N-keywords

Keywords are custom-defined words. They enable us to think and speak in new ways. By creating keywords we can give old words such as “information” and “culture” a distinct function and a new life. Keyword creation is a means to linguistic and institutional recycling.

Often but not always, keywords are adopted from the terminology of an academic field, cultural tradition or frontier thinker. They 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.

Science too drew its power from keywords; when we learned to see and comprehend the physical world in terms of velocities, momentums and masses—our comprehension and our power expanded. By allowing us to create keywords, the knowledge federation transdiscipline enables us to apply the power of science to comprehension of all other themes; notably the ones we must, urgently, be able to comprehend and handle. File:Fractal.jpg </div> </div>

Paradigm

I use the word paradigm informally to point to a general societal and cultural order of things where everything depends on everything else; and to the fractal-like structure that paradigms tend to have—where even the smallest detail reflects the overall shape of the whole big thing. And also—academically or formally—as Thomas Kuhn did; to point to a (1) different way to conceive of a domain of interest, which (2) resolves the reported anomalies, and (3) opens up a new domain for research and development. 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 and our own time—from the Middle Ages to Enlightenment and Modernity; and develops an analogy with our contemporary condition—where again the paradigm is ready to shift; because the already reported anomalies demand such a change; and because we already own the information needed to enable and empower such change.
Donella Meadows identified “the power to transcend paradigms” as the most effective way to intervene in (society's) systems. In what follows I'll invite you to join me in handling the contemporary issues in this most powerful way.
There is, however, a notable difference between our time and Galilei's: Where censorship and prisons were historically used to spread transformative ideas from spreading—today they will be simply ignored; because of the overabundance and the jungleness of our information. It is by first changing the paradigm in information that the larger societal and cultural paradigm will be changed. 

Fundamental discoveries demand paradigm change.

“[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)

Heisenberg: Described how physics did it. Continues: "This frame was supported by the fundamental concepts of classical physics, space, time, matter and causality; the concept of reality applied to the things or events that we could perceive by our senses or that could be observed by means of the refined tools that technical science had provided. Matter was the primary reality. The progress of science was pictured as a crusade of conquest into the material world. Utility was the watchword of the time.
On the other hand, this frame was so narrow and rigid that it was difficult to find a place in it for many concepts of our language that had always belonged to its very substance, for instance, the concepts of mind, of the human soul or of life."
Heisenberg's point was that 20th century physics constituted its rigorous disproof. He wrote Physics and Philosophy expecting that the largest contribution of his field to mankind would be a cultural revolution—that would result from correcting this epistemological error.
Materialism is outdated; also not sustainable.
Galilei again in house arrest—not by censorship and prison but by simply IGNORING. The complexity and business so large—and NO SYSTEM to put things together. IGNORE the memes that lead to transformation.
Comprehend the initiative: NOT describe new paradigm; not facts—but CREATE a process and a system. Something that MUST be done for a number of different reasons (as soon as we begin to listen to what people said)—CREATE a way to connect the dots. KNOWLEDGE FEDERATION is a process; and a new system that enables it.
Another is the pair of keywords—holoscope which is an informal nickname for knowledge federation; and holotopia. When we use (not the microscope nor the telescope, but) the holoscope—we see and create the holotopia. We become ready to change the paradigm.

Logos

Werner Heisenberg

“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)

Step One is to return to the drawing board; and empower the mind to act as the founders of Early Scientific Revolution did; rethink the assumptions; rebuild the foundation.
And in this way correct a sweeping error has been made—by Descartes and his colleagues; by believing that the objective is to find unchanging "truth about reality"; and that this is is revealed to the mind as the sensation of absolute certainty; and constructing science and its institutions and methods accordingly. 
"Mind could be introduced into the general picture [of materialism] only as a kind of mirror of the material world,” Heisenberg observed. But sciences proved them wrong. When looked into the mind—this turned out not to be the case! And when the scientists were able to examine small quanta of matter—found them behaving in ways that contradicted common sense; as Robert Oppenheimer pointed out in Uncommon Sense.
But those unwarranted assumptions were already turned into a fractal-like structure; where logos is held captive in "logic" and "logy" of disciplines. Mind must be applied in this way.
When KF was to begin to self-organize as transdiscipline, I wrote a blog post survey of Stephen toulmin's Return to Reason. His last work—testament and call to action. 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: 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. Testament of a leading historian of ideas and philosopher of science. "QUOTATION"—disciplinary". Pointed out how science lost the spark; no creativity—only formal rules. Routine. And made a case for what is here—to return to logos (or "reason" as he called it). That was exactly what we did. KF is a new system—that enables systems to change. Academia's new organ.
It is an interesting curiosity that even Descartes in his last and unfinished work "Rules for the Use of the Mind" lamented the rigid disciplinarity; and named 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.”. And in explanation to Rule One Descartes wrote: "“In truth, it surprises me that almost everyone studies with greatest care the customs of men, the properties of the plants, the movements of the planets, the transformations of metals and other similar objects of study, while almost nobody reflects about sound judgment or about this universal wisdom, while all the other things need to be appreciated less for themselves than because they have a certain relationship to it. It is then not without reason that we pose this rule as the first among all, because nothing removes us further from the seeking of truth, than to orient our studies not towards this general goal, but towards the particular ones.” 
So that's what KF does; It reverses a historical error. Gives us a way to be creative in method—and creates method for applying the mind to all themes. KF as transdiscipline opens as creative frontier first of all way to be creative as founders of Early Scientific Revolution were—by creating methods. And then applying it to life's core themes.

