N-STUFF

To manifest the elephant is the task we have as generation; to show him to our children is the duty we have as parents.

Holotopia is (the name we've given to) the emerging social and cultural paradigm; and an initiative to develop it.

Holotopia is conceived as a way to empower our next generation to be creative in ways their situation will require.

The knowledge federation transdiscipline is conceived as a new academic paradigm; and an institutional space where it will be developed.

Where next-generation scientists will design the very way in which they practice their profession.

And be creative in the manner in which the founding fathers of Scientific Revolution were creative; and make similar changes in the way information and knowledge are conceived; and enable the new comprehensive paradigm to emerge.

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  Anomaly: Seen when we look at method; HOW we create info. Yes, it's a 'hammer'—it's a specialized tool (or set of specialized tools), which work only for CERTAIN things; the whole thing is TOOL-centered, not FUNCTION-centered; you do what the TOOL demands, not what the PURPOSE demands!</p> 

Point here is to show that a FUNCTIONING methodology can be developed through federation. It resulted by essentially looking at science, and preserving its advantages while alleviating its limitations; notably the 'hammer' thing; and making general-purpose science, applicable to all questions.

Very brief sketch of principle: Experience NOT having a priori structure; scope is offered and pattern (relationship); if AHA feeling—valid. Methodology offers a number of constructs for abstraction, presentation etc; we've seen a couple. Point is—this CAN be done.

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The next natural step is to apply logos (modeled as knowledge federation to method; and create a methodology; of which polyscopic methodology is the current prototype. What I've done to create it is simply generalize "the scientific method"; by making the standard techniques and advantages that distinguish the scientific approach to knowledge applicable to all themes. And have a 'general toolkit' instead of a 'hammer'; and use relevance to prioritize themes—instead of looking for a 'nail'.

In 2010, while preparing the second meeting of the Knowledge Federation community where we began to self-organize as a transdiscipline, I published in my blog a short commentary of Stephen Toulmin’s last book Return to Reason; where this premier philosopher of science and historian of ideas issued his final call to action, which was similar to ours—to liberate logos (or metaphorically, to liberate Galilei); and return to logos; and use logos to revive those sciences that may inform us about the core issues of our lives and times.

Who keeps Galilei in prison? And in what way?

Toulmin referred to the Roman military camp to explain the etymology of the word “discipline”; and outlined how, historically, the scientific disciplines became rigorous and formal in their method, and restrictive in their choice of themes: “[I]n the professional activities of tightly structured disciplines, conformity is more highly valued than originality; or, rather, originality is tolerated only for as long as it reinforces the core values of a department. […] This is what I mean in saying that disciplinary emphasis on the technicalities of the human sciences imposes on newcomers to the subject a set of professional blinders that direct their attention to certain narrowly defined considerations, and often prevent them from looking at their work in a broad human perspective.” Let me translate: When the mind is used with the prime or even sole criterion that it must give us a "reality picture" we can consider certain; and when logos is further imprisoned in the "logic" of mechanical thinking and the suffix "logy" of our disciplines—then the scientists all too easily loose sight of the purpose of their work; and evaluate it by formal criteria alone.

Polyscopic methodology is the fourth of holotopia's five insights.

Its point is that science as it's been conceived is flagrantly unsuitable for the social function it has—of "the Grand Revelator of modern Western culture" as Benjamin Lee Whorf branded it in Language, Thought and Reality; and that science can and needs to fulfill the larger-than-life function it's acquired in our society—provided it's re-conceived (not as a 'hammer', but) as a transdiscipline.

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Knowledge Federation ideogram

The Knowledge Federation ideogram explains the socio-technical lightbulb's principle of operation.

