Equinotes are published periodically drawing on the Archives of Integral City’s Reflective Organ Newsletter, Blogs, Books and Website. The perspectives of Equinotes weave across: Planet, People, Place and Power.
The theme of this issue is Integral City Intelligences: Natural, Living, Wise.
September 2023 Equinotes are drawn from these publications:
Five Wisdoms = Evolutionary Intelligences for the Human Hive, Sept. 8, 2011, |C. Collective Intelligences, E. Evolutionary Intelligences, Emergence, Meshworking, Spiritual intelligence
Integral City Intelligences Reflect Living System Principles, August 28th, 2017|A. Contexting Intelligences, B. Individual Intelligences, Book 3, Building – Structures, C. Collective Intelligences, D. Strategic Intelligences, E. Evolutionary Intelligences, Ecosphere, Emergence, Inner, Inquiry, Integral Maps, Lifecycle, Meshworking, Navigating – IVSM, Outer, Storytelling – Cultures
Artificial Intelligences or Amplified Intelligences in the Integral City?, September 6th, 2023|A. Contexting Intelligences, B. Individual Intelligences, Building – Structures, C. Collective Intelligences, D. Strategic Intelligences, E. Evolutionary Intelligences, Ecosphere, Emergence, Inner, Inquiry, Integral Maps, Level 8 Turquoise, Level 9 Coral, Lifecycle, Meshworking, Navigating – IVSM, Outer, Storytelling – Cultures
Scroll to end of Equinotes to access Free Resources, MetaBlogs 2013-2022.
Artificial Intelligence or Amplified Intelligence in the Human Hive?
“Have you given some thought to how artificial intelligence could enhance the intelligences of the integral city? I’m curious about your take on it,” asked George Por recently. George is an expert in many things but he has long impressed me as a world expert on collective consciousness and a true shaman of human development (and an original action researcher into Integral City 2.0).
I have been curious for a while , so thanks to George here are a few thoughts on how AI could enhance the intelligences of the Integral City.
First off I reflect on the implication of “artificial” in the usual sense of AI. I wonder why these intelligences are considered artificial? I would consider intelligence to be evolutionary however it manifests.
It seems to me that when we use “artificial” as a descriptor of intelligence we are viewing it outside ourselves – taking an objective stance. Which from an integral perspective would be true but only partial (Wilber).
Surely the qualities of the intelligence we see emerging are tetra+-arising with impacts in all the AQAL quadrants regardless of how you parse them – integral mindsets: subjective, intersubjective, objective, interobjective; or Gaia’s reflective organs: person, people, place, planet; or City Voices: Citizen, Civil Society/3rd Sector, Civic Managers, Business/Innovators.
These intelligence capacities may be manifesting the qualities of the Kosmic Mind – and call us to not only consider the trajectory of capacity development from ego to ethno to regional to planet, but to consider the quantum leap from Patrick Geddes’ Think Local/Act Global to Currivan’s proposition Think Cosmic, Feel Global, Act Local – a more wholistic evolutionary reframing.
From the very beginning of my inquiry into learning and leadership in self-organizing online communities (where I first met Georg Por), it was obvious to me that recursive, iterative, reflection would amplify the emerging intelligence. Isn’t this what a living system does? It resonates with self and other. It coheres with self and other. And it emerges capacities for self and other. This is how it survives, adapts and regenerates.
As the VUCA world has demanded that we gain capacities that enable cities (and all their sub-wholes of individuals, families, neighbourhoods, workplaces, communities (Map 2)) as complex adaptive living systems to expand their intelligences, it is natural – not artificial – that the GPS of city intelligences evolutionarily matures.
This seems fundamental to what Clare Graves proposed as a Never Ending Quest. Perhaps most people have considered that quest would be a simple (or merely complicated) linear unfolding, because when we look back at evolution it looks like we move in a fairly straightforward way from one level of complexity to another – until the quantum leap into Tier 2.
But anyone who studies complexity seriously, knows there are non-linear bifurcations and jumps in the capacity of evolving systems that are exponential in effect. So when we seek to connect the system to more of itself, “simply” to enable greater wellbeing, a natural effect is bound to be an exponential emergence of capacity aka intelligence.
So I think that this path of “artificial” outcomes is actually quite natural. Nevertheless, it is categorically on a different level of complexity and therefore merits a new descriptor. I might suggest Amplified intelligence? Quantum intelligence?
Whatever name we give it, this intelligence is ALIVE and it calls us to be more of who we have been in an AQAL way. Clare Graves would point to our life conditions and the dissonance they are causing in our lives – necessitating learning on a scale and at a speed that has never been necessary or possible before.
I am grateful to Evolutionary Leader Deepak Chopra for publishing this article on Artificial Intelligence that enumerates in considerable detail recent manifestations of intelligence (related to healing and wellbeing) at a new order of magnitude. The examples he points to include:
- AI Imitates Science
- Microbiome
- CRSPR Gene Editing
- Messenger RNA
- Psychedelics
- Epigenetics
- Neuroplasticity
- Vagal Activation
- Creative Intelligence
Integral City Intelligences Reflect Living System Principles
The 12 Intelligences of the Integral City can be directly connected to the Principles of Living Systems. This may not be surprising given the core influences of their creators. In the case of the 12 Intelligences, I was considering the evolution of the holarchy of human systems from individual, to family/collectives, to organizations, to the City. In the case of Elisabet Sahtouris, she was considering the evolution of the (conscious) biology of living systems. Thus, given that human systems are living systems, we should expect that the taxonomies of the Intelligences and the Principles should reflect one another.
Integral City Intelligences, framed at the human systems scale of the City represent its core capacities derived from the first Principles of Living Systems.
