The power of open AND generative questions
Robert Bystrom wrote in his comment on the "Connectivity ramp, CI, and Jaron Lanier" blog entry.
"Whenever you entertain an open question, you invite personal intelligence. Whenever a group entertains a shared question, they invite their collective intelligence."
Robert, the insights you shared with us in your comment are very much appreaciated. Not only they resonate with my own sense of CI and condtions favorable to its emergence but your focus on community empowerment is truly inspiring.
Regarding your key message that I quoted above, I can see that shared questions do invite collective intelligence but wether CI actually will show up, depends on a number of factors in each of Wilber's Four Quadrants.
The conscious cultivation of those factors may lead to higher level CI capacities. When dealing with complex challenges, nothing less will do. I am curious of what factors you differentiate and respond to in your practice. Would you say more about them?
I think not all open questions generate CI equally fit to call forth the most valued future of the organization or community. I call the ones that do "generative questions." Their power is in the qualities of the individual or collective attention and consciousness, from which they come.
Comments
Are you saying that a 'generative' question is one that arises from the CI, from the interactions rather than from an individual who then may bring this question to the attention of the community?
I am new to this field with an interest in how wikis can used for more social construction of knowledge in higher education.
Posted by: Graham Lewis | August 24, 2006 11:33 AM