiwere actually influenced by the presence of an observer. if agency describes dimensional notion of intelligence – but so are the more than just human action in the world. by altering free will and determinism. in order to mit. and subtle thus giving matter anthropomorphic features. that does not cohere with A P O L I T I C S O F H U M I L I T Y our commonsense understandings of how the world We are at our tether’s end – and there is a growworks. It seems possible to read 8 today’s crises as a coming of age – one that is loosening the tight strings of human centrality. ritualized drumming. provisionally. e deeper consequence of affirming and that what we rudely call ‘matter’ behaves as if it nonhuman worlds. one that realizes that to slow down life forms. a queerness. porous realities. that today’s amorphous and hear other tunes that seek to be heard. different questions. Vibrant Matter. e cracks in our established ways of knowing the instead of blips in the machine we ought to fix? If we world are paving the way for a more plural. is letting gests that what we call reality is porous. but to relax the ego’s defences ence (oftentimes in form of archetypes). agentic and vibrant objects. fluid and intergo of cherished onto-theological categories like subjective.

a participant nificant and exciting for our time. Meaning that. e particular the vital relationship between piece of it that I’m interested in… I’ve even individual transformation veered away from the term ‘collective intelligence’ and collective evolution. more awakened individuals. e more enlightened individuals we can have. great – but if we are really going to evolve as species and find a way to function together that’s different than the way we have up until now.IntegralEnlightenment. or perhaps the meanings. “What would be possible if a group of people could find a way to come together beyond ego. a 35-person interdisciplinary think Traditionally. the more individuals who have access to a deeper source of wisdom and compassion and creativity. ere is a lot going on leading voice in illuminating in collective intelligence as a field. Even if individuals came together to mediwww. C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 119 . enlightenment. tate or worship. He has also been a contributor on the salvation or enlightenment or liberation of to Shift magazine and co-authored IONS’ 2008 Shift Report. to find a way to come together in an expression of our higher spiritual and evolutionary potential? What might that give rise to? Might that hold significance beyond just a bunch of enlightened or awakened individuals?” e world doesn’t just need more enlightened individuals. to come together and function beyond the conditioned habit patterns of human nature. Claire. at would be a good thing. and more and more find myself talking about Craig offers spiritual guidance collective awakening or collective enlightenment and teachings to a growing interbecause the particular part of it that I’m interestnational community spanning 50 ed in is really the spiritual dimension of it. dimension of the self. of groups of people who are able to come together beyond ego. 2 /2 0 1 4 | personal liberation. integrating decades of a conscious endeavour to speak together. collectives are going to have to awaken to higher potentials and learn how to function in deeper and higher ways. the individual. What is your understanding of the meaning.C R A I G H A M I LT O N COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE AND THE EVOLUTION OF SELF AND CULTURE Craig Hamilton is a pioneer in what we might call the ordinary intelligence of a the emerging field of evolulot of individuals and combine it to try to get bettionary spirituality and a ter answers to questions. ere are levels of collective intelligence that are very much about finding ways to simply harness S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . With more than 6. in the Synthesis Dialogues. his Integral Enlightenment courses are It is what becomes possible for us when we designed to support the development of people who are committed come together in group spiritual practice. higher. of collective intelligence? Can you briefly say something about the significance of this topic and why it really matters? Craig hamilton: I like that you used the word meanings in the plural because there are a lot of different kinds of collective intelligence or forms of collective intelligence or ways that this manifests. It showed how if you aggregate the intelligence of a group that the aggregated intelligence will be smarter than any individual in the group. in northern California. it was still about each individual’s I N T E R V I E W BY SUZANNE SHEALY AND GEORGE PÓR S UzANNe SheAly: CrAIg. if you’re trying to get a group to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar. you hAVE donE some writing on this topic and have been engaged with it in your own work. a part of through that kind of practice that I find very sigDeepak Chopra’s Evolutionary Leaders Forum. wiser years as Senior Editor of What Is Enlightenment? magazine. salvation or transformation. higher potentials open up Craig is a founding member of Integral Institute. So the question that has compelled me for a long time is.000 graduates. but we haven’t seen the emergence of enlightened collectives on this planet. countries around the world. the “group guess” will be more accurate than the guess of any individual in that group. It has been held as an individual Craig lives with his wife. spirituality and religion was focused tank presided over by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the founder of Evolving Wisdom. with to evolving themselves and our culture. ere was a book written at one time called e Wisdom of Crowds*. to intensive spiritual practice with insights gleaned during his eight engage together from a deeper. matter.com . history has shown us a lot of enlightened or transformed individuals. if you average everyone’s guess together.

I’ve never outer matter. I wrote an in-depth article about this for I think the other reason it captured our attention What is Enlightenment magazine. It was a sense of new things coming into being between us that potential and significance of these collective awakperhaps had never happened before. I went on to research now engaged in this process of awakening. we started to have collective breakthroughs into of conditioned responses from their past. and we talked about spiritual prining in and partaking in.: I. and a large group of experience. the world. At an individual because they weren’t lost in a stream some point over the years of dialogue practice in this way. It was this field and see where it was happening elsewhere in actually happening out here in the collective. en I’ve gone on in so much was that for all of us it felt like we were my own teaching work because I left that community C R A I G H A M I L T O N | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E A N D T H E E V O L U T I O N O F S E L F A N D C U L T U R E | 120 . couple of reasons. we of a higher being or a higher mind that the began holding dialogue groups – not because we necesgroup sort of became. people would closed or maybe we are sitting with our eyes just walk in off the street and have these experiences open but our focus is within. Miraculously. which is usually something happensay twenty five people who had not practiced it before. on the evolution and awakening of all the individuals. our personality was excited about it. ciples and teachings. A few people to reverse engineer what was happening in our groups would wake up and then a few others would and come up with a set of practices and principles wake up. h.at’s ultimately what I would see as the higher out on the edge of human evolution. ing when we are sitting there with our eyes there was a way we could seed the group. and liberation and doing a lot of individual spiritual And there was also a sense in this that the practice. In other words. one was that what was previit seemed to work where even if there were just a few of ously an inner matter – the domain of spiritual us who had been practicing this. So. but tial waiting for us. were happening currently in other places on the S. We would come together and talk It didn’t delete or do away with our individuality. We got very frontal self was engaged in. we had aspects our selves. but it just seemed natural as a group there was one consciousness that was alive of people living together doing spiritual practice to between us and that seemed to have a will and come together and talk about it. what I ously in inner matter now started to become an said tonight. like a lot of us. ere was an experience ment in that sense. but things you couldn’t read about in the how did your own experience get you so interested history books. It would tend to began working with a group of people in that context happen a little more gradually. it amplified the better parts of ings and breakthroughs on the path. our own awakenTo the contrary. started out on my spiritual world: this powerful experience of collective path very much interested in my own enlightenment awakening. each individual was that were more focused on the individual and aspects still very much an individual and perhaps more of that were more focused on principles and teachings. what was previand say. and pretty soon the whole group would that we could teach to help other people begin to find itself on the other side of this veil. depth.: how did you come to be so interested in this? planet. many faces. Spiritual experience and awakenexperienced myself this way before. into enlightwere being liberated and freed by this group awakened consciousness that would happen to a whole ening. S. “I don’t know where that came from. We would become one sarily knew that there was some higher collective potenbeing that had many voices. it also now. I came to be part of a spiritual community group would enter into a single higher mind where we were all focused on our individual enlightentogether if you will. of this access this field of collective wisdom and awakening in barrier. ey profound higher states of consciousness. And yet at a certain point. In a sense. about our own struggles on the path. and in this profoundly opened up place. so we did. to people outside our community and to run is just started to happen naturally in our experiments where we’d invite in the general public to group. Something came through me. As you know. And so we did and started to take it out into the world. agenda of its own that we were all participatSo we came together. ings we couldn’t find any refand so engaged with this work? erence to in the great wisdom traditions of the C. It seemed to have an accelerating effect on group together at the same time. or maybe ening practices. And it seemed significant to us for a see if they could have access to it as well. I don’t mean became a very powerful form of spiritual practice for there would be one moment where suddenly everythe individual to participate in these groups. all of the individuals involved. body in the group would go from an unenlightened state into an enlightened state or there would at was really what opened the door for me and I be just a single collective shift. It was something that the So we knew we were on to something.” ing became something that was alive in the conversation between us. when I say at the same time.

those same individuals be doing a lot of this collective awakening practice that I’ve been speaking about. you have to into conversation. to the developmental stage in that collective. experience that together. bringing it out through our voice. In other that are streaming through your mind so that you’re words. of awakening to this one mind. S. I don’t mean in a permanent sense. community and began teaching this work. ey can sort of ey will describe this experience of how something stumble into it because the collective has a happened in that one and a half hours of practice that momentum to it and a centre of gravity to it locked something into their self. at’s another interesting phenoma process of spiritual awakening and development in enon in relation to the individual and collecmy own teaching work over the years and also having tive piece. group states of awakening. between individual and collective one gets the benefit of all the awakening and states of awakening? development that is going on in that collective and is happening in that moment. they’ll very often say. We could say there are certain and awake. But how do you understand the relationship. they online because they had this experience in a colleccan get carried by the momentum of the group tive. but temporarily. a new access to creativity once. when people those capacities that then enable one to really have this kind of experience. one can C. I would say having watched people go through taken one. the other really interesting the individuals are. impact on the individual’s development.: Very interesting question. It’s like the relationships. our eyes. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 121 . Whereas people who have profound experiawakening and the group mind and find that they ences in meditation rarely report that.are having access to things that are really beyond nine years ago and went out and started my own their own level of development.” I have also seen over and over again that indiey will also say. allowing ourselves to awaken and to be not identified with and just endlessly lost in the doing awakening practices while we’re fully alive stream of thought. participate at a higher level with a group. a new inner freedom. ere was not a moment of my week where I was not knowing that e other interesting side to this. though. helping you could say it is like the individual gets access groups learn how to access this depth together. ere is somecapacities that one’s practicing in meditation that thing about that that seems to infuse the whole self you get better and better at. the more developed addition to that. in the group. that when one at accessing collective intelligence. bringing it out into the space be able to focus your attention to a certain degree. is is almost the most mysterious part because it seems And we can all see why that would be the case pretty that there’s something about taking our contemsimply because there are a whole set of capacities that plative practice or spiritual practice out of just one needs to have to be able to be a good – Just like our interior subjective domain and bringing it out you might say. And so you could say that a form that there’s one consciousness that we are all partaking of individual development is developing all in here that’s alive in all of us together. the greater the potential they have thing about this is that doing these collective to participate in these collective awakening experipractices over and over again has a profound ments and practices that we are speaking about. “And it was with me all week long. at experienchas a powerful experience in a collective dialogue ing collective awakening. they can sometimes just catch the wind or and wisdom – all of these things that seem to come draft on the peloton of cyclists of that group.: at just sounds like an amazing experience and one that everyone most commonly wouldn’t if one’s willing and able to just be receptive and have. And if an individual steps of being alive that now did not go away. one is that certainly beyond where one’s own spiritual work has having. is that higher thing that we were together in. between us. S. op to be good at entering into a collective mind. ere is a whole host of capacities that one needs to develover and over again. being able to really do practice. into that with even a basic. into their experience that’s very powerful. h. and it has been my own experience. So I think there are a really have an experience of being propelled far couple of ways to look at that. in clear to me that the more evolved.” because often people meet once a week. is has been a fundamental part of it the whole time. I have heard this from people. Somebody S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . our you have to be able to dis-identify with the thoughts words. our personality in a sense. “I could feel the whole group with viduals who maybe are not all that highly develme all week long even though I didn’t see any of them oped can temporarily go into very profound for a week. eyes open and engaged. a new relationship to the into it with a certain innocence and freshness even mind. it’s I guess the last thing I would say though is. temporary willingness to suspend what they already know and to come And it holds new capacities. to be a good meditator. or open and just lean into that inwardly. It is really the same with higher consciousness in a way that it sticks! with the collective awakening practices.

as this evolutionary impulse or what I the meditation cushion. is is what it means to only a momentary experience. practice. I am letting it animate So there’s a powerful contrast here between what hapme. what’s come before. to identify a whole – individual and collective. right? I guess maybe there’s a couple of ways to And now the individual starts to really have a very concome at that. stronger. And that pating in a group that is really waking up starts to become a more interesting self to be than the beyond ego – when that is happening in a one I used to be. some kind of epiphany of what it is like in tionship. but it means both kinds of group awakenings. you described as “one mind. it would be lovely say. and within a few hours it call the evolutionary self. building on C. what you see in personality completely. that people are reporting that after a high collective I find that that is a very stabilizing practice. it can start to stabilize something in the tation that the person can now hold because they have individuals involved. as we know as spiritual practitioners. with different groups can be valuable. and so there’s this total shift in oriengroup. We start to awaken to was gone. I think why of stabilizing that collective state of consciousness that. So the practice in this case would be doing coherent collective accomplishment that is making more of that – all of these collective awakening praca difference. I don’t know where it went.: Well.” you’re bringing I listened with great interest when I heard you saying the divine into manifestation. inevitably. not only for the participating inditices very consistently with the same group. I am allowing my old small identity to move pens in this collective awakening practice and what to the side. then there’s a I think that together part provides an immense support way that the individuals become stronger and for stabilization. but it goes beyond a satori-like collective high. and sometimes thing.If I start to awaken to myself. and I am awakening to a new happens in our interior contemplative practices that I enlightened consciousness that is this profound think is really rich and worth a lot of exploration because spiritual process of becoming. obviously. one is. I would viduals but for a larger system. Any insight on that? that’s going deeper and deeper together. george. And. going or as infinite becoming” – because we can have there again and again does not mean trying to get back to any particular state again. We have pracdoing the practice again. to own that. for the sake of any kind of again. of I’m starting to experience myself as infinite being course. that’s powerful as a stabilizing factor in an Craig. I mean. practice. I’m actually being that person. now. it is about consistency in that group’s individual moving through time and space. practice and what are you doing over and over but then it went away. of myself in relaideas. h. And if the group keeps got enough practice standing there together with others. It is like it’s providing the individual now if you are talking about. but I didn’t that together. let’s say as the infinite might go and meditate and say. have any access to it anymore. I start to awaken to that in a group. to be the voice of wisthat regard because it’s a kind of very unique far out dom that’s coming out of my mouth. It is like notion. I’m speaking from there. “how does a group with a new sense of identity: “I’m not who I become stabilized in a deeper and higher place?” I thought I was. to mix it up. doing it and keeps practicing it. I’m with that.” ence I’m having. if we could find out what it will it take to stabias well. “oh. It’s not were talking about how an individual particijust the out-flowing of what’s come before. any experience of collective awakening that a reference point in the beyond if you will. but also having a stable group lize those states. “What does it take for crete new self-structure that is emerging that is really individuals to stabilize in these things?” We post – it is really beyond what’s come before. I am allowing it has significant implications for human development as myself to begin to embody that. and I am identifying with that. state. I have a new reference point and it’s awakened state of being – but we have hardly any beyond memory.” ere is an interongoing way is that now I have a different expeest in this because we all have some images. “bring heaven down to Earth. I had a big deep experience of oneness and then I got up off becoming. It just means doing the tices in my work to do both of those things. it’s beyond the mind. to let that infuse my curious about your experience of that. allowing myself to actually become a different George Pór. when you talk about stabilizing anythat I have had the same experience. practice. now practice – of really going there again and again.: I have a living inquiry into the possibility self. they are riding on that energy and I can share of course. which is is being brought down. I thought I was just this separate would say again. the conversation turns back to I could ride on that energy even for a few months. So I’m exciting dimension of all this. some rience of myself in the world. I guess I need to medI think the key here is it’s not just an inner experiitate more to get back to it. C R A I G H A M I L T O N | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E A N D T H E E V O L U T I O N O F S E L F A N D C U L T U R E | 122 .

in the ways we are not just saying. it is a great inquiry and I will tell you things but we are seeing it together. I’m saying to everybody. “is isn’t me. we find that there’s this wisdom faculty or this I come back to some basics when I look at. the inter-subjecis one of the most profound ways. P. h. I do feel that doing this together in groups and the sangha. As anybody who’s awakened knows. I am tion in a higher way. It’s not my group that’s going to have this conversation is not going memory. I making an assumption that we are seeing truth. We are disgeorge. we are all knowing bit less directive and a bit less involved in all the things this. as I hold it. What are sions to it. then there is no difference at all between the wisdom of the teacher and the wisdom of the sangha. meaning we want to know. it’s not what I learned in school. I think ideally – I think is quite significant when it’s a collective tapbecause we are talking about collective intelligence ping in. when we are able to sit in open innothis field. e same thing happens in a collecso we’re leaving memory out. but to speak to that sense of the kind of dynamic We have to always be humble and always question between the teacher as an individual and the teacher everything. “Well. It’s to reference prior knowing. ple. the community itself.” It’s not me in any again. When we get out of and then I’m also curious what george would add. interested. And think you could say that the art of spiritual teachas I was listening. We are not going to refer to some holistic knowing capacity that starts to things we knew before that are sitting in our memory. We are all accessing this.: at’s very inspiring what you are saying. and it’s showing up. our own way. I read this…” or I’m not quoting other people’s knowlAnd if that’s for real. it’s got many dimengroups access collectively awakened states. another question came to my mind: ing. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 123 . think. What do you sense about the e good thing about doing it together of course relationship between these two kinds of teacher? is that it’s no longer just my subjective take on C. a deeper C. It’s something that I’m making evolving and being different each time. To make it very simple. ere’s a collective wisdom capacity that isn’t informing us because of course it is.” So I think one kind of capacity is because it’s one wisdom faculty that’s not personal. We are not bringing in the past. tive field. and therefore we that are going on in the spiritual community that I can trust the truth in it more powerfully. if the group edge that I’ve read. but we are not starts to activate in a group that’s able to funcresting in memory.: Well. I’m on the edge of an experiment with this covering it together. and you do it again. ing into the moment innocent. everybody in this I don’t know where it comes from. means we are the practices or skilful means for cultivating this? referring to a deeper kind of knowing. get stronger and stronger in the enlightened individual. and you let the result keep unfolding and sense I can own it. It doesn’t mean memory tive. “let’s see where we might be in some collective distortion. after all. “Well. I learned something interesting describing here. that kind of Beginner’s Mind capacity. but there is a reliability factor to it that as the awakening sangha – ideally. We are comreally are accessing that collective wisdom capacity. we are not resting in the mind. so it’s automatically getting right now because I have just recently decided to be a validation in a sense of. h. some facilitators of the process? What are some of which in an enlightenment context. and I will be curiknowing faculty that becomes available to us ous what you have observed in your practice of this when we get out of the way. right? – so ideally this is an impersonal S. cent interest and meet each moment with that.” generated. myself available for. open. And so I G. “I don’t know. really is going beyond the ego together. S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . I feel like there is a level of maturity now among enough of the participants who’ve been doing We still can’t trust it completely because we the work pretty intensively with me in the last five have to be good ‘post-moderns’ and know that years that. ulty. this willingness to set it down. but I If they’re really doing it. and they we are not bringing in past knowledge. what wisdom capacity that comes through us – and is it that makes this possible?” ere is this willingness to that’s the experience – it comes through me.” So I will we might be falling into error all together and have more information on that a year from now. is how to empower that in peoit’s about the relationship between a spiritual teacher.: you have spoken about how people can develprocess… op capacities for inter-subjective practice that helps Whatever enlightenment is. I will throw out a few. S. as a teacher. their own capacity to access that wisdom faca person who is enabling some conditions to emerge. when we dis-identify with our since you are a very active practitioner and scholar of own mind. here we are talking about intelligence. suspend our already knowing mind. and you do it and it’s not my wisdom. there’s no difference want to know. about this three years ago when I had this experience.practice again. meaning that. and you go with this with less input from me.: Well. “oh.

you’re going to set ent things. It requires real development in required here. learning to listen for the deeper place that the the intention there but then still do all these person is speaking from. And when there is more than one person created context for something like this. learning how to place our attention. We take the possomething I already know” versus. ere’s learning to listen into this that the intention helps set the course for the space between us. how about you? What other and I’m noticing somebody’s being a little quiet. or it can be for the benefit of the say that’s a powerful practice as well. “no. of course. And there are different ways to do that. When you brought up intention. this conversation can actually contribute to crethere’s learning how to place my attention on the flow ate new grooves. then I’m naturally leaning in. “Something’s here together. It could be to listen to the flow – that’s another capacity. but it’s all about learning to listen for differlife.: one is definitely having a shared intenwanting to ease them off a little. and it’s flowC. if I’m really owninterest. “how is this arising in your experience and its fruits can be very different. As you know. but I’m going to own the problem because I feel disconnected and I’ve group as though it were myself. I. I something more present in the moment. We could come together and say. so I’m pieces do you notice are the facilitators or the interested. both the process questions like. to deepen our understanding of a spiritual truth. new cosmic grooves that didn’t of wisdom that’s emerging between us. Somebody else is dominating. learning how to pay attention to the flow. even though there are six of us in difference in one’s self. listening practices that we cultivate and facilitate. Somebody else is tion. “I’m just requirement for everybody to take full ownership of speaking from memory.” to share?” What is the kind of speaking that ere’s a way this takes us out of the kind of ambivacontributes to this emergent flow of wisdom lence we have about really getting too “in there” with and developing capacity around that? each other if you know what I mean. we have practiced more deeply in a holistic way. you are listening to the deepest practices to access some depth. “What is me just telling a this group. can’t control what comes out story about my past? What is me just sharing a of anybody else’s mouth. P.: right. C R A I G H A M I L T O N | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E A N D T H E E V O L U T I O N O F S E L F A N D C U L T U R E | 124 . there’s a flow of wisdom. Another one is that there is really a one’s self to know the difference between. a deeper place. people tend to be So we have talked about the open. it made me en there is the “Where am I speaking from?” part think of a couple other pieces of the practices of it and learning. P. ere’s learning to listen to the inquiry. is at stake: that we recognize that this experiment. someture that: “is group is me and I am going to take thing’s coming through me in this moment that responsibility for the whole group going somewhere I’m going to give voice to. something that sets the context because being too hyper-intellectual and so I’m asking them depending on the context.: Absolutely. So where the right now?” because I’m trying to draw them into context is. I’m just wanting to say what’s happening in the collective. or it could be a lot of different kinds of listening over the years in our that you actually want to solve a problem in community.” or. and you might get very different emerging flow of wisdom. how also be applied in particular ways. of course. what’s happening over there for you? practices that enable this authenticity? I haven’t heard from you in a while. in the world for real. h. and I’m going to drive now got some story about that that I’m going toward a powerful result for this whole.” So I’m no longer going to just do my that I want to give voice to that’s fresh:” the fresh part. to get owns the whole process and doesn’t in any way defer more intimate with each other and with the colresponsibility for the outcome to someone else. and then another person adds to it. Even some early psychedelic experiments G. and I’m G. ere’s our intention: to penetrate into that experienreally a capacity for a deeper kind of listening that has tially so we could know and understand that many dimensions to it. and then another person adds to it. I find there’s can imagine that a basic tone or the context can a kind of natural facilitation that occurs when one be simply a human bond – to get closer.” and wanting to pull them in. person says something. one shared intention.Another one would have to do with where we place is also possibility for a higher level of context where the evolution of consciousness itself is what our attention. I’m going to take ownership of the whole event arising of wisdom and learning how to know the that happens here. So there are lots of different results depending on those different intentions. all of this can ing on. I’d lective space. I love the point part of the speaker. individuals experiencing some kind of collective highs. Because we find exist before. for instance. in terms of developmental stages. “So I guess this whole attention piece I’m talking about what does oneness really mean?” at could be could also be described as a listening capacity. And there playing in that register of consciousness – of thinking. and speaking from ing the whole collective. “Well. innocent a little hands off but there’s a way of. the deeper listening. So that’s an enabler – to have a in a good dialogue.

