Example
The logicians Alice and Bob are sitting in their dark office wondering whether or not it is raining outside. Now, none of them actually knows, but Alice knows something about her friend Carol, namely that Carol wears her red coat only if it is raining. Bob does not know this, but he just saw Carol, and noticed that she was wearing her red coat. Even though none of them knows whether or not it is raining, it is distributed knowledge amongst them that it is raining. If either one of them tells the other what they know, it will be clear to the other that it is raining.
If we denote by that Carol wears a red coat and with that if Carol wears a red coat, it is raining, we have
Directly translated: Bob knows that Carol wears a red coat and Alice knows that if Carol wears a red coat it is raining so together they know that it is raining.
Distributed knowledge is related to the concept Wisdom of the crowd. Distributed knowledge reflects the fact that "no one of us is smarter than all of us."
Read more about this topic: Distributed Knowledge
Famous quotes containing the word example:
“Our intellect is not the most subtle, the most powerful, the most appropriate, instrument for revealing the truth. It is life that, little by little, example by example, permits us to see that what is most important to our heart, or to our mind, is learned not by reasoning but through other agencies. Then it is that the intellect, observing their superiority, abdicates its control to them upon reasoned grounds and agrees to become their collaborator and lackey.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)