Peter Schulte

A human organization, like a bee colony, shares a common interest, but even in a sense has a mind and purpose of its own. It becomes, in a sense, its own entity.

It is perhaps not preposterous not only to consider a superorganism to be literally alive but also to be literally a living organism in its own right.

To be an organism, something must achieve the status of an individual. It must be alive, self-sustaining, and functional outside of the context of a larger organism.

Groups of people, both small and large, can transform and evolve into more complex, dynamic iterations of themselves. They can grow new room to the house of their collective psyche.

With individual genius, a specific person creates something novel. With collective genius, a team, organization, tribe, or society creates something novel, whether deliberately or otherwise.

All acts of genius require both fertile ground and someone or something planting and tending to a seed.

Design is creation by us. Emergence is creation within and through us.

Where outer genius is the process of creating something outside ourselves, inner genius is the process of creating something within ourselves or perhaps rather growing ourselves into something new. 

Given the right circumstances, wider, new ways of being and perceiving are always available to all of us.

As our minds become more complex, we gain a wider perspective on what is happening around us and who we are. We see a fuller picture of what is. We gain a “higher” perspective.