Difference between revisions of "Holotopia"
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<p>You are about to board a bus for a long night ride, when you notice the flickering streaks of light emanating from two wax candles, placed where the headlights of the bus are expected to be. Candles? <em>As headlights</em>? </p> | <p>You are about to board a bus for a long night ride, when you notice the flickering streaks of light emanating from two wax candles, placed where the headlights of the bus are expected to be. Candles? <em>As headlights</em>? </p> | ||
− | <p>Of course, the idea of candles as headlights is absurd. So why propose it? Because <em>on a much larger scale</em> this absurdity has become reality.</p> | + | <p>Of course, the idea of candles as headlights is absurd. So why propose it? |
+ | <blockquote> Because <em>on a much larger scale</em> this absurdity has become reality.</blockquote> </p> | ||
<p>The Modernity <em>ideogram</em> renders the essence of our contemporary situation by depicting our society as an accelerating bus without a steering wheel, and the way we look at the world, try to comprehend and handle it as guided by a pair of candle headlights.</p> | <p>The Modernity <em>ideogram</em> renders the essence of our contemporary situation by depicting our society as an accelerating bus without a steering wheel, and the way we look at the world, try to comprehend and handle it as guided by a pair of candle headlights.</p> | ||
</div> | </div> | ||
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<small>Modernity <em>ideogram</em></small> | <small>Modernity <em>ideogram</em></small> | ||
</div> </div> | </div> </div> | ||
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<div class="col-md-3"></div> | <div class="col-md-3"></div> | ||
<div class="col-md-7"><h3>In detail</h3> | <div class="col-md-7"><h3>In detail</h3> | ||
− | <p>What would it take to <em> | + | <p>What would it take to <em>reconnect</em> information with action? </p> |
− | <p>What would information and our handling of information be like, if we | + | <p>What would information and our handling of information be like, if we treated information as we treat other human-made things—if we adapted it to the purposes that need to be served? </p> |
− | <p>What would our <em>world</em> be like, if academic researchers retracted the premise that when an idea is published in a book or an article it is already "known" | + | <p>What would our <em>world</em> be like, if academic researchers retracted the premise that when an idea is published in a book or an article it is already "known"; if they attended to the other half of this picture, the use and usefulness of information, with thoroughness and rigor that distinguish academic technical work? </p> |
<p>What would the academic field that develops this approach to information be like? How would information be different? How would it be used? By what methods, what social processes, and by whom would it be created? What new information formats would emerge, and supplement or replace the traditional books and articles? How would information technology be adapted and applied? What would public informing be like? And <em>academic communication, and education</em>? </p> | <p>What would the academic field that develops this approach to information be like? How would information be different? How would it be used? By what methods, what social processes, and by whom would it be created? What new information formats would emerge, and supplement or replace the traditional books and articles? How would information technology be adapted and applied? What would public informing be like? And <em>academic communication, and education</em>? </p> | ||
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<blockquote>The substance of our proposal is a <em>complete</em> [[Holotopia:Prototype|<em>prototype</em>]] of [[Holotopia:Knowledge federation|<em>knowledge federation</em>]], by which those and other related questions are answered. </blockquote> | <blockquote>The substance of our proposal is a <em>complete</em> [[Holotopia:Prototype|<em>prototype</em>]] of [[Holotopia:Knowledge federation|<em>knowledge federation</em>]], by which those and other related questions are answered. </blockquote> | ||
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− | <p> | + | <p><em>Knowledge federation</em> is a [[Holotopia:Paradigm|<em>paradigm</em>]]. Not in a specific field of science, where new paradigms are relatively common, but in "creation, integration and application of knowledge" at large.</p> |
<blockquote>Our call to action is to institutionalize and develop <em>knowledge federation</em> as an academic field, and as real-life <em>praxis</em>.</blockquote> | <blockquote>Our call to action is to institutionalize and develop <em>knowledge federation</em> as an academic field, and as real-life <em>praxis</em>.</blockquote> | ||
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</div> </div> | </div> </div> | ||
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<div class="row"> | <div class="row"> | ||
− | <div class="col-md-3"><h2> | + | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>An application</h2></div> |
− | <div class="col-md-6"><h3> | + | <div class="col-md-6"><h3>The situation we are in</h3> |
<p>The Club of Rome's assessment of the situation we are in, provided us with a benchmark challenge for putting the proposed ideas to a test. Four decades ago—based on a decade of this global think tank's research into the future prospects of mankind, in a book titled "One Hundred Pages for the Future"—[[Aurelio Peccei]] issued the following call to action: | <p>The Club of Rome's assessment of the situation we are in, provided us with a benchmark challenge for putting the proposed ideas to a test. Four decades ago—based on a decade of this global think tank's research into the future prospects of mankind, in a book titled "One Hundred Pages for the Future"—[[Aurelio Peccei]] issued the following call to action: | ||
<blockquote> | <blockquote> | ||
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<p>We coined the keyword [[Holotopia:Holotopia|<em>holotopia</em>]] to point to the cultural and social order of things that will result.</p> | <p>We coined the keyword [[Holotopia:Holotopia|<em>holotopia</em>]] to point to the cultural and social order of things that will result.</p> | ||
− | <p>To begin the Holotopia project, we are developing an initial <em>prototype</em> | + | <p>To begin the Holotopia project, we are developing an initial <em>prototype</em>. It includes a vision, and a collection of strategic and tactical assets—that will make the vision clear, and our pursuit of it actionable. </p> |
</div> </div> | </div> </div> | ||
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<div class="row"> | <div class="row"> | ||
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<p>The <em>holotopia</em> is different in spirit from them all. It is a <em>more</em> attractive vision of the future than what the common utopias offered—whose authors either lacked the information to see what was possible, or lived in the times when the resources we have did not yet exist. And yet the <em>holotopia</em> is readily realizable—because we already have the information and other resources that are needed for its fulfillment.</p> | <p>The <em>holotopia</em> is different in spirit from them all. It is a <em>more</em> attractive vision of the future than what the common utopias offered—whose authors either lacked the information to see what was possible, or lived in the times when the resources we have did not yet exist. And yet the <em>holotopia</em> is readily realizable—because we already have the information and other resources that are needed for its fulfillment.</p> | ||
− | <p>The <em>holotopia</em> vision is made concrete | + | <p>The <em>holotopia</em> vision is made concrete in terms of <em>five insights</em>, as explained below.</p> |
<h3>Making things [[Wholeness|<em>whole</em>]]</h3> | <h3>Making things [[Wholeness|<em>whole</em>]]</h3> | ||
<p><em>What do we need to do</em> to change course toward the <em>holotopia</em>?</p> | <p><em>What do we need to do</em> to change course toward the <em>holotopia</em>?</p> | ||
− | <blockquote> From a | + | <blockquote> From a collection of insights from which the <em>holotopia</em> emerges as a future worth aiming for, we have distilled a simple principle or rule of thumb—making things [[Wholeness|<em>whole</em>]].</blockquote> |
− | <p>This principle is suggested by the <em>holotopia</em>'s very name. And also by the Modernity <em>ideogram</em> | + | <p>This principle is suggested by the <em>holotopia</em>'s very name. And also by the Modernity <em>ideogram</em>. Instead of <em>reifying</em> our institutions and professions, and merely acting in them competitively to improve "our own" situation or condition, we consider ourselves and what we do as functional elements in a larger system of systems; and we self-organize, and act, as it may best suit the [[Wholeness|<em>wholeness</em>]] of it all. </p> |
<p>Imagine if academic and other knowledge-workers collaborated to serve and develop planetary wholeness – what magnitude of benefits would result!</p> | <p>Imagine if academic and other knowledge-workers collaborated to serve and develop planetary wholeness – what magnitude of benefits would result!</p> | ||
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<div class="col-md-3"><h2>A method</h2></div> | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>A method</h2></div> | ||
− | <div class="col-md-7"><h3> | + | <div class="col-md-7"><h3>We see things whole</h3> |
<p>"The arguments posed in the preceding pages", Peccei summarized in One Hundred Pages for the Future, "point out several things, of which one of the most important is that our generations seem to have lost <em>the sense of the whole</em>." </p> | <p>"The arguments posed in the preceding pages", Peccei summarized in One Hundred Pages for the Future, "point out several things, of which one of the most important is that our generations seem to have lost <em>the sense of the whole</em>." </p> | ||
− | < | + | <blockquote>To make things whole—<em>we must be able to see them whole</em>! </blockquote> |
<p>To highlight that the <em>knowledge federation</em> methodology described in the mentioned <em>prototype</em> affords that very capability, to <em>see things whole</em>, in the context of the <em>holotopia</em> we refer to it by the pseudonym <em>holoscope</em>.</p> | <p>To highlight that the <em>knowledge federation</em> methodology described in the mentioned <em>prototype</em> affords that very capability, to <em>see things whole</em>, in the context of the <em>holotopia</em> we refer to it by the pseudonym <em>holoscope</em>.</p> | ||
<p>The characteristics of the <em>holoscope</em>—the design choices or <em>design patterns</em>, how they follow from published insights and why they are necessary for 'illuminating the way'—will become obvious in the course of this presentation. One characteristic, however, must be made clear from the start.</p> | <p>The characteristics of the <em>holoscope</em>—the design choices or <em>design patterns</em>, how they follow from published insights and why they are necessary for 'illuminating the way'—will become obvious in the course of this presentation. One characteristic, however, must be made clear from the start.</p> | ||
− | <h3> | + | <h3>We look at all sides</h3> |
<p> | <p> | ||
[[File:Holoscope.jpeg]]<br> | [[File:Holoscope.jpeg]]<br> | ||
<small>Holoscope <em>ideogram</em></small> | <small>Holoscope <em>ideogram</em></small> | ||
</p> | </p> | ||
− | <p> | + | <p>If our goal would be to put a new "piece of information" into an existing "reality picture", then whatever challenges that reality picture would be considered "controversial". But when our goal is to see whether something is <em>whole</em> or 'cracked', then our attitude must be different.</p> |
− | < | + | <blockquote>To see things whole, we must look at all sides.</blockquote> |
− | <p>To liberate our thinking from the | + | <p>The views we are about to share may make you leap from your chair. You will, however, be able to relax and enjoy this presentation, if you consider that the communication we invite you to engage in with us <em>is</em> academically rigorous—but with a different <em>idea</em> of rigor. In the <em>holoscope</em> we take no recourse to "reality". Coexistence of multiple ways of looking at any theme or issues (which in the <em>holoscope</em> are called <em>scopes</em>) is axiomatic. And so is the assumption that we <em>must</em> overcome our habits and resistances and look in new ways, if we should see things whole and finding a new course.</p> |
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+ | <blockquote>We invite you to be with us in the manner of the <em>dialog</em>—to <em>genuinely</em> share, listen and co-create.</blockquote> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <h3>We modified science</h3> | ||
+ | <p>To liberate our thinking from the inherited concepts and methods, and allow for deliberate choice of <em>scopes</em>, we used the scientific method as venture point—and modified it by taking recourse to insights reached in 20th century science and philosophy. </p> | ||
<blockquote> | <blockquote> | ||
Science gave us new ways to look at the world: The telescope and the microscope enabled us to see the things that are too distant or too small to be seen by the naked eye, and our vision expanded beyond bounds. But science had the <em>tendency to keep us focused on things that were either too distant or too small to be relevant—compared to all those large things or issues nearby, which now demand our attention</em>. The <em>holoscope</em> is conceived as a way to look at the world that helps us see <em>any</em> chosen thing or theme as a whole—from all sides; and in proportion. | Science gave us new ways to look at the world: The telescope and the microscope enabled us to see the things that are too distant or too small to be seen by the naked eye, and our vision expanded beyond bounds. But science had the <em>tendency to keep us focused on things that were either too distant or too small to be relevant—compared to all those large things or issues nearby, which now demand our attention</em>. The <em>holoscope</em> is conceived as a way to look at the world that helps us see <em>any</em> chosen thing or theme as a whole—from all sides; and in proportion. | ||
</blockquote> | </blockquote> | ||
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</div> </div> | </div> </div> | ||
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+ | <div class="page-header" ><h2>Five insights</h2></div> | ||
<div class="row"> | <div class="row"> | ||
− | <div class="col-md-3"><h2> | + | <div class="col-md-3"><h2></h2></div> |
<div class="col-md-7"> | <div class="col-md-7"> | ||
<p> | <p> | ||
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<h3>Before we begin</h3> | <h3>Before we begin</h3> | ||
− | <p>What | + | <p>What theme, what evidence, what "new discovery" might have the force commensurate with the momentum with which our civilization is rushing onward—and have a <em>realistic</em> chance to make it "change course"?</p> |
