The Secret Language of Trees: Lessons for Collective Sensemaking

The Secret Language of Trees: Lessons for Collective Sensemaking

Trees are not only silent witnesses to the world around them but also active participants in a complex network of communication. Recent research has revealed that trees talk to each other, sharing vital information through an underground network of fungi. This discovery has profound implications not only for our understanding of the natural world but also for our own quest for collective sensemaking.

In a groundbreaking study, scientists found that approximately 40% of carbon is transmitted through these fungal networks into neighboring trees. This means that trees are not simply passive recipients of nutrients and resources but actively share information that is crucial for the health of the entire forest. Just like the neural networks in our brains, the trees in a forest are interconnected, with older trees acting as "mother" or "hub" trees.

The mother trees play a pivotal role in facilitating the growth of understory seedlings. Through their extensive network of fungi, they provide crucial resources such as carbon, nutrients, and water to the young seedlings, helping them survive in challenging conditions. This intergenerational exchange of energy and information ensures the continuity of the forest ecosystem.

What is particularly fascinating is that all trees and plants, except for a few plant families, have obligate relationships with these fungi. The fungi are dependent on the trees for their survival, as they do not have leaves themselves. This symbiotic relationship allows trees to be connected through a muscular mycorrhizal network, enabling them to communicate and share information.

Drawing inspiration from this natural phenomenon, the concept of Open Source Attention (OSA) emerges. OSA is a socio-technical framework that aims to "free" human attention from the control of centralized platforms. It proposes a decentralized ecosystem for creating, storing, and querying stigmergic markers, which are the digital traces of human attention.

In the current platform-centric ecology, user annotations such as likes and retweets are locked within the data siloes of platforms, serving only to optimize platform growth. OSA seeks to empower maker-centric ecologies by employing distributed content creation and storage technology. It envisions a shift from the exploitation of attention to supporting our intentions.

Stigmergic communication, where modifications left by others act as cybernetic feedback, plays a crucial role in this framework. Stigmergic markers, such as likes, annotations, and hyperlinking of text, serve as signaling cues and indicators of epistemic value. These markers become precious resources for both extractive purposes, like ad-tech, and constructive purposes, like collective sensemaking.

Similar to the open-source software movement, OSA aims to "free" stigmergic markers, starting from basic hypertext primitives. Emotional valence, bi-directional links, span highlighting, semantic categorization, and textual annotation are the foundational elements of OSA. By introducing interoperable protocols and storage for these stigmergic primitives, OSA can bootstrap existing personal knowledge management (PKM) systems to contribute to collective sensemaking efforts.

An important consideration for OSA is scale. To compete with massive platforms, OSA advocates for a "protocols, not platforms" approach. Instead of direct competition, existing PKM growth can be leveraged by introducing interoperable protocols and storage for stigmergic primitives. This allows data from diverse PKM apps to be shared and contribute to collective sensemaking on a global scale.

In conclusion, the secret language of trees holds valuable lessons for our quest for collective sensemaking. Just as trees communicate through underground fungal networks, we can harness the power of stigmergic markers to facilitate meaningful and collaborative knowledge creation. To embrace this vision, here are three actionable pieces of advice:

1. Foster symbiotic relationships: Just like trees and fungi depend on each other for survival, we should foster symbiotic relationships in our digital ecosystems. Collaboration and mutual support are key to unlocking the full potential of collective sensemaking.

2. Embrace decentralization: Centralized platforms have monopolized our attention and stifled innovation. Embracing decentralization, as proposed by OSA, allows for a more inclusive and diverse landscape of knowledge creation.

3. Prioritize open protocols: Open protocols enable interoperability and data sharing across different systems. By prioritizing open protocols, we can create a more interconnected and collaborative environment for collective sensemaking.

By learning from the wisdom of trees and embracing the principles of open source attention, we can embark on a journey towards a more sustainable and inclusive future of knowledge creation and collective sensemaking.