Dialog as Collective Thinking

This paper argues that "collective thinking" is a real phenomenon and that it occurs in dialog. Dialog is analyzed as coordinated joint activation of factual, emotive and conative information on several levels of awareness. It is claimed that collective thinking as a consequence of its relation to dialog also exhibits these traits. 1. Collective thinking In this paper, I want to argue that "collective thinking" is a real phenomenon. In fact, it is a rather mundane ordinary phenomenon which occurs in dialog. The argument goes as follows: If we characterize "thinking" as cognitive processes involving awareness of, attention to and processing of factual, emotive and conative types of information, we might characterize "collective thinking" as interrelated cognitive processes of these types occurring in several individuals. The nature of the relations between individual cognitive processes could be of various kinds. A relatively low requirement would be similarity. Collective thinking would on this criterion occur if several people think alike. However, requiring merely similarity would leave the possibility open that the similarity was accidental or preprogrammed (like in Leibniz Monadology cf. Leibniz, 1952 ). It therefore seems reasonable to primarily require not similarity but mutual influence. Building on influence, we can now further explore the idea of collective thinking as interactive, joint or cooperative thinking. Similarity might then possibly be a product of such mutual influence. By analogy, we might remember that it is not necessary that parts of the brain are similar for us to claim that thinking is an activity associated with the brain. It is influence and coordinated activity which is crucial, not similarity.