Bringing “Collective Objectivity” to Society’s Decision-Making

Posted on June 29, 2004 by George Pór

As suggested by George Por in his entry about intersubjectivity and collective objectivity,
approaches such as Andrew Cohen’s remarkable enlightened communication constitute leading-edge work in group-level “collective objectivity”.
However, our global predicament and democratic sensibilities call us to translate this capacity for collective objectivity into our political/governmental institutions in ways that actually enable us to collectively address our growing collective problems well. For this task we need to know more than powerful in-group processes that deepen the consciousness of participants. We need further explorations to clarify ways to do at least the following (and probably more) in ways that can enhance a group’s collective objectivity and channel it into service of the whole society:

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Posted in Democracy and CI | 1 Comment

From intersubjectivity to collective objectivity: a socioeconomic imperative

Posted on June 27, 2004 by George Pór

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:

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Posted in Collective Objectivity, Collective Wisdom, Intersubjectivity | 12 Comments

Evolutionary leadership, ubuntu, and the homecoming of CI

Posted on June 19, 2004 by George Pór

In my previous entry, I mentioned that I’m working on the design, with Peter Merry, of an EVOLUTIONARY LEADERSHIP Learning Expedition that we’ll launch in September. We say, evolutionary leadership is about the practice of looking at and thinking from the biggest context with the greatest clarity, AND acting to meet the needs of all parts for the good of the whole.
Meeting those needs requires competence in freeing and mobilizing the collective intelligence of the whole. We need to learn enabling and empowering the self-organization of all communities of practice and communities of co-creation involved with the situation. It’s a core competence of evolutionary leaders, that we want to help developing in the Learning Expedition.
Talking about “freeing and mobilizing the collective intelligence”, I’d to share with you what a colleague wrote to me in our pre-Basecamp email exchanges:

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Posted in Autonomy, Communion, and CI | 3 Comments

Intersubjectivity in an organic pub

Posted on June 19, 2004 by George Pór

I wrote about intersubjectivity as a direct experience of CI, in a couple of entries of this blog but until recently I didn’t put myself in a situation of responsibility for facilitating it. That opportunity was given to me when following our conversation about How local meetings with global experts can boost CI, Chris Macrae invited me to talk to a small group in London, last week. We were all guests of the Duke of Cambridge who was very generous to us. No, not the member of the royal family but a trendy organic pub sporting his name, with good food and a lovely, little patio where we enjoyed the sun and an intriguing conversation. The invitation was to speak about my life’s work. Given that it’s CI, I thought it would be more interesting to not speak about but trigger an experience of it.

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Posted in Blogging for Emergence, Intersubjectivity, Methodologies associated with CI | 1 Comment

The untapped potential of the Internet Archive for CI

Posted on June 1, 2004 by George Pór

Hi Euan, R U planning to attend NotCon 04? One of the speakers will be Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive. He is a guy with an amazing, literally “far out” vision of universal access, and the Wayback Machine supporting it, whom you really should meet.
Of course, I would never tell you what you “should” 🙂 but in this case, I do it for the good of the whole, which would greatly benefit from the two of you connecting with one another and exploring your vision and aspirations, if you have not yet done so. To nudge that chance, I’ll email this URL to Brewster with whom I had some beer yesterday on a sunny terrace, in Amsterdam, and exchanged ideas about how to dream into being some unprecedented capabilities of collective intelligence.
I would love to go to NotCon 04 but have prior commitment to attend. I plan to follow it remotely, so if you go, don’t forget to blog it. Here’s the freshest pic of Brewster, from the terrace:
Brewster in Amsterdam.JPG
Why I gave the “The untapped potential of the Internet Archive for CI” title to this entry? Not enough time to tell it right now, but if you meet Brewster or follow in this blog my explorations with him and his friends, I’m sure you will find out.

Posted in Technologies That Support CI | 2 Comments

Knowledge Mapping

Posted on June 1, 2004 by George Pór

When I read <A HREF="http://www.stanford.edu/~rhorn/a/recent/spchKnwldgPACKARD.pdf&quot;a speech by Robert Horn, his work became the seed crystal for making sense of a lot of other cognitive mapping technologies, and I got a strong “hit” about their importance and potential. I think this is a key area to add to our understanding of tools for high-quality deliberation and collective intelligence.
Knowledge mapping is a general term that covers
* mapping public issues (“social messes,” “wicked problems”)(e.g., Robert Horn [see note below])
* mind maps (e.g., Inspiration software)
* pattern languages (e.g., Christopher Alexander)
* dialogue mapping (e.g., CogNexus Institute)
* graphic facilitation (e.g., David Sibbet)
* geographical information mapping (GIS – Geographical Information Systems)
and may include more traditional visuals such as
* quantitative charts and graphs
* process and procedure flow charts
* timelines
* and all other forms of visual presentation of information, especially of relationships (e.g., Edward Tufte)
_ _ _ _
FOCUS ON PUBLIC ISSUE MAPPING
Knowledge mapping offers a tremendous resource to enhance the collective intelligence of deliberations about issues or problems. We can lay out what we collectively know, visually clarifying relationships among the relevant factors, actors, sectors, etc., involved with the problem.

