“Individuals experience great difficulty in a variety of domains related to cognition, reference, and reality-testing (against models). In some senses, small groups are better at determining, for example, if a theory is even possible, let alone verifiable or ‘true’. Groups beyond a given size are prone to influence-errors (i.e: problems in option weighting/evaluation based on membership influences) and groups that are too small are not diverse enough to formulate dependable evaluations.

There are exceptions, of course, but, in general, most of us struggle with evaluating ideas, explanations, theories or descriptions… partly because we are not actually individuals — our form of animal is intimately linked with both the environment — and the nature of our experience of and participation in groups.

This is another reason why I tend to question the idea of ‘an individual’ human being as a reference model that implies its completeness or reality, and also why I am extremely skeptical about ‘opinions’ held either by individuals or vast collectives. It seems to me that whatever the nature of our intelligence, it is easily deformed by the nature and purposes of our common relational contexts, agendas and activities.

I suspect that this is related to why many ‘prodigies’ were at once isolates and yet deeply participated in ‘expert subcultures’ such as those emerging within the domains of art, science, spirituality and physical development. Since they were unable to locate intelligent collectives, the internalized them, and acted as both individual and collective.”

— an anonymous informant