<p>We offer these [[Holotopia:Five insights|<em>five insights</em>]] as a <em>prototype</em> answer. </p> | <p>We offer these [[Holotopia:Five insights|<em>five insights</em>]] as a <em>prototype</em> answer. </p> | ||
− | <p> | + | <p>They result when we apply the <em>holoscope</em> to illuminate five pivotal themes: |
<ul> | <ul> | ||
− | <li>Innovation ( | + | <li>Innovation (how we use our ability to create, and induce change)</li> |
− | <li>Communication | + | <li>Communication (how information technology is being used)</li> |
− | <li> | + | <li>Epistemology (fundamental premises on which our handling of information is based)</li> |
− | <li>Method | + | <li>Method (how truth and meaning are created)</li> |
− | <li>Values | + | <li>Values (how we "pursue happiness")</li> |
</ul> </p> | </ul> </p> | ||
− | <p>For each of | + | <p>For each of these five themes, we show that our conventional way of looking made us ignore a principle or a rule of thumb, which readily emerges when we 'connect the dots'—when we <em>combine</em> published insights. We see that by ignoring those principles, we have created deep <em>structural</em> problems ('crack in the cup')—which are causing problems, and "global issues" in particular.</p> |
− | <p> | + | <p>A 'scientific' approach to problems is this way made possible, where instead of focusing on symptoms, we understand and treat their deeper, structural causes—which <em>can</em> be remedied. </p> |
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− | <p> | + | <p>In the spirit of the <em>holoscope</em>, we only summarize each of the <em>five insights</em>—and provide evidence and details separately.</p> |
− | < | + | </div> </div> |
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− | < | + | <div class="row"> |
+ | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>[[Holotopia:Power structure|<em>Power structure</em>]]</h2></div> | ||
+ | <div class="col-md-7"> | ||
− | < | + | <h3><em>Scope</em></h3> |
− | <p> | + | <p>"Man has acquired such decisive power that his future depends essentially on how he will use it", observed Peccei. We look at the <em>way</em> in which man uses his power to <em>innovate</em> (create, and induce change). </p> |
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− | < | + | <blockquote>We look at the way our civilization follows in its evolution; or metaphorically, at 'the itinerary' of our 'bus'. </blockquote> |
− | <p> | + | <p>We readily observe that we use competition or "survival of the fittest" to orient innovation, not information and "making things whole". The popular belief that "the free competition" or "the free market" will serve us better, also makes our "democracies" elect the "leaders" who represent that view. But is that view warranted?</p> |
− | < | + | <blockquote>Genuine revolutions include new ways to see freedom and power; <em>holotopia</em> is no exception. </blockquote> |
+ | <p>We offer this [[Keyword|<em>keyword</em>]], [[power structures|<em>power structure</em>]], as a means to that end. Think of the <em>power structure</em> as a new way to conceive of the intuitive notion "power holder", who might take away our freedom, or be our "enemy". </p> | ||
+ | <p>While the nature of <em>power structures</em> will become clear as we go along, imagine them, to begin with, as institutions; or more accurately, as <em>the systems in which we live and work</em> (we'll here call them simply <em>systems</em>).</p> | ||
+ | <p>Notice that <em>systems</em> have an <em>immense</em> power—<em>over us</em>, because <em>we have to adapt to them</em> to be able to live and work; and <em>over our environment</em>, because by organizing us and using us in a specific ways, <em>they determine what the effects of our work will be</em>.</p> | ||
+ | <blockquote>The <em>power structures</em> determine whether the effects of our efforts will be problems, or solutions. </blockquote> | ||
− | < | + | <h3>Diagnosis</h3> |
− | <p> | + | <p>How suitable are <em>the systems in which we live and work</em> for their all-important role?</p> |
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− | <p> | + | <p>Evidence, circumstantial <em>and</em> theoretical, shows that they waste a lion's share of our resources. And that they <em>cause</em> problems, or make us incapable of solving them.</p> |
− | <p> | + | <p>The reason is the intrinsic nature of evolution, as Richard Dawkins explained it in "The Selfish Gene". </p> |
− | <p>The | + | <blockquote>"Survival of the fittest" favors the <em>systems</em> that are by nature predatory, not the ones that are useful. </blockquote> |
+ | |||
+ | <p>[https://youtu.be/zpQYsk-8dWg?t=920 This excerpt] from Joel Bakan's documentary "The Corporation" (which Bakan as law professor created to <em>federate</em> an insight he considered essential) explains how the corporation, the most powerful institution on the planet, evolved to be a perfect "externalizing machine" ("Externalizing" means maximizing profits by letting someone else bear the costs, such as the people and the environment), just as the shark evolved to be a perfect "killing machine". [https://youtu.be/qsKQiVJkEvI?t=2780 This scene] from Sidney Pollack's 1969 film "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" will illustrate how our <em>systems</em> affect <em>our own</em> condition.</p> | ||
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+ | <blockquote>Why do we put up with such <em>systems</em>? Why don't we treat them as we treat other human-made things—by adapting them to the purposes that need to be served?</blockquote> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>The reasons are interesting, and in <em>holotopia</em> they'll be a recurring theme. </p> | ||
+ | <p>One of them we have already seen: We do not <em>see things whole</em>. When we look in conventional ways, the <em>systems</em> remain invisible for similar reasons as a mountain on which we might be walking.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>A reason why we ignore the possibility of adapting <em>the systems in which we live and work</em> to the functions they have in our society, is that they perform for us a <em>different</em> function—of providing structure to power battles and turf strifes. Within a <em>system</em>, they provide us "objective" and "fair" criteria to compete; and in the world outside, they give us as system <em>system</em> "competitive edge".</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>Why don't media corporations <em>combine</em> their resources to give us the awareness we need? Because they must <em>compete</em> with one another for our attention—and use only "cost-effective" means.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>The most interesting reason, however, is that the <em>power structures</em> have the power to <em>socialize</em> us in ways that suit <em>their</em> interests. Through <em>socialization</em>, they can adapt to their interests both our culture <em>and</em> our "human quality".</p> | ||
<p> | <p> | ||
[[File:Bauman-PS.jpeg]] | [[File:Bauman-PS.jpeg]] | ||
</p> | </p> | ||
− | <p>A result is that bad intentions are no longer needed for cruelty and evil to result. The <em>power structures</em> can co-opt our duty and | + | <p>A result is that bad intentions are no longer needed for cruelty and evil to result. The <em>power structures</em> can co-opt our sense of duty and commitment, and even our heroism and honor.</p> |
− | <p> | + | <p>Zygmunt Bauman's key insight, that the concentration camp was only a special case, however extreme, of (what we are calling) the <em>power structure</em>, needs to be carefully digested and internalized: While our ethical sensibilities are focused on the <em>power structures</em> of yesterday, we are committing the greatest [https://youtu.be/d1x7lDxHd-o massive crime] in human history (in all innocence, by only "doing our job" within the <em>systems</em> we belong to).</p> |
− | <p>The fact that we will not "solve our problems" unless we learned to collaborate and adapt our <em>systems</em> to their contemporary roles and our contemporary challenges has not remained unnoticed. Alredy in 1948, in his seminal Cybernetics, Norbert Wiener explained why | + | <blockquote>Our civilization is not "on the collision course with nature" because someone violated the rules—but <em>because we follow them</em>.</blockquote> |
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+ | <h3>Remedy</h3> | ||
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+ | <p>The fact that we will not "solve our problems" unless we learned to collaborate and adapt our <em>systems</em> to their contemporary roles and our contemporary challenges has not remained unnoticed. Alredy in 1948, in his seminal Cybernetics, Norbert Wiener explained why competition cannot replace 'headlights and steering'. Cybernetics was envisioned as a <em>transdisciplinary</em> academic effort to help us understand <em>systems</em>, so that we may adapt their structure to the functions they need to perform. </p> | ||
<p> | <p> | ||
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</p> | </p> | ||
− | <p>The very first step the founders of The Club of Rome | + | <p>The very first step the founders of The Club of Rome did after its inception in 1968 was to convene a team of experts, in Bellagio, Italy, to develop a suitable methodology. They gave "making things whole" on the scale of socio-technical systems the name "systemic innovation"—and we adopted that as one of our <em>keywords</em>. </p> |
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+ | </div> </div> | ||
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+ | <div class="row"> | ||
+ | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>[[Holotopia:Collective mind|<em>Collective mind</em>]]</h2></div> | ||
+ | <div class="col-md-7"><h3>Scope</h3> | ||
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+ | <p>If our next evolutionary task is to make institutions or <em>systems</em> <em>whole</em>—<b>where</b> should we begin?</p> | ||
+ | <p>Handling of information, or metaphorically our society's 'headlights', suggests itself as the answer for several reasons. One of them is that if we'll use information as guiding light and not competition, our information will need to be different.</p> | ||
+ | <p>Norbert Wiener contributed another reason: In <em>social</em> systems, communication is what <em>turns</em> individuals into a system. The nature of communication <em>determines</em> what a system will be like. <em>The</em> basic insight of cybernetics is that to to be able to correct its course (or to maintain "homeostasis", Wiener would have preferred to say, which we may interpret as "sustainability"), the system's "control" must be based on <em>suitable</em> communication or "feedback". </p> | ||
− | <h3> | + | <h3>Diagnosis</h3> |
− | < | + | <blockquote>The tie between information and action has been severed, Wiener too observed; it must be restored, for sustainability to be possible. </blockquote> |
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<p> | <p> | ||
[[File:Bush-Vision.jpg]] | [[File:Bush-Vision.jpg]] | ||
</p> | </p> | ||
− | <p>To make that point, Wiener cited an earlier work, Vannevar Bush's 1945 article "As We May Think", where Bush | + | <p>To make that point, Wiener cited an earlier work, Vannevar Bush's 1945 article "As We May Think", where Bush urged the scientists to make the task of revising <em>their own</em> system their <em>next</em> highest priority—the World War Two having just been won.</p> |
− | <p> | + | <p>Why hasn't this been done?</p> |
− | <p>"As long as a paradox is treated as a problem, it can never be dissolved," observed David Bohm | + | <p>"As long as a paradox is treated as a problem, it can never be dissolved," observed David Bohm.</p> |
− | <p>It may | + | <blockquote><em>Wiener too</em> entrusted his results to the communication whose tie with action had been severed!</blockquote> |
− | < | + | |
+ | <p>We assembled a considerable collection of academic results that shared a similar fate, as evidence of an underlying anomaly we are calling the [[Wiener's paradox|<em>Wiener's paradox</em>]].</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>It may be disheartening, especially to an academic researcher, to see that so many best ideas of our best minds are unable to benefit our society. But this sentiment quickly changes to <em>holotopian</em> optimism, when we look at the vast creative frontier that is opening up—where we are called upon to reinvent the very <em>system</em> by which we do our work; as the founding fathers of science did centuries ago. </p> | ||
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+ | <p>Optimism turns into enthusiasm, when we understand the role that the new information technology will have in that undertaking.</p> | ||
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+ | <blockquote> Core parts of contemporary information technology were created to enable <em>fundamentally different</em> systemic solutions in knowledge work, compared to the ones we have inherited from the past.</blockquote> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>"Fundamentally different" here means that their very principle of operation will be different—in the manner and in the degree in which electrical light is different from the light that a burning candle would produce.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>It is not completely true that Vannevar Bush's call to action was ignored. Douglas Engelbart heard it, and with his SRI team developed a solution that was well beyond what Bush envisioned. They showed this solution—really the technology we all now use to connect with each other and to communicate—in their famous 1968 demo.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <blockquote>But the vision that guided Engelbart, of a new <em>paradigm</em> in communication, has neither been understood in theory nor implemented in practice.</blockquote> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>When we, humans, are connected to a personal digital device through an interactive interface, and when those devices are connected together into a network—then the overall result is that we are connected together in a similar way as the cells in a human organism are connected by the nervous system. While all earlier innovations in this area—from clay tablets to the printing press—required that a physical medium that bears a message be physically <em>transported</em>—this new technology allows us to "create, integrate and apply knowledge" <em>concurrently</em>, as cells in a human nervous system do.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <blockquote> We can now think and create—together!</blockquote> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>[https://youtu.be/cRdRSWDefgw This three minute video clip], which we called "Doug Engelbart's Last Wish", offers an opportunity for a pause. Imagine the effects of improving the <em>system</em> by which information is produced and put to use; even "the effects of getting 5% better", Engelbart commented with a smile. Then he put his fingers on his forehead: "I've always imagined that the potential was... large..." The improvement that is possible is not only large; it is <em>staggering</em>. The improvement that can and needs to be achieved is indeed <em>qualitative</em>— from a system that doesn't really work, to one that does.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>By collaborating in new ways, as Engelbart envisioned, we would be able to comprehend our problems and respond to them incomparably more quickly than we do. Engelbart foresaw that the <em>collective intelligence</em> that would result would enable us to tackle the "complexity times urgency of our problems", which he saw as growing at an accelerated rate or "exponentially". </p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>But to Engelbart's dismay, our new "collective nervous system" ended up being used to only implement the <em>old</em> processes and systems, which evolved through the centuries of use of the printing press, and make them more efficient; to only <em>broadcast</em> data. </p> | ||
