What Will Be

The Next Big Idea?

Marcus T. Anthony (PhD)
Writer, speaker, futurist at large. Author of "Sage
of Synchronicity" and "Integrated Intelligence"

This article also appears on my blog, www.22cplus.blogspot.com

What is the next big idea?

People are getting smarter, and that’s a scientific fact. Skeptics might protest that people
can’t even get their cash from the ATM machine in less than ten minutes. They might
point out that there is a privately sponsored museum in The USA which shows Jesus
riding a dinosaur. And they might lament that you can’t have a conversation with
anybody without their feeble attention being diverted by an incoming sms. But they are
wrong – at least according to the Flynn effect.

He gets in a quick ride before breakfast

As I pointed out in my review of David Shenk’s The Genius in All of Us, the Flynn effect
is that curious feature which emerged from the history of intelligence testing, namely
that IQ scores keep going up with each generation - about three points on average.
Fascinatingly, ninety-eight percent of today’s population will score higher than their
counterparts from 100 years ago. The Flynn effect is named after psychologist J.R.
Flynn, who popularised the idea.
One factor which Flynn (and David Shenk) suggests is behind the Flynn effect, is the
much improved capacity for abstract thinking. All you have to do is look at a World War
One propaganda poster, and you have to wonder how anybody could actually be
influenced by the image and words.
Flynn points to the way that science and philosophy have enhanced the language of
educated people “by giving them words and phrases that greatly increase their critical
acumen.” He thus sees the world as being divided into pre-scientific and post-scientific
thinking, the latter being the more deeply critical approach to knowledge. The
psychologist referred to these emerging concepts as “shorthand abstractions” (or SHAs).

J.R. Flynn

So what are these SHA’s? Just below, I will list them. However, as you go through these,
take a leaf out of Flynn’s book, and think about them critically. The obvious way to do
this is to question which of these things have really made us smarter. Beyond that, we
might ask whether Flynn himself has missed some crucial ideas that we could add to the
list. Finally, taking a Deep Futures approach, let’s step back a little, and ask whether
there is some way that Flynn is looking at the problem which has restricted the way he
sees the development of human intelligence. In particular, consider the following
statement Flynn has made:

There is no reason to believe IQ gains will go on forever. There may remain few
who have not absorbed the scientific worldview to whatever degree they can.
(http://www.psychometrics.ppsis.cam.ac.uk/page/127/flynn-10-shas.htm)
What is it that Flynn is taking as a given?

Here are Flynn’s SHAs.

 (1) Market (1776: economics). With Adam Smith, this term altered from the
merely concrete (a place where you bought something) to an abstraction (the law
of supply and demand). It provokes a deeper analysis of innumerable issues.

(2) Percentage (1860: mathematics). Its range is almost infinite. Recently in

New Zealand, there was a debate over the introduction of a contraceptive drug
that kills some women. It was pointed out that the extra fatalities from the drug
amounted to 50 in one million (or 0.005 %) while without it, an extra 1000
women (or 0.100 %) would have fatal abortions or die in childbirth.

(3) Natural selection (1864: biology). This SHA has revolutionized our
understanding of the world and our place in it. It has taken the debate about the
relative influences of nature and nurture on human behavior out of the realm of
speculation and turned it into a science.

(4) Control group (1875: social science). Recognition that before and after
comparisons of how interventions affect people are usually flawed.

(5) Random sample (1877: social science). Today, the educated public is much
more likely to spot biased sampling than they were a few generations ago.

(6) Naturalistic fallacy (1903: moral philosophy). That one should be wary of
arguments from facts to values, for example, an argument that because
something is a trend in evolution it provides a worthy goal for human endeavor.

(7) Charisma effect (1922: social science). Recognition that when a technique
is applied by a charismatic innovator or disciples fired by zeal, it may be
successful for precisely that reason.

(8) Placebo (1938: medicine). The recognition that merely being given
something apparently endorsed by authority will often have a salutatory effect for
obvious psychological reasons.

(9) Falsifiable/tautology (1959: philosophy of science). The stipulation that a

factual claim is bankrupt (a mere tautology or closed circle of definitions) unless
it is testable against evidence.

(http://www.psychometrics.ppsis.cam.ac.uk/page/127/flynn-10-shas.htm)
It is easy for us to forget that these ideas have not been around for so long. Yet what
most interests me is the way that Flynn’s thinking is restricted by his worldview. Indeed,
the concept of “worldview” is another SHA that I believe should be added to the list. The
fact that it hasn’t been added, suggests that Flynn has not distanced himself from the
dominant paradigm of dominant science. And there we have another promising SHA –
“the paradigm”.
The ideas of worldview and paradigm are often met with suspicion in modern science.
Beyond the fact that these concepts are sometimes abused - to imply that all approaches
to knowledge are equally truth-based - the suspicion towards these concepts indicates a
reluctance for deep reflection on behalf of some within the scientific community.
Flynn’s division of the history of thinking into “pre” and post-scientific thinking emerges
from his worldview. He assumes that critical and rational thinking represent the end
point of human intelligence evolution, at least in terms of the Flynn effect.
The next obvious question, then, is “what will be the next big idea that will shift human
intelligence?” Yet this question is itself restrictive if we do not question deeply the idea
of “thinking”. Could there be “non-rational” cognitive processes which could further
enhance human intelligence? Ones that are not presently on the mainstream scientific
map?
The next big idea, I believe, will that of connectivity, including non-locality and non-
temporality’ or what parapsychologist Dean Radin calls “entanglement”. These ideas
have been around for some time, but they are yet to be widely accommodated in modern
science. They represent a significant challenge to dominant paradigm thinking. Yet the
evidence is mounting.
In a recent paper published in Nature (463, 644-647 -4 February 2010). Elisabetta
Collini and other scientists presented evidence “ that long-range quantum coherence
between molecules can… be sustained in complex biological systems.” The data
supporting a deeply connected cosmos is only going to become greater, and it won’t be
confined to cellular biology. Once it has been established that our universe incorporates
consciousness fields that extend into infinite space, the entire field of cognitive science,
and ultimately science itself, will have to expand massively beyond their current
parameters.
In fact Dean Radin believes that within the next decade the idea of entanglement will
become widely accepted. The days when only rebellious thinkers and “crackpot”
scientists dared mention it will soon be over.
What will then happen to human intelligence, when entanglement and deep connectivity
are commonly accepted? My prediction is that it will represent much more than a mere
addition to Flynn’s list of shorthand abstractions. For entanglement potentially opens
the doorway to a greater employment and experience of other ways of knowing,
including what I call integrated intelligence. The extended mind will become an
accepted cognitive process within science and education. This mirrors my own life
journey. I first accepted the idea of an integrated intelligence intellectually, and after a
few years, I eventually began to explore these levels of mind experientially.
I believe that human beings will soon become much smarter, but not just intellectually.
With the advent of integrated intelligence, an entire vista of knowledge and
understanding will open before our eyes. It will represent the beginning of a
transformation of human consciousness, and human identity on this planet. We will
never be the same again.
Outrageous? Time will tell.

Marcus
mindfutures@yahoo.com