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A Loop Theory of Wisdom: ideas on how we might bridge the

wisdom gap

Geoff Mulgan, Professor of Collective Intelligence, Public Policy and Social

Innovation, University College London

THE QUESTION
Is it possible for an organisation, a system or a society, to become wiser? If so, how
could we make this real and not just a vague invocation – like wishing people would
be kinder or more loving?

In this paper I share some answers and suggest a framework that cuts across different
disciplines, including philosophy, psychology, computer science and organisational
design.

I argue that progress in this field is badly needed, and not just because of the very
visible lack of wisdom amongst many leaders and institutions, but also because rapid
progress in use of data and artificial intelligence has not led to obviously wiser actions,
in part because these fields lack a coherent view of the relationship between data,
knowledge and wisdom.

I argue that wisdom, and thought about wisdom matters, because it should sit above
other types of knowledge, including scientific knowledge, or the insights of particular
disciplines or professions. Wisdom depends on expertise, but sits above it – and, as
I argue, this should shape how we design institutions and laws, as well as science
advice and governance, the design of digital technologies, and the crucial institutions
that help the world make wiser decisions about complex long-term challenges – such
as the IPCC and others around climate change, or IPBES concerned with biodiversity
and ecosystems.i

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The paper challenges some conventional views of this topic which see wisdom as static
rather than dynamic, individual rather than collective, introspective rather than
involving argument and open learning, and general rather than domain specific.

All of these assumptions may be misleading. I argue that instead of thinking of wisdom
as an attribute we should understand it as a series of loops – loops linking thought,
action and results; loops involving feedback from others; and loops involving argument
and decision.

Background and main themes

I’ve become interested in this question through several convergent routes (including
reflecting on when I have been less than wise!). One is research and practice around
collective intelligence, some of which sees a hierarchical progress from data, through
information and knowledge to collective wisdom.ii A second is interest in the
evolution of consciousness, and the possible historical movement towards higher and
deeper states.iii A third is interest in how to design institutions, technologies and
systems to help them think and act more effectively, and better resolve conflicts.

The paper shows why attempts at definition and taxonomy have been unsatisfactory
and why wisdom is not a single thing but rather a shifting assembly of elements linked
by what I call integrative judgement, that is in turn guided by reflection on experience.
I suggest how institutions could be designed in ways that partly mimic the sometimes
competing and sometimes cooperating parts of the individual brain to come closer to
a capacity for wisdom.

I present wisdom as an inherently looped concept. I question the idea that wisdom is
an attribute of particular people or institutions, presenting it more in terms of
processes and actions. What is wise is what in the long run turns out to be wise. We
can only truly recognise wisdom in retrospect, or from a distance. Words alone cannot
be wise (and putting too much weight on the declarative, verbal side of wisdom opens

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up greater risks of hypocrisy and error, and greater risks of taking at face value the
traditional hierarchical associations of wisdom - age, status, gender etc).

But if wisdom is looped, as I suggest, this also means that it can be learned, whether
by individuals or organisations, through habits that partly mirror those of Bayesian
inference. Moreover it is possible to address head-on processes that run counter to
wisdom –algorithms that circulate lies, media dynamics that tend to amplify attention
to people with vivid but misleading ideas, or legal processes that fuel discord.

I also suggest that wisdom is to some extent collective – dependent on others and
their feedback – and that it is contextual; we can only judge it from a vantage point.
There is no such thing as universal wisdom and wisdom is unstable because the
environment that makes up its context is fluid, meaning that what is wise at one point
may not be at another point. Wisdom is also looped in another sense. To think wisely
we have to learn both to go out, and then to come back: to go out in the sense of
exploring other perspectives, ways of seeing and thinking; and to come back in the
sense of returning to an action or decision that will always be simpler than the
thoughts that guide it.

Drawing on this idea I show how it is possible to cultivate wisdom; to build it into
institutions and systems, usually through a division of labour; and how to embed it
into physical objects and into a further evolution of knowledge management and
search tools, as well as artificial intelligence. I also address how wisdom can be
cultivated in making sense of new fields of science and technology, bringing with them
uncertain risks and benefits.

By making the pursuit of wisdom more explicit with claims, predictions and formal
processes that allow for shared reflection and learning, along with a constant iteration
of questions and answers, I argue that we can improve the quality of thought not only
of individuals but also of organisations and whole systems. By removing some of the
mystique surrounding wisdom we can do more to promote it.

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None of this would matter if the world was replete with wisdom. But it’s not. Wisdom
is fragile, elusive and often undervalued. In a world where data and information have
become ever more ubiquitous and cheap, wisdom may have become even rarer.

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Contents

THE QUESTION ......................................................................................................................... 1

Background and main themes................................................................................................... 2
OLD IDEALS AND NEW AMBIGUITIES ......................................................................................... 7
I DEFINITIONS OF WISDOM – AND THEIR USES.............................................................................. 8
Wisdom as cleverness and knowledge: data/information/knowledge/wisdom ........................ 10
Ethics ................................................................................................................................. 12
Time and the long view ....................................................................................................... 12
Presence ............................................................................................................................ 13
Spiritual depth.................................................................................................................... 13
Ethos and self-knowledge ................................................................................................... 14
Performance....................................................................................................................... 14
PLURALITY AND OUTCOMES ................................................................................................... 15
IS WISDOM DEPTH?................................................................................................................ 16
INTEGRATIVE INTELLIGENCE, JUDGEMENT AND ARGUMENTS INSIDE OUR HEAD..................... 20
II DIAGNOSIS; DISSIPATED AND WASTED WISDOM ..................................................................... 25
WISE CULTURE AS DARK MATTER ........................................................................................ 27
III PROMOTING WISDOM ........................................................................................................... 28
LEARNING WISDOM ............................................................................................................... 29
COLLECTIVE WISDOM IN GROUPS ........................................................................................... 31
WISDOM EMBEDDED INTO INSTITUTIONS............................................................................... 34
WISDOM EMBEDDED INTO SYSTEMS, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY .......................................... 37
WISDOM EMBEDDED INTO AI, PLATFORMS AND SEARCH TOOLS ............................................. 39
WISDOM IN THINGS ............................................................................................................... 42
IV UNTYING THE LOOPS.............................................................................................................. 43
PARADOXES OF UNLEARNING ................................................................................................. 43
PARADOXES OF UNWISDOM .................................................................................................. 44
PARADOXES OF EMBODIMENT ............................................................................................... 44
PARADOXES OF ATTACHMENT AND PRESENCE........................................................................ 45
V POSSIBLE RESEARCH AGENDAS ............................................................................................... 47

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OLD IDEALS AND NEW AMBIGUITIES

For most of human history and prehistory wisdom came from experience. Elders were
valued for their accumulated knowledge and experience, revered and listened to when
they were no longer strong enough to help with the hunt, gathering fruits or growing
crops. Their knowledge helped the community when it was hit by shocks – a change
in the weather, disappearing food sources, internal conflicts or external threats.
Confucianism and other traditions later turned that perspective into a comprehensive
social and political philosophy, emphasising hierarchy, deference and respect for
experience as essential to the natural and social order.iv A vast ‘wisdom literature’ can
be found all over the world that aimed to pass on the insights of the elders, thinkers
and prophets.v

In more modern societies there has been much more ambivalence about wisdom and
disagreement about who has it, what it means or how it can be recognised.vi In fast-
changing environments old knowledge and past experience is as likely to be misleading
as illuminating – leaving the old as often scorned as respected, as happened in the
China of the cultural revolution or the US and Europe at a similar time.

In periods when values are changing rapidly what looks like wisdom to one person can
seem like inflexible orthodoxy or dogma to another. It can seem anti-ethical rather
than the essence of ethics. What, after all, is wisdom in relation to gay marriage,
driving a car or eating meat? Since the Romantics, too, the modern world has sought
to break from, or rupture, the accumulated wisdom of the present. The ideal of self-
transcendence implies that the richest and truest life is one in which we take big risks
and embark on great adventures that almost by definition are not wise or prudent.
And the beliefs of the past can easily come to seem very unwise. As Ralph Waldo
Emerson put it in one of the most influential ‘wisdom books’ of the 19 th century: ‘as
men’s prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect’.

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So the search for wisdom is not as easy as it may seem at first. It may not be enough
just to gather some grand elders and hope that they can offer insight into solving the
problems of the world.vii Yet wisdom clearly matters, and we can easily see its
absence, whether in leaders who are the epitome of folly; in institutions that make
grave errors; dominant systems that degrade wisdom; or in vastly expanded education
systems lacking space for wise reflection.

From the vantage point of the 21st century it’s also hard not to be struck by the lack of
progress in wisdom: thinkers from more than two millennia ago still appear wise in
their insights and still relevant today, while knowledge in every other field has
advanced dramatically.viii

I DEFINITIONS OF WISDOM – AND THEIR USES

What is wisdom? How should it be defined? Answering these questions isn’t helped
by the many variants of meaning across different contemporary and ancient
languages.ix Yet there is a burgeoning field of wisdom studiesx that has attempted to
make sense of the many meanings and uses of wisdom.xi Significant sums have been
spent by bodies like the Templeton Foundation trying to advance understanding,
usually producing lists and catalogues of what might be the elements of wisdom.xii

One recent literature survey on ‘commonly cited sub-components of wisdom’xiii, for

example, found that these included knowledge of life, pro-social values, self-
understanding, acknowledgement of uncertainty, emotional homeostasis, tolerance,
openness, spirituality, and sense of humour. There are widely used frameworks and
taxonomies, such as the Berlin Modelxiv, the three-dimensional wisdom scale, the
‘Balance Framework’ and others.

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Some of the
research has
attempted to be
inter-disciplinary. In
the academic
literature, however,
psychology has
dominated, usually
treating the
individual as the only relevant unit of analysisxv, and generating a small industry of
survey methods to try to measure wisdomxvi.

