Difference between pages "Holotopia" and "Clippings"

From Knowledge Federation
(Difference between pages)
Jump to: navigation, search
 
m
 
Line 1: Line 1:
<div class="page-header" ><h1>Holotopia</h1></div>
+
CLIPPINGS, newest on top
  
 +
-------
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>A space</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>
 +
[[File:KunsthallDialog01.jpg]]
 +
<br>
 +
<small>A snapshot of Holotopia's pilot project in Kunsthall 3.14, Bergen.</small>
 +
</p>
 +
<p>Holotopia undertakes to develop whatever is needed for "changing course". Imagine it as a space, akin to a new continent or a "new world" that's just been discovered—which combines physical and virtual spaces, suitably interconnected. </p>
 +
<p>In a symbolic sense, we are developing the following five sub-spaces.</p>
 +
 +
<h3><em>Fireplace</em></h3>
 +
<p>The <em>fireplace</em> is where our varius <em>dialogs</em> take place, through which our insights are deepen by combining our collective intelligence with suitable insights from the past</p>
 +
 +
<h3><em>Library</em></h3>
 +
<p>The <em>library</em> is where the necessary information is organized and provided, in a suitable form.</p>
 +
 +
<h3><em>Workshop</em></h3>
 +
<p>The <em>workshop</em> is where a new order of things emerges, through co-creation of <em>prototypes</em>.</p> 
 +
 +
<h3><em>Gallery</em></h3>
 +
<p>The <em>gallery</em> is where the resulting <em>prototypes</em> are displayed</p>
 +
 +
<h3><em>Stage</em></h3>
 +
<p>The <em>stage</em> is where our events take place.</p>
 +
 +
<p>This idea of "space" brings up certain most interesting connotations and possibilities—which Lefebre and Debord pointed to.</p>
 +
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>The Box</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
[[File:Box1.jpg]]
 +
<small>A model of The Box.</small>
 +
<p>So many people now talk about"thinking outside the box"; but what does this really mean? Has anyone even <em>seen</em> the box?</p>
 +
<p>Of course, "thinking outside the box" is what the development of a new paradigm is really all about. So to facilitate this most timely process, we decided to <em>create</em> the box. And to choreograph the process of unboxing our thinking, and handling.</p>
 +
<p> Holotopia's [[Holotopia:The Box|Box]] is an object designed for 'initiation' to <em>holotopia</em>, a way to help us 'unbox' our conception of the world and see, think and behave differently; change course inwardly, by embracing a new value.</p>
 +
<p>We approach The Box from a specific interest, an issue we may care about—such as communication, or IT innovation, or the pursuit of happiness and the ways to improve the human experience, and the human condition. But when we follow our interest a bit deeper, by (physically) opening the box or (symbolically) considering the relevant insights that have been made—we find that there is a large obstacle, preventing our issue to be resolved. </p>
 +
<p>We also see  that by resolving this whole <em>new</em> issue, a much larger gains can be reached than what we originally anticipated and intended. And that there are <em>other</em> similar insights; and that they are all closely related.</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>A vocabulary</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>Science was not an exception; <em>every</em> new paradigm brings with it a new way of speaking; and a new way of looking at the world.</p>
 +
<p>The following collection of <em>keywords</em> will provide an alternative, and a bit more academic and precise entry point to <em>holoscope</em> and <em>holotopia</em>.</p>
 +
 +
<h3><em>Wholeness</em></h3>
 +
<p>We define <em>wholeness</em> as the quality that distinguishes a healthy organism, or a well-configured and well-functioning machine. <em>Wholeness</em> is, more simply, the condition or the order of things which is, from an <em>informed</em> perspective, worthy of being aimed for and worked for.</p>
 +
<p>The idea of <em>wholeness</em> is illustrated by the bus with candle headlights. The bus is not <em>whole</em>. Even a tiny piece can mean a world of difference. </p>
 +
<p>While the <em>wholeness</em> of a mechanism is secured by just all its parts being in place, cultural and human <em>wholeness</em> are <em>never</em> completed; there is always more that can be discovered, and aimed for. This makes the notion of <em>wholeness</em> especially suitable for motivating <em>cultural revival</em> and <em>human development</em>, which is our stated goal.</p>
 +
 +
<h3><em>Tradition</em> and <em>design</em></h3>
 +
<p><em>Tradition</em> and <em>design</em> are two alternative ways to <em>wholeness</em>. <em>Tradition</em> relies on Darwinian-style evolution; <em>design</em> on awareness and deliberate action. When <em>tradition</em> can no longer be relied on, <em>design</em> must be used.</p>
 +
<p>As the Modernity <em>ideogram</em> might suggest, our contemporary situation may be understood as a precarious transition from one way of evolving to the next. We are no longer <em>traditional</em>; and we are not yet <em>designing</em>. Our situation can naturally be reversed by understanding our situation in a new way; by responding to its demands, and developing its opportunities. </p>
 +
 +
 +
<h3><em>Keyword</em> and <em>Prototype</em></h3>
 +
 +
<p>The <em>keywords</em> are concepts created by <em>design</em>. We shall see exactly how. For now, it is sufficient to keep in mind that we need to interpret them not as they what they "are", according to <em>tradition</em>, but as used and defined in this text. Until we find a better solution, we distinguish the <em>keywords</em> by writing them in italics.</p>
 +
<p>The core of our proposal is to "restore agency to information, and power to knowledge". When <em>Information</em> is conceived of an instrument to interact with the world around us—then <em>information</em> cannot be only results of observing the world; it cannot be confined to  academic books and articles. The <em>prototypes</em> serve as models, as experiments, and as interventions.</p>
 +
 +
<h3><em>Human development</em> and <em>cultural revival</em> as ways to <em>change course</em></h3>
 +
<p>We adopt these <em>keywords</em> from Aurelio Peccei, and use them exactly as he did. </p> 
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>A prototype</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>We develop <em>holotopia</em> as a <em>prototype</em>. And the <em>holoscope</em> as a <em>prototype</em> 'headlights'—the leverage point, the natural way to <em>change course</em>. </p>
 +
<p>The Holotopia <em>prototype</em> is not only a description, but also and most importantly it already <em>is</em> "a way to change course". </p>
 +
 +
<h3>A strategy</h3>
 +
 +
<p>The strategy that defines the Holotopia project—to focus on the natural and easy way, on changing the whole thing—has  its own inherent logic and "leverage points": Instead of occupying Wall Street, changing the relationship we have with information emerges as an easier, more natural and far more effective strategy. Just as it was in Galilei's time. </p>
 +
 +
<p>As an academic initiative, to give our society a new capability, to 'connect the dots' and see things whole, <em>knowledge federation</em> brings to this strategy a collection of technical assets. Their potential to make a difference may be understood with the help of the <em>elephant</em> metaphor.</p>
 +
 +
<p>
 +
[[File:Elephant.jpg]]<br>
 +
<small>Elephant <em>ideogram</em></small>
 +
</p>
 +
 +
<p>Imagine visionary thinkers as those proverbial blind-folded men touching an elephant. We hear them talk about "a fan", and "a water hose" and and "a tree trunk". They don't make sense, and we ignore them.</p>
 +
<p>Everything changes when we understand that what they are really talking about are the ear, the trunk and the leg of an exotic animal—which is enormously large! And of the kind that nobody has seen! </p>
 +
<p>The <em>elephant</em> symbolizes the <em>paradigm</em> that is now ready to emerge among us, as soon as we begin to 'connect the dots'. Unlike the sensations we are accustomed to see on TV, the <em>elephant</em> is not only more spectacular, but also incomparably more relevant. <em>And</em> as we shall see in quite a bit of detail, it gives relevance, meaning and agency to academic insights and contributions. </p>
 +
 +
<h3>A <em>dialog</em></h3>
 +
<p>This point cannot be overemphasized: The immediate goal of the Holotopia <em>prototype</em> is <em>not</em> to get  the proposed ideas accepted. Rather, it is to develop a <em>dialog</em> around them. Our strategy is to put forth a handful of insights that are <em>in the real sense</em> sensational—and to organize a structured conversation around them. </p>
 +
<p>That structured conversation, that public <em>dialog</em>, constitutes the 'construction project' by which 'the headlights' are rebuilt!</p>
 +
 +
<h3>A tactical detail</h3>
 +
<p>To deflect the ongoing <em>power structure</em> devolution, we provide an arsenal of tactical tools, one of which must be mentioned early: Our invitation to a <em>dialog</em> is an invitation to abandon the usual fighting stance, and speak and collaborate in an <em>authentic</em> way. The <em>dialog</em> will evolve together with suitable technical instruments, including video and other forms of recording as corrective feedback.</p>
 +
<!-- <p><em>Attrape-nigaud</em> is a French phrase for tactical contraptions of this kind.</p> -->
 +
 +
<h3>A step toward <em>academic</em> revival</h3>
 +
<p>A <em>cultural revival</em> requires an <em>academic</em> revival—where a 'change of course' perceived as purpose, serves to give new notions of impact and agency to academic work. </p>
 +
<p>Here is how this may fit into the existing streams of thought. </p>
 +
<p> The structuralists attempted to give rigor to the study of cultural artifacts. The post-structuralists "deconstructed" this attempt—by showing that writings of historical thinkers, and indeed <em>all</em> cultural artifacts, <em>have no</em> "real" interpretation. And that they are, therefore, subject to <em>free</em> interpretation.</p>
 +
<p>The new relationship with information, which we are proposing, sets the stage for taking this line of development a step further: Instead of asking what, for instance, Pierre Bourdieu "really" saw and wanted to say, we acknowledge that he probably saw something that was <em>not</em> as we were inclined to believe; and that he struggled to understand and communicate what he saw in the manner of speaking of our traditional <em>order of things</em>, where what he saw could not fit in. </p>
 +
<p>So we can now consider Bourdieu's work as a piece in a completely <em>new</em> puzzle—a <em>new</em> societal <em>order of things</em>. To which we have given the pseudonym <em>holotopia</em>.  </p>
 +
<p>By placing the work of social scientists into that new context, we give their insights a completely <em>new</em> life; and a completely <em>new</em> degree of relevance. We show how this can be done without a single bit sacrificing rigor, but indeed—with a new degree of rigor and a new <em>kind of</em> rigor.</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
------
 +
 +
<p>
 +
[[File:Local-Global.jpg]]<br>
 +
<small>BottomUp - TopDown intervention tool for shifting positions, which was part of our pilot project in Kunsthall 3.14, Bergen, suggests how this proposed <em>information</em> is to be used—by transcending fixed relations between top and bottom, and building awareness of the benefits of multiple points of view; and moving in-between.</small>
 +
</p>
 +
 +
------
 +
 +
 
<div class="row">
 
<div class="row">
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Imagine...</h2></div>
+
<div class="col-md-3"><h2><em>Ideogram</em></h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7"><p>The <em>ideograms</em> as they presently are in the <em>holoscope</em> serve as a laceholder—for a variety of techniques that can be developed by using contemporary media technology. The point here is to condense lots and lots of insights into <em>something</em> that communicates them most effectively—which can be a poem, a picture, a video, a movie....</p>
 +
<p>An <em>ideogram</em> the naturally serves for composing the <em>circle</em>–which condenses a wealth of insights into a simple, communicated message.</p>
 +
<p>Instead of using media tools addictively, and commercially, we use them to <em>rebuild</em> the <em>culture</em>—as people have done through ages. The difference is made by the <em>knowledge federation</em> infrastructure—which secures that what needs to be <em>federated</em> gets <em>federated</em>. </p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
 
 +
-------
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>We are dazzled and confused</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>The unstructured nature of our information, in combination with the immersive nature of our media, have the effect of leaving us dazzled and confused. </p>
 +
<blockquote>The nature of our information is such that it not only fails to help us comprehend our world—but <em>it imperils our very ability to comprehend</em>. </blockquote>
 +
<p>Of the many studies that support this conclusion (which, however, remained without effect...), we here offer two <em>threads</em>. </p>
 +
<h3>Nietzsche–Ehrlich–Giddens</h3>
 +
<p>
 +
[[File:Giddens-OS.jpeg]]
 +
</p>
 +
<p>The insight that the complexity of our world, combined with the inadequacy of our information, leaves us no other way of coping than to resort to what Anthony Giddens called "ontological security" is summarized by the above slide, and summarized [https://holoscope.info/2019/02/07/knowledge-federation-dot-org/#Giddens here]. </p>
 +
 
 +
<h3>McLuhan–Postman–Debord</h3>
 +
<p>Here is another, a bit more profound stream of thought. From McLuhan and Postman we need only an overarching insight they share, namely that the medium has the power to limit and direct what <em>can</em> be said, and to even impact if not determine our very capability to express ourselves and comprehend. Debord took this a step further, by treating it as a power-related phenomenon.</p>
 +
 
 +
<h3>We must act, not only observe</h3>
 +
<p>Two points remain to be highlighted.</p>
 +
<p>The first is that the <em>academia</em> itself cannot be considered immune to the deep problems we've just outlined. The <em>academia</em> is not only failing to produce a guiding light to our society—but <em>also to itself</em>! Is the academic discipline on the way to become (what Giddens called) an "internally referential system"?</p>
 +
<p>The second is that to restore agency to information, and power to knowledge, the <em>academia</em> must step beyond its traditional "objective observer" stance, and develop ways to turn knowledge into systems. And into action.</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>An academic core issue</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<blockquote>
 +
<p>Consider the <em>academia</em> as a <em>system</em>: It has a vast heritage to take care of, and make use of. Selected creative people come in. They are given certain tools to work with, certain ways how to work, certain communication tools that will take their results and turn them into socially useful effect. How effective, and efficient, is the whole thing as a system? Is it taking advantage of the invaluable (especially in this time when our urgent need is creative change) resources that have been entrusted to it?</p>
 +
<p>Enter information technology...</p>
 +
</blockquote>
 +
<p>The big point here is that the <em>academia</em>'s <em>primary</em> responsibility or accountability is for the system as a whole, and for each of its components. The <em>academia</em> had an asset, let's call him Pierre Bourdieu. This person was given a format to write in—which happened to be academic books and articles. He was given a certain language to express himself in. <em>How good</em> are those tools? <em>Could there be</em> answers to this question (which the <em>academi</em> has, btw, not yet asked in any real way) that are incomparably, by orders of magnitude, better than what the <em>academia</em> of his time afforded to Bourdieu? And to everyone else, of course.</p> 
 +
 +
 
 +
<h3>Analogy with the history of computer programming</h3>
 +
<p>We point to the analogy between the situation in computer programming following the advent of the computer, in response to which computer programming methodologies were developed—and the situation in our handling of information following the advent of the Internet. In the first years of computing, ambitious software projects were undertaken, which resulted in "spaghetti code"—a tangled up mess of thousands of lines of code, which nobody could understand, detangle and correct. The programmers were coming in and out of those projects, and those who stepped in later had to wonder whether to throw the whole thing away and begin from scratch—or to continue to try to correct it. </p>
 +
<p>A motivating insight that needs to be drawn from this history is that a dramatic increase in size of the thing being handled (computer programs <em>and</em> information) can not be effectively responded to by merely more of the same. A <em>structural</em> change (a different <em>paradigm</em>) is what the situation is calling for. </p>
 +
<h3>A new <em>paradigm</em> is needed</h3>
 +
<p>Edsger Dijkstra, one of the pioneers of the development of methodologies, argued that programming in the large is a <em>completely</em> different thing than programming in the small (for which textbook examples and the programming tools at large were created at the time):</p>
 +
<blockquote>
 +
“Any two things that differ in some respect by a factor of already a hundred or more, are utterly incomparable.”
 +
</blockquote>
 +
<p>Doug Engelbart used to make the same point (that the increase in size requires a different paradigm) by sharing his parable of a man who grew ten times in size (read it [https://holoscope.info/2020/01/01/tesla-and-the-nature-of-creativity/#Tenfold_growth_parable here]). </p>
 +
 
 +
<h3>The key point</h3>
 +
<p>The solution was found in developing structuring and abstraction concepts and methodologies. Among them, the Object Oriented Methodology is the best known example.</p>
 +
<p>The key insight to be drawn from this analogy: computers can be programmed in <em>any</em> programming language. The creators of the programming methodologies, however, took it as their core challenge, and duty, to give the programmers the conceptual and technical tools that would <em>coerce</em> them to write code that is comprehensible, maintainable and reusable. The Object Oriented Methodology responds to this challenge by conceiving of computer programming as modeling of complex systems—in terms of a hierarchy of "objects". An object is a structuring device whose purpose is to "export function" (make a set of functions available to higher-order objects),  and "hide implementation". </p>
 +
<p>Without recognizing that, the <em>academia</em> now finds itself in a similar situation as the creators of computer programming methodologies. The importance of finding a suitable response to this challenge cannot be overrated.</p>
 +
 
 +
<h3>Implications for cultural revival</h3>
 +
<p>There is also an interesting <em>difference</em> between computer programming and handling of information: The fact that a team of programmers can no longer understand the program they are creating is easily detected—the program won't run on the computer; but how does one detect the incomparably larger and more costly problem—that a generation of people can no longer comprehend the information they own? And hence the situation they are in?</p>
 +
</div> </div> 
 +
 
 +
 
 +
-------
 +
 
 +
<div class="page-header" > <h2>Restoring purpose to information, and agency to knowledge</h2> </div>
 +
   
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>Having used the <em>holoscope</em> to illuminate our general condition, and to <em>federate</em> The Club of Rome's core findings and call to action, we are now ready to revisit our proposal, and see how it firs into the big picture we've created. Let's begin by re-emphasizing our main point, that "the core of our proposal is to change the relationship we have with information". In the language of our metaphor, we are <em>not</em> saying "Here is a 'lightbulb', to replace those 'candles'."
 +
</p>
 +
<blockquote>
 +
By proposing to academia to add <em>knowledge federation</em> to its repertoire of activities and fields, we are proposing an 'electromechanical workshop', which will develop and install new 'sources of illumination', and to improve them continuously—by taking advantage of new knowledge of knowledge, and information technology.
 +
</blockquote>
 +
<p>In what follows we look at this proposal from several points of view.</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Use of knowledge resources</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>The point of view here is the <em>academia</em>'s prerogative to give to the academic workers, and to the rest of the world, conceptual and methodological tools, processes and institutional structures for handling knowledge. The question here is how this prerogative is used.</p>
 +
<p>It is the prerogative of <em>academia</em> to tell everyone what information and knowledge are about, how they are to be created and used etc. Considering that our theme of focus is "a great cultural revival", we are especially interested in the workflow of knowledge in and from the humanities.</p>
 +
<p>Considering that the tools, processes and institutional structures in knowledge work will decide the <em>effects</em> and the effectiveness of knowledge work, we must ask—<em>how</em> are those tools, processes and institutional structures created?</p>
 +
<p>The obvious answer is that they are not. They are simply inherited from the past. Instead of considering them as part of their creative frontier <em>par excellence</em>, the academic workers are <em>socialized</em> to accept them as part and parcel of their vodation. <em>That</em> is what (applied to the <em>academia</em>) the metaphor of the candle headlights is intended to signify.</p>
 +
<p>Then our next question must be—<em>how well</em> do those tools and processes serve us?</p>
 +
<p>Here we may bring up, fir instance, Bourdieu's "theory of practice". If you are a sociology student, you will probably study it as one of the theories, among so many others; but you won't be asked to <em>do</em> anything with it. And if you are not a sociology student, the chances are (as we have seen) that not only you've never heard about Bourdieu, but that your ideas about the social world are in stark contradiction to whatever Bourdieu was trying to tell us. Put simply, our <em>collective mind</em> has no connections between the research in sociology and the rest of us.</p>
 +
<p>Bourdieu happened to notice this general issue. When a decade ago, when we were "evangelizing" for our reorganization of Knowledge Federation as a <em>transdiscipline</em>, we told the story how Bourdieu teamed up with Coleman, and undertook to put sociology back together. And how Bourdieu made a case for this attempted <em>structural</em> change of sociology, by arguing why it may be "the largest contribution" to the field. It remained to point to the obvious—that Bourdieu's observation is far <em>more</em> true when we look at sociology as a piece in a larger puzzle, of our society.</p>
 +
<p>To become "a sociologist", one is given a certain 'toolkit' that goes with that title.</p>
 +
<p>Add to this picture the new media technology—which enabled the power over knowledge, that the "official culture" earlier secured through its control over the media (publishing agencies, opera houses etc.), to escape the "official culture" and fall into the hands of counterculture. </p>
 +
<p>It takes a bit of courage now to lift up the eyes from these details, and see that in the large picture—the nature and the quality of the <em>academia</em>'s  'toolkit' could be such that it renders even an extraordinarily talented individual, a one who could change the world—<em>entirely</em> useless to the world!</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
-------
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7"><h3>Information <em>ideogram</em></h3>
 +
 
 +
<p>The Information <em>idogram</em>, shown on the right, explains how the information we propose to create is different from the one we have. </p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"></div>
 
<div class="col-md-6">
 
<div class="col-md-6">
<p>You are about to board a bus for a long night ride, when you notice two flickering streaks of light emanating from two wax candles, placed in the circular holes where the headlights of the bus are expected to be. Candles? <em>As headlights</em>? </p>
+
<p>The <em>ideogram</em> shows an "i", which stands for "information", as composed of a circle placed on top of a square. The square stands for the details; and also for looking at a theme of choice from all sides, by using diverse <em>kinds of</em> sources and resources. The circle, or the dot on the "i", stands for the function or the point of it all. That might be an insight into the nature of a situation; or a rule of thumb, pointing to a general way to handle situations of a specific kind; or a project, which implements such handling.</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>By depicting our society as a bus without a steering wheel, and the way we look at the world and try to comprehend it and handle it as a pair of candle headlights, the Modernity <em>ideogram</em> renders the essence of our contemporary situation.</p>
 
 
</div>  
 
</div>  
 
<div class="col-md-3">
 
<div class="col-md-3">
[[File:Modernity.jpg]]
+
[[File:Information.jpg]]
<small>Modernity <em>ideogram</em></small>  
+
<small>Information <em>ideogram</em></small>  
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>By showing the circle as <em>founded</em> on the square, the Information <em>ideogram</em> points to <em>knowledge federation</em> as a social process (the 'principle of operation' of the socio-technical 'lightbulb'), by which the insights, principles, strategic handling and whatever else may help us understand and take care of our increasingly complex world are kept consistent with each other, and with the information we own. </p>
 +
<p><em>Knowledge federation</em> is itself a result of <em>knowledge federation</em>: We draw insights about handling information from the sciences, communication design, journalism... And we weave them into technical solutions. </p>
 +
 
 
</div> </div>  
 
</div> </div>  
 +
 +
-------
  
 
<div class="row">
 
<div class="row">
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Our proposal</h2></div>
+
<div class="col-md-3"></div>
 
<div class="col-md-7">
 
<div class="col-md-7">
<p>
 
<blockquote>The core of our <em>knowledge federation</em> proposal is to change the relationship we have with information. And through information—with the world; and with ourselves.
 
