Collective Intelligence

Collective intelligence is the capacity for a group of individuals to envision a future and reach it in a complex context.

Discussion

This definition applies for all kinds of collective intelligences in any species. It works for an ant colony, a baseball team, a global corporation, an army or a school of fish.

It stresses on the future (teleology?) for reaching a goal. It also implicitly brings the present and the past because experience is part of the success to reach this future. Complexity (also involving unpredictibility) implies the presence of feedforward loop? and feedback loop?.

Read the paper "Collective Intelligence: the Invisible Revolution.

Collective intelligence focuses on the external visible and objective aspects of collaboration. It's about doing. Actions, specifically the teological aspects, can be understood by external human observer. Examples: an ant colony bringing a dead insect back into the colony, a group of wholes hunting a prey, etc.

Collective consciousness? and Collective wisdom focus on the inner subjective aspects of the experience of being together. It's about being.

Different sorts of collective intelligence

• Original collective intelligence: small group of individuals in holoptical context
• Pyramidal collective intelligence: large human organizations, since the invention of writing
• Global collective intelligence: next stage of collective intelligence. Humanity is in the transition phase today.
• Swarm intelligence: a specific aspect of collective intelligence that applies for other species than humanity. Humankind can operate in swarm intelligence mode, but this is not its usual structure.