− | |||
− | |||
− | |||
<p> | <p> | ||
[[File:Giddens-OS.jpeg]] | [[File:Giddens-OS.jpeg]] | ||
</p> | </p> | ||
− | <p>The above observation by Anthony Giddens points to | + | <p>The above observation by Anthony Giddens points to the impact this has had on us as culture; and on "human quality". Dazzled by an overload of data, in a reality whose complexity is well beyond our comprehension—we have no other recourse but "ontological security". We find meaning in learning a profession, and performing in it a competitively.</p> |
− | <p>But this is, | + | |
+ | <p>But this is, of course, what binds us to <em>power structure</em>. </p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <blockquote> Instead of liberating us—the new information technology bounded us to <em>power structure</em> even stronger. </blockquote> | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | <h3>Remedy</h3> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>What we are calling <em>knowledge federation</em> is the functioning of our <em>collective mind</em> that suits the new technology—and our situation.</p> | ||
− | < | + | <p>Our call to action—to develop <em>knowledge federation</em> as an academic field, and as real-life <em>praxis</em>—is proposed as a remedy to the <em>collective mind</em> issue.</p> |
− | <p>Our next question is <b>who</b>, that is <em>what institution</em> | + | <p>Our <em>prototype</em> is offered as a proof of concept model of this solution.</p> |
− | <p>Both | + | |
− | <p>Why? Isn't restoring agency to information and power to knowledge a task worthy | + | </div> </div> |
− | <p>It is tempting to conclude | + | |
− | <p>As we pointed out in the opening paragraphs of | + | |
− | <p>We | + | <div class="row"> |
− | <p> | + | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>[[Holotopia:Socialized reality|<em>Socialized reality</em>]]</h2></div> |
− | <p> | + | <div class="col-md-7"><h3><em>Scope</em></h3> |
− | <p> | + | <p> |
− | <p> | + | <blockquote>"Act like as if you loved your children above all else"</blockquote> |
− | <p> | + | Greta Thunberg, representing her generation, told the political leaders at Davos. Securing our children a future, however, will require an unprecedented level of international collaboration, and restructuring of the global economy, the widely read [https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-188550/ Rolling Stone article] reeports. The COVID-19 exacerbates those demands and makes them even more immediate. Considering the way in which things are related, restructuring of the world economy will not be possible without restructuring other systems as well.</p> |
+ | |||
+ | <p>So our next question is <b>who</b>, that is <em>what institution</em> will initiate the next urgent task on our evolutionary agenda—tell us how to update <em>the systems in which we live and work</em>; and empower us to do that?</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>Both Jantsch and Engelbart believed that "the university" would have to be the answer; and they made their appeals accordingly. But they were ignored. And so were Vannevar Bush and Norbert Wiener before them; and also Neil Postman and others that followed. </p> | ||
+ | <p>Why? Isn't restoring agency to information and power to knowledge a task worthy of academic attention?</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>It is tempting to conclude that the <em>academia</em> too followed the general evolutionary trend; that the academic discipline too evolved as <em>power structure</em>—to provide clear and fair rules for pursuing a career <em>within</em> a discipline; and divide the 'academic turf' <em>between</em> disciplines—while keeping the outliers outside.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>But to see solutions, we will need to look at deeper causes.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>As we pointed out in the opening paragraphs of this website, the academic tradition did not develop as a way to pursue practical knowledge, but (let's call it that) "right" knowledge. By bringing up the image of Galilei in house arrest, we highlighted that it was not the pursuit of <em>practical</em> knowledge that led our ancestors to a "great cultural revival", but of <em>knowledge for its own sake</em>. Censorship and prison were unable to contain the new way to look at the world, whose time had come—and it transpired from astrophysics, where it originated, and permeated the society.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>So the core role of the university is to inform us about the meaning and purpose of knowledge, so that we may successfully pursue knowledge in <em>any</em> context. The traditional academic keyword is "epistemology", which is usually interpreted as the exploration of the limits of knowledge, understood as "how and to what degree can we really know reality?". Here we'll use this keyword a bit differently, and let <em>epistemology</em> mean both the "knowledge of knowledge", and the "foundation for creating truth and meaning" that follows from it. </p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>We concluded the opening paragraph of our website by asking, rhetorically, "Could a similar advent be in store for us today?" In this way we suggested that our situation today might be similar as the situation back then, in Galilei's time. That now again there is a new way to look at the world waiting to be given 'citizenship rights'—ready to transform our world. </p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>This leads us to <em>the</em> key question, which we shall here begin to explore.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <blockquote>Who, or what, might be 'Galilei in house arrest' today?</blockquote> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>What transformative ideas are ready to emerge? What new way of looking at the world is ready to transform it?</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>And who, or what, is keeping Galilei 'in house arrest'?</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | <h3>Diagnosis</h3> | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | <blockquote>So what <em>is</em> "right" knowledge? What <em>is</em> the right foundation for creating truth and meaning? Nobody knows! </blockquote> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>Of course, innumerable views of this core philosophical issue have been contributed since as far back as our collective memory can reach. But no "official narrative" or consensus has as yet emerged.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>So all we can do here to begin this exploration is share what <em>we</em>'ve been told, while we were growing up. We'll simplify and caricature—to point to an issue that calls for attention.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>As members of the <em>homo sapiens</em> species, we were informed, we have the evolutionary prerogative to understand the world, and to make choices rationally. Give the <em>homo sapiens</em> a correct understanding of the natural world, he'll know exactly how to go about satisfying "his needs", which he no doubt knows because he can experience directly. But the traditions got it all wrong! Being unable to understand how the nature works, our ancestors invented a "ghost in the machine"—and prayed to <em>him</em> to give them what they wanted. Science corrected this error. It <em>removed</em> the "ghost"—and told us how the nature, or 'the machine', <em>really</em> works. We can now combine scientific understanding of causes with technology, and get out the nature exactly what we want and need.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>And yes, one more thing: Our wants and needs can of course contradict one another. Here "the free market" and "the free elections" will serve as perfect scales, to assure that the majority prevails.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>And culture—what about culture? Oh yes; some people, mostly older, still like to go to classical music concerts, to the theatre and that sort of things. We also have research in humanities, who study "culture". But their role in practical reality is not very clear. And anyhow, they haven't been able to give us anything close in spirit to a "scientific worldview"; indeed, the humanities researchers never seem to agree with each other.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>According to this view, all we need from information is to give us "an objective reality picture", so that we may use our rational faculties and handle our affairs correctly. </p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>Popular myths of this kind, which began to take hold of our culture around the middle of the 19th century, when Adam and Moses as cultural heroes were replaced by Darwin and Newton, were proven wrong in 20th century science and philosophy.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <blockquote>It turned out that <em>we</em> got it wrong.</blockquote> | ||
<p> | <p> | ||
[[File:Einstein-Watch.jpeg]] | [[File:Einstein-Watch.jpeg]] | ||
</p> | </p> | ||
− | <p>It | + | <p>It is impossible, scientists found out, to assert that our ideas and models <em>correspond</em> to reality. There is simply no way to open the supposed "mechanism of nature", and verify that our models <em>correspond</em> to it.</p> |
+ | |||
+ | <p>"Reality", sociologists found out, should rather be considered as a contrivance of the traditional culture (or of what we called the <em>power structure</em>), invented to <em>socialize</em> us in a certain way. In "Social Construction of Reality", Berger and Luckmann pointed out that throughout history, the explanations how "the reality really works", which they called "universal theories", have been used to <em>legitimize</em> the given social order.</p> | ||
− | <p> | + | <p>Results in cognitive science, and in political science and sociology, showed that we are not the "rational decision makers", as the 19th century made us believe.</p> |
− | |||
<p> | <p> | ||
[[File:Bourdieu-insight.jpeg]] | [[File:Bourdieu-insight.jpeg]] | ||
</p> | </p> | ||
− | <p> | + | <p>They explained the <em>mechanism</em> of <em>socialization</em>—the way in which our seemingly rational choices are manipulated through the use of "symbolic power", without <em>anyone</em> noticing.</p> |
− | <p> | + | |
+ | <p>This, however, <em>has</em> been noticed. The business people were quick to learn that our choices can be manipulated; they now use <em>scientific</em> advisers to do that (the epic story of Edward Bernays, Freud's American nephew, illustrates how this began). The politicians followed.</p> | ||
+ | <p>As it turned out, the Enlightenment did not really liberate us, as we tend to believe. Our <em>socialization</em> only changed hands—from one <em>power structure</em> (the kings and the clergy) to the next (the corporations and the media). </p> | ||
− | <h3>[[Holotopia:Narrow frame|<em>Narrow frame</em>]]</h3> | + | <blockquote><em>They</em> are now creating our culture.</blockquote> |
+ | |||
+ | <h3>Remedy</h3> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>"Reality" as foundation for creating truth and meaning, and hence of culture, is bankrupt. It has no basis in reality.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>We use the <em>mirror</em> as metaphorical image, in a similar way as we use the bus with candle headlights, to point to the academic and cultural situation that resulted. The spontaneous pursuit of knowledge, and the <em>knowledge of knowledge</em> that resulted, brought us to the <em>mirror</em>. The <em>mirror</em> symbolizes coming back to the original academic values, and ethos: self-reflection; and the Socratic dialog, about the meaning and purpose of what we do. But now in the light of <em>contemporary</em> knowledge of knowledge. It symbolizes also a new self-awareness and self-image that will result: We are not <em>above</em> the world, observing it "objectively"; we are <em>in</em> the world—and have a role in it.</p> | ||
+ | </p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>The <em>mirror</em> points out that the effect that the epistemological state is to replace "reality" as foundation for our work withinformation with <em>reification</em>—which denotes something we do. And to replace <em>reification</em> with accountability. It is no longer <em>academically</em> legitimate to claim, in academia <em>and</em> in public informing, that we are not responsible, that we are simply doing our job—reporting "objectively" what we see. We have a key role to play in the world in change; and we have to change the way we perform in that role.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>The <em>mirror</em> also stands for a surprising, seemingly magical solution to our cultural entanglement.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <blockquote>We can go <em>through</em> the <em>mirror</em>—and into a completely <em>new</em> academic and social reality.</blockquote> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>This is done in three easy steps.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p> | ||
+ | [[File:Quine–TbC.jpeg]] | ||
+ | </p> | ||
+ | <p>The first—what makes this apparent magic <em>academically</em> possible—is <em>truth by convention</em>. Quine identified it as a phase, and a sign of maturing, that every field of science goes through. <em>Truth by convention</em>, where we <em>postulate</em> the meaning of words by making a convention, is the natural alternative, and antidote, to <em>reification</em>. It is the natural "Archimedean point" for once again giving information, and knowledge, the power to "move the world". </em>. | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>The next step is to use <em>truth by convention</em> to <em>postulate</em> an <em>epistemology</em>. In the <em>holoscope</em>, we postulated the <em>design epistemology</em>—which turns the "relationship we have with information" we are proposing into a convention. A convention is not a reality claim, so there is no need for consensus; the <em>holoscope</em> is simply a tool or a toolkit. <em>Truth by convention</em> is its principle of operation.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>The third and last step is <em>methodology</em> definition—where we spell out the fundamental assumptions. At this point they become <em>known</em>; they become part of our "social contract"! We can then <em>define</em> what the word like "information" and "culture" mean, even give them purpose. Once again the consensus is not needed—such definitions are binding only <em>within</em> the <em>methodology</em>.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <blockquote>This key step is not a deviation from the academic tradition—but its straight-line continuation.</blockquote> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>The result is that the <em>academia</em> now has the historical privilege, and the obligation—because its social role, and because of the academic tradition it institutionalizes—to guide the society <em>through</em> the <em>mirror</em>. To <em>liberate</em> the "oppressed".</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>On the other side of the <em>mirror</em>, we find ourselves in a completely new academic and cultural reality—where we are free to, and empowered to, be creative in ways in which our new situation requires. We can | ||