</blockquote></p>
 
  
<p>What is our relationship with information presently like? Here is how [[Neil Postman]] described it:</p>  
+
<h3>Holoscope and Holotopia</h3>
 +
<p>Some rudimentary understanding of our <em>holoscope</em> <em>prototype</em> is necessary for understanding what is about to follow.</p>  
 
</div> </div>  
 
</div> </div>  
  
Line 26: Line 255:
 
<div class="col-md-3"></div>
 
<div class="col-md-3"></div>
 
<div class="col-md-6">
 
<div class="col-md-6">
 +
<p>The Holoscope <em>ideogram</em> serves to explain the role this has in the inner workings of the <em>holoscope</em>. If one should inspect a hand-held cup, to see whether it is cracked or whole, one must be able to look at it from all sides; and perhaps also bring it closer to inspect some detail, and take it further away and see it as a whole. The control over the <em>scope</em> is what enables the <em>holoscope</em> to make a difference.</p> 
 +
</div>
 +
<div class="col-md-3">
 +
[[File:Holoscope.jpeg]]<br>
 +
<small>Holoscope <em>ideogram</em></small>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>To be able to say that a cup is whole, one must see it from all sides. To see that a cup is broken, it is enough to show a  <em>single</em> angle of looking. Much of the art of using the <em>holoscope</em> will be in finding and communicating uncommon ways of looking at things, which reveal their 'cracks' and help us correct them. </p>
 +
<p>
 +
The difference between the <em>paradigm</em> modeled by the <em>holoscope</em> and the traditional science can easily be understood if one considers the difference in the purpose, or <em>epistemology</em>. When our goal is to "see things whole", so that we can make them whole, a discovery of a way of looking that reveals where a 'crack' might exist, <em>although we might not</em> (yet) <em>be able to see it</em>, can be a valuable contribution to knowledge, as a warning to take precaution measures against the potential consequences of an undetected 'crack'. In science, on the other hand, where our goal is to discover only the most solid 'bricks', with which we can construct the edifice of a "scientific reality picture"—such ways of looking and hypothetical 'cracks' are considered worthless, and cannot even be reported.</p>
 +
 +
<p> To fully understand the "course" we are proposing, it is important to consider what those 'cracks' really are: They are 'crevices on the road', they are 'wrong turns'—which can lead to a civilization-wide disaster, with all the imaginable and unimaginable tragic consequences this might imply. It then follows from our stated purpose (to evolve suitable 'headlights') that our handling of information must "change course": We must look at all sides, not only one!</p>
 +
 +
<p>A subtlety follows—which is, however, required if one should step into the <em>holotopia</em> development and contribute. We will be using the usual manner of speaking, and making affirmative statements of the usual kind, that a certain thing or issue <em>X</em> "is" so and so. Those statements need to be interpreted as meaning "please see if you can see  <em>X</em> (also) in this way". In other words, our statements need to be interpreted and handled in the manner of the <em>dialog</em>. </p>
 +
 +
------
 +
 +
 +
<p> in the way that's intended—namely as <em>views</em> resulting from <em>specific</em> scopes. A <em>view</em> is offered as <em>sufficiently</em> fitting the data (the <em>view</em> really serves as a kind of a mnemonic device, which engages our faculties of abstraction and logical thinking to condense messy data to a simple and coherent point of view)—within a given <em>scope</em>. Here the <em>scopes</em> serve as projection planes in projective geometry. If a <em>scope</em> shows a 'crack', then this 'crack' needs to be handled, within the <em>scope</em>—regardless of what the other <em>scopes</em> are showing.</p>
 +
<p>Hence a new kind of "result", which the <em>holoscope</em> makes possible—to "discover" new ways of looking or <em>scopes</em>, which reveal something essential about our situation, and perhaps even change our perception of it as a whole.</p>
 +
<p>"Reality" is always more complex than our models. To be able to "comprehend" it and act, we must be able to simplify. The <em>big</em> point here is that the simplification we are proposing is a radical alternative to simplification by reducing the world to a <em>single</em> image—and ignoring whatever fails to fit in. This simplification is legitimate <em>by design</em>. The appropriate response to it (within the proposed <em>paradigm</em>) is <em>dialog</em>, not discussion—as we shall see next.</p>
 +
<p>Or in other words—aiming to return power to knowledge, we shall say things that might sound preposterous, sensational, scandalous... Yet they won't be a single bit "controversial"—within the <em>order of things</em> we are proposing, and using. They are <em>ways of looking</em> that (as we'll carefully show) <em>must</em> be considered—so that the 'cracks' may be revealed. </p>
 +
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
 +
-------
 +
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>"Reality" is a basic human need</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7"><h3>Aaron Antonovsky and salutogenesis</h3>
 +
<p>Among the women who survived the Holocaust, about two thirds later developed a variety of psychosomatic problems. Aaron Antonovsky focused his research on the ones that didn't. He found out that what distinguished them was their greater "sense of coherence"—which he defined as "feeling of confidence that one's environment is predictable and that things will work out as well as can reasonably be expected". Today Antonovsky is considered an iconic progenitor of "salutogenesis"—the scientific study of conditions for and ways to health.</p>
 +
<p>We mention Antonovsky to point to what is perhaps intuitively obvious: That a shared "reality" is a basic human need. Every social group provided its members with a <em>shared</em> "sense of coherence" (a predictable environment, a relatively stable role and "habitus" recognized by others, a shared way to comprehend the world...) But at what price!</p>
 +
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Socialization determines our awareness</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7"><h3>Antonio Damasio and Descartes' error</h3>
 +
<p>The second main component of the <em>socialized reality</em> insight represents a major turning point from the self-image which the Enlightenment gave us, humans; and which served as the foundation for our democracy, legislature, ethics, culture...  Here too we represent a large body of research with the work of a single researcher—Antonio Damasio.</p>
 +
<p>The point here—which Damasio deftly coded into the very title of his book "Descartes' Error"—is that we are not the rational decision makers, as the founding fathers of the Enlightenment made us believe. Damasio showed that the very contents of our rational mind (our priorities, and <em>what options</em> we are at all capable to conceive of and consider) are controlled by a cognitive filter, which is pre-rational and embodied.</p>
 +
<p>Damasio's theory synergizes beautifully with Bourdieu's "theory of practice", to which it gives a physiological explanation.</p> 
 +
 +
<h3>George Lakoff and philosophy in the flesh</h3>
 +
<p>Lakoff, a cognitive linguist, and Johnson, a philosopher, teamed up to give us a revision of philosophy, based on what the cognitive science found, under the title "philosophy in the flesh". The book's opening paragraphs, titled "How Cognitive Science Reopens Central Philosophical Questions", read:</p>
 +
<blockquote>
 +
<p>The mind is inherently embodied.</p>
 +
 +
<p>Thought is mostly unconscious.</p>
 +
 +
<p>Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical.</p>
 +
 +
<p>These are three major findings of cognitive science. More than two millennia of a priori philosophical speculation about these aspects of reason are over. Because of these discoveries, philosophy can never be the same again.</p>
 +
 +
<p>When taken together and considered in detail, these three findings from the science of the mind are inconsistent with central parts of Western philosophy. They require a thorough rethinking of the most popular current approaches, namely, Anglo-American analytic philosophy and postmodernist philosophy.</p>
 +
 +
</blockquote>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>"Reality" is a product of <em>socialization</em></h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7"><h3>Bourdieu's "theory of practice"</h3>
 +
<p>We have now come to the first of the three main components of the <em>socialized reality</em> insight—that what we consider "reality" is really a product of <em>socialization</em>. But what exactly does this mean? What is <em>socialization</em>?</p>
 +
<p>While a wealth of academic insights may be drawn upon to illuminate this uniquely relevant idea, we here represent them all by the work of a single researcher, sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. His "theory of practice" <em>is</em> the theory of <em>socialization</em>. </p>
 +
<p>Specifically, the meaning of Bourdieu's keyword <em>doxa</em> (which he adopted from Max Weber, and whose usage dates all the way back to Plato) points to an essential property of what we call <em>socialized reality</em>. Bourdieu used this <em>keyword</em> to point to the common <em>experience</em> that people had through the ages—that the societal <em>order of things</em> in which they lived was the <em>only</em> possible one. "Orthodoxy" implies that more than one are possible, but that only one ("ours") is the "right" one. <em>Doxa</em> ignores even the <em>possibility</em> of alternative options. </p>
 +
<p>Two other Bourdieu's central <em>keywords</em>, "habitus", and "field", will provide us what we need to take along. Think of "habitus" as embodied predispositions to act and behave in a certain way. Think of "field" as something akin to a magnetic field, which deftly draws each person in a society to his or her "habitus". Instead of theorizing more, we provide an intuitive explanation in terms of a common situation, which is intended to serve as a parable.</p>
 +
<p>From Bourdieu's theory, "reality" emerges as a structured 'turf'; each "habitus" ("king", "page", "cardinal" and so on) is a result of past structuring—and the starting point of new socialization into these roles; which can of course change with time, as results of future 'turf strife'.</p>
 +
 +
<h3>What makes a real king real</h3>
 +
<blockquote>The king enters the room and everyone bows. Naturally, you bow too. Even if you may not feel like doing that, deep inside you know that if you don't bow down your head, you may lose it.</blockquote>
 +
<p>So what is it, really, that makes the difference between "a real king", and an imposter who "only believes" that he's a king? <em>Both</em> consider themselves as kings, and impersonate the corresponding "habitus". In the former case, however, <em>everyone else</em> has also been successfully socialized accordingly.</p>
 +
<p>A "real king" will be treated with highest honors. An imposter will be incarcerated in an appropriate institution. Despite the fact that all too often, a single "real king" caused far more suffering and destruction than all the madmen and criminals combined.</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
-------
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Key Point Dialog</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7"><p>This <em>dialog</em> was one in a series of experiments, where we experimented with <em>dialog</em> as a means for igniting "a great cultural revival". The Bohm's circle was turned into a high-energy cyclotron. Provisions for spreading the <em>dialog</em> through the media were made. See the report.</p>
 +
<p>An important point is to see the KPD as a set of evolving tactical tools.</p>
 +
<p>The scheme is fault-tolerant, and there are no failures. A group of knowledgeable people talking about how to change, for instance, religion, is a prime spectacle, vastly surpassing anything that DT can provide the media. But a group of <em>homo ludens</em> characters attacking these views, or even just being unable to say or think anything that is not <em>within</em> the <em>paradigm</em>, can be an even <em>greater</em> spectacle. With proper camera work, and set in the right context, of course. This can act as a <em>mirror</em>—reflecting back how we are, what we've become. </p>
 +
<p>Add Debategraph ++ — the use of new dialog mapping etc. tools — and you'll see a most wonderful playground, where our <em>collective mind</em> is being changed <em>as we speak</em>!</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
 +
-------
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2><em>Socialization</em> and <em>symbolic action</em></h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p><em>Socialization</em> must be understood as a surrogate <em>epistemology</em>. We don't "know" because we've considered the data—but because we've been <em>socialized</em> to believe we know. </p>
 +
<blockquote>During the past century we've learned to harness the power of... Now our task is to harness the power that's remain as largest—the power of our <em>socialization</em>. It is largest because it determines how all other powers will be used.</blockquote>
 +
<p>We adopted the <em>symbolic action</em> <em>keyword</em> from Murray Edelman. It serves to point to a behavioral pattern—having been <em>socialized</em> to stay within certain limits of thought and behavior, and nonetheless seeing that something <em>must</em> be done, we act out our duties and fears in a <em>symbolic</em> way: We write a paper; we organize a conference.</p>
 +
<p>We use <em>symbolic</em> as roughly an antonym to <em>systemic</em>: Impact, if it is to be real, must be able to affect our <em>systems</em>, that is, the <em>power structure</em>; not just do things within it.</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2><em>homo ludens</em> and <em>academia</em></h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7"><p>
 +
<p>The <em>homo ludens</em> is the <em>socialized</em> human. Our shadow side. He's the <em>power structure</em> man. Adjusts to the field—gives it his power, and receives an illusion of power.</p>
 +
<p>We once again emphasize that <em>homo ludens</em> and <em>homo sapiens</em> are not distinct things, our there; they are two perfect and abstract <em>scopes</em>, or ways of looking. Each of us humans has those two sides. The issue here is to <em>see</em> the other side, and to develop culture that helps us evolve as <em>homo sapiens</em>, not as <em>homo ludens</em>. </p>
 +
<p>We don't need to do this—but it is interesting to imagine that the <em>homo ludens</em> was really what The Club of Rome was up against. And that what we call the <em>homo sapiens</em> re-evolution is what Peccei was calling for. In The Last Call trailer, there are TWO beautiful examples on record (SHOW THEM).</p>
 +
<p>The <em>academia</em> is defined as "institutionalized academic tradition". We are proposing to update the <em>academia</em> by adding <em>knowledge federation</em> as field of interest and <em>praxis</em>. The point of this definition, and the stories that support it, is to go back to Socrates and Galilei, and show that <em>homo sapiens</em> evolution was what the academic tradition has really been about since its inception. </p>
 +
<p>To make this even more clear, we talk about <em>homo ludens academicus</em>–a cultural subspecies, which according to ordinary logic should not even exist. The point is is to illuminate the question—whether the <em>ecology</em> of the contemporary <em>academia</em> (with its specific approach to education, "publish or perish" etc.)—is an ecology that favors the <em>homo ludens academicus</em> (which would mean that this institutionalization ha a 'crack', and needs to be repaired). </p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
 +
-------
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Causal comprehension is <em>not</em> a reality test</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7"><p>It takes only a moment of reflection to see just how much the "aha feeling"—when we understand how something may result as a consequence of known causes—has been elevated to the status of the reality test. But is it <em>really</em> that?</p>
 
<blockquote>  
 
<blockquote>  
"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."
+
<p>The Enlightenment empowered the human reason to comprehend the world. Science taught us that women cannot fly on brooms—because that would violate some well established "natural laws". Innumerable prejudices and superstitions were dispelled.</p>
 +
<p>But we've also thrown out the baby with the bathwater!</p>
 +
</blockquote>
 +
 
 +
 
 +
<p>At the 59th yearly meeting of the International Society for the Systems Sciences, whose title theme was "Governing the Anthropocene", a little old lady was wheeled to the podium in a wheelchair. She began her keynote by talking at length about how, while in the cradle, we throw our pacifier to the ground, and mother picks it up and gives it back to us; and we say "hum". </p>
 +
<p>Mary Catherine Bateson is an American cultural anthropologist and cybernetician, the daughter of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, two prominent historical figures in anthropology and cybernetics. The insight she undertook to bring home in this way is <em>alone</em> large enough to hold the <em>socialized reality</em> insight and the call to action it points to—if it can be understood. Her point was that from the cradle on we learn to comprehend and organize our world in terms of causes and effects—which makes us incapable of understanding things <em>truly</em>, that is <em>systemically</em>. Or to use the way of looking at our contemporary condition—from "seeing things whole" and "making things whole". And hence from "changing course".</p>
 +
<p>Click  [https://youtu.be/nXQraugWbjQ?t=56 here] to hear Mary Catherine Bateson say, in her keynote to the American Society for Cybernetics:</p>
 +
<blockquote>The problem of cybernetics is that it is <em>not</em> 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 in general. And there are all sorts of abstruse and sophisticated things that can be done with it, but on some level, what we would like is to affect what people think is common sense. Things that they take for granted, in fact are problematic: about causality; about purposes; about relationships... Universities don't have departments of epistemological therapy.
 
</blockquote>
 
</blockquote>
</div><div class="col-md-3">[[File:Postman.jpg]]<br><small>Neil Postman</small></div>
+
<p>The problem we are talking about underlies each of the <em>five insights</em>—and hence is a key to <em>holotopia</em>. Isn't our "pursuit of happiness" misdirected by our misidentification of happiness with what appears to cause it—which we called <em>convenience</em>. And more generally, by our supposition that we <em>know</em> what goals are worth pursuing, because we can simply <em>feel</em> that. And in innovation—our ignoring of the structure of systems, and abandoning it to <em>power structure</em>. And in communication—our ignoring of the workings of our <em>collective mind</em>, and abandoning that too to <em>power structure</em>. And even our <em>socialized reality</em> is a result of our supposition that the "ana feeling" we experience when things (appear to) fit causally together as a sure sign that we've discovered the reality itself. And finally in method—which is consistently focused on finding for instance "disease causes" and eliminating them through chemical or surgical interventions and so on. </p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Reason cannot know "reality"</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<h3>Common sense is a product of experience</h3>
 +
<p>
 +
[[File:Oppenheimer–U.Sense.jpeg]]
 +
</p>
 +
<p>Even our common sense is a product of (our and our culture's) experience, with things such as pebbles and waves of water. We have no reason to believe that it will still work when applied to things that we <em>do not</em> have in experience, such as small quanta of matter—<em>and it doesn't</em>!. A complete argument, based on the double-slit experiment, is in Oppenheimer's essay "Uncommon Sense". </p>
 +
 
 +
<h3>"Reality" has no a priori structure</h3>
 +
<p>Indeed, when the insights reached in the last century's science and philosophy are taken into account, the reason is compelled to conclude that there is no "<em>the</em> reality" out there, waiting to be discovered. All we have to work with is human experience—of a world that, to our best knowledge, <em>has no</em> a priori structure.</p>
 +
<p>A piece of material evidence is Einstein's "epistemological credo", which we commented [http://kf.wikiwiki.ifi.uio.no/IMAGES#Einstein-Epistemology here].</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>"Reality" is the problem</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7"><p>Let this redesign of Ronald Reagan's campaign slogan, which marked the beginning of an era, point to a remedial strategy and a <em>new</em> era.</p>
 +
<p>The following excerpt from Berger and Luckmann's "Social Construction of Reality" is relevant:
 +
<blockquote>
 +
As more complex forms of knowledge emerge and an economic surplus is built up, experts devote themselves full-time to the subjects of their expertise, which, with the development of conceptual machineries, may become increasingly removed from the pragmatic necessities of everyday life. Experts in these rarefied bodies of knowledge lay claim to a novel status. They are not only experts in this or that sector of the societal stock of knowledge, they claim ultimate jurisdiction over that stock of knowledge in its totality. They are, literally, universal experts. This does not mean that they claim to know everything, but rather that they claim to know the ultimate significance of what everybody knows and does. Other men may continue to stake out particular sectors of reality, but they claim expertise in the ultimate definitions of reality as such.
 +
</blockquote>
 +
 
 +
This theory about the nature of reality, then, becomes an instrument par excellence for legitimizing the given social reality:
 +
<blockquote>
 +
Habitualization and institutionalization in themselves limit the flexibility of human actions. Institutions tend to persist unless they become ‘problematic’. Ultimate legitimations inevitably strengthen this tendency. The more abstract the legitimations are, the less likely they are to be modified in accordance with changing pragmatic exigencies. If there is a tendency to go on as before anyway, the tendency is obviously strengthened by having excellent reasons for doing so. This means that institutions may persist even when, to an outside observer, they have lost their original functionality or practicality. One does certain things not because they work, but because they are right – right, that is, in terms of the ultimate definitions of reality promulgated by the universal experts.
 +
</blockquote>
 +
</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
-------
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2><em>Power structure</em></h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7"><blockquote>The <em>power structure</em> models the key political notions of the "enemy"; and of the "power holder". </blockquote>
 +
<p>Related to the <em>power structure</em> insight we have already learned to perceive the <em>power structure</em> as "systems in which we live and work"—which determine our live ecology, our cultural ecosystem and (not the least) what the effects of our work will be. We now invite you to put also the <em>socialized reality</em> into this view.</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-6"><p>The [[power structure|<em>power structure</em>]] was originally defined in that way—as a structure comprising power interests (represented by the dollar sign in the Power Structure <em>ideogram</em>), our ideas about the world (represented by the book) and our own condition or "human quality" (represented by the stethoscope). The resources we pointed to above may already suggest why—and a more complete explanation is provided in the literature of the [[power structure|<em>power structure</em>]] entry here. </p>
 +
<p>The primary <em>power structure</em> in Galilei's time was, of course, represented by the synergy between the power of the kings and the worldview provided by the Church—and the consequences to people's wellbeing, or to "human quality", may be obvious. The interesting question is—how might the same basic relationship (or technically a <em>pattern</em>) be reproduced in our own time?</p>
 +
<p>Who may be holding Galilei in house arrest <em>today</em>?</p>  
 
