New FAQ 1: Co-intelligence simplified

With the help of a handful of colleagues I have simplified the concept of co-intelligence to make it easier to learn and teach. I’ve woven its diverse aspects into a Frequently Asked Questions document (FAQ) which will soon be up on the co-intelligence.org website.

But first I want to check it with you.

Every couple of days I will post on my blog the FAQ’s 20 questions and a few of the answers.

If you find any of it hard to understand or if you would like to see new questions added to the FAQ, write to me at cii@igc.org.

I hope as you explore this revitalized, fuller, simpler approach to co-intelligence that the subject becomes even more vivid, real and exciting to you.

If you find the idea of co-intelligence and its associated tools reaching more people more effectively, please consider supporting the Co-Intelligence Institute. We are planning many new ways to get these ideas and skills out and used.

Blessings on the Journey we’re all on together.

Coheartedly,
Tom

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT CO-INTELLIGENCE

This FAQ (in its full form) answers twenty questions about co-intelligence. The bold questions below are answered in this message. The answers are designed to be readily understood by most people. While they provide a good introduction to the topic, you will find much more detail on the co-intelligence.org site.

** What is intelligence?
** What is co-intelligence?
** How is co-intelligence a bigger form of intelligence?
** What is a bigger picture perspective and what are bigger picture outcomes?

What helps people make co-intelligence happen?
Isn’t co-intelligence just collaboration?
What’s the difference between co-intelligence and collective intelligence?
What is co-stupidity?
What causes people and groups to be co-stupid?

Is co-intelligence an experience?
Can individuals be co-intelligent, or just groups?
Is co-intelligence a method?

Isn’t co-intelligence already happening in lots of places?
What is the co-intelligence worldview?
What does co-intelligence have to do with democracy?
What value do the co-intelligence worldview and co-intelligence capacities add to human life?

Is co-intelligence the intelligence of God or Spirit?
What is holistic intelligence?
How does all this fit together?
What is the Co-Intelligence Institute?

WHAT IS INTELLIGENCE?

Intelligence can be described in a number of ways:

Intelligence is the ability to develop, apply, and change our knowledge and skills.
Intelligence is the ability to learn and solve problems, especially in the face of challenges and change.
Intelligence is our ability to recognize patterns in our thinking and in life.
Intelligence is our capacity to fit our thinking, feeling, and behavior (our inner patterns) with what is actually going on (the patterns of reality).

When we think we know what’s going on and that’s not what’s actually going on, we make “stupid” mistakes. Keeping ourselves aligned with reality – that’s what intelligence is – is vital to our survival, success, and having good lives generally.

WHAT IS CO-INTELLIGENCE?

Co-intelligence is diverse people working really well together and getting results that make sense when viewed from an inclusive, long-term perspective.
Co-intelligence is alignment between the inner world of a group or community and the broad spectrum of factors in the larger world around them.
Co-intelligence is accurate sense-making BY everyone involved, looking at as big a picture as they can manage ON BEHALF OF everyone involved.

Co-intelligence involves truly COMMON sense – shared awareness among people about how to live well together in the circumstances they share, in partnership with the living world – today and tomorrow. It is a bigger way to generate bigger understandings of bigger realities to promote bigger forms of success and quality of life for all.

HOW IS CO-INTELLIGENCE A BIGGER FORM OF INTELLIGENCE?

We can look at co-intelligence as an expanded, inclusive form of intelligence because…

It seeks to include not only individual minds but also the intelligence of groups and other collectives – embracing, as well, the capacities for intelligence that are embedded in cultures and systems.
It seeks to include not only reason but also the intelligences of relationship like heart intelligence, gut intelligence, resonance, intuition, spirit, and the evolved, evolving wisdom of nature.
It seeks to include not only our own interests in the immediate situation but also to embrace the true needs and gifts of all lives involved, including future generations and erstwhile opponents.
It seeks to include not only the immediate obvious facts of the matter but also important contexts, interdependencies, feedback dynamics, and other less obvious but influential factors that are easily overlooked.
It seeks to work with anyone and anything that can help generate broad, long-term benefits.
It honors, seeks and supports the emergence of unexpected, surprising, out-of-the-box solutions and wisdom.

For a model of how co-intelligence expands traditional intelligence, see Six basic manifestations of co-intelligence.

WHAT IS A BIGGER PICTURE PERSPECTIVE AND WHAT ARE BIGGER PICTURE OUTCOMES?

