The composer Eric Whitacre invited his online fans to participate in an ambitious attempt to create the world's largest virtual choir. Featuring 2052 performances from singers in 58 countries, the Virtual Choir 2.0 – singing Whitacre's "Sleep" – is the largest assembled online in history, and far surpasses Whitacre's original goal of 900 voices.
"One of the essential qualities of collective wisdom is a palpable sense of connection with each other and to larger forces that is found, for example, in nature, in relationship to our ancestors, and even in relation to a physical place….
People who talk about their experiences of collective wisdom often report a sense of openness and awareness of something larger than themselves. The ability to communicate seems broader, and people are often astounded by the creativity that comes forward.
“You have a sense,” Frenier observed, “that the whole group is creating together, and you don’t quite exactly know how.”
~ The Power of Collective Wisdom: And the Trap of Collective Folly
“Humanity is hungering for wisdom. That is the word I hear most: not compassion; not love; not peace; not kindness—but wisdom. The other words all have deep meaning and their own unique power. But wisdom is the one that seems to magnetize people across the broadest spectrum around the world. I found myself drawn to this word because it is a cross-cutting theme in so many of the very diverse settings in which I am traveling.”
"New capacity and intelligence emerges through connections: from cell to cell, dendrite to dendrite, human to human, group to group. As extraordinary and mysterious as the experience of profound connection—and of collective wisdom emerging—may feel in the moment, collective wisdom as a phenomenon is natural, even potentially ordinary."
"When we join together the terms collective and wisdom, we reach a whole new synthesis of insight and revelation.
Like binocular vision, in which both eyes are used at once, joining collective with wisdom is a way of seeing with added dimension and depth. The collective eye can pick up patterns of order, variation, and connections; wisdom can detect meaning and human values that arise spontaneously from a particular situation. We achieve, to paraphrase the words of the psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, an ability to weave together the slender threads of a fractured whole into a firmer pattern of meaning.
To share collective wisdom with others is to make meaning from disparate threads and weave together a fresh understanding."
"Collective wisdom helps us transcend the duality of self and others because it is a reminder that we are part of a larger framework from which we act out our role. As Shakespeare recognized, alone we are merely players, each with our exits and entrances, but as members of something larger, we become something extraordinary. “Consider,” another wise poet said, “how the stars that shine more brightly manage to combine in constellations, get a name.” So too with collective wisdom: When we are in service to that which is life affirming and needed, we become something greater in combination with others."
