Gaian democracies and CI

I received this link from a friend: http://www.wwdemocracy.nildram.co.uk/gaian_democracies/web_of_democracy.htm.

I went there, read it and also another page at that site: the intro chapter of GAIAN DEMOCRACIES: Redefining Globalisation and People-Power by Roy Madron & John Jopling. Brilliant!! They are convincingly talking about addressing “wicked” problems with soft-systems approaches.

I believe the Gaian democracy field represents one of the most powerful context for which we can grow collective intelligence and wisdom. Liberating the full power of intelligence and wisdom that resides in human communities will be needed to break through the web of 'wicked' problems and reach Gaian democracy. As the authors say, The soft-systems approach to 'wicked' problems arising in complex human systems requires the people involved in the problem situation to be actively involved in a constant cycle of thinking, acting and learning together.

The best frameworks, tools, and practices developed by leading thinkers and communities in the domains of collective intelligence and wisdom need to be brought in action if we are to make those “constant cycle of thinking, acting and learning together” truly triple-E: effective, efficient, and enjoyable. Deeply interweaving the CI/CW fields with Gaian democracy work would accelerate the evolution of both. I look forward to it with joyful anticipation!

Defining "Collective Intelligence"

"Collective intelligence" is a richly diverse domain of study and practice. Having an inclusive definition may help more diverse practitioners work and explore together. (see George Por's entry re CI definition) One such definition might be simply:

   Collective intelligence is the INTELLIGENCE of a COLLECTIVE,
      which arises from one or more SOURCES.

Below I expand on each of the highlighted terms in the definition to paint an inclusive picture of the whole domain. (Another application of this definition: We can compare diverse perspectives on CI by clarifying the unique meanings that advocates of those perspectives assign to each of those three highlighted terms.)

COLLECTIVE

"Collective" refers to any entity constituted by other entities. In this case, it usually refers to human social entities such as groups, organizations and communities. But it can also refer to animal collectives such as flocking birds or nesting ants, or to groups of virtual artificially intelligent agents in computer environments or to even broader entities.

INTELLIGENCE AS A CAPACITY

Intelligence is variously defined as "the capacity to acquire and apply knowledge," "the ability to effectively adapt," or simply "the ability to solve problems." But for our purposes it may be useful to list characteristics, capacities or functions that are variously ascribed to intelligence -- problem solving, learning, adaptation, reasoning, prediction, reflection, imagination, etc. -- and then welcome into our domain anyone who is exploring the collective expression of any of these.

INTELLIGENCE AS STRATEGIC INFORMATION

Intelligence can also be defined as strategically useful information such as the kind of intelligence that intelligence agencies generate for decison-makers in government and the military.

SOURCES OF COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE

Practitioners differ on where collective intelligence (as a capacity) comes from and where it resides. Making these differences explicit may reveal useful overlaps and complementarities, as well as facilitating mutual understanding. Some of these different perspectives include

* Collective intelligence belongs to or is a property of a whole in which individuals are embedded or of which they are an expression, which existed prior to them.

* Collective intelligence is a background field of intelligence co-generated by the minds that make it up.

* Collective intelligence is an emergent property of collective social systems.

* Collective intelligence is a group phenomena (often experienced as "group magic") in which the intelligences of individual participants who are in tune with each other merge into a group intelligence through which meaning and action flow smoothly.

* Collective intelligence is cognitive synergy among appropriately diverse perspectives in conversation such that new insights or more inclusive pictures of reality emerge.

* Collective intelligence is a phenomenon associated with distributed individual intelligences who have access to their collective output and thought processes through their co-generative participation.

* Collective intelligence is a natural product of the independent opinions or behaviors of diverse individuals or groups in a decentralized system (flock, market, guessing game) that aggregates those opinions or behaviors.

ONLINE DEFINITIONS OF COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE

There are many definitions of collective intelligence available online. I've listed seventeen, all of which can be seen as specific expressions of the above broad definition.

[All the points above are expanded in the full document which follows...]
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Cross-fertilizing CI and civic intelligence

I know it's a short notice but I've received the news only last night. The opportunity it represents for the cross-fertilization of the "collective intelligence" and the "civic intelligence" phenomena is just too important to not try to alert you all about it.

According to Doug Schuler, one of the thought leaders of civic intelligence, "Society often develops intelligent responses to collective problems often through citizen activism. At the same time, our innumerable problems may be outpacing our ability to address them and the ideas, tactics and technologies that we need may not be adequate... Civic intelligence goes beyond the individual and focuses on the collective and distributed nature of intelligence." excerpt from Civic Intelligence pattern

It seems that the civic intelligence initiatives, such as A Pattern Language Project, could benefit from the significant work that has been done on the field of collective intelligence, and vice versa.

Here's an opportunity to engage the dialogue. The Journal of Human Centred Systems will have a special issue on Exploring Civic Intelligence: Descriptions & Prescriptions. Due date for submission of extended abstracts (1000 words) is August 13, 2004. Details of the Call for Papers are here. If some of you reading this blog are also interested in CI applied to civic matters, then this maybe the perfect opportunity to collaborate on a paper that can feed and cross-polinate those fields.

What is CI? - a community approach to define it

In a recent conference call of CI practitioners somebody brought up the question “what collective intelligence really IS”. Here, I suggest an approach to define CI in terms of a domain of practice shared by a community of peers.