These approaches are mirrored in a very typical model of research which seeks out
obviously wise people (Jesus, the Buddha, Gandhi …) and tries to find common
patterns and attributes. So far this kind of work, though very readable, has been
criticised for extracting people from their contexts and collaborators, and for turning
out to have very little if any predictive power.

An alternative view emphasises the collective or shared aspect of wisdom. It argues

that humans appear much smarter than animals mainly because they can access so
much collective knowledge and experience – from language and maths to cars and
computers.xvii Alone, we are all pretty stupidxviii and, as I will show, wisdom is more
often collective in nature rather than solely individual, or at the very least derives from
how people interact with each other rather than just from introspection.

Meanwhile the very different traditions in theology or spiritual thinking, computing

and public administration, ‘cognitive informatics’ and neuroscience, share surprisingly
few concepts or frameworks.xix Although philosophy strictly means ‘love of wisdom’,
many contemporary philosophers are uncomfortable talking about it (the origins of
the word are mentioned at the beginning of undergraduate courses, but wisdom is

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usually never mentioned again). It’s seen as a throwback by the analytical traditions,
or as an illusion by many others.

Wisdom as cleverness and knowledge: data/information/knowledge/wisdom

However, researchers who have tried to investigate wisdom have found some
common patterns in the understanding of wisdom in very different cultures and
civilisations across the millennia.xx Wisdom tends to be associated with particular
behavioural traits: calm, detachment, avoidance of impulse and an ability to see
multiple perspectives. These are its generic foundations. xxi In many of the literatures
and widely used models a combination of elements are then identified.

One aspect of wisdom is a high

level of cleverness – or cognitive
complexity, the ability to handle
multi-faceted questions (some of
which is captured in frameworks
such as Michael Commons’
Model of Hierarchical
Complexity, MHC, shown on the
left).

A related dimension is depth of

knowledge – familiarity with
bodies of knowledge, codes, symbols and disciplines, and including tacit as well as
explicit knowledge. This knowledge is a combination of models (theories that state ‘if
this, then that…’) and factual knowledge. Ignorant wisdom is a contradiction in terms.
But wisdom also entails recognising what’s missing, the crucial data that may lend a
very different perspective. And it also involves knowing the limits of knowledge: that
we can never fully get inside an object, another person, an historical event, or the
meaning of a work of literature.xxii

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These two give us what has become a common approach to wisdom in much of
academia (other than psychology), summarised in the widely used DIKW framework.

In Scott Page’s work, for example,

the essence of wisdom is the ability
to apply multiple models to
understanding situations or
problems, and then to choose the
most appropriate models to guide
decision and action.xxiii

‘Wisdom requires many model

thinking … when taking actions, wise
people apply multiple models like a
doctor’s set of diagnostic
tests…[and] construct dialogue across models, exploring their overlaps and
differences’.xxiv

Some definitions stop there and see wisdom as a next step beyond data, information
and knowledge that asks questions of why as well as how and what, and that’s good
at knowing which knowledge to apply to a particular task or problem. This gives us a
framing for wisdom very similar to the ancient world. Aristotle distinguished episteme,
the logical thinking that applies rules, techne, the practical knowledge of things, and
phronesis which is practical wisdom (sitting alongside sophia, its more theoretical and
abstract counterpart), and suggested that each has its own logic of verification.

Episteme can be verified through logic or formal experiments. It only takes one
counter-example to disprove a rule or hypothesis. Techne is tested by practice: does
something work or not? Phronesis, on the other hand, is determined by context, and
can only be verified through applying it to choices and learning step by step whether
decisions really do turn out to be wise or not.

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This suggests that the most meaningful definitions of wisdom have to address not just
what modes of thought they use but also the link between these and the outcomes
they contribute to. There is an inescapable gap, and asymmetry, between the wise
thought and the wise, or unwise result, a gap everyone experiences in the planning of
their own lives as well as at larger scales. But we cannot avoid addressing wisdom
through both dimensions simultaneously – the thought and the result.

Three additional dimensions or loops

However, this framework is only a starting point. Although it’s undoubtedly a good
advance on unreflective faith in data, or knowledge within a single discipline, and
‘many model’ thinking is far preferable to fetishizing single models, if we look at how
wisdom has been understood in many contexts it soon becomes clear that these
frameworks are not complete. Most uses of the word and its equivalents in different
civilisations, also refer to several different and additional elements which include what
could be called a stance as well as the use of models:

Ethics – the most important is the ability to reason ethically and apply ethical
principles to new situations. Wisdom has to involve judgements about right and wrong
and it is hard to imagine any commentary on a situation, or any problem-solving that
could count as wise that hadn’t engaged with judgements of this kind, and that took
no stand on what counts as a good life. Some of these judgements are cognitive – and
are essentially about knowledge and reasoning. But, crucially, others are non-
cognitive, involving emotion, empathy, compassion and intuition, and the stance
taken with respect to the people or the situation. Ethics in other words involves both
justice and mercy, reason and feeling, detachment and commitment. Indeed, this is
one of the reasons why in many traditions it is thought that experience of suffering
and setbacks can enhance wisdom, transforming it from something that is only
cognitive.xxv

Time and the long view – another crucial element that links into the role of ethics, and
the looped nature of wisdom, is sensitivity to the long view. This is the ability to grasp

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the relationships of the present to both past and future, to see issues in their temporal
context, and to spot what future potential lies in present things, seeds, landscapes,
people and societies. This must always have been part of what associated wisdom
with the perspective of old age. But we can go further and suggest that wisdom has
to involve some sense of what today, and the dilemmas of the today, might look like
from the future (while recognising the unavoidable uncertainty about what that will
actually be), and some commitment to making that future better (again, a stance as
well as models).

Presence – finally in many, but not all, descriptions of wisdom we find a valuing of
engagement, the willingness of the wise man or woman to be within the problem and
not outside, and a commitment or even love that is very different from a cold,
detached intellect. This can coincide with an ability to see things with non-attachment.
But some aspect of wisdom involves a willingness to share ownership of a situation, to
have a stake, or to recognise how much we ourselves are part of the problems we
observe. In contrast, when we see bads and evils as ‘over there’ and fully outside us,
unwise actions often follow. I discuss later some of the complexities of this dimension,
and, in particular, the issues it raises for science.

It is hard to recognise anything as wisdom that doesn’t have at least these three
additional elements.xxvi

Spiritual depth
Most civilisations also respect spiritual depth as in some ways crucially connected to
wisdom. This is the ability to experience profound states and to make sense of them,
even though these cannot usually be distilled into models or heuristics, or easily
communicated. This is the wisdom that gets people closer to underlying and hidden
realities, that in many traditions sees the unity or wholeness behind the apparent
differentiation of the world and deeper truths that lie behind surface appearances.
The insights achieved are referred to by Plato as that which cannot be described and
as experiential, achieved through practice and contemplation rather than reading

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(which, of course, is why it is so difficult to write about sensibly).xxvii In some traditions

this requires detachment from the world (the Buddhist Dhammapada says that ‘wise
ones should leave the dark state of ordinary life… leaving all worldly pleasures behind
and calling nothing their own, wise ones should purge themselves of all the vices of
the mind’)xxviii.

Ethos and self-knowledge

Some definitions – including the ones from US psychology – add in other elements that
are better described as an ethos, attitude or mindset. In addition to the ones
mentioned earlier – calm, detachment, openness to other perspectives – reference is
often made to humility, curiosity, care, humour, acceptance of change, willingness to
listen - and even some physiological characteristics.xxix The wise are generally serious,
but also don’t take themselves too seriously. In Chinese traditions there is a
particularly strong association between wisdom and harmony, as well as self-
effacement.

In the Buddhist tradition the wise work on themselves: ‘irrigators guide the water,
fletchers straighten the arrows, wise people shape themselves’ and they also show
equanimity (‘wise people are not shaken by praise or blame’).xxx A common theme is
that the wise have high levels of self-knowledge and can use that self-knowledge to
offer insights to others grappling with their own selves (since we are all human beings),
even if they have little to say about other issues.

Performance
Finally, there is an interesting aspect of wisdom which is performative. We associate
wisdom with age; to be seen as wise in many cultures it’s best to keep the register of
the voice low; to speak slowly and calmly, without heightened emotion; to use
elliptical rather than direct language (and perhaps to grow a long grey beard). These
performative methods can easily persuade audiences that what is being said is wise.
But, as I discuss below, they may not be, or rather they may work better in prompting
wise reflection in the listener than being wise in themselves. xxxi

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PLURALITY AND OUTCOMES

So wisdom is not a single thing though it includes some convergent elements. These
different dimensions may not be very closely correlated with each other. Some people
are very adept in some dimensions but not in others. You can be very knowledgeable
but not so clever; ethically fluent but lacking in other ways of knowing. Wisdom is
most likely to be recognised where there is a combination of all of these five
(cleverness, knowledge, ethics, the long view, and presence) – but it should already be
apparent that few, if any, people can expect to combine all of these features across
many domains: from science to being a parent, politics to health.

This may explain why, although the many attempts at mapping and defining wisdom
have their place, they have turned out to have surprisingly little utility as guides, and
have had very little influence on how wisdom is organised in the real world, whether
in education or making complex decisions (perhaps, one aspect of wisdom is
understanding the limits of definitions and boundaries, taxonomies and frameworks,
and the virtue of seeing words more as language games)xxxii.

Moreover, research has struggled to confirm that some people are wise in any general
sense (as opposed to in specific circumstances).xxxiii Indeed, it’s much more plausible
to believe that some people are wise in some situations and at some times rather than
in all situations and at all times.xxxiv

This is why we should be sceptical of the traditional view of wisdom as the property of
a small and select group of people. Instead it’s more useful to think of wisdom as a
practical, learned knowledge, that is best understood as a loop: what we should
most respect as wisdom is what in retrospect contributes to the best outcomes for
the individual, the community or the ecosystem.

