d Dialectics of Collective Intelligence

Collective Intelligence

Harry Halpin, <hhalpin -(a)- ibiblio.org>

RDF

Duke, Sept 4th 2007

The Problem of the Body

Is a coffee-cup is embodied?

Coffee Cup

The body itself should be a presupposition.

The problem with rationalist thought has been the location of intelligence with the individual

Or even within a specific part of the body, such as some sort of neural determinism

From the Extended Mind

Extended Mind Thesis: Otto suffers from Alzheimer's disease, and like many Alzheimer's patients, he relies on information in the environment to help structure his life. Otto carries a notebook around with him everywhere he goes. When he learns new information, he writes it down. When he needs some old information, he looks it up.

Andy Clark and Dave Chalmers

What is the difference between using the notebook and an act of memory?

Traditional mental characteristics of concepts, belief, knowledge, attitudes, propositions is therefore extended into the environment.

Extended Minds

What if there are other people in the environment?

Imagine if there are multiple people accessing the same notebook.

Children Using Computers

Are they sharing the same mental state?

Using a Web-page

Imagine Otto is using a web-page...or knowledge representation-driven Semantic Web system helping him?

Palmtop

If the representation is on the Web, then multiple people can access it at once.

In that case, multiple people are sharing the same representation, and thus the same mental state, at the same time.

Of course there are complexities - for a representation only partially determines a mental state

Collective Intelligence

When one deprivileges the human subject as an transcendental individual, one opens the door for new subjects, subjects composed of what were formerly thought of as individuals. This new subjects are collective subjects, and the act of overcoming the artificial divisions between formerly individual subjects and creating new subjects is the act of collectivity. When this collectivity is put into practice, not as an abstract or utopian notion, but in confrontation against the concrete and practical problems that threaten these new subjects, collective intelligence is born. Harry Halpin

A Prehistory of Collective Intelligence

Palmtop

Where to begin?

Future and History of the Interface Archive

Hegel on Wikipedia

A dialectic among time, space, and collectivity