Difference between pages "Intuitive introduction to systemic thinking" and "Holotopia"

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<div class="page-header" > <h1>An intuitive introduction to systemic thinking</h1> </div>
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<div class="page-header" ><h1>Holotopia</h1></div>
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<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Attention is a resource</h2></div>
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<div class="col-md-6"><h3>What a giant had to say</h3>
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<p>A long long time ago, when the teachers were still in custody of young people's character, here is what [[William James]] had to tell them about this matter:
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Think about the world at the twilight of the Middle Ages and the dawn of the Renaissance: devastating religious wars, terrifying epidemics… Imagine Galilei in house arrest, whispering “eppur si muove” into his beard. Recall that the problems of the epoch were not resolved by focusing on those problems, but by a slow and steady development of an entirely new approach to knowledge. Several centuries of comprehensive and accelerated evolution followed. Could a similar advent be in store for us today?</p>  
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In what does a moral act consist? It consists in the effort of attention by which we hold fast to an idea which but for that effort of attention would be driven out of the mind by the other psychological tendencies that are there. To think, in short, is the secret of will, just as it is the secret of memory.
 
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<h3>Attention has a purpose</h3>
 
<p>Attention, and the emotion of interest which naturally directs it, are there for a purpose. Interest is what might move young people to explore and understand the world. And to exercise their minds and bodies.</p>
 
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<div class="col-md-3 round-images"> [[File:James.jpg]] <br><small><center>[[William James]]</center></small></div>
 
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<div class="col-md-3"><h4>Holoscope</h4></div>
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<div class="col-md-6"><p>
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We have recently completed and documented a [[prototype|<em>prototype</em>]] of a candidate new approach to knowledge, and called it [[knowledge federation|<em>knowledge federation</em>]]. The mission of <em>holotopia</em> is to [[knowledge federation|<em>federate</em>]] the <em>knowledge federation</em> itself. </p>
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<p>In <em>holotopia</em> we represent <em>knowledge federation</em> by the pseudonym <em>holoscope</em>. We retain <em>knowledge federation</em> only as a [[keyword|<em>keyword</em>]]. </p>
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<p>Let the <em>holoscope</em> be defined by the [[ideogram|<em>ideogram</em>]] on the right, and the one below.</p>
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[[File:Bussy.jpg]]
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<p>But our industries have been able to separate this emotion from its purposes. They created games that engage only "other psychological tendencies", so that the effort of attention that sustains a moral act is never experienced; which keep children's attention <em>away</em> from reality; which exercise no more than their thumbs and their rear ends; whose ethical message is that killing is fun; and which are so "immersive" that they make everything else – and school in particular – seem dull in comparison.</p>
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[[File:Perspective-S.jpg]]
<p>What will hinder our young ones from virtually <em>living</em> in the virtual world – where success is so much easier than in the real world; and where even the ultimate failure can be reversed by just pressing the restart button?</p>
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<h3>It's a complex world</h3>
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<p><em>For all we know</em>, we may have created a complex and dangerous world which will demand of our children an audacity of spirit that we ourselves haven't been able to muster.</p>
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<p>We say "for all we know", because we <em>don't</em> really know. While some of our colleagues have done research and concluded that our civilization may just barely make it, provided we make changes promptly, the rest of us continue to live and work just as we did before. Notice that we are not saying that our civilization is in trouble; others have said that. All <em>we</em> need to motivate our initiative follows from what we've just said, and it's anyhow obvious – it's that <em>we do not know</em> what our situation is and what we need to do; because <em>the way in which we handle knowledge is keeping us from knowing</em>.</p>
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<p>And because also <em>our</em> attention has been mishandled.</p>
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<h3>The economy of attention</h3>
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<p>The journalists are not to be blamed. They are just trying to make ends meet in a competitive world.</p>
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<p>Our friends who innovate in journalism told us that there's just about one business model left to the journalists, as a way to compete with abundant free information. They call it "attention economy", but it's not what you might think. The journalists are not economizing with our attention as a resource, by directing it where it is most needed. On the contrary – the attention economy means attracting people's attention <em>by whatever means may still be available</em>, and selling it – as a commodity, measured as the number of thousands of readers or viewers – to the advertisers.</p>
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<p>And we don't need to tell you that it's those advertisers – that half-a-trillion-dollars-a-year global industry that combines state-of-the-art science with state-of-the-art communication design – that are now in charge of <em>everyone's</em> character! And that their job is to make sure that "the effort of attention by which we hold fast to an idea" ("do I really need that?") will yield to "the other psychological tendencies that are there" ("I like this – let's have it!"). But don't blame the advertisers; this just happens to be <em>their</em> way to make a living in a competitive world.</p></div>
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This article is about <em>holotopia</em> as a [[keyword|<em>keyword</em>]]. For the corresponding [[prototype|<em>prototype</em>]], see [[Prototypes: Holotopia|Holotopia <em>prototype</em>]].  
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Pleasure is a resource</h2></div>
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<div class="col-md-7"><h3>Pleasure has a purpose</h3>
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<p>Neither parents are to be blamed.</p>
 