<p>René Descartes pointed out in his last and unfinished work Rules for the Direction of the Mind as Rule One: “The objective of studies needs to be to direct the mind so that it bears solid and true judgments about everything that presents itself to it.” What makes knowledge federation work is the (general-purpose) polyscopic methodology—which (unlike "the scientific method") can be applied to any theme.</p>

<p>
Knowledge Federation ideogram</p>

<p>Albert Einstein explained his "epistemological credo" in Autobiographical Notes:</p> <p> “I see on the one side the totality of sense experiences and, on the other, the totality of the concepts and propositions that are laid down in books. […] The system of concepts is a creation of man, together with the rules of syntax, which constitute the structure of the conceptual system. […] All concepts, even those closest to experience, are from the point of view of logic freely chosen posits, just as is the concept of causality, which was the point of departure for [scientific] inquiry in the first place.”</p> <p>The Knowledge Federation ideogram comprises the realm of experience or "the real world" on its left, the realm of ideas on its right, the bridge (representing polyscopic methodology) joining those two sides and the mountainin the background.</p> <p>We may begin to federate knowledge by looking at the realm of experience or "the real world" from the mountain; and identifying a theme that demands attention; and then take that theme over the bridge to the realm of ideas, along with the data that might provide it a suitable context; and theorize it—in the context of other ideas—and comprehend it; and then take the result back over the bridge and act in an informed way.</p> <p>"The Matrix is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth", Morpheus told Neo; to introduce him to the dystopian vision that The Matrix epitomized. As long as "the world" is our only reference—we can only adapt to it; no matter how dysfunctional and outright harmful our systems may have become! And it is only when we have an independent reference system—that we become capable of improving the world.</p> <p>Science gave us "Newton's laws" and other "laws of nature"; and empowered us to comprehend the natural world in terms of simple insights and principles. Knowledge federation empowers us to comprehend all themes in the way we can rely on.</p>

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Power structure

“Modernity did not make people more cruel; it only invented a way in which cruel things could be done by non-cruel people. Under the sign of modernity, evil does not need any more evil people. Rational people, men and women well riveted into the impersonal, adiaphorized network of modern organization, will do perfectly.”

(Zygmunt Bauman Life in Fragments: Essays in Postmodern Morality, 1995)

<p>The point of it is to see business as usual as complicity in geocide; and as being part of "the enemy", the power structure.</p>

<p>See politics and power in new—holotopian way; not as "us against them"—but as all of us against power structure!</p>

<p>Key insight is that it's nobody's interest! Never was. But now it's pathetically, HUGELY obvious; success defined by power structure. New way empowerment.</p> <p>The fifth insight. Holotopia is the joining line.</p>

<p>Point is to see power and politics differently: No longer as as "us against them"—but as all of us against the power structure.</p>

Zygmunt Bauman

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Federation through Keywords

“I cannot understand how anyone can make use of the frameworks of reference developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth century in order to understand the transformation into the post-traditional cosmopolitan world we live in today.”
(Ulrich Beck, The Risk Society and Beyond, 2000)

<p>Imagine us in “the risk society”—impregnated with "huge problems" we cannot resolve or even comprehend—as long as we think as we did when we created them. Keywords enable us to leave the proverbial box; and think and speak in new ways.</p>

<p>The first and most important thing you want to know about these keywords is that they are defined by applying truth by convention; this is explained in Chapter Nine of the book, which has "Liberation of Science" as title. When I define a keyword called science I am not defining what science "really is"—but creating a new abstract entity in the realm of ideas; which has a precise meaning; and whose relationship with the real thing out there is that I am inviting you to see science </b>as</b></em> defined. The keyword in other words defines a way of looking or scope; and this design of ways of looking at things is what polyscopy is really all about; and the emerging paradigm too, as I already explained.</p>

Keywords are custom-designed.

<p>They are defined (not as pointers to real-life things, but as mathematical concepts are) by using truth by convention; when I, for instance, turn "culture" into a keyword—I am telling you what culture "really is"; but giving you a way to look at the infinitely complex real thing—and producing a sort of a projection plane; and inviting you to see culture as defined; which not only greatly simplifies the real thing—but also enables me to make and justify precise claims. </p>

To see things whole—we must look at them from all sides; and from above too!

