Collective mind insight

Five Insights: Collective Mind

Interests

• Communication
• Media
• IT innovation
• Public sphere
• Public informing
• Knowledge work
• Disciplinary and transdisciplinary organization of academic work
• Social organization or knowledge work

Scope

We look at the Internet as a collective nervous system; and at our various collective minds, large and small. How do they operate? What 'program' or 'algorithm' do they run, so that each of the 'cells' may have the information it requires – so that the whole thing may function?

Yes, this is just a specialization of the power structure scope, but a centrally important one: As the cyberneticians observed, communication is what really what turns a bunch of things into a system!

Furthermore, for systemic innovation to be in place, the source of illumination must be right; it must show us the whole.

And furthermore there's this new kid on the block:we've just gotten the new information technology!

Insight

By depicting our civilization as a Godzilla-like animal, this ideogram points to the main insight discussed here. The point is to see us all interconnected by modern IT as cells are connected in a human mind. We have gotten a new nervous system. How shall we use it?

The point here is that we've inherited the 'algorithm' by which we handle knowledge. From a culture whose technology (the printing press) enabled only broadcasting! But the new information technology is a nervous system! Imagine your cells broadcasting data to each other and to your brain – and you'll easily see why broadcasting leads to collective madness! And why a completely new social organization of knowledge work (which we called federation) is needed to restore collective intelligence.

Consequences

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The point

See the collective mind as a kind of a computer. Then the question is – what kind of program is this thing running. The point here is that the program does not at all suit the machine and its systemic role! It's simply a completely wrong program.

Resolution

It's federation. The principle is to organize knowledge ACCORDING TO TOPIC – by condensing it to insights. Or gestalts.

And bootstrapping. Self-organization toward a whole new principle of knowledge work.

Formulation

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Story

The Incredible History of Doug has already been told in so many places. Begins with Bush's observation. What might be the largest contribution to human knowlege? Why didn't the Silicon Valley get it?

Federation</div>

Knowledge = Mountain</h4>

The "killer app" is a "mountain-building kit". The Holoscope.

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<h4>Action</h4>

bootstrapping

<h4>Keywords</h4>

federation

<h4>Prototypes</h4>

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