</div>  
 
</div>  
 +
<div class="col-md-3">
 +
[[File:Power Structure.jpg]]<br>
 +
<small>Power Structure <em>ideogram</em></small>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2><em>Academia</em></h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<blockquote><em>Academia</em> is institutionalized academic tradition.</blockquote>
 +
<p>You have already seen that. Our reason to come back to this definition is to point to a subtlety, which sets the stage for the proposed <em>dialog</em>. </p>
 +
<p>We have that our worldview can be shaped through <em>socialization</em> by <em>power structure</em>. But there is an alternative—to use reason, and knowledge and knowledge, to re-examine our beliefs; and to in that way <em>create</em> better and more solid ways to knowledge. And that is what "academic tradition" here stands for. Our references to Socrates and to Galilei as <em>academia</em>'s iconic figures are meant to re-emphasize that the academic tradition found its purpose, and drew its strength, from inspired individuals who dared to stand up to the <em>power structure</em> of the day, and by continuing the academic tradition bring the progress of knowledge, and of humanity, a step forward.</p>
 +
<p>The question (to be asked and reflected on in front of the <em>mirror</em> is whether the contemporary <em>academia</em> is still institutionalizing the academic tradition?</p>
 +
<p>Or has it become a (part of the) <em>power structure</em>—in a similar way as the Church was in Galilei's time?</p>
 +
<p>Notice that the answer here is not either "yes" or "no". Our point is that we must look at our theme from <em>both</em> sides.</p> 
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2><em>Dialog</em></h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>We have introduced the <em>dialog</em> as a principle of communication. The association with the dialogs that Socrates had as his core activity, as recorded by Plato, was an obvious point. No less important was the subsequent work on this theme by David Bohm and others, the shoulders on which we stand to continue this work.</p>
 +
<p>What we want to emphasize here as a subtle yet essential point is a wealth of tactical assets that the <em>dialog</em> as technique brings along. The central point here is that the <em>dialog</em> is not only a medium for creating knowledge, but also and above all the very functioning of our <em>collective mind</em>—and hence also the way to change it. Here tools like the Debategraph (...) need to be mentioned. But also judicious uses of the camera—whereby the breaches of the ethos of the <em>dialog</em> can be made clearly visible; and valuable feedback for bringing us back on track can be provided (...). </p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2><em>Homo ludens</em></h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>Here's another way to summarize the above-mentioned resources: The Enlightenment has given us the <em>homo sapiens</em> self-identity. Which makes it all seem so deceptively easy—by making knowing our evolutionary birth right. We don't really need to <em>do</em> much in order to know...</p>
 +
<p>We update this flattering but distorted picture by pointing to another side: We can also evolve and act as <em>homo ludens</em>—who shuns knowledge, and simply learns what works and what doesn't from experience (or through <em>socialization</em>). The <em>homo ludens</em> does not care about overarching principles and purposes; he learns his various professional and social roles as one would learn the rules of a game, and performs in them competitively. </p>
 +
<p>It is interesting to notice that the <em>homo sapiens</em> and the <em>homo ludens</em> represent two completely different ways to knowledge, and kinds of knowing. A consequence is that each of them may see himself as the epigone of evolution, and the other as going extinct. The <em>homo sapiens</em> looks at the data; the <em>homo ludens</em> just looks around...</p>
 +
<p>And now a hint about setting the stage for the <em>dialogs</em>, by combining the conceptual 'technology' outlined here and the hardware technology: The producers of the trailer for The Last Call documentary (where some of the most interesting developments subsequent to The Club of Rome's more specific call to action are reported, voiced in their report "The Limits to Growth") gave us a couple of instances of the <em>homo ludens</em> on record:
 +
<ul>
 +
<li>A conversation between Dennis Meadows (representing the <em>homo sapiens</em> side) and an opponent, which begins [https://youtu.be/0141gupAryM?t=135 here]</li>
 +
<li>Ronald Reagan wiping it all off, with a most simple (<em>homo ludens</em>) gesture, and a most charming smile, see it [https://youtu.be/0141gupAryM?t=94 here]</li>
 +
</ul>
 +
Yes, the <em>homo ludens</em> had no difficulty obstructing the re-evolution that The Club of Rome was trying to ignite. Can we learn from their experience, and do better?</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Prototype</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>As we have seen, <em>prototypes</em> are characteristic products of knowledge work on the other side of the <em>mirror</em>. The point here is to move knowledge workers and knowledge itself from 'the back seat', i.e. from its observer role, to 'the driver's seat'. By <em>federating</em> insights directly into <em>prototypes</em>, we give them a place in the world; and a power to make a difference.</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
-------
 +
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>A vocabulary</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>Science was not an exception; <em>every</em> new paradigm brings with it a new way of speaking.</p>
 +
<p>The following collection of <em>keywords</em> will provide an alternative, and a bit more academic and precise entry point to <em>holoscope</em> and <em>holotopia</em>.</p>
 +
 +
<h3><em>Truth by convention</em> and <em>keywords</em></h3>
 +
<p><em>Truth by convention</em> is the technical foundation of the <em>holoscope</em>; and the principle of operation of the 'lightbulb'. This principle can be easily understood by thinking of our usual, <em>traditional</em> usage of the language (where the meanings of concepts are inherited from the past and determined in advance) as 'candles'. <em>Truth by convention</em> allows us to give concepts completely <em>new</em> meaning; and by doing that, create completely <em>new</em> ways to see the world.</p>
 +
 +
<p><em>Truth by convention</em> is the only truth that is possible in <em>holotopia</em>. </p>
 +
 +
<p><em>Truth by convention</em> is the kind of truth that is common in mathematics; when we say "Let X be..." we are making a convention. It is meaningless to discuss whether <em>X</em> "really is" as defined.</p>
 +
 +
<p><em>Truth by convention</em> is a way to liberate our language and ideas from the bondage of tradition. It provides us an Archimedean point for changing our worldview—and 'moving the world'.</p>
 +
 +
<p>Just like everything else here, <em>truth by convention</em> is a result of <em>knowledge federation</em>:  [[Willard Van Orman Quine]] identified the transition from traditional <em>reification</em> to <em>truth by convention</em> as a way in which scientific fields <em>tend to</em> enter a more mature phase of evolution. </p>
 +
 +
<p>The <em>keywords</em> are concepts defined by convention. Until we find a better way, we distinguish them by writing them in italics.</p>
 +
 +
<p>It must be emphasized that while the complexities and the subtleties of the world and the human experience are always beyhond what we can communicate, the <em>keywords</em>, being defined by convention, can have completely <em>precise</em> meanings. They are instruments of abstraction; we can use them to develop theories—even about themes that are intrinsically ambiguous or vague.</p>
 +
 +
<h3><em>Scope</em> and <em>view</em></h3> 
 +
<p>Defined by convention, <em>keywords</em> become ways of looking or <em>scopes</em>. <em>Scopes</em> have a central role in the approach to knowledge modeled by the <em>holoscope</em>. </p>
 +
<p>When we, for instance, say that "<em>culture</em> is <em>cultivation</em> of <em>wholeness</em>", we are not claiming that culture "really is that". We are only defining a way of looking at "culture". We are saying "see if you can see culture (also) in this way". </p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-6">
 +
<p>The Holoscope <em>ideogram</em> serves to explain the role this has in the inner workings of the <em>holoscope</em>. If one should inspect a hand-held cup, to see whether it is cracked or whole, one must be able to look at it from all sides; and perhaps also bring it closer to inspect some detail, and take it further away and see it as a whole. The control over the <em>scope</em> is what enables the <em>holoscope</em> to make a difference.</p> 
 +
</div>
 +
<div class="col-md-3">
 +
[[File:Holoscope.jpeg]]<br>
 +
<small>Holoscope <em>ideogram</em></small>
 +
</div> </div>
  
 
<div class="row">
 
<div class="row">
 
<div class="col-md-3"></div>
 
<div class="col-md-3"></div>
 
<div class="col-md-7">
 
<div class="col-md-7">
<p><blockquote>Suppose we handled information as we handle other man-made things—by suiting it to the purposes that need to be served. </blockquote></p>  
+
<p>To be able to say that a cup is whole, one must see it from all sides. To see that a cup is broken, it is enough to show a  <em>single</em> angle of looking. Much of the art of using the <em>holoscope</em> will be in finding and communicating uncommon ways of looking at things, which reveal their 'cracks' and help us correct them. </p>
<p>What consequences would this have? 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? What would public informing be like? <em>And academic communication, and education?</em>
+
<p>
 +
The difference between the <em>paradigm</em> modeled by the <em>holoscope</em> and the traditional science can easily be understood if one considers the difference in the purpose, or <em>epistemology</em>. When our goal is to "see things whole", so that we can make them whole, a discovery of a way of looking that reveals where a 'crack' might exist, <em>although we might not</em> (yet) <em>be able to see it</em>, can be a valuable contribution to knowledge, as a warning to take precaution measures against the potential consequences of an undetected 'crack'. In science, on the other hand, where our goal is to discover only the most solid 'bricks', with which we can construct the edifice of a "scientific reality picture"—such ways of looking and hypothetical 'cracks' are considered worthless, and cannot even be reported.</p>
 +
<p>
 +
Human lives are in question, <em>very many</em</em> human lives; and indeed more, <em>a lot</em> more. The task of creating the 'headlights' that can illuminate a safe and sane course to our civilization is not to be taken lightly. An easy but central point here is that this task demands that information be <em>federated</em>, not ignored (when it fails to fit our "reality picture", and the way we go about creating it).
 +
</p>
 +
<p>Here is a subtlety—whose importance for what we are about to propose, and for paving the road to <em>holotopia</em>, cannot be overrated. We will here be using the usual manner of speaking, and make affirmative statements, of the kind "this is how the things are". Such statements need to be interpreted, however, in the way that's intended—namely as <em>views</em> resulting from <em>specific</em> scopes. A <em>view</em> is offered as <em>sufficiently</em> fitting the data (the <em>view</em> really serves as a kind of a mnemonic device, which engages our faculties of abstraction and logical thinking to condense messy data to a simple and coherent point of view)—within a given <em>scope</em>. Here the <em>scopes</em> serve as projection planes in projective geometry. If a <em>scope</em> shows a 'crack', then this 'crack' needs to be handled, within the <em>scope</em>—regardless of what the other <em>scopes</em> are showing.</p>
 +
<p>Hence a new kind of "result", which the <em>holoscope</em> makes possible—to "discover" new ways of looking or <em>scopes</em>, which reveal something essential about our situation, and perhaps even change our perception of it as a whole.</p>
 +
<p>"Reality" is always more complex than our models. To be able to "comprehend" it and act, we must be able to simplify. The <em>big</em> point here is that the simplification we are proposing is a radical alternative to simplification by reducing the world to a <em>single</em> image—and ignoring whatever fails to fit in. This simplification is legitimate <em>by design</em>. The appropriate response to it (within the proposed <em>paradigm</em>) is <em>dialog</em>, not discussion—as we shall see next.</p>
 +
<p>Or in other words—aiming to return knowledge to power, we shall say things that might sound preposterous, sensational, scandalous... Yet they won't be a single bit "controversial"—within the <em>order of things</em> we are proposing, and using. It may require a moment of thought to understand this fully.</p>  
  
<blockquote>Our <em>knowledge federation</em> proposal is a complete and academically coherent answer to those and other related questions; an answer that is not only described and explained, but also implemented—in a collection of real-life embedded <em>prototypes</em>.
+
<h3><em>Gestalt</em> and <em>dialog</em></h3>
</blockquote></p>
+
</div> </div>  
  
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-6">
 +
<p>When I type "worldviews", my word processor signals an error; in the <em>traditional</em> order of things, there is only one single "right" way to see the world—the one that "corresponds to reality". In the <em>holoscope</em> order of things we talk about <em>multiple</em> ways to interpret the data, or multiple <em>gestalts</em> (see the Gestalt <em>ideogram</em> on the right).</p>
 +
<p>A canonical example of a <em>gestalt</em> is "our house is on fire"; in the approach to knowledge modeled by the  <em>holoscope</em>, having a <em>gestalt</em> that is appropriate to one's situation is tantamount to being <em>informed</em>.</p> </div>
 +
<div class="col-md-3">
 +
[[File:Gestalt.gif]]<br>
 +
<small>Gestalt <em>ideogram</em></small>
 
</div> </div>  
 
</div> </div>  
  
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>As the Gestalt <em>ideogram</em> might illustrate, the human mind has a tendency to "grasp" one <em>gestalt</em>, and resist others. The <em>dialog</em> is an attitude in communication where we deliberately aim to overcome that tendency. In the <em>holoscope</em>, the <em>dialog</em> plays a similar role as the attitude of an "objective observer" does in traditional science. </p>
 +
<p>We practice the <em>dialog</em> when we undertake to suspend judgement, and make ourselves open to new and uncommon ways of seeing things.</p>
 +
<p>Our conception and <em>praxis</em> of the <em>dialog</em> are, of course, also <em>federated</em>. Socrates, famously, practiced the dialog, and gave impetus to <em>academia</em>. David Bohm gave the <em>praxis</em> of dialog a more nuanced and contemporary meaning.</p>
 +
 +
<h3><em>Wholeness</em></h3>
 +
<p>We define <em>wholeness</em> as the quality that distinguishes a healthy organism, or a well-configured and well-functioning machine. <em>Wholeness</em> is, more simply, the condition or the order of things which is, from an <em>informed</em> perspective, worthy of being aimed for and worked for.</p>
 +
<p>The idea of <em>wholeness</em> is illustrated by the bus with candle headlights. The bus is not <em>whole</em>. Even a tiny piece can mean a world of difference. </p>
 +
<p>A subtle but important distinction needs to be made: While the <em>wholeness</em> of a mechanism is secured by just all its parts being in place, cultural and human <em>wholeness</em> are <em>never</em> completed; there is always more that can be discovered, and aimed for. This makes the notion of <em>wholeness</em> especially suitable for motivating <em>cultural revival</em> and <em>human development</em>, which is our stated goal.</p>
 +
 +
<h3><em>Tradition</em> and <em>design</em></h3>
 +
<p><em>Tradition</em> and <em>design</em> are two alternative ways to <em>wholeness</em>. <em>Tradition</em> relies on Darwinian-style evolution; <em>design</em> on awareness and deliberate action. When <em>tradition</em> can no longer be relied on, <em>design</em> must be used.</p>
 +
<p>In a more detailed explanation, we would quote [[Holotopia: Anthony Giddens|Anthony Giddens]], as the <em>icon</em> of <em>design</em> and <em>tradition</em>, to show that our contemporary condition can be understood as a precarious transition from one way of evolving to the next. We are no longer <em>traditional</em>; and we are not yet <em>designing</em>. Which is, of course, what the Modernity <em>ideogram</em> is pointing to.</p>
 +
 +
<h3><em>Socialization</em> and <em>epistemology</em></h3>
 +
<p>Although these two <em>keywords</em> are not exactly antonyms, we here present them as two alternative means to the same end. Aside from what we can see and experience ourselves—what can make us trust that something is "true" (worthy of being believed and acted on)? Through innumerably many subtle 'carrots and sticks', often in our formative age when our critical faculties are not yet developed, we may be <em>socialized</em> to accept something as true. <em>Epistemology</em>—where we use reasoning, based on <em>knowledge of knowledge</em>, is the more rational or academic alternative.</p>
 +
<p>Pierre Bourdieu here plays the role of an <em>icon</em>. His <em>keyword</em> "doxa", whose academic usage dates back all the way to Plato, points to the <em>experience</em> that what we've been <em>socialized</em> to accept as "the reality" is the <em>only</em> one possible. Bourdieu contributed a complete description of the social mechanics of <em>socialization</em>. He called it "theory of practice", and used it to explain how subtle <em>socialization</em> may be used as an instrument of power. To the red thread of our <em>holotopia</em> story, these two <em>keywords</em> contribute a way in which (metaphorically speaking) Galilei could be held in "house arrest" even when no visible means of censorship or coercion are in place.</p>
  
 +
<h3><em>Reification</em> and <em>design epistemology</em></h3>
 +
<p>By considering the available <em>knowledge of knowledge</em> (or metaphorically, by self-reflecting in front of the <em>mirror</em>), we become aware that <em>reification</em> — the axiom that the purpose of information is to show us "the reality as it truly is" (and the corresponding <em>reification</em> of our institutions, knowledge-work processes and models) can no longer be rationally defended. And that, on the other hand, our society's vital need is for <em>effective information</em>, the one that will fulfill in it certain vitally important roles. The <em>design epistemology</em> is a convention, according to which <em>information</em> is an essential piece in a larger whole or wholes—and must be created, evaluated, treated and used accordingly. That is, of course, what the bus with candle headlights is also suggesting.</p>
 +
<p>The <em>design epistemology</em> is the crux of our proposal. It means considering knowledge work institutions, tools and professions as systemic elements of larger systems; instead of <em>reifying</em> the status quo (as one would naturally do in a <em>traditional</em> culture).</p>
 +
<p>The <em>design epistemology</em> is the <em>epistemology</em> that suits a culture that is no longer <em>traditional</em>. </p>
 +
<p>The <em>design epistemology</em> is a convention that defines the new "relationship with knowledge", which constitutes the core of our proposal.</p>
 +
<p>Notice that <em>design epistemology</em> is not another <em>reification</em>. This <em>epistemology</em> is completely independent of or 'orthogonal to' whether we believe in "objective truth" etc. The <em>design epistemology</em> provides us a foundation for truth and meaning that is <em>independent</em> of all <em>reifications</em>. </p>
 +
  
 +
<h3><em>Prototype</em></h3>
 +
<p>A <em>prototype</em> is a characteristic "result" that follows from the <em>design epistemology</em>. </p>
 +
<p>When <em>Information</em> is no longer conceived of as an "objective picture of reality", but an instrument to interact with the world around us—then <em>information</em> cannot be only results of observing the world; it cannot be confined to  academic books and articles. The <em>prototypes</em> serve as models, as experiments, and as interventions.</p>
 +
<p>The <em>prototypes</em> give agency to information.</p>
 +
<p><em>Prototypes</em> also enable <em>knowledge federation</em>—a <em>transdiscipline</em> is organized around a <em>prototype</em>, to keep it consistent with the state of the art of knowledge in the participating disciplines.</p>
 +
 +
<h3><em>Holoscope</em>, <em>holotopia</em> and <em>knowledge federation</em></h3>
 +
<p>The following must to be emphasized and understood:
 +
<blockquote>
 +
What we are proposing is a process—and not any particular result, or implementation, of that process.
 +
</blockquote>
 +
<em>Everything</em> here are just <em>prototypes</em>—both because everything here serves to illustrate the process; <em>and</em> because the nature of this process is such that everything is in continued evolution. The point of <em>knowledge federation</em> is that both the way we see and understand things, and the way we act etc., is in constant evolutionary flow, to reflect the relevant information.</p>
 +
<p><em>Holoscope</em> is a <em>prototype</em> of a handling of information where knowledge is <em>federated</em>. <em>holotopia</em> is a <em>prototype</em> of a societal order of things that results. </p>
 +
<p>And so <em>holoscope</em> may be considered a <em>scope</em>; and <em>holotopia</em> the resulting <em>view</em></p>
 +
 +
<h3><em>Elephant</em></h3>
 +
<p>
 +
[[File:Elephant.jpg]]<br>
 +
<small>Elephant <em>ideogram</em></small>
 +
</p>
 +
<p>
 +
Let us conclude by putting all of these pieces together, into a big-picture view.
 +
</p>
 +
<p>
 +
Let's talk about <em>empowering</em> cultural heritage, and knowledge workers, to make the kind of difference that Peccei was calling for. That's what the Elephant <em>ideogram</em> stands for.</p>
 +
<p>The structuralists attempted to give rigor (in the old-paradigm understanding of rigor) to the study of cultural artifacts. The post-structuralists <em>deconstructed</em> this attempt—by arguing that writings of historical thinkers, and cultural artifacts in general, <em>have no</em> "real" interpretation. And that they are, therefore, subject to <em>free</em> interpretation.</p>
 +
<p>Our information, and our cultural heritage in general, is like Humpty Dumpty after the great fall—<em>nobody</em> can put it back together! That is, <em>within the old paradigm</em>, of course. </p>
 +
<p>But there is a solution: We consider the visionary thinkers of the present and the past as those proverbial blind-folded men touching an elephant. We hear one of them talk about "a fan", another one about "a water hose", and yet another one about "a tree trunk". They don't make sense, and we ignore them.</p>
 +
<p>Everything changes when we understand that what they are really talking about are the ear, the trunk and the leg of the big animal—which, of course, metaphorically represents the emerging <em>paradigm</em>! Suddenly it all not only makes sense—but it becomes a new kind of spectacle. A <em>real</em> one!</p>
 +
<p>In an academic context, we might talk, jokingly about post-post-structuralism. The <em>elephant</em> (as metaphor) is pointing to a way to empower academic workers to make a dramatic practical difference, in this time of need—while making their work <em>even</em> more rigorous; and academic!</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
<!-- CUTS
 +
 +
<p>The Information <em>idogram</em>, shown on the right, shows how the information resulting from <em>knowledge federation</em> is to be different. </p>
 +
</div> </div>
  
 
<div class="row">
 
<div class="row">
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>An application</h2></div>
+
<div class="col-md-3"></div>
 
<div class="col-md-6">
 
<div class="col-md-6">
<p>What difference will this make? The Holotopia <em>prototype</em>, which is under development, is a proof of concept application.</p>
+
<p>The <em>ideogram</em> shows an "i", which stands for "information", as composed of a circle placed on top of a square. The square stands for the details; and also for looking at a theme of choice from all sides, by using diverse <em>kinds of</em> sources and resources. The circle, or the dot on the "i", stands for the function or the point of it all. That might be an insight into the nature of a situation; or a rule of thumb, pointing to a general way to handle situations of a specific kind; or a project, which implements such handling.</p>
<p>The Club of Rome's assessment of the situation we are in, provided us with a benchmark challenge for putting our ideas to 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 warning:  
+
</div>
<blockquote>
+
<div class="col-md-3">
"It is absolutely essential to find a way to change course."
+
[[File:Information.jpg]]
 +
<small>Information <em>ideogram</em></small>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>By showing the circle as being founded on the square, the Information <em>ideogram</em> points to <em>knowledge federation</em> as a social process (the 'principle of operation' of the socio-technical 'lightbulb'), by which the insights, principles, strategic handling and whatever else may help us understand and take care of our increasingly complex world are kept consistent with each other, and with the information we own. </p>
 +
<p><em>Knowledge federation</em> is itself a result of <em>knowledge federation</em>: We draw core insights about handling information from the sciences, communication design, journalism... And we weave them into technical solutions. See, for instance, [[Richard Feynman|this excerpt]] from Richard Feynman's book "The Character of Phyhsical Law", where what we call <em>knowledge federation</em> is described and pointed to as the very essence of the scientific approach to knowledge.</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
--------------
 +
 
 +
<h3>An anomaly</h3>
 +
<p>Already we can observe that this event constitutes an interesting anomaly with respect to the <em>paradigm</em> we are proposing (in the sense in which Thomas Kuhn used this term, namely as something that demands a new paradigm, and drives its emergence).  Why did our institutions <em>ignore</em> Peccei's call to action? Why did the core question (illuminating the way our civilization has taken) at all <em>require</em> a "club"; why wasn't it handled within the rougine operation of our society's institutions?</p>
 +
<p>Isn't this <em>alone</em> already sufficient evidence that we are 'driving' into the future 'in the light of a pair of candles'?</p> 
 +
 
 +
-----------------
 +
 
 +
 
 +
XXXXXXX
 +
 
 +
<p>
 +
The simple idea is that once again—just as the case was at the dawn of the Enlightenment, when Galilei was in house arrest—a fundamental change in the relationship we have with information is the natural way to "change course". We show, however, that this course change in handling knowledge is not a departure from the academic approach to knowledge, but the natural way to resume its evolution. When establishing this new <em>paradigm</em> in knowledge work, we are facing a large challenge which is a paradox—to establish a new <em>paradigm</em> solidly on the terrain of the existing one. We do that by relying on a single axiom or principle:  
 +
<blockquote>  
 +
Knowledge must be <em>federated</em>!
 