To improve our ability to see things from a bigger picture perspective and create bigger picture benefits, we can ask questions like these:

How many different ways of looking at the situation have we fairly and appropriately taken into account?
How many of the facts, dynamics, beliefs, interconnections, and nuances involved in the situation have we considered?
How many diverse real interests and deep needs have we addressed and met?
How much of the web of life are we benefiting – and how deeply?
Are we engaging all of our cognitive capacities in ways that help us expand what we are able to understand as well as who and what we are able to benefit?
Are we considering impacts on the larger world over the long term?

If you support efforts to promote such an expanded form of intelligence in the world, please send a contribution to the Co-Intelligence Institute.

* * * * * * *

Summer 2015 Co-Intelligence Institute Fundraiser: So far 3 people have supported us with $400. Join them in supporting our work. Our target is $20,000. As you can see, we can use your support. Please donate now. It will make a big difference and your donation is fully tax-deductible in the U.S.

9 Responses to "New FAQ 1: Co-intelligence simplified"

John Abbe says:

July 3, 2015 at 8:46 am

One thing that seems to be missing is intelligence’s capacity for innovation, generating things that have never existed before, or at least were not known by the subject.

A second bit is that you wrote that intelligence is about fitting with reality. You probably didn’t mean this to exclude the ways that intelligence is about changing reality, but it might help to clarify that, and to point out this aspect of intelligence (sometimes held up as a distinction between humans’ and other animals’ intelligence).

Another element of greater intelligence as I see it is recursion, that is, the ability to be intelligent about intelligence. For example, to apply one’s intelligence to studying intelligence, or to consciously seek to increase one’s intelligence.

All of these are part of “regular” intelligence, but co-intelligence is certainly better at them.

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Tom Atlee says:

July 3, 2015 at 9:43 am

Thanks, John. These are very important and challenging factors to consider! I can see it from a number of angles. I’ll explain my own perspective here.

While all aspects of our beings are related, I find it most useful to think of creativity as a separate capacity from intelligence. While they are both most effective when combined, they do vary independently (we can be creative in ways that are totally out of sync with reality OR be intelligent along very familiar channels). Their distinctiveness can be seen in the way brainstorming exercises separate the creation of many options from the evaluation of which of those options are the best (although practices like Dynamic Facilitation use the energies of judgment and creative response in more fluid, nonlinear ways as participants struggle through an issue together).

I see intelligence’s primary function as governing the “fit” between our thoughts/feelings/behaviors and the realities of our situation. Sometimes that fit is best maintained by changing our thoughts/feelings/behaviors and at other times it is best maintained by changing something about our environment. (Western civilization prides itself in the latter – for both better and worse – while doing a lot to make people conform to/fit into its dysfunctional systems.) Interestingly, innovation can be applied to either changing oneself or changing one’s world. I see intelligence as both deciding which approach is most relevant and helping us carry out whatever strategies we choose.

Likewise, I am unsure whether recursion is a specific characteristic of intelligence. After all, we can have feelings about the way we feel, or simply perceive the way we are perceiving (without thoughts or feelings about it, as practiced in some forms of meditation). We can also exercise our intelligence without any awareness that we are doing that. Awareness of awareness – in all its manifestations – is, I believe, best seen as a skill in its own right.

However, through this conversation with you, I’m beginning to wonder if this recursive meta-level awareness-of-awareness (AND creativity) may actually be additional aspects of CO-intelligence – expanded applications of our intelligence capacities that help us work together and deal with more of what needs to be taken into account. In fact, I wonder if this might be a separate manifestation of co-intelligence or an additional dimension of multi-modal intelligence (in which we integrate more/all of our cognitive capacities)….

Following this line of thought, perhaps another dimension of multi-modal intelligence (as a facet of co-intelligence) involves not just combining different types of intelligence (logical, empathic, intuitive, etc.), but also integrating and expanding ALL our cognitive capacities (things that help us know), thereby embracing creativity, recursion, and even lifestyle (after all, bad diet, lack of exercise or sleep, mind-numbing media, etc., can all have powerful impact on our cognitive capacities). Hmmmmm….. What do you think?

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John Abbe says:

July 3, 2015 at 11:17 am

I’m realizing I need more clarity on this approach to sharing co-intelligence. From the questions, it seems an important part of it is to contrast co-intelligence with plain old intelligence. Is this the idea? If so, I think it is critical to use the most typical, un-idiosyncratic definition of intelligence you can. What do you think?

