Clippings

KEYWORDS:

A vocabulary

Science was not an exception; every new paradigm brings with it a new way of speaking.

The following collection of keywords will provide an alternative, and a bit more academic and precise entry point to holoscope and holotopia.

Truth by convention and keywords

Truth by convention is the technical foundation of the holoscope; and the principle of operation of the 'lightbulb'. This principle can be easily understood by thinking of our usual, traditional usage of the language (where the meanings of concepts are inherited from the past and determined in advance) as 'candles'. Truth by convention allows us to give concepts completely new meaning; and by doing that, create completely new ways to see the world.

Truth by convention is the only truth that is possible in holotopia.

Truth by convention is the kind of truth that is common in mathematics; when we say "Let X be..." we are making a convention. It is meaningless to discuss whether X "really is" as defined.

Truth by convention is a way to liberate our language and ideas from the bondage of tradition. It provides us an Archimedean point for changing our worldview—and 'moving the world'.

Just like everything else here, truth by convention is a result of knowledge federation: Willard Van Orman Quine identified the transition from traditional reification to truth by convention as a way in which scientific fields tend to enter a more mature phase of evolution.

The keywords are concepts defined by convention. Until we find a better way, we distinguish them by writing them in italics.

It must be emphasized that while the complexities and the subtleties of the world and the human experience are always beyhond what we can communicate, the keywords, being defined by convention, can have completely precise meanings. They are instruments of abstraction; we can use them to develop theories—even about themes that are intrinsically ambiguous or vague.

Scope and view

Defined by convention, keywords become ways of looking or scopes. Scopes have a central role in the approach to knowledge modeled by the holoscope.

When we, for instance, say that "culture is cultivation of wholeness", we are not claiming that culture "really is that". We are only defining a way of looking at "culture". We are saying "see if you can see culture (also) in this way".

The Holoscope ideogram serves to explain the role this has in the inner workings of the holoscope. If one should inspect a hand-held cup, to see whether it is cracked or whole, one must be able to look at it from all sides; and perhaps also bring it closer to inspect some detail, and take it further away and see it as a whole. The control over the scope is what enables the holoscope to make a difference.

Holoscope ideogram

To be able to say that a cup is whole, one must see it from all sides. To see that a cup is broken, it is enough to show a single angle of looking. Much of the art of using the holoscope will be in finding and communicating uncommon ways of looking at things, which reveal their 'cracks' and help us correct them.

The difference between the paradigm modeled by the holoscope and the traditional science can easily be understood if one considers the difference in the purpose, or epistemology. When our goal is to "see things whole", so that we can make them whole, a discovery of a way of looking that reveals where a 'crack' might exist, although we might not (yet) be able to see it, can be a valuable contribution to knowledge, as a warning to take precaution measures against the potential consequences of an undetected 'crack'. In science, on the other hand, where our goal is to discover only the most solid 'bricks', with which we can construct the edifice of a "scientific reality picture"—such ways of looking and hypothetical 'cracks' are considered worthless, and cannot even be reported.

Human lives are in question, very many</em human lives; and indeed more, a lot more. The task of creating the 'headlights' that can illuminate a safe and sane course to our civilization is not to be taken lightly. An easy but central point here is that this task demands that information be federated, not ignored (when it fails to fit our "reality picture", and the way we go about creating it).

Here is a subtlety—whose importance for what we are about to propose, and for paving the road to holotopia, cannot be overrated. We will here be using the usual manner of speaking, and make affirmative statements, of the kind "this is how the things are". Such statements need to be interpreted, however, in the way that's intended—namely as views resulting from specific scopes. A view is offered as sufficiently fitting the data (the view really serves as a kind of a mnemonic device, which engages our faculties of abstraction and logical thinking to condense messy data to a simple and coherent point of view)—within a given scope. Here the scopes serve as projection planes in projective geometry. If a scope shows a 'crack', then this 'crack' needs to be handled, within the scope—regardless of what the other scopes are showing.

Hence a new kind of "result", which the holoscope makes possible—to "discover" new ways of looking or scopes, which reveal something essential about our situation, and perhaps even change our perception of it as a whole.

"Reality" is always more complex than our models. To be able to "comprehend" it and act, we must be able to simplify. The big point here is that the simplification we are proposing is a radical alternative to simplification by reducing the world to a single image—and ignoring whatever fails to fit in. This simplification is legitimate by design. The appropriate response to it (within the proposed paradigm) is dialog, not discussion—as we shall see next.

Or in other words—aiming to return knowledge to power, we shall say things that might sound preposterous, sensational, scandalous... Yet they won't be a single bit "controversial"—within the order of things we are proposing, and using. It may require a moment of thought to understand this fully.

Gestalt and dialog

When I type "worldviews", my word processor signals an error; in the traditional order of things, there is only one single "right" way to see the world—the one that "corresponds to reality". In the holoscope order of things we talk about multiple ways to interpret the data, or multiple gestalts (see the Gestalt ideogram on the right).

A canonical example of a gestalt is "our house is on fire"; in the approach to knowledge modeled by the holoscope, having a gestalt that is appropriate to one's situation is tantamount to being informed.

Gestalt ideogram

As the Gestalt ideogram might illustrate, the human mind has a tendency to "grasp" one gestalt, and resist others. The dialog is an attitude in communication where we deliberately aim to overcome that tendency. In the holoscope, the dialog plays a similar role as the attitude of an "objective observer" does in traditional science.

We practice the dialog when we undertake to suspend judgement, and make ourselves open to new and uncommon ways of seeing things.

Our conception and praxis of the dialog are, of course, also federated. Socrates, famously, practiced the dialog, and gave impetus to academia. David Bohm gave the praxis of dialog a more nuanced and contemporary meaning.