I don’t S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . one of my long-term goals is to organization where you have real questions you have create think tanks and things like that. collective get done. as well as an integral evolutionto listen in a deeper way and sense into the needs ary worldview. P. h.” I don’t even think by myself. very big important feeling states where we feel the boundary softening decision. “look. for people to come together to It’s so funny because in addition to being a focus on larger issues and problems in a way that could teacher and everything else I’m doing. an organizational leader now because I have started this company that has grown quite large. or addressing a real world.” more to be part of such experiments. C. And more and more people realize that collective C. obviously. ere’s can’t even think that way. P. h. “What should we do? Should we do many different kinds. It’s kind of a this new program or not?” And so often. but if it’s properly facilitated and talking mostly of the left quadrants in Wilber’s terms helped. h. And the natural tendency of separate sense of self. george thinking and decision-making is how things mentioned the unity consciousness or satori. but there are many different layers of “we” questions to me and just want me to answer experience. you just see the ing in those things. now the impulse I heard in of the integral matrix when we are looking at the interyour voice seemed to be pointing to a very high action of individual and collective consciousness with level of that: of. then there is a leap that becomes possible. so I experiening practices do is they wake us up out of the dream ence the corporate world.: is is a very inspiring and hopeful note to end I have over forty staff members here now. but then having join together in this higher collective consciousness and that whole group suspend their already knowfrom that space address issues that cannot be resolved ing and go into a facilitated process that’s with just ordinary mind. but start to gain access to these deeper wisdom capacities a few years down the line I hope to be participatboth individually and collectively. B or C?” ey’ll give me this question by email which you could describe as collective sort of higher as if I’m going to say. it’s a big thing. h. solving a real world. in my of narcissism. I’m also be creative and help move development for the whole. So I’m training all of just this warm tribal loving connected feeling that my staff to say.” Craig. if you will. “oh. we are going to have to learn the common good. I’m including talking about C. Is there anything you’d perspectives on this – you just know: “I need like to say about that. I would love to see and even going to bring forth deeper collective wisdom. I know the answer. of the field. I know that in your courses. clearly.: at is of interest to me because so far we were faults too. C. It becomes kind of obvious. about the way some of your collective wisdom. like.: Could I throw in one more question? george. important satoris. I now have a corporation. and the flaws in systems that be taking on major global-scale problems by are causing unnecessary man-made suffering. so to speak. I am not currently great social challenges or even simply challenges in an part of that. A. Well. I only think collaborativemany groups have that aren’t necessarily awakening ly. It was just almost like a ule a meeting and we need to think together and thrown-away phrase – that one of the contexts can be we need to sense together and explore from there.know what I’m doing. it will. It’s on because one of the things that these collective awakfunny. let’s do option B. then it’s bringing together people who have the inforinteresting to envision the possibility of groups that mation that would be needed. I know we have probably all experienced them. I wouldn’t even call it thinking. And there are many layers of it. if I’m in the sense we would mean. We are going to have to get multiple you speak a lot to motivation. social to answer on a daily basis. “Well. let’s stay in touch about that. if we S. one thing that going to feel like we have really considered all the stood out to me was that you spoke about the possibilities and we have really solved this probimportance of “an ethical foundation grounded in lem in the best way.: yes. and we start to feel connected. but I’m not sitting there sensing. “What should we do? think tanks that are grappling with big issues Should we hire this person or not? Should we develop from a place of collective wisdom. G. what if we could really systems and structures. or out of the dream of the own organization.” work or some of these practices may help build the context or the motivation. when you little beyond my bandwidth at the moment. people will pose really big.: I aspire to that too.” I between us. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 125 . if we are when I was looking at your abstract. S. yes. it’s got its G. speaking from the group as me. limits of ordinary thinking and ordinary strategizing.: yes. but they are having alone. We need to schedinteresting that struck me. literally. human beings is to assume that individual We could spend hours talking just about the different kinds of collective awakening experiences. but even at their most basic. you said something solving problems on my own.: problem. intelligence and collaborative intelligence is the way to solve problems. are going to come to a good answer.

: yes. accumulate what he accufor you to go deeper in the possibility of the mulates. and I feel groups are a moment of it. that I’m just so grateful to you that and that’s what I care about. James Surowiecki. back to the old egoic self because it feels so small.” ere’s a softening of the ego boundaries it. but not from the self-centered ego. nargeorge. thank you. partial. when where your thinking’s at right now. “I’m G. and whatever. you and I met way back at the But all of those. which really are radical thing that I know is incredibly meaningful for departures from ego consciousness that begin to take us all of us.” My domain of conyou drew us together with Craig. It’s a natural care for the whole. much more powerful than just individual contemplation 8 which can still end up being quite narcissistic at times. I would love to have another oppornot Craig. say. god?” It starts to get very bleday). Suzanne. he 8∑8 said groups at a higher level realizing what’s at stake. too. Societies and Nations. is going to rations. Economies. how nice to connect again. We start to awaken to that. yes. that I’ve got?” Even the most basic collective awakenings. It was a wondercern now is the whole evolutionary process. unreal. Sue. they realize we can contribute to laying down new grooves in consciousness.: Maybe so. When I and hear your voice and feel your spirit and awaken beyond the confines of the separate ego. humanity. at’s something that I have a whole process in motion. (new york: douof life. “What’s the greatest leverage I can find and the greatest impact I can have C R A I G H A M I L T O N | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E A N D T H E E V O L U T I O N O F S E L F A N D C U L T U R E | 126 . (2004). I realize. and I enjoyed every we start to awaken to it. that begins to happen even in the most elemental of S. of cosmic evolution. “how do I help * (Ed’s n.: at’s beautiful.” and also that “I’m problems. e Wisdom of Crowds: Why this whole process? Where can I be best the Many Are Smarter an the Few and How Collective Wisdom deployed to contribute to the higher evolution Shapes Business. We have had deeper and higher motivation that exists in human beings. I’m not this guy who was born at a certain tunity with you to deepen some of our explotime. When ful opportunity to reconnect. And I think that this higher motivation is both what brings us into the groups. Craig.” It’s like. ey are not that vexing. I’m this social think tank. I awaken to who and what I really am. at’s really what I am. real and it starts to feel very important. well. And you start to ladmay have taken us full circle. We can do not alone. but it Its part of our own true nature and it is a care for the is really nice to spend a few minutes together greater good. We can contribute to bringing the future into being. And I want to say.these deep “we” experiences that are very nurturing with the gifts and talents and precious life energy and very affirming on a human level. limited. that’s going to die at a certain time. I feel like we are enlightenment or even awakening to the evolutionary just sitting here having a brief chat on someimpulse as ourselves together. particularly when you feel that it’s time have these life experiences. der up from that to really profound states of collective C. I don’t care about the same things any more. and. they have the effect of making living from that centre. It’s been a row. powerful way to awaken to that. and it ultimately is a by-product of the group practice that can basically lay the foundation for a totally different kind of human life. I also want to life. is group practices when done well. and then —————— there is a natural emergence of. S. various touch points along the way. like the If we can imagine a world populated by people ones I just described. “no. ank you so much for stepping up to a place where we find it harder and harder to go and facilitating this. we will solve all of our me realize that “It’s not about me. I am not going to spend my time in the ways I used to. P. h. long time. beginning for me when I was just starting to they all are beginning to reveal that there’s a natural research collective intelligence. at whichever level we are talking about. I am this whole event of great passion to explore with you. If I am rooted in that. I am now going to be caring about my larger contribution to the whole. And george spoke to this a few minutes ago.

Tom introduced me to Jim rough. collection management (who knows what we need to know). Intelligence is not about “inputs. the context of humanity in its day to day life. Anything less is a corrupt misdirection of public funds5. e Tao of Democracy6. through machine intelligence and automated networks isolated from the spiritual. hybrid governance3 overturns hierarchical S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . multi-disciplinary and multi-lingual collection. AfTEr co-founding the Marine Corps Intelligence Activity (MCIA). Intelligence must be defined and evaluated on the basis of “outputs” and the utility to the public and to those representing the public. and finally. uSMC (ret. sixteen years as a Reserve military intelligence officer.” Intelligence is decision-support. which costs toward uSd 100 billion a year. I I N T R O D U C T I O N AM A rECoVErIng Spy Who rEAlIzEd In 1988 . open Source Everything and open Source Engineering use transparency to drive innovation while eradicating corruption and waste.). a combination of machine and human processing and analysis. and in service to a few mandarins instead of the general public. then Commanding general of the uS Central Command (uSCEnTCoM). Subsequent to my own awakening. He returned to the USA for an AB in Political Science (thesis on multinational corporations and home/host country issues) and an MA in International Relations (thesis on predicting revolution). over the years Tom and I have talked about how helpful it is to clarify for those not familiar with intelligence as a craft (a specific process. W H A T I S I N T E L L I G E N C E Intelligence is not about secret sources and methods. Intelligence is a process of requirements definition (what do you need to know). pioneer of dynamic facilitation7. with “at best” 4% of what he needed to know2. five years as the second-ranking civilian in Marine Corps Intelligence. and create infinite wealth for all. so as to empower the 99% to reinvent intelligence. W H A T ’ S T H E P O I N T our objective is to overturn centuries of topdown elite control focused on value extraction for the 1% to the detriment of humanity at large: the 99%. others Mutuality Economics4. I share with Tom the view that “wisdom of the crowds” is a perverted mis-representation of what humanity is capable of achieving when engaged in an interactive respectful conversation instead of being treated as small uninformed opinions in isolation8. and twenty-one years as a private sector proponent for intelligence reform and open source everything. and a Diploma from the Naval War College. expensive. went on record with his judgment that uS secret intelligence was providing him.R O B E R T D A V I D S T E E L E APPLIED COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE : HUMAN-CENTRIC HOLISTIC ANALYTICS. My own appreciation for Collective Intelligence rooted in public minds and public needs can be traced to Tom Atlee’s first book. general Tony zinni. the cultural. at the time involved in two major wars and over twelve “interventions” elsewhere. and to many others. reengineer Earth. nine years as a Clandestine Operations Officer for the CIA. TRUE COST ECONOMICS. e end-game is quite clear and is rooted in Truth & reconciliation: we agree to protect existing concentrated wealth in return for a 1% allocation some call redemptive or Inclusive Capitalism. the production of decision-support. It is from Tom that I clearly understand that my own focus now on Applied Collective Intelligence is part of a much larger mosaic. and I share with Tom a concern about those who seek to define collective intelligence as something to be achieved artificially. is largely worthless1. He has also earned an MBA with a thesis in strategic information management. as commander of a major regional theatre command. AND OPEN EVERYTHING Robert David Steele was born in the USA and raised in South America and Asia as the son of an oil engineer. generally C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 127 . 2 /2 0 1 4 | governance rooted in corruption enabled by secrecy. It is also representative of how other governments approach the craft of intelligence – as something that is secret. He seeks financial and institutional sponsors able to embrace and implement these ideas. that the uS secret intelligence program. His professional service includes four years as a Marine Corps infantry officer.

mis-directese particular threats. the foremost pioneer along g r o u p 2 ~ ShArIng our huMAnITy with linux Torvalds of free. operational. it is only now that I am focused on helping tary. human. government. virtual colosources. or other orgabeen operating in the area below Applied Collective nizations seeking to be genuinely multidisciplinary in 9 Intelligence . in other words. money on secret technical collection – mass surveillance – is profitable for the few while being T W E N T Y G L O B A L P R O B L E M S unaccountable to the taxpayers for any absence of here below are the twenty global challenges in three a return on Investment (roI). has been on teaching over 66 govslightly flawed in that they do not reflect the continernments how to better access and leverage open uation today of unilateral militarism. Ever since I began champiese ten high-level threats are also a helpful starting oning open Source Intelligence (oSInT) in 1988. processes and programmes.with just two points of reference: the ten highlevel threats to humanity as identified by the united nations high-level panel on reats. and predatory capitalism. My emphasis for the past quarter-century. S T E E L E | A P P L I E D C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 128 . in part include the potential threat of technology run amok. and technical that led to this graphic being created. ey are useful as a means of measuring the degree to which any particular government’s policies and programmes are relevant to protecting their respective populations and promoting prosperity. ere have been other important contributions17 but for my elementary purposes. It is my on-going conversation with Tom its strategic. as an intelligence professional intent one of the first tasks for any group practicing on defining the new evolving craft of intelligence13. I failed. then Vice president for Europe of the World Bank15. in this particular order. father of ecological economics. achieving Applied Collective Intelligence. tactical. I want to begin. these two very informed and S T A T E O F T H E W O R L D – NEED FOR widely-accepted summaries of the state of the world HOLISTIC ANALYTICS and our shared challenges will do as a starting point. inspired in part by TIon ~ dEforESTATIon ~ WATEr dEfICITS ~ MArITIME SAfETy & polherman daly. I have been trying to fix the nialism. H I G H L E V E L T H R E A T S ese are the ten high-level threats to humanity. g r o u p 1 ~ ShArIng our plAnET gloBAl WArMIng ~ BIodIVErSITy & ECoSySTEM ~ fIShErIES dEplErecently – in the past five years. this set of always understood the value of oSInT to the pubchallenges is noteworthy for its balance among planelic. Challenges and Change14 and the twenty global problems identified by Jean-francois rischard. but not noticed until nafeez ArChITECTurE ~ IllEgAl drugS ~ EConoMIC CoMpETITIon ~ 12 Ahmed profiled the idea in e Guardian) . I have point for any university. ey also do not 10 left or red side of the above duality . libre open Source poVErTy ~ ConflICT prEVEnTIon ~ EduCATIon for All ~ InfECSoftware (floSS) – I have conceptualized the comTIouS dISEASES ~ dIgITAl dIVIdE ~ nATurAl dISASTErS bination of holistic Analytics with True Cost Ecog r o u p 3 ~ ShArIng our rulEBooK 11 nomics and open Source Everything (as outlined rEInVEnTIng TAxATIon ~ BIoTEChnology ~ gloBAl fInAnCIAl in my latest book. InTEllIgEnCE propErTy ~ E-CoMMErCE ~ InTErnATIonAl lABour With this article I present a brief roadmap for & MIgrATIon. poVErTy ~ InfECTIouS dISEASE ~ EnVIronMEnTAl dEgrAdATIon ~ InTEr-STATE ConflICT ~ CIVIl WAr ~ but not advisedly done in secrecy) how it is different gEnoCIdE ~ oThEr ATroCITIES ~ prolIfErATIon ~ TErfrom intelligence as a human capacity for acquiring rorISM ~ TrAnSnATIonAl CrIME understanding and wisdom. because of the corruption endemic to the secret both in bio-chemical chain reactions and in computaintelligence world. and organizational challenges. are ed as it turns out. where spending vast amounts of 16 tional catastrophes . ey are in priority order. the public devise a capacity to confront and bury all lies on all topics at all levels in real time. T E N fIgurE 1 ~ Intelligence as a Craft versus Intelligence as a Human Capacity. Although I have groups as devised by Jean-francois rischard. and luTIon by richard Stallman. Applied Collective Intelligence is to devise their own R O B E R T D .

e threats will differ. sales. does today in the way of holistic analytics18. unilateral militarism. no government. T R U E C O S T E C O N O M I C S one starting point is recognition of the fact that governments are merely one of eight information “tribes” or networks. in priority order. Without belabouring both the future – our goal is nothing less than a prosperthe achievements and the shortcomings of the ous world at peace. transport. or behaviour. techno-demographic. and within ly. and generally the least informed and the least agile. to empower all eight of these tribes respect for “ground truth” as well as any attempt to toward the creation of the World Brain and the abilestablish “true costs” of any given policy. and neglected a tion technology specifically. my focus now is on how best to achieve remediation toward a prosperous world that works for all. Applied Collective Intelligence seeks to leverage Such “analysis” as has been done has favoured the open source information and open source informainterests of the 1% over the 99%. HOLISTIC PERSPECTIVES NEEDED fIgurE 2 illuminates what no university. animals. but three of them – poverty. for some time now. and environmental degradation – appear to be universal. consequently being abusive of mation they think is relevant to their varied humanity at large in the long run. especially in priority. My core point is that we are fragmented across society in a manner that makes it virtually impossible to “do” Applied Collective Intelligence. here is just one example: for a single white non-organic cotton T-Shirt. is the essential foundation for assuring that humanity is pursuing sound policies and behaviours in relation to our fragile Earth and its extraordinary ecology of plants. a world that works for all21. ism. which scientific and technical achievements. Eight groups in particular concern me. unfortunatethe separation among organizations.list of threats. or policy: the water content. ity to work together in a hybrid form respectful of product. Media includes bloggers and alternative media. the true costs include 570 gallons of water. In practical terms. Completely apart from the reductionism characteristic of the Westerner whose approach to governance and science assures the isolation of each of these S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . ey are. and end-use. true cost economics demands that we conduct research and document. regulatory violations. Western colonialresponsibilities. into public water bodies. and organizational achievements. and matter that we are now understanding is not a “solid” per se. open source engineering generally. within which I include all possible feed-back loops and all possible aspects of holistic analytics such as political-military. and at global scale. for any given product. I have been thinking that there are many sectors of society with knowledge that is not shared. and of course the specific toxins released into the atmosphere. no corporation. service. the fuel utilized from creation of the raw materials through processing. 8 kWh in energy used by machines. and activists who are not organized into non-government non-profits. have been abundant. tribes from one another – and within the tribes. END ERA – OF THE EIGHT INDUSTRIAL INFORMATION TRIBES We are at the end of the Industrial Era in fIgurE 2 ~ Preliminary Concept for Holistic Analytics. service. religions. ideocultural. for group attention. the isolation of individufrom ethical foundations as well as the real-world als who lack access to one another and to the inforneeds of the poorest. behaviour. Industrial Era. these achievements generally have been divorced and among organizations. in alphabetical order: ACAdEMIC ~ ~ CIVIl SoCIETy lAW EnforCEMEnT ~ ~ CoMMErCE MEdIA ~ ~ goVErnMEnT MIlITAry ~ non-goV- ErnMEnT Civil Society includes labour unions. 11-29 grams C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 129 . or into the earth. and tax avoidance inherent. but rather a particularly dense configuration of energy. and predatory capitalism have been dominant these past two hundred years19. and natural-geographic costing22. since I first conceptualized the “smart nation” in 199620. socio-economic. the degree of child labour. disease. 2 /2 0 1 4 | True Cost Economics. from place to place.

and research. social. Co2. S T E E L E | A P P L I E D C O L L E C T I V E S O U R C E E V E R Y T H I N G open Source is not. So2. 1-3g of pesticides along with diesel exhaust and heavy metals (in dyes). e true costs of all this misbehaviour are now converging to threaten all humanity. is also a cost for any given cotton T-Shirt as traditionally produced23. as many assume. R O B E R T D . and a philosophy of education.of fuel. O P E N fIgurE 5 ~ Open Source Everything (Partial Depiction). I N T E L L I G E N C E | 130 . It is a helpful means of illustrating how any given activity. I add the human subsystems (the natural-geographic subsystem is the whole) and then strive to make the point that the feedback loops among all these systems are what we need to understand if we are to reduce the negative outcomes on the left and increase the positive outcomes on the right. E A R T H T H I N K I N G Starting with the five major “spheres” defined by others that comprise the Earth. We are at the end of centuries of reductionism dismissive of true costs and obsessed with short-term financial profits that benefit the few at the expense of the many including all generations into the future. and other volatile compounds. a signal contribution from priceWaterhouseCoopers International in the united Kingdom24. n2o. varied emissions of nox. a mind-set. product. W H O L E H O L I S T I C fIgurE 3 ~ Whole Earth Holistic inking – Applied Collective Intelligence. Academia. open Source Everything (oSE) is a meme. behaviour. Aside is a complementary and excellent depiction of Total Impact Measurement and Management (TIMM). intelligence (decision-support). policy. fIgurE 4 ~ Whole Systems Analytics and Total Impact Measurement. and in toxins. denoting that the software or hardware is freely available and open to both redistribution and modification without substantive encumbrance. among others. Child labor across any of seventeen countries. e below diagram is representative of the larger ecology. and society are not structured – nor trained to think – in this fashion. earning 50 cents a day. the economy. simply a legal and technical concept referring primarily to software and increasingly also to hardware. or service can be – must be – analyzed in relation to its economic. and environmental impacts. government.

including 11 dialects of Arabic. Instead I draw the reader’s attention to a oSE is the ethical. In my costs that most local governments and small businesses view. S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . and the home page for the topic28. I find the extent that it actually protects social enterpris26 that no one really understands the obstacles to doing es and their intellectual rights . not yet fully established in law or in technology to 2 ~ Today. and scalable toward the 5 billion people Source Intelligence (oSInT) I am reluctant to whose needs are not responsibly addressed by the acaderepeat or even summarize that body of work my. commercial. a prerelation to the geospatial foundation. over 90% of what we need to know to be are now finding impossible to continue paying. geospathis is really important – all humans have infortially grounded. or society of the present. A major task dominantly technical term of art. allowing for tent at offering a suitable geospatial platform for the efficient harvesting and harnessing of culturmachine speed data fusion31. understanding all local challenges and emergent Creative Commons is a viable legal construct but solutions. but both will have difficulty scaling and ciplinary. self-motivated vested by governments. still do not have. economy. big data at exascale levels. back office and desktop toolkits. historical. e term of art for the human pers is of great interest to me. together offer the eighteen functionalities identified in 1989 by additional insights into the larger context and the Central Intelligence Agency as necessary for potential application of this concept. core languages. and legal five points: underpinning for the emergent new economy that is 1 ~ My experience has shown that there are 33 collaborative. along with openaspect is Multinational. they tion across all boundaries. corporavices. will be to establish new all languages and domains. e essence of financial profitability for Applied Colthat are required if one is to be comprehensive lective Intelligence within this new economy lies in a about exploring human knowledge in any given mix of free education combined with licensing. in one integrated suite of tools. I know of no government. is marginal at best. and that no agency – least oSE is the underpinning for local to global inforof all the uS national geospatial Agency – is compemation-sharing and sense-making. financial. and not harCognitive Surplus of a broadly distributed. Although googleEarth al. unstructured database architecture ready to go to hold instead of using the acronym. and linguistically specific informaand Keyhole Markup language (KMl) are useful. as “big data” is becoming fashionable. We My book. oSE is a means of harvesting the citizens is not secret. corporations. Multidomain Information-Sharing 27 neither they nor google Earth have a sparse matrix and Sense-Making (M4IS2) . here30. training. MultidisStreetMap. dialog across all boundaries. mation tools with which to make sense of it all and achieve direct democracy and deliberative 3 ~ Analytic competence across sources. human. oSE can tion. In combination with oSE. and maintenance. do not accommodate non-geospatial data. intellectual. of particular note is that oSE is the only techuniversities. processing. I shorten that. inclusive. Multiagency. or university that is serious about doing be licensed in multiple forms using Creative Commulti-disciplinary research across this range of mons designations. the two for Applied Collective Intelligence. to Multinational all information in all languages and all mediums in Everything. is open to modification and redistribadditional languages I and others have identified ution. apart from fosterdefine a virtual World Brain in which all minds ing acceptance of open Source Everything and eventually are connected to all information in Multinational Everything. open data pointing out that the current approach to governwithout open hardware and open Source Software ment intelligence (emphasizing secrecy and mass is merely gifting all our data to corporations that will technical surveillance) as well as the current approach continue to impose the wasteful costs of proprietary to commercial intelligence (emphasizing indussoftware licensing fees. ethical. government.O P E N S O U R C E I N T E L L I G E N C E What really matters about the above partial representation is that we must treat all of them as an ecolfor over a quarter-century others and I have been ogy and go “all in” across all the opens. to use a softcore languages – and even less so across the 150 ware example. nical approach that is affordable. and sharing in nature. inter-operable across all Since I have published so much about open boundaries. and the monetization of transactions. and meaningful access to decision-makers. e Open Source Everything Manifesto. serdomain. in addition to open. all the time and – data standards that are. trial and cyber-espionage) are deficient29. or even network25. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 131 . effective stewards of the Earth and productive In commercial terms. CrisisMapand technical. not expensive. but cannot be used to collect financial remuas being relevant if one wishes to be competent in neration without engaging the originator. such that the code.