+ | |||
+ | <ul> | ||
+ | <li><b>Liberate the academic researchers</b>—<em>the</em> key resource in these demanding times—from <em>reifying</em> their disciplines; and from the traditional "observer" role—and empower them to perceive themselves as <em>creators</em> and not mere <em>observers</em> of our world; and to create the <em>way</em> they do their work to begin with</li> | ||
+ | <li><b>Liberate the people</b> from <em>reification</em> the institutions—and hence from the <em>systems</em>, and the <em>power structure</em></li> | ||
+ | <li><b>Liberate the people</b> from <em>reification</em> of their "needs" and other forms of "reality" perception—and take up "human development", as we shall see later</blockquote> </li> | ||
+ | <li><b>Liberate our language, and method, and worldview</b> from the reification of inherited concepts—and empower us to create completely <em>new</em> ways of seeing the world, and speaking and acting</li> | ||
+ | </ul> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>The concepts defined by convention are called <em>keywords</em>; we've been using them all along.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>We turned "information" into a <em>keyword</em> by defining it as "recorded experience". The substance of <em>information</em>, according this definition, is not "reality" but human experience—where "experience" is interpreted in a most general sense, to include also results of academic work and other forms of insight as (to use the colloquial phrase) "aha experiences". <em>Information</em> is, according to this definition, not only written text, but <em>any</em> artifacts that embody human experience.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p><em>Information</em> includes also <em>prototypes</em>. Instead of only writing articles and <em>observing</em> the world—on the other side of the <em>mirror</em> the researchers can give their insights <em>direct</em> impact on systems. Hereby <em>information</em> is given agency; knowledge is given its power to make a difference.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <blockquote>And to rebuild the <em>culture</em>.</blockquote> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>While we are eager to show our <em>prototype</em> portfolio to illustrate these abstract ideas and make them concrete, we leave that for the detailed modules and here only share two examples. They are both <em>keywords</em> and <em>prototypes</em>—because these two <em>keywords</em> have already been proposed to the academic communities they originally belong to, and proven to be well received and useful.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>We defined <em>design</em> as "alternative to <em>tradition</em>". By this definition, <em>design</em> and <em>tradition</em> are two alternative ways to secure the <em>wholeness</em> of the human systems and nature, where <em>tradition</em> relies on what's been inherited from the past and modifies it only exceptionally and carefully; and where <em>design</em> is the alternative—where we <em>consciously</em> and deliberately curate <em>wholeness</em>. The point of this definition is that in a post-traditional culture, or in other words in the "modernity", <em>tradition</em> no longer works, and <em>design</em> must be used. </p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>This leads to a more precise interpretation of the Modernity <em>ideogram</em>, and our contemporary situation: We are no longer <em>traditional</em>; but we are not yet <em>designing</em>. Our contemporary difficulties are a result.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>Our call to action can then be understood as a way to operationalize the key step—to modernize <em>information</em></p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>The second <em>keyword</em> is the definition of <em>implicit information</em> as <em>information</em> where no explicit claims are made; where human experience is coded, and embodied, in cultural artifacts of all kinds.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>We can now interpret our <em>cultural</em> situation by saying that while we've been focused on the <em>explicit</em>—on understanding how the world works etc.—we've been culturally dominated by the <em>implicit information</em>, and the "symbolic power" it embodies. This definition gives the <em>implicit information</em> citizenship rights—and empower us to treat it, and hence also <em>culture</em>, with the kind of thoroughness and care that have hitherto been reserved to traditional scientific pursuits.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>The research in the humanities will, of course, have a lead role to play. But to be able to do that—it needs to liberate itself <em>reifications</em>, and the observer role, and dare to <em>create</em> the methods that will give their findings the impact they need to have.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>How exactly this may need to be done is the next theme on our agenda.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | </div> </div> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div class="row"> | ||
+ | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>[[Holotopia:Narrow frame|<em>Narrow frame</em>]]</h2></div> | ||
+ | <div class="col-md-7"><h3><em>Scope</em></h3> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <!-- XXX | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>Here our focus is on what most closely corresponds to 'candle headlights' on this <em>fundamental</em> level—on the way or the method by which we look at the world, to comprehend it and handle it.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>Traditionally, such a method is a result of "ontology" or of the way in which we conceive "the nature of reality"—and "the common sense" that keeps us and our 'bus' oriented in a certain way today is no exception.</p> | ||
+ | <p>Around the middle of the 19th century, when Adam and Moses as cultural heroes and forefathers had to give way to Darwin and Newton, the belief emerged that the universe is in essence a mechanism; that science removed from it even the last traces of "ghosts"; and that the "scientific worldview" consists in considering as possible or real only that which can be explained as a consequence of the functioning of this 'mechanism', or in a "scientific" way. Isn't this how we finally came to understand that women cannot fly on broomsticks (because that would violate some well-established "natural laws")?</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>But here too the 20th century disproved and disowned the 19th century's worldview. Modern physics <em>proved</em> the "classical" or "causal" way of explaining phenomena proved to be unable to explain the behavior of small particles or "quanta" of matter, that manifested itself in experiments. </p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | <p>Yet we <em>still</em> consider as "scientific" a way of thinking which, as physicist Werner Heisenberg observed in "Physics and Philosophy", [http://kf.wikiwiki.ifi.uio.no/STORIES#Heisenberg has been damaging to culture]—because the "truth and meaning" it provided was too narrow to hold many of the values and practices that were the culture's very core. We may easily recognize in his description the thinking and values that Bauman called "adiaphorized". </p> | ||
− | |||
− | |||
<p> | <p> | ||
[[File:Heisenberg–frame.jpeg]] | [[File:Heisenberg–frame.jpeg]] | ||
</p> | </p> | ||
− | <p> | + | <p>Heisenberg expected that the largest impact of modern physics would be <em>on popular culture</em>—because the <em>narrow frame</em> would be removed. would make the largest impact 20th century's physics constituted a scientific <em>disproof</em> of the <em>narrow frame</em>. </p> |
− | <p> | + | <p>But the tie between information and action having been broken—our "conventional wisdom" remained unchanged.</p> |
− | [[File: | + | |
+ | <p>Another set of reasons why the <em>narrow frame</em> needs to be changed is reaching us from the systems sciences. <em>The whole point</em> of the "systemic thinking" is that <em>causal thinking is erroneous</em>, that it leads to wrong conclusions even when applied to the behavior of the systems that <em>can</em> be modeled in the "classical" way. Notably those systems that govern the human society and culture.</p> | ||
+ | <p> | ||
+ | [[File:MC-Bateson-vision.jpeg]] | ||
+ | </p> | ||
+ | <p> | ||
+ | [https://youtu.be/nXQraugWbjQ?t=57 Hear Mary Catherine Bateson] say: | ||
+ | <blockquote> | ||
+ | "The problem with Cybernetics is that it is not an academic discipline that belongs in a department. It is an attempt to correct an erroneous way of looking at the world, and at knowledge <em>in general</em>. (...) Universities do not have departments of epistemological therapy!" | ||
+ | </blockquote> | ||
</p> | </p> | ||
− | |||
− | |||
+ | <h3>[[Holotopia:Convenience paradox|<em>Convenience paradox</em>]] issue</h3> | ||
− | < | + | <p>We now look at what (in a "democracy", and a "free market economy") <em>directly</em> determines our society's course—our values</p> |
− | <p> | + | <p>Here the "ontology" and the "epistemology" we have just seen led to a way of making choices that vastly relies on "classical" or "Newtonian" <em>direct</em> causality—namely "instant gratification". This way of making choices, where we focus on "our own interests", also seems to be supported on the ethical side by the Darwin's theory of evolution, as "simply natural". </p> |
− | |||
<p> | <p> | ||
[[File:LaoTzu-vision.jpeg]] | [[File:LaoTzu-vision.jpeg]] | ||
</p> | </p> | ||
− | <p>The <em>convenience paradox</em> | + | <p>The <em>convenience paradox</em> issue is that <em>convenience</em> is a paradoxical and deceptive value, whose pursuit leaves us as a rule <em>less</em> whole. And that <em>immense</em> opportunities for improving our condition remained ignored. </p> |
− | <p> | + | |
− | <p> | + | <p>A <em>radically</em> better human experience is possible, than what our culture allows us to experience. <em>Wholeness</em> does exist; and it does feel incomparably better than what the deception of <em>convenience</em> might allow us to believe. But the way to it is paradoxical, and needs to be illuminated by suitable information.</p> |
+ | |||
+ | <p>Two consequences or more specific insights follow and are worth highlighting, that result when this insight (what the way to human <em>wholeness</em> is <em>really</em> like) is understood on a more detailed level.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>The first is that <em>we do not need</em> all the material welfare to pursue <em>wholeness</em>. On the contrary—the kind of lifestyle we've developed, in the pursuit of "material welfare", makes this pursuit impossible.</p> | ||
<p> | <p> | ||
[[File:Huxley-vision.jpeg]] | [[File:Huxley-vision.jpeg]] | ||
− | </p> | + | </p> |
− | <p> | + | <p>The second insight is that <em>overcoming</em> egocentricity is an essential part of the way to <em>wholeness</em>; and most interestingly—even when its <em>physical</em> or motoric side is concerned!</p> |
+ | |||
<p>Lao Tzu (often considered as the progenitor of Taoism) appears in <em>holotopia</em> as an icon for using knowledge to understand "the way" to <em>wholeness</em> ("tao" literally means "way"). He is often pictured as riding a bull, which signifies his tamed ego.</p> | <p>Lao Tzu (often considered as the progenitor of Taoism) appears in <em>holotopia</em> as an icon for using knowledge to understand "the way" to <em>wholeness</em> ("tao" literally means "way"). He is often pictured as riding a bull, which signifies his tamed ego.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>But <em>ego-centeredness</em> is what <em>makes us</em> create the <em>power structures</em>! And what prevents us from collaborating and self-organizing differently! | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>With this the circle of causality that the <em>five insights</em> compose together has been closed.</p> | ||
</div> </div> | </div> </div> | ||
− | |||
+ | <div class="row"> | ||
+ | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>Five solutions</h2></div> | ||
+ | <div class="col-md-7"> | ||
+ | <h3>The <em>power structure</em> issue <em>can</em> be resolved</h3>j | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>The [[Holotopia:Power structure|<em>power structure</em> issue]] is resolved through [[systemic innovation|<em>systemic innovation</em>]]—by which [[system|<em>systems</em>]], and hence also [[power structures|<em>power structures</em>]], evolve in ways that make them <em>whole</em>; with recourse to information that allows us to "see things whole", or in other words the <em>holoscope</em>. </p> | ||
+ | <p>We give structure to <em>systemic innovation</em> by conceiving our [[prototype|<em>prototypes</em>]] by weaving together suitable [[design pattern|<em>design patterns</em>]]—which are design challenge–design solution pairs, rendered so that they can be exported and adapted not only across <em>prototypes</em>, but also across application domains.</p> | ||
+ | <p>All our <em>prototypes</em> are examples of <em>systemic innovation</em>; any of them could be used to illustrate the techniques used, and the advantages gained. Of about a dozen <em>design patterns</em> of the Collaborology educational <em>prototype</em>, we here mention only a couple, to illustrate these abstract ideas,</p> | ||
+ | <p>(A challenge)The traditional education, conceived as a once-in-a-lifetime information package, presents an obstacle to systemic change or <em>systemic innovation</em>, because when a profession becomes obsolete, so do the professionals—and they will naturally resist change. (A solution) The Collaborology engenders a flexible education model, where the students learn what they need and at the time they need it. Furthermore, the <em>theme</em> of Collaborology is (online) collaboration; which is really <em>knowledge federation</em> and <em>systemic innovation</em>, organized under a name that the students can understand.</p> | ||
+ | <p>By having everyone (worldwide) create the learning resources for a single course, the Collaborology <em>prototype</em> illustrates the "economies of scale" that can result from online collaboration, when practiced as <em>systemic innovation</em>/<em>knowledge federation</em>. In Collaborology, a contributing author or instructor is required to contribute only a <em>single</em> lecture. By, furthermore, including creative media designers, the economies of scale allow the new media techniques (now largely confined to computer games) to revolutionize education.</p> | ||