In other words, what counts as wisdom depends on whether its insights or advice turn
out to look wise and make sense as time passes. There is no wisdom in advance. It is
perfectly possible for advice to sound profound but turn out to be foolish. Indeed,
overly confident wisdom may not be wisdom at all.

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WISDOM AS HUMILITY

This takes us to a key feature of wisdom that should always encourage a degree of
scepticismxxxv. All knowledge of the future is, in reality, knowledge of the past. But
whereas for some kinds of knowledge we can predict with reasonable confidence, for
all serious kinds of wisdom this asymmetry between a knowable past and an
unknowable future, is stark.xxxvi So the wise man or woman is humble about what they
can know, a humility that may be helped by experiences of failure and pain.

As Hegel put it, ‘the owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk".
He was referring to the fact that we can only truly understand a historical moment or
system when it is already disappearing. But there is surely here a more general point
that wisdom, or true understanding, can only itself be judged late, after the facts.

Seen through this lens it’s also obvious that wisdom may not always be unambiguously
good. What is wise for one person may not be for another. While we might aspire to
a truly universal Kantian ethics, this is hard to square with how wisdom is thought
about in the real world.

A bigger field of vision is generally associated with wisdom. But it isn’t always better
than a smaller one, in the vein of Henry Sidgwick’s famous phrase about ethics as
‘taking the point of view of the universe’. Is it for example wise to privilege the cosmos
or Gaia over humanity? Is it wise to be deeply troubled about the implosion of a
distant galaxy? We live in constraints of place, time and the certainty of death.
Wisdom is woven into this reality and does not sit separate from it.

IS WISDOM DEPTH?
The approach I suggest here also calls into question some of the associations between
wisdom and depth. It’s often assumed that wisdom means depth, in at least three
different senses.

The first is depth of understanding. In making sense of a situation, wisdom involves

going beneath the surface, asking why, seeking the underlying causes not the

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superficial patterns. This may mean getting down to underlying issues of identity or
culture or historic resentments and fears that may be invisible to the protagonists
themselves. Indeed, we assume that for any situation the more it’s possible to uncover
deeper layers, the truer the understanding and therefore the greater prospects of
finding a genuine solution.

The second is the depth needed for imagination. This is the idea that the most
important and transformative new ideas come from deep within us, and require an
ability to still, quieten or ignore surface thoughts.

The third is depth of character, the idea that wisdom has to involve going deeper and
deeper into the self, into ever more self-knowledge and, through the self, into ever
more knowledge of the hidden truths of the universe (the infinite hidden within the
finite). Out of this come wise people who can then apply their wisdom to any number
of questions.

Experience and logic, however, challenge some of these associations between depth
and wisdom. What we find deep within may be our genetic make-up, the legacy we
have from millions of years of evolution as apes, which our civilisation has learned to
see as often the opposite of wise. In some fields deeper understanding may not
necessarily mean better understanding. Psychology is a good example. Over the
decades it has discovered many treatments that work. But most of these treat
symptoms rather than being based on a detailed understanding of causal mechanisms.
It would be preferable if there was some stronger theory to underpin a discipline that
has only ever replicated 1% of its trials. But the field gets by all the same, and many
of the deeper theories have proven less reliable than the superficial ones.

In our own daily lives, we are not too troubled by a parallel situation. We find a spouse
or partner or buy a house without much in the way of deep theory to guide us (and if
we do find a theory it’s as likely to mislead us as to help us). We probably use rough
and ready tools like pros/cons lists, or simple heuristics, but not much in the way of
deep thought.

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Does it matter? Probably not. Drugs like penicillin were discovered and manufactured
long before there was a detailed understanding of how they worked at a cellular
level. Again, it mattered more that they worked than that we knew how they worked.
In computing many theories have grown up to justify machine learning methods that
are satisfactory – sufficiently generalisable – but don’t attempt to construct
comprehensive causal models. Examples include Lesley Valiant’s ‘probably
approximately correct” algorithms which are adaptive mechanisms that try to do
better than the alternatives. In economics, many concur with Milton Friedman’s
advocacy for parsimonious but strongly predictive models in economics. The models
don’t need to be plausible as explanations as to why the economy works the way it
does, or deep in any recognisable sense, but can nevertheless be useful.

So depth may not always be wise. If we look at individuals there are also reasons to
doubt some aspects of depth, and, in particular, the implication that there is a generic
wisdom, a ‘w’ comparable to the ‘I’ of general intelligence. I have often seen very wise
people, with spiritual depth, who are quite ‘out of their depth’ in other fields when
asked to offer their insights. There are exceptions – but they have generally had a lot
of experience of the world (in the way that Popes, or the Dalai Lama, have spent much
time dealing with politics, finance, social conflicts, clashing egos and the like). And
they are wise enough to recognise the limits of their wisdom and are often unafraid to
say: ‘I don’t know’ (not least about topics like parenting of which they have no
experience).

Someone with deep spiritual wisdom may have little useful to say about dilemmas in
work, science or relationships for example. So wisdom may be better understood as
a shifting assembly of multiple parts that are combined for different tasks and
contexts.

Indeed, depth can be an illusory concept or metaphor. Clearly in some fields an

accumulation of experience or knowledge is vital, and the metaphor of depth
resonates well for spiritual experience, inner experience and insight. But the ability to

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display skilful wisdom may be better understood as reflecting agility in selecting,

combining and modifying relevant knowledge rather than depth as such.xxxvii

WISDOM AS DOUBT (INCLUDING DOUBT ABOUT WISDOM)

Such agility can be helped by asking questions, which oddly may become harder with
depth of knowledge (there is now plenty of evidence showing how experts are often
worse at making predictions than non-experts)xxxviii. Socrates believed that writing
would impede thought in part because it would privilege answers over the capacity to
question, and, through questions, get to the heart of issues.xxxix As we’ll see, in a world
where answers and facts are more ubiquitous, accessible and apparently cheap, the
capacity to ask questions, again and again, and from different angles becomes more
important than ever. So another aspect of wisdom is the ability to question facts and
interpretations as well as one’s own mental habits, in a spirit of doubt.

Four centuries ago Francis Bacon wrote of the need to fight the ‘idols of the mind’,
which included the tribe, the marketplace and the theatre, each of which distorted our
vision. He encouraged people to try to see things as they really are. Recent
psychological literature has emphasised not only how strongly we resist clear
observation and thought (for example, because of confirmation bias), but also why our
social nature may explain why we have evolved in this way.xl Many other traditions
make a similar case, such as Theravada Buddhism with its emphasis on ‘satipatthana’,
bare awareness and mindfulness, a skill cultivated through meditation that helps us to
see things, including our own thoughts and emotions, with clarity and detachment.

So it’s healthy to doubt not only facts and claims but also thoughts and judgements.
But doubt is a tool, not a resting place, a means for getting closer to truths which then
has to be suspended as we have to act in the real world, always with less information
than we need. If we never escape from the doubt (which is a common affliction of
thoughtful people) we risk being becalmed in inaction. But without an ability to take
detours through questioning and doubt, it’s hard to reach a wise conclusion.

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INTEGRATIVE INTELLIGENCE, JUDGEMENT AND ARGUMENTS INSIDE OUR HEAD

The next critical question to ask is: how can the many incommensurable and disparate
elements of wisdom be combined or integrated? How does anyone decide which ones
to prioritise or attend to, and then what to do? We complicate to understand but
simplify to act: but how?

The first part of the answer is that we organise arguments inside our head, the more
vigorous the better. The many frameworks and models we have for thinking about a
question have to be pitted against each other to discover which one is most relevant
and most coherent. This kind of shuffling between different modes of thought is easier
in conditions of calm: exterior silence allows for internal cacophony and argument.
Out of this competition of frames, models and ideas emerge patterns or winners,
helped by our stances, our relationship to the people or issue at stake.xli

Then we have to integrate and simplify – seeking what Oliver Wendell Holmes called
the ‘simplicity on the other side of complexity’.xlii This ability to integrate is clearly key
to complex thought. It also has its place in imagination which John Dewey described
as “a way of seeing and feeling things as they compose an integral whole. It is the large
and generous blending of interests at the point where the mind comes in contact with
the world.” xliii It involves both valuation – how we decide what matters, and which
kinds of knowledge or heuristic to apply to which situation – and then melding
different kinds of knowledge into a judgement or decision. And it always involves
choosing to ignore and disregard as well as taking into account, because the
information and knowledge potentially relevant to a situation is infinite (as William
James put it, wisdom is learning what to overlook).

There exists no meta-theory to guide these decisions; no super knowledge that sits on
top of every other kind of knowledge. At a certain point, after much rational analysis,
many people rely on feel or intuition to guide their decisions (or gut). Even ethics has
to be guided by what we learn from knowledge, and part of ethical fluency is knowing
just how far to push an ethical line of reasoning. If we picture in our minds a control

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room that rationally synthesises multiple elements we’re almost certainly being
misled. There is no commander. Instead, judgement and wisdom emerge from the
competition and collaboration of multiple parts of the brain.

Such judgements about what to value and attend to, and how to integrate diverse
sources into a single conclusion, can only be made on the basis of experience: like any
skill this requires repetition and then feedback as to what ways of thinking and what
resulting actions lead to outcomes that are in some way desirable.

Reinforcement learning provides one neuroscientific approach to this (with the

rewards in terms of food, sex, recognition, status or dopamine), mirroring machine
learning in computers. In these cases, the ‘reward’ is simple. In the case of more
sophisticated intelligence the rewards are likely to be complex and multiple, much
slower, and much less obvious since are likely to be many more factors involved.

But at a minimum it must be through experience that anyone learns which kinds of
wisdom have proven useful, impressive, or insightful and which ones have not. And
this learning must be multi-contextual rather than universal, arising from observing
multiple different contexts of thought and action which give a wider menu of insights,
but not ones that are universally applicable.