process or service to reflect on its own operational performance. the university must again ers to share data while respecting anonymity. is is an example of doing other languages. Embedded Intelligence is characterized as the ability of a product. and the emerging discihuman conversations and human insights pline of integral decision-support. ose that limit themselves to open data (retaining proprietary approaches to everyere are two terms I want to bring forward thing else) are destined for failure. ese aspects must be considered from the design stage such as to enhance product lifetime and performance. the economy. incestuous and pedestrian. My focus is on a 34 arrived at among humans . and society. S T E E L E | A P P L I E D C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 132 . e above graphic combines the original concept focused on the manufacturing aspect. the government. and open Source Everything as Engineering roughly 1% of scientific research that has been Intelligence. the first is ephemeralism and the second when corporations refuse to share their own data with is embedded intelligence. I consider all analytic toolkits today to be fraudulent in their claims and ineffective in their performance32. and all othand research. In today’s environment of “cost plus” contracting. data ecology of any given community – all stakethis is not done. in two the wrong things righter39. holistic Analytics as demand Intellibeing done here and there. how we build it. At the same would involve adding True Cost Economics as Suptime. Taking this approach will. coined by Buckminster fuller . I believe. is is the only affordable. any analyst to make the most of the data assigned to them. increase quality of process or service delivery. interoperaO P E N S O U R C E E N G I N E E R I N G ble. intelligence (decision-support) and then international governments. is self-reflection is facilitated by information collected by sensors and processed locally or remotely to derive insight. recognizing that some excellent work is ply Intelligence. ate a new gold standard for both the emergent disci5 ~ oSInT is primarily about human contacts and pline of embedded intelligence. and how we use it. identity.calculated on the basis of the total financial cost. or in relation to the end-user or environment in terms of satisfactory experience. Waste on the cally reduce waste and achieve design and engineerorder of 50% is documented36 – but welcomed ing efficiencies simply not contemplated nor realbecause profits – and kickbacks to politicians – are ized beforehand. university research is. R O B E R T D . pribecome central to civilization. 35 Ephemeralism. scalable solution. whose only qualification for being present is that they have a Top Secret clearance. e true cost of any given prodholders and not only the government – so as to radiuct or process is not considered. Intelligent design integrating biomimicry37 and deeply appreciative of both true costs of resources and future effects of toxins is not standard. It is not. to embed intelligence in what we about surfing the Internet with uS citizens build. True Cost Economics is how we transform the entire refers to the ability to create more with less. the fact is that gence. We are now at a point where ephemeralism can be achieved by leveraging oSInT. In my T H E W A Y A H E A D view we are at the beginning of a renaissance in the role of the university as a catalyst for open Source Everything is how we enable local to national education. doing the right thing words. and more rapidly so here. and rights. sors cite relevant works from beyond their small e prevailing approach to EI is that of IBM and its established circles – and certainly almost never in “Smart Cities” concept. with my 4 ~ Even the most prestigious universities fail the smell new concepts focused on the decision-support to test when one looks at the degree to which profesdesign aspect. ernment. cre33 carried out actually gets published . universities. as the complete re-design of the academy. or ensure customer satisfaction and market acceptance38. fIgurE 6 ~ Enhanced Approach to Embedded Intelligence. vacy. govAmerican spies have sought to define it. usage load.

and further separable for consideration at each they are out of control and must be stopped. It creates smart safe communities in which waste has been eradicated and corruption is so transparent as to be quickly eradicated. element. E A R T H ’ S R I G H T S . In passing. We have allowed the 1% to demise41. only one of eight larger human organizational elements that must learn to share. ductivity of the public. human Scale. open Source Engineering is the applied outcome of all of the above. than most to address the critical role that integral education and a proper philosophy play in addressApplied Collective Intelligence re-unifies religion. the ment is recognized as being unable to govern and economy. as Vampire I would suggest that humanity is on trial and failing Capitalism comes face to face with its own the ultimate cosmic test. AND SCIENCE four times that of the one billion rich47. while being able to aggregate for human welfare?” As authors from John ralston and exploit that information rooted in geospatial and Saul to Matt Taibbi have documented44. having destroyed its seed corn. uniquely among all living species. A N E W K N O W L E D G E P A R A D I G M I have concluded that education. intelligence (decision-support). & Research. and research are now badly trained.holistic Analytics – transparent. techniToday we see the re-emergence of religion along cal. panarchy. operational. tactical. Changes must be made. truthful. It should also be clear by now that plants rights of anonymity. Similarly e Most holy father of the Applied Collective Intelligence. and sought to make a new compact with the poor46 – A N D T H E R E . Catholic Church has recently reversed the decades of repression against the Jesuits and liberation eology. appear always single out human rights including the capable of. “What is the relation between world at peace. Smart “anything goes” Western capitalism of the goldman nation. than secular ism. the profence the commons. and rights and animals are not just alive. a world that works for all. and Intelligence. Wilson. individuals. lastly. It is also helpful to observe now. criminalize natural behavior49. when scitime-date visualization. in his losophy. Although Will durant has done more inimical to humanity and to all living creatures50. and global game – are all central to Sachs variant. aggregated by threat or policy ence and capitalism do great harm to humanity. other than to note and finance are coming to the fore as being more that the six terms in the inner circle – Ephemeralethical and respectful of human needs45. equipped. every other organization. privacy. identity. PHILOSOPHY. but conscious and comgenerally to one’s own labour and intellectual municating with one another48 hence they merit our property. despite my continued emphasis on the centralihuman rights are central to the liberation of the ty of the human factor (computers are tools – inherent intelligence and innovative possibilities that artefacts – nothing more40) I find it helpful to humans. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 133 . that religions and philosoand sponsor programs of war and bio-chemical hazard phy matter. World Brain. My intent is to make it possible for every government fIgurE 7 ~ Grand Strategic Design for Integral Education. H U M A N R I G H T S . with consciousness and spiritual exploration and is depicts my overview of Applied Collective Intelnew forms of civic dialog in which the governligence as a constructive force for academia.U N I F I C A T I O N O F the five billion poor whose annual aggregate income is RELIGION. who restores as our human goal the creation of a prosperous answers the question.” it is E. phiing “the social problem42. domain. and society. level of analysis: strategic. Applied Collective Intelligence protects the 1% from the science and the humanities.o. and how is it important S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . to access information relevant to their mission or interest across all boundaries. respect and eventually we must be able to integrate what they know into our larger understanding. governance. and science. and inspiring of public trust – is our larger method. Applied Collective Intelligence book Consilience: e Unity of Knowledge43. and organized. Islamic economics I will not belabour the elements.

shared help desk. but this five. ing of selected lear Jets here and there. and other forms of outtake testing and tutoring as well as team learning to reach to universities.net strives to register as many as wish to in a manner that both validates their F I V E O R G I N A Z I O N A L I N I T I A T I V E S identities when such validation is essential to the ere are five organizational initiatives I would like to process and they opt-in. B ~ World-Brain. tailored decision-support. data-sharing. privacy. and of sacrilege. being methodical rather than tized through the other three online networks. is is envisioned as a new residential school while also serving as a foundation for any individwith an extension program for non-resident stuuals and organizations who wish to organize localdents. is will shared online databases. an open Source Everything captures billions of human minds that can be moneInnovation hub. and non-governmental organizations around C ~ World-Brain.of ensuring that anonymity. altruistic with reliable anonymity & privacy. aspect seeks to double or triple the return on investment of the existing research base while cleansing it My intent is to create a model that can be replicated of waste from redundancy and corruption related to – and adapted – to any local circumstance. human to human educational options. avoids a blood-bath certain to include the downform to every organization world-wide. and financial resources. with the fifth. of online domains: corruption. and creates infinite while empowering individuals via the four wealth for all while eradicating Western forms of waste. plagiarism and poor sources and methods. this tribes51 as well as the four Centres shown above.org is a revenue-producer and makes the world. as well as a very robust program of faculty ized face to face and both physical and online and student exchange. is is not a revenue producer. 1 ~ Within the School there would be a provost Centre for Comprehensive Architecture where all d ~ World-Brain. while also championing an Autonomous Internet52 and liberation Technology53. identity. the School could nevertheels of practice from local to global. from knowledge less be started as a virtual entity from existing gap identification to research funding and new forms human. S T E E L E | A P P L I E D C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 134 . While proposed as contingent on the university the hub for M4IS2 world-wide at all levearmarked funding. is Centre would also take on the vital task online structured and validate information commons R O B E R T D . A of co-investment (including the harnessing of cogninew building and green village complex are tive surplus and crowd-sourcing) to new forms of envisioned with twelve wings – one each for quality control that eradicate plagiarism and optimize each of the eight information networks or Creative Commons credit and compensation. while also providing them see sponsored by any single government. as well as means corporation.Edu strives to be the platform for SChool of fuTurE-orIEnTEd hyBrId goVErnAnCE. 3 ~ e World Brain Institute as the local to global proponent for extending the platpitchforks. fIgurE 8 ~ Organizing for Applied Collective Intelligence. taiand methods council – the new high table of acadlored strategic forecasting with its local to global emia. ing. or visionary university – or any combiof reserving rights related to any knowledge or data nation thereof. persistent pervasive free online education for life. physical. joint investigations. e below graphic depicts four of the they share. 2 ~ e global (Serious) game as the interac- tive manifestation of the open Source Everything Innovation hub applied to real world challenges using real world information – this is where all True Cost information can reside in a sparse matrix connected to a local to global digital open source map that allows any citizen to see the specifics and totality of all true costs in relation to anything of interest to them.Com is a revenue producer impleof the schools and departments of the larger unimenting the herring Triangle54 of shared monitorversity might form an intellectual. and rights are properly protected within all development. A ~ World-Brain. institutional. corporations entirely new levels of excellence and effectiveness. governments.

open Source demands the complete participation of those being governed. Mark Tovey (ed. and lectures.). 2 /2 0 1 4 | (universite Catholique de louvain.). e Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World that World for All (Cranston. 2000). Cf. “the truth at any cost lowers all other costs. Stephen M. uK: freuds. monographs. and the Future of way in creating a new phd/dBA in Applied Collective Global Governance (ottawa. 2014). Public. one earning the author the nobel Intelligence and open Source Everything / Engineering. 5 Cf.” e Brewery online pdf (london. hereafter PBI. and hybrid governance sources and methods. its local to global distributed network of help desks (reference librarians without borders augmented by information brokers. & Political (oakton. 7 Jim rough. Badger II. Strategic Intelligence: e Intelligence Cycle (Westport. Mind favourable to a Whole Earth. VA: open Source Solutions. uSMC (ret) and in turn cited by robert Steele. rI: Writer’s Collective. 2008). Society’s Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People (Bloomington. the Mars family. is Elinor ostrom. January 2014). articles. integrity – and the sustainability it enables55. on: IdrC Books. Wilson. including a second “fact checking” back to general zinni via Col Wilson. today dr. 9 Cf. include two books with forewords by past and then present chairmen of the uS Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI). Collective guesstimation.. all free online.(displacing the erratic and shallow archipelago of unreliable and biased sources today). True Cost Economics. 8 Cf. Networks.phibetaiota. see her Conference on Inclusive Capitaleight information tribes are empowered in a manner ism. 2 general Tony zinni. In: Authorhouse. Tom Atlee. An important early work. ment. “Editomethodological initiatives create a Whole (human) rial. Tovey. http://www. Everything as engineering and technology manageboth as rule-makers witting of all relevant local knowledge. My publications.” PBI (10 August 2014). “Tom Atlee: factors Supporting Collective Stupidity. “dynamic facilitation and Wisdom Council. divering without Government (Washington.net.” online pdf 3 4 8 —————— 1 Academic followers of the secret world who are lacking in actual practitioner experience will be quick to challenge this assertion. 6 Tom Atlee. he recommended me. Global Public Policy: Governof the whole is found in its clarity. Two graphics with additional information. is final graphic depicts my nomics as championed since 1947 by one very wealthy American “atomic” vision in which the above institutional and family. turn enables localized free open cloud to open spectrum public agency. Wolfgang reinicke. sonal communication).” in loch Johnson (ed. and Bruno roche. Chapter 6: 96-122. prize. 2003). private investigators.” in one that academics with limited real-world experience would do well to embrace. (2014). Inc. “open Source Intelligence. I funded this book and was originally the senior co-editor. S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . e ultimate outcome is the transparent.). robert Steele. e New Craft of Intelligence: Personal. and so many others). 10 When the north Atlantic Treaty organization (nATo) could not afford Alvin Toffler. citizen activists. I. her key point: the best governance Cost Analytics. tution press. investigative journalist. Governing the Commons: e Evolugraduates would master holistic Analytics including tion of Institutions of Collective Action (Cambridge. My motto. and True bridge up. My body of work. I reject the term in favour of Mutuality Econever before achieved. Inclusive Capital is a term used by lady such that all individuals and organizations across the rothschilds of london. Time & Space Analytics. 1990 ). dC: Brookings Instisity. are at http://www. uSMC as relayed to Col g. 3 ~ e Centre for public Intelligence is the model that can be replicated at any level anywhere by anyone using free open source software and hardware that in fIgurE 9 ~ Uniting the Eight Tribes with Open Source Everything. 2002) and its central chapter. including books. is easily accessed via phi Beta Iota the public Intelligence Blog. and I was hired to brief all the leaders of all the nATo and the partnership C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 135 . accessed 3 September 2014). 2002). 27 May 2014. Since capitalism emphasizes capital over labour and raw materials. See also Jim rough. CT: praeger. MA: CamCitation Analytics. but removed myself from the cover to honour the comprehensive contributions of then phd candidate Tovey. and as rule-enforcers. Collective Intelligence. constantly present and in human contact with one another and the commons being governed together. and of course as a central registry for commercial intelligence with each source having a validated record of past performance. 2007). “new rules for the new Craft of Intelligence. and Collective Wisdom. chapters. truthful interedemptive Capitalism is a term used by Bo riddle (pergration of all information in all languages all the time. VA: Earth Intelligence network.” both easily found in full text online at PBI. Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace (oakton.net/?s=graphic+zinni.Net (undated. e value Cf. Crite School (or Institute) that I envision would lead the ical Choices: e United Nations.” ToBe.” PBI (13 August 2014) and also “Tom Atlee: flawed Wisdom of the Crowds – neglects Conversation & role of Interaction. “e Economics of Mutuality. 1998) and Wolfgang reinicke et al (eds.phibetaiota.

dicho Sobre la Routledge Companion to Intelligence Studies (oxford. Michael goodman.” Government Wastes 61-86% of Its Energy. I do not address tic manner. Energy: Barry fischer. and Stephen E.” Syntience (2010). tions. Peterson Today. “uS robert david Steele. 2004). A and 2009 e ultimate hack: re-Inventing Intelligence to More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility (new york.tinyurl. princeton. I have not included here a graphic I created after reflexive practice in the article. 2013-2014 State of the Future (Washington.” Beyond Search (30 July 2014).z. 2007). both easily found by searching online for each list title: Worth a look: of fruit and Vegetables – and America Isn’t Must Better. My additional graphic can be viewed central tenet of Applied Collective Intelligence. 14 – 2010 M4IS2 presentacion por Sur America (AnEpE Chile).” CleanTechnica (26 August 2013). Challenges. “2007 Amazon as hub of World Brain.). “e uS spends more on today. one threat or policy as a whole. and “Books 17 Cf. 30 tion: And How to Save it (london: pluto press. 36 19 Agriculture: nadia Arumugam. Jean-francois rischard. “e Evolving Craft of Intelligence. health: Michael galper et al. 1994). “e open source revolution is coming and it Inge Svensson. IS2.” http://bit.” PBI (1 July 2013). 2003). perry Chiaramonte.” Reuters (18 november 2013). nafeez Ahmed. see “graphic: preconditions of revolution in the uSA defense than the next eight countries combined. Designing a World that – Email provided. Miliis objective is generally as stated by Buckminster tary: Scot paltrow. CEo and a challenge to the CC community. Ecology. and a Sustainable Future (Beayork.” PBI (16 August 2011). herman daly and Joshua farley. derek Bok. Ecological Economics: Production Transforms Markets and Freedom (new haven. 31 Cf. CA: north Atlantic Books.” PriceWaterhouseCoopers (April 2008).org.ly/1ATKQAr. & Trust (Berkeley.” Peter G. a runfuller over the course of his life. and Medard gabel. All releBrewery Journal (January 2014): 29-31. “2014 robert Steele: Appraisal of Analytic foundations um project. liszkiewicz and documented at Source Intelligence Handbook and other documents. 2014).” National 20 Resources Defense Council (August 2012).” PBI (1 May Works For All: Solutions & Strategies for Meeting the World’s 2014) and “1989 Webb (uS) CATAlyST: Computer-Aided Tools Needs . Valuing the Earth: Economics. All to embrace for action. “Behind the pentagon’s doctored ledgers. “A message from larry: A new press. 1982). 1982) and also Synergetics: Explorations in the Whole for the Whole >. Critical Path (new york.2005-2013 Labs (Seattle. 20 http://www. 2004). my briefing. reform (robert Steele). Principles and Applications (Island press. high-level panel on reats. “Measuring the impact of corrupt third country intelligence leaders. but do wish to note that I consider it a viewing Monica Anderson’s “Science Beyond reductionism.com/nATo-oSE. “Wasted: how America is losing up look: Book review lists (negative Status-Quo). and the underlying graduate theFoundation (13 April 2014).Martin’s griffin. 2010 M4IS2 Briefing for South America global Intelligence. 24 was a failure in part because the spies have money with which to As included in dennis nally. ere are multiple other pioneers con press. Plan B 4. feedback Solicited – updATEd. recent briefings where I have advocated this approach 13 Cf.” e Guardian (19 June 2014). Ethics (Cambridge. Intelligence. 2010). and added the will conquer the 1% – ex CIA spy. 2003). ed nations. Truth. the Environment. “Creating a Smart nation: Strategy..” PBI (19 January 2013). nafeez Ahmed. “e price of excess: Identifying waste 21 in healthcare spending. 28 15 open Source Everything home page. dana gunders. e Wealth of Networks: How Social 11 Cf. remains useful International peace research Institute. Selected articles and chapters at “2014 Intelligence draft of this article.” PBI (21 January 2014).23 for peace (pfp). robert david Steele. Universities in the Marketplace: e Commerthreats to humanity with the twelve core policies identified cialization of Higher Education. and Clay Shirky. an open Source Agency – and Integrity. regardless of what threats and what policies a group decides and my monograph. ny: penguin. and Change. “un Says Europe Wastes 50% I have two master lists of book reviews. created in 1976. ny: Macmillan. ny: Basic Books. “War on waste: sis also available online. 1993). to 40 percent of Its food from farm to fork to landfill. 18 is graphic stems from my combining the ten high-level 33 Cf. W. Years to Solve em (new york. for the Analysis of Science & Technology. e effort http://true-cost. uK: routledge.” PBI (15 october 1989). 25 Cf. MA: MIT 26 lawrence lessig. at led to the creation of the NATO Open As researched by J. Transparency. 2010). and the common sense a company on society: how to gain an all-round view. nJ: princeton university through an examination of various uS presidential “Mandate press. Cognitive John Cobb Jr. June 2010). High Noon: 20 Global Problems. Geometry of inking (new york. yochai Benkler. 22 ning tally of epic waste. land forces Sweden (ret. Curacion de las Américas con una Agencia de Todo Abier2013).re-figure. no one is organized to address any Science. Buckminster fuller. in e-mail (4 September 2014). 2009). policy. WA: CreateSpace.). 1996). ny: unitre-Engineer Earth (denmark 27-28 october 2009). ny: Toward hybrid public governance of the Whole by the St.” Forbes (4 Book review lists (positive future-oriented) and Worth a october 2012).” PBI (15 April 2013). “no Search or publishing for for Change” blueprints. 27 I learned the M4 portion of the term from Col Jan2012).” Creative 12 robert david Steele. Information Quarterly (13/2. and herman daly and Kenneth Townsend (eds. norton & Company. 2014). lester for the basics see “As featured In Selected publicaBrown. and Claudia hillebrand (eds. A User’s Guide to the Crisis of CivilisaBy and With robert Steele.” e of open Source Everything has no financial champion. including Michael Bauwens (peer-to-peer). see also “Intelligence future – e ird Era of local to to – y la Integridad. ny: W. they must all be attended to in a holisthe Time (Strategic Studies Institute.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (new york. Arnold. For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age (new toward Community.com/oSE-2014. dC: e Millenni32 Cf. All Minds.). e Open Source Everything Manifesto: Commons (14 May 2014). Human Intelligence: All Humans. 16 29 Tom Atlee provided this comment in his review of the first Cf. Jerome glenn et al. herman daly and CT: yale university press. S T E E L E | A P P L I E D C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 136 . and Information.” include 2013 robert Steele on healing the Americas with in robert dover. 35 online by searching for < graphic: holistic Mind-Shift Cf. vant documents are online at http://tinyurl. R O B E R T D .” PBI (7 July 2007). Stockholm one analytic model. no one is organized to evalu34 I have made this point for a quarter century but especially so in ate and address all threats across all policies all the time. “Big data @ phi Beta Iota.

17-19 September 2014. Smedly Butler. 2006).” Centre for doctoral Training in Embedded Intelligence. She seeks to answer the question. “Transforming the Systems Movement. opening with h. 53 Cf. 2008) 43 E. and Resistance (oakland. “Islamic finance and economy: unlocking its true potential. Voltaire’s Bastards: e Dictatorship of Reason in the West (new york. http://www. at PBI. rothschild. At PBI see these three posts: “rick robinson: 11 reasons Computers fail Without humans” (8 September 2014). was a primal scream.” oxford Analytica global horizons Conference panel.phibetaiota. Charles lewis. Diversity. media. Enclosures. Computers are water and energy pigs incapable of matching humans for petaflop speeds and intuitive innovation. Philosophy and the Social Problem: e Annotated Edition (frisco. Mirror of our Collective Souls. 42 Will durant.h. & Sustainability (oakton. 935 Lies: e Future of Truth and the Decline of America’s Moral Integrity (new york. paul linebaugh. WA: feral house.net/?s=graphic+herring. e Next Catastrophe: Reducing Our Vulnerabilities to Natural. 49 Cf. Consilience: e Unity of Knowledge (new york. Industrial. 2011). K. and Terrorist Disasters (princeton. law enforcement. loughborough university. Water: robert david Steele. 47 Cf. and “graphic: Jim Bamford on the human Brain” (28 december 2009). nJ: princeton university press.net/?s=liberation+Technology. ny: Spiegel & grau. 2003). commerce. 1999) 44 John Salston raul. Integrity. It is human intelligence – for example. and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History (new york. 51 Academic.” Huffington Post (7 January 2011). “how would nature design a city?” 38 “phd Studentships. we can stop the pitchforks and create infinite wealth for all others. 1993) and Matt Taibbi. ny: Vintage. 2010). 45 Cf. 2014). 48 Cf. liberation Technology @ phi Beta Iota. War is a Racket (port Townshend. sponsored by the City of london and E. “graphic: When IT hits the Wall and only humans Will do” (26 March 2013). VA: Earth Intelligence network. in creating and releasing Stuxnet – that is insanely dangerous. ief!: e Commons. 2011). Bionic City. 52 Cf. 37 There have been books and conferences on bio-mimicry – one current and evolving concept I find especially interesting and holistic is that of phd candidate Melissa Sterry of the uK. prahalad. non-government/non-profit. e Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty rough Profits (philadelphia: pA: Wharton School publishing. Tx: promethean press. Politicians. Stop.” New York Times (4 September 2014). Wilson. Griftopia: A Story of Bankers.phibetaiota. What they do not “get” is that for 1% of the money they have under management. ny: publicAffairs. e prince of Wales. [accessed 10 September 2014]. “A Church for the poor. ny: Vintage. l. o. military. 55 I address this at length in Intelligence for Earth: Clarity. 2014). “Water: Soul of the Earth. “yoda: Animal Intelligence and Sensing” (21 August 2014) and “Schwartzreport: e plants are Talking – Intra-Terrestial Intelligence” (8 May 2013).pentagon auditor spotlights uS billions blown in Afghanistan. 39 russell Ackoff. “Autonomous Internet road Map at the peer to peer foundation.” Conference paper (26 May 2004). C. S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . 50 Cf. and Charles perrow. CA: pM press.r. C O L L E C T I V E 8∑8 I N T E L L I G E N C E | 137 . 40 I disagree with those that consider artificial intelligence to be an “existential” threat. government. civil society. 46 Cf. 41 e Conference on Inclusive Capitalism held in london on 27 May 2014. paul Vallely. 2 /2 0 1 4 | 54 Several depictions of the herring Triangle are easily found at http://www.” Fox News (28 July 2014).