<p>And that if we discover a way of looking that shows that they are not whole—then that's it! Even if they may seem perfectly fine when we see them we're accustomed to. In the technical order of things of polyscopy they represent (custom-designed) ways of looking or scopes; and give us a way to design scopes; and organize human experience and comprehend things in entirely and communicate in entirely new ways! And to overcome the problems that led to the dissolution of the Tower of Babel.</p> <p>Often but not always, keywords are adopted from a repertoire of a frontier thinker or an academic discipline; they then enable us to federate what's been comprehended and seen in some of our culture's fragmented compartments.</p>

Keywords enable us to 'stand on the shoulders of giants' and see further.

<p>As custom-defined words, keywordsenable us to think and speak in new ways. By creating keywords we can give old words such as “science” and “religion” a distinct function and a new life; keyword creation is a means to linguistic and institutional recycling.</p>

<p>When adopted from the terminology of an academic field, cultural tradition or frontier thinker, keywords enable us to account for what’s been seen, experienced or comprehended; to ‘stand on the shoulders of giants’ and see further; to see things in new ways and see them whole.</p>

Ulrich Beck

Paradigm

<p>I use the word paradigm informally—to point to a general societal and cultural order of things where everything depends on everything else; and I use the elephant as a metaphor for any paradigm, and for holotopia as the currently emerging paradigm in particular.</p>

To manifest the holotopia, we only need to connect the dots.

<p>The elephant was in the room when the 20th century’s giants wrote or spoke; but we failed to see him because of the jungleness of our information; and because of disciplinary and cultural fragmentation; and because our thinking and communication are still as the tradition shaped them. We heard the giants talk about a ‘thick snake’, a ‘fan’, a ‘tree-trunk’ and a ‘rope’, often in Greek or Latin; they didn’t make sense and we ignored them. How differently our information fares when we understand that it was the ‘trunk’, the ‘ear’, the ‘leg’ and the ‘tail’ of a vast exotic ‘animal’ they were talking about; whose very existence we ignore! </p>

To manifest the elephant is the task we have as generation; to show him to our children is the duty we have as parents.

<p>The Liberation book begins with the iconic image of Galilei in house arrest whispering "And yet it moves!"; and develops an analogy—between that historical moment when a sweeping paradigm shift was about to happen (from the Middle Ages and tradition, to the Enlightenment and Modernity) and our own time; where the paradigm is again ready to shift; because the reported anomalies demand that it does; and because we already own the information that comprehensive change requires.</p> <p>I also use the keyword paradigm more formally as Thomas Kuhn did—to point to a (1) different way to conceive of a certain domain of interest, which (2) resolves the reported anomalies and (3) opens up a new frontier for research and development; and to show that the reported anomalies—fundamental, pragmatic and IT-related—demand a new paradigm. But—as it's become a truism—different thinking is called for before anything else can be done. </p>

The way we use the mind defines the paradigm

<p>So what I'll do here is—I'll first say a few words about why different thinking is called for; and how the way we use the mind needs to change. Then I'll talk about the five anomalies—and insights—that define the holotopia. And I'll conclude with a couple of strategic point—how exactly we'll self-organize to become able to shift the paradigm; which is what my proposal is about.</p>

Logos

“Some years ago I was struck by the large number of falsehoods that I had accepted as true in my childhood, and by the highly doubtful nature of the whole edifice that I had subsequently based on them. I realized that it was necessary, once in the course of my life, to demolish everything completely and start again right from the foundations if I wanted to establish anything at all in the sciences that was stable and likely to last.”

