Aggregate Cognition, redux

(Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)


April, 09, 2016: The Cognition of Aggregate Discourse
https://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2016/04/roger-erickson-cognition-of-aggregate.html


Looking back, it doesn't matter how much too few people know, only how much just enough of us simultaneously know, share and know that one another know.

And, how motivated enough people are to coordinate efforts.

And, to what degree enough people converge to a consensus desired outcome.

Does that constitute at least 3 stages of Aggregate Context Navigation?

The ~40Trillion cells, ~300 clonal cell types & ~70 organs in a typical human body can navigate some contexts remarkably well, by leveraging coordination among all parts, e.g., bones, muscles, eyes, CNS and neuro-muscular system - to name just a few parts. And even that context navigation is the result of a LOT of accumulated instrumentation ... and practice.

What will it take just for ~300 million humans to navigate larger contexts with equal agility?
Do we have the equivalent of a national nervous system?
    * Certainly we have national infrastructure somewhat analogous to bones & muscles.
    * National circulatory system? (sort of)
    * National sensory system? (rudimentary, nowhere near as comprehensive; feedback is grossly lagging)
    * Fine-scale national neuro-muscular control?
        (not really; as a nation we struggle just to lurch around like a blind sledge-hammer in a china shop).

What's missing?
Adequate "cultural instrumentation."
    * Lagging national connectivity; (both sensory and motor)
    * Lagging national feedback volume and tempo;
    * Lagging national interaction & discourse rates;

Consequences:
    * We can't achieve consensus analysis fast enough to matter!
    * The tempo of consequences to our own actions are inside of our own OODA Loop! 

             We're driving blind!


Hence, what's most obviously at the top of our Most Pressing, To-Do List?

    ** Actively model our connections, interactions & feedback patterns/throughput/tempo
    ** Start actively tuning our net process of "Staging, Linking, Sequencing"

Otherwise, how do we even know what it is that we're doing?

Proverbially, we plan 5 minutes ahead daily, and yet each day wake up to consequences another day ahead of our furthest consensus imaginations. No wonder "No Consensus Could Have Imagined Our Most Common Outcomes."
We won't yet let our aggregate collectively think ahead!

Like it or not, call it mob behavior if you prefer, an Aggregate Brain or Group Brain is quite real, and quite different from the little brains in each individual.  

Until we better harness the operation of our Group Brain, we're a collection of Idiot Savants, collectively dumb as a post!
Arguing over which part is to blame for lack of Aggregate Intelligence.
Really folks. We're actively making this harder than it has to be.
We could and should be making this far easier.
Can we please just stop working so hard to make things harder? It's a dead-end path.