</blockquote>
 
</blockquote>
 +
To legitimately be able to say that we "know" something, we must first verify that it's compatible with other knowledge, and with available data. Our principle demands that information should not be simply ignored (because it belongs to another discipline; or another religion; or because it <em>fails</em> to belong to an established discipline or religion). In a complex world plagued by an overabundance of data, to understand anything we are of course compelled to simplify. But this simplification must be done by <em>federating</em> information, not by ignoring it.
 +
</p>
 +
<p>This principle is exactly what has distinguished the academic approach to knowledge since its inception.
 +
</p>
 +
 +
-----------------
 +
 +
<p>[[The Club of Rome]] was itself a <em>federation</em> effort—where one hundred expert and policy makers were selected and organized to gather and create the information that would, in the language of our metaphor, 'illuminate the way'.
 +
The stark contrast between a civilization-wide resolute response to an <em>immediate</em> threat—the COVID19 pandemic, at the point of this writing—and the virtual lack of attention to the <em>long-term</em> but incomparably larger threat that The Club of Rome was warning us about, <em>already</em> suggests that we are 'driving in the light of a pair of candles'. It also suggests that something might be amiss in our <em>homo sapiens</em> self-image. Could we be living in an illusory Matrix, without knowing what's <em>really</em> going on; and without even <em>wanting</em> to know? And <em>what other things</em>, similarly important, might have remained in the shadow of our "knowing"?</p>
 +
<p>Yet perhaps the most interesting possibility is to just <em>federate</em> further.  What insights might be powerful enough to trigger "a great cultural revival"? What exactly might we need to do to "change course"? The Holotopia project has been conceived as the vehicle for this sort of inquiry.</p>
 +
 +
---------------
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
<!-- EVEN OLDER
 +
 +
 +
<center><h2><b>H O L O T O P I A: &nbsp;&nbsp; F I V E &nbsp;&nbsp; I N S I G H T S</b></h2></center><br><br>
 +
 +
<div class="page-header" ><h1>Socialized Reality</h1></div>
 +
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
 +
<blockquote>
 +
<p>We have come to the core of our response to Peccei—<em>what is to be done</em>, to begin "a great cultural revival" here and now.</p>
 +
<p>The answer offered will be the same as the core of our proposal—to change the relationship we have with information.</p>
 +
<p>Instead of conceiving "truth" as "an objective picture of reality", and considering the purpose of information to be to provide us "an objective picture of reality", we'll propose to consider information as human-made, and to tailor the way we handle it to the various and sometimes vitally important purposes that need to be served.</p>
 +
<p>The key point here will be to <em>perceive</em> the very notion "reality" as an instrument of <em>socialization</em>.</p></blockquote>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2><em>Scope</em></h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>This is not to say that reality "really is" that. What we are offering is a <em>scope</em> and a <em>view</em>, or insight. A way in which the <em>wholeness</em> of our <em>culture</em>—of the 'vehicle' whose purpose is to take us to <em>wholeness</em>—is 'cracked'.</p>
 +
<h3><em>Socialization</em></h3>
 +
<p>From the cradle to the grave, through innumerably many carrots and sticks, we are <em>socialized</em> to think and behave in a certain way. <em>Socialization</em> is really the way in whicy <em>cultures</em> function. </p>
 +
<p>The question, then, is—Who does the <em>socialization</em>? In what way? And for what ends?</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2><em>View</em></h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>The answer, the <em>view</em> we are offering, is to perceive <em>socialization</em> as largely the prerogative of the <em>power structure</em>.
 +
And to perceive <em>reification</em> as an instrument by which people are coerced to accept a certain societal <em>order of things</em> without questioning it. </p>
 +
<p>Further, we propose to perceive the academic tradition as an age-old effort to <em>liberate</em> ourselves from the <em>power structure</em> and the socialized "realities" it imposes—and to evolve further. Wasn't <em>that</em> the reason why Socrates, and Galilei, were tried?</p>
 +
<p>There's been a new event in this age-old development. An error, a bug in the program, has been discovered. The Enlightenment gave us the <em>homo sapiens</em> self-identity. It made us believe that "a normal human being" <em>sees</em> the "reality" as it really is. And that it is a human prerogative to know and to <em>understand</em> "reality". Our democracy and other institutions, our knowledge work, our ethical sensibilities, the way we handle <em>culture</em>—all this has been built on this error as foundation.</p>
 +
<p>We now own all the information needed to perceive this error; and means to correct it. And by doing that, to resume the evolution of knowledge; and of culture and society.</p>
 +
<p><em>The</em> core insight here is that by liberating ourselves from an age-old myth or a dogma, we can develop a foundation for working with knowledge that is at the same time perfectly robust and rigorous, creative beyond bounds <em>and</em> most importantly <em>accountable</em>. </p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Action</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>We propose (a way) to abandon "reality" as foundation altogether. To liberate ourselves from the <em>power structure</em> and the "reality" it's created for us. And to create a pragmatic approach to knowledge, which will accelerate the evolution of <em>culture</em>—on a similar scale and rate as the science and the technology have been evolving.</p>
 +
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
<div class="page-header" ><h2>Stories</h2></div>
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Einstein</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>Throughout our <em>prototypes</em>, Einstein represents "modern science" (if it were <em>federated</em>).</p> 
 +
 +
<h3>Closed watch argument</h3>
 +
<p>Explains why "correspondence with reality" cannot be rationally claimed.</p>
 +
<p>Read it <em>here</em> (links will be provided).</p>
 +
 +
<h3>Reality as illusion</h3>
 +
<p>Einstein argues that "reality" has been a product of illusion—the "aristocratic illusion" that reason can know "reality", prevalent in philosophy, and the "plebeian illusion" that "reality" is what we perceive through our senses.</p>
 +
 +
<h3>Epistemological credo</h3>
 +
<p>In the introductory pages of his "Autobiographical notes", where he offers a quick journey through modern physics as he experienced it, Einstein states his "epistemological credo". The <em>epistemology</em> we are proposing is roughly equivalent to it. Already the fact that Einstein states his "epistemological credo" explicitly (instead of assuming that it's "obvious", and hence remaining in the <em>paradigm</em> or "reality" we've been socialized in) is significant.</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Galilei</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p> Galilei's claim that the Earth <em>is</em> moving was not a statement of how the things "really are", but a <em>scope</em>. As it is well known, we may place the frame of reference, or the coordinate system, in any way we like. The difference his <em>scope</em> made was, however, that it enabled rigorous, rational understanding of astrophysical phenomena; and ultimately the advent of "Newton's laws" and of science.</p>
 +
<p>As Piaget wrote, "the mind organizes the world, by organizing itself.</p>
 +
<p>Our situation is calling for another such step—where we'll create a way of looking at the world that will enable us to understand the <em>social</em> phenomena in a rigorous way, and to explore them in a way that 'works'.</p> 
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Odin—Bourdieu—Damasio</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>Bourdieu's "theory of practice" is a sociological theory of <em>socialization</em>. The story of Bourdieu in Algeria tells how Bourdieu became a sociologist, by observing how the instruments of power morphed from torture chambers, weapons and censorship—and became <em>symbolic</em>.
 
</p>  
 
</p>  
 +
<p>Damasio contributed a solid academic result to show that we are <em>not</em> rational decision makers; that an <em>embodied</em> pre-rational filter controls what we are rationally able to conceive of.</p>
 +
<p>Damasio's theory beautifully synergizes with Bourdieu's observations that etc. etc.</p>
 +
<p>Bourdieu still saw the issue of power as a kind of a zero sum game (where some are winners, and others are losers). The story of Odin the horse serves to highlight a different possibility—that we may be playing turf games, and creating <em>power structures</em> for no better reason than serving an atavistic, self-destructive part of our psyche...</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Antonovsky</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>Showed how important "sense of coherence is"—even for our health!</p>
 +
<p>The <em>power structure</em> capitalizes on this vital need of ours, by providing us <em>sense of coherence</em>; but at what cost!?</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>In popular culture</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>The Matrix is an example of <em>socialized reality</em>.</p>
 +
<p>The Reader is a more nuanced one.</p>
 +
<p>King Oedipus is an archetypal story, showing how <em>socialized reality</em> can make us do exactly the things we are trying to avoid.</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>IVLA story</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>While our ethical and legal sensibilities are focused on <em>explicit information</em>, our culture, and our "human quality", are being shaped by the more subtle <em>implicit information</em>. </p>
 +
<p>Literacy associated with <em>implicit information</em></p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Chomsky—Harari—Graeber—Bakan</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>Here we have a Darwinian or <em>memetic</em> view of our culture's evolution. A <em>complete</em> explanation of <em>power structure</em> emergence, and our disempowerment.</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Maturana—Piaget—Berger and Luckmann</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>Studies of reality construction in biology of perception, psychology and sociology.</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Nietzsche—Ehrlich—Giddens—Debord</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>How we lost the <em>personal</em> capability to connect the dots...</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Pavlov—Chakhotin</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>Politics (political propaganda) as <em>socialization</em>. What brought Hitler into power...</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Freud—Bernays</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>For a long time Freud fought an uphill battle to convince the scientific community that we are not as rational as we may like to believe. His nephew turned his insights into good business. </p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
<!-- OLD
 +
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
 +
<blockquote>
 +
Without giving it a thought, we adopted from the traditional culture a myth incomparably more subversive than the myth of creation. This myth now serves as the foundation on which our worldview, culture and social institutions have evolved.</blockquote>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2><em>Scope</em></h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>We have come to the very crux of our proposal. We are about to zoom in on the relationship we have with information. And on the way in which truth and meaning are conceived of, and socially constructed in our society. </p>
 +
<p><em>That</em> changed during the Enlightenment; and triggered a comprehensive change. Could a similar advent be in store for us today?</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Our proposal</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7"><p>We emphasize, once again, that the crux of our proposal is a relationship or an attitude. What we are offering is not "the solution", but a <em>process</em>, by which the solutions are continuously improved. If we might be perceived as proposing 'a better candle', or even 'the lightbulb'—our <em>real</em> proposal is a <em>praxis</em> by which information, and the way we handle it, can continue to evolve. </p>
 +
<p>Hence what we are about to say is offered as an initial <em>prototype</em>—whose purpose is to serve as an initial proof of concept; <em>and</em> to prime the process through which its continued improvement will be secured.</p>
 +
 +
<h3>Truth and meaning today</h3>
 +
<p>Although our proposal does not depend on it, we begin with a brief sketch of the status quo, to give our proposal a context. </p>
 +
<p>"Truth", it seems to be taken for granted, means "correspondence with reality". When I write "worldviews", my word processor complains. Since there is only one world, and hence only one "reality", there can be only one ("true") worldview—the one that <em>corresponds</em> to "reality".</p>
 +
<p>Meaning, it is assumed, is the test of truth. Something is "true" if it "makes sense", i.e. if it fits into the "reality puzzle". "This makes no sense" means "this is nonsense"; it means it <em>cannot</em> be true.</p>
 +
<p>The purpose of information, it is assumed, is to tell us "the truth"; to show us the reality as it truly is. If this is done right, the ("true") pieces of information will fit snuggly together, like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle; and compose for us a coherent and clear "reality picture".</p>
 +
 +
<h3>Truth in the <em>holoscope</em></h3>
 +
<p>All truth in our proposal is <em>truth by convention</em>: "When I say <em>X</em>, I mean <em>Y</em>." Truth, understood in this way, is both incomparably more solid (a convention is incontrovertibly true), and incomparably more flexible (a written convention can easily be changed)—compared to the conception of truth we've just described. </p>
 +
<p><em>Truth by convention</em> is completely independent of what's been called "reality". We offered it as a new 'Archimedean point', which can once again empower knowledge to 'move the world'. A clear understanding of this might require, however, a bit of reflection; and a <em>dialog</em>.</p>
 +
 +
<h3>Meaning in the <em>holoscope</em></h3>
 +
<p>Meaning is, by convention, strictly "in the eyes of the beholder". <em>Information</em>, by convention, reflects not reality but human experience. And experience (we avoid the word "reality"), by convention, has no a priori structure. Rather, it is considered and treated as we may treat an ink blot in a Rorschach test—as something to which we <em>assign</em> meaning; by perceiving it in a certain way.</p>
 +
<p>We too make claims of the kind "here is how the things are"; not in "reality", however, but in experience. The meaning of such a claim, howeer, is that the offered <em>scope</em> fits the offered <em>view</em> to a <em>sufficient</em> degree to illicit the "aha feeling". The sensation of meaning is thereby transmitted from one mind to another—and that's all we want from it. The message is a certain kind of human experience—and that's what's been communicated. </p>
 +
<p>Hence a vast creative frontier opens up before our eyes—where we find ways (by taking due advantage of the vast powers of the new media, and by <em>federating</em> whatever we've learned from the psychology of cognition, from arts, the advertising...) to <em>improve</em> such communication.</p>
 +
 +
<h3>Information in the <em>holoscope</em></h3>
 +
<p><em>Information</em> is, by convention, "a system within a system", which has a purpose—to fulfill a number of functions within the larger system (or systems). Or as we like to phrase this—its purpose is to make the larger system <em>whole</em>.</p>
 +
<p>"A piece of information" is not a piece in the "reality puzzle". Rather, it is, as Gregory Bateson phrased it, "a difference that makes a difference". Hence we can <em>create</em> what "a piece of information" might be like—to best fulfill new or neglected purposes. </p>
 +
<p>An example might be a piece of information that conveys the "aha experience" – namely that something can be seen and understood in a certain specific way. The piece of information may then have the <em>scope</em>–<em>view</em>–<em>federation</em> structure, where a way of looking at a phenomenon or issue called <em>scope</em> is offered—alongside with a <em>view</em> that may result from it, and a <em>federation</em> by which this view is first clearly communicated, then backed by data so that it may be verified, and finally given ways to make a difference, by eliciting suitable action. An example is, of course, what's been going on right here.</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-6">
 +
<p>The <em>views</em> thus created do not exclude one another, even when they appear to contradict one other. "Models are to be used, not to be believed." There are, by convention, a multiplicity of ways to perceive a theme of interest or situation. Any of them can be legitimate, if it follows from a justifiable way of looking; and it can be useful, if it tells us something we <em>need to</em> know. Since the purpose of <em>information</em> is to contribute to the <em>wholeness</em> of the system or systems in which it has a role, the chances are that a seemingly <em>discordant</em> view will be <em>more</em> useful than something that smoothly fits in.</p>
 
</div>  
 
</div>  
 
<div class="col-md-3">
 
<div class="col-md-3">
[[File:Peccei.jpg]]
+
[[File:Holoscope.jpeg]]<br>
<small>Aurelio Peccei</small>  
+
<small><center>Holoscope <em>ideogram</em></center></small>  
 
</div> </div>  
 
</div> </div>  
  
Line 64: Line 850:
 
<div class="col-md-3"></div>
 
<div class="col-md-3"></div>
 
<div class="col-md-7">
 
<div class="col-md-7">
<p>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 institutions, as part of their function? Isn't this <em>already</em> showing that we are 'driving with candle headlights'?</p>  
+
<p>The <em>holoscope</em> <em>ideogram</em> serves to explain how the <em>holoscope</em>, and <em>information</em>, are to be used: The cup is <em>whole</em> only if it is <em>whole</em> from all sides. It has a crack if <em>any</em> of the views show a crack. Hence the <em>holoscope</em> endeavors to illuminate <em>all</em> relevant angles of looking (but organizes and encloses those details in the <em>square</em>). And shares the final outcome (as the <em>circle</em>). This makes it effective and easy to both understand and verify its message (by using the provided <em>scopes</em> to look at a theme from all sides, as one would do while inspecting a hand-held cup, to see if it's cracked or whole).</p>
<p>Peccei also specified <em>what</em> needed to be done to "change course":
+
<p>An example of a resulting "piece of information" is a <em>gestalt</em>—an interpretation of the nature of a situation as a whole. "The cup is cracked" is an example of a <em>gestalt</em>; another examples include "our house is on fire"; and the Modernity <em>ideogram</em>. A <em>gestalt</em> points to a way in which a situation may need to be handled.</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2><em>View</em></h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7"><p>We can now offer (an initial version of) the <em>socialized reality</em> insight with the same caveat as before. This <em>view</em> is not offered as a new "reality picture", to replace the old one, but as a way of looking, to be considered in a <em>dialog</em>. What is being proposed is (once again) that <em>dialog</em>—through which this insight will be kept continuously evolving, and alive—and not any <em>fixed</em> view.</p>
 +
 
 +
<h3>"Reality" cannot help us distinguish truth from falsehood</h3>
 +
 
 +
<p>The "correspondence with reality" is a truth criterion that cannot be tested in practice.</p>
 +
<p>Instead of guarding us from illusion, the idea of a fixed and "objectively" knowable "reality" <em>itself</em> tends to be a product of illusion.</p>
 +
 
 +
<h3>"Reality" is a construction</h3>
 +
<p>
 +
 
 +
<h3>"Reality" is a result of <em>socialization</em></h3>
 +
<p>The fixed <em>grasp</em> of the human mind ... a <em>gestalt</em>... is most naturally used to fix a certain <em>social</em> order of things...</p>
 +
 
 +
<h3>We got it all wrong</h3>
 +
<p>And finally, and most importantly, "reality" is not what this is all about. Not at all. And it has never been that!</p>
 +
<p>"Reality" is just a contraption, that the <em>traditional</em> culture created to <em>socialize</em> its members into a shared "reality". Either you see "the reality"; <em>or</em> you are not "normal". Well, everyone wants to be normal. It is intrinsically human to be part of it. And so we comply.</p>
 +
<p>Part of it is to socialize the people to accept a certain <em>social</em> order of things as just "reality". This is part is the one that's relatively better known, and we can come back to it.</p>
 +
<p>The other part is that the traditional <em>socialization</em> was really how the culture operated! How the cultural heritage was coded, and transmitted. On the surface, it's all about "believing in Jesus". But underneath that surface are the ethical messages: that one should be unselfish; even sacrifice oneself for the benefit of others. (Isn't that what Jesus did, by dying on the cross? And what the Almighty also did, by sacrificing his son?) Underneath the surface is an entire emotional ecology (respect, awe, piety, charity...); and ways to nurture it (architecture, frescos, music, ritual...). And it is similar in all walks of life, including what happens in people's homes and families, of course.</p>
 +
<p>So when we understood that "they got it all wrong"; that God <em>did not</em> create the world in six days etc., the result was an enormous empowerment of human reason. We understood that the women can't fly on brooms (because that would violate some well-established "laws of physics"). A myriad superstitions and prejudices were eradicated, and we made a giant leap in both understanding the world, and in freedom to creatively change it.</p>
 +
<p>But we also threw out the baby with the bathwater—we threw out not only the cultural heritage, but also <em>the very mechanisms</em> by which culture is transmitted.</p>
 +
<p>Well, this is of course true only up to a point. <em>Socialization</em> remained the mechanism, as it has always been. But being unaware of its function, and missing the opportunity to consciously take it into our own hands, <em>socialization</em> only changed hands. We are no longer <em>socialized</em> to be pious believers and the king's loyal subjects. We are socialized to be mindless consumers—and to cast our votes against our best interests.</p>
 +
<p>We got it all wrong <em>also</em> when we empowered the reason in the way we did (and here Galilei's, and also Socrates' persecutors may have a point; and we may need to federate <em>them</em> as well, however non-modern this may seem...): We developed a culture of arrogance, where we don't seek information, or knowledge, because <em>we believe that we already know</em>. Since our eyes, aided with our reason, can simply "see the reality" as it is, <em>we do not need information</em> to tell us what values we should nourish; what ethical options we should prefer; what music, architecture, lifestyle-habits we should preserve or further develop.</p>
 +
<p>We developed a "culture" of <em>convenience</em>!</p>
 +
<p>Even our very <em>reason</em> is only riding on a back seat—helping the driver (our likes and dislikes) with the technical task of steering the course he has already chosen.</p>
 +
<p>This is how "human development" lost its bearings!</p>
 +
<p>This is why we must "find a way to change course"!</p>
 +
<p>The Holotopia project undertakes to reconstruct the mechanisms by which cultural heritage and culture evolve. And by which <em>we too</em> evolve culturally.</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Our point</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-6"><p>Let us now put the academic tradition, and the <em>academia</em> as its institutionalization, on this map.</p> 
 +
 +
 +
 
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
 
 +
<!-- OLD
 +
 
 +
 
 +
We look at the attitude we have towards information. And at the ideas we have about the meaning and purpose of information, and also about truth and reality, and about meaning itself.
 +
</p>
 +
<p>We look, more concretely, on the assumption that
 +
<ul>
 +
<li> "truth" means "correspondence with reality"</li>
 +
<li> "truth", understood in this way, is what distinguishes "good" information</li>
 +
<li>"a normal human being" sees "the truth" that is, sees "the reality as it is"—and is therefore perfectly capable of understanding and representing his "interests"</li> </ul>
 +
This assumption permeates not only our ideas about knowledge, and about ourselves—but also our understanding and  handling of our society's most fundamental issues, such as freedom, justice, power and democracy. </p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>View</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7"><h3>"Reality" is a product of <em>socialization</em></h3>
 +
<p>From the 20th century science and philosophy we have learned that
 +
<ul>
 +
<li>Correspondence of our "true" ideas are true because they depict the reality "objectively"or "as it truly is", is (or more precisely <em>can</em> and demonstrably needs to be consider as) a <em>myth</em> (a shared belief that cannot be verified, which serves certain social purposes)</li>
 +
<li>The way we see the world, or "reality", is constructed through a complex and profoundly interesting interplay between of our cognitive organs and our culture</li>
 +
<li>What we consider "reality" is (or more precisely can and demonstrably needs to be considered as) a product of our <em>socialization</em>.</li>
 +
</ul>
 +
</p>
 +
<p>There is, of course, nothing wrong with <em>socialization</em>; that is how the culture has always functioned, and always will. Already in the crib, and long before our rational faculties have developed to the point where we are capable of understanding what goes on, and being critical about it, our socialization is well under way. What makes all the difference is whether our rational faculties—of us <em>as a culture</em>—are developed to the point where <em>socialization</em> is considered and treated as <em>human-made</em>—and hence subjected to careful scrutiny, and made an instrument of conscious evolution.</p>
 +
<p>The alternative is alarming: Socialization may become an instrument of renegade power; so that the enormous power that information and knowledge have is used <em>not</em> to liberate us, but to enslave us. That socialization is used to <em>hinder</em> us from evolving further—as culture; and as humans.</p>
 +
 
 +
<h3><em>Academia</em> must take the lead</h3>  
 +
<p>As part of <em>holotopia</em>'s <em>scope</em>, we have defined <em>academia</em> as "institutionalized academic tradition". The point here is to see that the academic tradition has been an alternative to unconscious, power-driven <em>socialization</em> <em>since its inception</em>; the stories of Socrates and Galilei illustrate that unequivocally!</p>
 +
<p>During the Enlightenment, this process—of liberating us from renegade socialization—took a gigantic leap forward. But it was not at all completed!</p>
 +
<p>While we liberated ourselves from the kings and the clergy; but having failed to take our <em>socialization</em> into our own hands, our socialization has only changed hands—as new <em>power structures</em> replaced the old ones.</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-6">
 +
<h3>The situation we are in</h3>
 +
<p>
 
<blockquote>  
 
<blockquote>  
"The future will either be an inspired product of a great cultural revival, or there will be no future."
+
We (the <em>academia</em>) must see ourselves in the <em>mirror</em>!
</blockquote> </p>  
+
</blockquote>
 +
The evolution of knowledge, or more specifically the evolution of <em>knowledge of knowledge</em>, which the <em>academia</em> is now in charge of, has brought us to a whole new situation.</p>
 +
<p>Having been <em>socialized</em> to compete and produce, we are too busy to even see this new situation clearly. </p>  
 