With no experience it is impossible to be wise (except about internal experience); and

with only a limited experience it is hard. However, people differ greatly in how much
information or experience they need in order to learn, generalise and extend. One
aspect of wisdom may be the ability to leverage the smallest experience for the
greatest insight – something seen in the best novelists and playwrights, doctors and
leaders of all kinds, as well as in philosophers. Their combination of critical thinking
and selection – the ability to see what is significant or useful in a mass of information
- is very different from the accumulation of knowledge or experience (and there is a
parallel major theme in artificial intelligence research and neuromorphic computing
which is seeking out much more frugal alternatives to the voracious hunger for data
of machine learning).

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Again, however, this capacity will be improved through experience, which gives people
more confidence to generalise, and to decide what is the right action or the
appropriate knowledge to draw from, fitted to the context, and through discussion
with others.

In other words, integrative wisdom and intelligence are grown through loops of
thought involving arguments within our heads, and integrative judgements, which
are then improved through reflection on what actually happens, the feedback we
get from the world.

These loops parallel the Bayesian inference that underpins much artificial intelligence
and data science: first you decide on a ‘prior’ or estimated fact, along with an
estimated probability; then you observe the true facts; then you adjust your model,
and your probabilities, accordingly.

However, there is one important problem with these feedback loops. For the
individual offering wise opinions or advice the key feedback is likely to be social and
immediate: in other words, do they receive feedback from their audience that their
views appear to be wise (which is in turn more likely if they take advantage of cultural
associations of wisdom with age, speaking style, opacity)? This may correlate only
loosely with a more objective assessment of whether their advice turns out in reality
to be wise. This again, is why any culture needs to sustain a critical, reflective view of
wisdom and to encourage continuous learning rather than the performance of
wisdom.

This more reflecting kind of thinking can be encouraged in groups - through sharing
predictions, estimates of probability and reflections on confidence levels – and then
reflection on what actually transpires. Indeed socialising thought in this way is often
essential because reflection of this kind is hard work. We would generally rather stick
with our assumptions or jump to conclusions; but peer pressure can help us to learn
better habits.xliv

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Collective intelligence assemblies

Moreover, some of the experience that’s relevant to integrative judgement can be

collective – shared in a community of practice, or partly codified in the accumulated
wisdom of an institution or profession, like medical doctors or soldiers. It is hard for
this wisdom to be captured in a formal way – since the range of possible situations is
usually far too big to make this feasible (which is also partly why the big investment in
AI expert systems in the 1980s and 1990s proved so disappointing). But it can be
supported by processes (some of which I discuss later on) which orchestrate collective
wisdom, usually in small groups reflecting together on experience, sometimes aided
by data and computation.

It can also be helped by what I call ‘intelligence assemblies’ that bring together
multiple elements – observations, analyses, memory, creativity and judgement – to
enable institutions or whole systems to be wise, and including both human and
machine intelligence (I set out why this is the case in much more detail in my book Big
Mind).

This diagram attempts to summarise these points, situating wisdom within a world
that generates tasks, situations and problems; sees wisdom as a constellation of
capabilities; with experience guiding us as to which are most appropriate for which
task, feeding into integrative judgement, which feeds into actions and then an
outcome in the world:

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A crucial implication of this analysis is that wisdom can be learned – albeit slowly – in
relation to different domains, and that it is best learned, just as many other skills are
learned, through practice and reflection, and, in particular, through consciously
mobilising arguments between different models, frameworks and theories, and then
through conscious reflection on past integrative judgements and how well, or badly,
they have fared.xlv

Indeed, if there is one main conclusion in this paper it is that we need more situations
and moments when people are able to reflect on past judgement; to compare what
they expected to happen with what actually happened; and in the light of that to adjust
their beliefs. These moments generally need to be consciously organised; to be safe
spaces where honesty is possible; and to involve others (it’s very hard to do this alone).
They can be helped by data, evaluations and audits; and by formal rules that require
errors to be acknowledged and interpreted (as in aerospace). But they depend just as
much on a healthily supportive culture which doesn’t rush too fast to blame.

There are a few partial examples of how this is done well – in medicine (when doctors
together reflect on patterns, surprises and new knowledge, or ‘Schwartz Rounds’ in

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hospitals where staff share evidence and experience of patient care); in teaching (such
as study circles) or the military (lessons learned exercises). It can happen a lot in
coaching.

But these moments are relatively rare. Many roles and institutions that are meant to
be wise – from judges to parliaments to boards – literally never have these moments
of shared conscious learning reflecting on the loops that connect thought, action and
results.

II DIAGNOSIS; DISSIPATED AND WASTED WISDOM

Why should we worry about wisdom? The simple answer is that we should worry if
wisdom is threatened, ignored or undervalued. There are some healthy signs of
higher levels of overall wisdom: better education, availability of knowledge, more
tolerance, awareness of issues such as ecology or mental health, less violence and so
on.

But the recent explosion of data and information may have diminished rather than
amplified wisdom (to use the classic hierarchy). Too much information can amplify
noise rather than useful signals. The very cheapness of data, and the very accessibility
of information through search engines may make it harder rather than easier to be
wise. Anyone – like me – who spends a lot of time around the artificial intelligence
world cannot help be struck by how little attention is paid to wisdom in the senses
described here.

There are some obvious reasons – like social media algorithms that circulate lies or
media dynamics that tend to amplify attention to people with vivid but misleading
ideas. There are also subtler reasons. The apparent certainty of data squeezes out
the kind of looped processes that are necessary for wisdom; the loss of perception of
timescales that social media seem to encourage leaves people in an eternal present
without the sense of past and future that’s so essential to wisdom; and feedback can
be over-rapid, again squeezing out reflection. Meanwhile, modern computing has

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encouraged overconfidence in non-contextual solutions, reducing attention to context

of people, place and time; and many of the most powerful shapers of the digital world
have been monocultures, again lacking the kind of vigorous internal arguments and
diversity so essential to wise actions.

We also see far too many leaders who appear lacking in any of the descriptions
suggested above (as feedback loops of media, social media and public enthusiasm
reward performance rather than effective action). We see a world failing to face up
to the multiple ecological challenges it faces – where awareness on its own is not
enough. We worry that the ways in which children are educated or brought up may
do too little to cultivate wisdom.

We also often see dangerous clashes between experts and the public. The latter
disregard the insights of science. But the former often display a lack of wisdom,
including insufficient attention to issues of ethics, or to context. The US NIAID Director
Anthony Fauci recently said ‘science is truth’ – an understandable reaction against
widespread lies and conspiracy theories. But it would be wiser to say that science is a
search for truth, and is never the whole truth.

In short, we have reasons for concern about:

• People – that our societies fail to cultivate wise people; that they are good at
cultivating cleverness but that this is often too narrow and linear; that key
influential groups – computer scientists to experts and entrepreneurs – lack an
ethical sense or broader perspectives.
• Institutions – that institutions which should be guardians of wisdom may have
lost their moral compass. Religious institutions; universities; and professions
may be too fixated on the short-term, or on their narrow interests.
• Systems – that our dominant systems – media, markets, politics – may be
designed in ways that squeeze out wisdom.
• Language – that we have lost ways to talk about wisdom which as a result is
pushed to the margins, to the culture of novels and poetry rather than playing

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a central role in public life (when did you last hear a mainstream media
discussion of the wisdom, or lack of it, of an important political or business
leader?).
• Technologies – that our dominant ones, and particularly social media, feed
addictive and compulsive behaviours that are the very opposite of wisdom,
serving as agents of distraction, disappointment and anger rather than insight.

We may also worry but many of our dominant ways of thinking are focused too far
downstream and therefore miss out the crucial insights of wisdom, so:

• economics takes preferences as given, and lacks theories of preference

formation, or an ability to see the connections between the economy and
the health of ecosystems or mental health
• political science too emphasises democracy as decision-making machineries
rather than addressing where values or preferences come from and how
they might be better shaped
• computer science and data science have almost nothing to say about how
the hierarchy works downwards, eg wisdom influencing data.

WISE CULTURE AS DARK MATTER

The subtler concern is that we may be corroding the very capacities that help our
societies function. What really makes societies tick is not just the surface facts of GDP,
institutions or law, though these are important. Instead a subtler mix of norms,
dispositions and cultures in their wider sense, helps people and places make sense of
their world and how to solve their problems. These can be thought of as an equivalent
to dark matter in physics. We see them through their effects on other things rather
than directly.

This dark matter is the everyday presence of the attributes listed above – cleverness,
knowledge, ethics and compassion, the long-view, presence and so on. It is this kind
of everyday wisdom that stops conflicts from escalating; dampens hysteria; doubts

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and challenges false claims; gives others the benefit of the doubt. And it can be
widespread or scarce.

It is perhaps not so far from the idea of ‘Bildung’xlvi, the self-cultivation of character,
that is credited with giving some nations their success and is also cultivated in the
everyday practice of the great religions at their best, though it has fewer obvious
homes in modern secular societies. Where there is widespread wisdom, and many
people with wise capacities, the effect is to calm and balance. There are more people
around to contain impulsive, angry, hateful behaviour, as well as envy or greed. There
are more people skilled in the kind of conflict resolution that leads to ‘integrative
harmony’ both externally and internally.xlvii As a result, unnecessary harm and
suffering are reduced.

III PROMOTING WISDOM

If we wanted to spread and promote wisdom what might we do? The traditional
spiritual view (and the implication of much wisdom research) emphasises the
individual as the primary unit of influence. The implication is that if we could only
cultivate wisdom in people, perhaps just a small cadre with specialised insight, this
might somehow permeate or catalyse the rest of the community.

Clearly the presence of wise people does have an effect. But, of course, if they are
sequestered in monasteries their influence will be limited at best. And a consistent
lesson of social psychology – the Fundamental Attribution Error – suggests that we
tend to over-estimate dispositional as opposed to situational influences on behaviour.