Wholeness

We define wholeness as the quality that distinguishes a healthy organism, or a well-configured and well-functioning machine. Wholeness is, more simply, the condition or the order of things which is, from an informed perspective, worthy of being aimed for and worked for.

The idea of wholeness is illustrated by the bus with candle headlights. The bus is not whole. Even a tiny piece can mean a world of difference.

A subtle but important distinction needs to be made: While the wholeness of a mechanism is secured by just all its parts being in place, cultural and human wholeness are never completed; there is always more that can be discovered, and aimed for. This makes the notion of wholeness especially suitable for motivating cultural revival and human development, which is our stated goal.

Tradition and design

Tradition and design are two alternative ways to wholeness. Tradition relies on Darwinian-style evolution; design on awareness and deliberate action. When tradition can no longer be relied on, design must be used.

In a more detailed explanation, we would quote Anthony Giddens, as the icon of design and tradition, to show that our contemporary condition can be understood as a precarious transition from one way of evolving to the next. We are no longer traditional; and we are not yet designing. Which is, of course, what the Modernity ideogram is pointing to.

Socialization and epistemology

Although these two keywords are not exactly antonyms, we here present them as two alternative means to the same end. Aside from what we can see and experience ourselves—what can make us trust that something is "true" (worthy of being believed and acted on)? Through innumerably many subtle 'carrots and sticks', often in our formative age when our critical faculties are not yet developed, we may be socialized to accept something as true. Epistemology—where we use reasoning, based on knowledge of knowledge, is the more rational or academic alternative.

Pierre Bourdieu here plays the role of an icon. His keyword "doxa", whose academic usage dates back all the way to Plato, points to the experience that what we've been socialized to accept as "the reality" is the only one possible. Bourdieu contributed a complete description of the social mechanics of socialization. He called it "theory of practice", and used it to explain how subtle socialization may be used as an instrument of power. To the red thread of our holotopia story, these two keywords contribute a way in which (metaphorically speaking) Galilei could be held in "house arrest" even when no visible means of censorship or coercion are in place.

Reification and design epistemology

By considering the available knowledge of knowledge (or metaphorically, by self-reflecting in front of the mirror), we become aware that reification — the axiom that the purpose of information is to show us "the reality as it truly is" (and the corresponding reification of our institutions, knowledge-work processes and models) can no longer be rationally defended. And that, on the other hand, our society's vital need is for effective information, the one that will fulfill in it certain vitally important roles. The design epistemology is a convention, according to which information is an essential piece in a larger whole or wholes—and must be created, evaluated, treated and used accordingly. That is, of course, what the bus with candle headlights is also suggesting.

The design epistemology is the crux of our proposal. It means considering knowledge work institutions, tools and professions as systemic elements of larger systems; instead of reifying the status quo (as one would naturally do in a traditional culture).

The design epistemology is the epistemology that suits a culture that is no longer traditional.

The design epistemology is a convention that defines the new "relationship with knowledge", which constitutes the core of our proposal.

Notice that design epistemology is not another reification. This epistemology is completely independent of or 'orthogonal to' whether we believe in "objective truth" etc. The design epistemology provides us a foundation for truth and meaning that is independent of all reifications.

Prototype

A prototype is a characteristic "result" that follows from the design epistemology.

When Information is no longer conceived of as an "objective picture of reality", but an instrument to interact with the world around us—then information cannot be only results of observing the world; it cannot be confined to academic books and articles. The prototypes serve as models, as experiments, and as interventions.

The prototypes give agency to information.

Prototypes also enable knowledge federation—a transdiscipline is organized around a prototype, to keep it consistent with the state of the art of knowledge in the participating disciplines.

Holoscope, holotopia and knowledge federation

The following must to be emphasized and understood:

What we are proposing is a process—and not any particular result, or implementation, of that process.

Everything here are just prototypes—both because everything here serves to illustrate the process; and because the nature of this process is such that everything is in continued evolution. The point of knowledge federation is that both the way we see and understand things, and the way we act etc., is in constant evolutionary flow, to reflect the relevant information.

Holoscope is a prototype of a handling of information where knowledge is federated. holotopia is a prototype of a societal order of things that results.

And so holoscope may be considered a scope; and holotopia the resulting view

Elephant

Elephant ideogram

Let us conclude by putting all of these pieces together, into a big-picture view.

Let's talk about empowering cultural heritage, and knowledge workers, to make the kind of difference that Peccei was calling for. That's what the Elephant ideogram stands for.

The structuralists attempted to give rigor (in the old-paradigm understanding of rigor) to the study of cultural artifacts. The post-structuralists deconstructed this attempt—by arguing that writings of historical thinkers, and cultural artifacts in general, have no "real" interpretation. And that they are, therefore, subject to free interpretation.

Our information, and our cultural heritage in general, is like Humpty Dumpty after the great fall—nobody can put it back together! That is, within the old paradigm, of course.

But there is a solution: We consider the visionary thinkers of the present and the past as those proverbial blind-folded men touching an elephant. We hear one of them talk about "a fan", another one about "a water hose", and yet another one about "a tree trunk". They don't make sense, and we ignore them.

Everything changes when we understand that what they are really talking about are the ear, the trunk and the leg of the big animal—which, of course, metaphorically represents the emerging paradigm! Suddenly it all not only makes sense—but it becomes a new kind of spectacle. A real one!

In an academic context, we might talk, jokingly about post-post-structuralism. The elephant (as metaphor) is pointing to a way to empower academic workers to make a dramatic practical difference, in this time of need—while making their work even more rigorous; and academic!