Collective wisdom

Collective wisdom, also called group wisdom and co-intelligence, is shared knowledge arrived at by individuals and groups.

Collective intelligence, which is sometimes used synonymously with collective wisdom, is more of a shared decision process than collective wisdom. Unlike collective wisdom, collective intelligence is not uniquely human, and has been associated with animal and plant life. Collective intelligence is basically consensus-driven decision making, whereas collective wisdom is not necessarily focused on the decision process. Collective wisdom is a more amorphous phenomenon which can be characterized by collective learning over time.

Collective wisdom, which may be said to have a more distinctly human quality than collective intelligence, is contained in such early works as The Torah, The Bible, The Koran, the works of Plato, Confucius and Buddha, Bhagavad Gita, and the many myths and legends from all cultures. Drawing from the idea of universal truth, the point of collective wisdom is to make life easier/more enjoyable through understanding human behavior, whereas the point of collective intelligence is to make life easier/more enjoyable through the application of acquired knowledge. While collective intelligence may be said to have more mathematical and scientific bases, collective wisdom also accounts for the spiritual realm of human behaviors and consciousness. Thomas Jefferson referred to the concept of collective wisdom when he made his statement, "A Nation's best defense is an educated citizenry." And in effect, the ideal of a democracy is that government functions best when everyone participates. British philosopher Thomas Hobbes uses his Leviathan to illustrate how mankind’s collective consciousness grows to create collective wisdom. Émile Durkheim argues in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912) that society by definition constitutes a higher intelligence because it transcends the individual over space and time, thereby achieving collective wisdom. 19th century Prussian physicist Gustav Fechner argued for a collective consciousness of mankind, and cited Durkheim as the most credible scholar in the field of "collective consciousness." Fechner also referred to the work of Jesuit Priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, whose concept of the noosphere was a precursor to the term collective intelligence. H.G. Wells's concept of "world brain," as described in his book of essays with the same title, has more recently been examined in depth by Pierre Lévy in his book, The Universe-Machine: Creation, Cognition and Computer Culture. Howard Bloom’s treatise The Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century examines similarities in organizational patterns in nature, human brain function, society, and the cosmos. He also posits the theory that group selection directs evolutionary change through collective information processing. Alexander Flor related the world brain concept with current developments in global knowledge networking spawned by new information and communication technologies in an online paper, A Global Knowledge Network. He also discussed the collective mind within the context of social movements in Asia in a book Development Communication Praxis.

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