The Semantic Sphere 1: Computation, Cognition and Information Economy

Chapter 15

Observing Collective Intelligence

The Hypercortex coordinated by the semantic sphere was conceived from the outset as an instrument for scientific observation of the collective intelligence of creative conversations. What applies to creative conversations in the digital medium applies equally to any system of symbolic cognition, whether real or fictitious, personal or social. The question at issue in the discussion that concludes this first volume is none other than the possibility of scientific self-observation of the mind in general: what type of image will the observation of collective intelligence generate in the mirror of the Hypercortex?

As shown in Figure 15.1, the main purpose of this chapter is to explain the structure of the reflection of the Hypercortex in the Cortex, and vice versa. But before I come to that, I will review the main stages in the intellectual journey we have taken in Part 2 of this book.

15.1. The semantic sphere as a mirror of concepts

15.1.1. Reflecting the world of ideas

In Part 1 of this book, I emphasized the fact that human cognition was not only conscious in the sense of having a subjective capacity to perceive and feel, but also in the sense of having a reflexivity capable of representing its own categories and mental operations to itself. Reflexivity is fundamental to human symbolic cognition. Human thought is not only part of nature but it also offers this nature an organized representation reflecting its inexhaustible variety – ...