Dear Basudeba Mishra

You mention 'there is nothing like collective intelligence'. 1700 years ago Pappus wrote about bees making hexagonal cells and attributed collective intelligence to them. A journal called Swarm Intelligence is devoted to that topic. Many books have been written about it. Some of them are mentioned in the reference section of the Wikipedia article on collective intelligence. The idea is that networking can sometimes lead to emergent effects, including intelligence. Ants and people both can network. Several of the inferences you read into the essay (pyramids, etc.) are neither in the essay nor intended. On the contrary, I agree there is much reason to respect legacy knowledge.

Regards,

Bob Shour

Dear Sir,

Collective effort (networking) is not the same as collective intelligence. Efforts are physical. Intelligence is conscious. We must distinguish between the two.

Incidentally, nothing we write is original, but borrowed from our ancient knowledge. You can read our essay to get more details.

Regards,

basudeba

10 days later

Hello Bob,

An interesting, clearly and well written contribution. I do not have much to quarrel with in your observation and conclusion, except that it seems to me that:

1. There is Negative and Positive intelligence. Positive intelligence being the aspect that solves problems and Negative intelligence being the aspect that creates problems.

2. The Total "swarm intelligence" can increase in time but has a zero sum value. (That is total positive IQ total negative IQ = Zero IQ).

The implication is that as Positive intelligence increases (based on the number of networked neurons), Negative intelligence must also increase in tandem. In a bee colony, a bee selflessly carries food to the hive to feed the Queen bee, but a more positively intelligent but hungry human would rather eat that food than go hungry for the sake of the colony. Self interest replaces Group interest as Swarm intelligence increases. Anyway, that is my humble opinion.

All the best in the competition.

Akinbo

    Dear Akinbo Ojo

    Thank you for your comments.

    You have an interesting take on intelligence; maybe you're right. My essay's position is that intelligence can be thought of as the rate of problem solving. With IQ as a rate, there is no subjective element, i.e. positive or negative intelligence. But I agree that some human behavior in the world gives an impression of negative intelligence.

    Even given your realistic observation, I think that since our medicine, science, math and technology get better (we add newly solved problems), the net is not zero; we improve slowly. That is what I was trying to measure: the rate of improvement in ideas. One implication of the essay is that the average collective problem solving rate (which is a logarithmic equation) is 60 or 70 times that of an individual. Which makes me suspect that is why individuals have to work so hard to figure things out, and why overcoming what you call negative intelligence is sometimes such hard work: it is hard for individuals (and whole societies) to figure things out.

    Incidentally, I read your essay a couple of weeks ago, liked it, and appreciated that it was truly about foundational issues.

    Best wishes,

    Bob Shour

    9 days later

    I like your premise Bob..

    I make a similar point in my own humble essay, because I agree that Math knows things we have not learned yet. I also think that your point on the evolving efficiency of Math as a language is well taken, though I think the proof offered is a bit less than compelling. While it is true that our collective predictive capacity exceeds that of any one human, I am less than thrilled with the level of cooperation and collaboration I have seen.

    In a lecture I attended by Gerard 't Hooft, he suggested that some important discoveries and advances may never come, unless we can achieve an order of magnitude more integration between people of different disciplines. He said that not only should we have Physics people of differing specialties talking problems through, but the discussion should also include Math folks, Computer programmers, Engineers, Technicians, and others.

    In a lecture by Sau Lan Wu, she spoke of actually seeing that kind of cooperation at CERN, during the process that led to the discovery of the Higgs boson - where a large team of inter-disciplinary participants all contributed to the success of their efforts. But this is unfortunately an exception to the rule. While Math is a language that all these people could utilize, Bob; that makes them exceptional people, as well. I therefore see the applicability of Math and its usage among people as two separate issues.

    All the Best,

    Jonathan

      9 days later

      Dear Johnathan Dickau,

      Thank you for reading and commenting on my essay.

      On your points about collaboration: my essay looks at the result of uncoordinated emergent collaboration. For example, in language, there is no central committee mandating that 'cheers' should become a salutation in written correspondence such as emails. It has just become popular; likely networking via emails has a lot to do with that.

      Market prices also emerge.

      In mathematics, there is no committee directing research and planning how new ideas with help figure out problems in physics. So deliberate collaboration and emergent improvements in ideas have different mechanisms; both involve networking, but collaboration involves deliberate decisions to network and how to network. These ideas suggest the point you make, well taken: if ideas get better in the back ground, so to speak, what happens if we up our game and improve collaboration? I think we are improving our collective emergent problem solving capacity, mainly through the internet, and including wikipedia, arxiv, archive.org, and FQXi, for examples. Several essays in this contest (including yours, which I enjoyed reading by the way) have references to internet based resources. The internet increases the capacity of people to participate in problem solving. That seems to me give us a kernel of optimism.

      Regards,

      Bob Shour

      8 days later

      Bob,

      Thanks for sharing your ideas on the effectiveness of math and physics and pointing out the universality of math as a language and its evolution through people of various languages.

      I too deal with the connections of math, mind, and physics in the macro and the micro worlds to contribute to huge strides in DNA and simulating the BB with the LHC, and also a new field of quantum biology.

      Best regards.

      Jim

        Dear James Lee Hoover,

        Thank you for your comment.

        I read your essay, which gave a nice overview of connections of math and science, with some great quotes. I also noted your G_t formula on page 3 of your essay, which is an idea similar to the idea of the rate of problem solving discussed in my essay.

        Thank you, best wishes,

        Bob Shour

        Dear Bob Shour,

        I thought that your engrossing essay was exceptionally well written and I do hope that it fares well in the competition.

        I think Newton was wrong about abstract gravity; Einstein was wrong about abstract space/time, and Hawking was wrong about the explosive capability of NOTHING.

        All I ask is that you give my essay WHY THE REAL UNIVERSE IS NOT MATHEMATICAL a fair reading and that you allow me to answer any objections you may leave in my comment box about it.

        Joe Fisher

        15 days later

        Bob,

        I am revisiting your essay and am thankful you checked out mine. I find that I did not rate yours, something I usually do to those I enjoy, so I am rectifying that. I like the concept of networked brains and math representing a composite of our knowledge in a distilled fashion.

        Jim