<p>We parents, of course, only wish our children our best. We want them to be happy! The trouble is that we believe (because we've been <em>socialized</em> to believe) that happiness means doing what feels attractive at the moment. How can we deny our children those games, when they might be the <em>only</em> thing that still interests them?</p>
 
<p>The sensation that something is attractive or pleasant too has a role in the larger scheme of things. It's what nature created to make us do what is good for us. But our industries have been able to separate that too from its purpose! Think, in the manner of a metaphor, about white sugar: the pleasurable substance has been extracted from the nutritious rest. We can now fool nature; we can add sugar (physically, and metaphorically) to virtually anything. We can make <em>anything</em> taste attractive!</p>
 
<p>But there's a hidden cost. (<em>Two</em> hidden costs, to be exact. We let you discover the other one on your own.)</p>
 
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<h3>The economy of pleasure</h3>
 
<p>Around the time when William James was writing the above lines, Friedrich Nietzsche was looking at modernity "from the point of view of digestion" and jotting down notes:</p>
 
<blockquote><p>Sensibility immensely more irritable; the abundance of disparate impressions greater than ever; cosmopolitanism in food, literatures, newspapers, forms, tastes, even landscapes. The tempo of this influx prestissimo; the impressions erase each other; one instinctively resists taking in anything, taking anything deeply, to “digest” anything; a weakening of the power to digest results from this. A kind of adaptation to this flood of impressions takes place: men unlearn spontaneous action, they merely react to stimuli from outside. They spend their strength partly in assimilating things, partly in defense, partly in opposition. Profound weakening of spontaneity: The historian, critic, analyst, interpreter, the observer, the collector, the reader-all of them reactive talents-all science!</p>
 
<p>Artificial change of one’s nature into a “mirror”; interested but, as it were, merely epidermically interested; a coolness on principle, a balance, a fixed low temperature closely underneath the thin surface on which warmth, movement, “tempest,” and the play of waves are encountered.“</p>
 
<p>Opposition of external mobility and a certain deep heaviness and weariness.“</p></blockquote>
 
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<div class="col-md-3 round-images"> [[File:Nietzsche.jpg]] <br><small><center>[[Friedrich Nietzsche]]</center></small></div>
 
