Stowe Boyd and Freddy Snijder have posted an interesting dialog about the streams and the “global sensorium”. Freddy’s original post, Stowe’s reply, and Freddy’s reply to Stowe, are all worth reading.
I like what both have to say, and the fact that dialogs like this is occurring is a sign that a collective intelligence is already emerging. But I believe the two have missed several important points.
First both Boyd & Snijder seem resigned to our current set of individual cognitive capabilities. As a neuroscience researcher, I’m confident that one day advances in our understanding of the brain and in particular brain-computer interfaces, will endow individuals with new cognitive capabilities. Virtual telepathy, infallible memory, vision at a distance, are all within the realm of possibility, and could redefine with at means to be human. In fact, I’m participating in a workshop at MIT on January 7-8th sponsored by the XPrize Foundation and Ray Kurzweil’s Singularity University to discuss creating an XPrize competition to turbo charge progress in brain-computer interfaces. So big advances may be in store for our future…
But for now at least, both Boyd & Snijder are correct in observing that we’re stuck with our rather limited individual cognitive capabilities. Given these cognitive limitations, there is a serious question about just how individuals can best cope with the exponential growth of both information and societal complexity. Freddy Snijder poses it this way:
The question remains how this global sensorium can be effectively used by all the individuals that make it up.
A minor point – ALL individuals are unlikely to ever effectively use any technology or service. They’ll always be those who resist or are denied access to new technology. A big question is how to manage this digital divide.
But more fundamentally, I don’t believe any technology can possibly exist that will restore the degree of individual understanding and agency that it seems we crave as human beings. Lets face it, the global knowledge base and real-time information stream are growing at such a rapid pace that even with the best collaborative filtering technology, it inevitable that individuals will continue to know more and more about less and less. At some point, it seems inevitable that we reach a point where we know almost everything about next to nothing!
The unavoidable reality of information overload doesn’t sit well with people, particularly folks who pride themselves on keeping up with the latest in information technology. We are programmed by evolution with the drive to understand and control all aspects of our environment. As a result, there are many hot start-ups today promising to tame the torrent of information and return each of us to a idyllic state of information mastery.
I’d love it if this were the case – I too am an information junkie and have always hoped to find a way to change the world through personal engagement. But my gut tells me that the global society is quickly becoming far too complex for any single individuals to understand, to say nothing of influence, the global sweep of human events.
If the organization of biological brains is any indication (and I’m betting it is), the Global Mind will be an emergent phenomena, and its workings will likely be incomprehensible to individual humans, just like individual neurons are oblivious about the thoughts to which their activity contributes. Like the neurons in our brain, individual people participating in the functioning of the global sensorium may see little evidence of the part they are playing, and may not even realize the questions that the collective intelligence is working to solve.
The parallel growth of collective intelligence and decrease in individual agency raises fundamental questions that will need to answered if humanity is to survive and prosper:
- Can we overcome the egocentric perspective that drives each of us to want to stand out and get ahead, often at the expense of our neighbor?
- Can we transcend our self-centered tendencies and accept playing a small, largely unsung role in the workings of the whole?
In short, can we find a way to leverage technology to allow individuals to coordinate their modest local activities (both on-line & off) into a global, decentralized intelligence while remaining engaged in the process, despite realizing that their individual contributions will inevitably be tiny in the grand scheme of things?
The path is far from clear, but I remain hopeful.
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December 21, 2009 at 10:05 pm
Freddy Snijder
Dear Dean,
Very interesting and profound thinking. I’m honored by your reply!
Although for sure it needs more thought, here are some immediate reactions, going linearly through the text:
* I’m definitely not resigned to our current set of individual cognitive capabilities. I know a lot is in store related to enhancing our cognitive capabilities in the future. However, your just thinking further in to the future! I need to take it one step at a time on my web trends blog; it is already mind boggling as it is.
* Please ping me, if you know more about this new XPrize to accelerate brain-computer interface innovation. I know scientists for whom this could be relevant.
* “A big question is how to manage this digital divide.” – I’m afraid that the rate of change is so high that it will be hard to manage indeed : only time will solve it, in about 30-40 years every (working) individual (in the developed world) will be a digital native. However, by that time new divides could have emerged. In general, I think it is hard to reduce the variance of any normal distribution in society; mathematically we will always have normal distribution with long tails; I also believe we need to keep trying though!
* “As a result, there are many hot start-ups today promising to tame the torrent of information and return each of us to a idyllic state of information mastery.” – I’m not sure if any start-up puts it that firmly. I do think that any innovation is welcome and will continue to drive the economy, trying to stay on top as much as possible.
* “But my gut tells me that the global society is quickly becoming far too complex for any single individuals to understand, to say nothing of influence, the global sweep of human events.” – Although this is highly philosophical, I think that by definition a single individual can never completely understand or control the society it’s a part of; the individual can never transcend its own complexity, which is lower than the society he/she is a part of. However, the catch is that, through extensive and efficient means of communication, we can get an abstract understanding of the whole we are apart of. This provides us a model to reason with, and thus effectively have better control than you would expect from an individual.