<p>
 
<p>
Since its inception, The Club of Rome insisted that lasting solutions would not found by focusing on specific problems, but by transforming the condition from which they all stem, which they called "problematique".</p>  
+
Metaphorically, we say that the evolution of <em>knowledge of knowledge</em> has brought us in front of the <em>mirror</em>. </p>
 +
<p>The <em>mirror</em> symbolizes
 +
<ul>
 +
<li>Self-reflection</li>
 +
<li>End of (the assumption, or the pretense of) "objectivity"</li>
 +
<li>Beginning of <em>accountability</em>—by seeing ourselves <em>in the world</em>, we see that we are part of the world, and responsible for it.</li>
 +
</ul>
 +
</p>
 +
<p>The academic tradition, and the social role we've acquired, as <em>academia</em>, demands that we build a larger version of this <em>mirror</em> and offer it to contemporary people and society—along the lines we've been drafting here. Having only our <em>socialized reality</em> as a frame of reference, what we do, and what we've become, appears to us as just "normal". We must now see ourselves, and what we do, in a more solid frame.</p>
 +
<p>And when we do that, the collective walk <em>through the mirror</em> will most naturally follow</p>
 +
<p>And so the <em>academia</em> must now guide our society <em>through the mirror</em>—just as Moses (according to that other tradition) guided the oppressed over the Red Sea. No miracle is, however, needed now; only a consistent application of the information we own.</p>
 +
 
 +
 
 +
</div>
 +
<div class="col-md-3">
 +
[[File:Mirror.jpg]]<br>
 +
<small><center>The Mirror <em>idogram</em></center></small>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Action</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7"><h3>We must go <em>through</em> the <em>mirror</em></h3>
 +
<p>We must take the consequences of the knowledge we own—and resume our evolution. Just as the contemporary <em>academia</em>'s founding fathers did, in Galilei's time.</p>
 +
<p>Or to in the language of our metaphor, <em>academia</em> must guide us, the people, through the <em>mirror</em>. And into a <em>new</em> academic and social reality on its other side; which are now ready to be explored and developed. </p>
 +
<p><em>Holotopia</em> is a <em>prototype</em> of a social and cultural reality on the other side of the <em>mirror</em>. </p>
 +
<p><em>Holoscope</em> is offered as a <em>prototype</em> of the corresponding <em>academic</em> reality. And also as the next step—the one that <em>enables</em> us to walk through the <em>mirror</em>.</p> 
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
 
 +
<div class="page-header" ><h2>Stories</h2></div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>"Reality" is a <em>myth</em></h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>A <em>myth</em> is a popular belief that cannot be verified—but serves certain social and cultural roles.</p>
 +
<p>Two quotations of Einstein, repeated in several places already, including Federation through Images on this website, are sufficient to make this point:
 +
* The closed watch metaphor explains why "correspondence with reality" cannot be verified
 +
* The quotations about the two illusions confirms that "correspondence with reality" is (according to 'modern science') a product of illusion
 +
</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>"Reality" is constructed</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>The point here is to see that what we consider <em>the</em> reality is constructed—by our perception organs, our psyche and our society.</p>
 +
<p>A brief summary begins [https://holoscope.info/2019/02/07/knowledge-federation-dot-org/#Maturana here].</p>
 +
 
 +
<h3>"Reality" construction in cognitive biology</h3>
 +
<p>To 'see ourselves'—how (we saw that) "reality" is constructed—it is sufficient to <em>federate</em> Maturana (as cognitive biologist), </p>  
  
<p>Peccei's following observation, with which he concluded his analysis in "One Hundred  Pages for the Future", will also be relevant:
+
<h3>"Reality" construction in psychology</h3>  
<blockquote>
+
<p>Piaget (as cognitive psychologist) and </p>  
The arguments posed in the preceding pages (...) point out several things, of which one of the most important is that our generations seem to have lost <em>the sense of the whole</em>.
 
</blockquote>  
 
</p>
 
  
 +
<h3>"Reality" construction in sociology</h3>
 +
<p>Berger and Luckmann (as sociologists), to see how those insights were made, and some of their consequences.</p>
 
</div> </div>  
 
</div> </div>  
  
 
<div class="row">
 
<div class="row">
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Seeing things whole</h2></div>
+
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>"Reality" is a product of <em>socialization</em></h2></div>
 
<div class="col-md-7">
 
<div class="col-md-7">
<p>In the context of Holotopia, we refer to our proposal by its pseudonym [[Holotopia: Holoscope|<em>holoscope</em>]], which highlights its distinguishing characteristic—it helps us see things whole. </p>
+
<h3>Odin – Bourdieu – Damasio </h3>
 +
<p>The nature of socialization illustrated by this <em>thread</em></p>
 +
<p>TBA </p>
 +
 
 +
<h3>Pierre Bourdieu</h3>
 +
<p>
 +
Text
 +
</p>
 +
 
 +
<h3>Antonio Damasio</h3>
 
<p>
 
<p>
[[File:Perspective-S.jpg]]
+
Text
<small>Perspective <em>ideogram</em></small>
 
 
</p>
 
</p>
<p>The <em>holoscope</em> uses suitable information in a suitable way, to illuminate what remained obscure or hidden, so that we may 'see through' the whole, and correctly assess its shape, dimensions and condition (correct our <em>perspective</em>).</p>  
+
 
<p>The <em>holoscope</em> complements the usual approach in the sciences:
+
<h3>Odin the horse</h3>
<blockquote>
+
<p>
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 correct proportions.
+
Text
</blockquote>  
+
</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Political consequences of <em>socialized reality</em></h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<h3>Ivan Pavlov</h3>
 +
<p>
 +
Text
 +
</p>
 +
 
 +
<h3>Sergei Chakhotin</h3>
 +
<p>
 +
Text
 +
</p>
 +
 
 +
<h3>Murray Edelman</h3>
 +
<p>
 +
Text
 +
</p>
 +
 
 +
<h3>Symbolic action</h3>
 +
<p>We propose this pair of (roughly) antonyms: <em>symbolic</em> and <em>systemic</em> action.</p>
 +
<p>Having been socialized to think and act within the confines of the existing systems ("inside the box"), we  act out our concerns and responsibilities in a <em>symbolic</em> way: We organize a conference; publish an article; occupy Wall Street...</p>
 +
 
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Cultural consequences of <em>socialized reality</em></h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<h3>Sigmund Freud</h3>
 +
<p>Fought a heavy battle to convince his contemporaries that we are <em>not</em> the rational animal we believe we are.</p>
 +
 
 +
<h3>Edward Louis Bernays</h3>
 +
<p>Freud's nephew, turned Freud's ideas into a "scientific" approach to culture creation—for the benefits of the counterculture...</p>
 +
<p>Edward Louis Bernays (November 22, 1891 − March 9, 1995) was an Austrian-American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations". (Wikipedia)</p>
 +
 
 +
<h3><em>Implicit information</em></h3>
 +
<p>IVLA story. Ideogram. While we are focusing on <em>explicit</em> information, our culture is dominated by and created through <em>implicit information</em>. </p>  
 +
 
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2><em>Socialization</em> in popular culture</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<h3>The Matrix</h3>
 +
<p>  
 +
When we think of the machines as being the <em>power structure</em>, the metaphor works rather accurately. We live in a constructed reality—while serving as power sources, living batteries, for machines. The metaphor is complete—reality is constructed, we have no freedom at all—and the world in an abysmal condition, without us being aware of that. </p>
 +
<p>Even the fact that periodically there is a revolution, "the One" comes and restarts the matrix... </p>
 +
<p>This puts us into an interesting situation—<em>can we ever</em> liberate ourselves from the <em>matrix</em> completely?</p>
 +
<p>Of course, that's exactly what this part of the Holotopia project (liberation from <em>socialized reality</em>) is about.</p>
 +
 +
 
 +
<h3>Animal Farm</h3>
 +
<p>
 +
The animals throw out the humans, but the pigs take over and begin behaving as the humans did. A pattern repeated by our revolutions. The point is to see the <em>pattern</em> in our evolution—we tend to turn our social organization, <em>and</em> our shared "reality" (they are really two sides of the same coin), into a turf...  
 +
</p>
 +
 
 +
<h3>Socializing elephants</h3>
 +
<p>
 +
The elephant can't move his leg. This is a metaphor for socializing humans, of course.
 
</p>
 
</p>
 +
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 +
<div class="page-header" ><h2>Prototypes</h2></div>
 +
 +
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Holoscope and Holotopia</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>They are, of course, the <em>prototypes</em> of an approach to knowledge that liberates us; and a social order that results. We shall here, however, show how we may evolve beyond the <em>socialized reality</em> (or metaphorically, 'step through the <em>mirror</em>'), with the help of Holoscope's specific technical solutions.</p>
 +
 
</div> </div>  
 
</div> </div>  
  
 
<div class="row">
 
<div class="row">
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>A vision</h2></div>
+
<div class="col-md-3"><h2><em>Truth by convention</em></h2></div>
 
<div class="col-md-7">
 
<div class="col-md-7">
<p>What possible destinations would we see, if we used the <em>holoscope</em> to 'illuminate the way'?</p>
+
<p>When we say, for instance, "Culture is...", one expects, instantly, that what is being told is what culture "really is". How can we <em>ever</em> overcome this problem?</p>
<p>The <em>holotopia</em> is an astonishingly positive future scenario.</p>  
+
<p>By using <em>truth by convention</em></p>
<p>This future vision is indeed <em>more</em> positive than what the familiar utopias offered—whose authors lacked the information to see what was possible; or lived in the times when the resources we have did not yet exist. </p>  
+
<p>This has the additional advantage of giving us explicit definitions of things (instead of taking things for granted, because we all "know" what they are..</p>
<p>But unlike the utopias, the <em>holotopia</em> is readily realizable—because we already have the information that is needed for its fulfillment.</p>
+
 
<p>When the details offered on these pages have been considered, it will be clear why white (which, as the all-inclusive color, might symbolize the <em>holotopia</em>) is not only "the new black", but also <em>the new red</em>; and <em>the new green</em>!</p>  
+
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2><em>Design epistemology</em></h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>It's defined <em>by convention</em></p>
 +
<p>Triply secure: (1 - 3)</p>
 +
 
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2><em>Prototype</em></h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>Resolves the <em>symbolic action</em> problem. Also the <em>Wiener's paradox</em>. Enables us to <em>bootstrap</em>. </p>
 +
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2><em>Dialog</em></h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>A cognitive and ethical stance—roughly equivalent to the "objective observer" etiquette in science. </p>
 +
<p>Has been part of <em>academia</em> since its inception—but David Bohm gave it a new meaning. A profound topic, truly worth studying.</p>
 +
 
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
 
 +
 
 +
 
 +
 
 +
 
 +
 
 +
 
 +
 
 +
<!-- OLD
 +
 
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>The pitch</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<h3>All those candles</h3>
 +
<p>
 +
Without giving it a thought, we adopted from the traditional culture a myth incomparably more subversive than the myth of creation. This myth has served as <em>the</em> foundation on which our culture has developed.</p>  
 +
<small><p>  
 +
The fact that the <em>reality myth</em> sneaked through our rational checks and balances can hardly be surprising. When I type "worldviews", my word processor complains; since there is only one world, there can be only one worldview—the one that <em>corresponds</em> to reality. The <em>reality myth</em> is hard-coded in our language; it permeates our culture.
 +
</p></small>  
 +
<p>Looking at Galilei's time and situation, we wonder why it was so difficult for those people back then to see those simple facts—that the Earth is just one of the planets in the Solar system... and that the human mind <em>does</em> have the capacity to understand the world. But by doing that, we fail to recognize the <em>real</em> gift that the story of Galilei has in store for us—the <em>insight</em> into the human condition, whereby it is recognized that we humans can be <em>socialized</em> to believe in almost anything!</p>
 +
<p>Hence instead of being caught up in a battle that was waged and won centuries ago, we must ask whether we too have our <em>socialized reality</em>, which we are now called upon to overgrow, and overcome.</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>The point</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<h3>The miracle of the mirror</h3>
 +
<p>The <em>academia</em> now has the prerogative, and the obligation (imposed on it by the nature of the academic tradition, and by its social role of the keeper of the keys to our culture's 'cellar' where its foundations can be seen and accessed) to guide our society 'through the <em>mirror</em>'. A feat not unlike the miracle that Moses performed, by guiding the oppressed over Sinai. And a feat that is perfectly feasible—according to <em>today</em>'s values and ideas.</p>  
 +
<p>A feat whose liberating consequences extend all the way to the horizon, and the chances are also well beyond.</p>
 +
 
 +
</div> </div>
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Scope</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>
 +
We have come to the very heart of our matter—our culture's invisible <em>foundations</em>. Our analysis of those foundations is in two parts; we here take up the values, which determine what we consider worth preserving, creating, knowing and acting on. Related to the <em>narrow frame</em> insight we take up the language, the method and other tools which decide what can and can not be built, preserved and considered as "culture".
 +
</p>
 +
<p>Recall that we are developing an analogy with Galilei's time and conditions, in response to Aurelio Peccei's diagnoses and recommendations. There can be no doubt that what was going on in Galilei's time was exactly the kind of change that Peccei's calls to action were pointing to. Galilei stands here in an iconic role—representing for us the idea that the reason <em>can</em> be empowered to challenge the conventional wisdom, and the time-honored truths written in the Scripture. Could a similar advent be in store for us today?</p>  
 +
<p>
 +
We are about to see not only a positive answer to that question—but also that this answer follows logically from the information we already own. </p>
 +
<p>
 +
In addition to <em>design</em> and <em>tradition</em>, we define and use here another pair of <em>keywords</em>, <em>epistemology</em> and <em>socialization</em>. They will enable us to talk about our theme (how we know that something is "true" or "good" etc.). One might say that the <em>tradition</em> evolves and functions by <em>socialization</em>; and that a post-<em>traditional</em> culture must rely on <em>epistemology</em>. That would be a useful simplification—but an oversimplification none the less.</p>
 +
<p>
 +
So let us rather recognize that <em>socialization</em> is and has always been the way in which the human cultures operate. Already in the cradle, and long before our capacity to reflect about those matters has grown, we adopt from our parents patterns of speech and behavior. At school, through innumerably many carrots and sticks, we learn to distinguish between "right" and "wrong". It is best to understand a culture as we understand an ecosystem—where everything depends on everything else; and whose <em>wholeness</em> can be disrupted by human action.</p>
 +
<p>
 +
Notice that <em>tradition</em> is our ideal <em>keyword</em>. A <em>culture</em> is <em>by definition</em> capable of producing <em>wholeness</em> through spontaneous evolution, by trial and error and the survival of the fittest. The question is whether <em>we</em> are still capable of doing that, in the post-<em>traditional</em> culture we've created.</p>
 +
<small>
 +
<p>Facing now <em>the</em> perennial creative challenge—to undo the effects of our socialization, we may feel sympathy toward Galilei, Darwin and other iconic figures of the scientific tradition. They risked their reputation, and sometimes their very lives, acting as the informed reason demanded—while not only their socialized others, but also their socialized <em>selves</em> were telling them that they were wrong!</p>
 +
</small>
 +
<p>
 +
The meaning of <em>epistemology</em> may best be explained by looking at the academic tradition through the stories of the two main ions we here chose to represent it, Socrates and Galilei. A closer look will that both were instances of the empowerment of reason to disobey the <em>socialization</em>; and create a new—free and evolving, yet more solid—way to knowledge. Is the contemporary <em>academia</em> still capable of continuing this tradition, by acting accordingly when the circumstances demand that?</p>
 +
<p>Was the Enlightenment's rebellion against the tradition, which still continues today, a disruption of nature-like or paradise-like <em>wholeness</em>? </p>
 +
<p>Or was it a rebellion against a human order of things where people were <em>socialized</em> to obey the kings and the clergy, which kept the evolution in check?</p>
 +
<p>Our point is that it was <em>both</em>. Or more precisely—that to see what has happened to us, and what we need to do now, we need to <em>see</em> our culture's evolution that resulted in the Englightenment in those two ways.</p>
 
</div> </div>
 
</div> </div>
  
 
<div class="row">
 
<div class="row">
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Making things whole</h2></div>
+
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Myths and Errors</h2></div>
 
<div class="col-md-7">
 
<div class="col-md-7">
<p>What exactly do we need to <em>do</em>, to "change course", and pursue and fulfill the <em>holotopia</em> vision?</p>  
+
<h3>"Truth" means "correspondence with reality"</h3>  
<p>The evidence that the <em>holotopia</em> brought together, allowed us to distill a simple principle or rule of thumb:
+
<p>First of all that there <em>is</em> such a thing; and second that it is knowable, and provable.</p>  
<blockquote>
 
We need to <em>see ourselves and what we do as parts in a larger whole</em> or wholes; and act in ways that make those larger wholes more [[Wholeness|<em>whole</em>]].
 
</blockquote></p>
 
<p>This is, of course, a radical departure from our current course—which <em>emerges</em> as a result of us pursuing what we perceive as "our own" interests; and trusting that "the invisible hand" of the market, or the academic "publish and perish", will turn our self-serving acts into the greatest common good.</p>
 
<p>It is also the course that the Modernity <em>ideogram</em> is pointing to.</p>
 
  
 +
<h3>Information must show us "the reality"</h3>
 +
<p>The purpose of information, and the value of information, is to be decided on one criterion alone—whether it shows us "the reality" in an "objectively true" way or not. That this is what distinguishes "real" or "good" information, from nonsense and deception.</p>
 +
<p>A closely related error is to ignore <em>implicit information</em> (in academia, legislature, ethics...), and focus solely on information that explicitly <em>claims</em> something.</p> 
 
</div> </div>  
 
</div> </div>  
  
  
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>View</h2></div>
 +
 +
<div class="col-md-6">
 +
<p>
 +
The evolution of <em>knowledge of knowledge</em> has brought us into this situation; in front of the metaphorical <em>mirror</em>. </p>
 +
<p>This metaphor has several connotations:
 +
<ul>
 +
<li>Seeing ourselves; from a situation where we believed (had every reason to believe, or it appeared so) that what we see (with our eyes, our reason, and the refined instruments of science) is the reality, we have evolved to see <em>how</em> we <em>construct</em> what we see; seeing the <em>limits</em> of our seeing, and knowing</li>
 +
<li>Seeing ourselves in the world; in a human world that is in a completely new situation, and has completely new needs, than when during the Enlightenment and the Scientific and Industrial Revolution, when our present foundations took shape</li>
 +
</ul>
 +
Our situation demands that we, first of all, self-reflect. And then find a way to continue further not by <em>avoiding</em> the <em>mirror</em>, but by (metaphorically, of course) going through it.</p>
 +
<p>The substance of our KF proposal, as already noted, is a complete <em>prototype</em> of an academic reality on the other side of the <em>mirror</em>. What we are talking about here is how to 'go through'.
 +
</p> </div>
 +
<div class="col-md-3">
 +
[[File:Mirror.jpg]]<br>
 +
<small>The Mirror <em>idogram</em></small>
 +
</div> </div>
  
 
<div class="row">
 
<div class="row">
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>[[Holotopia:Five insights|Five insights]]</h2></div>
+
<div class="col-md-3"></div>
 +
 
 
<div class="col-md-7">
 
<div class="col-md-7">
<p>  
+
<p>
[[File:FiveInsights.JPG]]
+
The <em>academia</em> has the prerogative to guide us through the <em>mirror</em>. (Assuming that Peccei was right), <em>academia</em> holds the key to our future.
<center><small>The <em>holotopia</em> vision is made concrete in terms of <em>five insights</em>.</small></center>
 
</p>
 
<p>The [[Holotopia:Five insights|<em>five insights</em>]] constitute the 'engine' that drives the Holotopia project to its destination—the <em>holotopia</em>.</p>
 
<p>At the same time, the <em>five insights</em> provide us a concrete way to <em>federate</em> the The Club of Rome's work.  
 
 
</p>  
 
</p>  
 
<p>
 
<p>
Strategically located in five pivotal domains of interest:  innovation (the way we use our majestically grown capability to create and induce change), communication (the way information technology is used and information is handled), foundations (what the creation of truth and meaning is based on), method (the ways in which we look at the world and try to comprehend it) and values (the "pursuit of happiness"), the <em>five insights</em> disclose large anomalies that obstruct progress in those domains, and demand structural or <em>paradigmatic</em> changes. Together, they show what, metaphorically speaking, is keeping Galilei is house arrest, once again in <em>our</em> era.</p>  
+
By adopting the rational foundation that the Enlightenment left us, we became able to know, collectively, that women can't fly on broomsticks. Innumerably many superstitions and prejudices were dispelled. </p>
<p>Each of the <em>five insights</em> points to an overarching opportunity for creative change:
+
<p>
<ul>
+
But we have also thrown out the baby with the bathwater. We have <em>no</em> foundation on which we can preserve the traditional heritage. And <em>no</em> foundation for reconstituting the myriad functions of a culture, and hence the <em>wholeness</em> that the <em>traditional culture</em> (we assume) represented.</p>  
<li>a radical improvement of effectiveness and efficiently of human work, and the liberation from stress and strife that the Industrial Revolution promised, but did not deliver</li>  
+
<p>Consequently, we have abandoned the production of culture to counterculture; to advertisers, political propaganda, superficial interests... <em>We</em> are now molded by those interests. What they need is not "human development"; they mold us to be sheepish, selfish and obedient.</p>  
<li>a revolution in communication analogous to what the printing press made possible)</li>  
+
 
<li>a revolutionary empowerment of human reason to explore and understand the world, analogous to the Enlightenment</li>  
+
</div> </div>  
<li>a revolution in conceptual tools and methods for understanding our social and cultural world, and hence improving the human condition, similar to what science brought to our understanding of natural phenomena</li>  
+
 
<li>a revolution in culture analogous to the Renaissance, leading to a dramatic improvement of "human quality"</li>  
+
<div class="row">
</ul>  
+
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Action</h2></div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>
 +
Four courses of action follow as rather obvious, yet necessary, from the self-reflection in front of the <em>mirror</em>.
 