René Descartes

“Give me a firm place to stand, and with a lever I shall move the Earth.”

(Attributed to Archimedes)

Epistemology

Next step is to re-create the way to use the mind. And use it as Archimedean point. How? As I said—only axiom: Instead of assumptions—we federate an epistemology. Use it to revive culture. Using truth by convention.
Design epistemology takes the constructivist credo a step further—instead of stating it as fact about reality—state it as a convention. 
Prescriptions to use the mind, and the foundation for knowledge etc.— are no longer thought out—but federated; to reflect the state of the art in science and philosopyy.
So we created a prototype and called it design epistemology. Also the "firm place to stand" is federated—it is truth by convention. 
Restores rigor because (1) convention and (2) federated! And continues to evolve! 
The point was to take the "constructivist credo" (represented by leading giants of science and philosophy) a step further and turn it into a convention. And one more step further by giving it a PURPOSE (also by convention). Lifeblood in society's systems. Human-made thing for human purposes. Enabling us to function and live.
In this way we have a new solid foundation for working with information. A fulcrum. 
Apply logos (KF) to the way we use the mind; and to foundation.
Design epistemology as prototype
Prototypes follow as results; restoring severed link between information and action

Archimedes

“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)

Methodology

Next step is to create a general-purpose methodology. Function of "scientific method"—works in general. Prototype:

polyscopic methodology as general-purpose "scientific method". 

Ability to exercise the key powerful function of academia—tell us the people what should information be like (I use this keyword to denote both the physical artifacts and the way how they are created and used). The ability to shift paradigms is in the hands of publicly sponsored intellectuals (not Donald Trump, not Wall Street bankers)!
In this way responded to Abraham Maslow's general complaint—same as above. And also to his basic direction.
Maslow writes: "I discovered [...] that many scientists disdain what they cannot cope with, what they cannot do well. I remember counterattacking in my irritation with an aphorism I coined for the occasion: 'What isn't worth doing, isn't worth doing well.' Now I think I could add: 'What needs doing, is worth doing even though not very well.'" 
Polyscopic methodology reverses this anomaly. It is general-purpose; it empowers us to choose subjects based on relevance; and create information as well as we are able. 

Abraham maslow

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

(Doug Engelbart, "Title*, Byte, 1995)

Knowledge federation

The next step is to create process and system for information. Putting things together.
That's what knowledge federation is! Process!
Curiosity: New knowledge media have been created for that purpose! By Doug Engelbart and his SRI team. Core of his vision is collective mind revolution. Different division of labor. Exactly what knowledge federation requires. 

Doug Engelbart

“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)

Systemic innovation

Finally—"the solution to world problems"; what is it? What's the ability we need?
See the systems in which we live and work as gigantic machines; comprising people and technology; DECIDE what the effects of our work will be. HUGE benefits. MUST rebuild them—now turn efforts into problems. 
Paradigm, like science—see systems whole.
Jantsch: evolutionary vision. Ilya Prigogine at Berkeley 1972; Five years later got the Nobel Prize for this work. Point is—NOT stability (in classical cybernetics AND in politics and economics); how to keep systems stable. Point is—to make them pliable. Able to change.
That's what we did as knowledge federation—create a prototype and organize a transdiscipline around it. To update it continuously. Restore the severed tie between information and action. Empower systemic change. losely related: We are evolution. Part of it. Use new IT as building material—to ENABLE new ("collectively intelligent" or informed) human systems to emerge; including "democracy" or society.

Erich Jantsch

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

(Erich Jantsch, Loooong title, MIT Report,1995)

Dialog

It was all ignored.
The function of the dialog is to dissolve the paradox.
Not using mind; in captivity—can't even begin! History of ignoring. Academia too busy to listen. Only doing "its job".
Dialog is the prototype to begin the process.

David Bohm

Navigation menu

N-keywords

Contents

Federation through Keywords

Paradigm

Fundamental discoveries demand paradigm change.

Logos

Epistemology

Methodology

Knowledge federation

Systemic innovation

Dialog