+ | <p>A class is conceived as a design lab—where the students, self-organized in small teams, co-create learning resources. In this way the values that <em>systemic innovation</em> depends on are practiced and supported. The students contribute to the resulting innovation ecosystem, by acting as 'bacteria' (extracting 'nutrients' from the 'dead material' of published articles, and by combining them together give them a new life). </p> | ||
+ | <p>The Collaborology course model as a whole presents a solution to yet another design challenge—how to put together, organize and disseminate a <em>new</em> and <em>transdisciplinary</em> body of knowledge, about a theme of contemporary interest.</p> | ||
+ | <p>Our other <em>prototypes</em> show how similar benefits can be achieved in other core areas, such as health, tourism, and of course public informing and scientific communication. One of our Authentic Travel <em>prototypes</em> shows how to reconfigure the international corporation, concretely the franchise, and make it <em>serve</em> cultural revival.</p> | ||
+ | <p>Such <em>prototypes</em>, and the <em>design patterns</em> they embody, are new <em>kinds of</em> results, which in the <em>paradigm</em> we are proposing roughly correspond to today's scientific discoveries and technological inventions.</p> | ||
+ | <p>A different collection of design challenges and solution are related to the methodology for <em>systemic innovation</em>. Here the simple solution we developed is to organize a transdisciplinary team or <em>transdiscipline</em> around a <em>prototype</em>, with the mandate to update it continuously. This secures that the insights and innovations from the participating creative domains (represented by the members of the <em>transdiscipline</em>) have <em>direct</em> impact on <em>systems</em>. </p> | ||
+ | <p>Our experience with the very first application <em>prototype</em>, in public informing, revealed a new and general methodological and design challenge: The leading experts we brought together to form the <em>transdiscipline</em> (to represent in it the state of the art in their fields) are as a rule unable to change <em>the systems in which they live and work</em> themselves—because they are too busy and too much in demand; and because the power they have is invested in them by those <em>system</em>. But what they can and need to do is—empower the "young people" ("young" by the life phase they are in, as students or as entrepreneurs) to <em>change</em> systems ("change the world"), instead of having to conform to them. The result was The Game-Changing Game <em>prototype</em>, as a generic way to change real-life systems. We also produced a <em>prototype</em> which was an update of The Club of Rome, based on this insight and solution, called The Club of Zagreb.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>Finally, and perhaps <em>most</em> importantly, progress toward resolving the <em>power structure</em> issue can be made <em>by simply identifying the issue</em>; by making it understood, and widely known—because it motivates a <em>radical</em> change of values, and of "human quality".</p> | ||
+ | <p>Notice that the <em>power structure</em> insight radically changes "the name of the game" in politics—from "us against them", to "all of us against the <em>power structure</em>.</p> | ||
+ | <p>This potential of the <em>power structure</em> insight gains power when combined with the <em>convenience paradox</em> insight and the <em>socialized reality</em> insight. It then becomes obvious that those among us whom we perceive as winners in the economic or political power struggle are really "winners" only because the <em>power structure</em> defined "the game". The losses we are all suffering in the <em>real</em> "reality game" are indeed enormous.</p> | ||
+ | <p>The Adbusters gave us a potentially useful keyword: <em>decooling</em>. Fifty years ago, puffing on a large cigar in an elevator or an airplane might have seemed just "cool"; today it's unthinkable. Let's see if today's notions of "success" might be transformed by similar <em>decolling</em>.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <h3>The <em>collective mind</em> issue <em>can</em> be resolved</h3> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>Here it may be recognized that <em>knowledge federation</em> is really just a name, a <em>placeholder</em> name, for the kind of "collective thinking" that a 'collective mind' needs to develop to function correctly. The mission of the present Knowledge Federation <em>transdiscipline</em> is to <em>bootstrap</em> the development of <em>knowledge federation</em> both in specific instances (by creating real-life embedded <em>prototypes</em>), and in general (by developing <em>knowledge federation</em> as an academic field, and as a real-life <em>praxis</em>). </p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>Of the concrete <em>prototypes</em>, the Barcelona Innovation Ecosystem for Good Journalism, BCN2011, may be named as a <em>prototype</em> of a public informing that provides the information according to <em>real</em> that is <em>systemic</em> needs of people and society—as it may be necessary for <em>making things whole</em>. A number of <em>design patterns</em> are woven together. The news production loop begins by citizen journalism (the local Barcelona Wikidiario project gave us a head start); the people themselves report about their issues and problems. These reports are then curated by journalists, to present recurring or important ones as "front page news" etc. The production enters then into its second loop, <em>where systemic causes</em> to perceived issues are identified and reported. Professional (academic and other) advisors are followed in this loop by communication designers, to make academic insights clear and palpable (by using video, animation, story telling...). The second loop concludes by giving advice for <em>systemic action</em>. So here we have a journalism <em>prototype</em> that supports <em>systemic innovation</em>—and counteracts the <em>power structure</em></p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>Also the Tesla and the Nature of Creativity, TNC2015 <em>prototype</em</em> and The Lighthouse 2016 <em>prototype</em> are also offered as <em>prototype</em> resolutions to the <em>Wiener's paradox</em>. The former shows how to <em>federate</em> a single result of a researcher, which is written in a highly specialized academic language (quantum physics), and has large potential to impact other fields (the article is about the phenomenology, and cultivation and use, of the kind of creativity that we now vitally need (the creativity that was manifested, and described, by genius inventor Nikola Tesla). The latter shows how to <em>federate</em> a single core insight from an entire research field. Here the field is the systems science; the insight is that "free competition" cannot be trusted; that <em>systemic innovation</em> must be used. Both <em>prototypes</em> show how an academic discipline may need to self-organize to acquire the capability to make the most important insight that result in its midst usable and useful to the larger society. </p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | <h3>The <em>socialized reality</em> issue <em>can</em> be resolved</h3> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>This is <em>extremely</em> good news: To <em>begin</em> the transformation to <em>holotopia</em>, we do not need to convince the politicians to impose on the industries a strict respect for the CO2 quotas; or the Wall Street bankers to change <em>their</em> rules. The first step is entirely in the hands of publicly supported intellectuals. </p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>The key is "to change the relationship we have with information"—from considering it "an objective picture of reality", to considering it as <em>the</em> key element in our various systems.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>Notice that if we can do this change successfully (by following the time-honored values of the academic tradition) then the academic researchers—that vast army of selected, specially trained and sponsored free thinkers—can be liberated from their confinement to traditional disciplines, and mobilized and given a chance to give their due contribution to urgent <em>contemporary</em> issues.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>Notice that the creative challenge that Vannevar Bush and others pointed to as <em>the</em> urgent one, and which Douglas Engelbart and others pursued successfully but <em>without</em> academic support (to recreate the very system by which do our work)—can in this new <em>paradigm</em> be rightly considered as "basic research".</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>The key to all these changes is <em>epistemology</em>—just as it was in Galilei's time!</p> | ||
− | + | <p>The <em>reification</em> as the foundation for creating truth and meaning means also <em>reification</em> of our institutions (democracy <em>is</em> the mechanism of the "free elections", the representatives etc.; science <em>is</em> what the scientists are doing). That it is also <em>directly</em> preventing us from even imagining a different world.</p> | |
− | |||
− | |||
− | <p> | ||
− | |||
− | < | + | <p>Observe the depth of our challenge: When I write "worldviews", my word processor underlines the word in red. <em>Even grammatically</em>, there can be only one worldview—the one that <em>corresponds</em> with reality! Even when we say "we are constructing reality" (as so many scientists and philosophers did in so many ways during the past century)—this is still interpreted as a statement <em>about</em> reality. By the same token, if we would say that "information is" anything <em>but</em> what the journalists and scientists are giving us today, someone would surely object. How can we <em>ever</em> come out of this entrapment?</p> |
− | <p> | + | <p> |
+ | [[File:Quine–TbC.jpeg]] | ||
+ | </p> | ||
− | <p> | + | <p>A solution is found by resorting consistently to what Villard Van Orman Quine called "truth by convention". It is a conception of "truth" entirely independent of "reality" or <em>reification</em>. Or metaphorically, it is the 'Archimedean point' needed to empower information to once again "move the world". </p> |
− | |||
− | |||
− | |||
− | < | + | <p>Based on it, we can say simply, as a convention, that the purpose of <em>information</em> is not <em>reification</em>, but to serve as 'headlights' in a 'bus'. Notice that no consensus is needed, and that there is no imposing on others: The convention is valid only <em>in context at hand</em>—which may be an article, a methodology, or the Holotopia <em>prototype</em>. To define "X as Y" by convention does not mean the claim that X "really is" Y—but only to consider X <em>as</em> Y, to see it in that specific way, from that specific 'angle', and see what results.</p> |
− | <p> | + | <p>By using <em>truth by convention</em>, we can attribute new and agile meaning to concepts; and <em>purposes</em> to academic fields! </p> |
− | |||
− | |||
− | |||
− | < | + | <p>The concrete <em>prototypes</em</em> are the <em>design epistemology</em>—where the new "relationship we have with information", and the new meaning of <em>information</em>, is proposed as a convention. Here of course, the proposed meaning is as the bus with candle headlight suggests—to consider information as a function in the organism of our culture; and to create it and use it as it may best suit its various roles.</p> |
− | <p> | + | <p>We have two canonical examples of concept-and-field definitions, which were tested in practice—through interaction with academic communities that represent them—and hence already are <em>prototypes</em>. </p> |
− | <p> | + | <p>One of them is the definition of <em>design</em>, as "the alternative to <em>tradition</em>; when the two concepts are defined as two alternative ways to <em>wholeness</em>—where we either rely on spontaneous evolution (in the case of <em>tradition</em>), or take conscious responsibility for it (and use <em>design</em>). The point here is that in a culture that is no longer <em>traditional</em> (following conservatively in the footsteps of the ancestors, and perhaps making small and gradual changes)—<em>design</em> must be used. </p> |
− | |||
− | |||
− | |||
+ | <p>The other definition is of <em>implicit information</em>, and of visual literacy (which also the name of an academic field) as "literacy associated with <em>implicit information</em>. The point here is that while our ethical, legal and political sensibilities are, by tradition, focused on <em>explicit information</em> (where is something explicitly claimed)—our culture is dominated by largely visual and subtle <em>implicit information</em>; which is the source of <em>symbolic power</em>, and an instrument of <em>socialization</em>. </p> | ||
− | <h3>The <em>narrow frame</em> issue | + | |
+ | <h3>The <em>narrow frame</em> issue <em>can</em> be resolved</h3> | ||
<p>The issue here is the way or the method by which truth and meaning are created. And specifically that the way that emerged based on 19th century science constitutes a <em>narrow frame</em>—i.e. that it is far too narrow to hold a functioning culture. That it was <em>destructive</em> of culture.</p> | <p>The issue here is the way or the method by which truth and meaning are created. And specifically that the way that emerged based on 19th century science constitutes a <em>narrow frame</em>—i.e. that it is far too narrow to hold a functioning culture. That it was <em>destructive</em> of culture.</p> | ||
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<p>The 'trial by jury' metaphor concerns the <em>knowledge federation</em> as process: Every piece of information or insight has the right of a 'fair trial'; nobody is denied 'citizenship rights' because he was 'born' in a wrong place...</p> | <p>The 'trial by jury' metaphor concerns the <em>knowledge federation</em> as process: Every piece of information or insight has the right of a 'fair trial'; nobody is denied 'citizenship rights' because he was 'born' in a wrong place...</p> | ||
<p>Further <em>prototypes</em> include the <em>polyscopy</em> or Polyscopic Modeling <em>methodology</em>—whereby information can be created on <em>any</em> chosen theme, and on any level of generality.</p> | <p>Further <em>prototypes</em> include the <em>polyscopy</em> or Polyscopic Modeling <em>methodology</em>—whereby information can be created on <em>any</em> chosen theme, and on any level of generality.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
<h3>The <em>convenience paradox</em> issue has a solution</h3> | <h3>The <em>convenience paradox</em> issue has a solution</h3> | ||
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− | <h3> | + | <h3>These solutions compose a <em>paradigm</em></h3> |