A related question comes up for me at the idea of creativity (or recursion) being aspects of co-intelligence but not intelligence. To what degree do you think of co-intelligence as something that is already widely in existence? If creativity is unique to co-intelligence, then obviously co-intelligence has been around as long or nearly as long as intelligence, even if it’s manifested far less than its full potential. It might be impossible to escape an idiosyncratic definition of intelligence, if things that people commonly think of as being part of regular intelligence are in this framing actually aspects of co-intelligence. This is important because the more idiosyncratically you define intelligence, the less useful an approach of sharing co-intelligence by contrasting it with intelligence will be.

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Tom Atlee says:

July 3, 2015 at 12:33 pm

This FAQ is both a simple introduction and lays foundations for understanding what makes co-intelligence special. On that basis, the first three of the four descriptions of intelligence provided are ones commonly used to define it. The fourth is (as you put it) the idiosyncratic one, which describes at a more fundamental level what is happening in our exercise of intelligence and why it is important.

That fourth bullet point lays the groundwork for understanding the evolutionary emergence of our kind(s) of intelligence and the role of increased co-intelligence in humanity’s future survival – topics covered in later questions in the FAQ. (Note that this FAQ is not simply contrasting co-intelligence with intelligence. It is saying that co-intelligence is a multi-faceted expansion of what we consider “plain old intelligence”.)

You wonder if co-intelligence is “already widely in existence” (note there is a subsequent FAQ that will address that). If co-intelligence is an expanded form of intelligence, then “plain old intelligence” can be viewed as a narrower, more limited form of co-intelligence. In that sense, co-intelligence exists wherever intelligence exists – which is all over the place. But the CONCEPT of co-intelligence is, as far as I can tell, quite new or at least has never before been expressed in these terms. Once seen in these terms, it can be recognized in various manifestations that people have long talked about but not necessarily seen as aspects of the “same thing”. (For example: the underlying dynamics of peace, justice, democracy, and sustainability can be understood as intimately related through the more fundamental dynamics of co-intelligence. The more co-intelligence we practice, the more of all those desirable states we will achieve, in their most life-serving forms.)

I sometimes think the concept of co-intelligence is like the concept of gravity. Before Newton, things fell. After Newton, this thing called “gravity” caused things to fall – and, significantly, had certain properties which allowed people to explain the heavens and send men to the moon (accomplishments far bigger than simply than causing things to fall or preventing them from falling). Likewise, the concept of “smart” – which is equivalent to “plain old intelligence” – needs to shift to a bigger frame of reference because our existing concept of “smart” is helping us destroy ourselves and our world. That bigger perspective on intelligence is embraced by the concept of co-intelligence. It involves everything intelligence needs to be to be whole and to serve the wholeness of life. I’ve identified some aspects of that; others may well be realized, but they will all need to fulfill that requirement.

Creativity is not unique to co-intelligence, per se, any more than wisdom is. But it is one of the dimensions along which intelligence expands to become more co-intelligent, albeit in relationship with the other dimensions of co-intelligence as described here. For example (considering just these two aspects), we can have wisdom that is not creative, and we can have creativity that is not wise. The whole point of the co-intelligence concept is that we need more of both. Wisdom is already enshrined as a fundamental dimension of co-intelligence. Whether creativity deserves to be incorporated in the model as a separate dimension OR as an aspect of one of the others (in this case, multi-modal intelligence), I’m not totally sure. The more we separate out the realms within which intelligence can expand to become more co-intelligent, the more complex and overwhelming the idea of co-intelligence becomes. So I’m trying to be conservative (as I was with “contextual intelligence”http://www.tomatleeblog.com/archives/175327353 ) at what I frame as a top-level feature of co-intelligence.

Thank you for the opportunity to explore and articulate this in more depth, John.

Coheartedly,
Tom

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John Abbe says:

July 5, 2015 at 11:47 am

So I’m hearing something like this: “Intelligence can offer some support for a world that works for all. Co-intelligence takes that to the Nth.” And then articulating what the most important sub-capacities are (e.g. collaboration, wisdom, spirit, etc.) that co-intelligence adds or
greatly increases to what intelligence encompasses. If this is the approach, I think your bullet points at least in your answer to the last question would convey what’s important about co-intelligence more clearly with a one-word label the “top level features” you mentioned in your last comment (e.g. for the last bullet point in the last question “creativity” actually fits best for me – aha, it is in there! – but whatever fits for you of course). This might involve separating or
reorganizing the capacities lumped together in some of the bullet points, but that’s exactly the process that I imagine would lead to more clarity, even if you didn’t end up choosing a one word label for every bullet point.

