Collective intelligence emerges when we do something collectively that indicates we are all coordinated, that we possess the ability to orchestrate without explicit command structures. Ants demonstrate this beautifully: a swarm moving as a coordinated block indicates that one ant understands something from the behaviour of another ant. Each individual reads signals from adjacent individuals, creating orchestration through distributed sensing rather than centralised control. In which scenarios can human beings and societies indicate they are doing the same?
As a society, collectively, we choose to live in a way that is explainable. Even if that explainable way of living is a lesser way of living than an unexplainable one for some. This preference often stems from reasonable caution. But when we refuse to do what we do not fully understand why, we also choose to forgo a lot of wisdom that we have collectively evolved as a species but today are not sure if it is wisdom or superstition. We stand at this uncomfortable threshold, uncertain whether accumulated practices constitute genuine understanding or mere habit.
The belief that we should only do what is proven by science to be good for us is obviously wrong because at this point, although humanity has figured a lot, it hasn't figured everything. We are still very much in the process. We are in no way done. We need to cultivate the humility to accept that. Until we do, we will not be able to tap into our innate capacity to coordinate with each other.
If fish can swim in a school and birds can fly in a flock, why do humans only risk a stampede when many of us are gathered together? The contrast reveals something fundamental about our current condition. For collective intelligence we need to be like we know less not more. This ability we do not have yet. We do not have the ability to know any lesser than we already do. To be able to genuinely forget is an art, not a science.
So how do we do this? How do we go dumber as a species to unlock collective intelligence?
I do not know yet. But I am sharing this here because I feel more of us should brood on this. Maybe then, we will come up with an answer. Maybe the way to figure how to be collectively intelligent will be figured out by actually being collectively intelligent—by the very act of brooding on it together.