As individuals, we store very little detailed information about the world in our heads. In that sense people are like bees and society is a beehive: Our intelligence resides not in individual brains but in the collective mind. To function properly, individuals rely more on knowledge stored not in our brains but elsewhere: in the environment and above all in other people. When you put it all together, human thought is incredibly impressive. But it is a product of a community, not of any individual alone.

One of the key properties of the human mind: It did not evolve in the context of individuals sitting alone solving problems. It evolved in the context of group collaboration, and our thinking evolved interdependently, to operate in conjunction with the thinking of others. Much like a beehive, when each individual is master of a domain, the group intelligence that emerges is more than the sum of its parts.