* “The Global Mind will be an emergent phenomena, and its workings will likely be incomprehensible to individual humans, just like individual neurons are oblivious about the thoughts to which their activity contributes.” – You could be right here, but I’m doubting. Are the ‘cognitive capabilities’ and reach of an individual neuron with respect to the human brain similar to that of humans compared to an (online) society? Because we have the capability of abstract thinking and modeling we might be able to understand more about this complex society than a neuron could about the human brain.
* “Like the neurons in our brain, individual people participating in the functioning of the global sensorium may see little evidence of the part they are playing, and may not even realize the questions that the collective intelligence is working to solve.” – For many this will be true, but next to the connections to our peers we can ‘access data’ on much broader scale (through search engines) than an individual neuron in a brain (as far as I know there is know neurobiological metaphor for a search engine in the brain ☺ ). So, actually, I do think technology will give us advantages.
*”Can we overcome the egocentric perspective that drives each of us to want to stand out and get ahead, often at the expense of our neighbor?” – I do think we will get a better (abstract) understanding of what’s going on a global level, but we will always remain uncertain, giving way to stay ego-centric. You see this happening now with climate debate and the action we want to define together reduce our influence on the climate and live more sustainably. We have a high-level understanding and see the need, but uncertainty (politics driven by skeptics) refrains us from clear action on a global scale.
* “Can we transcend our self-centered tendencies and accept playing a small, largely unsung role in the workings of the whole?” – I think most of us in society already accept a largely unsung role. But self-centered tendencies are also required to survive, it’s a low-level rule that’s needed to keep the whole system working. IMHO these two things are not necessarily in conflict with eachother.
Phew! Sorry I can never keep it short it seems ☺
Looking forward to further discussions & collaboration in the future!
Freddy
December 21, 2009 at 10:53 pm
Dean Pomerleau
Freddy,
Thanks for the thoughtful comments.
As you point out, the cognitive capabilities of an individual person are clearly much greater than an single neuron possesses. As a result, a person may be able to comprehend in an abstract way the general operating principles of the global mind, while a neuron will never have even an inkling of what is going on in the brain it is part of. Individuals might even understand the general direction in which the global mind is headed, just like we can understand within limits the origins and future of the universe, without ever completely comprehending (or influencing) the detailed unfolding of events.
And as you point out, technology will certainly assist us in maintaining awareness of these broad trends.
But I stick by the observations that:
1) The breadth and depth of a single individual’s knowledge relative to the entirety of human knowledge will continue to decrease, despite technological advances. Due largely to the limits of human cognition, individuals just can’t keep up and we will continue to fall further behind until / unless some singularity event changes what it means to be human.
2) The limits of the individual are even more pronounced when it comes to influencing (as opposed to simply comprehending) the whole, and this too will be remain a fact of modern individual existence until we no longer exist as individuals.
The rugged individualism so deeply ingrained in Western culture, as well as the ‘Great Man’ theory of human history seem destined to be supplanted by the ideas of emptiness and interconnectedness at the heart of the Eastern philosophical tradition.
I predict the transition from Western to Eastern ways of thinking about the role of the individual will be tough to swallow for many in the decades ahead. Already many people appear to be using social network technology narcissistically, to bolster their false sense of individual significance through building as large a network of follower as possible.
–Dean
December 28, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Freddy Snijder
Hi Dean,
I was thinking about what my opinion is about your observations. Although we will have more overview & insight in to the ‘collective intelligence’ we’re apart of than a neuron could have in a brain, I do agree with your observations that our knowledge will continue to decrease with respect to the total knowledge available and that our control as individuals will decrease even steeper.
But, thinking as I type, I’m wondering: how bad is this anyway? Locally, physically, we can still be individuals appreciated by others for what we know, do and who we are overall. Globally, as a collective intelligence, new ways of working, managing and governing will emerge that leverages this intelligence simply because we can’t progress in any other way.
Embedded in this thinking is also the idea that the biggest progress will need to be in how we organize ourselves and not necessarily in the technological advances we make. In this context, I don’t agree that we need to transcend ourselves beyond our current human capabilities.
Coming back to the question ‘How bad is this anyway?’; changing how we organize ourselves, making progress by leveraging that we are connected, will indeed require a big shift in our thinking/culture. But this shift will in my opinion mostly apply on the level of management & governance, both for corporations and societal structures (countries, cities, etc..) This will indeed be though to swallow for leaders and top executives that have narcissistic or megalomaniac tendencies, but it will be great for our sense of democracy AND *individual* fulfillment in ‘the collective’.
Cheers,
Freddy
December 28, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Dean Pomerleau
Freddy,
I think we’re on the same page. A collectivist perspective will likely be good for humanity as a whole, leading to less strife and conflict. But it may require a pretty profound shift in our individual perspective. We’ll need to learn to be content with playing a very small part in an increasingly large, complex and diverse human society. As you say, there is a certain segment of the population, who are used to being the ‘movers and shakers’ in our world who may find it hard to replace their view of themselves as significant in the big picture.
January 1, 2010 at 2:51 pm
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