<p>The five issues, and their solutions, are closely co-dependent; the key to resolving them is the relationship we have with information (the <em>epistemology</em> by which the proposed <em>paradigm</em> is defined). </p> | <p>The five issues, and their solutions, are closely co-dependent; the key to resolving them is the relationship we have with information (the <em>epistemology</em> by which the proposed <em>paradigm</em> is defined). </p> | ||
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The <em>five insights</em> complete our proposal as a <em>paradigm</em> proposal. Not in any traditional domain of science, where paradigm proposals are relatively common, but in our handling of information or <em>knowledge work</em> at large.</p> | The <em>five insights</em> complete our proposal as a <em>paradigm</em> proposal. Not in any traditional domain of science, where paradigm proposals are relatively common, but in our handling of information or <em>knowledge work</em> at large.</p> | ||
− | <h3>The | + | <h3>The solutions enable a cultural revival</h3> |
<p>The <em>five insights</em> were deliberately chosen to represent the main five <em>aspects</em> of the cultural and social change that marked the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. They show how similar improvements in our condition can once again be achieved, by resolving the large anomalies they are pointing to.</p> | <p>The <em>five insights</em> were deliberately chosen to represent the main five <em>aspects</em> of the cultural and social change that marked the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. They show how similar improvements in our condition can once again be achieved, by resolving the large anomalies they are pointing to.</p> | ||
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<p>The second half will consist in implementing the "change of course" in reality.</p> | <p>The second half will consist in implementing the "change of course" in reality.</p> | ||
</div> </div> | </div> </div> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div class="page-header" ><h2>A strategy</h2></div> | ||
<div class="row"> | <div class="row"> | ||
− | <div class="col-md-3"><h2> | + | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>We will not "solve our problems"</h2></div> |
<div class="col-md-6"> | <div class="col-md-6"> | ||
− | + | ||
<p>Already in 1964, four years before The Club of Rome was established, Margaret Mead wrote: | <p>Already in 1964, four years before The Club of Rome was established, Margaret Mead wrote: | ||
<blockquote> | <blockquote> | ||
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<p>There is a sense of sobering up, of a <em>catharsis</em>, that needs to reach us from the depth of our problems. <em>That</em> must be our very first step.</p> | <p>There is a sense of sobering up, of a <em>catharsis</em>, that needs to reach us from the depth of our problems. <em>That</em> must be our very first step.</p> | ||
<p>We take a deep dive into the depth of our problems. But we do not <em>dwell</em> there.</p> | <p>We take a deep dive into the depth of our problems. But we do not <em>dwell</em> there.</p> | ||
+ | </div> </div> | ||
− | < | + | <div class="row"> |
+ | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>We will begin "a cultural revival"</h2></div> | ||
+ | <div class="col-md-7"> | ||
− | <p>Ironically, our problems | + | <p>Ironically, our problems might only be solved when we no longer see them as problems—but as <em>symptoms</em> of much deeper, structural or systemic defects, which <em>can</em> and must be corrected to continue our evolution, or "progress", irrespective of problems.</p> |
<p>And most interestingly, our evolution, or "progress", can and <em>must</em> take a completely new—cultural—direction and focus. | <p>And most interestingly, our evolution, or "progress", can and <em>must</em> take a completely new—cultural—direction and focus. | ||
<p>[https://youtu.be/U7Z6h-U4CmI?t=291 Hear Meadows say], in the same interview:</p> | <p>[https://youtu.be/U7Z6h-U4CmI?t=291 Hear Meadows say], in the same interview:</p> | ||
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<p>Here the <em>holotopia</em>'s "rule of thumb", to "make things <em>whole</em>", which is really an ethical stance, plays a central role. While we are creating a small 'snowball' and letting it roll, the cohesive force that holds it together is of a paramount importance. We are not developing this project to further our careers; nor to earn some money, or get a grant. We are doing that because it's beautiful. And because it's what we need to give to our next generation.</p> | <p>Here the <em>holotopia</em>'s "rule of thumb", to "make things <em>whole</em>", which is really an ethical stance, plays a central role. While we are creating a small 'snowball' and letting it roll, the cohesive force that holds it together is of a paramount importance. We are not developing this project to further our careers; nor to earn some money, or get a grant. We are doing that because it's beautiful. And because it's what we need to give to our next generation.</p> | ||
<p>We are developing the <em>holotopia</em> as (what Gandhi would have called) our "experiments with truth".</p> | <p>We are developing the <em>holotopia</em> as (what Gandhi would have called) our "experiments with truth".</p> | ||
+ | </div> </div> | ||
− | + | <div class="row"> | |
− | < | + | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>Our mission</h2></div> |
+ | <div class="col-md-7"> | ||
<p>By <em>mission</em> we mean the practical changes we undertake to achieve, to implement our strategy and pursue our vision. </p> | <p>By <em>mission</em> we mean the practical changes we undertake to achieve, to implement our strategy and pursue our vision. </p> | ||
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<p>The appeal here is to institutionalize a FREE academic space, where this line of work can be developed with suitable support.</p> | <p>The appeal here is to institutionalize a FREE academic space, where this line of work can be developed with suitable support.</p> | ||
− | <h3>A | + | <h3>A way out</h3> |
<p>That there is an unexpected, seemingly magical way into a new cultural and social reality is really good news. But is it realistic?</p> | <p>That there is an unexpected, seemingly magical way into a new cultural and social reality is really good news. But is it realistic?</p> | ||
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+ | <!-- | ||
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+ | |||
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+ | <p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | The key novelty in the <em>holoscope</em> is the capability it affords to deliberately choose the way in which we look at an issue or situation, which we call <em>scope</em>. Just as the case is when inspecting a hand-held cup to see if it is whole or cracked, and in projective geometry, the art of using the <em>holoscope</em> will to a large degree consist in finding suitable ways of looking—which show the <em>whole</em> from all sides, and afford a correct "big picture"</em> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>Especially valuable will be those <em>scopes</em> that illuminate what our habitual ways of looking left in the dark.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | <p>This capability, to create <em>views</em> by choosing <em>scopes</em> on any desired level of detail, adds to our work with contemporary issues a whole new 'dimension' or "degree of freedom"—where we <em>choose</em> what we perceive as issues; so that the issues <em>can</em> be resolved, and <em>wholeness</em> can be restored. </p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | <h3>Thinking outside the box</h3> | ||
+ | <p>That we cannot solve our problems by thinking as we did when we created them is a commonplace. But this presents a challenge when academic rigor needs to be respected.</p> | ||
+ | < | ||
+ | <p>While we did our best to ensure that the presented views accurately represent what might result when we 'connect the dots' or <em>federate</em> published insights and other relevant cultural artifacts, <em>we do not need to make such claims</em>; and we are not making them. It is a <em>paradigm</em> we are proposing; it is the <em>methodology</em> by which our views are created that gives them rigor—as "rigor" is understood in the <em>paradigm</em>.</p> | ||
+ | <p>The <em>methodology</em> itself is, to the best of our knowledge, flawlessly rigorous and coherent. But we don't need to make that claim either.</p> | ||
+ | <p><em>Everything</em> here is offered as a collection of [[Holotopia:Prototype|<em>prototypes</em>]]. The point is to show <em>what might result</em> if we changed the relationship we have with information, and developed, both academically and on a society-wide scale, the approach to information and knowledge we are proposing.</p> | ||
+ | <p>Our goal when presenting them is to initiate the <em>dialogs</em> and other social processes that constitute that development.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | ------- | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>The Knowledge Federation <em>prototype</em> is conceived as a portfolio of about forty smaller <em>prototypes</em>, which cover the range of questions that define an academic field—from epistemology and methods, to social organization and applications.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p>We use our main keyword, <em>knowledge federation</em>, in a similar way as the words "design" and "architecture" are used—to signify both a <em>praxis</em> (informed practice), and an academic field that develops it and curates it.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | ------- | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | <p>To see what all this practically means, in the context of our theme (we are <em>federating</em> Peccei), we invite you to follow us in a brief thought experiment. We'll pay a short visit to a cathedral. No, this is not about religion; we are using the image of a cathedral as an <em>ideogram</em>—to correct the proportions, and "see things whole".</p> | ||
+ | <p>So there is architecture, which inspires awe. We hear music play: Is it Bach's cantatas? Or Allegri's Miserere? There are sculptures, and frescos by masters of old on the walls. And there is the ritual...</p> | ||
+ | <p>But there is also a little book on each bench. Its first few paragraphs explain how the world was created.</p> | ||
+ | <p>Let this difference in size, between the beginning of Genesis and all the rest—the cathedral as a whole, with its physical objects and the activities it provides a space for—point to the difference in <em>importance</em> between the factual explanations of the mechanisms of nature and <em>our culture as a whole</em>, relative to our theme, the "human quality". For <em>there can be no doubt</em> that a function of the cathedral—<em>and</em> of culture—is to nourish the "human quality" in a certain specific ways. By providing a certain <em>symbolic environment</em>, in which certain ethical and emotional dispositions can grow. Notice that we are only pointing to a <em>function</em>, without making any value judgement of its results. </p> | ||
+ | <p>The question is—How, and by whom, is the evolution of culture secured today? <em>Who</em> has the prerogative of <em>socializing</em> people in our own time?</p> | ||
+ | <p>The answer is obvious; it suffices to look around. All the advertising, however, is only a tip of an iceberg—comprised by various instruments of <em>symbolic power</em>, by which our choices are directed and our values modified—to give us the "human quality" that will make us consume more, so the economy may grow.</p> | ||
+ | <p>The ethical and legal norms we have do not protect us from this dependence. </p> | ||
+ | <p>The humanities researchers are, of course, well aware of this. But the "objective observer" role to which the academic researchers are confined, and the fact that "the tie between information and action is broken", makes this all but irrelevant.</p> | ||
+ | <p>While most of us still consider ourselves as "rational decision makers", who can simply "feel" their "real interests" or "needs" and bring them to the market of goods, or as voters to the market of political agendas (which will like a perfect scale secure justice by letting the largest ones prevail), the businesses and the politicians know better. <em>Scientific</em> means are routinely used by their advisers, to manipulate our choices.</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | ------ |
Revision as of 06:31, 31 July 2020
Contents
Holotopia
Imagine...
You are about to board a bus for a long night ride, when you notice the flickering streaks of light emanating from two wax candles, placed where the headlights of the bus are expected to be. Candles? As headlights?
Of course, the idea of candles as headlights is absurd. So why propose it?
Because on a much larger scale this absurdity has become reality.
The Modernity ideogram renders the essence of our contemporary situation by depicting our society as an accelerating bus without a steering wheel, and the way we look at the world, try to comprehend and handle it as guided by a pair of candle headlights.
Our proposal
In a nutshell
The core of our knowledge federation proposal is to change the relationship we have with information.
What is our relationship with information presently like?
Here is how Neil Postman described it:
"The tie between information and action has been severed. Information is now a commodity that can be bought and sold, or used as a form of entertainment, or worn like a garment to enhance one's status. It comes indiscriminately, directed at no one in particular, disconnected from usefulness; we are glutted with information, drowning in information, have no control over it, don't know what to do with it."
The objective of our proposal is to restore agency to information, and power to knowledge.
In detail
What would it take to reconnect information with action?
What would information and our handling of information be like, if we treated information as we treat other human-made things—if we adapted it to the purposes that need to be served?
What would our world be like, if academic researchers retracted the premise that when an idea is published in a book or an article it is already "known"; if they attended to the other half of this picture, the use and usefulness of information, with thoroughness and rigor that distinguish academic technical work?
What would the academic field that develops this approach to information be like? How would information be different? How would it be used? By what methods, what social processes, and by whom would it be created? What new information formats would emerge, and supplement or replace the traditional books and articles? How would information technology be adapted and applied? What would public informing be like? And academic communication, and education?
The substance of our proposal is a complete prototype of knowledge federation, by which those and other related questions are answered.
Knowledge federation is a paradigm. Not in a specific field of science, where new paradigms are relatively common, but in "creation, integration and application of knowledge" at large.
Our call to action is to institutionalize and develop knowledge federation as an academic field, and as real-life praxis.