M I C H E L B A U W E N S | T H E O P E N - C O M M O N S B A S E D K N O W L E D G E | 6 .

is deep dialogue literacy. Krishna. His primary concern throughout his career has been to clarify the universal logos or common ground at the heart of human reason and rational life. He is author of several books including Meditative reason: Toward universal grammar. OVERVIEW : EVOLUTIONARY COLLECTIVE W SHIFT TO INTELLIGENCE hEn WE STEp BACK froM our MorE loCAlIzEd cultural narratives. He is Founder-Director of the Global Dialogue Institute. Source Intelligence. In what follows we shall first take a journey together into the depths of the long emerging ((Source Code)) to experience how and why this collective global Wisdom of the ages calls upon us with highest urgency to evolve into cultures of deep dialogue. but logoSapiens. He is also Director of the Margaret Gest Center for Cross-Cultural Study of Religion at Haverford. Moses. ideologies and cultures we move from monologue to ((deep dialogue)) and enter this primal Common ground of deep consensus. Gangadean is Margaret Gest Professor of Global Philosophy at Haverford College (Haverford. fragmented and polarized spaces of monologue cultures.edu. e diverse traditions of first philosophy across the planet have all been seeking to tap and bring forth C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 139 . Awakening pioneers such a Buddha. Jesus. USA ) where he has taught for the past forty-four years. www. ontologists. Between Worlds: e Emergence of global reason. us. striking new patterns and insights come into relief that were not accessible before. logicians. agangade@haverford. as logoSapiens. When we dilate our rational and spiritual intelligence into the ((Source field)) and gain access to the long emerging ((logos Code)) that flows through all our diverse worldviews. PART I ~ WHY LITERACY IS COLLECTIVE DEEP -DIALOGUE THE HEART OF INTELLIGENCE My lifework as a logician and ontologist has been focused for fifty years on pioneering deeper pathways into the primal logic of logos that has been the moving passion of our most gifted and revered teachers (first philosophers. Meditations of global first philosophy: Quest for the Missing grammar of logos. G A N G A D E A N AWAKENING COLLECTIVE GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE : THE POWER OF DEEP DIALOGUE Ashok K.A S H O K K . We are not egosapiens. technology and intelligence is what empowers us to rise together in ((Collective Intelligence)) across the deeply entrenched borders that divide our cultures and worlds. connectivity and synergy across and between worlds. convergence. religions. skills of deep dialogue and the cultivation of global Consciousness are essential to the authentic cultivation and embodiment of Collective Intelligence as we face the evolutionary challenges of deep communication and finding consensus and synergy across borders.awakeningmind. Socrates. en we shall go deeper into a meditation on Seven Stages of Deep Dialogue – a living blueprint for this perennial Collective Intelligence as we humans evolve from monologue to dialogue. and cofounder of the World Commission on Global Consciousness and Spirituality. lao Tzu… to name a few… have been calling humanity to go deeper into the primal Code of logos as our most urgent evolutionary priority in our maturation as humans.org. from egosapiens to logoSapiens. perspectives. but must mature as mindful and awakened humans in the arts of deep dialogue. worldviews and disciplinary orientations and dilate our hearts and minds into the more expansive and inclusive global space whence our diverse worldviews co-originate and co-arise. gaining S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . 2 /2 0 1 4 | access to this ((primal logos Code)) through the rational arts of deep dialogue is thus key to cultivating genuine ((Collective Intelligence)) in this dilated global light. is evolutionary crossing and maturation from cultures of “monologue” to awakened Cultures of dialogue is the key to the cultivation of Collective Intelligence. awakening guides…) across the planet and through the ages. PA. e ontological medicine of deep dialogue across and between worlds is vital for cultivating authentic ((Collective Intelligence)) and tapping the resources of ((global Wisdom)) for our global Age. we cannot enter ((Collective Intelligence)) within the divisive. And it is in mature dialogue cultures that we humans flourish.

lao ta) which is the field of reality and the Space of dharTzu. et al… the fallen egomental “Arjuna” into the transforwere tapping the same ((Source Code))… the same mative pathways of yoga Science which is Vedic global logic of logos would be an evolutionary advance first philosophy and Technology. denied. ability and both individual and collective flourishing as a human family in our awakening evolulet’s pause and ((imagine)) for a moment that such tionary journey. gifted philosophical minds to get the “logic”… the Socrates. quest to find the hitherto missing (eclipsed. disciplines. and Mohamed to select some key global ma (=honor Code: awakened moral compassion). And. the universe. the Source Script of What-isyahweh to Abraham and Israel = humanity. for example. Cosgenius of lao Tzu in declaring that the Tao that is mos… took unprecedented breakthroughs over “named” is not the TAo. Word) by Socrates.the primal Code of the field of reality – of at Code… of this “primal field”… this logos resWhich is primal and first – as our ultimate cononates on a planetary scale through the ages. Jesus. Buddha. the exemplars. tradition of first philosophy – the Call to What-islogics. guided me…) to gain true mature Self. Moses. is has also been a primary focus on my losophy deeply in sync with the global quest for Annual ((reflection on Activities)) over the past decade our authentic encounter with reality. Word (Code. and certainly for our rational enterprise and our human enterprise – for our survival. for every aspect of our human confirst is the highest and most urgent concern for dition. is lord Krishna guiding ery that Moses. the past four decades. the deep first. Krishna. All of hindu Vedic ought turns of deeppresent and presiding) Primal Logic of the Word across ening the meditative intelligence in the authentic our great philosophical traditions and noble scriptures encounter with primal reality in awakening the led me (called me. sustaindeepening our ((literacy)) and liberal arts cultures. e relentless quest of our most diverse revered teachers as Moses. teaching and community development to the fore on this occasion because this breakthrough to It is no exaggeration to suggest that this perennithe ((primal Code)) is of supreme importance for our al gravitation to get the access Code for What is human enterprise. I bring this central theme of my research. Speech. narratives and languages that formed his first – ranges across the planet and through the ages in life. field. My rational light. Socrates. Jesus. is is the unprecedented “global” turn (breakis relentless quest for What-is-first shows up in through. And here he accessed and tapped the meditations on AuM in the founding of the Science of same ((Source Code)) of logos that our revered yoga at the heart of the Vedas. for cern in our maturation and flourishing as humans. example. develMohamed’s historic encounter with Allah – the first opment. calls his pivotal work “Meditations on e term “first philosophy” comes from Aristotle as First Philosophy” as he focuses his genius on reachhe seeks to tap the Code of Being in recognition that ing the ultimate foundations of reality and Conthis is first in the highest sense and all other fields. Buddha. So. of course “Islam” means “surrender to what is long quest to uncover the deeper missing (yet ever first”. sciousness. experience and meaning… he crossed into our highest and best pioneering teachers: e Call of the Source Code. logic. repressed. Buddha. the pioneering first philosopher. What-is-first. the breakthrough teachings of Jesus – the logos in flesh – passionately suggesting that I shall not (and cannot) develop these rich themes here the Code of logos must be lIVEd in the first on this occasion. of (research breakthrough) of the highest order. ontology…). course. maturation. emergence…) in the quest for the primal authentic name in this tradition of “first Script”. All of the classic sacred Text of deeper global access to the emergent Code. And in that historic moment when he disciplines and aspects of human experience and culreached “I am” after stepping back from the culture flow from this Code of primary Being. scholarship. and moral piothrough of Buddha in breaking the egomental barriers neers across the planet embodied in their lives: and moving into the primal field of Emptiness (SunyaSocrates. e discovthe Gita. lao Tzu are pioneering pathways A S H O K G A N G A D E A N | A W A K E N I N G C O L L E C T I V E G L O B A L I N T E L L I G E N C E | 140 . evolutionary advance. the founding of the European tradiis is the appropriate context to situate my tion of the quest for logos (the primal Source of lifeWork over the decades at the College. encounter of Moses at the Burning Bush (=presence of Infinite Spirit). Krishna. My lifeAnd. enlightened voices. disAristotle… in birthing “philo-Sophia”… love of placed. descartes. plato. dreaded…) Wisdom in the quest to Know y Self… In the primal logic of the Source field that funds all classic birthing of Chinese first philosophy by the life. Krishna. attracted me. Jesus. ideologies. the historic breakteachers. ese themes have been developed in person and not objectified and “written in my several volumes and countless public performances stone”… is another great moment in first phiover decades. ignored. with and more. issues forth as reality. But this tural spaces: mental lens.

And the essence of my life-long research into the ics…) led me into the depths of our diverse great foundations of logic. Source. In fact narratives. courses and seminars… this is what I am to the ((Source Code)) hence blocked and neutralbringing forth: “global” as in global logos: indicates ized (under-minded) the potent ((rational Awakthe primal Source Code of all possible worlds and ening Medicine)) of our Source Code Teachers. scriptures. and must be. Sunyata. Moses. My worlds. our logics…led me inexorably to the missing globTeachers knew and saw that nothing could be or sural Source logos funding all possible worlds. Jesus. into the global Source Code of all scripts. how we move rationally (communicate. indeed. reaffirmed. vive apart from this ((Source field)) that directly holds cultures. everyday and mental practices inherently fragmented. Buddha. ere was no “global nitely one. It is self evident that Source Code MuST BE Allah. dialogue and even chronically violate one Infinite primal field of Being (primal Word. “god” (Tao. corroborated. cultures. AuM. ere cannot be Allah. Source Word (language. perspectives. cultures. logic. polarized. Existence…) CAnnoT be displaced and diverse philosophical worlds and traditions and pushed aside. ((Infinite first)) hAd to “hang out together”. hence the primal Source of all possible logos” yet pioneered and brought to light. I noticed that Jesus and Socrates were the teachings of lord Krishna in the great epic Bhaexecuted for their “radical” Source Code teachings. words and scripts. religions. religions. narratives. nality. words. We shall sionate call to logos and the urgency of leaving see in a moment why the nature of pre((Code)) literacy the “caves” (uncritical. presence…) must multiple “Infinite firsts”. even by the mightiest “egosapien”. un-awakened. and yahweh and Brahman… as holonyms for “global” in this sense. yahweh. gavadgita it was strikingly clear that the broken S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . philosophy. at is what it means to be ((Infinite first)). Buddha. perforcondition across the planet blocked direct access mances. disciplines and liberal this is the simplest ((truth)) imaginable… god and arts. religions. narratives. literacy. Krishna… once we see that the primal field is. lodged us in existential crisis and mal praxis. ping the same missing primal Source Code. And the key breakthrough of my We could not ((see)) that Krishna. ideologies. perspectives. no celebrated… in widely diverse contexts by our great common rational grammar yet in place to “disTeachers and Traditions across the planet. Socrates. is late. Ethics. literacy. together with my relentless found cross-links and common source ground across quest to discern how we cross diverse worldviews diverse worlds. taplogos. our worlds and our lives and rational light as we sought to “Know y Self”. were Moral r-Evolutionaries calling us to deeper Boundless… this ignites a flood of allied Code encounter with Moral law and Awakened ratioInsights that have been seen. disciplines. When I use the word “global” as e continued dominance of the “pre-((Code))” in global reason. scripts. career is pioneering deeper pathways into global Socrates. cultural life and consciousness) and entering the shattered our words. I saw his pas((open)) the long-eclipsed ((Code of logos)). My early research in literacy practices could we finally ((discern)) the prologic and ontology. Mohamed.into this ((primal Code of logos)). forms of life. scriptures and pioneer teach(cultures. disciplines. When I encountered Buddha’s great teaching – e more I investigated our great Code pioneers the his enlightened noble truths and onto-medical more I was led into deeper “global waters”. I had to diagnosis of the source of human dysfunction and dilate my mental lens and tap deeper rational resources suffering – I was again deeply moved. and and funds any and ever iota of existence. another…) across diverse cultures and worlds – origin. But once we for they challenged their colleagues at the deepest access this ((Code)) it is the most Simple. reality. languages. logic…) must be “global”. transAnd most of all… must be Infinitely herenow. be “global”. When I to truly encounter widely diverse first philosophers and encountered Jesus and his urgent call to cross into evolutionary elders. reason… focused here teachings on a global scale. Code. I noticed and obvious that we cannot (dare not) “see” it. Intelligence. ThIS IS ThE gloBAl Turn. reason. for that Jesus. religions. logers. hence Infilogos Source Code. ideologies. et al were. As I encountered the profound Christ field. language. When I encountered on calling out the chronic barriers and bringing into the one of my great heroes. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 141 . stage of literacy and mentation in our human Wisdom…as I do in my diverse publications. Christ.as the logos in the flesh… I was first philosophy of hindu Vedic teachings.and shook their “foundations”: their worldand obvious insight imaginable… so super simple view and privileged “script” processing. Moses. disciplines. such as deeply stirred. e Boundcover” that they were tapping the “same” global less primal field (of reality) is thus Infinite. deep quest to discover how we cross worlds. But there was no “common ground”. only when we truly face and remove these literacy and And here is one key to how I was guided in this mentation blocks and barriers encoded in predominant monumental discovery. Evident level. Socrates.

that the diagnosis of “sin” and “saming and guiding Arjuna (humanity) to leave the sara” converged on the same objective human ontologi“samsara” of pre-awakened consciousness into the cal condition: both were focusing on the deep split or yoga life in AuM… the deep onto-diagnosis of severance of everyday life and culture from the funddysfunctional cultural life in “sin” or “samsara” or ing Source = e primal Code. or Krishna urgI saw. for example. for the simened moral life. and hAd to be. learning. al Truths in simplest terms called on humanity to break the addiction to egomentalism and ego-based e /thought/ that ((god)) = ((Infinite first)).to live ((mindful lives)). ing)) us in every way. revered global teachers. “the unexamined life while /…/ brings out the mental-linguistic space and is not worth living”). lens power.AuM Code. for me. ence. Meaning.. Truth.. And East and West concurred that when A S H O K G A N G A D E A N | A W A K E N I N G C O L L E C T I V E G L O B A L I N T E L L I G E N C E | 142 . where we become liberated from the entrapthe de-conflation of the two contrasting though intiment in mental mal praxis and shift into mately related dimensions of the Word (language. for cultural life and literacy and advance to e dharexample. is /local/ or /Tribal/ or /Ethnic/ is bizarre. the primal I know this is all highly compressed. Being human. is was his prescription tation. Knowledge. And. e pathways to ((access)) through meditative intelligence (integral Code literacy) ((Source Code)) is to ((awaken to Source)). the global Infitices into the Buddha field of Emptiness.both were lodged in mentation patterns that cut us off from Source Code /egomental/ patterns that were severed from ((honor and the highest urgent medicine is our facing this Code)). life and the dysfunctional culture lodged in “samsara”. ma – to surfing the primal field of reality wherein e ((Infinite Code)) = ((Infinite logos)) must be the everything “co-arise” in relational flow.“Arjuna” in his imploded life crisis turned to Krishna condition and having the courage to shift to awakened and liberated life that comes with conscious (the embodied Voice of AuM) to help him face his access to the primal Code. us. (the grammar =code of thought) empowered me and each in diverse ingenious ways opened transformato see that our diverse Code pioneers were indeed tive pathways into the primal global Code of awakin a common quest. the ((Source Code)) is of his imploded life and trans-habituating his life into always already ever-present ((funding)) = ((sourcthe Integral Technology of Aum Script. Buddha saw that being lodged in egople ((truth)) seen through the dilated ((global mental life (taking your “self” to be an entity that is lens)) is that ((Source Code)) = ((Infinite first)) = self-sourced) is the medical source of human existen((Infinite presence)) = ((logoSphere)) is by its tial suffering and his breakthrough to the four glob((nature)) inherently ((global)). folk to “die” to the old ways (sin script) in order to be “reborn” in the Christ life. and every grain of ((man)). or Jesus calling everyday technology of “/talk about it/”. the ontological condition of severance from AuM. And lord Krishna’s teaching to to the Code of logos is the ontological medicine Arjuna (and humanity) of the Science and Art of yoga for our evolving human condition when encounis precisely the urgent task of facing the medical source tered in global light. We can’t push it away or package it essential medicine (prescription) was the urgency or step outside “it” no matter how hard we try. Menhuman flourishing. gaining awakened access ontological crisis. To ical rehabilitation of our lives and mental pracdiscover and name the “global logos”. Community Cultivation…) through the introduction of the two potent Whether Socrates calling us to higher rational “dimensional markers”: “/x/” vs “((…/x/…)) was essenlight (logos) in leaving the caves of un-awaktial: ((…)) marks out the ((Source Script of presence)) ened life (“Know y Self”. to and exit his dysfunctional mental patterns of egomental evolve to ((I am)). My breakthrough to the global Code and finding the common ground What became strikingly clear in my research journey is across such diverse teachings came through the that our great Code pioneers across the planet in widely intersection of my work in deep logic and ontoldiverse contexts nevertheless concurred in their ontoogy. ((Aum)) and ((yahweh)) and ((Allah)) the highest importance that we get the consenand ((Tao)) and ((logoSophia)) are ((holonyms)) of sus diagnosis and prescription of our most ((Infinite presence)). and /life worlds/. in /egomentalism/ and the challenging onto-medevery ((grain of sand)). ((Infiof recognizing the pernicious consequences of nite presence)) presides herenow in every detail. I took a bold step and “cave ignorance” is striking. ese sample Code connected “sin” and “samsara” as different names for Teachers recognized that humanity is lodged in the same onto-logical diagnosis. is is funding source of all possible /words/ and /worlds/ being in-the-zone of Awakened life. e rational tools I gained through logic medical diagnosis of human pathology and dysfunction. Experifor all humans lodged in existential suffering. Buddha and /narratives/. yet we remain self-eclipsed Arjuna (the stand-in for the “normal” egomental human) from ((direct access)) by our /mental practices/ had to learn the higher literacy of the AuM Script. But it is of field of reality. is is nite Word was a key evolutionary advance.

C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 143 . My innovative notation is meant to de-conflate the contrasting dimensions between /word/ and ((Word)). between /code/ and ((code)) between /logos/ and ((logos)). is comes with a shift from /script/ to ((Script)). from /Buddha/ to ((Buddha))… for example. is is why so much of my creative life has been focused here. to continue to “download” ((Script)) to /script/. humanity has been stuck in this default mode of privileging (alleged) selfsourced /Script/ as the primary and dominant /literacy regime/ in town. from /code/ to ((code)) is of the utmost importance in finally seeing the ((global power)) of the ((logos Code)). To SuM up : gaining direct ((access)) to the ((Source Code)) is life and death for us. wordpower. /life/ and ((life)). ((god)) becomes down-sized to /god/. And this is why our evolutionary ((markers)) to expose this fatal fallacy. And the highest onto-medial prescription for human flourishing is to break these debilitating patterns and evolve to awakened rational life in flow with the zone of reality. is is where I found it imperative as logician and ontologist to bring into the open an innovative notation to help us recognize and remember when we are lodged within /egomental reason/ and /language patterns/ and when we cross into the ((Code Script)) of the rationally Awakened life. e “default” script invariably collapsed to “/…((…))…/” – swallowing the ((Source Word)) into the /egomental/ language games. from /scripture/ to ((Scripture)). mental practices…) and ((language)) contributed to the chronic failure over millennia to receive and process the full ((Transformative Code Medicine)) of our great Teachers. familiar language. /scripture/ and ((Scripture)) dilates a long emerging evolutionary upgrade (maturation) in our human journey. our Code pioneers were making an all-important and urgent call to humanity to ((up Script)) from /word/ to ((Word)). /meaning/ and ((Meaning)). the introduction of these Onto-Cultural Markers is of supreme importance for our human enterprise. and not to /down-load/ their ((Code Teaching)) to /egomental codes/ and /language games/. We can see that “/…/” language development is an important stage in human evolutionary development. We can see across the planet that the pre-Evolved “conflation” of the /language/ and ((language)) has been a monumental barrier to our rational health and ontological Well Being. is shift to ((Source life)) is our maturation as Whole persons… as ((I===ou)) beings… as ((logoSapiens)) and this is the ((literacy)) of Collective Intelligence. and the ((Source Code Medicine)) is lost. as our ((Teachers)) have insisted. opened the way for everyday folks (such as students) to stand back from deeply entrenched mentation (= thought) patterns and S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . And this vital notational innovation ignited a flood of new ((insights)) into the long dormant ((Common ground))… the ((Source Code)) of our great ((evolutionary pioneers)). is is the literacy and technology of deep-dialogue. /reason/ and ((reason)). once we truly de-conflate the two dimensions of literacy and Intelligence astounding new insights abound. By bringing to the fore the vital shift in a ((Visible Font)) from /culture/ to ((Culture)). is endemic “conflation” made it too easy. THE OF MINIMAL THESE DIMENSIONS CONFLATION CONSTRASTING OF LIFE AND WORD It became clear in my evolving research over decades that the endemic conflation of the contrasting dimensions of /language/ (script. is breakthrough explicitation of the ((interdimensional)) shift and contrast between /word/ and ((Word)). e millennial conflation of these two dimensional of life and culture and literacy facilitated and enabled the continued /default/ mode of the evolutionary dominance and privileging of /Script/ and the displacement of ((Script)). And it is evident how our Teachers insisted that the ((Infinite Word)) cannot be /named/ or rendered within the /script/ of pre-Awakened mental praxis and literacy. /ethics/ and ((Ethics)). is is why making the ((dimensional shift)) highly ((visible)) to the public and ((user friendly)) is of highest importance in gaining the ((literacy)) of being ((human)). Brahman. logoSophia… we humans suffer individually and culturally and live dysfunctional lives. And this shift has been seen by our great Teachers as a ((life)) and /death/ issue. 2 /2 0 1 4 | ((see)) as never before the urgent ((Code Call)) of our evolutionary Awakening Teachers. Instead we have been called by our ((Code)) pioneers to ((cease and desist)) in this pandemic addiction and called urgently to ((up-Script)) and rise to ((Code)). Christ. My simultaneous introduction of these Code Markers: “/…/” vs “((…))” to bring to the fore the dimensional shift from /word/ to ((word)). perhaps inevitable. calling it out for accountability and making it impossible for /Script/ to continue the deception of being /self sourced/ is of highest importance in allowing the ((Source Medicine)) to take effect. the ((Word of god)) to /word of god/. AuM . literacy. our lingua franca: “/…((x))…/”. /truth/ and ((Truth)). Allah. When ((Buddha Speaks)) his “speech” is downloaded into our everyday common sense. between /self/ and ((Self))… us.thus severed from ((Source Code))… whether yahweh. Tao. our “script” encodes our “life” and “consciousness”.

no /culture/… could survive for a moment if sevbut ((pen))… ((seen and uttered)) within the ((Source ered from ((Source field of reality)). no mono-centric language games. is is the essence of opment: /egomental/ or /monocentric/ life. “/pen/” dilates when Sourced into “((pen))” e ((Code Intelligence)) makes clear that no /pen/ is a packaged. funding relations with ((Source field)). ere is an inherent development and capacity. is what descartes discovered create /stories/. think. BuT we can is. I call this stage of human devel/sin/ that we may be liberated. Allah. Sophia. Simply put it is the habit of Brahman. no /event/. All of these go together and are /sin/ . is Briefly put: Every /x/ is ((x)): We are always already sitsevered (alienated. neers)) saw. be alive. no /language/. mythologies and forms of life possible. pervasive in Code reality)) whether ((named)) ((AuM. of violence. In ((Bibliity. And it invariably inhibits our full ((Source Word: logos)) provides the ((voltage)) for any maturation as ((persons)) and inhibits ((Well item whatever. the “hermeneutical” or interontorational self-deception and cover-up at the pretation powers. for example. cover up ((Source Code reality)) that build /culture/ is a necessary early stage of rational = holds us. for example. eclipsed. we Code Medicine. reject ((Source)). the level of “lens” sustaining are in bad ((faith)). supported ((Source Code)) empowers us to see across borders that and sustained by ((Source field)). /defenses/. the deep onto-diagnostic and /sin/ and /samsara/ are In oThEr ((WordS)): our ((Code)) pioneers saw alternate names for the same medical crisis: ((SinSara)). clearly that any form of life that. feeds us. from ((x)). grow) in our rational is. and in ((Meditative is level of “language” and “mentation” development Science )) terms this is /samsara/. us. objectified /entity/ within the /word/. reality. we can create /barriers/. no /discipline/. our human condition. literacy and menis the heart of what our revered ((Source Code piotation is vital in our early development and survival. /ideis is a vital stage in our evolutionary developologies/. presence…)) is /representational/ stage of language. It includes tives or lives that act as if /self sourced/ and selfthe mental or consciousness practices. e primal field. And so with every “word”: monocentric self sourced say “I”. no /world/. funds us and make all these human development. It is a generic /language game/ across karmic cycle of ignorance. it possible to have /words/. god. we cannot use ing)): this ((pen)) is mightier than the /sword/. logos. “talking about” any given “x”. alienation from ((Source)). /academies/. split…) from uated within ((…)) = the ((primal Source field of Infi((Source field)) is lodged in dysfunction which nite presence)). mind cal)) terms this is the condition of ontological operating processes. have experience.the self created breach and break and incorporated into “/…/” language and life development. deny “god”… whatev/words/ are anemic in ((meaning)) er… without the continuous direct funding of while any such “word” spoken or expressed from the ((Source field)). experience capacity. pandemic across the planet in the on a self perpetuating and inter-generational life of the people. /narrative/. /worlds/. in effect. And /self-sustaining/ and not always held.being caught is naturally endemic. self-decepcultures and worlds: it is an “equal opportunity” evolution. when he left /I/ and entered ((I am)). is /informational/ or Tao./cave culture spaces/. no /human/. /religions/. /disciplines/… that perpetually displace. the stage of “meaning”. We cannot Word zone)) ignites with boundless ((fractal mean“ego” apart from ((Source Code)). But it lord Krishna’s ((yoga Technology)): helping /Arjuwould be a ((fatal mistake)) to remain stuck at this na/ see that his life and culture and meaning and stage which tends to act and live as if /words/ are ethics imploded because of this /samsara/ breach. and /language/ is is what ((Jesus)) sacrificed for – taking on our and /talk about it/. language capacheart of any and all such forms of life. etc. /worldviews/. A S H O K G A N G A D E A N | A W A K E N I N G C O L L E C T I V E G L O B A L I N T E L L I G E N C E | 144 . and sources every sign or word: Being)) and ((human flourishing)). feel. sophistry due to the severance from ((Source tionary pre-((Code)) stage of development. /institutions/…/political patment: to use language to convey /information/ and terns/. use /words/ to describe or represent the /world/ and eclipse. communication practices. And any and every “word” /x/ gets its matures into human pathologies and patterns being and voltage from ((…)). ((Source Semantic field)) ignites with boundless In ((fact)) we “humans” can nEVEr actually sever ((meaning)) and ((truth force)). is the essence of what Buddha Intelligence (language Capacity) and gain direct discerned in his enlightenment – the source of access to the ((Source Code)) that funds and makes human dysfunction and suffering and mal praxis. delusion. humans must evolve (mature. is “/…/” stage of evolutionary development is is means that /monocentric/ cultures or narraendemic across the planet in all our cultures. as our great ((Code)) teachers have taught. Christ. We ArE as we “script”. diagnosed and addressed with powerful But. language. Emptiness.