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<div class="col-md-3"><h4>Instead of a definition</h4></div>
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<p>Interesting to observe that this was written before the radio, the TV, the worldwide travel, the computer and the mobile phone. And of course well before the computer games.</p>
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<em>Seeing things whole</em> and <em>making things whole</em> leads to <em>holotopia</em>. </p>
<p>Imagine if this is really true! Imagine if we've been "pursuing happiness" by seeking stimulation – and losing our very <em>ability</em> to feel!</p>
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<p>Turning on the light. Learning to use information and knowledge as they best may serve us.</p>
<p>We thought about Nietzsche when we heard some of the music that young people listen to. Don't know about you, but this <em>did</em> remind us of doleful howls of some youngsters whose subtlety of feeling had been lost – created in an ardent effort to stimulate the senses of their overstimulated brethren <em>even</em> a bit further.</p>
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<p>When we develop the capability to use knowledge to illuminate what is hidden and see the whole – then a whole <em>new</em> order of things is seen as both necessary and possible; and we become empowered to create it. </p>
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<p>We called this new order of things <em>holotopia</em>, to point to the similarities and the differences it has compared to the more common utopias. Like the utopias, the <em>holotopia</em> is a highly desirable view of the future. Indeed, we feel it is <em>more</em> desirable than the utopias tend to be. And unlike the utopias, the <em>holotopia</em> is readily <em>realizable</em>. Indeed, the <em>holotopia</em> is ready to emerge almost by itself, as soon as we allow ourselves to see things differently. The reason is that we already own the knowledge needed for its fulfillment.</p>  
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<p>Another reason for this name is that the <em>holotopia</em> naturally results when we embrace [[wholeness|<em>wholeness</em>]] (making things whole) as value, and as a rational goal. </p>
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<p>As an insight or a vision, the <em>holotopia</em> changes the tone of our engagement with contemporary realities and with our future quite thoroughly. Although many of us may not live to experience the new order it envisions – it is <em>now</em>, before the fulfillment, that the creative opportunities abound! </p>
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<p><em>Holotopia</em> also changes the way we go about <em>handling</em> the contemporary issues—both those large ones, and those smaller and even personal ones: Instead of fixing, we focus on rebuilding; instead of struggling with "problems" within the existing order of things, we focus on <em>changing</em> that order of things. </p> </div> </div>  
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<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Knowledge too is a resource</h2></div>
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<div class="col-md-3"><h4>Understanding holotopia</h4></div>
<div class="col-md-7"><h3>We've done one thing right</h3>
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<div class="col-md-7"><p>The insight we call the <em>holotopia</em> is made concrete and palpable in terms of [[five insights|<em>five insights</em>]], about five large and centrally important themes of interest. Each of them <em>alone</em> is sufficient to see the need and the possibility of a profound, Renaissance-like change. Even more interesting, however, are their relationships, which show why we cannot realistically make the changes that any of them points to – without acting on all of them. Together, the [[five insights|<em>five insights</em>]] make transparent the paradoxical insight that the <em>holotopia</em> stands for:</p>
<p>In the midst of all systemic mishaps, one thing has been done right – the academic tenure. And the corresponding ethos of academic freedom.</p>
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<blockquote>Comprehensive change can be easy even when smaller and obviously necessary changes may be impossible.</blockquote>
<p>We now have a global army, of people who have been selected and specially educated and publicly sponsored to think deeply and freely. Its task is to protect us from ignorance; to create  knowledge of highest standards, and make sure it prevails.</p>
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<p>Is this army still trained and organized as it might empower it to fulfill its vitally important task – <em>in this age</em>? </p>  
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<p>Max Weber a [[giants|<em>giant</em>]] of sociology – observed that the greatest progress in the art of warfare resulted from improvements in the social organization of warriors. Could it be similar also in our strife with ignorance?</p>
 

Revision as of 09:56, 5 March 2020

Think about the world at the twilight of the Middle Ages and the dawn of the Renaissance: devastating religious wars, terrifying epidemics… Imagine Galilei in house arrest, whispering “eppur si muove” into his beard. Recall that the problems of the epoch were not resolved by focusing on those problems, but by a slow and steady development of an entirely new approach to knowledge. Several centuries of comprehensive and accelerated evolution followed. Could a similar advent be in store for us today?

Holoscope

We have recently completed and documented a prototype of a candidate new approach to knowledge, and called it knowledge federation. The mission of holotopia is to federate the knowledge federation itself.

In holotopia we represent knowledge federation by the pseudonym holoscope. We retain knowledge federation only as a keyword.

Let the holoscope be defined by the ideogram on the right, and the one below.

Bussy.jpg

Perspective-S.jpg