The Confucian and other traditions have also focused on individuals, though primarily
leaders: if only we could cultivate wise and ethical leaders then their virtue would
permeate the rest of society. Clearly, again, we should want wise leaders. But we also
know that the Confucian perspective is at best a partial truth. History has shown
repeatedly that people’s behaviours are greatly shaped by circumstance and

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environment as much as by character, and many leaders who began wise became ever
more corrupt the longer they stayed in power.

So we should instead look more broadly at how to promote wisdom on a wide enough
scale that it influences the grain of everyday life, including individuals and leaders but
also looking at wisdom’s many sources and potentially reinforcing elements, some
provided by schools, or universities; others by media that provide a running
commentary on public and private life; others still by law that is meant to embed not
only justice but a deeper wisdom to apply justice to complex cases.

In this section I sketch out a more detailed programme for wisdom and show how we
might understand it more as an emergent property of complex systems.

LEARNING WISDOM
No-one is born wise. It is acquired and learned through a combination of experience
and reflection.

The family is obviously one source where children observe how parents and older
siblings grapple with difficult challenges. Self-knowledge can be encouraged from an
early age, helped by mindfulness and meditation, if they are cultivated as everyday
habits, and exercised regularly like a muscle.xlviii These help children to contain drives
to anger, envy or settling scores. Parents and siblings can teach children to see from
another’s point of view (extending what psychologists call the ‘theory of mind’), asking
of any situation: ‘how does this look to others involved’ as well as ‘what would be the
right thing to do here?’?

The school can be another source, especially if it goes beyond the transmission of
knowledge and disciplines and encourages multiple perspectives and integrative
thinking. Ever since Friedrich Schiller’s ‘Letters of Aesthetic Education’, one
justification for immersing young people in literature and art is that, by seeing inside
others, or even inside other things, a deeper understanding is achieved. A similar

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effect is promised by travelling and being immersed in other cultures so that our own
can be seen in a clearer light.

Aristotle argued that the practical wisdom of phronesis can only be learned through
observation – watching people who have it - and practice in one’s own life. The
combination of doing things and critically reflecting on them can then help a child to
understand how the particular hints at the universal. However, schools are generally
not set up to teach this. Learning in schools tends to prioritise knowledge acquisition;
it’s generally individual rather than encouraging peer feedback; and it’s generally
detached from practice.

But as information and knowledge become ever easier to access school’s role in
promoting critical thinking of all kinds, including wisdom, arguably becomes more
important. So alongside acquisition of disciplinary knowledge it becomes important
for children to learn the habits of thoughtful reflection on their actions and
consequences, and of how to choose the right combination of ways of thinking for
different tasks.

A well-established route towards cultivating wisdom in all of the senses described

above is learning fluency with a very wide variety of types of questions which require
the use of multiple frames or models, and then seeing their connections. For example:
there are questions of the physical world around us: why is a tree the way it is and
how does it grow? What are sand, a mountain range, coral or storms the way they
are? Then there are questions of abstraction or concept: what is sacred? What are
metaphor, homonymy, probability, dimensions? Questions of dynamics are
particularly useful: why do fires spread, grass grow, civil wars start and stop? How are
we different from, or the same as, a chimpanzee, a fish, a bird? Why do we find some
things ugly or disgusting? There are questions of the social world: what is a
constitution, a firm, a profession, a craft? There are questions in personal
relationships: what are the dynamics of romantic love and long-lasting relationships?
Should a child ever admonish a parent? And of course, there are questions that are

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inherently hard to answer, or at least where it’s hard to explain the answers, since they
depend on experience. These questions are found at the limits of explanation and
translation, in sports, music and especially in the spiritual.

Why mention all of these? Partly because they remind us that much of education and
upbringing should be not so much about the sharing of answers (the accumulation of
knowledge in the framework above) but rather about taking children through the right
questions in order to gain perspectives and cultivate integrative judgement.

With a grounding in good questions, and familiarity with finding answers that require
multi-dimensional thinking, it then becomes easier to reflect: why did this project
succeed or fail? Why were my expectations about this political situation right or
wrong? How did I misjudge this friendship or relationship?

Ancient Greece had the idea of ‘paideia’, the rearing and education of the ideal
member of the polis or state, and presumably we would want them to be rich in both
sophia and phronesis, since a society with a higher proportion of people with personal
attributes of wisdom - more of the cleverness, knowledge, ethics, long-view and
presence described above would be a happier one. Their aggregate decisions would
presumably be wiser than otherwise – and they would be less vulnerable to deception,
manipulation and lies, which perhaps become even more of a threat in societies
overwhelmed with the sheer quantity of information.

COLLECTIVE WISDOM IN GROUPS

If these are some of the ways that individual wisdom could be enhanced (and
sometimes challenged), what of the group? We rely heavily on certain kinds of group
to be wise: committees, boards, Supreme Courts, Parliaments. Various handbooks
over the years tried to establish ground rules for how meetings should be run – like
Robert’s Rules of Order in the 1870s or Walter Citrine’s ABC of chairmanship in the
1930s – mainly designed to reconcile giving everyone a chance to speak with the need
to reach conclusions.

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Much more complex processes can be found in the newer institutions like the IPCC
that attempt to consolidate global wisdom on patterns such as climate change or the
IPBES doing the same for biodiversity. It matters greatly whether the methods they
use for holding meetings, reaching consensus and making decisions really are likely to
amplify and not diminish wisdom.

There is strong evidence on how some kinds of groups achieve higher levels of
intelligence than individuals. This was the theme of James Surowiecki’s famous book
‘The Wisdom of Crowds’ which mainly looked at how groups acquire knowledge,
answer questions, or achieve group coordination and cooperation. It is also covered in
Jon Elster and Helene Landemore’s collection on ‘Collective Wisdom’. Most of this
literature is more about collective problem-solving than wisdom in the ways it is
usually understood, but it is still useful and more recent mathematical and
experimental evidence has tried to deepen its insights.

There are some clear conclusions from this work, such as that the average prediction
of a crowd is superior to the prediction of the average member and indeed superior
to all but a handful of individuals. Researchxlix has also explored what kinds of groups
show signs of wisdom in the sense of superior problem solving, pointing to the
importance of combining diversity, sophistication and integration. Diversity, in the
sense of negatively correlated predictions, produces better outcomes. In other words,
the diversity has to be relevant – generating different viewpoints. Sophistication
means that there needs to be some deep knowledge in the group, though without
diversity this leads to errors. Integration means, as above, abilities to make sense of
which model or knowledge to use for what task, but there is also interesting evidence
that adding an element of randomness into group interactions improves their
performancel. All of these matter much more than the number of the crowd.

There is also quite a lot of knowledge and experience with the detailed design of
meeting structures to promote wisdom (which I cover in the chapter on meetings in
my book Big Mind), including how to tap into the insights of introverts, the use of

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multiple formal roles to guide the meeting, multiple media and the use of stages (for
example to separate diagnosis from prescription). One example is structuring
meetings on complex, multi-dimensional issues using the fable of the blind men and
the elephant as a prompt.li

Some of these methods deliberately encourage argument: ‘he that wrestles with us
strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper’ as Edmund
Burke put it.lii Certainly argument and challenge generate better information and
insight, though they are not useful for the later stage of integration and decision.
Other methods aim to create a sense of collective efficacy: the field of ‘collaborative
positive psychology’, for example, shows how negative emotions such as sadness,
guilt, shame, anger and anxiety can be a catalyst for critical systems thinking and
collective responses to shared problems.liii

Mobilising group intelligence has become a major new area of activity –

crowdsourcing ideas in business, or for agencies like NASA; crowd design and
democratic decision making, for example in Taiwan; crowd observation and
engagement in citizen science. All of these are grappling with how the insights of a
large group can lead to wiser decisions. An interesting example from fiction was the
Black Mirror episode in which an individual and an online crowd advise someone on a
date, giving them a larger menu of options and a much bigger pool of experience to
draw on.

However, what’s surprising is how few of the methods that evidence suggests are most
effective are used in the meetings that we most rely on to be wise, including around
topics such as science advice or the generation of global consensus on complex
challenges.

Many of the methods that would help them are easy to use. Looking to the future
they may also be helped by technologies. There is interesting experiment underway
around how technologies can help groups to think better, and in effect to be wiser.
AI-powered coaches can track how people are acting and give them prompts as to how

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to work better as a team; they can allow each member of the group to see how others
are thinking and deciding, speeding up coordination; chatbots can help groups share
skills and expertise that are relevant to decision making. Many of these aim to counter
the everyday human dynamics that often work against group wisdom (such as the
well-evidenced finding that people often don’t share the most relevant information in
group contexts).

WISDOM EMBEDDED INTO INSTITUTIONS

To help a society made up of more wise people, and wiser meetings, we would also
want institutions to be wiser too.

Specialists in wisdom

Most societies have some more specialised institutions designed to be wise or wiser.
These are often less powerful or rich than others but have the privilege of being partly
protected from the everyday pressures of markets, votes or media so that they can
take the long view. They sit alongside the core decision making places mentioned in
the earlier section – such as parliaments, supreme courts or business boards. These
more specialist organisations include the foundation and the trust; the research
institute and the religious institution; and the core bodies of the key professions. All
are meant to be guardians of wisdom and to influence more mainstream institutions.
Their role is to be influencers on other more powerful institutions, and they are
expected to reason ethically, to understand multiple perspectives and to take a long
view more than mainstream institutions.

Mainstream institutions

For the more mainstream institutions, wisdom depends on both internal and external
factors. Internal ones include the conscious cultivation of cleverness, knowledge,
ethics, compassion, the long-view and presence (and sometimes, perhaps, spiritual
depth); support for leaders to enable reflection; formal orchestration of moments of
learning – as described earlier – when decision-makers regularly reflect on data, their

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past judgements, their expectations of what would happen, the facts as to what
actually happened, and therefore how they need to adjust their methods for
understanding. Coaches; mentors; reverse mentors; 360 degree feedback – all bring
insights to the surface that are likely otherwise to be invisible. These all help to
reinforce cultures which encourage peripheral vision, that can draw on a wide
collective input of information, insights, ideas, and that ensure that cognition is
distributed, open and shared (a contrary view is visible in countries like Iran where the
Supreme Ayatollah, and the Guardian Council he appoints, are there to offer wisdom
in relation to the actions of government; or in countries like Thailand where a monarch
plays a similar role).