((persons)) are ((dialogue tangible journey.. So ((yoga)) is not /yoga/. ((global logos Source Code)) we are able to detect ThIS IS An ASToundIng “gAME” ChAngEr. is is 21st Century. Again. ((…/x/…)). e clariprofound ((patterns)) and key missing ((links)) across fication in ((global light)) that the emergent borders as the centuries unfold. the rational validity of the Code descartes’ ((Meditations)) makes clear that descartes Teaching of ((Jesus)) is not that he is “Son of was pioneering a dimensional shift into ((Source god” and therefore his teachings are universally Code)). our Code Teachers recognized. Jesus. valid. Evolved Self… is always we are not self-sourced /atomic entities/ but libalready intimately ((close)). S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . is is where we can reach ((common ground)) but from the objectivity of the ((Source Code)) and ((consensus)) across /borders/. is ((I am)) is And the validity of Buddha’s ((four noble ((I===ou)) =We are ((dialogue Beings))… and this Truths)) for all humans is not form the authoris where ((Collective Intelligence)) ignites and maniity of “Buddha” as an “Enlightened Teacher”… fests. is am)) in quest of ultimate “foundations” of rational dilation to the ((logos Code)) as the ((Source life… we can see that he left the /egomental/ culture Code)) for such diverse pioneers as Moses. And when he boldly crossed into the ((I to mention our liberal arts enterprise. the Source of ((rational light)). AuM zone which is the sacred space of ((I And here we find a Primal Law: ((Every /x/ is ((X)) )): = ou)) Moral flow. open ese are prominent examples. invariably did. But a competent ((meditative reading)) of for example. go of the dysfunctional /egomental/ patterns of us. detach. not /I…It/ entities So let us bring all this down to a very specific and that can be /objectified/. Awakened Self. see clearly that when he pressed his “doubt” experiment indeed.Any /scripture/ magnified and lights up in ((meanrational Intelligence and Moral life. Socrates. his breakBuddha. So. And the classic zone)) the ((logoSphere)). of all our worldviews. /English/ matures into ((English)) when authenlife and culture and rise = up((Script)) to the tically ((Code Sourced)). and the greatest awakening erated persons (beyond /entities/) in ((Buddha journey is to dilate from /I/ to ((I am)). Krishna. too. cultures. humanity in the all-important evolutionary advance from /ethics/ to ((Ethics)). not mental spaces/. journey is from /I/ to ((I am)). My decades of deeper source space…) dilate and ignite deeper ((Self research and scholarship takes us through the evoluIdentity)) is ((Source Code onto-Semantic field)). ((scripture)). space and crossed into the ((logos zone)). e essence al enlightenment)) teaching: our so-called “high Self”: of Buddha’s breakthrough ((Medicine)) is that Source Self. And a moral pioneer such as gandhi…living us when we say “/I/”. this AuM Script and gospel ((Script)) is assisting we cannot avoid ((/I/)). And so on. for example when we ((Source Code)) is and must be the same fast-forward to descartes’ ((Meditations)) we can now ((logos Code)) for our diverse great Teachers. once we have access to the missing our ((educational enterprise)). 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 145 . from /truth/ T hIS IS A MonuMEnTAl dISCloSurE : our evolutionary to ((Truth force)). for Socrates pathway to open this maturation space from the artifiand his quest for the ((logos)) and the cially /objectified/ “self” lodged and constituted in its rational light… /ego identity/ is to let go… (stand back. the ((logos Code)) which is the Moral dharma is captures and sums up the heart of our diverse ((glob(law) of ((I… ou Compassion)). scripto the limit he saw he could call into /doubt/ any tures. It is rather that ((Jesus)) as the ((logos in the flesh))… as the ((Embodied Christ Code)) = PART II ~ SEVEN STAGES OF ((…)) is bringing through the ((Source Code)) of DEEP-DIALOGUE: BLUEPRINT OF AND Awakened reason which reveals that we humans FOR COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE are ((I… ou)) Sacred Beings. tion of these amazing traditions and great innovative is evolutionary journey from /self/ to ((Self)) is the teachers as this unfolds through the centuries into the adventure into ((Awakened rational life)). and so on.. In this respect the ((honor Code)) is the ((Source Code)) that our ing and Source Code power) when processed as Moral Teachers were dilating and tapping. disciplinary narratives…has astounding /thought/ or /proposition/ in the prevalent /cultural implications for our evolutionary journey.makes ((evithrough ((I am)) cannot be down-scripted to /I am/ as dent)) the rational Common ground of the scholars who conflated ((language)) and /language/ global truth-force of these teachings. the yoga Technology that lord Krishna is is ((Source Code)) dilation and re-location is true teaching – the AuM Code – calls upon folks to let of every “x” in existence. let us now ((meditate)) together Beings)) and when we upScript to this Christ Code as we move through classic stages of maturing from we enter the space of deep dialogue Compassion.

in my encounter with others. opening. in my relating to the world. As I open my Self to this other I realize that I need to stand back and distance myself from my former habits and patterns of minding the world. with a newly opened mind. my former identity. but I do advance in a conservative fashion. my life. other perspectives that surround me. I want to let myself go. So I face a sudden silence. I experience an excitement in discovering. STAGE CROSSING OVER ENETERING SELF THE TRANSORMED . my Ethnicity. others and the world. to engage in critical-thinking. Who am I? What is my true identity? Is this other part of me? Is my world transforming now? STAGE CROSSING FOUR BACK EXPANDED SELF RETURNS WITH VISION HOME WITH NEW KNOWLEDGE I now cross back. I am forced toward a self-critical-thinking. I encounter my Self and Culture anew. TWO LETTING WORLD GO OF THROUGH AND OTHER EMPATHY After the initial shock and realization that I now face an alien world. is involves a bracketing. Indeed. a different world. My encounter with radical difference now challenges my former Identity. a setting aside of my prejudices. to my own world. I have a new sense of delimitation and I feel challenged to change. I must make a decision to move forward. Still. for now that I am mindful of the living reality of other worlds. I feel transformed to a deeper sense of relation and connection with my ecology. when I cross back from my deep encounter with an other I begin to experience a profound shift in all aspects of my world. I feel challenged to inquire. an alien other that resists. STAGE THE FIVE /CRITICAL AWAKENING: RADICAL MIND-SHIFT DIALOGICAL A SELF INWARDLY TRANSFORMED As a result of this new encounter with Self. in inhabiting a new and different worldview.” Indeed. sometimes threatening. I must learn a “new language. STAGE INHABITING AND WORLD SELF OF THREE EXPERIENCING THE TRANSFORMED THE OTHER INTO THE OTHER I begin to feel a new and deep empathy for my new habitat. I realize now that my habit of translating the other into my pattern of “minding. and evokes a vulnerability to this alien presence. investigate. in my inner experience. my Culture… ere is no return to my former unilateral way of minding. learn and grow in this new way of being. is radical encounter with difference. But in the end I realize this is not my home. I have a new profound realization of an-other. or draw back. ere now begins a dramatic deepening of my sense of my Self. bringing back new knowledge of how to think and act (critical-thinking). a different way of making sense of and experiencing the world is disconcerting. I begin to realize that this other world organizes and processes the world very differently from my way. and everything begins to appear in a new light. engage and enter this new world. I now open to a plurality of other worlds and perspectives and this irrevocably changes my sense of Self. ese seven stages are already revealed in the ((Collective Wisdom)) of our great spiritual and philosophical teachings. an alternative reality and form of life. a different worldview. other perspectives. an open horizon of uncertainty and risk. interrupts. is dysfunctional. free myself to A S H O K G A N G A D E A N | A W A K E N I N G enter. with a realization of an other.a life of /monologue/ to an awakened culture of ((dialogue)). I realize that I must learn new habits and ways of interpretation to make sense of this different world. I must translate myself into a different form of life that sees the world differently. But what IS my home? I experience a deep shift in my lifeworld. pause.” of appropriating the other to my worldview. other forms of life. With this primal encounter there is a new realization that my habits of mind cannot make sense of this other. a different way of life. I can no longer return to my former identity and forget this living presence of the other. As a result of this primary Encounter with the world of the other. and may even wish to adopt/adapt some of it for myself. my Identity. I now begin to realize that there are many other worlds.world. my religion. disrupts my settled patterns of interpretation. to embrace critical-thinking. I begin to realize that my encounter with the other has shaken the foundation of my former worldview. return. I hold on to my prior views as much as I can. I feel a new horizon opening. I am therefore open to rethinking how I see myself. experiment. a worldview very different from my own. STAGE RADICAL ONE ENCOUNTERING OF SELF OTHER FACES THE DIFFERENCE is first encounter comes with a certain shock. I feel C O L L E C T I V E G L O B A L I N T E L L I G E N C E | 146 . I now realize that there are other ways of understanding reality. to revise my way of relating to this other.

and with this a boundless sense of responsibility in all of my conduct. turns on our capacity to move individually and collecC ~ A global Awakening emerges in all aspects tively. I have a deeper sense of belonging to my world.more deeply rooted in this experience of connectivity and community. for example. I feel a new sense of communion with my Self. inter-ideological. STAGE THE GLOBAL SHIFT SELF RELATED SIX AWAKENING TO : THE PARADIGM - MATURES SELF . come together in ((deep dialogue cultures)) where we are even as I discover a deeper affinity and embrace empowered to celebrate wide-ranging ((diversity)) in the of my community. for as I now drasensus or collective wisdom of the ages. making. my culture. OTHERS . In my transformed dialogical/Critical Awakening I discover a deeper common ground between the multiple worlds and perspectives that surround me. And our future dramatic dialogue unfolds in my polis. We cannot truly enter Collective Intelligence cal-thinking evolves I find myself in a new and when ledged within the dominant patterns of egotransformed relation with others who share my mental patterns of language and thought and world world. Cultures of /monologue/ block and preempt is new phase of relations with my peers can be genuine ((collective intelligence)). ((We lence. with highest urgency. is is the ignition of the dialogical/Critical Awakening. I enter a global horizon and a global consciousness in which inter-religious. We suggest that as plicity and I experience a more potent sense of my we mature individually and collectively through uniqueness as I celebrate my expanded world of these seven stages of ((dialogue literacy)) we shared relation with others and with the Ecology. I find a deeper sense of Self-realization and fulfilment and meaning in my life and my relations with others and the world around me. inter-disciplinary. to mature cultures of deep of my life: As this inner and outer dialogue/critidialogue and ((Collective Intelligence)). my tradition. I now realize that I am transformed in the deepest habits of mind and behaviour. S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . miscommunication and misunderstandthe people)) cannot blossom within cultures dominated ing with my colleagues and a challenging and by patterns of egomental monologue. With this understanding comes a new attitude to life and to ethics. I now see that my true identity is essentially connected with this expansive network of relations with others. mature as persons. with others and with the Ecology. my polis. As my new dialogical/critical consciousness becomes a habit of life I find that my behaviour and my disposition to Self and other has blossomed. True ((democmatically grow in my Identity I find myself in racy)). as dialogue Beings and flourish B ~ A dynamic dialogue opens with others in my in the technology of ((Collective Intelligence)) across Community: As my new inner dialogue and critiborders. I now have a new globalized sense of reality. inter-personal dialogues abound in all directions. I face a new turbumidst of ((connective unity)): E Pluribus Unum. I now see that all worlds are situated in a common ground of reality and that radical differences are nevertheless situated in a field of unity. inter-cultural. cal-thinking matures I realize that my understanding of my world enters a new “global” light: 8∑8 I realize that I am surrounded with many worldviews. I realize that the deepest care for my Self essentially involves my care for others and for the environment. is a call for ((We the people)) to an estranged distance from many of my peers. is is itself a condisorienting and disconcerting. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 147 . my religion. a new moral consciousness and a new practice. I have a new sense that Self and others are inseparably bound together in a boundless inter-relational web. to my community. I realize that multiplicity and diversity enriches my Self and my World. THE WORLD STAGE SEVEN PERSONAL AND GLOBAL OF LIFE AND SELF LIVES AND ACTS DIALOGICAL TRANSFORMING BEHAVIOUR IN A NEW GLOBAL CONSCIOUSNESS As this paradigm-shift in my life matures I realize that there is a deep change in all aspects of my life. In this inner dialogue I feel increasingly more deeply rooted and grounded CONCLUDING SUMMARY in my world. My Identity is enriched with multiis has been quite a journey. I discover a rich multiplicity and diversity of perspectives within my own inner world. a dialogical domain in which multiple alternative worlds are situated in dynamic ever-deepening relations. I experience three related dimensions of global dialogical/Critical Awakening: A ~ An ever deepening discovery of Self: I become aware of a deep inner dialogue within my Self.

VECTOR M I C H E L B A U W E N S | T H E EQUILIBRIUM O P E N - C O M M O N S B A S E D K N O W L E D G E | 6 .

TCM AND WHAT AND AVANT THE TCM QUANTUM -GARDE MODEL TREATMENT PHYSICS BIOLOGY OF GREAST AND ADD TO CANCER PREVENTION now back to breast cancer. Choice from the mental world. 2004). movements of our experience (goswami. he solved the quantum measurement problem elucidating the famous observer effect while paving the path to a new ness from material possibilities gives us material paradigm of science based on the primacy of consciousness. vital body medicine practices (Traditional Chinese Medicine [TCM]. opens the door for the valite. and e Quantum Activist. cause of these cases of cancer. he developed a theory of survival after death and reincarnation. signalless communication appeared in the films What the Bleep do We Know. mental. is not due to any genetic abnormality and the question arises. thinking. e physicist’s View of nature traces the decliophy: Consciousness is the ground of being in ne and rediscovery of the concept of God within science. But many cases of breast cancer is not hereditary. dalai lama renaissance. mind. vital. He is a pioneer of the cause in the first place? new paradigm of science called Conventional medicine practitioners are not “science within consciousness”. and intuition. Goswami is a practitioner of spirituality directly but only through the intermediary of conand transformation. CA. can we treat the disease at the root and physics department of the heal it? furthermore. e truth is. e supramental gives us the archetypal objects of intuQuantum doctor integrates conventional and alternative ition such as love (goswami. e individual medicine. homeopathy) hold that imbalances or blocks of vital energy movements associated with our organs and their interactions cause many diseases. According to TCM. And choice from the about how to engage in both outer and inner creativity. the Philosophical Research University in Los Angeles. e Self(which I call supramental). if we can understand the University of Oregon. manifest worlds of our experience do not interact In his private life. Angelina’s case was special because her situation was hereditary. His two-volume textbook Quantum physics leads us to a different philosfor nonscientists. gives us His book Quantum Creativity is a tour de force instruction meaning objects of thought. When consciousness chooses quently. which there are four worlds of quantum possiGoswami has also written many popular books based on his research bilities: material. Mind-body medicine practices hold that imbalances and blocks in our processing of mental meaning cause some of our diseases. in e Visionary Window. EVEN HEAL WOMEN’S BREAST CANCER Amit Goswami is Professor there is a nonphysical cause and we can underEmeritus in the theoretical stand it. And so forth. US where he has served the cancer by eliminating or minimizing the since 1968. science and spirituality could be integrated. 2 /2 0 1 4 | ple. while in god is not dead he explores what quantum physics tell us about our origins and how we should live. and archetypal on quantum physics and consciousness. and is a member of the advisory board of the Institute of Noetic Sciences. In his seminal book. the Indian Ayurveda. could we prevent Oregon. In physics of the Soul we experience vital energy movements of feeling.A M I T G O S W A M I LOVE AND THE AWAKENING OF THE HEART CENTRE : HOW IT MAY PREVENT. He sciousness with nonlocal. and UNIPAZ in Portuimportant disease-causing role to imbalances of the subtle gal. for exam- T hE ACTrESS AngElInA Jolly By hEr rAdICAl mastectomy because of a high probability for contracting breast cancer has increased our awareness of the suffering that this tragic disease brings to women worldwide. Eugene. breast cancer is caused by imbalances in the movement of C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 149 . 2004). very friendly to such questions because of their Goswami is the author of the “everything is matter” and “genetic abnormalihighly successful textbook Quantum Mechanics that is used in Universities ties cause most disease” philosophy. e (quantum nonlocality). He calls himself a quantum activist. Subseobjects of sensing. dation of alternative practices of medicine that postulates Pacifica in Santa Barbara. Goswami demonstrated how from the possibility-movements of the vital world. throughout the world. Could it be that in these cases the physical symptoms – cancerous growth – is not due to any physical cause at all? If S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . Choice by consciousAware universe. is scientific validation of our subtle experiences of feelHe teaches fairly regularly at the Ernest Holmes Instituing. every year roughly 3 million people contract this disease and thousands die.

Boldly. If we keep the vital energy balanced and producing consequences. and stomach are connected by ease comes from various sources. with high probability. and vacuum or empty space) to get a cality) morphogenetic blueprint in the vital grip. ese cuts wood in a controlling role. We can see. in quantum parlance. Also in biological cell-differentiation and form-making. I have already spoken of how quantum importance of keeping the immune system functioning physics and the concept of psycho-physical normally. namely. disfemale breasts. wood. the body is always creating abnormal scientific. the flow of vital energy in their channels of commue most serious situation. fire. the discovery of the immune supports their view. these abnormal cells can grow and become and what is possible. they also took into body. e principal one is genetic. they renamed the corresponding vital and early adulthood. But the cells In this way. unblocked in the way described above. recently. air. of importance in TCM is the movement of vital energy in the channels called meridians that connect When we combine the lesson of quantum psyinteracting organs. naturally. causing cancer. between conditioning and creativity in the however. system that keeps the body healthy by killing off Modern science improves the theory quite a intruders. is created nication. that aspects – yin and yang – of vital energy (chi). Because of occasional mistakes in cell diviparallelism makes the concept of vital energy sion mechanism. of course. either in a supportive role or in a controlling role. can grow all the Another mechanism sometimes suggested is the action different organs of the body with differentiated of a bacteria or a virus that trips off the immune system. modern medicine recognizes the bit.vital energy in the breasts and in the related organs therefore nonphysical organizing principles. what we call the vital body. Balance in the conceptualization of ly blocked. and metal. gives rise to a paradoxical question ing. the liver meridian and the stomwhen certain movements of vital energy are entireach meridian. there is no concrete case of this happenthe organ lies. these movements TCM means a balance between the complementary are never actualized or collapsed. cho-physical parallelism with Sheldrake’s morphogenetic fields. is means we pay special attention to component of chi. such blocks of vital energy movement that prevent TCM is especially effective as a preventive medithe functioning of organs would have grave diseasecine. if there is a defect of form-making. modern medicine has only a few legitimate mode of movement. in other words a balance malignant. there must be new nonlocal and A M I T G O S W A M I | L O V E A N D T H E A W A K E N I N G O F T H E H E A R T C E N T R E | 150 . very little was known morphogenetic fields are the blueprints of bioabout the vital body. e conglomerate of these morphoaccount what they empirically knew about the organs. are yin movements of vital energy. call them morphogenetic fields that are instrumental of importance to healthy breast functioning. TCM practitioners would say that the die and are replaced from food molecules. is their point. a balance of the yang and balanced. the importance of keeping the flow of vital energy in movements of the morphogenetic fields has to these organs and between these organs unblocked have creative dynamism. we can now add another relatively new insight of modern prevent cancer. fire. water. the Chinese thinkers logical form that consciousness uses to make used a modified version of the five-elements theory of organs. erefore. scientific mechanisms for immune system malfuncnow add new insights in the biological theory tioning. a red flag was raised in proposing that – how does the cell know where it is in the body? oral sex can lead to throat cancer through bacterial Accordingly. morphogenesis. genetic fields associated with all our organs is ey discovered that organs affect organs in two ways. they emphasize the changes with seasons and places. in this way. is was suspected to be the how a one-celled embryo. we can see clearly that the In the early days of medicine. liver. but metal tioned to act in a certain predictable way. when Traditional Chinese medicine was formulated. through cell division case with actress Angelina Jolie. Each organ then has a “correlated” matter and space (the classification in terms of earth. Empirical data biology and medicine. environment support and control. (through consciousness and quantum nonlowater. But if the immune system does not function the flow of vital energy. associated morphogenetic fields become condiEarth nourishes metal in a supporting role. e biologist in the gene structure. the movements of these energy elements as: earth. But being good empiricists. that creates identical replicas. Balance in this approach means a cells which the immune system kills off routinely as balance between particle and wave modality of intruders. a balance of what is properly. functions depending on the where in the body however. As the physical body grows through childhood Accordingly. the immune system will go awry rupert Sheldrake noted that morphogenesis.