</p>  
 
</p>  
 +
<h3><em>Truth by convention</em></h3>
 +
<p>A new 'Archimedean point', to replace old formulas such as Descartes' "<em>cogito</em>", and Galilei's "<em>Eppur si muove</em>". We need it to once again give knowledge the power to 'move the world'.</p>
 +
<small> <p>
 +
We did not invent <em>truth convention</em>; our only innovation was to turn <em>itself</em> into a convention. But that makes <em>all</em> the difference—by giving us a completely solid new foundation to build on, independent of "reality". We can then define an <em>epistemology</em> explicitly—not as a statement about reality, but as a convention. Our <em>epistemology</em> is a <em>prototype</em>; it has provisions that allow it to evolve further.</p> </small>
 +
<h3><em>Design epistemology</em></h3>
 +
<p>This new <em>epistemology</em> is roughly what the Modernity <em>ideogram</em>, the bus with candle headlights is saying: Information (and the way we handle it) is a piece in a larger whole; and it must be treated accordingly.</p>
 +
<small><p>
 +
The <em>design epistemology</em> is, of course, stated as a convention. Other conventions, for other purposes, can be made, by using this approach.</p> </small>
 +
 +
<h3><em>Information</em> is "recorded experience</h3>
 +
<p>According to this convention, <em>information</em>, reflects human experience, not "reality". </p>
 +
<p><em>Anything</em> that records experience is (or can be considered as) <em>information</em>. A chair is <em>information</em> because it embodies the experience about sitting, and chair making. This definition includes, rituals, myths, customs, values and so many other elements of the tradition as potentially containing valuable <em>information</em></p>
 +
<small> <p>We recognize it as our challenge to <em>federate</em> the <em>information</em> contained therein.</p> </small>
  
<p>Each of the <em>five insights</em> is reached by using the <em>holoscope</em> to <em>federate</em> information from disparate sources, that is, by seeing things whole. Each of the <em>anomalies</em> is resolved by using the proposed rule of thumb—by making things whole. 
+
<h3><em>Knowledge federation</em></h3>
 +
<p>The <em>prototype</em> we proposed is of an 'evolutionary organ', which the <em>academia</em> may use to <em>federate</em> information into systemic change, in culture and beyond. </p>
 +
<small> <p> The Holotopia <em>prototype</em> is of course an example.</p> </small>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
 
 +
<div class="page-header" ><h2>Stories</h2></div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Plan</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>
 +
Three insights will here be <em>federated</em>:
 +
* "correspondence with reality" is a <em>myth</em>  
 +
* "reality" is constructed—by our cognitive organs; and our society
 +
* "reality" is a product of <em>socialization</em>
 
</p>
 
</p>
 +
<small><p>These three insights constitute a radical departure from the positivist frame of mind, which tends to mark education.</p> </small>
 +
 
</div> </div>  
 
</div> </div>  
  
 
<div class="row">
 
<div class="row">
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Sixth insight</h2></div>
+
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Reality is a <em>myth</em></h2></div>
 
<div class="col-md-7">
 
<div class="col-md-7">
<p>The five anomalies, and their resolutions, are so interdependent, that to realistically resolve any of them—we need to resolve them all. Another, more general <em>sixth insight</em> follows:
+
 
<blockquote> Comprehensive change can be easy, even when smaller and obviously necessary changes have proven to be impossible.</blockquote>  
+
<h3>It is sufficient to quote einstein</h3> 
In this way the recommendation of The Club of Rome is <em>federated</em>, and the strategy that distinguishes <em>holotopia</em> (to focus on changing the whole <em>order of things</em>) is confirmed.
+
<p>A <em>myth</em> is a popular belief that cannot be verified—but serves certain social and cultural roles.</p>  
 +
<p>Two quotations of Einstein, repeated in several places already, including Federation through Images on this website, are sufficient to make this point:
 +
* The closed watch metaphor explains why "correspondence with reality" cannot be verified
 +
* The quotations about the two illusions confirms that "correspondence with reality" is (according to 'modern science') a product of illusion
 
</p>  
 
</p>  
 +
<p>
 +
Einstein's "epistemological credo" is precisely what we turned into a convention, while creating the <em>design epistemology</em>. We of course also added the purpose. </p>
 
</div> </div>  
 
</div> </div>  
  
 
<div class="row">
 
<div class="row">
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>[[Holotopia:Ten conversations|Ten conversations]]</h2></div>
+
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Reality is constructed</h2></div>
 
<div class="col-md-7">
 
<div class="col-md-7">
<p>Perhaps the most immediately interesting, however, are the <em>relationships</em> between the <em>five insights</em>—which provide us a context for perceiving and handling, in informed and completely new ways, some of the age-old challenges such as:
+
<p>It was described by Piaget, Maturana and Berger and Luckmann, along so many others; read from [https://holoscope.info/2019/02/07/knowledge-federation-dot-org/#Maturana here].</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Reality is <em>socialized</em></h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7"><p>This development—how exactly we learned, painstakingly,  that we are not those "objective observers" we believed we were (an assumption based on which <em>so much</em> of our world has been developed)—is so central to the Holotopia project, that we here take time to point to some of its milestones.</p>
 +
 
 +
<h3>Bowing to the king</h3>
 +
<p>A story illustrating subtle yet pervasive workings of <em>socialization</em></p>
 +
 
 +
<h3>Socrates – Galilei</h3>
 +
<p>The key point here is Piaget's "the reason organizes the world by organizing itself"</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-6">
 +
<h3>Pavlov – Chakhotin</h3>
 +
<p>Pavlov's experiments on dogs (for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize) can serve as a parable for <em>socialization</em></p>
 +
<p>After working with Pavlov in his laboratory, Chakhotin participated in 1932 German elections against Hitler. Understood that Hitler was conditioning or <em>socializing</em> the German people. Wrote "Le viole des foules..." (see the comments,  link TBA). </p>
 +
<p>Chakhotin practiced, and advocated, to use non-factual or <em>implicit</em> information to counteract the <em>socialization</em> attempts by political bad guys (see the image on the right). Adding "t" to the familiar Nazi greeting produced "Heilt Hitler" (cure Hitler). </p>
 +
</div>
 +
<div class="col-md-3">
 +
[[File:Chakhotin-sw.gif]]
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-6">
 +
<h3>Murray Edelman</h3>
 +
<p>Already in the 1960s the researchers knew that the conventional mechanisms of democracy (the elections) don't serve the purpose they were assumed to serve (distribution of power)—because (field research showed) the voters are unfamiliar with the candidates' proposed policies, the incumbents don't tend to fulfill their electoral promises and so on. Edelman contributed an interesting addition: It's not that the elections don't serve a purpose; it's just that this purpose is different from what's believed. The purpose is <em>symbolic</em> (they serve to legitimize the governments and the policies, by making people <em>feel</em> they were asked etc.)</p>
 +
<p>Edelman, as a political science researcher, contributed a quite thorough study of the "symbolic uses of politics".</p>
 +
</div>
 +
<div class="col-md-3">
 +
[[File:Edelman.jpg]]
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<h3>Freud – Bernays</h3>
 +
<p>Freud, famously, fought and won a battle against the prevailing belief in the pure rationality of the human animal, by showing the power of the unconscious. His American nephew, Edward Bernays, saw how Freud's research can be adapted to be used for commercial purposes.</p>
 +
<p>Honored by Life as "one of the 100 most influential Americans of the 20th century", and as "the father of public relations", Bernays gave <em>socialization</em> a scientific foundation—as his titles Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923), Propaganda (1928), Public Relations (1945), The Engineering of Consent (1955) might illustrate. "Citing works of writers such as Gustave Le Bon, Wilfred Trotter, Walter Lippmann, and his own double uncle Sigmund Freud, he described the masses as irrational and subject to herd instinct—and outlined how skilled practitioners could use crowd psychology and psychoanalysis to control them in desirable ways." (Wikipedia) </p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<h3>Berger and Luckmann</h3>
 +
 
 +
<p>Their 1966 "Social Construction of Reality" is a sociology classic. What interests us here is, however, their observation that social reality constructions tend to be turned into "universal theories"—and used to legitimize the political and economic status quo. </p>
 +
<p>The reality of the Scripture, and the king's role as God's earthly representative, are familiar examples from Galilei's time.</p>
 +
<p>But can you think of a more contemporary one?</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-6">
 +
<h3>Bourdieu – Damasio</h3>
 +
<p>Bourdieu left us a <em>complete</em> theory of <em>socialization</em>. We honor him as the <em>icon</em> of <em>socialized reality</em>. </p>
 +
 
 +
<p>Damasio contributed an essential piece in the puzzle—a scientific explanation, from the laboratory of a cognitive neurologist, of the primacy that embodied <em>socialization</em> has over rational thought. His title "Descartes' Error" brings home the main point—Descartes, and the Enlightenment, got it all wrong; we are <em>not</em> rational decision makers!</p>
 +
</div>
 +
<div class="col-md-3 round-images">
 +
[[File:Bourdieu.jpg]]
 +
 
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
 
 +
<h3>Back to [[Holotopia:Five insights|Five insights]]</h3>
 +
 
 +
<!--
 +
 
 +
<div class="page-header" ><h1>Holotopia: The Socialized Reality insight</h1></div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h4>Scope</h4></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>The Enlightenment liberated our ancestors from an unreserved faith in the Scriptures, and empowered them to use their reason to <em>understand</em> their world. It was a revolutionary change of the way in which truth and meaning were created in our societies that made all other revolutions possible. Could a similar advent be in store for us today?</p>
 +
<p>Once again we look at what tends to remain hidden: the <em>foundations</em> on which knowledge is evaluated and developed, which serve as foundation to everything we create, and everything we <em>are</em>. But these foundations are, as it were, under the ground. They are the invisible value judgement that underlies everything we believe, and everything we do.</p>
 +
<p><small>We may here go back to our main iconic image, of Galilei in house arrest, and see if we can project it into our own time and situation. It's tempting to think that those people back then were simply stupid: <em>How could they</em> not see that the Earth moves, revolves around the Sun... It is, however, far more interesting and instructive to use this reference to understand the power of <em>socialization</em>; and to ask: Could it be similar in our time?</small> </p>
 +
<p><small>So the core of our challenge here is to use suitable <em>knowledge of knowledge</em> and 'see ourselves in the mirror'. See how <em>our own</em> way of establishing facts might have also been arbitrarily constructed through socialization—without <em>us</em> seeing that.</small> </p> 
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h4>Insight</h4></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>Without thinking, from the traditional culture we've adopted a myth, incomparably more subversive than the myth of creation—the myth that the purpose of knowledge is to show us "the reality" as it truly is.</p>
 +
<p>The insight that we are <em>constructing</em> rather than "discovering" is now so well documented and so widely accepted, that we may consider it the state of the art in science and philosophy. But that's only one half of the story.</p>
 +
<p>The other half is that the reality construction has been the tool of choice of traditional <em>socialization</em>—which has been the leading source of renegade power.</p>
 +
<p>We can choose between the following two ways of rendering the situation that resulted.</p>
 +
[[File:Ideogram-placeholder.jpg]]
 +
<small>The visible problems are caused by the failing foundations</small>
 +
<p>One way is to talk about <em>holotopia</em> as doing to knowledge and to our "reality" what architecture did to house construction: We can now <em>consciously</em> found knowledge (instead of building without foundation, on whatever terrain we happen to be)</p>
 +
[[File:Magical Mirror.jpg]]
 +
<small>The evolution of knowledge has brought us in front of the <em>mirror</em>.</small>
 +
<p>The other way is to talk about the metaphorical <em>mirror</em>. The hidden thing here is ourselves. We see ourselves—that we are <em>in</em> the world, not hovering above it and looking at it "objectively". This contains two insights: the ending of the myth of "objectivity" <em>and</em> the beginning of accountability.
 +
</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h4>Corollary 1</h4></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7"><p>"Reality" is a turf! This is one of the core points that Bourdieu left us. It's coded in the formula he keeps repeating, something like "the <em>habitus</em> is a structured structure and structuring structure ... The point is that once you structure the people's reality to be so and so (king is God's ordained ruler, and he owns it all)  – then this structure structures the reality for the next king to come. He doesn't need to do it again. </p>
 +
<p>The Odin the Horse [[vignette|<em>vignette</em>]] comes in here to point to the (potential or actual) absurdity of the turf strife. There may be NO "real" gains whatsoever in victories... only symbolic ones...</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
 
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h4>Corollary 2</h4></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7"><p>Academic tradition has brought us to the <em>mirror</em></p>
 +
<p>Socrates started the tradition of [[epistemology|<em>epistemology</em>]] – by instructing people to question the roots of their beliefs. Especially when they are power based. Galilei and others improved the method. The point here is that we need to do this again. Not be busy, but come back to basic questions of meaning and purpose. Stop and self-reflect.</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="page-header" ><h2>Federation</h2></div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h4>Stories</h4></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
 
 +
* Albert Einstein*
 +
<p><small>As you might be aware, Einstein in our entire <em>prototype</em> plays the role of an <em>icon</em> of "modern science". What is modern science telling us about <em>epistemology</em>? Here we let Einstein highlight two simple things. See the details in Federation through Stories.</small> </p>
 +
<p><small>The first is that we <em>cannot</em> rationally claim that our models <em>correspond</em> to "the real thing". That's the meaning of Einstein close watch metaphor. </small> </p>
 +
<p><small>The second is that the belief that "model equals reality" tends to be a product of illusion. The quotation here is Einstein's "During philosophy's childhood it was rather generally believed that it is possible to find everything which can be known by means of mere reflection. Etc."</small> </p>
 +
 
 +
* Pierre Bourdieu
 +
 +
<small>Bourdieu did not travel to Algeria as a sociologist. In Algeria he <em>became</em> a sociologist—after having an insight; a formative experience. What he saw was exactly how the power morphed from Galilei and Inquisition style persuasion (during the liberation war with France)—to become <em>subtle</em> persuasion though worldview, media, body-to-body transmission (during liberated Algeria's "modernization"). Bourdieu left us a thorough description of the relevant social processes. Let us here, however, only highlight his keyword <em>doxa</em>—which Weber (as one of the founding fathers of sociology) adopted from Aristotle himself (which here appears in the role of the Academia's foremost progenitor of science itself). The insight could not be more basic, and we don't need all those <em>giants</em> to see it; just observe that different cultures have their own "realities", which they consider as <em>doxa</em> that is, as <em>the</em> reality. <em>Of course</em> they are a product of socialization, not of "objective" observation of reality. But can we see that this is true also about <em>our</em> culture's <em>doxa</em>?</small>
 +
 
 +
* Antonio Damasio
 +
 
 +
<small>Damasio's role here is to help us see how <em>socialization</em> (Bourdieu-style) can serve as a fake, surrogate <em>epistemology</em>. And more. The big point here—coded already in the title of his book "Descartes' Error"—is that we are not rational choice makers. Our pre-conscious, embodied cognitive filter does the pre-choosing for us. And this thing can, and is 'programmed'—(Bourdieu-style), through <em>socialization</em>. A bit of reflection may be needed here, to see what it all means. But the basic big point is that "the reality" is not what it used to be...</small>
 +
 
 +
* Sergei Chakhotin
 +
 
 +
<small> <p> Participating, in Germany, in the 1932 campaign against Hitler, after having collaborated with Ivan Pavlov in his St. Petersburg laboratory. Pavlov, incidentally, we might consider to be one of the founders of scientific psychology. Anyhow—Chakhotin observed that Hitler was doing to German people (roughly) what Pavlov was doing to his dogs. He understood that the political business as usual was going to lose against the "Dark Side" politics—unless... Wrote the book... The report is in the blog, and I'll point to it from here.</p> </small>
 +
 
 +
* Thread Odin–Bourdieu–Damasio
 +
 
 +
<small> <p> Bourdieu: symbolic power. Damasio: It's a pseudo-epistemology (pseudo-joke...). Odin: It's a meaningless game.</p> </small>
 +
 
 +
* Lida Cochran and Visual Literacy
 +
 
 +
<small>In (?) 1969, a group of four people got together and initiated the International Visual Literacy Association. Many years later... See [http://folk.uio.no/dino/ID/Misc/Lida-letter.pdf this]...  </small>
 +
 
 +
& Berger and Luckmann
 +
 
 +
<small>"Reality" is socially constructed. But the main point here is that "universal theories" serve to legitimize and hold in power the political status quo. A report is in my blog, in "Science and Religion". </small>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h4>Action</h4></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p><em>Dialog</em> </p>
 +
<p><small>The first and obvious step is to see our <em>doxas</em> and <em>gestalts</em> for what they are—instead of clinging on to them because they are "the reality". But that means adopting the attitude of the <em>dialog</em>, doesn't it?</small> </p>
 +
 
 +
<p><em>Truth by convention</em></p>
 +
<p><small>OK—but what about truth, then? What shall we believe in? We use TBC to create <em>scopes</em> and <em>views</em>. The <em>scope</em> defined by convention is like a pure forms in geometry. We "look through" it at experience. It is "true" to the extent that it reveals something relevant in experience, which would otherwise remain ignored.</small> </p>
 +
 
 +
<p><em>Design epistemology</em></p>
 +
<p><small>Shall we then just go on creating those <em>scopes</em> and <em>views</em>? What's the point? <em>Design epistemology</em> means that information is considered as part of a system, or multiple systems. Our goal is to create <em>information</em> that makes those systems more <em>whole</em>. <em>Information</em> here is, of course, not just text, but <em>anything</em> that embodies experience. The <em>design epistemology</em> implies a priority structure on information, which is of course entirely different than what we inherited from the situation where we are completing a "reality puzzle".</small></p>
 +
 
 +
<p><em>Holoscope</em></p>
 +
[[File:Holoscope.jpeg]]
 +
<p><small> It may now be already clear how the <em>holoscope</em> works, in principle: We <em>deliberately</em> create <em>scopes</em> (by using truth by convention). They show us the <em>whole</em> from different sides. Is the cup cracked or whole? If we can discover a <em>scope</em> (way of looking) which reveals a crack—then it <em>is</em> cracked, isn't it?</small></p>
 +
 
 +
<p><em>Knowledge federation</em></p>
 +
<p><small> But what do we do with all those <em>scopes</em> and <em>views</em>? Well of course—we <em>federate</em> them! I know this is still rather sketchy—but you may already be able to see how a <em>paradigm</em> naturally emerges from a handful of very basic, and (by now) very well established principles.</small></p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
* Back to [[Holotopia]]
 +
 
 +
 
 +
 
 +
 
 +
 
 +
 
 +
<!--
 +
 
 +
 
 +
 
 +
<div class="page-header" ><h1>Holotopia: Socialized Reality</h1></div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h4>Interests</h4></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<ul>
 +
<li>Truth</li>
 +
<li>Reality</li>
 +
</li>Free choice</li>
 +
<li>Rational choice</li>
 +
<li>Epistemology</li>
 +
<li>Information, knowledge</li>
 +
<li>Pursuit of knowledge</li>
 +
<li>Social creation of truth and meaning</li> 
 +
</ul>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h4>Scope</h4></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
[[File:Ideogram-placeholder.jpg]]
 +
<p>
 +
This <em>ideogram</em> is only a placeholder. The real thing should be a house with failing foundation image – but we can talk about that.
 +
</p>
 +
<p>We look at the fundamental assumptions which we use to create truth and meaning. Which are, needless to say, the foundations of all we call "culture"; and also more...</p>
 +
<p>The point here is to see the visible, mushrooming... cracks in the walls as just <em>natural consequences</em> of a faulty foundation. And the possibility to do to knowledge work what architecture did to house construction...</p> 
 +
</div></div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h4>Stories</h4></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<center><b>Galilei in house arrest</b></center>
 +
<p>This iconic image of the Enlightenment... And his <em>eppur si muove</em>... Let us zoom in on this pivotal moment of our civilization's history. See what it really meant. And what resulted.</p>
 +
<p>Notice first of all that the real issue was not whether the Earth was moving or not. That was just a technicality. Galilei was held in house arrest because of the dangerous <em>meme</em> he was carrying—that when the reason contradicted the Scripture, it might still be legitimate to give the reason the benefit of our doubt.</p>
 +
<p>Notice, furthermore, that there is no scientific or logical reason why the Sun, and not the Earth, must be seen as relatively immovable. Movement is, as we know <em>relative</em>; we might just as well put the Earth into the center of our coordinate system. The reason why we ultimately didn't is that by putting the Sun into the center and letting Earth be one of the planets moving around it—we <em>empower the reason</em> to not only <em>grasp</em> what's going on in a far simple way, but also to reduce "the natural philosophy" to "mathematical principles"! </p>
 +
<p>What resulted was a <em>foundation for truth and meaning</em>—where the "aha" we experience when all the pieces fit snuggly together, and we understand how something works, how certain causes lead to certain effects, is automatically considered as a sure sign that we have seen "the reality"</p>
 +
 
 +
<center><b>The story of reality</b></center>
 +
<p>In the course of our <em>modernization</em>, we adopted from the traditional culture a myth incomparably more subversive than the myth of creation—the <em>myth</em> that the meaning of "the truth" is "correspondence with reality". And that the purpose of information, and of knowledge, is to help us know "the truth"—i.e. to show us "the reality" as it "truly is". </p>
 +
<p>Why do we call this a <em>myth</em>? Because (as Einstein and Infeld demonstrated by their closed watch argument) it is not only impossible to demonstrate for any of our models that it <em>corresponds</em> to the real thing—but we cannot even conceive of such a possibility; we cannot even imagine what this comparison might be like, what it might mean!</p>
 +
<p> By calling it a <em>myth</em> we are <em>not</em> implying that it has no value. On the contrary! Myths, combined with <em>socialization</em> to accept them as "the reality", was <em>how the traditional culture functioned</em>, how it reproduced itself and evolved. The myth of eternal punishment, for instance, clearly served a role—to keep people reasonably ethical etc. <em>And</em> it also kept them obedient to the <em>power structure</em>. </p>
 +
<p>And so, by adopting this "mother of all myths", we were prepared to "throw the baby with the bathwater"—as soon as completely <em>new</em> "realities" came around. </p>
 +
<p>When we look back at the Middle Ages, we see only those silly myths, and how they supported the <em>power structure</em> or the order of things of the day. When, however, se understand the reality story as just another myth—we become ready to unravel our <em>contemporary</em> myths (the market myth, the science myth...); and se how <em>they</em> made us subservient to the <em>contemporary</em> power structure; and kept us from evolving.</p>
 +
 
 +
<center><b>Kings and madmen</b></center>
 +
 
 +
<p>The difference between a "real king", and a madman "imagining" and "pretending" to be a king, is that in the case of the former, everyone including himself have been successfully <em>socialized</em> to accept him as that.</p>
 +
<p>A "real king" would be treated with highest honors and respect; a deluded imposter would be incarcerated in an appropriate institution. And yet throughout history, a single "real kings" might have caused <em>incomparably</em> more evil, deaths, suffering, injustice... than all "dangerous madmen" combined!</p>
 +
 
 +
 
 +
<center><b>Bourdieu in Algeria</b></center>
 +
<p>Bourdieu did not travel to Algeria as a sociologist; in Algeria he <em>became</em> a sociologist—by acquiring a core insight, which marked his subsequent career. The insight is how (what we call) <em>socialization</em> organizes the practical life in a society.</p>
 +
<p>More concretely, in Algeria Bourdieu had a chance to witness how the interrogation, the prison and the torture chamber (as instruments of power that were passed on all the way from Galilei's time), which were ubiquitous 
 +
 
 +
 
 +
 
 +
<center><b>Title</b></center>
 +
<center><b>Title</b></center>
 +
<center><b>Title</b></center>
 +
 
