Mark, Several points.

First, I had to search the location of Bundeena and realised that it's a place I often admire as I fly into Sydney as a place I would love to visit. A few kilometres from Sydney and a million miles away.

I can't help looking at the development of the things that you discuss as an emergent intelligence coming from the interconnectivity of the web, a place where all knowledge is known to all in the system and then I see the concept of Gaia in that we are all interconnected in one giant organism. We are all breathing, pulsating but we are each only one cell that is in the greater being. The web, the Earth. I don't know but there seems to be some convergence.

Your points about the family being an institution were profound and as a parent I have had the experience. With that attitude you would have done a great service to the next generation if you were also.

There are things afoot that we can only glimpse at but there is something profound happening. You see it in the fog better than most.

Profound. I look forward to the book.

A shame it wasn't possible to make out the entire slide, but the point was carried across well. You're right: an excellent summary of many of the topics I've heard you discuss in the past. The examples are especially powerful: there are groups who are using the power of collaboration to create communities that are achieving things that were impossible only a few years ago.

In just 15 years, how much can really be discerned about a technology that has so much potential to transform the nature of knowledge. The medical example is still something of a chicken-and-egg problem, but the potential for trained doctors who could search for patterns in a combined "patients like me" site - this could revolutionise both medical practice and medical training (though I say this as a non-medically-trained person).

Thanks for sharing!