Blog of Collective Intelligence

Sofia Bustamante wrote:

> If our world is a living system of systems (holistically embedded), then the base concept of ecology must have biological connotations...

I love both the depth of her insight and what it inspired me to see:

YES! Our world is a living system of systems. It is alive, expanding and contracting, dancing on the edge off chaords, between "nothingness and eternity."

Sofia continued:

> And aspects like finance, social, environmental factors need be considered within this context.

YES, again! And when more of us understand, feel, and relate to them as living systems, we may even inspire the awakening of their sentience, who knows. Just imagine…

Continue reading "" If our world is a living system of systems"" »

Posted by at 1:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Andrew Campbell wrote somewhere, "The more whole and integrated each person the chances for choices are increased..." I may have found that sentence in the context of his conversation with de Lange on the Learning Organizations list, 5 years ago. The following paragraph from de Lange’s “Choice and Chance are They One?” message struck me and helped me clarifying the meaning of an interesting pattern in my own experience of navigating on the high seas of life.

The more we imagine the system's "coin" as an omnibus of "chance events", the less the coin leaves us with "free energy" to imagine its future as a "choice event". On the other hand, the sooner we deal with each "chance event" as an actual opportunity rather than stacking it together with other "chance events" of the past, the more the coin leaves us with "free energy" to imagine MANY "choice events" following from this ONE "chance event". I myself try to convert every "chance event" as soon as possible into as many as possible "choice events" so as to nurture my "free energy" and the "one-to-many-mapping" of my creativity. (emphasis added)

I found the "one-to-many-mapping"--in the sense pictured by Andrew Campbell's Lightening Branches below—of one’s creativity, both a fascinating metaphor, and a model for contributing to each other’s body of resonance with the emergent futures.

In my view, the painting also suggests presencing is a community art: the diversity of evolutionary possibilities triggered by one collective choice is a reflection of the diversity of talents and sensibilities present in making that choice.

Campbell's painting and de Lange's quote above also reminded me of what Otto Scharmer wrote in the 10th Principle of Presencing:

“Who we become will depend on the choices we make and the actions we take now. That being of the future is our highest or best future possibility.”

Attracted to realize that possibility, I notice how rapidly I flip events that present themselves by “chance” into “choice” events I use for my learning. The same attraction also pulls my attention to the question: What are the practices that communities can use for navigating their future (without blindspot) as they are co-creating it?

Continue reading "Chance and choice experiences, presencing as community art" »

Posted by at 1:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As I woke up, I immediately knew: the meaning of this dream will grow with me, keep unfolding; I will see clearer the guidance that I’m getting from it, over the years. At the time of that dream, in the early seventies, I was living in Hungary under communist governance, between two markers of my life's journey:

• being freshly released from prison, after serving 20 months for organizing a student movement, in September 1969

• being forced into exile for continued opposition to the policies of the ruling elite, in July 1975

Back then, there was an artistic avant-garde in Hungary, mostly young people who expressed their dissidence by engagement in artistic happenings, street theater, amateur films, etc. that was considered too "edgy" by the communist censorship. I was part of the scene, and after years of the rather ascetic, movement organizer lifestyle, I really enjoyed the fun, and was inspired by the irreverent, creative manifestations of my peers; some of our best happenings started as a "chance" experience. Like this one:

I am walking on the "grand boulevard' of Budapest, named "Lenin boulevard,'" in the afternoon rush hour, the sidewalks teeming with people streaming from the offices. In their midst, I feel my movements slowing down, my legs move more and more unhurriedly, hardly lift, and advance at a snail's pace. It feels like time itself slows, while the rushing continues around me. The boulevard is crowded and a bit dangerous because some people are so little present to their body or the space around it, that have a hard time to avoid bumping into and getting mad at me.

As I turned the spontaneous slowing down of my movement, into an "experience," a happening, I didn't intend to provoke the people on the street; I knew it may happen but that was not the point. My way of walking became a full-body, immersion experiment of not being part of the system, stepping out from the drub reality of living in a country without freedom. It was a little bit like a walking meditation, except I didn't know that time what meditation was. I performed that slow-motion happening at different places of Budapest, a couple of times, weeks before the following "teaching dream" occurred.

Continue reading "Escaping from the Museum of the 20th Century" »

Posted by at 1:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Talking about “presence,” Andrew Campbell wrote in email, “what it means is not what it is -- and does.” It reminded me of Aurobindo’s saying, “Man’s greatness is not in what he is but in what he makes possible.”

What our times demand us to make possible is nothing less than what the unknown author of the following graffiti on the wall of the occupied Sorbonne asked in 1968: Soyez réalistes, demandez l’impossible! It is to bootstrap ourselves onto higher stages of individual and collective consciousness by simultaneously letting go of the illusion of a separate self-sense, yet embracing our full respons-ability for our choices in every moment.

Continue reading "All presencing is co-presencing" »

Posted by at 6:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It was one of those rare teaching dreams. I was the captain of a ship returning to the harbor. There were cheering crowds waiting there, giving us a heroes' welcome. They must have already known what we came back with.

It was not an ordinary ship sailing on water; we were explorers navigating in a different horizon of time, returning from the future. What guided our exploration was our individual and collective inner navigation. That's what steered our ship into the unknown era calling us, which we grew to appreciate as the era of "wisdom society."