 +
 
 +
<!--
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h4>Insight</h4></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7"><p>The point here is threefold:  
 
<ul>  
 
<ul>  
<li>How to put an end to war</li>
+
<li>what we called "reality" is really our own that is, our <em>culture</em>'s creation</li>
<li>Where the largest possible contribution to human knowledge might reside, and how to achieve it</li>
+
<li> "The correspondence with reality" of our ideas or models is <em>not</em> – however it may seem – something that can be rationally verified</li>  
<li>How to overcome the present dichotomy between science and religion, and use a further evolved approach to knowledge to <em>revolutionize</em> religion</li>  
+
<li>"The correspondence with reality" is – or needs to be seen as – a <em>pseudo-epistemology</em>; something which appears and works as a real [[epistemology|<em>epistemology</em>]] (valuation of knowledge based on knowledge of knowledge) – and yet keeps us bound to myths, prejudices, the [[power structures|<em>power structure</em>]]... </li>
 +
</ul> </p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h4>Reversals</h4></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<ul>
 +
<li>Truth: It <em>can</em> be fixed – by using [[truth by convention|<em>truth by convention</em>]].</li>  
 +
<li>Reality – Without thinking, from the traditional culture we have overtaken a myth incomparably more dangerous and disruptive than the myth of creation...</li>
 +
<li>Information, knowledge – become implicit... become <em>aspects</em> of things... </li>
 +
</li>Free choice, rational choice – the assumptions that served as foundation for some of our core institutions have proven to be false. We are <em>not</em> rational choice makers. We may <em>become</em> that – when people are properly informed, and taught proper use of knowledge. Educated to rely on knowledge of knowledge, not on appearances. How far we are from that blessed state of affaires! Just look at all the advertising...</li> 
 +
<li>Epistemology – It becomes [[design epistemology|<em>design epistemology</em>]]. The purpose of depicting reality as it really is falls down. The purpose where knowledge is a core component of our core systems rises and shines.</li> 
 +
<li>Pursuit of knowledge – knowledge is pursued through a <em>dialog</em>, not discussion; we keep our [[gestalt|<em>gestalt</em>]]s fluid and loose...</li>
 +
<li>Social creation of truth and meaning acquires a whole new meaning...</li>
 
</ul>  
 
</ul>  
</p>
+
</div> </div>
<p>In all, we have <em>fifteen</em> themes to develop in <em>dialogs</em>: Five corresponding to the <em>five insights</em>, and ten corresponding to their relationships. This provides us a wealth of strategic and tactical possibilities, to power the <em>holotopia</em>.</p>
+
 
 +
 
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h4>Story</h4></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>Bourdieu in Algeria. He saw two processes.</p>
 +
<p>The first was the "modernization" of Algeria. As the war ended, and independence resulted – a completely <em>new</em> set of dependencies emerged. The result was the same. But in a much more subtle way!</p>
 +
<p>The second was the destruction of culture. The Kabyle people ...</p>
 +
</div></div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h4></h4></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>This of course goes quite deep – into <em>personal</em> foundation of knowing. Instead of holding on to our beliefs, we keep them fluid. We remain creative... We co-create...</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h4>Federation, not puzzle solving</h4></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7"><p>Multiple versions are possible, and also necessary. Keeping them relatively – yet not obligatorily – consistent and coherent is what we are calling [[knowledge federation|<em>knowledge federation</em>]], isn't it?</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h4>Design epistemology</h4></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>Design epistemology – information as systemic component</p>  
 +
<p>Information is not only, or even primarily, the facts about... The lion's share is <em>implicit</em>...</p>
 +
</div></div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h4>Keywords</h4></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>[[design epistemology|<em>design epistemology</em>]]</p>
 +
<p>[[implicit information|<em>implicit information</em>]] </p>
 +
</div></div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h4>Prototypes</h4></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>The Knowledge Federation [[prototype|<em>prototype</em>]] is a complete model of an academic reality on the other side – created to help the self-reflection, and the transition to the new paradigm.</p>
 +
<p>Key point dialog</p>
 +
</div></div>
 +
 +
 
 +
* Back to [[five insights]].
 +
 
 +
 
 +
 
 +
 
 +
<!--
 +
 
 +
<div class="page-header" ><h1>Holotopia: The Power Structure insight</h1></div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h4>Scope</h4></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>By developing the technology, our ancestors <em>vastly</em> augmented the effectiveness and efficiency of human work. Could a similar advent be in store for us today?</p>
 +
[[File:System.jpeg]]
 +
<p>We look at what remained ignored: the "systems in which we live and work" (which we'll here call simply <em>systems</em>). Think of those <em>systems</em>  as gigantic mechanisms, comprising people and technology. Their purpose is to take everyone's daily work as input, and turn it into socially useful effects. </p>
 +
<p> If in spite the technology we are still as busy as were—should we not see if our <em>systems</em> might be wasting our time?</p>
 +
<p> And if the effect of our best efforts turns out to be problems rather than solutions—should we not check whether those <em>systems</em> might be causing us problems?</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h4>Insight</h4></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>
 +
Our systems tend to be conceived without any rational or conscious plan whatsoever. </p>
 +
<p>
 +
The systems tend to evolve as 'cancer'.</p>
 +
<p>We contemplated paraphrasing Bill Clinton's 1992 successful presidential campaign slogan, "The economy, stupid!", and calling this insight "The systems, stupid!". "The economy" (i.e. the economic growth) is not the solution to our problems—the economy <em>is</em> our problem... "The systems, stupid!" points to a winning political agenda in an <em>informed</em> society. Its consequences will be sweeping. </p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h4>Stories</h4></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>
 +
The Ferguson–McCandless–Fuller <em>thread</em>.</p>
 +
<small> See a very brief version [https://holoscope.info/2013/06/05/toward-a-scientific-understanding-and-treatment-of-problems/ here] (where Ferguson was not mentioned), and a bit longer persion on pages 4 and 5 [http://knowledgefederation.net/Articles/GCGforEAD10.pdf here]. </small>
 +
<p>Zygmunt Bauman</p>
 +
[[File:Bauman-msg.jpeg]]
 +
<small><p>Bauman used a strong metaphor, the concentration camp...</p> </small>
 +
<p>Norbert Wiener</p>
 +
<small> <p>The first axiom of cybernetics is that structure drives behavior. And that to be viable or "sustainable", a system must have some minimal requisite structure, notably a functioning feedback-and-control (...). In his 1948 Cybernetcs Wiener explained why we <em>did not</em> have that. And why the "free competition" would not replace it. But also Wiener failed to notice and unravel the <em>Wiener's paradox</em>!</p> </small>
 +
<p>Erich Jantsch</p>
 +
<small> <p>Jantsch contributed two further insights: That the "control" required for the humanity's continued existence (the solution of the "problematique") had to involve the capability to continuously update "the systems in which we live and work"; and that the key task of implementing that function would have to be done by the university institution. Jantsch coined the concept "systemic innovation", and undertook to <em>bootstrap</em> the corresponding theory, and practice. Hence we chose him to be the icon of <em>power structure</em> insight.</p> </small> 
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h4>Action</h4></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>
 +
Systemic innovation—making the systems whole
 +
</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
* Back to [[Holotopia]]
 +
 
 +
 
 +
XXXX
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2>[[Holotopia:Socialized reality|Socialized reality]]</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<blockquote>
 +
At the core of the Enlightenment was a profound change of our way to truth and meaning—from seeking them in the Bible, to empowering the reason to find <em>new</em> ways. Galilei in house arrest was our <em>reason</em> that was kept in check, and barred from taking its place in the evolution of ideas. Have we reached the end of this all-important evolutionary process, which Socrates and Plato initiated twenty-five centuries ago? Can the <em>academia</em> still make a radical turn, and guide our society to make an even larger one?
 +
</blockquote>
 +
<h3>Scope</h3>
 +
<p> The [[Holotopia:Socialized Reality|Socialized Reality]] <em>insight</em> is about the fundamental assumptions that serve as the foundation on which truth and meaning are created. It is also about a possibility that a deep change, of the foundation, may naturally lead to a sweeping change, "a great cultural revival"—as the case was during the Enlightenment.</p>
 +
<p>
 +
We look at the very foundations, that is—the fundamental assumptions, based on which truth and meaning are constructed. Being the foundations that underlie our thinking, they are not something we normally look at and think about. It is, indeed, as if those <em>foundations</em> were hidden under the ground, and now need to be escavated.</p>
 +
 
 +
<h3>View</h3>
 +
<p>Without even noticing that, from the traditional culture we've adopted a myth incomparably more subversive than the myth of creation. This myth now serves as the main foundation stone, on which the edifice of our culture has been built.</p> 
 +
<p>By conceiving our pursuit of truth and meaning as a "discovery" of bits and pieces of an "objective reality" (and thus failing to perceive truth and meaning, and information that conveys them, as an essential part of the 'machinery' of culture),  we've at once damaged our cultural heritage—<em>and</em> given the instruments of cultural creation away, to the forces of counterculture. In our present order of things <em>anything goes</em>—as long as it does not <em>explicitly</em>  contradict "the scientific worldview".</p>
 +
<p>While the counterculture is creating our world, the scientists are caught up in their traditional "objective observer" role...</p>
 +
 
 +
<h3>Action</h3>
 +
<p>We show how a completely new <em>foundation</em> for truth and meaning can be constructed—which is independent of any myths and unverifiable assumptions. On this new <em>foundation</em>, a completely new academic and societal reality can be developed.</p>
 +
<p>This new <em>foundation</em> can be developed by doing no more than <em>federating</em> the information we already own.</p>
 +
<p>Federating knowledge means not just "connecting the dots", but also making a difference.</p>
 +
 
 +
<h3>Federation</h3>
 +
<p>To show that the correspondence of our models with reality is a myth (widely held belief that cannot be rationally verified), it is sufficient to quote Einstein (as a popular icon of modern science). But since we are here talking about the very foundation stone on which our proposal has been developed, we take this <em>federation</em> quite a bit further.</p>
 +
<p>An essential point here is to understand "reality" as an instrument that the <em>traditional</em> culture developed to socialize us into a worldview, and its specific order of things or <em>paradigm</em>. By understanding <em>socialization</em> as a form of power play and disempowerment, we provide in effect a <em>mirror</em> which we may use to self-reflect, and see our world and our condition in a new way. The insights of Pierre Bourdieu and Antonio Damasio are here central. A variety of others are also provided.</p>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
---- CLIP
 +
 
 +
<!-- 
 +
<p>The Enlightenment replaced one foundation stone (faith in the tradition, represented by the Scriptures), by another (trust in reason, empowered by knowledge)—and "a great cultural revival" was the result. Are the conditions ripe for a similar change today?</p>
 +
<p>We will here be talking about "the core of our proposal"—about changing our very relationship with information.</p>
 +
</blockquote>
 +
<p>See this, a bit more thorough and to the point, [[Introduction to the socialized reality insight]]. </p>
 +
 
 +
---- CLIP
 +
 
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p>Werner Kollath, Erich Jantsch, Douglas Engelbart, Werner Heisenberg and other 20th century's thinkers who saw elements of an emerging <em>paradigm</em> made their appeals to [[academia|<em>academia</em>]]. With astonishing consistency, they were ignored.</p>
 +
<p>It is the <em>academia</em>'s privileged social role to decide what ideas will be explored taught at universities, and given citizenship rights. The standards for right knowledge, which the <em>academia</em> upholds in our society, decide what education, public informing, and general information consumption will be like.</p>
 +
<p>What <em>are</em> those standards? What are they based on?</p>
 +
<p>The <em>foundations</em> on which truth and meaning are created in our society, and which determine our cultural <em>praxis</em>, tend to be composed of vague notions such as that science provides an "objectively true picture of reality". </p>
 +
<blockquote>
 +
<p>During the 20th century a wealth of insights have been reached in the sciences, humanities and philosophy, which challenged or disproved the age-old beliefs based on which our culture's <em>foundations</em> have evolved. </p>
 +
<p>But <em>they too</em> have been ignored!</p>
 +
</blockquote>
 +
<p>
 +
To understand our main point, now—we are <em>not</em> proposing new <em>foundations</em>; we ae <em>initiating</em> a process by which the creation of foundations will be made the prerogative of the people</p>
 +
<p>We are initiating something akin to trial by jury—in a domain that decides all power relations in our society. A process by which the <em>foundations</em> will be <em>continuously</em> improved.  Think of it as the reversal of the trials of Galilei and Socrates. This central issue is no longer decided "behind the closed door"; it is made a subject of a public process, akin to the traditional "trial by jury". </p>
 +
 
  
 
</div> </div>
 
</div> </div>
 +
 +
------- CUT
 +
 +
 +
-----
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"><h2 style="color:red">Reflection</h2></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-6"><h3>A historical introduction to the foundations of culture</h3>
 +
<blockquote>
 +
This is a point to take a moment and reflect about the historical roots of the cultural disparity (between our immense scientific and technological know-how, and our lack of cultural "know-what", as Norbert Wiener called it), which is the <em>holotopia</em>'s core theme. See [[A historical introduction to the foundations of culture]].
 +
</blockquote>
 +
-----
 +
 +
------ CUT

Revision as of 23:54, 31 May 2020

CLIPPINGS, newest on top


Contents

A space

KunsthallDialog01.jpg
A snapshot of Holotopia's pilot project in Kunsthall 3.14, Bergen.

Holotopia undertakes to develop whatever is needed for "changing course". Imagine it as a space, akin to a new continent or a "new world" that's just been discovered—which combines physical and virtual spaces, suitably interconnected.

In a symbolic sense, we are developing the following five sub-spaces.

Fireplace

The fireplace is where our varius dialogs take place, through which our insights are deepen by combining our collective intelligence with suitable insights from the past

Library

The library is where the necessary information is organized and provided, in a suitable form.

Workshop

The workshop is where a new order of things emerges, through co-creation of prototypes.

Gallery

The gallery is where the resulting prototypes are displayed

Stage

The stage is where our events take place.

This idea of "space" brings up certain most interesting connotations and possibilities—which Lefebre and Debord pointed to.


The Box

Box1.jpg A model of The Box.

So many people now talk about"thinking outside the box"; but what does this really mean? Has anyone even seen the box?

Of course, "thinking outside the box" is what the development of a new paradigm is really all about. So to facilitate this most timely process, we decided to create the box. And to choreograph the process of unboxing our thinking, and handling.

Holotopia's Box is an object designed for 'initiation' to holotopia, a way to help us 'unbox' our conception of the world and see, think and behave differently; change course inwardly, by embracing a new value.

We approach The Box from a specific interest, an issue we may care about—such as communication, or IT innovation, or the pursuit of happiness and the ways to improve the human experience, and the human condition. But when we follow our interest a bit deeper, by (physically) opening the box or (symbolically) considering the relevant insights that have been made—we find that there is a large obstacle, preventing our issue to be resolved.

We also see that by resolving this whole new issue, a much larger gains can be reached than what we originally anticipated and intended. And that there are other similar insights; and that they are all closely related.


A vocabulary

Science was not an exception; every new paradigm brings with it a new way of speaking; and a new way of looking at the world.

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

Wholeness

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

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

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

Tradition and design

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

As the Modernity ideogram might suggest, our contemporary situation may be understood as a precarious transition from one way of evolving to the next. We are no longer traditional; and we are not yet designing. Our situation can naturally be reversed by understanding our situation in a new way; by responding to its demands, and developing its opportunities.


Keyword and Prototype

The keywords are concepts created by design. We shall see exactly how. For now, it is sufficient to keep in mind that we need to interpret them not as they what they "are", according to tradition, but as used and defined in this text. Until we find a better solution, we distinguish the keywords by writing them in italics.

The core of our proposal is to "restore agency to information, and power to knowledge". When Information is conceived of an instrument to interact with the world around us—then information cannot be only results of observing the world; it cannot be confined to academic books and articles. The prototypes serve as models, as experiments, and as interventions.

Human development and cultural revival as ways to change course

We adopt these keywords from Aurelio Peccei, and use them exactly as he did.

A prototype

We develop holotopia as a prototype. And the holoscope as a prototype 'headlights'—the leverage point, the natural way to change course.

The Holotopia prototype is not only a description, but also and most importantly it already is "a way to change course".

A strategy

The strategy that defines the Holotopia project—to focus on the natural and easy way, on changing the whole thing—has its own inherent logic and "leverage points": Instead of occupying Wall Street, changing the relationship we have with information emerges as an easier, more natural and far more effective strategy. Just as it was in Galilei's time.

As an academic initiative, to give our society a new capability, to 'connect the dots' and see things whole, knowledge federation brings to this strategy a collection of technical assets. Their potential to make a difference may be understood with the help of the elephant metaphor.

Elephant.jpg
Elephant ideogram

Imagine visionary thinkers as those proverbial blind-folded men touching an elephant. We hear them talk about "a fan", and "a water hose" and and "a tree trunk". They don't make sense, and we ignore them.

Everything changes when we understand that what they are really talking about are the ear, the trunk and the leg of an exotic animal—which is enormously large! And of the kind that nobody has seen!

The elephant symbolizes the paradigm that is now ready to emerge among us, as soon as we begin to 'connect the dots'. Unlike the sensations we are accustomed to see on TV, the elephant is not only more spectacular, but also incomparably more relevant. And as we shall see in quite a bit of detail, it gives relevance, meaning and agency to academic insights and contributions.

A dialog

This point cannot be overemphasized: The immediate goal of the Holotopia prototype is not to get the proposed ideas accepted. Rather, it is to develop a dialog around them. Our strategy is to put forth a handful of insights that are in the real sense sensational—and to organize a structured conversation around them.

That structured conversation, that public dialog, constitutes the 'construction project' by which 'the headlights' are rebuilt!

A tactical detail

To deflect the ongoing power structure devolution, we provide an arsenal of tactical tools, one of which must be mentioned early: Our invitation to a dialog is an invitation to abandon the usual fighting stance, and speak and collaborate in an authentic way. The dialog will evolve together with suitable technical instruments, including video and other forms of recording as corrective feedback.

A step toward academic revival

A cultural revival requires an academic revival—where a 'change of course' perceived as purpose, serves to give new notions of impact and agency to academic work.

Here is how this may fit into the existing streams of thought.

The structuralists attempted to give rigor to the study of cultural artifacts. The post-structuralists "deconstructed" this attempt—by showing that writings of historical thinkers, and indeed all cultural artifacts, have no "real" interpretation. And that they are, therefore, subject to free interpretation.

The new relationship with information, which we are proposing, sets the stage for taking this line of development a step further: Instead of asking what, for instance, Pierre Bourdieu "really" saw and wanted to say, we acknowledge that he probably saw something that was not as we were inclined to believe; and that he struggled to understand and communicate what he saw in the manner of speaking of our traditional order of things, where what he saw could not fit in.

So we can now consider Bourdieu's work as a piece in a completely new puzzle—a new societal order of things. To which we have given the pseudonym holotopia.

By placing the work of social scientists into that new context, we give their insights a completely new life; and a completely new degree of relevance. We show how this can be done without a single bit sacrificing rigor, but indeed—with a new degree of rigor and a new kind of rigor.




Local-Global.jpg
BottomUp - TopDown intervention tool for shifting positions, which was part of our pilot project in Kunsthall 3.14, Bergen, suggests how this proposed information is to be used—by transcending fixed relations between top and bottom, and building awareness of the benefits of multiple points of view; and moving in-between.



Ideogram

The ideograms as they presently are in the holoscope serve as a laceholder—for a variety of techniques that can be developed by using contemporary media technology. The point here is to condense lots and lots of insights into something that communicates them most effectively—which can be a poem, a picture, a video, a movie....

An ideogram the naturally serves for composing the circle–which condenses a wealth of insights into a simple, communicated message.

Instead of using media tools addictively, and commercially, we use them to rebuild the culture—as people have done through ages. The difference is made by the knowledge federation infrastructure—which secures that what needs to be federated gets federated.



We are dazzled and confused

The unstructured nature of our information, in combination with the immersive nature of our media, have the effect of leaving us dazzled and confused.

The nature of our information is such that it not only fails to help us comprehend our world—but it imperils our very ability to comprehend.

Of the many studies that support this conclusion (which, however, remained without effect...), we here offer two threads.

Nietzsche–Ehrlich–Giddens

Giddens-OS.jpeg

The insight that the complexity of our world, combined with the inadequacy of our information, leaves us no other way of coping than to resort to what Anthony Giddens called "ontological security" is summarized by the above slide, and summarized here.

McLuhan–Postman–Debord

Here is another, a bit more profound stream of thought. From McLuhan and Postman we need only an overarching insight they share, namely that the medium has the power to limit and direct what can be said, and to even impact if not determine our very capability to express ourselves and comprehend. Debord took this a step further, by treating it as a power-related phenomenon.

We must act, not only observe

Two points remain to be highlighted.

The first is that the academia itself cannot be considered immune to the deep problems we've just outlined. The academia is not only failing to produce a guiding light to our society—but also to itself! Is the academic discipline on the way to become (what Giddens called) an "internally referential system"?

The second is that to restore agency to information, and power to knowledge, the academia must step beyond its traditional "objective observer" stance, and develop ways to turn knowledge into systems. And into action.


An academic core issue

Consider the academia as a system: It has a vast heritage to take care of, and make use of. Selected creative people come in. They are given certain tools to work with, certain ways how to work, certain communication tools that will take their results and turn them into socially useful effect. How effective, and efficient, is the whole thing as a system? Is it taking advantage of the invaluable (especially in this time when our urgent need is creative change) resources that have been entrusted to it?

Enter information technology...

The big point here is that the academia's primary responsibility or accountability is for the system as a whole, and for each of its components. The academia had an asset, let's call him Pierre Bourdieu. This person was given a format to write in—which happened to be academic books and articles. He was given a certain language to express himself in. How good are those tools? Could there be answers to this question (which the academi has, btw, not yet asked in any real way) that are incomparably, by orders of magnitude, better than what the academia of his time afforded to Bourdieu? And to everyone else, of course.


Analogy with the history of computer programming

We point to the analogy between the situation in computer programming following the advent of the computer, in response to which computer programming methodologies were developed—and the situation in our handling of information following the advent of the Internet. In the first years of computing, ambitious software projects were undertaken, which resulted in "spaghetti code"—a tangled up mess of thousands of lines of code, which nobody could understand, detangle and correct. The programmers were coming in and out of those projects, and those who stepped in later had to wonder whether to throw the whole thing away and begin from scratch—or to continue to try to correct it.

A motivating insight that needs to be drawn from this history is that a dramatic increase in size of the thing being handled (computer programs and information) can not be effectively responded to by merely more of the same. A structural change (a different paradigm) is what the situation is calling for.

