2009/1/14 Valentina Poletti <jamwa...@gmail.com>: > Anyways my point is, the reason why we have achieved so much technology, so > much knowledge in this time is precisely the "we", it's the union of several > individuals together with their ability to communicate with one-other that > has made us advance so much. In a sense we are a single being with millions > of eyes, ears, hands, brains, which alltogether can create amazing things. > But take any human being alone, isolate him/her from any contact with any > other human being and rest assured he/she will not achieve a single artifact > of technology. In fact he/she might not survive long.
Yes. I think Ben made a similar point in The Hidden Pattern. People studying human intelligence - psychologists, psychiatrists, cognitive scientists, etc - tend to focus narrowly on the individual brain, but human intelligence is more of an emergent networked phenomena populated by strange meta-entities such as archetypes and memes. Even the greatest individuals from the world of science or art didn't make their achievements in a vacuum, and were influenced by earlier works. Years ago I was chatting with someone who was about to patent some piece of machinery. He had his name on the patent, but was pointing out that it's very difficult to be able to say exactly who made the invention - who was the "guiding mind". In this case many individuals within his company had some creative input, and there was really no one "inventor" as such. I think many human-made artifacts are like this. ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=126863270-d7b0b0 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