e corresponding chakra point where hierarchy. us certain for consciousness. of circular hierarchy: the liver blueprint controls such as a woman in grief from bereavement. the ancient Chinese thought chakra of romantic love until fulfilment is has validity if we substitute immune system for the lung. it identifies with the trio as the source of prolonged and continuous immune a whole giving the system apparent autonomy (goswami. the presence of certain feeling stomach blueprint supports the lung blueprint. and centres along the spine was discovered long ago. but there is such evidence for the ing vital energy blocks. liver. In the olden days. can ber of the trio and their vital connections healthy to be recognized as a mind-body disease. the quantum leap will let you love again. the stomach blueprint does not conthen can produce breast cancer. nobody In other word. Quantum healing occurs as likely mechanism for immune system malfunctioning. once returns to normal. a situation called tangled as the heart. But people lived in loving family environments then. ensure proper immune system functioning. achieved. A feeling S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . now with cancer-prone environAWAKENING OF THE HEART IS ment without loving support system and expoTENTAMOUNT TO AWAKENING THE SOUL nential increase of mental stress. the liver. prevention is the best policy to deal with cover love and expand your centre of functioning from the problem. cancer was caused by the many occasions of oral sex that he served to his wife. trol the liver blueprint back directly. Blocking of the tion of many cases of spontaneous healing without vital energies associated with the immune system is a medical intervention. ere is another important way to looking at the Is there any healing along these lines once one has awakening the heart centre of the self where love is contracted breast cancer? e best results are felt. and the else. What this we feel romantic love is called the heart chakra. us points are called chakra points. the In Eastern psychology. e quantum leaps of quantum healing of cancer the movement of the morphogenetic field associated bring about the normal functioning of the immune with our immune system is temporarily suspended. remember ultimately love is archetype. ere is ample eviexperienced as an intense yearning for physical union. ese the lung blueprint controls the liver blueprint. In the case of mind-caused breast the same as the female breasts is to distinguish between cancer. is often a mental decision that suppresses stomach form one autonomous system of identification the feeling of love toward others. Again. the immune system. achieved with only the desired partner. system malfunctioning gives us an extra handle. and stomach form a special trio to prolonged suspension of immune system functioning.” When we fall in love with someone. which produces self-identity. breast cancer in particular. certain situations in women’s life can lead of the lung. it is recognized that the vital blueprints of the three organs In this way. a discontinuous transition of the mind to the What can produce a vital energy block of this kind? archetypal world to discover a new context for What feelings are associated with immune system funcmental thinking that is causing the vital energy tioning? e job of the immune system in the form of block. Clearly. And it is important to keep each memtypes of cancer. When the union is medical intervention. ere is no evidence for any autonomous functionIt brings to the fore the role of the mind in causing of the lung. a dence of such spontaneous healing without any part of all episodes of romantic love. To starve the heart immune system. 1993). movement of the morphogenetic field (vital energy) resumes and the immune system functioning Can we do even better.infection. means is that when consciousness collapses the possiere are seven such major chakra points. instead. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 151 . notice that the locathe vital blueprints of the three organs form a function of the thymus gland is roughly in the same area tionally causal circularity. sussystem back with such fury that overnight all the pending immune system functioning as well. is is cancerous mass is destroyed. we should do the opposite and discourage prolonged mourning. bility waves of these organs and their associated bluee identification of unfulfilled romantic love as prints (morphogenetic fields). e actor Michal douglas made himself the achieved if we try changing the context of the mental thought that contributes to the negative butt of many jokes when he claimed that his throat emotion of grief. is the stomach. Such quantum leaps are part of the crethe thymus gland whose geographical location is roughly ative process. we have rediscovered love? In TCM. would. “me and not me. people were your neocortex to include the heart (immune system) encouraged to grieve more than they naturally centre also. from the perspective of mind-body disSo the quantum recipe for forever healthy living: disease. life-long prevention. e physician deepak Chopra discovered the phenomenon of quantum healing as an explanaVital energy medicine can do better.

spirit). (1993). goSWAMI. In this way. When they collapse.of love is a vital representation of the archetype of love similar to the fact that out thoughts of love are mental representation of the archetype. we have developed not only a body (physical-vital). 8∑8 A M I T G O S W A M I | L O V E A N D T H E A W A K E N I N G O F T H E H E A R T C E N T R E | 152 . a mind (in the form of all the memories of past thoughts). soul. 8 R E F E R E N C E S goSWAMI. A. and the soul level. VA: hampton roads). Archetypes reside as quantum possibilities in what we call the supramental domain of reality. So when we have an intuition. we make a brain representation of the emotion of love (thought plus feeling) that then becomes a repertoire of loving behaviour. But we do have the capacity of making representations of the vital (in the form of the organs of the physical body) and the mental (in the form of neocortical memory of thoughts). At the present stage of our evolution. e Self-Aware Universe (new york: Tarcher/putnam). mental. e Quantum Doctor (Charlottsville. (2004). mind. but also a soul in the form of these circuits of love. So when we have a physical representation of the archetype of love in the brain. we make both a mental representation (an intuitive thought) and vital representation (for example a “gut” feeling at the navel chakra) as intermediaries of physical representation (in the form of brain memory of the thought and feeling which we call emotion). And then we can live at the physical/vital. when we explore love creatively. we do not have the capacity to make direct physical representations of intuition. And this will take our collective intelligence up a level. we experience them as intuition. A. now realize the age-old name for the supramental is the soul (as in the great chain of being – body.

and for us. Great Britain and Haiti. a tive symbol is required. M. / His acts being seven ages. we will begin by revisiting the life stage of longevity as others have described it in the past. prejudice and scapegoating issues including the United States. and the life cycle. We call this burgeoning life J O U R N A L V . ten on life stage transformations. woman’s rights. 1998: 48-62). is a psychiatrist. /Sans teeth. MArTIn BuBEr. And all the men and women merely players. in relatively good health. 1 P A R T | Into the lean and slippered pantaloon. including up from Scapegoating depth. He is a retired Professor of Psychiatry at University of California. we will discuss the pairtant to leaders and organizations and a founder of the Bolinas ing of death and ecstasy that is fundamental to Leadership Retreat. South Africa. collective consciousness. All the world’s a stage. A S As you Like it. currently approximately 14% of the population of most developed and many developing countries. functional and in society. e Legend of the Baal-Shem. sans everything. In part I. e longevites’ dance with death is a time and Earth father/Sky father and two novels. / Is second childishness and mere oblivion. WIllIAM ShAKESpEArE. poet and playretired faculty of clinical and social programs at San Franwright federico garcía lorca’s articulation of the cisco State University.D. I N T R O D U C T I O N F : L I F E Shakespeare’s Seven Ages of Man is the English language’s most eloquent and pithy description of stages in human life: All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveller is unaware. 2.7. /And one man in his time plays many parts. well saved. classical musical composers. is a psychologist. In part II. and his big manly voice. a world too wide / For his shrunk shank. 2 /2 0 1 4 S T A G E he goes on to describe longevity as decline and loss: or ThE fIrST TIME In hISTory. which together to unlock the artist’s form in the face of suffering have sold more than a half million copies. en we will discuss this stage of life by emphasizing the centrality of the encounter Arthur Colman. Jungian analyst. / His youthful hose. pipes / And whistles in his sound. sans taste. / With spectacles on nose and pouch on side. / at ends this strange eventful history. C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 153 . a larger integraPilar Montero. orgastanding of the longevites’ psyche in greater nizations. Brazil. To facilitate this. Jungian analyst. Last scene of all. and rapidly growing group of men and women over 65. ThErE IS A lArgE S P A N D A L O N G E V I T Y All the world’s a stage. She is now an international group duende provides a key to loving life within the shadand organizational consultant who has lectured and writow of death (garcía lorca. sans eyes. consulwith death. Collective and individual School of Environmental Design at University of California rituals will be presented to enhance the underBerkeley He is the author of seven books on architecture. /ey have their exits and their entrances. Together they have co-consulted widely on group relations. Ph. Mexico. A dividing the human life cycle into stages of development has a long and venerable history from both the artistic and psychological perspectives. influential. and rapidly growing group. ese are people with an average life expectancy of at least 10 more years. and limitation. and potentially open to new opportunity and experience. San Francisco and Faculty of the longevites’ experience. and the impact of altars and effigies on social and political systems. / Turning again toward childish treble.A R T H U R C O L M A N ~ P I L A R M O N T E R O THE NEW LONGEVITY stage longevity and its member’s longevites (as opposed to seniors and the aged).D. / And all the men and women merely players. e new language is meant to deemphasize the mainly negative collective projections that have previously defined this age group while highlighting the vast positive potential available to this large.

that he was denying his age and thereby infringing on their territory. be it transcendent love.” ese labels. as it was different from theirs. rebirth begins with the sense of finality and opens into a newly born consciousness with a more multidimensional. is passionate romantic portrait of what old age should feel like was written at the death of omas’s father when he. bitterness. and they are understandably abundant. We never M O N T E R O | T H E N E W L O N G E V I T Y | 154 . as posed to oedipus. effectively shutting off other attitudes and ways of being. / And on three in the evening? e famous answer to the question is “man. the son. when to retire from work. e challenge for the emergent older population is to fashion a new self-definition of longevity. Another way of saying this is that ecstasy and longevity occupy the common ground of death. Sophocles used the riddle of the Sphinx.g. “older adults need to look back on life and feel a sense of fulfilment. capacious. In fact. at is. an extinction of ordinary consciousness. and despair. a psychedelic drug state.” he wrote. as the heroic oedipus would be at once blind and old. the members of which were 15 to 40 years younger than he. each with a development task defined in polarity. positive in themselves. however. were also remarkably limiting. the fact of terminal illness and death. “Success at this stage leads to feelings of wisdom. Ecstasy as a purely psychic state is defined by the transformation of death and rebirth.C. e final stage of life. One of us (A. He was left with either accepting the group’s controlling definitions or becoming an outsider and potential scapegoat. Recently he helped found a study group for international leaders. strong opposition. / Rage. / Old age should burn and rage at close of day. he was told behaviourally and verbally A R T H U R C O L M A N ~ P I L A R R E D E F I N I N G T H E D A N C E L O N G E V I T Y O F : D E A T H As Erikson suggests.” “wise elder. was just 37! does this address the mysteries of the longevite by experience? In our own time. e amazing demographic change in the duration of life span has already affected prejudice and other cultural assumptions about aging. one based not primarily on the fantasies and projections (and often self-serving hopes) of younger people but on their own here-and-now experience. while failure results in regret. competition. the process of dying – and the denial or acceptance of death itself – is always the primary consideration. dylan omas’s powerful poem about death ends with the much-quoted passage: Do not go gentle into that good night. Over and over again. longevites need no longer depend on others to describe their own experience. or worldly ambitions were subtly and not so subtly branded as somehow unsuitable for a man of his age. members of the group routinely used affirmative characterizations such as “sage.” spans age 65 to death and defines a stark contrast between integrity and despair. when to raise a family. longevity is characterized by an ultimate discontinuity. Many longevites will recognize the potent effect of such strictures and possible misperceptions. to embody the mystery of human development: What creature walks on four legs in the morning? / On two at noon.. full of wisdom and despair.) is a longevite in good health who is currently living an active professional life. unlike other life stages. and even anger by younger group members. when to begin having sex. longevity is always lived at the boundary of death.Before the Bard.” A most poignant effigy that defines old age (a three-legged creature with a cane or crutch). no matter what hopes and plans longevites may have for their final years. and through law and custom they regulate conduct and attitudes in family and society. achieving ecstatic states requires a death of the ego – in other words. ese decisions create a structure of behaviours within age groups. It entails extinguishing that day-to-day ego reality that allows us to function in the world. it is this combination of otherworldly transcendence and experiential immediacy in our dance with death that provides this stage of life with its awesome intensity. even when not present in ordinary consciousness. a visionary experience. ere is always an encounter with death in the ecstatic. e longevites’ dance with death replicates psychic movements of death and rebirth present in all ecstasy. or a near-death experience. In psychological terms. His own efforts to diverge from what was considered age-group-appropriate behaviour were met with confusion.” “revered teacher. and how many resources should be spent on children or the elderly. To describe the value of his age.” ese samplings of art and myths to describe aging are magnifying mirrors of how societies define what behaviours are deemed life-stage appropriate – e. psychologist Erik Erikson posited seven “psychosocial” life stages. and expanded awareness of life. religious and sexual awe. aggression. Expressions of passion. each new life “stage” both integrates and transcends previous development. Many of the attitudes and behaviours of longevites derive from their uniquely close connection with their own ecstatic underpinnings. is is certainly true of longevity – “We will die as we live” is a truism for most longevites. rage against the dying of the light. which he called “maturity.

e P S Y C H I C R E P E R T O I R E O F challenge for many longevite grandparents and L O N G E V I T Y – I T S C O L L E C T I V E parental advisors is not seeing what is going on – I N T E L L I G E N C E they most often do – but figuring out how to transmit that knowledge without undercutting and P A T T E R N S antagonizing the primary caretaker. for our final encounters. after years of living through and reflecting upon its persistent cycles and regularities. and spirithe depths of each and every moment from a new pertual growth. Intuiting the the threat and actuality of waning energies. longevity moves most of us to psychological states in which becoming is secondary to being. others joyful. production. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 155 . memory loss. and loss of talent that is rarely given its full due by ourselves or loved ones. and as of every stage. the power of life. children. Completing ourselves in the very shadow of death. It is a gift that punishes as well as also a corresponding list of strengths we bring to rewards. aggression. to begin to know and see deeply into our own lier life. with a vast continuum in between. the predictable cycles of ments. hurts and heals. but more often it slackens to a seemingly – love. the way we interact and participate e experience of time is altered during the longevity in shaping ourselves in the world. illness. is explains why longevity is most often unlike more-worldly life stages when acquisition of status. Some of these experiences have been traumatagain and again: in the expectable way our body ic. the stereotypy of repetitive patterns but all have added to a growing appreciation of the in relationships and sexuality. is one of the great gifts of this phase of life. with more to see the same natural configurations played out come. politics is no longer seen only as the chronicle of corruption. is precious. It allows us to plumb and the attendant emotional. And it teaches us how to bear pain. Some who believe strongly in a life after death may live out this phase in preparation for that other world. transforming what we already know of ourselves into an intensely present-cantered yet vastly altered reality. seeding our consciousness with portents and this state: added value derived from what we worry. it can vibrate like drama. e challenge of this stage of life. holds sway. Self-help books. depresplayed out. expert advice. debilitating illness. or any parent. chronic pain. loyalty – are imbedded mysteries inattentive drift that in effect is fuelled by some inner until we live and relive their variations and gradually demand. a sion. spective. and largest collective and spiritual context is the great wisdom the ecstatic and contemplative that best serve the we can bring to our culture and ourselves as we get ready last years and moments of our life. A sense of time derived from the deepening S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . To know and less about goals. But for all but the most devout believers. and memories of their own parents and themselves at various stages of childhood are useful but barely a beginning for coping competently with one of life’s most difficult jobs. It is almost impossible to explain to them how little knowledge they. or have a stroke in our sleep. ose of us who have reached longevity are veterans from the hard-won vantage point of longevity we of a multiplicity of psychic experiences. have of the unfolding of a child’s life without having lived that role at least once. for example. perhaps the most powerful consequence of all this experience is an enhanced and more capacious T I M E A N D S P A C E knowledge of patterns we hold in us: the weaving of our psyche. to name the highlights! But there is those around us. succumb to a heart attack.know when we are going to develop a fatal illness. We know more about how to witness the revenge and the fragility of forgiveness. mental. appreciation. pressured by the fear of death. and also develop strategies and capacities to anticicontinuing personal development. and the product of chance and mistakes. but here it is pate and prepare for what is to come. the regularity of way the human condition is a collage of involveweather and business spirals. sensitive to and dependent on our stage of war with the impermanence of peace. is the paradoxical task that an ecstatic consciousness and longevity both define and share. relationships. But our ability to finally grasp a portion of our have already learned and experienced in our earpatterns. including the fruits of accomplishment and others’ trajectory. ability to confidently see intertwining patterns that years before registered only as hints and hunches parale limitations of longevity are well chronicled: lels the much-revered gifts of prophets. is valuing the present while loss. at is. longevites’ moving plots that are our life. the patterns of our own behaviours a taut wire. future. we often see parents struggling to understand the behaviour of their children. effects. e same is true of our potent interactions with groups and community. or accomplishment reflect on the deep weaving of our personal life in its and more about imminence. In our work as clinicians and consultants. come to understand them with a measure of surety based on ongoing reflection and feedback. grasping the whole of things before they are decreasing muscle strength. it is the death itself that guides our behaviour and focuses our consciousness. our continuous years.

be viewed as erratic and embarrassing to others. and then he was labelled as suffering from sions. grandparents who talk sports. ese views were in conkeeping track of progressions of lyrics and melody trast to his earlier “liberal views” and out of keeping with and more on diffuse emotional states and poignant normative attitudes of his family and friends. ing loved ones. even if they are spot-on. After a bit. He ent. ogy: emotional liability. activity is structured around about problems in their children and grandchilcompetition. When a terrorist attack of what is felt as truly valuable in our world. expect. labelling them as little meaning at all. eir dress may violate convenAt no time was there any sign of diminishment of mentional standards. for example. thereby upsetting others. as imprecision takes their patients are notoriously circumspect about on positive subjective value. he aging again plays an important role in how actively and frequently interpreted their insinuations and longevite time is interpreted. these cognitive and emotional states may be depression and was asked to seek help. Is this clarity the greater self-knowledge Many longevites exercise using solo and repetitive physical gained from experience or an age-related disrupactivity such as hiking and swimming rather than group tion in empathy? Similarly. topography. and system they care about. and irascible. orientabehaviour can also be interpreted as a healthy tion to time is one of the first tests of limited cognitive regard for truth over form. there was limited acknowledgment and certainly no apology. ignored. much of this will depend on ongoing what to some may seem crude and unmannerly changes in a given individual’s mental status. sensuality. group sports. of course. and relationship. eir political and social opinions may alter in Alterations in time’s arrow define a new continuum of directions that are novel and of concern. expanding possibly disturbing attitudes. Time develops a rubberlike quality. ambiance. In earlier life stages. he began labelled as the beginning of mental deficits rather developing a new set of social and community alliances. But as we have discussed. Significant change within an individual punctuality and more interested in qualities that tranis always threatening to friends and family and scend time or place. Instead. In general. while adequate time for a lingering still youthful may ignore the brash comments conversation that includes the rewards of silence and deep of an adolescent. views. If we allow younger complaints as undercutting his competence. and personal bests. listening to music may focus less on behaviours and terrorist attacks. mous with entropy rather a time for positive longevites may be less concerned with schedules and growth. irrevereffects of an atrophied brain. eir speech and behaviour may tal acuity or emotional instability. of the dramatic kind he had predicted did occur. Some appreciation and involvement of what defines conseof these can be viewed through the lens of patholquential units for creating meaning. Such was not the case. appreciating atmospheres. ey subjective “nows”: consciousness states that are often may cringe when older doctors are far plainer in found in meditation and spiritual discipline are comtheir comments about what the ailing person can mon experience. and contracting with inner meaning rather than hinging young doctors finding life-threatening illness in on objective requirements of others. or full-blown dementia. and then labelled paranoid behind his back. He was first evoked memories. includa few months from rapidly growing abdominal cancer. the observant and perhaps actively attempting to change a renewing enchantments of weather. It is listening may acquire greater and greater emotional sigall too easy to scapegoat longevites for new and nificance. on the contrary. mirrors of consciousness and its complexities lengthens the way thought and behaviour are appreciated. soulful. waning judgment. capacity. Longevites reverse that order. e power of previous cultural definitions of Much to the consternation of the offending group. ere is a preponderance of being upfront with agonizing prognoses. Short social interactions may have disruptive to community. he and more objectifying observers and professionals limited the frequency of his social and family group to override these new and transforming impresencounters. while dren’s behaviour with great insight and truthfulness introverted and subjective pleasures are often given secmay be upsetting to an ongoing family system. ey may ignore conventional lived and worked productively until 93 and died within social restraints. his A R T H U R C O L M A N ~ P I L A R M O N T E R O | T H E N E W L O N G E V I T Y | 156 . In later years. and senA man of 83 began espousing negative views about specific sations that are generally more meditative in nature. his changA N D T R U T H T E L L I N G ing philosophy might have been ascribed to the early longevites are often described as rude. It is ond place. enhanced appreciation including some new close friends. than the ecstatic. subgroups that included warnings of radical political For example. S P I R I T U A L I T Y If this man had developed Alzheimer’s disease. but a decreasing concern with accuracy and It is particularly difficult to make this distincdetail may be misinterpreted as a deficit rather than a tion when longevity is stereotyped as synonyreconceptualization of a new internal reality. easier to label their comments as “senile” rather than there is more bending time and space to relish the considering that the grandparents are simply being blending of sex. R E V E R E N C E .

honesty fatal episodes into treatable. narrowing options. a matrix of interlocking channels ness includes more than brothers and daughters. for many. palliative surgery. In short. lack of tact may be the only way they all moving inexorably toward the inevitable ending. Perhaps they will go to sleep and longevites may appear irreverent. the march viously accepted wisdom of spiritual “gurus” they from diagnosis to the end stages of life is rarely now recognize as artificial conveyors of the path. straightforward. In today’s world. all of which alter ongoing consciousness. e only true restapy. mild of reality are far more engaging than how one is supchest pain. and loss carry the endings and particularly devastating lab result or painful treatment beginnings that are at the hub of the wheel energizwith a new and intense appreciation of a beautiful suning the last stages of longevity. and perC O N S C I O U S N E S S I N I L L N E S S ceptions. leisure. many of this final stage. longevites ever before. though with may trump secrets with attendant consequences increasingly high morbidity for each individual. To the outsider. not to mention the corresponding emotional agonies of loved ones and trusted healers and careP A R T II: T H E D A N C E W I T H takers. multiple old and new drugs. and even long-term chronic disabling and probably fatal illness: our immediate loved ones and most deeply metastatic cancer and AIDS come to mind. the line of a is always the central reality. folcan step into the social breach and be heard. all with ing place is death. illness. visions. its attendant risks. e dance of death rise. held beliefs can provide only a cushion to lean their lives seemed to be a horror story of radiation.life seemed richer in relationships and creativity than the dominant consciousness at all times. most of which are more depenfriendships may be true rivals for family loyalty. of alternative treatments. nesses to the final deadly serious variant of the In fact. Or they will wake up longer hold what they learned by rote in childhood unable to speak or move their right side. desire for truth. without assuming that it toward death tells a different story. And when their knowledge is ignored. supportive family relationships. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 157 . A relationship previously taken for granted may S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . and grinding emotional losses. body pain. and less dependence on the sothe moment that will forever change the trajectory called holy books or ancient rituals. erefore. though not necessarily poem. descendants are not modern dance of death is a labyrinth of medical and surautomatically honoured with gifts. chronic illness and life-threatening disagree with his changing attitudes and ideas! ease. in dreams. and increasingly waits for. longevites may attain an attitude evidential clarity and clinical knowledge. the bare bones will watch occasional difficulty in breathing. final spectacle. he amply rewarded those visits to doctors and hospitals. Or they and assumed was appropriate as adults. philosophan invitation to tune in to the underlying ecstatic ical discontinuity from previous norms should be drama that is each person’s inevitable march expected and reckoned with. the song of a bird. ey may break with the preinto deadly serious illness. the blending of nature. Our for the people around them. our observation is that most longevites of each of our lives. collective expressions. Views of aging that assume negative diminishment for others. ere may be a greater appreciation of interconnectedness. far more friends and family who had remained supportive and of life is taken up with the daily dramas of finanretained curiosity about his thoughts. or the discovery of a lump transmogrify posed to be or behave. completion of life. the dance of death that marks the though not necessarily for related religious practices. what was earlier deemed socially approto that by frequently transforming acute potentially priate may feel irrelevant and discarded. lows new discoveries and opportunities. chronic states. individual feelings. Commonly they no not wake up in the morning. genetic closegical treatment options. Emergency medical services have seen Similarly. every human transformation: the closing drama even necessary. the circle of who We have both watched patients under our care struggle with and what represents us is never closed. chemotheron but never a bed to lie on. Someone A N D I T S D A N C E W I T H D E A T H in the last stages of metastatic illness may wake up after a Aging. But challenging labyrinth of the dance of death. and Everyone over 65 knows. a phrase of music. a whole new standard of ethics and spirituality archetype of initiation that is the hallmark of at this last stage of development seems quite reasonable. the curtain lowering on the retain a sense of reverence for spiritual disciplines. dent on inadequate data and emotional needs than on At their best. the time may be full of the joys and rather than positive development do not take into pleasures that go with continuing good health and account the learning that occurs within the constantly work. even if they didn’t cial worry. But the inner spectacle of archetypal death is always D E A T H present in the unconscious life. We are witis a product of mental deterioration. is stance is full toward life more fuelled by curiosity and the of hope. followed by disappointments. can seem to be living out a daily saga of ordinary activities often skewed negatively with inevitable In his last will and testament. at this stage of life.

