The title is inspired by the book “Smart World: Breakthrough Creativity and the New Science of Ideas” by Richard Ogle. It could also be “Extended Mind” (Andy Clark, David Chalmers) but the “smart world” concept seems to be wider. The Extended Mind (tools, symbols and tricks that help us to remember and create) is a subset of the Smart World. Your individual consciousness is also a subset of the Smart World, just like a cell of a bigger brain. The “new science of ideas” doesn’t mean to develop and use ideas in a new way, but to see ideas, creativity and applications from a different angle.

What makes the world smart? First of all, we are not independent thinking entities. We are influenced by our genes, education, parents and acquaintances. Even “worse”, we are indirectly influenced by people we’ve never met. There is a hypothesis that six degrees of separation or less separates you from any other person in the world. Similarly, people you meet are influenced by people or events which you’ll possibly never meet. We’ve been a collective thinking entity influencing each other like some kind of a hologram no matter whether we are aware of that or not.

Besides of other people (and intelligent animals), there is an important nonliving component of the smartness of the world. Any tool, book, notebook, media, multimedia or anything interesting can become an extension of our consciousness. These extensions can help us remember, remind, create or think outside the box. Anything that enhances our minds is in a way conscious. It’s up to us to try to maximize the usage of these tools. We probably don’t use networks and other people’s ideas and data as much as we could.

The last but not the least component of the Smart World mentioned here are tipping points. After reaching a tipping point, a system faces a sudden change into a new equilibrium state. If an emerging idea needs to reach its full capacity, adequate circumstances need to be present in the rest of the (smart or not so smart) world.

In order to make the world smarter, it’s not enough to do some quality thinking. It is also important whom and what we use to help us think and create. In a world of increasingly complicated challenges, we shall have one chance to try and succeed or fail. In the meantime, it would be nice for us to properly perceive the world as a place full of tools, networks, opportunities, surprises, inspiration, information and knowledge. Let yourself be positively surprised.

It’s a big task to collectively create a smarter world. If a person has a good radical idea, his/her hands are tied not just because he/she needs other people for development and implementation of the idea, but also to persist. No one wants to be a tortured genius. We feel more comfortable near the warmth of our herd even when something must be done. You need the community to inspire, encourage and help you. You need to use networks, ad hoc teams and sources of information and inspiration as much as you can. We must be aware of the challenges and opportunities in front of us. We must remind each other that the situation is urgent (actually, considering the inertia, anything within an average human lifespan is urgent) and encourage and be encouraged by other people to stay on the track of thinking and doing things more sustainably. This task can’t be done without the first step.

smart world, richard ogle, creativity

Last updated 276 days ago by Aleksandar Malečić