A new paradigm is needed

Edsger Dijkstra, one of the pioneers of the development of methodologies, argued that programming in the large is a completely different thing than programming in the small (for which textbook examples and the programming tools at large were created at the time):

“Any two things that differ in some respect by a factor of already a hundred or more, are utterly incomparable.”

Doug Engelbart used to make the same point (that the increase in size requires a different paradigm) by sharing his parable of a man who grew ten times in size (read it here).

The key point

The solution was found in developing structuring and abstraction concepts and methodologies. Among them, the Object Oriented Methodology is the best known example.

The key insight to be drawn from this analogy: computers can be programmed in any programming language. The creators of the programming methodologies, however, took it as their core challenge, and duty, to give the programmers the conceptual and technical tools that would coerce them to write code that is comprehensible, maintainable and reusable. The Object Oriented Methodology responds to this challenge by conceiving of computer programming as modeling of complex systems—in terms of a hierarchy of "objects". An object is a structuring device whose purpose is to "export function" (make a set of functions available to higher-order objects), and "hide implementation".

Without recognizing that, the academia now finds itself in a similar situation as the creators of computer programming methodologies. The importance of finding a suitable response to this challenge cannot be overrated.

Implications for cultural revival

There is also an interesting difference between computer programming and handling of information: The fact that a team of programmers can no longer understand the program they are creating is easily detected—the program won't run on the computer; but how does one detect the incomparably larger and more costly problem—that a generation of people can no longer comprehend the information they own? And hence the situation they are in?



Having used the holoscope to illuminate our general condition, and to federate The Club of Rome's core findings and call to action, we are now ready to revisit our proposal, and see how it firs into the big picture we've created. Let's begin by re-emphasizing our main point, that "the core of our proposal is to change the relationship we have with information". In the language of our metaphor, we are not saying "Here is a 'lightbulb', to replace those 'candles'."

By proposing to academia to add knowledge federation to its repertoire of activities and fields, we are proposing an 'electromechanical workshop', which will develop and install new 'sources of illumination', and to improve them continuously—by taking advantage of new knowledge of knowledge, and information technology.

In what follows we look at this proposal from several points of view.

Use of knowledge resources

The point of view here is the academia's prerogative to give to the academic workers, and to the rest of the world, conceptual and methodological tools, processes and institutional structures for handling knowledge. The question here is how this prerogative is used.

It is the prerogative of academia to tell everyone what information and knowledge are about, how they are to be created and used etc. Considering that our theme of focus is "a great cultural revival", we are especially interested in the workflow of knowledge in and from the humanities.

Considering that the tools, processes and institutional structures in knowledge work will decide the effects and the effectiveness of knowledge work, we must ask—how are those tools, processes and institutional structures created?

The obvious answer is that they are not. They are simply inherited from the past. Instead of considering them as part of their creative frontier par excellence, the academic workers are socialized to accept them as part and parcel of their vodation. That is what (applied to the academia) the metaphor of the candle headlights is intended to signify.

Then our next question must be—how well do those tools and processes serve us?

Here we may bring up, fir instance, Bourdieu's "theory of practice". If you are a sociology student, you will probably study it as one of the theories, among so many others; but you won't be asked to do anything with it. And if you are not a sociology student, the chances are (as we have seen) that not only you've never heard about Bourdieu, but that your ideas about the social world are in stark contradiction to whatever Bourdieu was trying to tell us. Put simply, our collective mind has no connections between the research in sociology and the rest of us.

Bourdieu happened to notice this general issue. When a decade ago, when we were "evangelizing" for our reorganization of Knowledge Federation as a transdiscipline, we told the story how Bourdieu teamed up with Coleman, and undertook to put sociology back together. And how Bourdieu made a case for this attempted structural change of sociology, by arguing why it may be "the largest contribution" to the field. It remained to point to the obvious—that Bourdieu's observation is far more true when we look at sociology as a piece in a larger puzzle, of our society.

To become "a sociologist", one is given a certain 'toolkit' that goes with that title.

Add to this picture the new media technology—which enabled the power over knowledge, that the "official culture" earlier secured through its control over the media (publishing agencies, opera houses etc.), to escape the "official culture" and fall into the hands of counterculture.

It takes a bit of courage now to lift up the eyes from these details, and see that in the large picture—the nature and the quality of the academia's 'toolkit' could be such that it renders even an extraordinarily talented individual, a one who could change the world—entirely useless to the world!


Information ideogram

The Information idogram, shown on the right, explains how the information we propose to create is different from the one we have.

The ideogram shows an "i", which stands for "information", as composed of a circle placed on top of a square. The square stands for the details; and also for looking at a theme of choice from all sides, by using diverse kinds of sources and resources. The circle, or the dot on the "i", stands for the function or the point of it all. That might be an insight into the nature of a situation; or a rule of thumb, pointing to a general way to handle situations of a specific kind; or a project, which implements such handling.

Information.jpg Information ideogram

By showing the circle as founded on the square, the Information ideogram points to knowledge federation as a social process (the 'principle of operation' of the socio-technical 'lightbulb'), by which the insights, principles, strategic handling and whatever else may help us understand and take care of our increasingly complex world are kept consistent with each other, and with the information we own.

Knowledge federation is itself a result of knowledge federation: We draw insights about handling information from the sciences, communication design, journalism... And we weave them into technical solutions.


Holoscope and Holotopia

Some rudimentary understanding of our holoscope prototype is necessary for understanding what is about to follow.

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

Holoscope.jpeg
Holoscope ideogram

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

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

To fully understand the "course" we are proposing, it is important to consider what those 'cracks' really are: They are 'crevices on the road', they are 'wrong turns'—which can lead to a civilization-wide disaster, with all the imaginable and unimaginable tragic consequences this might imply. It then follows from our stated purpose (to evolve suitable 'headlights') that our handling of information must "change course": We must look at all sides, not only one!

A subtlety follows—which is, however, required if one should step into the holotopia development and contribute. We will be using the usual manner of speaking, and making affirmative statements of the usual kind, that a certain thing or issue X "is" so and so. Those statements need to be interpreted as meaning "please see if you can see X (also) in this way". In other words, our statements need to be interpreted and handled in the manner of the dialog.



in the way that's intended—namely as views resulting from specific scopes. A view is offered as sufficiently fitting the data (the view really serves as a kind of a mnemonic device, which engages our faculties of abstraction and logical thinking to condense messy data to a simple and coherent point of view)—within a given scope. Here the scopes serve as projection planes in projective geometry. If a scope shows a 'crack', then this 'crack' needs to be handled, within the scope—regardless of what the other scopes are showing.

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

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

Or in other words—aiming to return power to knowledge, we shall say things that might sound preposterous, sensational, scandalous... Yet they won't be a single bit "controversial"—within the order of things we are proposing, and using. They are ways of looking that (as we'll carefully show) must be considered—so that the 'cracks' may be revealed.




"Reality" is a basic human need

Aaron Antonovsky and salutogenesis

Among the women who survived the Holocaust, about two thirds later developed a variety of psychosomatic problems. Aaron Antonovsky focused his research on the ones that didn't. He found out that what distinguished them was their greater "sense of coherence"—which he defined as "feeling of confidence that one's environment is predictable and that things will work out as well as can reasonably be expected". Today Antonovsky is considered an iconic progenitor of "salutogenesis"—the scientific study of conditions for and ways to health.

We mention Antonovsky to point to what is perhaps intuitively obvious: That a shared "reality" is a basic human need. Every social group provided its members with a shared "sense of coherence" (a predictable environment, a relatively stable role and "habitus" recognized by others, a shared way to comprehend the world...) But at what price!


Socialization determines our awareness

Antonio Damasio and Descartes' error

The second main component of the socialized reality insight represents a major turning point from the self-image which the Enlightenment gave us, humans; and which served as the foundation for our democracy, legislature, ethics, culture... Here too we represent a large body of research with the work of a single researcher—Antonio Damasio.

The point here—which Damasio deftly coded into the very title of his book "Descartes' Error"—is that we are not the rational decision makers, as the founding fathers of the Enlightenment made us believe. Damasio showed that the very contents of our rational mind (our priorities, and what options we are at all capable to conceive of and consider) are controlled by a cognitive filter, which is pre-rational and embodied.

Damasio's theory synergizes beautifully with Bourdieu's "theory of practice", to which it gives a physiological explanation.

George Lakoff and philosophy in the flesh

Lakoff, a cognitive linguist, and Johnson, a philosopher, teamed up to give us a revision of philosophy, based on what the cognitive science found, under the title "philosophy in the flesh". The book's opening paragraphs, titled "How Cognitive Science Reopens Central Philosophical Questions", read:

The mind is inherently embodied.

Thought is mostly unconscious.

Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical.

These are three major findings of cognitive science. More than two millennia of a priori philosophical speculation about these aspects of reason are over. Because of these discoveries, philosophy can never be the same again.

When taken together and considered in detail, these three findings from the science of the mind are inconsistent with central parts of Western philosophy. They require a thorough rethinking of the most popular current approaches, namely, Anglo-American analytic philosophy and postmodernist philosophy.

"Reality" is a product of socialization

Bourdieu's "theory of practice"

We have now come to the first of the three main components of the socialized reality insight—that what we consider "reality" is really a product of socialization. But what exactly does this mean? What is socialization?

While a wealth of academic insights may be drawn upon to illuminate this uniquely relevant idea, we here represent them all by the work of a single researcher, sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. His "theory of practice" is the theory of socialization.

Specifically, the meaning of Bourdieu's keyword doxa (which he adopted from Max Weber, and whose usage dates all the way back to Plato) points to an essential property of what we call socialized reality. Bourdieu used this keyword to point to the common experience that people had through the ages—that the societal order of things in which they lived was the only possible one. "Orthodoxy" implies that more than one are possible, but that only one ("ours") is the "right" one. Doxa ignores even the possibility of alternative options.

Two other Bourdieu's central keywords, "habitus", and "field", will provide us what we need to take along. Think of "habitus" as embodied predispositions to act and behave in a certain way. Think of "field" as something akin to a magnetic field, which deftly draws each person in a society to his or her "habitus". Instead of theorizing more, we provide an intuitive explanation in terms of a common situation, which is intended to serve as a parable.

From Bourdieu's theory, "reality" emerges as a structured 'turf'; each "habitus" ("king", "page", "cardinal" and so on) is a result of past structuring—and the starting point of new socialization into these roles; which can of course change with time, as results of future 'turf strife'.

What makes a real king real

The king enters the room and everyone bows. Naturally, you bow too. Even if you may not feel like doing that, deep inside you know that if you don't bow down your head, you may lose it.

So what is it, really, that makes the difference between "a real king", and an imposter who "only believes" that he's a king? Both consider themselves as kings, and impersonate the corresponding "habitus". In the former case, however, everyone else has also been successfully socialized accordingly.

A "real king" will be treated with highest honors. An imposter will be incarcerated in an appropriate institution. Despite the fact that all too often, a single "real king" caused far more suffering and destruction than all the madmen and criminals combined.


Key Point Dialog

This dialog was one in a series of experiments, where we experimented with dialog as a means for igniting "a great cultural revival". The Bohm's circle was turned into a high-energy cyclotron. Provisions for spreading the dialog through the media were made. See the report.

An important point is to see the KPD as a set of evolving tactical tools.

The scheme is fault-tolerant, and there are no failures. A group of knowledgeable people talking about how to change, for instance, religion, is a prime spectacle, vastly surpassing anything that DT can provide the media. But a group of homo ludens characters attacking these views, or even just being unable to say or think anything that is not within the paradigm, can be an even greater spectacle. With proper camera work, and set in the right context, of course. This can act as a mirror—reflecting back how we are, what we've become.

Add Debategraph ++ — the use of new dialog mapping etc. tools — and you'll see a most wonderful playground, where our collective mind is being changed as we speak!



Socialization and symbolic action

Socialization must be understood as a surrogate epistemology. We don't "know" because we've considered the data—but because we've been socialized to believe we know.

During the past century we've learned to harness the power of... Now our task is to harness the power that's remain as largest—the power of our socialization. It is largest because it determines how all other powers will be used.

We adopted the symbolic action keyword from Murray Edelman. It serves to point to a behavioral pattern—having been socialized to stay within certain limits of thought and behavior, and nonetheless seeing that something must be done, we act out our duties and fears in a symbolic way: We write a paper; we organize a conference.

We use symbolic as roughly an antonym to systemic: Impact, if it is to be real, must be able to affect our systems, that is, the power structure; not just do things within it.

homo ludens and academia

<p>The homo ludens is the socialized human. Our shadow side. He's the power structure man. Adjusts to the field—gives it his power, and receives an illusion of power.

We once again emphasize that homo ludens and homo sapiens are not distinct things, our there; they are two perfect and abstract scopes, or ways of looking. Each of us humans has those two sides. The issue here is to see the other side, and to develop culture that helps us evolve as homo sapiens, not as homo ludens.

We don't need to do this—but it is interesting to imagine that the homo ludens was really what The Club of Rome was up against. And that what we call the homo sapiens re-evolution is what Peccei was calling for. In The Last Call trailer, there are TWO beautiful examples on record (SHOW THEM).

The academia is defined as "institutionalized academic tradition". We are proposing to update the academia by adding knowledge federation as field of interest and praxis. The point of this definition, and the stories that support it, is to go back to Socrates and Galilei, and show that homo sapiens evolution was what the academic tradition has really been about since its inception.

To make this even more clear, we talk about homo ludens academicus–a cultural subspecies, which according to ordinary logic should not even exist. The point is is to illuminate the question—whether the ecology of the contemporary academia (with its specific approach to education, "publish or perish" etc.)—is an ecology that favors the homo ludens academicus (which would mean that this institutionalization ha a 'crack', and needs to be repaired).



Causal comprehension is not a reality test

It takes only a moment of reflection to see just how much the "aha feeling"—when we understand how something may result as a consequence of known causes—has been elevated to the status of the reality test. But is it really that?

The Enlightenment empowered the human reason to comprehend the world. Science taught us that women cannot fly on brooms—because that would violate some well established "natural laws". Innumerable prejudices and superstitions were dispelled.

But we've also thrown out the baby with the bathwater!


At the 59th yearly meeting of the International Society for the Systems Sciences, whose title theme was "Governing the Anthropocene", a little old lady was wheeled to the podium in a wheelchair. She began her keynote by talking at length about how, while in the cradle, we throw our pacifier to the ground, and mother picks it up and gives it back to us; and we say "hum".

Mary Catherine Bateson is an American cultural anthropologist and cybernetician, the daughter of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, two prominent historical figures in anthropology and cybernetics. The insight she undertook to bring home in this way is alone large enough to hold the socialized reality insight and the call to action it points to—if it can be understood. Her point was that from the cradle on we learn to comprehend and organize our world in terms of causes and effects—which makes us incapable of understanding things truly, that is systemically. Or to use the way of looking at our contemporary condition—from "seeing things whole" and "making things whole". And hence from "changing course".

Click here to hear Mary Catherine Bateson say, in her keynote to the American Society for Cybernetics:

The problem of 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 in general. And there are all sorts of abstruse and sophisticated things that can be done with it, but on some level, what we would like is to affect what people think is common sense. Things that they take for granted, in fact are problematic: about causality; about purposes; about relationships... Universities don't have departments of epistemological therapy.

The problem we are talking about underlies each of the five insights—and hence is a key to holotopia. Isn't our "pursuit of happiness" misdirected by our misidentification of happiness with what appears to cause it—which we called convenience. And more generally, by our supposition that we know what goals are worth pursuing, because we can simply feel that. And in innovation—our ignoring of the structure of systems, and abandoning it to power structure. And in communication—our ignoring of the workings of our collective mind, and abandoning that too to power structure. And even our socialized reality is a result of our supposition that the "ana feeling" we experience when things (appear to) fit causally together as a sure sign that we've discovered the reality itself. And finally in method—which is consistently focused on finding for instance "disease causes" and eliminating them through chemical or surgical interventions and so on.

Reason cannot know "reality"

Common sense is a product of experience

Oppenheimer–U.Sense.jpeg

Even our common sense is a product of (our and our culture's) experience, with things such as pebbles and waves of water. We have no reason to believe that it will still work when applied to things that we do not have in experience, such as small quanta of matter—and it doesn't!. A complete argument, based on the double-slit experiment, is in Oppenheimer's essay "Uncommon Sense".

"Reality" has no a priori structure

Indeed, when the insights reached in the last century's science and philosophy are taken into account, the reason is compelled to conclude that there is no "the reality" out there, waiting to be discovered. All we have to work with is human experience—of a world that, to our best knowledge, has no a priori structure.

A piece of material evidence is Einstein's "epistemological credo", which we commented here.

"Reality" is the problem

Let this redesign of Ronald Reagan's campaign slogan, which marked the beginning of an era, point to a remedial strategy and a new era.

The following excerpt from Berger and Luckmann's "Social Construction of Reality" is relevant:

As more complex forms of knowledge emerge and an economic surplus is built up, experts devote themselves full-time to the subjects of their expertise, which, with the development of conceptual machineries, may become increasingly removed from the pragmatic necessities of everyday life. Experts in these rarefied bodies of knowledge lay claim to a novel status. They are not only experts in this or that sector of the societal stock of knowledge, they claim ultimate jurisdiction over that stock of knowledge in its totality. They are, literally, universal experts. This does not mean that they claim to know everything, but rather that they claim to know the ultimate significance of what everybody knows and does. Other men may continue to stake out particular sectors of reality, but they claim expertise in the ultimate definitions of reality as such.

This theory about the nature of reality, then, becomes an instrument par excellence for legitimizing the given social reality:

Habitualization and institutionalization in themselves limit the flexibility of human actions. Institutions tend to persist unless they become ‘problematic’. Ultimate legitimations inevitably strengthen this tendency. The more abstract the legitimations are, the less likely they are to be modified in accordance with changing pragmatic exigencies. If there is a tendency to go on as before anyway, the tendency is obviously strengthened by having excellent reasons for doing so. This means that institutions may persist even when, to an outside observer, they have lost their original functionality or practicality. One does certain things not because they work, but because they are right – right, that is, in terms of the ultimate definitions of reality promulgated by the universal experts.


Power structure

The power structure models the key political notions of the "enemy"; and of the "power holder".

Related to the power structure insight we have already learned to perceive the power structure as "systems in which we live and work"—which determine our live ecology, our cultural ecosystem and (not the least) what the effects of our work will be. We now invite you to put also the socialized reality into this view.

The power structure was originally defined in that way—as a structure comprising power interests (represented by the dollar sign in the Power Structure ideogram), our ideas about the world (represented by the book) and our own condition or "human quality" (represented by the stethoscope). The resources we pointed to above may already suggest why—and a more complete explanation is provided in the literature of the power structure entry here.

The primary power structure in Galilei's time was, of course, represented by the synergy between the power of the kings and the worldview provided by the Church—and the consequences to people's wellbeing, or to "human quality", may be obvious. The interesting question is—how might the same basic relationship (or technically a pattern) be reproduced in our own time?

Who may be holding Galilei in house arrest today?

Power Structure.jpg
Power Structure ideogram


Academia

Academia is institutionalized academic tradition.

You have already seen that. Our reason to come back to this definition is to point to a subtlety, which sets the stage for the proposed dialog.

We have that our worldview can be shaped through socialization by power structure. But there is an alternative—to use reason, and knowledge and knowledge, to re-examine our beliefs; and to in that way create better and more solid ways to knowledge. And that is what "academic tradition" here stands for. Our references to Socrates and to Galilei as academia's iconic figures are meant to re-emphasize that the academic tradition found its purpose, and drew its strength, from inspired individuals who dared to stand up to the power structure of the day, and by continuing the academic tradition bring the progress of knowledge, and of humanity, a step forward.

The question (to be asked and reflected on in front of the mirror is whether the contemporary academia is still institutionalizing the academic tradition?

Or has it become a (part of the) power structure—in a similar way as the Church was in Galilei's time?

Notice that the answer here is not either "yes" or "no". Our point is that we must look at our theme from both sides.


Dialog

We have introduced the dialog as a principle of communication. The association with the dialogs that Socrates had as his core activity, as recorded by Plato, was an obvious point. No less important was the subsequent work on this theme by David Bohm and others, the shoulders on which we stand to continue this work.

What we want to emphasize here as a subtle yet essential point is a wealth of tactical assets that the dialog as technique brings along. The central point here is that the dialog is not only a medium for creating knowledge, but also and above all the very functioning of our collective mind—and hence also the way to change it. Here tools like the Debategraph (...) need to be mentioned. But also judicious uses of the camera—whereby the breaches of the ethos of the dialog can be made clearly visible; and valuable feedback for bringing us back on track can be provided (...).


Homo ludens

Here's another way to summarize the above-mentioned resources: The Enlightenment has given us the homo sapiens self-identity. Which makes it all seem so deceptively easy—by making knowing our evolutionary birth right. We don't really need to do much in order to know...

We update this flattering but distorted picture by pointing to another side: We can also evolve and act as homo ludens—who shuns knowledge, and simply learns what works and what doesn't from experience (or through socialization). The homo ludens does not care about overarching principles and purposes; he learns his various professional and social roles as one would learn the rules of a game, and performs in them competitively.

It is interesting to notice that the homo sapiens and the homo ludens represent two completely different ways to knowledge, and kinds of knowing. A consequence is that each of them may see himself as the epigone of evolution, and the other as going extinct. The homo sapiens looks at the data; the homo ludens just looks around...

And now a hint about setting the stage for the dialogs, by combining the conceptual 'technology' outlined here and the hardware technology: The producers of the trailer for The Last Call documentary (where some of the most interesting developments subsequent to The Club of Rome's more specific call to action are reported, voiced in their report "The Limits to Growth") gave us a couple of instances of the homo ludens on record:

  • A conversation between Dennis Meadows (representing the homo sapiens side) and an opponent, which begins here
  • Ronald Reagan wiping it all off, with a most simple (homo ludens) gesture, and a most charming smile, see it here
Yes, the homo ludens had no difficulty obstructing the re-evolution that The Club of Rome was trying to ignite. Can we learn from their experience, and do better?



Prototype

As we have seen, prototypes are characteristic products of knowledge work on the other side of the mirror. The point here is to move knowledge workers and knowledge itself from 'the back seat', i.e. from its observer role, to 'the driver's seat'. By federating insights directly into prototypes, we give them a place in the world; and a power to make a difference.



A vocabulary

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

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

Truth by convention and keywords

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Scope and view

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

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


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

Holoscope.jpeg
Holoscope ideogram

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gestalt and dialog

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

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

Gestalt.gif
Gestalt ideogram

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

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

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

Wholeness

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

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

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

Tradition and design

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

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

Socialization and epistemology

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

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

Reification and design epistemology

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

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

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

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

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


Prototype

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

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

The prototypes give agency to information.

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

Holoscope, holotopia and knowledge federation

The following must to be emphasized and understood:

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

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

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

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

Elephant

Elephant.jpg
Elephant ideogram

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

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

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

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

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

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

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