Initially, there was no map to it other than the maze-like patterns of branching trees of new possibilities triggered by every turn we took, every choice we made. It was like UK artist Andy Campbell's "Lightning Branches" that I discovered in Dave Pollard's blog. See below.

To advance with confidence in the right direction emerging, we needed to turn navigation into a community art.

Continue reading "Wisdom society and navigating towards it by CI" »

Posted by at 3:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

"One of the things I love that is so special about the Redwood trees is that they are MASSIVE and yet they only send their roots about ten feet deep... they send them wide and hold onto their community for strength. Good reminder for us all," says Gentle Thunder, a sister of the "standing people," her bellowed tree beings. She plays flutes, drum and hammer dulcimer in a way that stirs the souls and seduces us into the deepest reverence for life. The beauty of her music and the systemic wisdom of her words reminded me a new way to look at my quest, a new way to hold my question:

Why can't we stand together as the redwoods, grounded in our collective intelligence and wisdom in a sustainable way, not only in the precious moments of enlightened communication or the magic in the middle (.pdf), when our heartbeats synch with the rhythm of Life itself?

Continue reading "Redwoods, Messiah, shared-attention, and sustaining CI" »

Posted by at 2:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Reflections on global good news, bad news and the response-ability of the collective wisdom and intelligence fields to both

The good news

Who would have thought that the threat of nuclear confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States will give rise to humankind's most powerful force of production, the Internet, and that a humble initiative of cooperation between a small group scientists will give birth to our global brain, the Web? Yet, that's exactly what happened, creating a potential for our species to evolve towards a civilization of higher complexity, deeper differentiation ad integration, and more compassion and solidarity in action. Here are some of the good news:

Continue reading "The response-ability of the practitioners" »

Posted by at 11:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)

The World Wisdom Council has been convened by the Club of Budapest in cooperation with the World Commission on Global Consciousness and Spirituality. The tasks of the Council include “offering guidance for developing the individual and collective wisdom that empowers action capable of bringing about constructive change in the local and the global economic, social, and ecological environment.” The Council’s meeting in Budapest, Dec. 18-20, 2004, was hosted by the government of Hungary. I had the honor to be the rapporteur of the meeting and enjoy the company of some truly wise women and men who came from four continents, not to mention the good food of my home country that I have not been visiting for 10 years.

Continue reading "World Wisdom Council" »

Posted by at 9:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There’s nothing like the joy, freedom, and deep intimacy of intersubjective space, in which ego-driven programs are effortlessly replaced by the curiosity of who we really are when we are free from the illusions of a separate self. A passionate yet playful curiosity of what our connection is about floats in the room when the tyranny of the ego’s desires and fears that drive our acts, is gone or, at least, suspended for the time of being together with other aficionados of Truth, Beauty, and Good.

Traditionally, the experience of reaching a heightened state of awareness and interacting from within it with others in the same state was the privilege of participants in shamanic dances, Tantric sex ceremonies, other mystic traditions, and the modern-day group experiments with “psychoactive vitamins,” and rave parties. They’ve certainly reached a level of intersubjectivity not accessible in ego-driven states but they all shared a pre-rational logic that made those occurrences of collective consciousness unfit for dealing with challenges that required cognitive skills in managing complexity.

Intersubjectivity in the trans-rational is a whole different ball game! What prompted this blog entry was my experience of it in a circle of “enlightened communications,” last Friday:

Continue reading "From intersubjectivity to collective objectivity: a socioeconomic imperative" »

Posted by at 7:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (2)

Jean-François Noubel asked an intriguing question in Different types of emergence?

" is it possible to envision emerging properties as the result of the mastering of these properties at an individual level? Do these properties have to be value-oriented? Will a group of wise individuals turn into a wise group or can it turn in a global mess with umpredictable side effects?

Continue reading "How do value memes affect the emergence of CI" »

Posted by at 10:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

A glitch in the operating system of my computer has cut me from the Web for two days, which was challenging in many ways, but also giving me some interesting insights. I was not away from the Web for two consecutive days, since my last meditation retreat, 8 months ago. I an average day, I am jacked in and exchange messages, working documents, news and views with friends and colleagues, for 12 to 14 hours. The Web became an extension of my mind, and I became a neural node in its.

The challenges of coping with the "withdrawal symptoms" of the last two days brought me also the opportunity to look into deeper questions, for which I rarely have time, in the business of daily action. One of them is this:

What is the most valuable and unique contribution that I can make to our Emerging Planetary Reality? What is my place in the ecosystem of life-enhancing memes and services pointing to the possibility of a better world?

Is it creating more performing tools and methods for collaborative learning, work, and the self-organizing shared intelligence of communities? That's how I've been seeing the nature of what I need to bring to my company's stakeholders, for many years. But now, the emergence of the "social software" and "social networking" movements, and the many very talented people in and around them, make me think that the mightiest productive force of our times humankind’s collective intellect is already taking care of equipping itself with the right tools.

But will those tools and methods be sufficient to meet the Engelbartian challenge of increasing "complexity multiplied by urgency?" I don't think so.

Continue reading "Knowledge <- Intelligence <- Wisdom" »

Posted by at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (1)

I believe the confluence of academic research, business innovation, smart social movements, and viral collaboration technologies, is a potent booster for collective intelligence. It would be interesting to find a way to test that hypothesis. Shouldn't we measure the evolution of collective intelligence, with advancement in the eradication of all forms of unnecessary human suffering?

Continue reading "Cultivating collective wisdom" »

Posted by at 10:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)