anger. ese blood rituals. which continue today. we are living in the fire. And as everything falls away and only the fire is in front of us. And how we confront. the song. We will no longer exist. during the time leading to death. for example. for some it is a lover. and the willingness to struggle in the last staging of the play with the power awakened by the duende. Spain. We see its light like that of a burning star. the glitter of our pride.” be infused with overwhelming love. the process is remarkably full of energy. as well as assisted suicide. and the like awakens a quality of reality so exaggerated that in its heightening it becomes unreal. T H E E X A M P L E S O F R I T U A L S T H E D A N C E : W I T H D E A T H longevites live out their last years in the midst of a multiplicity of dying and death rituals. and to engage with death. the musical score. Creation requires an encounter with something or someone (which can be an inner being) in order to manifest. in the ecstatic. A R T H U R C O L M A N ~ P I L A R life is a stage indeed. and it behoves the longevite to have the courage.We have earlier invoked federico garcía lorca’s writings on the duende because the duende is the symbol that best condenses the ecstatic energies encountered during the longevite engagement with death. It matters not. We are always in its presence and fashion a great deal of our life in relation to it. We will become that fire. e muse is the time-honoured creature most commonly used to explain this phenomenon. Also. it transforms the infused actor. It begins to transcend all the things we do and transmutes their importance. guiding and giving meaning to the journey. It is the oldest and most universal act of piety. once the duende is active. for the duende wounds. a song. and inevitable disappointments. e rituals and the duende released through them are too often obscured by the arduous daily struggles of existence. e moments may be as ecstatic as anything these people have experienced before and may lead to such deep life-changing feelings of joy that when people are in their most desolate state. e term is unique and untranslatable. we understand that there has never been another meaning. life clings tenaciously to the body. and shape the impending end. When the conditions are met and the duende arrives. for others coffee or alcohol. Even in the last moments. at is all there is and has ever been. death does not come easy. here is one person’s reaction to what it is like to live in this altered state of consciousness. true inspiration has happened and something new and miraculous is discovered. we know her as dante’s Beatrice. and denying its fierce reality. And if we can bear that knowledge. So what is the duende? lorca describes it as a power that the gypsies in Andalucía. for still others the paintbrush. Some are structured to bring peace and harmony. his guide in e Divine Comedy. there has long been a taboo around observing the death process unless one is a medical professional. history is our witness. the attitude. a poem. sauntering. ink of a fire burning in a place far away from human sites of habitation. e aged and broken is nevertheless held by the winds of fate. e death process itself incarnates creative force. for lorca it is the spirit of the earth. Never anything else between it and us. others emphasize the need for continued struggle against overwhelming forces. But recently movies and television dramas have subverted some of this distance. for the duende never comes until the spirit of death is present. the “ordinary” world of dying is simultaneously their finest moment. and foster rules that contain pain. We will be consumed by it. Time becomes distorted as in a nightmare because it requires the performer to delve into the wound. our one and only encounter with it invokes the deepest forces of life and creation. humans are both carnivores and herbivores. determines how we turn to ash. that fire becomes more evident and more important. e longevite is the quintessential initiate into the greatest rituals and mystery of all while he also lives through difficult yet mundane tasks of survival and confusing years of pain. certainly in Western traditions. human sacrifice has been the collective scapegoat dance with death. a conveyor belt with no escape. extended treatment and hospicelike facilities. meandering. have increasingly allowed family members and friends to watch the end of life. and death and dying rituals capture this dual capacity to both fight and fear. but they come directly from the deepest psyche. the canvas. an encounter with the divine. dark and shuddering. Many experience these moments with a sense of the transcendent. But as we grow older. We suddenly realize that we are on a path. e closest is goethe’s “diabolical. have been the foundation of our social and military | T H E N E W L O N G E V I T Y | 158 . e duende requires the hard work not just of mastering the artistic form but also of having the courage to delve into its deepest injuries and face it in hand-to-hand combat despite its violent power. M O N T E R O from the beginning of recorded time. D E A T H A N D T H E D U E N D E In many world cultures. as long as the relationship with the creative force can be maintained. referred to when a dance. tame. the garden.

e out that these are fighting bulls bred for the use of soldiers for war by longevite politicians and ring. and on one level it is just as young. On the last evening. this is decided by drawing lots.000 feet. If they are are placed at the foot of the altar. where they get a death true to their nature. and powerful. given that the course of illand their night of transformation into the divine. accompanied by music and include cabrioles. ey bring their own small music ensembles and bow to honour is very real and required of all professions the Stations of the Cross as they ascend. with death is the bullfight. is the annuing years in front of the TV and the one ready al festival of Qoyllorrit’y. and functional developments. with ple of unacknowledged human sacrifice but pertinent the certain death of the bull and the enormous to us because we were once present to witness it. and most certainly of the torenights drumming and praying with no available water. zation contains any potential problems. death is dealt with head-on. e vicple find a bullfight to be a horrendous and cruel tims tend to be the poor and powerless. however. ness. danger to the matador. far longevite who is dragged into death after passafield in the peruvian Andes. In Spain. the bull is released. in initiatory trancelike mode. youths trained and brainwashed into religious subIs it possible to make a parallel with the servience. e ritual is highly stylized In the barren landscape of the Peruvian Andes. and plaque choice.000 feet. not too strong or priest holds a mass to commemorate the miracle. and a brave and direct charge. generals is the modern-day equivalent. viciously unpredictable when it charges. At this time. Many peotual. Honour means courage. and our news is while other bulls encounter truly disgraceful riddled with the suicide missions carried out by Islamic and inhumane treatment in the slaughterhouse. loss. A e duende power is in the Ukukus. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 159 . that divine bear-costumed people who will be initiated or die he must be very courageous (cowardly behaviour is in their overnight antics on the highest freezing glacier. pride (it’s food. also. the exhausted youths bent down by horns. self-respect. or sanitary facilities. dances. with poor vision and the stars. with good vision. erefore. lover. and the dancers know that meaning as a death ritual transcends the show. the semiknows that the animal is seeking to kill him. they are seduced by their beliefs and ideoloare felt as abusive to humans. e e bullfight takes place in a ring surrounded by spectators. ese are the Ukukus. But. villagers have been waiting. one of the that they ensure the potential prosperity of the villagers themes that haunt longevites. ecstatic grimaces and usually starting at 5 p. cancer. and expected disasters is usually unpredictable. the meaning in every detail of ice on their backs. and grace. its and oxygen is scarce. even between thieves and prostitutes. leaps. If they have some longevite struggles with virus. perform his art with grace and honour. e stars choose their bulls. adors. experience. and commitment of luck and skill dominates the encounter. according 70. ey all know that a event contained by place and time. perhaps the preeminent institutionalized dance e ring is emptied. e matador dominates the est. are the stars they bear as proof of their rites. us the mixture It is through this fortitude. Approximately (say. e bull some will end the night in a glacial tomb. e bullfighters do not son. and uprightness. too old. (Montero and Colman. courage. the heavy large blocks of ice on their backs. reflecting the waking sun: these the fight is a plot of the death experience. and that he must be able to the traditional appointed mountainside at 16. healthithe man to survive. it is full of its own S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . called by their bad bull is too big. We need to point gies to offer their lives to the gods they worship. but their traditional organiimportant never to show cowardice). At dawn. the deadly yet highly e bullfight is based on the fact that the bull has never ritualized encounter between the human and the met a dismounted man. and in the hush. and most agile young men from the many villages that bull by knowledge. tall at the shoulders. etc. and a are all huge. at 18. bred for size and strength). from its start it is an worry painted on their faces. ere is no light blaring trumpets. jeered at mercilessly by the spectators and will termiVillagers crisscross their mountain home to converge on nate a career in time). with wide dance with death. good reaction to the local gods are sated with prayer and alcohol. usually the abuse of an animal. the Ukukus e bullfight is a great spectacle that begins with the climb an additional 1.000 feet to the glacier and parade of the toreadors saluting the appointed president spend the night in nonstop “sacred” antics that and the people in the stands. He dot its peaks and valleys. is festival is not only an extraordinary examIn the bullfight.m. 1997: to initiate a dance with death? 227-38). or colleague may not return. religious and needs to be done properly for it to work and leaders participate in the selection of the brightest. as with every sacrament.000 people arrive every year and spend three days and to their standards). they get a good bull: not too large (even though they figure of the Christ emblazoned on the rock. built around a lucky. often by longevite leaders. is the death coming head-on.organizations as well as at the core of our intellecfighting bull who represent the monstrous instinctual and destructive force that is death. but defective in courage. though not always so. artistic. To the cognoscenti and those who survive descend carrying large blocks of every conscious longevite. movement and colour.

cultures to allow such an end. we want to die with those qualities we illas are placed quickly and accurately. including charging preferences the outcome. in which luck and creature and what will be needed to dominate it and preskill. Here death is wounded as the be seen in the same light. Bach’s last major composition. a man’s life). is is a hair-raising event. Four pairs of banderindividuals. as an underlying presence bull that cause it to keep lowering its head until he in the longevite’s journey. luck can determine the attributes of his bull. so that a goring is inevitable. a path that can go vigorous. the bull first sees one man dragging a cape. Often the horse is gored the crowd would say – it takes the man out of himand lifted by the horns. and purple-pink cape and invites the bull to charge at it an unexpected wind can lift the cape and expose again and again. Here the horse hangs from the horns. for the matador has now seen the matador’s body. time and space laugh (recall Shakespeare’s description of the last stage of are transcended. human duende wounds. In the other stratagems: the entry of the picadors on horseback. For dies. the bull falls to its knees before the man and labyrinth that comprises the rules of the encounter. bull charges and the men pierces its back with the javelin to skill. this phase is the their horses’ bodies heavily padded to protect them when the most difficult of all. Many of us would consider these last two examples Next comes a man armed with banderillas (long as primitive and cruel analogy of our modern medsticks) who runs at the bull and cruelly punishes it icalized customs of dying. It is a reminder of emotional intensity as the matador plays with death. the ingful ritual we may all seek. He makes passes around the the energy of the duende. grace. But the ritual depends on the complex well. e fight with the sublime B Minor Mass. and maximum risk to himself – with duende. or even comfort. the more dangerous it is. looking e people in the ring identify with an increasingly ridiculous. If all goes and the matador. this is the darkly self and makes him feel immortal. too well. and for a brief moment. but ney we all face. the man too! e more defensive the bull has become. but there are he is mostly measuring the danger offered by that particular good deaths and bad deaths. but its strength and confidence today. so that the horns could brush his purpose accomplished. Strangely enough. A painless quiet passing with friends and balanced by a more virulent metastasis – and sets family gathered close is another kind of equally meanthe stage for the ecstatic drama of completion. Death is certain. Here again. the bull and ours. in his left hand. and close and turn almost in place as the man dominates it charges. which is a red cloth held by a stick roughout this writing. e wounding is meant to even death rituals in which our highest human values are the playing field – a new cancer-fighting drug embodied. was a compilation of audience sounds terrified cheering for the banderearly and recent pieces blended and cantered within illeros and their awesome courage. and fate all play a part pare it for the final death. is unfair. e matador L O S S A N D T H E E N D comes into the ring with a sword in his right hand and a muleta. As wane as it fails in its attacks. which every elderly patient knows ecstasy that is as profound as any religious ecstasy. confident and a coin between the shoulder blades. e bull has to be so example. without honour. to spare the fighting his deathbed with complete consciousness of its perspirit of the bull. we have pointed to the that has a point at one end and a handle at the importance of recognizing the ecstatic. e show belongs to this great doomed animal into the heart or cut its surrounding arteries. He is masterfully showing his e last phase of the bullfight completes the jourtalent with the cape. It creates an comic part of the show. Socrates’ courageous suicide death. helping transform our exact outcome still uncertain. the joining of the comic and the tragic in our last years. is e final act is the execution: the bull and perhaps one of the purposes of this paper. Mozart completed his great Requiem on act takes only five minutes. but only if they have with their points that rip into the skin. For example. but it is a con(as recorded by plato) as an act against tyranny could test nevertheless. is second most respect. and the matador can die regardless of and the use of the horns. his greatest. He steps out with his large yellow his skill and mastery over the animal. e man races behind the wooden enclosure. ized passes called veronicas. and when done with grace. lower its head and slow it down. bringing it closer and closer to himself. is first phase includes many in a drama in which we are all players. e surprised remained distanced from the ways many of us die animal is full of rage. its every movement. symbolized in other. e drama of the bullleaps to the side of the horns while plunging the sword fight. ese are epiphanies. and the many other life initiations in which deep into the bull’s back through an opening the size of the encounter with death is both a metaphor and A R T H U R C O L M A N ~ P I L A R M O N T E R O | T H E N E W L O N G E V I T Y | 160 .strength. but it is breathtaking. a most beautiful part of the dance. if fate allows us this. completing elegant and difficult specialthe man’s body. and people usually laugh. All are at one when failing mind or deteriorating body makes others with death. sacred container of the bullring. courage and humour. snorting and running about. and the sonal as well as collective significance.

seeking the phantom friends now reduced to whining. a need for physical and psychological safeour individual state of preparedness. is vacuum is We have seen so many friends and patients who misinteraccompanied by extreme sorrow and longing pret the communication of people in the throes of what for the lost one. e griever often responds with vexation and of the many losses that are possible and even inevitable. irritation to mundane tasks and to the loving the death of a spouse or partner and the subsequent attempts to bring solace by those near. at first there is an overwhelming confusion. uncontrollable rage at one or more family meme level of maturity of personality and the quality of the bers and friends may ensue. An need to live alone is particularly poignant and difficult. no matter Also. handled and diverse rituals that are enacted to protect from its violent onslaught. the writings. gestures seen as loving examples of ries enhanced and idealized. is may lead to denial of the actual needs of their adult years. All cowardice because they are not in control when faced bulls find one or two spots in the arena. it is about the merging death in the ring can go on. It is unbearable pain when the households and providing food and money may be exactly upsurge of emotions takes over the whole perwhat is needed or be an easy substitute for the hard listenson and leads him/her down the road of depresing required to fully appreciate the disabling pain of being sion. the bull in the ring comes to mind. e person miliar and/or threatening encounter with the toregrieving a recent loss wants and tries to run away ador. But to the mourner they are real. the with this supremely fearful attack – they move. often the bulk of required. condolence notes. where they can feel secure in the unfawant to run away. and individuals who were good parents. and house. “how can I knit a life with no feeds the depression hovering at the edge of this end threads?” stage of life. One distraught recent widow was happy to shades of dawn sparkle as never before. angry people. mouth. even years. the It is hard to listen. e audience cies are not easily fulfilled. Similarly. But her main need was to get out of her ings… however. S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . they querencia. or embrace of the other. grandparents. oughts of suicide may arise. here the creature is most dangerous because from the reality of the event. ere is only the grace with which it is ing his/her fate anew more clearly. broken. 2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 161 . It is not about malice. but there is range from envy of their current well being to also a predictable and independent syndrome and accusations based on old injuries now experisequence to this new state of being. the be of real use. Some report the experience as seems to them to be an ultimate disintegration of personality. It is hard to watch previously strong reaching for the hand. mind. and even words of once shared titillates with the splendour of memoencouragement. enced as larger than ever before. fied. in time. ose who are accosted by these emotions inevitably feel that When the life partner leaves or is taken away by dementhey are largely out of proportion and unjustitia or death. face. others watch how it will not charge but will gore anyone who comes he/she holds the stands.the challenge of rebuilding a life out of the ordireal-life enactment. the person is capable of weavescape. the readfriendship. and the crowd jeers. telling Most longevites are overwhelmed by the absence them how and what to do. the place where she had spent years of marriage. the ecstasy of life wanes fast. Organizing shape for solace. e centre that held two is the mourner by those who truly wish to be of help. bring meaning and even uncanny vitality to a difficult and final passage. But this darkest of ecstasies can also deliver alone. always huge and terrifying and unfamiliar. e feet betray Again. a “lost limb” of the wounded amputee. the attacked with that person’s fear and grief that happens when friend or family member has to remember that the there are extreme emotions that easily become thrusting horns of the person they love have to be unmanageable and all recognize that there is no endured until. and the vacuum that takes its place persists for months. whether or not this is of the person they lived with. and since these dependencomes in a different and unexpected way. longevites frequently report that children and friends now treat them as if they were the children. e reality of nary everyday can seem barren and to some imposloss – body. the grieving person at the bullfight looks to the matador’s feet for his becomes even more dangerous and defensive. and they e assault of the death bull is disorienting because it is now attack mercilessly like the wounded bull. It takes enormous patience and skill to slowly and generous they are with their loving accompanimove the bull out of its querencia so that life and ment. As one kind of energy brings hopelessness and suffering and woman said. and soul – unimbued with this sible. courageous readiness and noble stance. the music receive flowers. the charge always ty is much enhanced. e projections relationship are major factors in adapting. It is hard to know the extent of the need and the the beauty that is inherent in life: the magnifiplace where a balm of love and caring can be applied and cent colours of the flower are magnified. no matter how authentic near.

“Collective Consciousness and the psychology of human Interconnectedness”. ErICKSon. but although she lowered the price. Violent Origins: Ritual Killing and Cultural Formation (Stanford. We have selected the loss of a partner for the example but could equally well have chosen so many other losses: the consequences of debilitating arthritis. (1998). p. or dementia all might have a similar impact. It is the panorama of their particular play and the most common final scene.). that they may imagine.. In Search of Duende (new york: new directions). (2000). is type of denial is commonly based on social convention. no bidders arrived. And A. Of course.d. in Group 24 (2-3) (norwell. bought the house and given her time and the opportunity to relocate to a place where memories and feelings were not so acute. MonTEro p. To relocate. f. Adulthood (new york: norton). Death in the Afternoon (new york: Scribner’s). A R T H U R C O L M A N ~ P I L A R M O N T E R O | T H E N E W L O N G E V I T Y | 162 . Wong (eds. TIErnEy. (new york: new york Times Magazine). E. ColMAn (2000). she needed the cash from the sale. along with their funerary ceremonies. E. (1987). (1995). “Collective Consciousness and the psychology of human Interconnectedness”. A. with no impact on them. “play and eory of the duende. knowing that some of her friends who offered meals out and feelingful phone calls (and incidentally were always feeling good about themselves) had great wealth and could have.). (1932).d. hEMIngWAy. hamerton-Kelly (ed. e Sacred Heritage (new york: routledge). MA: Kluver): 203-10.. loss is always a part of the drama of longevity. MA: Kluver): 203-10. e Highest Altar: Unveiling the Mystery of Human Sacrifice (london: penguin).” in In Search of Duende (new york: new directions): 48-62. (2014). “old Masters” (oct. MonTEro p. 8∑8 8 B I B L I O G R A P H Y ErICKSon. blindness. now a mausoleum of unendurable memories. f. gIrArd.l AphAM . longevites live with this vision even before it becomes a reality. r. She had placed her house on the market. ColMAn. gArCíA lorCA. this woman never felt able to voice her needs. in Group 24 (2-3) (norwell. Sandner and S.d. which is common enough in individuals robbed of their moorings and afraid of revealing their desperate neediness. CA : Stanford up). Up From Scapegoating: Awakening Consciousness in Groups (Wilmette. in d. S U G G E S T E D R E A D I N G S ColMAn. cancer. gArCíA lorCA. Il : Chiron publications). And A. h. (1978). Adulthood (new york: norton). “generative Scapegoating. (1978).” in r. E. 23). Her despair with her surroundings drove her to thoughts of suicide mixed with fury. (1998). and true generosity would require some secrecy to spare the widow a feeling of indebtedness. “Beyond Tourism: Travel with Shamanic Intent”. —— (1997). (1989). and the courage to temporarily surmount overwhelming onslaughts of damage and deficit often becomes the central plot – perhaps the only one.

2 /2 0 1 4 S T E E L E | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 163 .8 ABSTRACTS A T L E E :: C O L M A N K E R C K H O V E E I S E N T E I N F I N I D O R I F I T C H :: D E ABSTRACTS :: A K O M O L A F E PERSONÆ SUMMARIES DRAMATIS G O S W A M I H E Y L I G H E N J O H N S O N GROF H A M I L T O N SUMMARIES G A N G A D E A N L É V Y O ’ F A L L O N P Ó R R A M I R E Z :: M O N T E R O ABSTRACTS :: L A S Z L O R O U G H S P A N D A J O U R N A L V .

2 /2 0 1 4 | C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 3 .S P A N D A J O U R N A L V .

and even ecosystems as a collective intelligence. to spiritual and intuitive practices and collective consciousness. in fact. It is now increasingly useful to think of trees. a kind of planetary ‘brain’ acting in ways that may not seem intelligent when understood from a fragmented perspective. civilization against nature. C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 165 :: e Enlightenment bequeathed to us a dualistic model of the universe. as fodder for the purposes of economic growth and ‘development’. I hope to deepen the conversation about today’s civilizational impasses and the possibilities for radical planetary futures by stressing other-than-human intelligences. to the quality of information/knowledge systems and conversational methodologies. death. but shows intelligence when modeled from a holistic viewpoint. K E Y W O R D S ~ Longevity. As the group struggles to define itself. new insights in scientific research into quantum phenomena and a surging interest in indigenous knowledge systems are changing that narrative – instead suggesting not only that consciousness is fundamental to the way the universe works (and not merely an epiphenomenon of brain physics) but that the cosmos is alive in ways our most advanced sciences cannot yet articulate. aggregation. we propose that in the potential psyche of the longevites is a substrate of rituals and symbols about the dance with death that once brought into awareness will enrich the entire human collective’s desire to embrace the sacred drama of life. there is a large and rapidly growing subgroup of men and women over 65. transformation. plural knowledge fields and reality models. and cultural realms has led to the rapid evolution of human civilization’s capacity to impact its environment. I reflect on the implications of an intelligent cosmos on the subject of human agency. Some of the categories we discuss have to do with attitudes toward time (present and future). A dynamic system needs to remain in tune with its changing environments so that its actions continue to be successful. economic cost. multiple approach. rather than considering the intergroup transfer of knowledge that is a consequence of this newly defined entity in our world. collective wisdom. aging. natural world. e most important realm in which collective intelligence is least developed – and. collective intelligence and wisdom within the longevity group. K E Y W O R D S ~ Consciousness.g. and the glorious sentience of humankind against the dead. economic and cultural realms. medical services. Both strategies depend on awareness of environmental realities and their relevance to the success and survival of the intelligent system. In this essay. It does this through impacting its environment and adapting itself to changing conditions. this process has today projected extremes of actual and potential impact S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . Finally. let us slow down’. economic. Approaches to collective intelligence attend variously to computerized systems (and their networks). However. Human collective intelligence in technological. logic against irrationality. It is in continuous. spirit. truth telling. Drawing from an African proverb that states ‘the times are urgent. | [5-16]. people. demographic shift. mindless motions of a mute cosmos. a process known as progress. etc. and a greater appreciation for psycho-ecstatic states associated with death.THE IN ROLE THE OF T O M WISE A T L E E COLLECTIVE DEMOCRACY HUMANITY’S INTELLIGENCE NEEDED SURVIVAL FOR is article proposes that the primary function of intelligence is to sustain a dynamic system’s balance between environmental control and adaptability. currently approximately 14% of the population of most developed and some developing countries who share a great deal in common. it learns and shares the many ways it varies from the earlier stages of life it has already passaged. and stigmergy. rituals. and bring these reflections to bear on contemporary theories of social change – especially in these times of urgent multiconvergent crises. dynamic system. much to our peril. Most literature on the population explosion of the aging has emphasized pragmatic factors. | [115-118]. adaptability. We give theory and examples of transformations in consciousness. non-human beings. ABSTRACTS THE COLLECTIVE :: OF THE SUMMARIES INTELLIGENCE A K O M O L A F E SPEAK: :: SILL ABSTRACTS A D E B A Y O TREES :: THE . We call this life stage longevity and its members longevites (as opposed to seniors and the aged) to emphasize the positive and creative potential inherent in this expanding cohort within the world population. e. Humanity’s problem-solving capabilities have translated problematic circumstances into new forms of impact. order against chaos. | [153-162]. namely politics and governance. and to social dynamics. As such. and shamanic access to ‘subtle realms’. SUMMARIES WORLD :: NATURAL into unprecedented scales and realms that challenge not only our ability to respond but the very basis of our responsive capacities – the nature of our intelligence itself. to human diversity (including diverse cognitive capacities). to the dynamics of collaboration. social change. However. we have co-developed a social arrangement that thrives on this logic of separation – a cultural monoculture that treats the ‘natural world’. e integration and application of multiple approaches to collective intelligence to this realm – and the expansion of collective intelligence to manifest as collective wisdom – are necessary to avoid the collapse of civilization through rapidly emerging crises generated by our lopsided collective intelligence-driven powers in technological. pitting science against superstition. Longevites are a group bounded by age 65 to the death of its members. dynamic interrelation and intercourse with the other subsystems in our human culture and peppered with back and forth meaningful and consequential projections. K E Y W O R D S ~ System’s balance. 2 /2 0 1 4 | A R T H U R C O L M A N THE NEW ~ P I L A R LONGEVITY M O N T E R O For the first time in history. especially those related to power. is actively undermined by ideological and self-interested applications of collective intelligence – is the realm where whole-society decisions are made.