An application
The situation we are in
The Club of Rome's assessment of the situation we are in, provided us with a benchmark challenge for putting the proposed ideas to a test. Four decades ago—based on a decade of this global think tank's research into the future prospects of mankind, in a book titled "One Hundred Pages for the Future"—Aurelio Peccei issued the following call to action:
"It is absolutely essential to find a way to change course."
Peccei also specified what needed to be done to "change course":
"The future will either be an inspired product of a great cultural revival, or there will be no future."
This conclusion, that we are in a state of crisis that has cultural roots and must be handled accordingly, Peccei shared with a number of twentieth century's thinkers. Arne Næss, Norway's esteemed philosopher, reached it on different grounds, and called it "deep ecology".
In "Human Quality", Peccei explained his call to action:
"Let me recapitulate what seems to me the crucial question at this point of the human venture. Man has acquired such decisive power that his future depends essentially on how he will use it. However, the business of human life has become so complicated that he is culturally unprepared even to understand his new position clearly. As a consequence, his current predicament is not only worsening but, with the accelerated tempo of events, may become decidedly catastrophic in a not too distant future. The downward trend of human fortunes can be countered and reversed only by the advent of a new humanism essentially based on and aiming at man’s cultural development, that is, a substantial improvement in human quality throughout the world."
The Club of Rome insisted that lasting solutions would not be found by focusing on specific problems, but by transforming the condition from which they all stem, which they called "problematique".
Can the proposed 'headlights' help us "find a way to change course"?
Why did Peccei's call to action remain unanswered? Why wasn't The Club of Rome's purpose—to illuminate the course our civilization has taken—served by our society's regular institutions, as part of their function? Isn't this already showing that we are 'driving with candle headlights'?
If we used knowledge federation to 'illuminate the way'—what difference would that make?
The Holotopia project is conceived as a knowledge federation-based response to Aurelio Peccei's call to action.
We coined the keyword holotopia to point to the cultural and social order of things that will result.
To begin the Holotopia project, we are developing an initial prototype. It includes a vision, and a collection of strategic and tactical assets—that will make the vision clear, and our pursuit of it actionable.
A vision
The holotopia is not a utopia
Since Thomas More coined this term and described the first utopia, a number of visions of an ideal but non-existing social and cultural order of things have been proposed. But in view of adverse and contrasting realities, the word "utopia" acquired the negative meaning of an unrealizable fancy.
As the optimism regarding our future faded, apocalyptic or "dystopian" visions became common. The "protopias" emerged as a compromise, where the focus is on smaller but practically realizable improvements.
The holotopia is different in spirit from them all. It is a more attractive vision of the future than what the common utopias offered—whose authors either lacked the information to see what was possible, or lived in the times when the resources we have did not yet exist. And yet the holotopia is readily realizable—because we already have the information and other resources that are needed for its fulfillment.
The holotopia vision is made concrete in terms of five insights, as explained below.
Making things whole
What do we need to do to change course toward the holotopia?
From a collection of insights from which the holotopia emerges as a future worth aiming for, we have distilled a simple principle or rule of thumb—making things whole.
This principle is suggested by the holotopia's very name. And also by the Modernity ideogram. Instead of reifying our institutions and professions, and merely acting in them competitively to improve "our own" situation or condition, we consider ourselves and what we do as functional elements in a larger system of systems; and we self-organize, and act, as it may best suit the wholeness of it all.
Imagine if academic and other knowledge-workers collaborated to serve and develop planetary wholeness – what magnitude of benefits would result!
A method
We see things whole
"The arguments posed in the preceding pages", Peccei summarized in One Hundred Pages for the Future, "point out several things, of which one of the most important is that our generations seem to have lost the sense of the whole."
To make things whole—we must be able to see them whole!
To highlight that the knowledge federation methodology described in the mentioned prototype affords that very capability, to see things whole, in the context of the holotopia we refer to it by the pseudonym holoscope.
The characteristics of the holoscope—the design choices or design patterns, how they follow from published insights and why they are necessary for 'illuminating the way'—will become obvious in the course of this presentation. One characteristic, however, must be made clear from the start.
We look at all sides
If our goal would be to put a new "piece of information" into an existing "reality picture", then whatever challenges that reality picture would be considered "controversial". But when our goal is to see whether something is whole or 'cracked', then our attitude must be different.
To see things whole, we must look at all sides.
The views we are about to share may make you leap from your chair. You will, however, be able to relax and enjoy this presentation, if you consider that the communication we invite you to engage in with us is academically rigorous—but with a different idea of rigor. In the holoscope we take no recourse to "reality". Coexistence of multiple ways of looking at any theme or issues (which in the holoscope are called scopes) is axiomatic. And so is the assumption that we must overcome our habits and resistances and look in new ways, if we should see things whole and finding a new course.
We invite you to be with us in the manner of the dialog—to genuinely share, listen and co-create.
We modified science
To liberate our thinking from the inherited concepts and methods, and allow for deliberate choice of scopes, we used the scientific method as venture point—and modified it by taking recourse to insights reached in 20th century science and philosophy.
Science gave us new ways to look at the world: The telescope and the microscope enabled us to see the things that are too distant or too small to be seen by the naked eye, and our vision expanded beyond bounds. But science had the tendency to keep us focused on things that were either too distant or too small to be relevant—compared to all those large things or issues nearby, which now demand our attention. The holoscope is conceived as a way to look at the world that helps us see any chosen thing or theme as a whole—from all sides; and in proportion.
Five insights
Before we begin
What theme, what evidence, what "new discovery" might have the force commensurate with the momentum with which our civilization is rushing onward—and have a realistic chance to make it "change course"?
We offer these five insights as a prototype answer.
They result when we apply the holoscope to illuminate five pivotal themes:
- Innovation (how we use our ability to create, and induce change)
- Communication (how information technology is being used)
- Epistemology (fundamental premises on which our handling of information is based)
- Method (how truth and meaning are created)
- Values (how we "pursue happiness")
For each of these five themes, we show that our conventional way of looking made us ignore a principle or a rule of thumb, which readily emerges when we 'connect the dots'—when we combine published insights. We see that by ignoring those principles, we have created deep structural problems ('crack in the cup')—which are causing problems, and "global issues" in particular.
A 'scientific' approach to problems is this way made possible, where instead of focusing on symptoms, we understand and treat their deeper, structural causes—which can be remedied.
In the spirit of the holoscope, we only summarize each of the five insights—and provide evidence and details separately.
Scope
"Man has acquired such decisive power that his future depends essentially on how he will use it", observed Peccei. We look at the way in which man uses his power to innovate (create, and induce change).
We look at the way our civilization follows in its evolution; or metaphorically, at 'the itinerary' of our 'bus'.
We readily observe that we use competition or "survival of the fittest" to orient innovation, not information and "making things whole". The popular belief that "the free competition" or "the free market" will serve us better, also makes our "democracies" elect the "leaders" who represent that view. But is that view warranted?
Genuine revolutions include new ways to see freedom and power; holotopia is no exception.
We offer this keyword, power structure, as a means to that end. Think of the power structure as a new way to conceive of the intuitive notion "power holder", who might take away our freedom, or be our "enemy".
While the nature of power structures will become clear as we go along, imagine them, to begin with, as institutions; or more accurately, as the systems in which we live and work (we'll here call them simply systems).
Notice that systems have an immense power—over us, because we have to adapt to them to be able to live and work; and over our environment, because by organizing us and using us in a specific ways, they determine what the effects of our work will be.
The power structures determine whether the effects of our efforts will be problems, or solutions.
Diagnosis
How suitable are the systems in which we live and work for their all-important role?
Evidence, circumstantial and theoretical, shows that they waste a lion's share of our resources. And that they cause problems, or make us incapable of solving them.
The reason is the intrinsic nature of evolution, as Richard Dawkins explained it in "The Selfish Gene".
"Survival of the fittest" favors the systems that are by nature predatory, not the ones that are useful.
This excerpt from Joel Bakan's documentary "The Corporation" (which Bakan as law professor created to federate an insight he considered essential) explains how the corporation, the most powerful institution on the planet, evolved to be a perfect "externalizing machine" ("Externalizing" means maximizing profits by letting someone else bear the costs, such as the people and the environment), just as the shark evolved to be a perfect "killing machine". This scene from Sidney Pollack's 1969 film "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" will illustrate how our systems affect our own condition.
Why do we put up with such systems? Why don't we treat them as we treat other human-made things—by adapting them to the purposes that need to be served?
The reasons are interesting, and in holotopia they'll be a recurring theme.
One of them we have already seen: We do not see things whole. When we look in conventional ways, the systems remain invisible for similar reasons as a mountain on which we might be walking.
A reason why we ignore the possibility of adapting the systems in which we live and work to the functions they have in our society, is that they perform for us a different function—of providing structure to power battles and turf strifes. Within a system, they provide us "objective" and "fair" criteria to compete; and in the world outside, they give us as system system "competitive edge".
Why don't media corporations combine their resources to give us the awareness we need? Because they must compete with one another for our attention—and use only "cost-effective" means.
The most interesting reason, however, is that the power structures have the power to socialize us in ways that suit their interests. Through socialization, they can adapt to their interests both our culture and our "human quality".
A result is that bad intentions are no longer needed for cruelty and evil to result. The power structures can co-opt our sense of duty and commitment, and even our heroism and honor.
Zygmunt Bauman's key insight, that the concentration camp was only a special case, however extreme, of (what we are calling) the power structure, needs to be carefully digested and internalized: While our ethical sensibilities are focused on the power structures of yesterday, we are committing the greatest massive crime in human history (in all innocence, by only "doing our job" within the systems we belong to).
Our civilization is not "on the collision course with nature" because someone violated the rules—but because we follow them.
Remedy
The fact that we will not "solve our problems" unless we learned to collaborate and adapt our systems to their contemporary roles and our contemporary challenges has not remained unnoticed. Alredy in 1948, in his seminal Cybernetics, Norbert Wiener explained why competition cannot replace 'headlights and steering'. Cybernetics was envisioned as a transdisciplinary academic effort to help us understand systems, so that we may adapt their structure to the functions they need to perform.
The very first step the founders of The Club of Rome did after its inception in 1968 was to convene a team of experts, in Bellagio, Italy, to develop a suitable methodology. They gave "making things whole" on the scale of socio-technical systems the name "systemic innovation"—and we adopted that as one of our keywords.
Scope
If our next evolutionary task is to make institutions or systems whole—where should we begin?
Handling of information, or metaphorically our society's 'headlights', suggests itself as the answer for several reasons. One of them is that if we'll use information as guiding light and not competition, our information will need to be different.
Norbert Wiener contributed another reason: In social systems, communication is what turns individuals into a system. The nature of communication determines what a system will be like. The basic insight of cybernetics is that to to be able to correct its course (or to maintain "homeostasis", Wiener would have preferred to say, which we may interpret as "sustainability"), the system's "control" must be based on suitable communication or "feedback".
Diagnosis
The tie between information and action has been severed, Wiener too observed; it must be restored, for sustainability to be possible.
To make that point, Wiener cited an earlier work, Vannevar Bush's 1945 article "As We May Think", where Bush urged the scientists to make the task of revising their own system their next highest priority—the World War Two having just been won.
Why hasn't this been done?
"As long as a paradox is treated as a problem, it can never be dissolved," observed David Bohm.
Wiener too entrusted his results to the communication whose tie with action had been severed!
We assembled a considerable collection of academic results that shared a similar fate, as evidence of an underlying anomaly we are calling the Wiener's paradox.
It may be disheartening, especially to an academic researcher, to see that so many best ideas of our best minds are unable to benefit our society. But this sentiment quickly changes to holotopian optimism, when we look at the vast creative frontier that is opening up—where we are called upon to reinvent the very system by which we do our work; as the founding fathers of science did centuries ago.
Optimism turns into enthusiasm, when we understand the role that the new information technology will have in that undertaking.
Core parts of contemporary information technology were created to enable fundamentally different systemic solutions in knowledge work, compared to the ones we have inherited from the past.
"Fundamentally different" here means that their very principle of operation will be different—in the manner and in the degree in which electrical light is different from the light that a burning candle would produce.
It is not completely true that Vannevar Bush's call to action was ignored. Douglas Engelbart heard it, and with his SRI team developed a solution that was well beyond what Bush envisioned. They showed this solution—really the technology we all now use to connect with each other and to communicate—in their famous 1968 demo.
But the vision that guided Engelbart, of a new paradigm in communication, has neither been understood in theory nor implemented in practice.