(René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, 1641)

<p>Key to paradigm (change) is to change the way we use the mind.</p>

<p>Step 1: Problematize the way we use the mind; historicity of the way we use the mind</p> <p>"In the beginning was logos and logos was with God and the logos was God." I use logos as keyword to point to this reconstruction because it helps us comprehend what exactly went wrong and why. To the philosophers of antiquity, "logos" was the principle according to which God structured the world; which enables us humans to comprehend the world and dance with it harmoniously. How and why this is at all possible—here the opinions differed; and gave rise to a wealth of stream of thought and cultural directions. But "logos" did rather poorly from then on; it did not translate well into Latin; and during the Middle Ages it was believed that logos was revealed to us humans through God's own son; and so was all further quest of logos forgotten or even forbidden.</p> <p>Descartes and his colleagues revived it—but conceived it as the quest for "objective" and unchanging truth; which is, they took this for granted, revealed to the mind as the sensation of absolute certainty. You'll now easily comprehend how from that point on everything went wrong: Instead of conscientiously looking at things from all sides in order to see them whole—we ended up getting stuck with whatever way of looking at things there was that gave the mind that comforting sensation; and we ignored whatever might threaten it!</p>

Seduced by reductionistic comprehension—we failed to even notice when knowledge became impossible.

<p>In the Liberation book this is made transparent already in Chapter Two; where I tell the thread (short sequence of vignettes) where Nietzsche first portrays us modern humans (at the turn of the twentieth century!) as (already!) overwhelmed by "the abundance of disparate impressions" and "the tempo of [their] influx"; so that we "instinctively resists taking in anything, taking anything deeply"; and "unlearn spontaneous action [and] merely react to stimuli from outside". How do we cope with the overabundance of data (made to stimulate and not help us comprehend) on one side, and the staggering complexity of our world on the other, I asked; and let Anthony Giddens give an answer: “The threat of personal meaninglessness is ordinarily held at bay because routinised activities, in combination with basic trust, sustain ontological security. Potentially disturbing existential questions are defused by the controlled nature of day-to-day activities within internally referential systems." Are you beginning to see how materialism—our modernity's present paradigm—naturally emerged from this foundation? In the book I summed this up by adapting (Johan Huizinga's) homo ludens as keyword; and calling it a 'cultural species, which (unlike the cultural homo sapiens who seeks knowledge to choose directions) simply learns 'the rules of the game' of one's profession and other society's systems; and performs in them competitively, aiming to further (what he perceives as) his own interests.</p>

Rene Descartes

Design epistemology

“[T]he nineteenth century developed an extremely rigid frame for natural science which formed not only science but also the general outlook of great masses of people."

(Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy, 1958.)

<p>The reason why we must do as Descartes did—and "demolish everything completely and start again right from the foundations"—is that he and his Enlightenment comrades got it all wrong!</p>

<p>Another reason why we must do as Descartes did—while thinking in a different way than he did—is that the assumptions he and his colleagues made, about the mind and about the world, have been proven wrong and disowned by science! I show this too in Chapter Two, by quoting Heisenberg. Long story short—first the prospects of ever completing a description of the (presumed) mechanism of nature (which science appeared to promise in Newton's time and deliver in Darwin's time) retreated whenever scientists appeared to come close; the atom split into one hundred "subatomic particles"; which—when scientists became able to examine them—defined the assumptions based on which science was created, and even our very common sense (as Robert Oppenheimer pointed out in Uncommon Sense. </p> <p>In Chapter Nine I show how an up-to-date foundation for truth and meaning can be created; which I called design epistemology. Long story short, the idea is to use truth by convention and (instead of simply assuming them) first federate and spell out the fundamental premises on which creation of truth and meaning is to be based; by turning what the giants said into conventions. And adding a purpose.</p> <p>Design epistemology takes the constructivist credo (that we construct interpretations of natural phenomena, and do not discover objectively existing "laws" by which the nature operates) a single significant step further—and instead of stating it as fact about reality, turn it into a convention. </p>

Design epistemology expresses in words what the Modernity ideogram expresses visually.

<p>That Information is a human-made thing for human purposes; which needs to be suited to its function in systems—so that they can function and be sustainable or whole. </p> <p>Design epistemology is the third and bottom-level of holotopia's five insights. It's the root from which it all springs up.</p>

Werner Heisenberg

Polyscopic methodology

“I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.”