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Posted in Methodologies associated with CI | 2 Comments

Notes on Factors in Collective Intelligence

Posted on May 31, 2004 by George Pór

There are probably hundreds of factors we could identify as important for the generation of collective intelligence in different types of human system. We find these factors wherever we see collective intelligence being exercised, and when we support them (especially in combination) we often find collective intelligence increasing.
From my work with reflective forms of CI in groups, communities and societies, I find that about fifteen factors stand out most vividly, and I’ve listed them with brief descriptions here. As I tried to articulate them, I noticed how they overlapped and showed up as part of each other. So I expect as we develop this list further — and I hope we do — we will find these things are intimately interrelated. I further hope we will continually learn more about those interrelationships. That said, I think articulating such factors as if they are distinct gives us useful points of entry in our work to enhance collective intelligence.
With that purpose in mind, I invite you to add your own additions (and modifications) in the comments section below.

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Posted in CI Basics | 4 Comments

Levels/realms of human collective intelligence

Posted on May 31, 2004 by George Pór

Here is a list of human systems which I think of as being capable of collective intelligence. It is, of course, only one possible list of this kind. Note that these are HUMAN systems. Other organisms, social species and ecosystems — at least — are also capable of collective intelligence.
The systems on this list may share certain characteristics, but they also may have different characteristics. Hopefully someday we will know more about this and be able to talk clearly and usefully about collective intelligence dynamics in each of these human systems, and the relationships between them.
At the very least, right now, we can be conscious of the level(s) or system(s) we’re focusing on, and realize that others may be focusing on other levels or systems — and that that may be a significant reality. My own focus has been on community and whole society collective intelligence. A tremendous amount of work has been done on collective intelligence in organizations, because corporations have the funds and motivation to support such work. What sorts of higher collective intelligence are most vital for our survival and thrival as a civilization? What needs to happen for those sorts of collective intelligence to evolve and grow rapidly?

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Posted in CI Basics | 2 Comments

Notes on Forms of Collective Intelligence (CI)

Posted on May 31, 2004 by George Pór

I have lately been receiving a lot of information on forms of and approaches to collective intelligence that do not fit within models I’ve been working with for the last fifteen years (that are largely deliberative). I am no expert on these other approaches, but encountering them has led me to brainstorm an annotated list of different forms to cover what I’ve seen so far.
I feel certain my list is not complete and that there are other ways of differentiating forms of collective intelligence, which I’d love to hear about. I intend this initial listing to be temporarily clarifying and stimulating and, hopefully, to trigger people to come up with new ways to map this terrain that better lay the groundwork for an evolving general theory of collective intelligence that embraces all variations.
Note that not all collective capacities are “intelligence.” Occasionally CI overlaps with other capacities like collective consciousness or “power-with” — capacities that can be characterized by collective stupidity OR collective intelligence. Furthermore, some dimensions of collective intelligence, like “flow,” have collectively stupid manifestations (mobs) as well as collectively intelligent ones (high functioning teams). I will try to navigate these distinctions creatively here, but the reader should keep them in mind.
Note also that some phenomena that I have not included here could conceivably be included in this list. For example, are “networks” an intrinsic form of CI, or are they a pattern useful in developing CI? I have chosen the later categorization, but people more familiar with networks may be able to make a case for them as a distinct form of CI.

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Posted in CI Basics | 10 Comments

The challenge of co-intelligent economy

Posted on May 30, 2004 by George Pór

In his comment on the entry about Is self-awareness a requirement for CI?, Tom Atlee called our attention to something that’s a truly foundational condition of boosting the CI of large social systems.
His perspective is also essential to further the inquiry into the concept of evolutionary threshold that we opened last month with the entry on How would we know, we reached tipping point? (After reading Tom’s passionate call below, you may want to loop back to the “tipping point” entry to get a sense of yet another context in this network of CI conversations, to which his idea is highly pertinent.) Tom Atlee wrote:
I’d like to see greater understanding, application, and nurturance of ALL dimensions and types of collective intelligence — even such mundane factors as designing economic measures of success such that the self-organizing market dynamics that get motivated by those measures (and the rewards associated with them) automatically generate outcomes that serve the quality of life of all who live within that economic system.
Whose intelligence is expressed by the “self-organizing market dynamics” that Tom refers to?

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Posted in Co-intelligent Economy, Evolutionary Threshold | 1 Comment