From Global Brain
to Collective Intelligence and Systemic Wisdom
by George Pór
/work-in-progress draft, version 01.07.02/
Revised abstract
The aim of this essay is to make a contribution to:
• a conceptual and methodological framework of design and coherent action that foster the emergence of a collective intelligence and wisdom capable to provide evolutionary guidance
• building momentum for GB 2002 as an attractor of the requisite variety needed to match the complexity and interdependence inherent in the critical issues of the global research
This essay is comprised of the following sections:
1. Question-in-focus:
Can the Global Brain create an opportunity for harmonization across time bubbles?
2. Differentiation and integration
3. Time bubbles of emergence
4. Learning Expedition:
a process framework for addressing our question-in-focus
5. Global brain or global nervous system
The first five sections are included in the current /01.07.02/ version of the draft. The following four sections will be added in the next version.
6. The global brain as a knowledge ecosystem
7. Collective intelligence
8. Systemic wisdom
9. Configuring adaptive technologies
1. Question-in-focus:
Can the Global Brain create an opportunity for harmonization across time bubbles?
“The densities of time flows are mutually exclusive ‐ it is as if two people, one on a high-speed train and the other riding a bicycle, are trying to exchange packages. Yet sharing is essential if we want to avoid the irreversible process of competitive exclusion between communities, people, and nations. The cybiont is beginning to develop and evolve in a hyperaccelerating time bubble, and it is up to human beings to prevent imbalances that could imperil the future of humanity.” (de Rosnay, 2000)
Can GB contribute to a positive alternative to the balkanization of humankind by cultures locked into mutually exclusive time bubbles? Can it enable a future envisioned by Joel de Rosnay as follows. “Just as different times coexist in our bodies, the cybiont will live by the harmonization of super-imposed times. Sharing, solidarity, temporal harmonization, and respect for differences will be the new rule, the new way of life of symbiotic humanity.” (ibid, p.271)
That sounds like a formidable, if not impossible challenge, given the current state of the world characterized by a deepening gap between humankind’s intellectual production capacity and its capacity to optimize it for the benefit of all. On the other hand, if humankind has never created a breakdown that it couldn’t turn into a breakthrough, would that be different at this time?
Let’s examine that question in the light of the role of differentiation and integration in evolutionary theory.
2. Differentiation and integration
Differentiation-and-integration is a foundational pattern in calculus, the life and social sciences, evolutionary theory, ancient wisdom traditions, and Western masters of dialectics. It seems to be the most suitable starting point to build a conceptual framework for addressing our question-in-focus.
The main evolutionary drivers of the social and technical--just like the biological--worlds are differentiation (generating variety) and integration (generating interdependence) produced by the selection of the fit.
If “the purpose of differentiation is for a further integration, and a further integration is for a even farther differentiation,” as thought by the Special Integration Group of the International Society for the Systems Sciences (Tang, 1996), then differentiation--without the requisite complementary integration--leads to a separation fallacy.
When that happens at a global scale, then concerted corrective action is needed to let humankind move on its “learning expedition” from breakdown to the next breakthrough. The “learning expedition” is a metaphor, a model, and a myth that can inform and guide us towards that breakthrough. We will explore it in more depth, after reviewing a particular form of differentiation-and-integration introduced by Joël de Rosnay, the “time bubble” (de Rosnay, 2001).
3. Time bubbles of emergence
De Rosnay compares the acceleration of time within specific domains of the technical-social world with the densification of sound waves in front of an airplane as it’s approaching the sound barrier.
“When the speed of the airplane exceeds the speed of sound, it breaks the sound barrier, and sound bubbles form behind it (see the figure below).
The time bubbles I have described are like those sound bubbles. They form contemporary sets, organized hierarchically according to their temporal density. The creation of new fractal bubbles within those that already exist corresponds to the phenomenon of emergence. When their high temporal density suddenly reveals their presence within the low-density bubbles, a mutation or explosion occurs. What is called a ‘technological revolution’ (the industrial, biological, or digital revolution), the ‘explosion’ of a sector, or a ‘decisive mutation’ represents the opening up of a time bubble within our universe of reference.” (de Rosnay, 2000)
If systems A is the environment of system B (and vice versa), and they are locked into time bubbles that move with different speed, then chances are that the system with a faster evolutionary trajectory will set the fitness criteria so that the other can’t meet. That’s a situation that threatens millions individuals, communities and nations not only on loosing side digital divide. Consider the price that “winners” would have to pay for leaving behind the “losers.”
By contrast, “if B's configuration fits its environment A, by definition, their mutual configuration will be retained, and a constraint will be imposed on their relative variation. B has ‘snapped into place’, or ‘discovered a niche’. Thus, a new, higher order system or supersystem, consisting of the subsystems A and B bound together by their relative constraint, is formed.”_ (Heylighen, 1996)
How can such harmonization--and escaping into higher order complexity--happen across time bubbles of widely different velocities?
What would it take to learn what role can the Global Brain play in the emerging planetary reality of increasing differentiation of those bubbles?
4. Learning Expedition:
a process framework for addressing our question-in-focus
We call the process of preparing ourselves for passing the evolutionary test of harmonization across time bubbles, a “learning expedition.” The three dimensions of a “learning expedition”--relevant to the global brain research are: metaphor, model, and myth.
In its broadest sense the “learning expedition” metaphor refers to the evolution of human consciousness in individuals and communities. In a more specific sense, I use it for labeling the collaborative process in which any “expedition community” increases the learning capacity of itself and the larger community that it serves.