Moreover, if we want to understand why and how it is possible for a City to thrive as a living innovation ecosystem (discussed in the first two blogs of this series), we can backcast to the capacities of intelligences that the City would require in order to design, organize and manifest such a system.
We have given full definitions of the Integral City Intelligences in Book 1 (Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligences for the Human Hive) and on the website. Here we link them to Elisabet Sahtouris’ Principles of Living Systems, so we can reveal their qualities of aliveness. In many cases one of the Principles manifests in multiple Integral City intelligences because of their holographic, interconnected and even non-local nature.
Let’s take another walk through Sahtouris’ Principles of Living Systems and connect them to the brief definitions of Integral City Intelligences that are set out below the Principles.
Principle 1: Self-creation (autopoiesis) is reflected in the Eco, Emergent and Living Intelligences.
Principle 2: Complexity (diversity of parts) is reflected in Eco and Emergent Intelligences.
Principle 3: Embeddedness in larger holons and dependence on them (holarchy) is reflected in Integral and Living Intelligences.
Principle 4: Self-reflexivity (autognosis, self-knowledge) is reflected in Integral, Inner and Storytelling/Cultural Intelligences.
Principle 5: Self-regulation/maintenance (autonomics) balancing efficiency and resilience is reflected in Integral and Living Intelligences.
Principle 6: Response-ability to internal and external stress or change is reflected in Individual (Integral Inner, Outer), and Collective (Social/Building and Cultural/Storytelling) Intelligences.
Principle 7: Input/output of matter, energy and information with other holons is reflected in Living, Inner and Social/Building Intelligences.
Principle 8: Transformation of matter, energy and information; no non-recyclable waste is reflected in Living, Inner and Social/Building Intelligences.
Principle 9: Communications among all parts is reflected in Integral, Inquiry, Meshworking and Navigating Intelligences.
Principle 10: Empowerment, full employment of all component parts is reflected in Eco, Emergent, Living and Meshworking Intelligences.
Principle 11: Coordination of parts and functions is reflected in Eco, Emergent, Living, Meshworking and Navigating Intelligences.
Principle 12: Balance of interests negotiated among parts, whole and embedding holarchy is reflected in Eco, Emergent, Living and Inquiry Intelligences.
Principle 13: Reciprocity of parts in mutual contribution and assistance is reflected in Eco, Emergent, Living and Meshworking Intelligences.
Principle 14: Conservation of what works well is reflected in Eco, Emergent, Living and Meshworking Intelligences.
Principle 15: Innovation, creative change of what does not work well is Eco, Emergent, Living and Evolutionary Intelligences.
Five Wisdoms Evolutionary Intelligences for Sustainability in the Human Hive
It appears that like most other principles of Integral City, Five Wisdoms (taught by Irini Rockwell) is a fractal design that has emerged from ancient spiritual tradition and is now available in service to the evolutionary impulse. It was most satisfying to recognize Five Wisdoms as an Evolutionary Intelligence for the Human Hive and we were all deeply appreciative of Irini Rockwell as the Wisdom Leader who guided us to awareness, practise and application.
In the Experience Integral Workshop 2011, Irini guided us into meditation and the Buddha pose. The Buddha pose (associated with the colour White and Space) invites Spaciousness and opens you up to Being in a simple, receptive contemplation. It enabled a day full of potential and ease.
In our after breakfast session in the following mornings we were introduced to the other four wisdoms, first in contrasting pairs and then in I/We explorations.
First we learned Vajra Wisdom (associated with the colour Blue, Water and the sense of Sight). This energy combines the paradoxes of clarity, precision with big picture and perspective. It expects integrity and invites brilliance. In contrast Padma Wisdom (associated with the colour Red, Fire and the sense of Hearing) engages warmth, magnetism and charm with intuition, subtleness and sensuality. Vajra tends to masculine energy and Padma to feminine energy.
Next we learned Karma Wisdom (associated with colour Green, Wind and the Kinesthetic sense). This energy is full of positiveness, timeliness, and synchronistic action. It was contrasted with Ratna Wisdom (associated with colour Yellow, Earth and the senses of Taste and Smell) which connected us to expansiveness, resourcefulness and potential while extending hospitality, generoisty and appreciation. Like Vajra, Karma tends to masculine energy and like Padma, Ratna tends to feminine energy.
In the conference everyone was invited to notice their dominant and sub-dominant energies and any masks that we borrowed for adapting to our life conditions. Moving from one Energy pod to another Energy pod, our group formed and re-formed in waves that broke into lively exchange as we discovered when each Energy first showed up in our lives? How do we use that energy in our life/work now? What other Energy (s) is it connected to? This inquiry helped us to notice our natural affinities to other participants and our relationship to each of the Five Wisdoms as we activated them in our lives.
Finally on the last day, we moved into the emergence of our Sustainability Meshwork with an invitation to notice how the Five Wisdoms contributed to three nodes of organizational goals as defined by the Integral City Master Principle: Take care of yourself (I); Take care of each other (WE); take care of this place (It(s)). Each peron’s Sustainability Business Canvas self organized into one of these three nodes. The work goals we had defined for organizations that supported Individuals became the I-focused organzational node; those that supported Groups became the WE-focused organizational node; and those that supported Systems became the It(s)-focused organizational node.
Applying the Five Wisdoms to each of these nodes we discovered that each cluster of potential organizations used the Five Wisdoms in different combinations and different sequences (more to follow in further Blog postings.) Five Wisdoms proved a deeply Spacious, Integrative, Rich, Activating and Resourceful frame in which to notice how five universal energies contributed to Roles in the emerging Meshwork.
Click here to link for an exploration of the Five Wisdoms and Irini’s Resources and Books.
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