Excerpts from Introduction to Third Phase Transition: Solving The Anthropocene Crisis
On collective intelligence
“What primarily distinguishes human intelligence from that of animals is its increasingly collective nature. This had been manifesting itself to a rising degree, both in physical evolution of the human body and throughout the evolution of social history. By humans, intelligence is not largely restricted to genetically predisposed and ecologically framed behaviour. It is a socio-cultural process. Only today, however, with the advent of the Anthropocene crisis, the collective nature of human intelligence becomes completely obvious. Entire humanity becomes interconnected, simultaneously with humanity discovering its own natural historical impact. Thereby, the question is raised, whether humanity is able to change the nature of this impact. Human intelligence now reveals itself as collective self-reflection.”
“Human intelligence is collective by nature. It is a process individually perpetuating cooperative results through thinking and emotions in interaction, in a dialectic corresponding to the level of historically achieved right of association. That must be considered the first and second order of approximation in understanding it, in concordance with what was initially stated as to human nature.”
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