The main metaphoric function of the “learning expedition” term is to “render comprehensible a complex set of elements and relationships... It is the peculiar strength of metaphor that it can convey the essential without excessive oversimplification, preserving its complexity by perceiving it through a familiar pattern of equivalent complexity.” (Judge, 1987)
While an expedition typically unfolds in physical space, the “learning expedition” unfolds in conceptual space. They both are a team endeavor, a joint enterprise of researchers united by a shared passion.
The “learning expedition” model refers to an activity system of collaborative inquiry that includes the subsystems: seeking shared meaning and purpose; and designing/improving the expedition’s communication and knowledge-creating systems and practices.
A fully successful learning expedition has three types of results: learning outcome - the development of new or enhanced individual and collective competence; research outcome - contributions to the evolution of knowledge and better maps of a particular better knowledge landscape; and design outcome - a knowledge product, e.g. educational materials or replicable processes.
The “learning expedition” model is supported by complementary set of metaphors and processes which includes “scouting parties” (self-organizing, special-focus discovery teams) and “base camps” (periodic, face-to-face gatherings of the scouting parties).
In the context of a global brain research that may mean groups focusing on various aspects of what needs to be discovered or invented and meeting--besides the continuous online exchanges--annually, in face-to-face settings.
The “scouting parties” of the learning expedition partially correspond to the factorizing strategy of addressing complex problems, where “ each subproblem can be solved by a much smaller combination selected from a reduced set of actions.” (Heylighen, 1996) The correspondence is only partial because whereas factorizing implies top-down structuring of the whole problematique, the learning expedition model allows to address it by the formation of self-organizing scouting parties. However, this model can be successful only if the total population of researchers is large enough to have a variety matching all the main dimensions of the global brain problematique.
A more detailed description of the “expedition” model applied to organizational and inter-organizational learning, can be found in (Pór, 1991).
The “learning expedition” as a myth refers to its story-telling function that connects all “classes” of learners from individuals, communities and organizations to the global super-organism and cybiont; from the micro to the macro levels of analysis.
The mythic dimension of the “learning expedition” includes a pedagogical function, “of how to live a human lifetime under any circumstances. Myths can teach you that. To see life as a poem and yourself participating in the poem is what myth does for you.... a vocabulary in the form not of words but of acts and adventures..." (Campbell, 1988)
Isn’t there a relationship between:
• how the millions of always-busy people around the world lock their intellectual/professional development into a fast-moving time bubble, frequently at the expense of their physical, spiritual, and emotional development,
and
• how the high-speed time bubbles of global evolution risk to leave large groups of people--both the industrialized and the less-developed world--without the skills and resources to be productive and respected members of the emerging planetary reality?
If our intuition says yes to the “is there a relationship” question, then we start realizing the “mythic” dimension of the expedition, the one that respects the whole of life and how the choices we’re making from the micro to macro-levels are all inter-related.
5. Global brain or global nervous system
A living brain doesn’t exists outside a living organism. A living global brain cannot exist outside a global super-organism.
The globally interconnected hypertext document-linkage system and network of large of number of conversations that inspired the “global brain” concept, could be more appropriately termed as a “global nervous system.”
It is still in its early formative phase but one thing is already clear: one of the essential meanings of being “global” refers to the reach which-in relation to the organism as a whole--is the characteristics of the nervous system, not the brain.
What can we expect from the emerging planetary nervous system, what will it be able to do, in its full-fledged version, for humankind?
“The nervous system's evolution-both in living or social organisms-defines how effectively it can perform the following functions:
• To facilitate the exchange and flow of information among the subsystems of the organism and with its environment.
• To effectively coordinate the harmonious action of the subsystems and the whole
• To store, organize, and recall information as needed by the organism
• To guide and support the development of new competences and effective behaviors... (Pór, 1995)
Correspondingly, the subsystems of a social or super-organism’s nervous systems are the one of communication, coordination, memory/knowledge, and sensing/learning. How well these subsystems are configured for producing complex and adequate responses of the organism will strongly affect its chance to be selected for survival.
“An ‘electrified’ nervous system is the infrastructure needed for the self-organization and self-improvement of a community's collective intelligence.” (Pór, 1995) A technologically enabled nervous system seems to be necessary requirement if a social organism is to respond to fast-moving vital threat and opportunities as they emerge.
However, having an adequate technology architecture is not a sufficient condition for the nervous system to be viable. The complete system that will make it viable is what I call a “knowledge ecosystem.” (Pór, 1997)
References
Campbell, Joseph (1988) The Power of Myth (Doubleday, New York)
Heylighen, Francis (1996) The Growth of Structural and Functional Complexity during Evolution, in: F. Heylighen & D. Aerts (eds.) "The Evolution of Complexity" (Kluwer Academic Publishers)
Judge, Anthony. J. N. (1987) Governance through Metaphor. Paper prepared for the Project on Economic Aspects of Human Development, Geneva
Pór, George in collaboration with Harrington, Karin (1991) What Is a Learning Expedition (International Center for Organization Design)
Pór, George (1995) The Quest for Collective Intelligence, in "Community Building: Renewing Spirit and Learning in Business" (New Leaders Press) http://www.vision-nest.com/cbw/Quest.html
Pór, George (1997) Designing Knowledge Ecosystems for Communities of Practice, Conference on Advancing Organizational Capability Via Knowledge Management, http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/knowledge-garden/dkescop
de Rosnay, Joël (2000) The Symbiotic Man: A New Understanding of the Organization of Life and a Vision of the Future (McGraw Hill, New York)
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