Similarly wiser institutions avoid the risk of being trapped in simplistic metrics or
targets, but can keep more than one goal in mind at once (so that, for example, even
if profit is the primary goal, they also attend to the sources of long-term profit, such
as research, human capital, reputation and relationships).

External influences

These internal capabilities are then also influenced by external institutions that either
provide useful feedback or distorting feedback. Free and critical media committed to
truth can make all institutions behave better, while media committed to sensation or
ideology can have the opposite effect. Institutions of inspection, oversight and audit,
can reduce the space for careless, reckless or unethical behaviour (again, dependent
in turn, on the ethos of their professions). By contrast, opposite pressures come from
powerful forces of organised crime, corruption or disinformation in the surrounding
environment.

So institutional wisdom is best understood in terms of the combination of ethos,

leaders, and the internal organisation of intelligence, alongside a wider division of
labour that generates wisdom as an emergent property of their interaction. To
summarise these include:

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• Audit, oversight, inspection – to constrain abuse and assert deeper values of

integrity
• Transparency and accountability – literally the likelihood of being called to
account for your actions
• Evidence and experiment – to discover the new in objective terms, and then
share these findings
• Visible ethical reasoning – eg on technologies – always with explicit reasoning
and challenge
• Rights – for example for whistle-blowers, or rights of voice for those who are to
be affected by decisions
• Governance structures that formally empower a wider community of
stakeholders to act as guardians of values (eg the role of members in charity
law, supervisory boards in business)

Indeed, an interesting common pattern for wise complex problem solving is the
combination of at least three different elements which complement each other:

• Inputs of analysis, science and modelling that aim at achieving a widely shared
diagnosis (and can draw on many of the factors listed above)
• Intermediary roles to distil this into a prescription and recommendations for
action (for example by an appointed review, commission or a formal adviser),
necessarily simplifying the many complex perspectives of the earlier stage
• Decision-making by a politician or other

Finally, and crucially, those responsible for the integrative judgements and decisions
need to be held to account over both short and longer timescales, asked to explain
why they drew on some models, knowledges or heuristics and not others. This forms
part of both the individual and collective learning process.

The next diagram summarises some of these points – the attributes of the wise
institution mirror those of wisdom in general but with an added institutional division
of labour:
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They can all be summarised as the abilities of institutions to look and think broadly;
and to have multiple channels of feedback which then feed into decisions and actions
(in short, the breadth and richness of their loops).

WISDOM EMBEDDED INTO SYSTEMS, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Looking further out this analysis suggests that it is also meaningful to talk of wisdom
at the level of a whole system. A wise system is one with a similar mix of features,
including cleverness, knowledge, ethics, time horizons, multiple perspectives including
empathy, and processes of looped reflection that feed back into its designs and
decisions.

As a thought experiment we could apply this framework to imagining an energy or

transport system that was wise. It would be able to access and deploy multiple kinds
of knowledge (from engineering challenges of supply to market dynamics, to
psychology, useage patterns, consumer needs and potential alternatives). It would

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be able to think in multiple dimensions. It would be competent in ethical reasoning –

so able to cope with the ethical dimension of its impacts on poverty, climate change
or geopolitics. It would be able to situate itself in a temporal context – perhaps
understanding how it might need to evolve to sharply cut carbon emissions or change
behaviours.

Some systems do have reasonably good capabilities of this kind – distributed within
major companies, campaigning groups, regulators, and also shared across the system.
Others have only a limited capacity for cognition and can only think in one or two
dimensions. Some methods such as Health Collaboratives, systems dynamics
simulations and big scenario exercises are attempts to help large numbers of people
within a system to take part in feedback processes of this kind, enhancing the system’s
capacity to be wise.

Some of the newer global institutions are live experiments in how to organise wisdom,
particularly in relation to fields that involve scientific knowledge from many
disciplines.

The IUCN brings together nation states, NGOs, science and business to make sense of
conservation and advocate for new conventions, but has no formal power. The IPCC
– founded over 30 years ago – draws on vast inputs of data, sophisticated models and
scientific argument to synthesise a shared global understanding of climate change.
Since 2014 it has also recognised the need to include ‘indigenous, local, and traditional
knowledge systems and practices, including indigenous peoples’ holistic view of
community and environment’, and its processes include argument, review, evaluation
and reflection – all aspects of wisdom.

The IPBES - the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and

Ecosystem Services – set up in 2012 is another fascinating test case for the
organisation of global wisdom. Set up under the auspices of the UN it exists to provide
assessments on the current state and future of biodiversity and ecosystems, policy
support to help conservation and restoration, while also building capacity &

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knowledge and communicating its messages. The work focuses on topics like
pollination, land degradation or how to value nature, drawing on a lot of voluntary
input from scientists as well as indigenous knowledge, and has arguably gone further
than the IPCC in trying to be truly transdisciplinary and to cover multiple kinds of
knowledge. But like the IPCC its main job is analysis – rather than organising the kind
of loops of learning that I’ve described in this paper.

These arguably achieve the combination of diversity, sophistication and integration

described in the section above on collective wisdom in groups. Alongside many other
new global tools – such as the Global Flood Awareness System – they involve
continuous looped learning as predictions are compared with outcomes, and the use
of multiple models.

But they remain detached from the roles of decision and action, involving politicians,
officials and businesses. They tend to use very traditional meeting methods that don’t
make the most of collective intelligence. They have no links into the kinds of formal
reflection and learning process described earlier, and thus no ways to tap into practical
learning on the ground.

And although they play some role in shaping public understanding, this is relatively
limited too. Hopefully, their future equivalents may widen out these loops a step
further.

WISDOM EMBEDDED INTO AI, PLATFORMS AND SEARCH TOOLS

Much has been written about the tension between artificial intelligence and wisdom.
AI tends to be smart at particular types of task, including spotting patterns in large
data sets but is generally very poor and unhelpful for the kind of integrative thinking
and wide peripheral vision described in this paper.

There have been many attempts to create alternatives to the logic models that
computing has followed ever since Alan Turing, including Japan’s attempts at creating

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‘wisdom computing’, summarised in this diagram from Kazuo Iwano, of the Center for
Research and Development Strategy in the Japan Science and Technology Agency:

So far, however, although these are opening up interesting dialogues on how to create
ecosystems combining machines and people, they are some way short of delivering
useable results.

As I showed in my book Big Mind, AI can be used to systematise judgements of all

kinds. It can help with labelling, selecting and sorting huge quantities of information
and it can help to guide and challenge human judgement (for example on a clinical
diagnosis). Conversely, it’s often useful to mobilise human judgement to oversee and
challenge AI recommendations (as for example in Facebook’s army of people who
scrutinise content to block hate speech). The rapidly advancing research on how best
to combine artificial intelligence and collective intelligenceliv is promising, for example
showing how AI can feed back to a group in real time the shifting patterns of opinion

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in order to facilitate consensus. As such it looks likely to open up better insights into
wisdom than the mainstream of AI researchlv in which this has been a blindspot.

This work can also draw on interesting mathematical approaches such as ‘distributed
Thompson sampling’, which is designed to choose from actions with unknown results
in ways that combine exploitation and exploration, and can be adapted to combine
sampling of views from a group.lvi

I’ve also been fascinated for decades by the problems of knowledge management in
organisations. How do they know what they know? Despite decades of investment
and experiment none of the systems used in business or government work very well.
There are often strong disincentives to sharing knowledge, and it’s always a challenge
to get people to tag knowledge in coherent ways. Moreover, what is usually needed
is a combination of explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge (which means finding the
person who had worked on a similar problem in the past).lvii

There are many ways these could be improved, but one that is relevant to the
discussion here is to reconfigure internal knowledge management platforms, and
search engines of all kinds, to combine questions and answers. Google and other tools
are designed to locate popular, and linked, answers to any question. But often this
gets people quickly to the wrong answer; or to an answer that only works in particular
contexts. The model of information retrieval often works counter to the aim of
wisdom.

There has been much discussion in the past on adding in truth dimensions to search
(so that when you search for something on Google you get to be told how reliable or
verifiable the information is, not just how many links it has).lviii

A different way of organising knowledge is always to combine the answer with a

suggestion, steer or question. For example: the search engine or knowledge repository
can respond to a search by saying: this idea or example may be the answer to your
question, but if you haven’t already mastered x,y and z you risk misunderstanding it.

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Or: this may be the answer but before implementing it ask yourself the following vital
questions, which will help you know if it really solves your problem and really is
appropriate to your context.

These combinations of answers and questions can then be curated through a mix of AI
and human input – experimenting with different types of search and then refining the
answers that come back, rather than relying only on a single dimension of ranking. In
other words, alongside offering answers to the ‘frequently asked questions’ there is a
need for ‘frequently needed questions’ too.

WISDOM IN THINGS
So wisdom could be embedded in how search engines or knowledge management
systems are organised – and the means for doing so would be to embed repeated
loops. Wisdom can also be embedded into things. More recent understandings of
thought of all kinds now emphasise that it happens in networks that include non-
human objectslix. These help with observation, interpretation, decision, and they
include a vast range of things, from road markings to measuring tools, computers to
animals.

Much of the history of design has been focused on automating functions in order to
free up brainpower for other things. So our utility systems operate invisibly; we rely
on food systems to deliver us food that is safe to eat. Energy systems automatically
adjust power sources, flows and loads, with ever less human intervention.
Minimisation of friction is the usual goal.