(Abraham Maslow, Psychology of Science, 1966)

<p>The next natural step is to apply logos (modeled as knowledge federation to method; and create a methodology; of which polyscopic methodology is the current prototype. What I've done to create it is simply generalize "the scientific method"; by making the standard techniques and advantages that distinguish the scientific approach to knowledge applicable to all themes. And have a 'general toolkit' instead of a 'hammer'; and use relevance to prioritize themes—instead of looking for a 'nail'.</p>

<p> In 2010, while preparing the second meeting of the Knowledge Federation community where we began to self-organize as a transdiscipline, I published in my blog a short commentary of Stephen Toulmin’s last book Return to Reason; where this premier philosopher of science and historian of ideas issued his final call to action, which was similar to ours—to liberate logos (or metaphorically, to liberate Galilei); and return to logos; and use logos to revive those sciences that may inform us about the core issues of our lives and times.</p>

Who keeps Galilei in prison? And in what way?

<p>Toulmin referred to the Roman military camp to explain the etymology of the word “discipline”; and outlined how, historically, the scientific disciplines became rigorous and formal in their method, and restrictive in their choice of themes: “[I]n the professional activities of tightly structured disciplines, conformity is more highly valued than originality; or, rather, originality is tolerated only for as long as it reinforces the core values of a department. […] This is what I mean in saying that disciplinary emphasis on the technicalities of the human sciences imposes on newcomers to the subject a set of professional blinders that direct their attention to certain narrowly defined considerations, and often prevent them from looking at their work in a broad human perspective.” Let me translate: When the mind is used with the prime or even sole criterion that it must give us a "reality picture" we can consider certain; and when logos is further imprisoned in the "logic" of mechanical thinking and the suffix "logy" of our disciplines—then the scientists all too easily loose sight of the purpose of their work; and evaluate it by formal criteria alone.</p>

Polyscopic methodology is the fourth of holotopia's five insights.

Abraham Maslow

Convenience paradox

“The future will either be an inspired product of a great cultural revival, or there will be no future.”

(Aurelio Peccei, One Hundred Pages for the Future, 1981)

<p>Convenience paradox—the fifth of the five insights—shows how our values will be turned upside down, and our "pursuit of happiness" thoroughly revised, when we base them on knowledge instead of belief.</p> <p>Convenience is the "value" (if we can call it that) that follows directly from the unreflected use of the mind that has been our theme: Something feels attractive (unattractive) and we simply consider it as "obviously" that; and we configure the rest of our existence as "rational" pursuit of what we like and dodging of what we dislike; whose absurdity becomes transparent already when we take desensitization into account, as Nietzsche did. When we rely on convenience we ignore one whole dimension of existence—time. Convenience paradox is the point of a humongous information holon; whose rectangle houses a variety of instances where some long-term practice of what may initially seem unattractive brings large and unexpected benefits and vice versa. Peccei identified "human development" or "human quality" (its result) as "the most important goal", on which our future depends; the convenience paradox insight puts human development on our cultural map and makes it attractive; or even possible.</p> <p>Part of the convenience paradox and much of the focus of the Liberation book has to do with the change of values from self-centeredness (where we see the world through "our own interests") to (the pursuit of) wholeness, both inner and outer (of our social and physical environments); and seeing those different parts or aspects of wholeness all as interdependent, and seeing it all as simply wholeness. And with religion as function in culture that has that very change of values as objective. In the book it is shown that the pursuit of convenience makes sense only when we see the world 'in the light of a pair of candles'; and becomes transparently absurd when 'proper headlights' have been turned on.</p>

<p>The history of religion may then be seen (remember that seeing things in simplified terms in order to see them whole is legitimate) as having three phases; where in the first phase people created myths and beliefs to make doing the right thing seem attractive even to people who only had 'the candle' to illuminate the world; and in the second phase eliminated those myths and beliefs, and with them also religion; and in the third phase—which is now beginning—illuminated the way for religion by suitable information.</p>

Aurelio Peccei

Knowledge federation

“Many years ago, I dreamed that digital technology could greatly augment our collective human capabilities for dealing with complex, urgent problems."

