http://web.media.mit.edu/~sandy/JAB-collective%20nature%20of%20human%20intelligence%20final.pdf - On The Collective Nature of Human Intelligence

<quote>
A fundamental assumption of cognitive science is that the individual is the correct unit of analysis for understanding human intelligence. I present evidence that this assumption may have limited utility, that the social networks containing the individuals are an important additional unit of analysis, and that this `network intelligence’ is significantly mediated by non-linguistic processes. Across a broad range of situations these network effects typically predict 40% or more of the variation in human behavior.
</quote>

And finally we reach a 0:1 ratio of content to article....

Had to, sop, sorry. :P

> And finally we reach a 0:1 ratio of content to article....

Actually, the content is the article, for those who find more than the taste of their buggers interesting.

people who work at corporations know 90% of the job is just showing up. ie, the system is set up for swarm intelligence.

Solely based on the quoted paragraph...

It doesn't seem like any sort of revelation. They have only produced credible data to back what I presume to be a rather safe assumption. You can predict what someone in a bar would do easier than you can predict what someone stranded alone on an island would.

This is very minor and incidental to swarm intelligence in the sense of emergent behavior. It isn't any wonder that adding contructs, (in this case, other people) to a system is necessary before any behavior can emerge.

To think otherwise would be to say that you could drop a bunch of slinky's down the stairs and expect them to line themselves up at the bottom. It would be like predicting behavior based on observing someone in a sensory depravation chamber.

> It doesn't seem like any sort of revelation.

Of course not. Everyone on the interweb knows everything all ready. Unfortunately, they just forget to write it down sometimes.

Ok, so that wasn't completely constructive of me. I am truly naive enough to think that it is fairly intuitive. But sometimes I do manage to delude myself into ignorance of the masses' ignorance.

In other news, water has now been proven to be wet!

> In other news, water has now been proven to be wet!

this is not a minor thing! hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide are not wet (in any normal earth temperatures).

water is very cool and unusual:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/10/science/10angi.html?em&ex=1184212800&en=fcdaa5ed0f756378&ei=5087%0A