I’ve already suggested how the system as a whole might be wiser, so that the
automated optimisation of energy flows was matched with conscious reflections on
the other dimensions of the systems design and behaviour that aren’t yet automated,
such as its effects on economic location or the ecology.

But another approach would deliberately encourage things that promote wisdom. A
well-designed car might help a driver to drive more wisely by stopping foolish actions

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that might directly lead to a crash but also by giving feedback to promote better habits.
Food systems are increasingly educational as well as functional – with information on
contents and calories. Home energy systems can now be designed in ways that
educate the consumer to better understand how much energy their appliances use
and how they might reduce useage and bills. We could imagine a school of engineering
and design that more deliberately addressed the capabilities of its users.

This also takes us to the broader issue of mind-enhancing environments. The trend for
a century or more has been to make urban environments frictionless. But a recent
counter trend has tried to slow things down; to create pedestrianised areas; to make
children’s play areas slightly less safe, to help them learn about risk. Going further we
could imagine environments that prompt wisdom, not just by providing quiet spaces
for contemplation but through organised stimulus: alongside commercial advertising
prompts and messages that encourage critical thought; online maps and AR that give
easy access to history and experience as well as to future plans; or environments that
prompt insight and empathy, or that respond to your movements or expressions in
ways that make you feel more alive.

IV UNTYING THE LOOPS

In this penultimate section I turn to the times where wisdom requires a capacity to
challenge wisdom itself – to untie the loops of learning and reflection.

PARADOXES OF UNLEARNING
The first concerns novelty. If wisdom has to be learned through experience and
reflection, how does it cope with radically novel situations? This has been the dilemma
through the ages for the old and wise: confronted by the truly new their thought may
be insufficiently flexible and open, and their repertoire of responses too narrow to be
useful.

If we face threats of extinction and existential threats of all kinds or if human

civilisation is about to be wiped out by our own actions (human inspired climate

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change, proliferating artificial intelligences) or by forces beyond our control (a

meteor), then we cannot easily draw on a stock of past experiences and models
because these are largely new threats.

So in these situations wisdom requires a leap of imagination as well as knowledge; to

unlearn and find a ‘beginners mind’ as well as expertise. People with too much
experience and familiarity with established systems and ways of thinking may struggle
to imagine adequately just as they struggle to make good forecastslx.

PARADOXES OF UNWISDOM
A second paradox concerns folly. One lesson of wisdom itself is that it should not be
too total. Creativity requires a willingness to challenge, disrupt and recombine.
William Blake wrote that ‘if the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise’
and believed in an imagination that would sometimes undermine and challenge
wisdom.

The wisest people often like jokes and irreverence, admitting what they don’t know
and mocking themselves. They recognise that life involves play, pulling apart as well
as putting together, and, occasionally, childishness. The wisest rulers traditionally had
a fool close to them, to mock them and keep them true.

The overly sober, dull orthodoxy of priesthoods and their secular equivalents deadens
thought, whereas it is out of chaos that the new is born. Too much prudence,
conformism and consensus may in the end not be wise. This is the romantic insight –
that sometimes we have to make leaps that are bold, imprudent, imaginative and go
far beyond prudence. When we do so we feel more alive, and any society needs spaces
for heresy, dissent and speculation that will be different in spirit to wisdom, which is
often dampening, and calming in nature.

PARADOXES OF EMBODIMENT
A third paradox concerns the body. Sometimes we need to trust our bodies more than
our minds. Here again we may learn to challenge our own wisdom, or rather to listen

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to the ‘folk wisdom’ which encourages people to trust their stomach or their gut when
they have to make particularly important decisions. Much more thought is embodied
than appreciated in the past and more is being learned about how this happens; how
traumas are captured in the body; and how the body can signal to the mind the right
response to a situation.

These patterns are not straightforward; they can mislead as well as guide. But it’s
useful to learn how to listen to them, and to see this as another loop, from mind to
body and back, with mind aware of body and in a dialogue with it.

PARADOXES OF ATTACHMENT AND PRESENCE

A fourth paradox concerns attachment. In making sense of a complex situation, it’s
vital to be detached, clear-headed and analytical. But at a certain point wisdom
requires a switch: to being inside the problem, committed and engaged. This is a
different kind of suspension of self, and compatible with non-attachment. Indeed, this
is essential to most difficult problems. If we see them as distant, and outside us, we
are unlikely to contribute to solving them. This is particularly true with the attribution
of evil to others – other countries, companies or people – as an explanation for
phenomena. Wisdom by contrast recognises that there is a dark side, and some evil,
in all of us, and therefore starts with a willingness to step inside a problem rather than
to shout at it from afar. This paradox matters for science which has grown up as an
ethos and method of detachment. By standing back you can see more and more
clearly, just as standing on higher ground helps you see the city more accurately, or an
unfolding battle. Yet to solve common problems also requires commitment. Indeed
many collective action problems appear insoluble without this additional step – since
it is barely rational to seek to solve them, yet often satisfying to blame them on others.
A purely cognitive wisdom might promote inaction (and this has long been part of the
critique of some strands of Buddhism). Why vote when each individual vote has no
effect on the outcome? Why believe climate change can be dealt with when there are

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so many reasons to believe it can’t be? Why make sacrifices for people many
generations into the future? The answers are not entirely rational.

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V POSSIBLE RESEARCH AGENDAS

What do we need to know about wisdom? Wisdom resists research, though there is a
vast literature on it going back thousands of years. Its looped nature makes it hard to
define or contain in boxes. This may be why, although there have been many research
programmes on wisdom – usually trying to pin it down with definitions – they have
not generally been seen as successful.lxi But it is not impossible to research wisdom
and to enrich our understanding of it.

This topic is a vehicle for thinking about thinking; for reflecting on what types of
thought and action we should value most; and for asking how best to support these in
the face of innumerable opposite pulls of status, conformity, pleasure or greed, or
undigestible flows of data. As individuals prone to unwise thoughts and actions we
need help. And as societies prone to lurches towards collective stupidity and folly it
matters a lot to better understand wisdom and how it can be cultivated.

I have chosen the phrase ‘loop theory’ to highlight the central idea – that we should
apply critical thinking, and loops, to wisdom itself, rather than just attempting to map
or describe accounts of wisdom, or to see it as a possession or attribute.

Here I suggest some possible avenues for researching wisdom in a looped way, that’s
very different from the standard research methods that have generally been used in
the recent literature. Specifically, that may mean:

• Exploring the relationship between measures of wisdom and evidence of

outcomes or results. There should be correlations or causal links between
evidence of wisdom and evidence of wise results (building on the growing
research literature on groups and their abilities to solve problems). But there
has been surprisingly little research exploring this loop which could be done at
the level of whole populations or within individual institutions. These might
include whole population analysis of some of the features of wisdom, or
analysis of their presence in leaderships of institutions, and some result in the

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real world: ability to cope with crises and shocks for example.lxii Research could
analyse which institutional ecosystems have proven most able to adapt to
radically different environments (an overlap with the analysis of very long-
lasting institutions).
• Dig deeper into ways of using collective intelligence to complement AI and
contribute to greater wisdom. Huge amounts have been invested into AI in
recent years, achieving some breakthroughs but also hitting some barriers.
Belatedly research is being done on how CI can be combined with AI – whether
by big platforms to handle content dilemmas or to assist with problem solving.
This needs to be built on, so as to explore how different combinations of CI and
AI can handle more complex and multi-dimensional reasoning, including
helping groups to reason more effectively.
• Dig deeper into the nature of integrative intelligence: what is happening
within the individual brain or the group when diverse and non-commensurable
types of knowledge are being integrated to contribute to decisions? How in
practice do we learn this – is it from observation of outcomes, or from feedback
from other people? How is codified collective wisdom integrated with tacit
individual experience?
• Explore dark matter: can we describe through thick ethnography the
differences between societies that are rich in everyday wisdom and able to
deploy it to defuse problems or avoid conflicts?
• Explore a particular domain of difficult wisdom, such as advice, diagnosis and
action around climate change; the design of robust pensions policies; coping
with critical decline in a city; or perhaps how intelligence services coped with a
major shift of relevant alliances. A combination of ethnography, institutional
analysis and assessment of outcomes could prove richly informative.
• Experiment with new ways of organising global knowledge synthesis
institutions – IPCC, IPBES, ICUN, International – using some of the principles

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described here. I am particularly interested in how science advice can more

explicitly apply some of the ideas set out here.
• Test new search and knowledge management tools: explore the addition of
‘frequently needed questions’ and combinations of AI and expert judgement to
the circulation and orchestration of knowledge within organisations or systems
(and other designs that are likely to be ‘wisdom-enhancing’ rather than
wisdom-reducing).

These all point to radically different ways of organising wisdom studies to the current
dominant methods which have mainly taken the form of literature reviews and
semantic analysis rather than research that connects thoughts, actions and results.

If we could apply looped thinking to wisdom itself, that is to say research methods that
continuously reflect on the links between thought, action and results, it’s possible we
might find out new and useful insights about this elusive word.

This is work that will never be complete: there will never be a definitive theory of
wisdom. But we can hope for better practice. As Rabbi Tarphon put it in ‘The Wisdom
of the Fathers’: ‘you are not required to complete the work, but neither are you free
to desist from it’.

