Collaboration on iDeas
Whether an iDea Arises Uniquely
or Reappears Many Times . . .
it May Thrive or it May Dwindle and Vanish
Jacques Monod, the Parisian Biologist who shared a Nobel Prize in 1965 for Working out the Role of Messenger RNA in the Transfer of Genetic Information, proposed an Analogy:
“Just as the Biosphere Stands Above the World of Nonliving Matter, so an ‘Abstract Kingdom’ Rises Above the Biosphere.
The Denizens of this Kingdom? “iDeas”
“iDeas have Retained Some of the Properties of Organisms,” he wrote.
“Like them, they tend to Perpetuate their Structure and to Breed; they too can Fuse, Recombine, Segregate their Content; indeed they too can Evolve, and in this Evolution— Selection must surely Play an Important Role.”
iDeas have “Spreading Power,” he noted —“Infectivity, as it were”— and Some More than Others.
An Example of an Infectious iDea might be a Religious Ideology that Gains Sway Over a Large Group of People.
The American neurophysiologist Roger Sperry had put Forward a Similar Notion Several Years Earlier,
Arguing that iDeas are “Just as Real” as the Neurons they Inhabit.
iDeas have Power, he said:
“iDeas cause iDeas and Help Evolve New iDeas.”
iDeas Interact with Each Other and with other Mental Forces in the Same Brain,
in Neighboring Brains, and thanks to the Internet, in Far Distant, Foreign Brains.
iDeas Interacting with Accelerating Information is Producing a Burst in Social Evolution . . .
Far Beyond Anything to Hit the Evolutionary Scene Yet.
Adaptive Communities Collaborate & Validate iDeas to Advance People in a New World
FECUNDITY:
fe·cun·di·ty
The ability to produce many new ideas. The probability that the action will be followed by sensations of the same kind.