When we, humans, are connected to a personal digital device through an interactive interface, and when those devices are connected together into a network—then the overall result is that we are connected together in a similar way as the cells in a human organism are connected by the nervous system. While all earlier innovations in this area—from clay tablets to the printing press—required that a physical medium that bears a message be physically transported—this new technology allows us to "create, integrate and apply knowledge" concurrently, as cells in a human nervous system do.
We can now think and create—together!
This three minute video clip, which we called "Doug Engelbart's Last Wish", offers an opportunity for a pause. Imagine the effects of improving the system by which information is produced and put to use; even "the effects of getting 5% better", Engelbart commented with a smile. Then he put his fingers on his forehead: "I've always imagined that the potential was... large..." The improvement that is possible is not only large; it is staggering. The improvement that can and needs to be achieved is indeed qualitative— from a system that doesn't really work, to one that does.
By collaborating in new ways, as Engelbart envisioned, we would be able to comprehend our problems and respond to them incomparably more quickly than we do. Engelbart foresaw that the collective intelligence that would result would enable us to tackle the "complexity times urgency of our problems", which he saw as growing at an accelerated rate or "exponentially".
But to Engelbart's dismay, our new "collective nervous system" ended up being used to only implement the old processes and systems, which evolved through the centuries of use of the printing press, and make them more efficient; to only broadcast data.
The above observation by Anthony Giddens points to the impact this has had on us as culture; and on "human quality". Dazzled by an overload of data, in a reality whose complexity is well beyond our comprehension—we have no other recourse but "ontological security". We find meaning in learning a profession, and performing in it a competitively.
But this is, of course, what binds us to power structure.
Instead of liberating us—the new information technology bounded us to power structure even stronger.
Remedy
What we are calling knowledge federation is the functioning of our collective mind that suits the new technology—and our situation.
Our call to action—to develop knowledge federation as an academic field, and as real-life praxis—is proposed as a remedy to the collective mind issue.
Our prototype is offered as a proof of concept model of this solution.
Scope
"Act like as if you loved your children above all else"Greta Thunberg, representing her generation, told the political leaders at Davos. Securing our children a future, however, will require an unprecedented level of international collaboration, and restructuring of the global economy, the widely read Rolling Stone article reeports. The COVID-19 exacerbates those demands and makes them even more immediate. Considering the way in which things are related, restructuring of the world economy will not be possible without restructuring other systems as well.
So our next question is who, that is what institution will initiate the next urgent task on our evolutionary agenda—tell us how to update the systems in which we live and work; and empower us to do that?
Both Jantsch and Engelbart believed that "the university" would have to be the answer; and they made their appeals accordingly. But they were ignored. And so were Vannevar Bush and Norbert Wiener before them; and also Neil Postman and others that followed.
Why? Isn't restoring agency to information and power to knowledge a task worthy of academic attention?
It is tempting to conclude that the academia too followed the general evolutionary trend; that the academic discipline too evolved as power structure—to provide clear and fair rules for pursuing a career within a discipline; and divide the 'academic turf' between disciplines—while keeping the outliers outside.
But to see solutions, we will need to look at deeper causes.
As we pointed out in the opening paragraphs of this website, the academic tradition did not develop as a way to pursue practical knowledge, but (let's call it that) "right" knowledge. By bringing up the image of Galilei in house arrest, we highlighted that it was not the pursuit of practical knowledge that led our ancestors to a "great cultural revival", but of knowledge for its own sake. Censorship and prison were unable to contain the new way to look at the world, whose time had come—and it transpired from astrophysics, where it originated, and permeated the society.
So the core role of the university is to inform us about the meaning and purpose of knowledge, so that we may successfully pursue knowledge in any context. The traditional academic keyword is "epistemology", which is usually interpreted as the exploration of the limits of knowledge, understood as "how and to what degree can we really know reality?". Here we'll use this keyword a bit differently, and let epistemology mean both the "knowledge of knowledge", and the "foundation for creating truth and meaning" that follows from it.
We concluded the opening paragraph of our website by asking, rhetorically, "Could a similar advent be in store for us today?" In this way we suggested that our situation today might be similar as the situation back then, in Galilei's time. That now again there is a new way to look at the world waiting to be given 'citizenship rights'—ready to transform our world.
This leads us to the key question, which we shall here begin to explore.
Who, or what, might be 'Galilei in house arrest' today?
What transformative ideas are ready to emerge? What new way of looking at the world is ready to transform it?
And who, or what, is keeping Galilei 'in house arrest'?
Diagnosis
So what is "right" knowledge? What is the right foundation for creating truth and meaning? Nobody knows!
Of course, innumerable views of this core philosophical issue have been contributed since as far back as our collective memory can reach. But no "official narrative" or consensus has as yet emerged.
So all we can do here to begin this exploration is share what we've been told, while we were growing up. We'll simplify and caricature—to point to an issue that calls for attention.
As members of the homo sapiens species, we were informed, we have the evolutionary prerogative to understand the world, and to make choices rationally. Give the homo sapiens a correct understanding of the natural world, he'll know exactly how to go about satisfying "his needs", which he no doubt knows because he can experience directly. But the traditions got it all wrong! Being unable to understand how the nature works, our ancestors invented a "ghost in the machine"—and prayed to him to give them what they wanted. Science corrected this error. It removed the "ghost"—and told us how the nature, or 'the machine', really works. We can now combine scientific understanding of causes with technology, and get out the nature exactly what we want and need.
And yes, one more thing: Our wants and needs can of course contradict one another. Here "the free market" and "the free elections" will serve as perfect scales, to assure that the majority prevails.
And culture—what about culture? Oh yes; some people, mostly older, still like to go to classical music concerts, to the theatre and that sort of things. We also have research in humanities, who study "culture". But their role in practical reality is not very clear. And anyhow, they haven't been able to give us anything close in spirit to a "scientific worldview"; indeed, the humanities researchers never seem to agree with each other.
According to this view, all we need from information is to give us "an objective reality picture", so that we may use our rational faculties and handle our affairs correctly.
Popular myths of this kind, which began to take hold of our culture around the middle of the 19th century, when Adam and Moses as cultural heroes were replaced by Darwin and Newton, were proven wrong in 20th century science and philosophy.
It turned out that we got it wrong.
It is impossible, scientists found out, to assert that our ideas and models correspond to reality. There is simply no way to open the supposed "mechanism of nature", and verify that our models correspond to it.
"Reality", sociologists found out, should rather be considered as a contrivance of the traditional culture (or of what we called the power structure), invented to socialize us in a certain way. In "Social Construction of Reality", Berger and Luckmann pointed out that throughout history, the explanations how "the reality really works", which they called "universal theories", have been used to legitimize the given social order.
Results in cognitive science, and in political science and sociology, showed that we are not the "rational decision makers", as the 19th century made us believe.
They explained the mechanism of socialization—the way in which our seemingly rational choices are manipulated through the use of "symbolic power", without anyone noticing.
This, however, has been noticed. The business people were quick to learn that our choices can be manipulated; they now use scientific advisers to do that (the epic story of Edward Bernays, Freud's American nephew, illustrates how this began). The politicians followed.
As it turned out, the Enlightenment did not really liberate us, as we tend to believe. Our socialization only changed hands—from one power structure (the kings and the clergy) to the next (the corporations and the media).
They are now creating our culture.
Remedy
"Reality" as foundation for creating truth and meaning, and hence of culture, is bankrupt. It has no basis in reality.
We use the mirror as metaphorical image, in a similar way as we use the bus with candle headlights, to point to the academic and cultural situation that resulted. The spontaneous pursuit of knowledge, and the knowledge of knowledge that resulted, brought us to the mirror. The mirror symbolizes coming back to the original academic values, and ethos: self-reflection; and the Socratic dialog, about the meaning and purpose of what we do. But now in the light of contemporary knowledge of knowledge. It symbolizes also a new self-awareness and self-image that will result: We are not above the world, observing it "objectively"; we are in the world—and have a role in it.
</p>
The mirror points out that the effect that the epistemological state is to replace "reality" as foundation for our work withinformation with reification—which denotes something we do. And to replace reification with accountability. It is no longer academically legitimate to claim, in academia and in public informing, that we are not responsible, that we are simply doing our job—reporting "objectively" what we see. We have a key role to play in the world in change; and we have to change the way we perform in that role.
The mirror also stands for a surprising, seemingly magical solution to our cultural entanglement.
We can go through the mirror—and into a completely new academic and social reality.
This is done in three easy steps.
The first—what makes this apparent magic academically possible—is truth by convention. Quine identified it as a phase, and a sign of maturing, that every field of science goes through. Truth by convention, where we postulate the meaning of words by making a convention, is the natural alternative, and antidote, to reification. It is the natural "Archimedean point" for once again giving information, and knowledge, the power to "move the world". </em>. <p>The next step is to use truth by convention to postulate an epistemology. In the holoscope, we postulated the design epistemology—which turns the "relationship we have with information" we are proposing into a convention. A convention is not a reality claim, so there is no need for consensus; the holoscope is simply a tool or a toolkit. Truth by convention is its principle of operation.
The third and last step is methodology definition—where we spell out the fundamental assumptions. At this point they become known; they become part of our "social contract"! We can then define what the word like "information" and "culture" mean, even give them purpose. Once again the consensus is not needed—such definitions are binding only within the methodology.
This key step is not a deviation from the academic tradition—but its straight-line continuation.
The result is that the academia now has the historical privilege, and the obligation—because its social role, and because of the academic tradition it institutionalizes—to guide the society through the mirror. To liberate the "oppressed".
On the other side of the mirror, we find ourselves in a completely new academic and cultural reality—where we are free to, and empowered to, be creative in ways in which our new situation requires. We can
- Liberate the academic researchers—the key resource in these demanding times—from reifying their disciplines; and from the traditional "observer" role—and empower them to perceive themselves as creators and not mere observers of our world; and to create the way they do their work to begin with
- Liberate the people from reification the institutions—and hence from the systems, and the power structure
- Liberate the people from reification of their "needs" and other forms of "reality" perception—and take up "human development", as we shall see later</blockquote>
- Liberate our language, and method, and worldview from the reification of inherited concepts—and empower us to create completely new ways of seeing the world, and speaking and acting
</ul>
<p>The concepts defined by convention are called keywords; we've been using them all along.We turned "information" into a keyword by defining it as "recorded experience". The substance of information, according this definition, is not "reality" but human experience—where "experience" is interpreted in a most general sense, to include also results of academic work and other forms of insight as (to use the colloquial phrase) "aha experiences". Information is, according to this definition, not only written text, but any artifacts that embody human experience.
Information includes also prototypes. Instead of only writing articles and observing the world—on the other side of the mirror the researchers can give their insights direct impact on systems. Hereby information is given agency; knowledge is given its power to make a difference.
And to rebuild the culture.
While we are eager to show our prototype portfolio to illustrate these abstract ideas and make them concrete, we leave that for the detailed modules and here only share two examples. They are both keywords and prototypes—because these two keywords have already been proposed to the academic communities they originally belong to, and proven to be well received and useful.
We defined design as "alternative to tradition". By this definition, design and tradition are two alternative ways to secure the wholeness of the human systems and nature, where tradition relies on what's been inherited from the past and modifies it only exceptionally and carefully; and where design is the alternative—where we consciously and deliberately curate wholeness. The point of this definition is that in a post-traditional culture, or in other words in the "modernity", tradition no longer works, and design must be used.
This leads to a more precise interpretation of the Modernity ideogram, and our contemporary situation: We are no longer traditional; but we are not yet designing. Our contemporary difficulties are a result.
Our call to action can then be understood as a way to operationalize the key step—to modernize information
The second keyword is the definition of implicit information as information where no explicit claims are made; where human experience is coded, and embodied, in cultural artifacts of all kinds.
We can now interpret our cultural situation by saying that while we've been focused on the explicit—on understanding how the world works etc.—we've been culturally dominated by the implicit information, and the "symbolic power" it embodies. This definition gives the implicit information citizenship rights—and empower us to treat it, and hence also culture, with the kind of thoroughness and care that have hitherto been reserved to traditional scientific pursuits.
The research in the humanities will, of course, have a lead role to play. But to be able to do that—it needs to liberate itself reifications, and the observer role, and dare to create the methods that will give their findings the impact they need to have.
How exactly this may need to be done is the next theme on our agenda.