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i
The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem
Services. These bodies often discuss how they can be better informed; but not how
they can be wise.

ii
Jon Elster and Helen Landemore (eds) Collective Wisdom, Cambridge University Press
2012, is a fascinating book through primarily about problem-solving and decision
making rather than wisdom in the everyday sense.

iii
Twenty years ago I wrote a book (Connexity) suggesting that one the most important
tasks for any society is to cultivate the right kinds of mindsets. I still think this and wish
more attention had been paid to how the wrong kinds of mindsets were being
encouraged by changing technological environments.

iv
Confucius, whose life was full of disappointments, himself said: ‘By three methods
we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation,
which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.’
v
Harold Bloom’s ‘Where is Wisdom to be Found’ is one good overview of some of this
literature, Riverhead Books, 2004

vi
Clayton, V. P. (1982). Wisdom and intelligence: the nature and function of knowledge
in the later years. International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 15, 315-
321.

vii
The group called ‘The Elders’ part founded by Nelson Mandela - was an interesting
example of this approach while also showing its limitations:
https://www.theelders.org/

viii
The topic of a Daedalus issue edited by Benjamin Schwartz, ‘Wisdom, Revelation
and Doubt: perspectives on the first millennium BC, 1975. I also cover this question in
my essay in the Demos collection on the Good Life, published in 1999.
https://www.demos.co.uk/files/thegoodlife.pdf?1240939425

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ix
sophia (Greek), sapientia (Latin) hokhmah (Hebrew) nebequ (Akkadian) seboyet
(ancient egyptian), zhihui (Chinese), prajna (sanksrit), hikma (Arabic), jihye (Korean),
all have slightly different meanings and sit in different relationships with neighbouring
words.
x
https://evidencebasedwisdom.com/

xi
Stephen Hall, Wisdom: from philosophy to neuroscience, UQP 2010
xii
The Arete Initiative at the University of Chicago called their $2 million research
project into wisdom ‘Defining Wisdom’

xiii
Robert Sternberg (ed) Wisdom: its nature, origins and development, Cambridge UP,
1990 provides over a dozen different definitions.

xiv
The Berlin Wisdom Study under Paul Baltes came up with a definition of wisdom;
found that it was scarce and that it peaks at around 60.
xv
See for example some of the dominant frameworks, such as Three Dimensional
Wisdom Scale; Berlin Wisdom Paradigm; the Balance Theory of Wisdom and many
others, including the contribution of positive psychology in Character Strengths and
Virtues by Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman
xvi
Such as self-report questionnaires the ACL Practical Wisdom Scale and CPI Wisdom
Scale; the Acquired Wisdom Scale and Transcendent Wisdom Scale using an open-
ended question format; and the observer based CAQ Wisdom Scale.

xvii
Of course animals are much smarter than us at many things!

xviii
J Henrich, The Secret of our Success, is the best recent account of the importance
of group mind in human evolution.

xix
One recent attempt is Andrew Targowski, Cognitive Informatics and Wisdom
Development: interdisciplinary approaches, 2011

xx
I cover this in my book Big Mind (Princeton UP, 2017)

xxi
Assmann, A. (1994). Wholesome knowledge: Concepts of wisdom in a historical and
cross-cultural perspective. Life-span Development and Behavior, 12, 187-224. Baltes,
P. B. , & Smith, J. (1990). Toward a psychology of wisdom and its ontogenesis. In R. J.
Sternberg (Ed.), Wisdom: Its nature, origins, and development (pp. 87-120). New

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York: Cambridge University Press. Birren, J. E. , & Fisher, L. M. (1990). The elements of
wisdom: Overview and integration. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Wisdom: Its nature, origins,
and development (pp. 317-332). New York: Cambridge University Press. Yang, S.-Y. ,
& Sternberg, R. J. (1997b). Conceptions of intelligence in ancient Chinese philosophy.
Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 17, 101-119.

xxii
This has been a common trope through the history of philosophy, including recent
work on ‘presence’ (such as Derrida, and the movement of object-oriented ontology:
see Graham Harman, Object Oriented Ontology, Pelican Books, 2018

xxiii
Scott Page, The Model Thinker, Basic Books, 2019

xxiv
The Model Thinker, p 8

xxv
There is an extensive psychological literature on how, in some circumstances,
suffering and trauma can aid psychological growth, see eg Jayawickreme, E., and L.E.R.
Blackie. 2016. Exploring the psychological benefits of hardship: A critical reassessment
of posttraumatic growth. Switzerland: Springer.

xxvi
These three additional elements can be loosely linked to Page’s framework if we
interpret these as the application of ethical models or heuristics on the one hand,
temporal ones on the other, and of models in which the subject is part of the model

xxvii
‘it is not something that can be put into words like other branches of learning; only
after long partnership in a common life devoted to this very thing does truth flash upon
the soul. No treatise by me concerning it exists, or ever will exist’. Plato, Seventh
Epistle. For a long and thoughtful investigation of many of these issues, including
depth, see Ken Wilber, Sex, Ecology and Spirituality, Shambhala, 1995
xxviii
Dhammapada

xxix
https://evidencebasedwisdom.com/a-heart-and-a-mind-self-distancing-facilitates-
the-association-between-heart-rate-variability-and-wise-reasoning-grossman-
sahdra-ciarrochi-2016/

xxx
Dhammapada, p 27, Jaico Publishing, Delhi 2003

xxxi
There is a remarkable history of the wise turning out to be not so wise: popular
preachers who turned out to be deeply hypocritical; gurus and seers who turned out
to be corrupt. At the very least we can conclude that a wise society will combine
respect and scepticism and learn to judge by actions and results rather than only
words. One of many recent examples of the gap between the two involved the world’s

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top expert on empathy https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/08/she-s-world-s-

top-empathy-researcher-colleagues-say-she-bullied-and-intimidated-them

xxxii
Hanzi Freinacht offers a very good critique of many of the confusions around
wisdom – in their recent book ‘The Listening Society’.
xxxiii
One recent study concluded: ‘to date we have found no statistical evidence for
wise or virtuous people.’ It suggested that ‘the concepts of the consistently wise
person and of practical wisdom logically seem incompatible’. McGrath, R.E. The
Mathematics of Wisdom. J Value Inquiry 53, 455–457 (2019).

xxxiv
This was the conclusion of Robert Sternberg after a lifetime studying the topic:
see Sternberg, R.J. Four Ways to Conceive of Wisdom: Wisdom as a Function of
Person, Situation, Person/Situation Interaction, or Action. J Value Inquiry 53, 479–
485 (2019).

xxxv
In the famous account by Plato the Delphic oracle tells Socrates that he is the
wisest person in Athens. He doubts this, looks for wiser people and finds that he alone
recognises the limits of his knowledge, and so in this sense, at least, really is the
wisest.

xxxvi
And we also of course suffer from hindsight bias, which makes it particularly hard
to see these links objectively, like the many forecasters who genuinely only remember
their accurate forecasts.

xxxvii
Nick Chater, The Mind is Flat, Penguin 2019

xxxviii
The theme of much of Philip Tetlock’s work, eg Expert Political Judgement, 2005

xxxix
In the famous passage ascribed to Socrates, Thamus says to Thoth: “here is
something that, once learned, will make the Egyptians wiser and will improve their
memory; I have discovered a potion for memory and for wisdom.” But Thoth
replies that his idea will ‘provide your students with the appearance of wisdom, not
with its reality. Your invention will enable them to hear many things without being
properly taught, and they will imagine that they have come to know much while for
the most part they will know nothing. And they will be difficult to get along with,
since they will merely appear to be wise instead of really being so.”

xl
See eg recent work of Mercier and Sperber or Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach
“The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone” (Riverhead)

xli
William Whewell, in his book ‘The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences’, coined the
word consilience to describe what happens ‘when an induction, obtained from one

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class of facts, coincides with an induction, obtained from another class. This
Consilience is a test of the truth of the Theory in which it occurs’ Quoted in EO Wilson,
Consilience, p7.

xlii
As Oliver Wendell Holmes put it: “I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side
of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side
of complexity.’

xliii
John Dewey, Late Works, 10:271

xliv
There are some useful insights in the field of interpersonal neurobiology
https://www.drdansiegel.com/about/interpersonal_neurobiology/

xlv
Much writing on wisdom implies that the writer is wise and offers insights from a
uniquely advanced standpoint. I make no such claim: indeed I’ve found it most useful
to address this field through reflecting on the many times when I have not acted
wisely.

xlvi
https://nordicbildung.org/ is a useful current example of a thinktank focused on
Bildung

xlvii
To use the language of Dan Shapiro and others in conflict resolution: see
Negotiating the Non-Negotiable
xlviii
The Six Perfections in Mahayana Buddhist ethics, for example, are designed to help
people move from suffering and confusion to happiness and wisdom, partly through
learning patience and meditation.

xlix
Again, this is addressed well in the work of Scott Page, including in The Model
Thinker

l
http://humannaturelab.net/publications/locally-noisy-autonomous-agents-
improve-global-human-coordination-in-network-experiments

li
See https://www.geoffmulgan.com/post/elephant-safaris-organising-meetings-
that-help-us-grasp-complexity

lii
in Reflections on the Revolution in France.

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liii
‘Collaborative positive psychology: solidarity, meaning, resilience, wellbeing, and
virtue in a time of crisis’, Michael J. Hogan, International Review of Psychiatry, 2020

liv
For a very useful survey of research combining AI and CI see:
https://www.nesta.org.uk/project-updates/ai-ci-researchmapping/

lv
https://www.nesta.org.uk/feature/ai-and-collective-intelligence-case-studies/
lvi
Granmo, O. C.; Glimsdal, S. (2012). "Accelerated Bayesian learning for decentralized
two-armed bandit based decision making with applications to the Goore
Game". Applied Intelligence. 38 (4): 479–488.

lvii
In the early 2000s I helped design a knowledge management system for the UK
government that was never implemented (I was head of the government Strategy Unit
at the time). I’m sure it would have paid for itself many times over. Consultancies tend
to do this best – partly because they have the authority to impose rules, because
individual consultants and partners become curators of fields of knowledge, and partly
because they have the resources to invest heavily in technical systems.
lviii
I tried to persuade various people in Google of this in the early 2000s, but with no
success.

lix
This is the claim of the ‘Actor Network Theory’ movement, founded by Bruno Latour.

lx
A consistent finding in the work of Philip Tetlock, as described in his book ‘Expert
Political Judgement’
lxi
Defining and Assessing Wisdom: A Review of the Literature:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3896261/

lxii
See for example the work of Shalom Schwartz.

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