Re recursion, it’s one of those capacities that may only be applicable rarely, but when it is called for is often irreplaceable. One way to think of it is as a special case of going meta, which I suppose would go in that last “out of the box” bullet point.

Jumping farther outward, a perhaps-helpful question that struck me while reading/pondering is: What question is co-intelligence the answer to? (A question about a question – recursion!) I have my own answer, but will wait to hear yours before answering my own question.

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Tom Atlee says:

July 5, 2015 at 12:17 pm

Intelligence can offer support for ANY situational challenge. That’s what it exists for. Co-intelligence is the expansion of intelligence to embrace more of the realities of and interests involved with the challenge, so a bigger picture can be embraced and more needs and interests served. I’m puzzled why I’m failing to communicate this here. It seems so clear to me that co-intelligence is not different from intelligence, just as deliciousness is not different from taste: In both cases, the former term is a manifestation of the latter term expanded in a desirable direction. And to the extent people use their intelligence together to successfully support a world that works for all, it IS co-intelligence.

When I look at the bullet points in Q3, I don’t see a one-word summary for each of those. Do you? Are you suggesting that I reorganize and rewrite them SO THAT each one can be summarized in one word? When I wrote it, I INTENTIONALLY wrote it without reference to the 6-part model which is described in Q4 SO THAT people wouldn’t get hung up on that model as BEING what co-intelligence IS. I want readers to “get the feel” for each answer and not reify any one of them. I intended them to be exemplary, rather than comprehensive. I think i hear you saying that I should give readers comprehensive and solid pieces to hold on to. But whenever I try to do that I realize there are actually SO MANY dimensions to each answer that as soon as I start to try nailing things down, all the complexities come rising up wishing to claim their place. (In terms of clarity, the closest i’ve ever come to that with this topic is the 6-dimensional summary of expanded intelligence given in Q4. At the same time, I’m painfully aware that the map is not the territory, and that the territory can be mapped in a wide variety of ways!)

Your desire to feature creativity stimulated me thinking about how there are actually two large dimensions to what I’ve been calling “multi-modal intelligence”: One is the head-heart-gut-spirit cluster of “multiple intelligences” (which is what I’ve included in the category before) and the other (which I’m thinking of adding) involves the component capacities used in the functioning of intelligence, but which aren’t themselves (individually) intelligence per se. These include creativity and reflexivity but also memory, perception, flexibility (response to novelty), logical skills, pattern recognition, consciousness of beliefs/assumptions, capacities associated with developmental stages, discernment, curiosity, etc. All of these can be improved in various ways, individually/collectively/systemically. Both “multiple intelligences” and (let’s call it) “full capacity intelligence” can be developed separately and/or integrated better together to generate what might better be called “integral intelligence”. (But you can perhaps sense my struggle figuring out how to properly differentiate and label these!!) This dimension of co-intelligence is meant to embrace the fullness of the intelligence capacity itself, regardless of its spirit (e.g., collaborative), its content (e.g., wisdom), or the numbers of people involved (e.g., collective). I’m curious if you can see what I’m talking about in this paragraph, and see how it is (theoretically) distinct from those other dimensions of co-intelligence.

I guess I see co-intelligence as an answer to this question: “How can we newly understand our intelligence so that it heals, harmonizes and sustains – rather than harms, fragments and alienates us from – ourselves, each other, and the world?” Note that “heals, harmonizes and sustains” are all related to wholeness, which is the fundamental principle/dynamic underlying co-intelligence (which is beginning now to be articulated in the “new” concept of holistic intelligence which will be described near the end of the FAQ).

Coheartedly,
Tom

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John Abbe says:

July 5, 2015 at 12:41 pm

Haha I think originally I wasn’t getting it, but my last communication was intended to communicate that now I do (I think). At first I thought that one focus of the FAQ was to contrast intelligence and co-intelligence. What I’m getting now is more that co-intelligence is not different from intelligence, just bigger/better.

That said, the taste/deliciousness metaphor confuses me a little. Taste is value neutral, but deliciousness is intrinsically positive. Is that intentional, an attempt to communicate something about how the “co-” expands intelligence?

What you wrote about bullet points helps a lot in my attempt to understand this new approach to sharing co-intelligence. (I wanted more clarity on this before diving into much nitty-gritty.)

