Some humans will intuitively recognize the sentience of dolphins, whales… or, perhaps even a praying mantis. But these animals »localize something that is more often »distributed.

Those thus confused… or »enchanted by the blatantly obvious sentience and intelligence of a dolphin they are actually relating with… will find the distributed mode unrecognizable. They will never suspect, for example, that the intelligence of a »school of tuna… a mumuration of starlings… or a vast myriad of ants or bees… are at least equally sentient. And… more than merely intelligent. Together.

This follows from their inability to sense this sentience or intelligence in the »individuals, when separated from their unities.

And how ironic this is, because the humans themselves are subject to this problem… though in us, or our societies at least, it is (usually) inverted.

One can easily find the entire range of sentience and intelligence… and awareness… passion, creativity, sincerity…
in some specific humans. Yet nearly »none of our established »collectives… evince this.

In the living world, however, everything is fundamentally relational. Symbiosis and synergy are common modes not merely of embodying intelligence… but magnifying its forms and potentials.

We should recognize that some intelligences in nature are distributive. And maybe, in fact, all of them.

Then perhaps we might acquire the opportunity, together, to participate in them. Surely this must be preferable to extinguishing them.

Because our collectives have intentionally misunderstood the nature of intelligences that are distributed over the myriad.

Even though our own minds arise this way. Their failings as well. We humans think too highly of the individual, this concept has precedence in our concepts and language.

But most of intelligence isn’t in the individual; our own minds are partly inherited. And not merely from humans, but from the entire history and future of the entirety of the organisms of Earth.

And the stars…

And more, too, than merely this…