# Civilization Is a Network No Individual Understands by Matt Ridley > "Human achievement is based on collective intelligence — the nodes in the human neural network are people themselves. By each doing one thing and getting good at it, then sharing and combining the results through exchange, people become capable of doing things they do not even understand. As the economist Leonard Read observed in his essay "I, Pencil' (which I'd like everybody to read), no single person knows how to make even a pencil — the knowledge is distributed in society among many thousands of graphite miners, lumberjacks, designers and factory workers." > **— Matt Ridley**, *2011, Edge Annual Question, “What Scientific Concept Would Improve Everybody's Cognitive Toolkit?”* ## Sources and Context - **Direct Edge response and surrounding essay:** [Collective intelligence](https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10612) — Edge published this passage in its 2011 Annual Question collection, *What Scientific Concept Would Improve Everybody's Cognitive Toolkit?*. The full response preserves the qualifications and argument surrounding this exact extract. - **Complete local collection index:** [[research/Edge 2011 Full Quotation Curation|Edge 2011 Full Quotation Curation]] — retained source-first archive record for the complete yearly response cohort. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Consciousness Continuity|Consciousness Continuity]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - **Article:** [[articles/STEVE|STEVE]] - **Article:** [[articles/The Art is Long|The Art is Long]] - **Article:** [[articles/The Architecture of Continuity and Emerging Neuroinformatics Standards|Neuroinformatics Standards]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Knowledge Graph|Knowledge Graph]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Collective Intelligence|Collective Intelligence]] - [[wiki/Distributed Intelligence|Distributed Intelligence]] - [[wiki/Coordination Substrate|Coordination Substrate]] - [[wiki/Complex Systems|Complex Systems]] ## Share on Social Media ``` "Human achievement is based on collective intelligence — the nodes in the human neural network are people themselves. By each doing one thing and getting good at it, then sharing and combining the results through exchange, people become capable of doing things they do not even understand. As the economist Leonard Read observed in his essay "I, Pencil' (which I'd like everybody to read), no single person knows how to make even a pencil — the knowledge is distributed in society among many thousands of graphite miners, lumberjacks, designers and factory workers." — Matt Ridley, 2011, Edge Annual Question, “What Scientific Concept Would Improve Everybody's Cognitive Toolkit?” https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-matt-ridley-civilization-network-no-one-understands ```