Bruce Schneier's written an excellent summary of the Papal election process.

It's fascinating to take apart a system developed over centuries to withstand social engineering and direct rigging. Most interesting to me are these thoughts in Schneier's closing paragraphs, for another reason:

The only way manual systems work is through a pyramid-like scheme, with small groups reporting their manually obtained results up the chain to more central tabulating authorities.

Those of you I've been raving to about Jeff Hawkins' new book On Intelligence might be having a hint of deja vu. It's part of how Hawkins claims the brain processes data. The feedback and levels of hierarchic autonomy are missing, but it's a component of the process.

Fully wrapping myself around Hawkins' ideas, I'm seeing parallels playing out everywhere.

Perhaps pantheist Leibniz was on the right track with his Monadology, after all.