collective intelligence?

Question

what is its detailed definition? and what background knowledge do I need if I want to study it, I mean if I want to be a phd student about the topic.

Answer 1

Collective intelligence covers a wide range....

Answer 2

Collective intelligence is a very jungian concept, that I would contribute first of all to the collective unconcious. Here is the start of the reference.

THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
Dr. Jung’s psychology sets forth the supposition that there are three levels ("layers") to the mind. Consciousness is the state of being aware, and Jung defines this function of the mind as an active principle that sustains the relation of the psychic contents with ego consciousness. This would be the analytical mind built upon the evidence of the senses. The Hindus say "the mind is the slayer of the real, kill out the mind." They are referring to this part of the mind, but in the West we have to take a different attitude toward the analytical mind. Without this faculty we would have nothing with which to integrate the unconscious contents, as Dr. Jung points out. Not that a simple analytical analysis of the contents rising from the unconscious to consciousness is all there is to the process of integration, as many patients have discovered in Freudian analysis, but the analytical faculty is one tool we cannot do without and hope to live an active life in West. Because the analytical mind is built upon the evidence of the senses, we see why to the Hindus this mind is conditioned by the Maya. If we distinguish between illusion and delusion we will not fall into the trap of thinking that when the Hindus suggest that this mind should be "killed out" that they mean that this part of the one mind should be destroyed. It is all too often the case that if we stop to analyze a psychic experience (an other-worldly experience that does not come to us through one of the five senses) then we will be prone to analyze (rationalize) ourselves out of the impression we have received intuitionally. But the analytical mind, if conditioned to accept the illusionary world as a condition depending on the limited range of registry of the five senses, can be used not only to deal with the objective world, but also to aid us in integrating these forces and impressions rising to consciousness from the unconscious.

Answer 3

I think that collective intelligence might be defined as the perceptive and cognitive ability of more than one individual member. In humans this has expanded from a low level of extrasensory communication to language; e.g., speech, sign language, to electronics; e.g., television, radio, the internet, etc. With other organisms it might include neural impulses transferred to others, but might also include visual, aural, and scent messages. At the doctoral level, I would first assume that sociology would be the best area, but I think allmost any field would provide an excellent source from English to science to computer science to economics. Very interesting options really.

Answer 4

Part of collective intelligence is being able to pose a
question correctly.
Are you sure that you -
"...want to be a phd student about the topic." ?

Answer 5

Collective intelligence means collecting the insurance premiums in the most intelligent way. Or collecting the garbage intelligently. Or collecting secret data, without anyone finding out about it.

Answer 6

I don't know about collective intelligence but since this is a psychology thread maybe you were referring to collective unconscious which is a Jungian theory that accounts for information from thousands of previous generations of man embedded into our psyche. It also provides us with archetypes which are ways to deal with certain events or symbols (such as a mother).

But maybe you really were asking about the collective intelligence.

Answer 7

Collective intelligence appears in a wide variety of forms of consensus decision making in bacteria, animals, humans, and computers.

The study of collective intelligence may properly be considered a subfield of sociology, of computer science, and of mass behavior--a field that studies collective behavior from the level of quarks to the level of bacterial, plant, animal, and human societies.