Regarding your now seeing two dimensions to what you’ve been calling multi-modal intelligences, The head-heart-gut-spirit cluster hangs together pretty well for me, though I would look for a more descriptive label for it than “multiple intelligences” Brief brainstorm: right-brain intelligence, soft intelligence, grounded/centered intelligence, implicit intelligence. The other capacities you list feel more like a catch-all,m”other” category, which is fine. The list at http://www.co-intelligence.org/multiIntelligence.html already seems to
include bits from both, btw.

I like your answer to my question about what question co-intelligence is answering. Mine was: “What capacity is most helpful toward a world that works for all?” If I wanted to be more specific as in your response, I would add something in the direction of thrivability to your “heals, harmonizes and sustains,” something that points beyond our simply recovering from challenges and surviving.

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John Abbe says:

July 5, 2015 at 12:52 pm

Now that I do understand the approach here, my advice re bullet points swings entirely the other way. Partly it’s my own intellectual inclinations that lead me to want to get very complete and precise (which I get now is exactly NOT what you’re trying to do here), but I think the bullet points also invite this mode. I would eliminate them altogether, at least in your answer to that third question (“How is co-intelligence bigger…”). I think I’d even mention fewer specific dimensions, and try to flesh the ones you do mention more fully. Make it less of an extended list, and more evocative.

Have you considered maybe even using a specific example situation for the FAQ, and having the answers then offer examples of what some of the different dimensions you now mention look like in practice?

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Tom Atlee says:

July 5, 2015 at 1:02 pm

Thanks, John. Regarding your points:

1. I guess taste/deliciousness was not the best analog. Try these:

Influence / dominance
Health / vigor
Support / empowerment
Intelligence / co-intelligence

In each example the first word is a generic, neutral phenomenon. The second word is a high-end manifestation of that phenomenon – which also happens to have certain normative values associated with it. Dominance, for example, involves a LOT of influence AND manifests the kind of influence that controls rather than facilitates. Vigor involves a high level of health AND connotes using that health for strong motion rather than for balance. Empowerment implies a high level of support AND is characterized by enabling those supported to ultimately be successful on their own (rather than, for example, dependent on assistance, which is also support).

So, too, co-intelligence implies an expansion of intelligence on a number of dimensions (forms of intelligence, participating minds, factors considered, benefits generated, etc.) AND implies that the more these expansions are practiced, the better the results will be. The theory of co-intelligence is based on the idea that the role of intelligence is to successfully engage evolving environmental realities as we pursue our goals. It then frames co-intelligence as the capacity through which we take into account more of those realities in fuller ways to generate greater success in the pursuit of more inclusive goals.

Does that help?

2. I’m confused by your brainstorm of labels for “head-heart-gut-spirit” intelligences. Those four together constitute what might be called whole-brain-whole-body-whole-being intelligence, whereas your labels are all biased towards right-brain/soft forms of intelligence and thus not descriptive of the whole category. Furthermore, in my view, head/rationality intelligence and heart/empathic/relational intelligence are examples of different KINDS OR FORMS OF INTELLIGENCE, while creativity, curiosity, pattern recognition and memory are examples of INTELLIGENCE-SUPPORTING FACULTIES (which can support both heart and head – and other kinds of – intelligence). It seems I was unsuccessful in communicating that/my sense of the nature of this realm, and I’m not sure how to do it better. Thoughts?

The list at the “Multi-Modal Intelligence and Multiple Intelligences” link that you refer to is an effort to (a) summarize the various “intelligences” that intelligence theorists have postulated and (b) to name other “intelligences” that I have experienced in my own life and with others. Again, although long, the list s not intended to be comprehensive, but to shake up our very limited sense of what intelligence is and involves so we are able to take a bigger view of it.

3. Re the Big C question: Good point. It would be nice if there were a verb “to thrivalize”, but there isn’t. So how about: “How can we newly understand our intelligence so that it heals, harmonizes, enlivens and sustains – rather than harms, fragments, deadens and alienates us from – ourselves, each other, and the world?”

4. Re the FAQ as a whole: My efforts to be both complete and precise in the past have failed miserably. The approach in this FAQ has succeeded better with more people than previous approaches. I am very eager to hear other people’s responses so I can have a better sense of what will be useful here beyond this conversation between you and me.

Re reframing the entire FAQ around one specific example. I understand that would work better for you. But that would not serve my purpose for the FAQ, which is to introduce the whole scope of the topic through direct answers to questions people ask. In the teaching activities we’ll be developing soon, there will be lots of example-centric explorations.

Coheartedly,
Tom

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