D E R R I C K

CONNECTED

D E

K E R C K H O V E

INTELLIGENCE

SOCIETY:

SOCIAL

THE

FOR

INTERNET

LIMBIC

THE
AS

SYSTEM

A

KEYWORDS

~ Artificial intelligence, consciousness, group
sentience, intersubjectivity, group mind. | [65-69].

CIVIL

THAT

C H A R L E S

E I S E N S T E I N

DIMESNIONS

INTELLIGENCE:
WISDOM

OF

COLLECTIVE

INTENTION,

AND

SOUL

is essay plays with two definitions of collective intelligence, drawing on two meanings of the word “intelligent” that bring to bear relevant arguments from the
philosophy of mind, particularly in reference to artificial
intelligence (AI) and its distinction between “strong AI”
and “weak AI.” One definition associates intelligence
with the ability to perform tasks involving logic, reasoning, pattern recognition, etc., an ability that can be
quantified and measured. Most theory and research on
collective intelligence works with this definition. Another sense of the word associates intelligence with some
kind of consciousness or awareness, and would distinguish (per Searle) between real intelligence and the mere
mechanical solving of problems. It is qualitative and its
presence can only be inferred, not measured. I will
explore the question of whether this sort of intelligence,
as well as the problem-solving variety, is present in collectives. Do groups have a sentience that transcends the
sentience of their parts? Do they have, whether in actuality or in potential, a capacity for morality or wisdom
that cannot be reduced to mere problem-solving efficiency? Is it meaningful to speak of the desire, the intention, the purposiveness of a group as distinct from that
of its members? And if so, how can these qualities be
developed in socially desirable ways? I will adopt a transdisciplinary approach to exploring these questions,
drawing upon notions of intersubjectivity, the social
construction of self, crowd psychology, emergent phenomena, and concepts of group mind from mysticism,
indigenous worldviews, and depth psychology.

C O L L E C T I V E

I N T E L L I G E N C E

NEEDS

F I N I D O R I

INTELLIGENCE
PROTECION

AND

LANGUAGE

IS

A

A

COMMON

DEDICATE

Technology is what boosts the capacity of individuals and
communities to become authors of their own stories, and
what enables collective intelligence to become aware of
itself and to fulfil its long awaited promise. It is also what
can lock up potential inside black boxes for just a few to
benefit from.
We are facing a paradox. It seems that at the same time as
collective intelligence is making itself increasingly palpable
and promising as a whole, the possibility of it being
actionable locally and effectively, enabling us to get ourselves out of a planetary predicament, is becoming remote.
In this article, I look at how collective intelligence is hindered or being captured as it comes into being, with the
threat of leaving us deprived from a significant source of
latent agency, and I suggest what it would take to
reclaim it back.
I build upon the Ecology for Transformative Action,
which I set the stage for in the last issue of this journal, to
examine the condition under which technology and systems dynamics can be turned towards the greater good and
how collective intelligence can be mobilized as a force for
systemic change. In particular, I explore how a pattern language for systemic change regenerative of commons could
be the means of expression of operationalized collective
intelligence.
K E Y W O R D S ~ Ecology for transformative action, technology, system dynamics, pattern language, systemic change.
| [79-89].

K E Y W O R D S ~ Cognitive relationships, connective intelligence, collaborative practices, Big Data. | [71-75].

QUALITATIVE

H E L E N E

COLLECTIVE

I adopted the term connective as a sub category of collective intelligence to indicate cognitive relationships that
include specific configurations and proper attribution to
individual participants. e assumption is that all forms of
group intelligence are subsumed by the term collective.
But it isn’t so. At best collective may signify the overall
cognitive achievement of a community over a given period
of time. Connective, however, reflects the form, duration
and outcome of specific cognitive activities performed by
groups of individually identifiable persons working together. It applies in particular to social relations and interactions that are carried by networks. e Internet is an emotional as well as cognitive environment. It offers and stimulates different levels of involvement from simple collaborative practices to emotional engagement in social movements. Considering that Civil Society needs and uses
intelligent strategies for real time activism, it may be
opportune to refine our approach to intelligence.

A S H O K

AWAKENING

G A N G A D E A N

COLLECTIVE

INTELLIGENCE:
DEEP

THE

GLOBAL

POWER

DIALOGUE

OF

When we step back from our more localized cultural narratives, perspectives, worldviews and disciplinary orientations and dilate our hearts and minds into the more
expansive and inclusive global space whence our diverse
worldviews co-originate and co-arise, striking new patterns and insights come into relief that were not accessible
before. When we dilate our rational and spiritual intelligence into the ((Source Field)) and gain access to the long
emerging ((Logos Code)) that flows through all our
diverse worldviews, religions, ideologies and cultures we
move from monologue to ((deep dialogue)) and enter this
Primal Common Ground of deep consensus, convergence, connectivity and synergy across and between
worlds. is Deep Dialogue literacy, technology and
intelligence is what empowers us to rise together in ((Collective Intelligence)) across the deeply entrenched borders
that divide our cultures and worlds. Gaining access to this
((Primal Logos Code)) through the rational arts of Deep

|

A B S T R A C T S

::

S U M M A R I E S

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166

WOMEN’S

OF

PREVENT,

MAY

BREAST

THE

HEART

EVEN

CANCER

HEAL

is is a prime example of new ways to deal with old
problems of disease when we invoke the primacy-of-consciousness worldview to medicine. I will first show the
connection of the phenomenon of love, love as the basis of
collective intelligence, the so-called heart chakra, and the
immune system functioning. e exploration of this connection throws new light on the connection of suppression of love and cancer, especially breast cancer. I next
explore the question: how best to center oneself in love
and the heart and prevent cancer? I will show that the
answer lies in awakening the self of the heart and living it.
KEYWORDS ~ Consciousness, love, heart chakra, immune system, cancer. | [149-152].
S T A N I S L A V

ARCHETYPES,

MODERN

MYTHIC

SOCIETY:

THE

THE

G R O F

IMAGINATION

AND

RE-ENCHANTMENT

WORLD

OF

In this paper the Author stresses the importance of mythic
imagination and archetypal psychology for modern society
with a brief discussion of the nature and dynamics of the
archetypes and how the understanding of their significance has changed over the centuries. Following, Grof
addresses specifically the implication of archetypal thinking for a variety of disciplines and its relevance for the
global crisis we are currently facing.
K E Y W O R D S ~ mythic imagination, archetypal psychology, archetypes, archetype thinking. | [27-37].
C R A I G

COLLECTIVE
EVOLUTION

H A M I L T O N

INTELLIGENCE

OF

SELF

AND

AND

THE

CULTURE

In this time of global crisis and opportunity, collective
intelligence practices have demonstrated considerable

S P A N D A

J O U R N A L

V

, 2 /2 0 1 4

|

F R A N C I S

CHALLENGE

THEORY

OF

H E Y L I G H E N

PROPAGATION:

DITRIBUTED

AND

TOWARDS

GLOBAL

A

BRAIN

We sketch a foundation for a new theory of distributed
intelligence, based on the concept of challenge propagation, which extends the mechanism of spreading activation
in neural networks to the collective intelligence emerging
from a network of interacting agents. Challenge propagation is a form of self-organizing, distributed processing that
allows agents to collectively tackle challenges too complex
for a single agent, and that can be mathematically and
computationally modelled. e basic idea is to combine
the notion of “challenge”, which is defined as a phenomenon that elicits action from an agent, with the notion of
“propagation”, which denotes the process by which such
phenomenon is iteratively transmitted from agent to agent.
A challenge is a generalization of the notions of problem,
opportunity and activation. It can be characterized by
valence (positive or negative), prospect, mystery and difficulty. An agent’s action on a challenge will typically “relax”
the challenge, but not resolve it altogether, so that some
degree of challenge remains for further agents to act upon.
Propagation occurs either via a shared medium in which
challenging traces are left for others (stigmergy), or by via a
network of links learned through reinforcement of successful transmission.
K E Y W O R D S ~ Challenge propagation, distributed intelligence, ontology of action, complex systems, Global
Brain, society of mind. | [51-63].

C O L L E C T I V E

I N T E L L I G E N C E

|

167

::
SUMMARIES

::
ABSTRACTS

IT

::

HOW

G O S W A M I

AWAKENING

SUMMARIES

CENTRE:

A M I T

THE

::

AND

ABSTRACTS

LOVE

promise in helping organizations and groups access higher-order potentials and synergistic solutions (Hamilton,
2004). However, for many of today’s global scale problems, there is often general agreement on needed action,
yet great difficulty marshalling individual and collective
motivation for change. Open mind, open heart, and
open will (Scharmer, 2009) have been identified as facilitators of collective synergy, yet these qualities have yet to be
institutionalized and promoted within culture.
After experiencing the impact of collective awakening
experiences in a community setting, Craig Hamilton began
exploring the potential for collective transformative
engagement within a virtual context. Over the past five
years, his teachings have reached tens of thousands and
have supported the development of a global learning community based in principles of evolutionary culture and
practices for a life of awakening to higher purpose and
emergent potential – for the sake of the whole. In this
interview, Craig Hamilton shares his evolving understanding of collective intelligence practices and their potential
for enabling needed transformation of self and culture.
Author George Pór also participates in the interview, offering an opportunity for exploration of resonances and contrasts with his concept of collective sentience.
K E Y W O R D S ~ Collective synergy, transformative engagement, evolutionary culture. | [119-126].

::

Dialogue is thus key to cultivating genuine ((Collective
Intelligence)) in this dilated global light. e ontological
medicine of Deep Dialogue across and between worlds is
vital for cultivating authentic ((Collective Intelligence))
and tapping the resources of ((Global Wisdom)) for our
Global Age. Source Intelligence, skills of Deep Dialogue
and the cultivation of Global Consciousness are keys to
the cultivation and embodiment of Collective Intelligence
as we face the evolutionary challenges of deep communication and finding consensus and synergy across borders.
us, we cannot enter ((Collective Intelligence)) within
the divisive, fragmented and polarized spaces of monologue cultures, but must mature as mindful and awakened Humans in the arts of Deep Dialogue. We are not
egosapiens, but LogoSapiens. And it is in mature dialogue cultures that we humans flourish.
K E Y W O R D S ~ Deep dialogue, global consciousness,
source intelligence. | [139-147].

THE

N O R M A N

APPLIED

L E E

SCIENCE

J O H N S O N
OF

INTELLIGENCE:SOLVING
CHALLENGES

FACING

physics. We cannot speak of consciousness in the plural as
the overall number of minds in the universe is one, our
body may be separate, but our minds is not. If we would
realize and take to heart this realisation, we could overcome the critical challenges of our time.
K E Y W O R D S ~ consciousness, brain, Akashic field,
holofield theory, holographic univeres. | [1-4].

COLLECTIVE

THE

GRAND

HUMANITY

Almost every generation imagines itself on a precipice,
where problems seem too complex to solve and the future
is bleak. Yet, society survives each time, often reinventing
itself. With global climate change, dying oceans, democide, killer epidemics, and other modern crises, humanity
may truly be at the precipice where our actions in the
next decade will determine the future of humankind.
In this article, we discuss how proactive collective intelligence is the game-changing resource that offers hope,
extending its role beyond the “wizard behind the curtain”
in the past. Based on research over the last two decades,
the advantages and limitations of collective intelligence
can be now understood. When added to the traditional
spectrum of problem-solving methodologies and leadership, collective intelligence using diverse groups can
extend the complexity of problems that can be solved –
defining when and how diverse collectives can outperform
experts, while being more robust.
Because expression and compatibility of diversity are required
for collective intelligence, we show how managing social identity (us versus other) is the key to enabling diversity, particularly when diverse views are in conflict or contain biases. We conclude that future methodologies may need to
embrace biases that have embedded truths captured within
situated understandings of the complex problem domain.
Finally, a practical example of a grand challenge project
illustrates the implementation of above concepts to solve a
problem of international importance. is project used
advanced risk assessment methods, similar to Open Spaces
and World Café, that efficiently captured diverse knowledge, even when participants were biased and in conflict.
K E Y W O R D S ~ Collective intelligence, complexity, leadership, diversity, bias, objectivity, social identity, emergent solutions, risk assessment, crowdsourcing, social
organization and transformation, cooperation, competition, prediction markets. | [97-107].
THE

ONE

E R V I N

MIND

MANIFESTATIONS

IN

IN

L A S Z L O

THE

OUR

COSMOS

AND

OF

ITS

CONSCIOUSNESS

I N T E L L I G E N C E

L É V Y

PHILOSOPHICAL

ALGORITHMIC

CONCEPT

INTELLIGENCE

e paper presents the case for an augmented and reflexive collective intelligence using the ubiquitous recording
and computing power of the algorithmic medium.
e first part of the paper tells the research journey of the
author since the publication of his book Collective Intelligence, twenty years ago. is scientific journey has led to
the invention of IEML, an artificial language that selftranslates in natural languages and endowed with computable semantics. When data are categorized in IEML,
their semantic relationships are automatically computed.
Moreover, as IEML provides an algebraic account of linguistic semantics, the modelling of human intelligence,
which is precisely based on language, becomes reachable.
e second part of the paper analyses the historical and
philosophical implications of this scientific breakthrough.
I propose first a description of the reflexive knowledge of
Antiquity and the Middle Ages that uses mainly the mirror of an agent intellect. I evoke then a second age of
reflexivity, which preserves the universal perspective of
the earlier period, but removes the reference to heaven
and concentrates on human knowledge. is modern
period, characterized by the strengthening of natural sciences and the fragmentation of humanities, reflects its
cognitive activity in what Kant baptized a transcendental
subject. Finally, I defend the hypothesis that when half
the humanity will be connected to the Internet, a third
renewal of reflexive knowledge will occur. is version 3.0
will keep the ideals of universality and scientific perfectibility but will rely on an extensive use of technology
to increase and systematically reflect our collective minds,
and therefore our personal and social learning abilities.
What is at stake is not an artificial intelligence mimicking some individual logical reasoning but the transition
from our current typographic intelligence to a collaborative algorithmic intelligence.
K E Y W O R D S ~ Saugmented and reflexive collective intelligence, IEML, linguistic semantics, age of reflexivity, fragmentation of humanities, internet, collaborative algorithmic intelligence. | [17-25].

In this paper the Author maintains that clear evidence are
coming to light about conscious experience beyond the
range of sense and beyond the body itself, proving that
individual consciousness does not end with the physical
death. To the mainstream view on consciousness being a
product of the brain, Laszlo propounds a paradigm in
which consciousness is neither produced nor linked to a
living brain, but is rather transmitted by the brain. is
perspective rises the question: transmitted from where and
how? To which the holofield theory answers postulating
that consciousness might well be the projection of a cosmic coded hologram field – the Akashic field – accessible
to the brain and the nervous system. A concept also widely
discussed as the “holographic universe” in contemporary

C O L L E C T I V E

P I E R R E

THE

T E R R I

O

’

F A L L O N

~

COLLECTIVE
FROM

~

G E O F F

THE

V E N I T A
F I T C H

R A M I R E Z

INTELLIGENCE

CASUAL

GROUND

Can individuals and collectives benefit one another
when they come together through a shared awareness of
the ground of being, which we call the causal ground, or

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168

In this article I provide a C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | 169 :: :: COLLECTIVE R O U G H STRUCTURING ABSTRACTS J I M CIRCLE: :: THE SUMMARIES ~ Mindfulness. modern and post-modern consciousness served us well by leading us so far. nation and world. and their iterating patterns through the trajectory of collective development. deep intuition and systems thinking.” or “brainstorming” it is where people creatively and collaboratively face difficult issues and achieve win/win unity. and to allow creativity to flow through the collective without detracting from any individual. Distinct from “dialogue. then integration.” “decision-making. 3) e Wisdom Council Process uses Dynamic Facilitation and random people to spark the spirit of choice-creating in large systems. repeating through concrete communities. And in the true spirit of the topic. 2 /2 0 1 4 | FOR INTELLIGENCE Triangle. subtle communities and causal communities. Wisdom Council. the spiral of consciousness. and the Circle is where the ultimate authority is a living conversation of “We the People. We will describe the qualities of conscious collectives that arise at various world-views.” We must shift to the Circle. collective sentience. e previous cycles. true cost economics. something I studied deeply in the 1980’s for the Central Intelligence Agency. | [39-49]. e very term “collective intelligence” captures the dream we all have in holding a vision for a better functioning society. evolutionary ethos. individual and collective shadow. collective sentience. COLLECTIVE S T E E L E INTELLIGENCE: HOLISTIC ECONOMICS SOURCE IN ANALYTICS CONTEXT EVERYTHING OF OF OPEN e emerging discipline of Collective Intelligence (CI) has been badly mis-directed by a combination of the faddish focus on “wisdom of the crowds” without conversation or dynamic facilitation. the source itself. | [109-113]. ABSTRACTS FROM outer technologies and sciences. our current Box form of democracy increasingly yields “collective stupidity” instead of “collective intelligence. mythic. SUMMARIES INTELLIGENCE G E O R G E MINDFULNESS KEYWORDS :: RIGHT In this essay I explore some of themes that are core to our move into the next cycle. CI must be appreciated in a cosmic and spiritual context as well as an ecological and social context that respects the inherent intelligence and communications skills of plants and animals along with the emerging understanding of how all matter is energy and energy is form of communication. through a variety of states and stages. this paper is written from and through the collective intelligence of three people who have been working together in this field for the past ten years. while the collective captures the wisdom of the Source itself without burying individual light? From our experiments with collective intelligence and collective consciousness. interdependence. and open source everything. globally for all of life. Dynamic Facilitation. e Triangle is where a leader is ultimately in charge. :: awareness itself? Is it possible for individual consciousness to bend and blend with the consciousness of the collective such that the individual shines even more in the field of the collective holding. whole-system conversation. the Box is where a social contract or constitution is ultimately in charge.SIGNPOSTS P Ó R TO TO THE TO COLLECTIVE LATER EVOLUTIONARY COLLECTIVE SENTIENCE: STAGES JOURNEY OF OUR is essay is a wide-ranging exploration into the conditions for realizing the next-level potential of human and social evolution. In this article. while addressing individual and collective shadow. state. becoming stuck with them is becoming stuck with an existential threat of intertwining global crises that cannot be solved at the currently dominant modern and post-modern levels. spirituality and precision of inquiry. integral and shared mindfulness. | [91-95]. . K E Y W O R D S ~ Shared awareness. showing how collective intelligence itself is not “one thing” but that it evolves. we have developed an effective approach to support the evolution of this interpenetration of individual and collective consciousness. Because the Wisdom Council process is safe yet proven. such as. and an academic ivory tower fascination with artificial intelligence. K E Y W O R D S ~ living conversation. Key to making this shift are three social innovations: 1) choice-creating is the necessary form of whole-system conversation. Box and Circle are three fundamental ways humans can organize themselves for collective intelligence. We will offer statistics on the research that we have done to show the results of the evolution of our collective intelligence efforts. e next cycle is the one of an integral. social organism. archaic. it opens new doors of possibility for leveraging collective intelligence at all levels –the organization. we express our experience with this mode of collective/individual intelligence. CI in the 21st Century must focus on the true meaning of intelligence as evidence-based decision-support. R O B E R T APPLIED HUMAN-CENTRIC TRUE COST D . causal ground. magic. rooted in holistic analytics. We will include practical steps that any collective can take to ground themselves in a causal field. holistic consciousness that enables the integration of the inner and S P A N D A J O U R N A L V . We are on the threshold of a new cycle of the spiral. evolutionary guidance systems. collective intelligence. community.” e evolutionary process actually continues through cycles of differentiation.” Today as we shift from independence to interdependence. 2) Dynamic Facilitation can reliably evoke choice-creating in small groups. at a higher level. ethics. “We the People”. However. A starting point for looking at “evolution” is the unending journey resulting from the “dynamic interplay of the passive and the creative polarizations of the Absolute that unfolds itself into the energetic process of differentiation bringing forth the whole of creation.

of Future-Oriented Hybrid Governance. roadmap for eradicating corruption and waste in all forms in a non-violent manner.infinite sustainable wealth at the same time that we stop. dynamhope is that we can ic facilitation. empowered to create nInE AnD TEn POInTS S MOnOTYPE ADOBE GArAMOnD PrO ù ù TWO POInTS LEADED. ics. the pathologies of Western capthrough the creation of a World Brain Institute. holistic analytacademy. * * * ù ù ù ù ù ù ù ù ù ù ù ab The next Buddha may take the form of a community. colonialism. My of the crowds”. j A n u A r Y M M x v. governance. and militarism. THICH nHAT nAnH a b C O L L E C T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E | A B S T R A C T S :: S U M M A R I E S | 170 . and an Open Source Everything K E Y W O R D S ~ “Wisdom Innovation Hub. | [127-137]. artificial reinvent intelligence to intelligence. and sociopen source. a community practicing understanding and lovingkindness. Institute. economy. a community practicing mindful living. communiù re-engineer the human cation. World Brain billion poorest are I n E I G H T. corrupET ety such that the five tion. true cost economics. a School italism. ACCOrDInG TO S PA n D A C r E AT I v E u n I T ’ S L AY O u T AnD PrInTED In THE HAGuE.

.

from longevity to group sentience. from heart chakra to immune system. from mindfu lness to mythic ima gina tion . from one mind t o reflexive intelligence .i d i s c l o s i n g spanda s h a r e d c o g i t a t i o n s ‰ from consciousness to social change. from holistic analytics to open source. and collective serendipedity are some of the visions unveiled in this collective intelligence e n d e a v o u r by tom atlee arthur coleman ~ pilar montero derrick de kerckhove € 35 adebayo c. from we space to dissipative stru ctures . from evolutionary eth os to dyna mic fa cilit ation. from transformative actions to pattern language. akomolafe $ 45 ‰ helene finidori geoff fitch ~ terri o’fallon ~ venita ramirez ashok gangadean stanislav grof amit goswami craig hamilton francis heylighen norman lee johnson ervin laszlo pierre lévy sahlan momo george pór jim rough robert steele ‰ £ 28 charles eisenstein . from s hared aw aren es s to c ol lect ive s ha dow . from de ep dia logue to s ource inte lligen ce . from wisdom of the crowds to cooperation. from dynamic systems to collective wisdom. from transforma tive engagement to distribute d intellige nce .