Emerge the Hive Mind

     Most creative people know this feeling: you've been nursing an idea in the back of your mind for years or even decades. Maybe it's a widget or some academic discovery you haven't had time to properly write-up. Then one day, you take a break and turn on the boob-toob and whadaya see? Someone on the other side of the country (or world)  is introducing your idea and reaping heaps of praise for it's ingeniousity! What a bummer! Then you have to go back to your stupid job waiting-tables and cursing progress for not waiting on your brilliance

     This has happened to me too many times to count; one day I'll write them all down (he he). However, I know now not to be angry about it. History is actually full of these sorts of synchronous discoveries. The perfect example is Leibniz and Newton.

     If you have ever taken a Calculus class, you know how ridiculously improbable it seems that anyone would invent Calculus in two separate places, unknown to each other, at exactly the same time*. I mean talk about the limits of human understanding, Calculus is right there -- straddling the borderline. How could two people think of the same sadistic way to torture undergraduates at exactly the same time?

     Well, it happens all the time. There is a perfectly good reason for this. There are no truly individual discoveries. All discoveries are built on the pool of knowledge available to the people of a time. For example, if you went back in time 2000 years ago and gave the standard IQ test to everyone you met on your travels, your results would illustrate that everyone you met is a mongoloid, and should probably be put in an insane asylum. Of course, they aren't mongoloids. Knowledge is encrusted upon a civilization in a very delicate way that is not unlike how mineral deposits form stalactites. The pool of knowledge for that era just hasn't had the time or resources to encrust the necessary conceptual tools needed to return a passing score on our stupid 20th century IQ test. However, once the requisite information is in the public consciousness, discoveries are inevitable.

     Our population and information-technology is so highly developed now, that people have created a live, real-time hive-mind. It doesn't really matter who ends up writing that paper on the idea you had. After all, if you had the resources ten years ago, you would have written it before her. The point is that the idea be expressed using the scientific methods and conceptual frameworks in existence in such a way as to resist logical attack long enough to enter the public consciousness and make a change for the good.

     In order to advance past the current messy state of human progress, we need to focus, not on who had the idea first, but on whether we were able to prove or disprove it using the terminology and theoretical framework of Science.

    Our need to create heroes to worship is a uniquely western fascination. We have tricked ourselves into believing that everyone can be a hero if they just meet the right people and work hard enough. This is hogwash. Improving the human condition is not unlike improving an unhappy relationship. The only thing that will help is if we each 'work on our shit'. That is to say, we each know what our faults are. If you want to make improvements in life, as in society, you need to start doing the things you know you should have been doing all along. Take the trash out, tell your loved-ones you love them, and stop worshiping heroes. They are just people who 'worked on their shit' enough to garner the fickle adoration of the masses.

     If we forget about the need to find new heroes we may actually break down the academic wall that prevents ideas like the one you had ten years ago from being popularized. This is the idea behind Open Source. And contrary to the beliefs of the entire academic community (up until the last 15 years), it works! Open Source took the entire mainstream academic world by surprise. It only gets stronger every day. This is the emergence of the hive-mind in micro scale. Millions of people all around the world who have let go of their need to be heroes or billionaires and submitted their work for all to use, rip off and forget to cite.

      Long live the hive mind!

*OK, it didn't happen quite like that but, my point still stands.