[MD] Collective intelligence

[Krimel]

[Ham]
"World of knowledge" is a euphemistic expression which suggests that 
everyone can absorb the totality of information printed in your 
encyclopedia.  Of course this is impossible, and the expression is 
misleading.  As you would argue, individuals put this information together, 
and not one of them knows it all.  A body of information is not intelligence

until it becomes part of an individual's knowledge.

[Krimel]
The issue at present is access. Already I can look things up faster than I
can remember them. Accessing and processing information is at the core of
our being. Two generations ago people could only access information from
people near enough to hear them speak. We get live broadcasts from Mars. It
is not just the amount of information we are accumulating it is the ability
to sort and make sense of it.

Just to survive in a modern city requires a significantly higher level of
consciousness than living in the woods. The woods demand acute senses and a
calm mind as SA reminds us. The streets require constant scanning and
instant response to small events that have the potential to kill you
instantly. 

What good is intelligence without data? It is less important that none of us
knows all of it as that all of us know some of it. And the more they know
the more aware they are. How can faster access to more information not
produce higher levels of knowledge and awareness? 

[Ham]
It is the conscious mind, not "growing patterns", that discerns differences 
and similarities.  The dissemination of "knowledge patterns" is an objective

process, like distributing newspapers.  Publishing information, or passing 
it down from one generation to the next, is no assurance that it will be 
transformed into knowledge.

[Krimel]
The conscious mind is "growing patterns" of difference and similarities.

The dissemination of patterns may be an external process but integration of
patterns is internal. The fact that more has been disseminated mean there is
more to integrate. Look at how much the printing press changed the world. It
expanded consciousness world wide. It helped us create a world held together
by imagination. We are already beyond the Giant; we are constructing virtual
worlds based on real world data. We are transferring the real world into
virtual space. This is both an expansion and a preservation of human
consciousness.

If you understand why children cry
When Bambi's mother dies,
You know a truth about the human heart.

If you understand why they watch it 
Again and again,
You know another.