extelligence means all the cultural capital that is available to people in the form of tribal legends, folklore, nursery rhymes, books, videotapes, CD-ROMs etc. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 75 out of 100.
Why “extelligence” is a great word
The vast, external repository of cultural knowledge, cognitive tools, and information stored in books, media, institutions, and technological systems, coined in 1997 by Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen from the prefix ex- (meaning "out of, external") and intelligence. Unlike intelligence, which is the internal, biological capacity of a single mind, or collective intelligence, which is the emergent product of a group's active collaboration, extelligence is the accumulated, static artifact—the library, not the librarians. It is the weight of every volume in the stacks, the silent hum of a server farm holding all recorded music, and the entire legal code printed in books no single person could ever read; the silent scaffold of civilization upon which each fleeting consciousness briefly climbs.
Etymology
From ex- + intelligence (contrasted with knowledge carried within the brain, as if intelligence were derived from in). Coined by Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen in their book Figments of Reality (1997).
noun
- All the cultural capital that is available to people in the form of tribal legends, folklore, nursery rhymes, books, videotapes, CD-ROMs etc.