Extelligence 1539567 204202206 2008-04-08T12:48:18Z Asenine 1320563 Added {{[[Template:unreferenced|unreferenced]]}} tag to article. using [[WP:FRIENDLY|Friendly]] {{unreferenced|date=April 2008}} {{neologism}} '''Extelligence''' is a term coined by [[Ian Stewart (mathematician)|Ian Stewart]] and [[Jack Cohen (scientist)|Jack Cohen]] in their [[1997]] book ''[[Figments of Reality]]''. They define it as all the cultural [[capital]] that is available to us in the form of tribal [[legend]]s, [[folklore]], [[nursery rhyme]]s, [[book]]s, [[videotape]]s, [[CD-ROM]]s, etc. They contrast extelligence with [[intelligence (trait)|intelligence]] (by which they mean the [[knowledge]] and cognitive processes within the [[brain]]). Further, they regard the ‘complicity’ of extelligence and intelligence as fundamental to the development of [[consciousness]] in both [[evolution]]ary terms for the [[species]], and also for the [[individual]]. ‘Complicity’ is a composite of complexity and simplicity and Cohen and Stewart use it to express the close and interdependent relationship between knowledge-inside-ones-[[head]] and knowledge-outside-ones-head that one can readily access. Although Cohen's and Stewart's individual disciplines are [[biology]] and [[mathematics]], respectively, their description of the complicity of intelligence and extelligence is firmly in the tradition of [[Jean Piaget]], [[Belinda Dewar]] and [[David A. Kolb]]. Philosophers, notably [[Karl Popper|Popper]], have also considered the relation between subjective knowledge (which he calls world 2), objective knowledge (world 1) and the knowledge represented by man-made artifacts (world 3). One of the key contributions of Cohen and Stewart is the way they relate (through the idea of complicity) the individual to the pooled sum of human knowledge. From the mathematics of [[complexity]] and [[game theory]] they use the idea of phase space and talk about extelligence space. There is a total phase space (extelligence space) for the human race, which consists of everything that could be known and represented. Within this there is a smaller (but still enormous and rapidly expanding) set of what is actually known. What they propose is the idea that each individual can only access the parts of the total extelligence space with which their intelligence is complicit. In other words, there has to be (at some level) an appreciation of what is out there and what it means. Much of this ‘appreciation’ falls into the category of tacit knowledge (Polanyi 1967) and social and cultural learning (Lave and Wenger 1991). As an example, a [[dictionary]] may contain definitions of many thousands of [[word]]s. But only those definitions that can be understood by the reader, i.e. they can interpret the verbal [[symbol]]s and relate them to concepts that her/his [[mind]] can work with, will be accessible. [[Category:Intelligence]] [[Category:Neologisms]] [[de:Extelligenz]]