What if Second Tier intelligence is not what we thought it was? Is there a form of consciousness that transcends human exceptionalism, integrating us into a greater, more complex reality? Does our post-tragic worldview possess the inherent intelligence of natural systems that will enable us to emerge truly wiser? These profound questions lie at the heart of Dawlabani’s keynote speech, inspired by his groundbreaking new book, Second Sapiens: The Rise of the Planetary Mind and the Future of Humanity.

While adherents of Spiral Dynamics and the Integral model focus on human-built systems, they often overlook the critical context of Planet Earth’s ecological collapse. To effectively confront these existential challenges and evolve into a new second-tier field of collective intelligence and shared awareness, we must transcend our current frameworks and integrate into “Gaian intelligence”—the very intelligence that has sustained life on Earth for over three billion years.