Embodied Cognition and Collective Intelligence

It is very clear that in nature there is an evolutionary drive to greater and greater levels of complexity—but not without harmony, integration and, sustainability. From this perspective it would seem inevitable that something like collective intelligence would eventually emerge in the course of human cultural evolution.

Indeed we can already identify in the ecosystem and in the body a functional form of non-verbal collective intelligence. These systems interact within and between themselves in ways that demonstrate high levels of coordination and purpose. We may describe this, at least within the body, as right hemispheric because it is integrative and is non-verbal. It is a form of animal intelligence.

Our unique role in the process of conscious evolution for the good of all is to make this available consciously. But we have to remember that we did not originate or create the complex process it depends upon or its product, collective intelligence. These things emerge from within the structure of life itself.

Collective intelligence then is an emergent property of life and although this may seem to be a far off, utopian goal, an organic approach to collective intelligence has much to recommend it over a technological solution. With a technological solution it is hard to escape its toxic material foundation, its unhealthy and antisocial labor requirements, and most of all the inevitability of a centralized and top down command structure in the hands of a very few. Philosophically a technological solution runs against the grain of what we understand about complex living systems, which requires an emergent, self organizing, self directed and self healing structure.

There is a very great deal of thoughtful research and experimentation on the extended mind hypothesis, embodied cognition, and cultural evolution, as well as ecological proposals like the Gaia hypothesis. In the time available here I want to focus on the potential within the human brain for collective intelligence. To do this I want to discuss:

1. The idea of Consilience, which is a well established scientific principle, a form of proof, and
2. Metastability another well established principle of physics that is also extensible to biophysics and cognition, and finally
3. The interoceptive sensory motor system, the body-wide myofascial synergy of the deep core, or the postural system of the body. This is a new form of fascial and synergistic anatomy and is well documented. It is something I work with daily as a manual therapist and embodiment teacher.

I argue that this synergistic anatomy is the basis for a different kind of embodied cognition, our animal intelligence. The postural core is a self organizing, self directed, self balancing and self aware system that I hypothesize can be the basis for a right-hemispheric or Consilient form of awareness. While heavily theoretical the anatomy is well established and easy to relate to experientially. It’s our postural system and a variety of meditative practices like yoga or taichi are designed to relate to it. It can be considered as a basis for an organic form of deeply synergistic, collective intelligence.

Such an intelligence, importantly, differs from conventional, top-down intellectual cognition in that it is a form of perception. The richness and significance of the information is already present in the system. This is the nature of complex living systems. Our role is not to create that information but to find a vehicle by which we can perceive it. This is the value of an embodied cognition approach to collective intelligence.

I am not sure this is a lesson plan, but these assumptions form the basis for my own work in prosocial embodiment and as a manual therapist. The postural implications speak to the bodily collapse, dissociation, and chronic pain we experience in modern life. It is an exploratory hypothesis, to be sure, but the postural anatomy and its somatic effects are useful in an educational setting.