When Will The Masses Become Wise?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The driving force of evolution is the discovery of the global network in humanity. In recent years, this discovery has become expressed in an interesting form called the “wisdom of the crowd” or “crowdsourcing,” when people connect not just in order to talk, but to produce a particular result. That is, this is a true connection that produces something. The result of this connection is always on a higher level than the sum of its parts.

What is collective intelligence, the wisdom of the crowd? Why is the intelligence of the group greater than the intelligence of one person?

Answer: Collective intelligence began to be manifested only recently.

In principle, a collective network that connects us has always existed among us. The entire universe has been considered by philosophers, physicists, and many other investigators of nature as one whole. How can the universe not be a unified whole if it was born from one point and gradually began to extend?

In nature, there is no chaos; it can exist only in our mind. When we examine nature, we see clear laws that operate in it, and if we don’t see these laws to the end, either generally or specifically, this only reflects our lack of knowledge. The more we discover about nature, the more we discover the absolute connection that exists in it.

This connection exists on all levels of nature. The individual and the society are no exception. They are a product of nature. We didn’t somehow create this and make ourselves like this, even though we would like to think that we are absolutely independent. Rather, the more we advance, the more the laws of evolution of human society are revealed to us. We see how objective these laws are. We cannot do anything about them; we can only specify the facts.

Therefore, the network that ties the still, vegetative, animate, and human part of nature is one. In our time, the last, most developed part of nature is being revealed. Human society is beginning to discover that it also is included in a global, integral network; this network is so interconnected that, if we see things through it, we see that it is even impossible to imagine the freedom of choice of a person. We can see that there is nothing accidental here, and so on.

Everything is included with absolute precision in this one program of evolution that shows us the absolute interdependence between us and, as we discover it, we understand that we are included within it and that requires us to act accordingly.

According to physics research, a person looking at something that is happening in outer space or within the microcosm brings himself into this event and, therefore, this event is subject to change. This phenomenon also testifies to the total dependence between the various levels—in this case, between the human and the still levels of nature.

This network of complete, mutual dependence has been discovered by us gradually and, thus it develops humanity, leading it to its integration. The moment this network is discovered, we must correspond to it. Otherwise, to the degree of our lack of similarity to it, to the degree that we differ from it, we experience all kinds of problems, which, in general, we call crises.

So, for the first time, we have reached a long-term crisis, which already has lasted for decades. The first ones who saw this perceived it around fifty years ago. They were members of the Club of Rome which began to publish various articles on this subject. Since then, the crisis has continued to evolve, becoming a crisis in the family, in education, in culture, and so on.

We are standing before a completely new integrated system. However, since we are individualists, egoists, we cannot accommodate to it. Here, changes are needed within the individual. Because these changes have not yet taken place in us, the crisis will continue, of course. We see how it continues to grow. The network of connection between us is discovered more and more, yet we still don’t understand how much we differ from it. Therefore, it is still too early to talk about crowdsourcing (the wisdom of the crowd).

When we gather together, we see that the sum of all our efforts and actions is much greater than the usual summation. A different type of addition is created here. Moreover, this addition is very meaningful. It is as if it is wisdom coming from the next level, as if it is a prophecy, which is to say, it is as if we are seeing a little higher, beyond time, beyond what we can see because, through our joint effort, we enter into a kind of similarity to the integral network.

This is happening among small groups of people who are still egoistic. If we could gather a group that was truly integral, meaning that the people within it were to rise to a level of integration with each other as is required by the network, then they would find themselves in another dimension toward which nature wants to push us.

After all, according to nature, we are still on the animate level of evolution and concerned only for our body. When we can be concerned about collective intelligence, collective attainment, our integral existence, then we can speak about a true wisdom of the crowd.

This integral existence is the image of a unified Human, Adam. This is not a physical image. Rather, it is a spiritual image, a supra-egoistic gathering of all of our characteristics.
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From KabTV’s “The Wisdom of the Crowd” 5/6/13

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