(Doug Engelbart, "Dreaming of the Future*, BYTE Magazine, 1995)

<p>As soon as we see information as a human-made thing for human purposes (when we no longer reify 'candles' as 'headlights')—it becomes transparent that the very process by which we handle information (the very principle of operation of those 'headlights') is thoroughly ill-conceived; that it's something that was created for an out-of-date technology and an entirely different world, and purpose; or in other words—that it's 'a candle'.</p>

Information that is 'a candle' makes which makes (a lion's share of) academic work useless; and technology dangerous.

<p>Why do we still believe that when something is published it is also "known"—when the amounts of information we have surpass by many orders of magnitude what any human mind can process and turn into knowledge? Our capability to 'connect the dots' has never been more important than it is today; but we'll only be able to do do it if we learn to do it—together. </p> <p>As a process, knowledge federation is exactly what is needed—an entirely different "social life of information" (to use John Seely Brown's and Paul Duguid's pointy book title) than what the old technology, the printing press, made possible; which is why knowledge federation is also the name of the second of the five insights.</p> <p>Did you know that the knowledge media that are in common use—which you and I use to write email and browse the Web—was created to enable that very change of the principle of operation? By Doug Engelbart and his SRI-based team. Ironically, Doug's vision was the casualty of the very problem he undertook to solve; he failed to communicate it to Silicon Valley developers and academics, regardless of how hard he tried.</p>

Doug Engelbart

Systemic innovation

“The task is nothing less than to build a new society and new institutions for it. With technology having become the most powerful change agent in our society, decisive battles will be won or lost by the measure of how seriously we take the challenge of restructuring the ‘joint systems’ of society and technology.”

(Erich Jantsch, Loooong title, MIT Report,1969)

<p>And finally—What is the solution to "the huge problems now confronting us"?</p>

<p>The best way to read the Modernity ideogram is to see it as an answer to this question; which translates into two formulas that define holotopia:</p>

• see things whole and
• make things whole.

<p>When we (avoid the fixation on problems and) look at the systems (in which we live and work; and see them as gigantic machines comprising people and technology that decide what the effects of our work will be; and what our work lives and private lives will be; and what we need to be like to be able to live and work in those systems)–we become empowered to not only solve those problems (by re-creating systems); but also to vastly improve the effects of our work; and the quality of our lives, and of ourselves.</p> <p>Systemic innovation is the first of holotopia's five insights.</p>

Erich Jantsch

Dialog

“As long as a paradox is treated as a problem, it can never be dissolved.”

(David Bohm, Problem and Paradox, an online article.)

<p>When the way we use the mind is the root of our problems—then this is no longer a problem but a paradox; which turns all our "problems" into paradixes.</p>

The function of the dialog is to dissolve the paradox.

<p>And that is how this keyword needs to be understood—not (definitely not) as merely a conversation; but as a system whose function is to first of all liberate logos—and then to empower us to comprehend and communicate and act through logos.</p>

The dialog is conceived as a practical way to change our collective mind.

<p>And use it to federate a vision; and organize us in action that will empower us to manifest and realize that vision.</p>

It is through the agency of the dialog that knowledge federation changes our society's 'headlights'; and becomes our society's 'headlights'.

David Bohm

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Which is of vital importance when we are in a new sort of situation; for which our traditions have not provided us an action plan and an emotional response—as they did for the traditional gestalts like "our house is on fire" and "our country is at war".

Aurelio Peccei summed up in One Hundred Pages for the Future:

“The arguments posed in the preceding pages […] point out several things, of which one of the most important is that our generations seem to have lost the sense of the whole. From all points of view, this loss represents a backward step, an unfortunate involution—especially since it has occurred at the very moment when many systems, old and new, are expanding and intertwining, thus deepening the complexity of the great metasystem of the world which gives humanity, willy-nilly, a substantial unity. A sense of the global and universal harmony, which is characteristic to philosophical and religious thought and is the eternal quest of science, has also become an indispensable basis for informed political action. That sense must be restored to present-day society.”

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