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| − | <div class="page-header" ><h1>HOLOTOPIA</h1><br><br><h2>An Actionable Strategy</h2></div> | + | <center><h2>[[Holotopia|<b>H O L O T O P I A P R O T O T Y P E</b>]]</h2></center><br><br> |
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| − | <div class="row"> | + | <div class="page-header" > <h1>Ten conversations</h1> </div> |
| − | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>Imagine...</h2></div>
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| − | <div class="col-md-6">
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| − | <p>You are about to board a bus for a long night ride, when you notice the flickering streaks of light emanating from two wax candles, placed where the headlights of the bus are expected to be. Candles? <em>As headlights</em>? </p>
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| − | <p>Of course, the idea of candles as headlights is absurd. So why propose it?
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| − | <blockquote> Because <em>on a much larger scale</em> this absurdity has become reality.</blockquote> </p>
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| − | <p>The Modernity <em>ideogram</em> renders the essence of our contemporary situation by depicting our society as an accelerating bus without a steering wheel, and the way we look at the world, try to comprehend and handle it as guided by a pair of candle headlights.</p>
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| − | <div class="col-md-3">
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| − | [[File:Modernity.jpg]]
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| − | <small>Modernity <em>ideogram</em></small>
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| − | </div> </div>
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| − | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>Our proposal</h2></div>
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| − | <div class="col-md-6">
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| − | <blockquote>
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| − | The core of our [[Holotopia:Knowledge federation|<em>knowledge federation</em>]] proposal is to change the relationship we have with information.
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| − | </blockquote>
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| − | | |
| − | <p>What is our relationship with information presently like?</p>
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| − | <p>Here is how [[Neil Postman]] described it:</p>
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| − | <blockquote>
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| − | "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."
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| − | </blockquote>
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| − | </div>
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| − | [[File:Postman.jpg]]<br><small>Neil Postman</small>
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| − | </div> </div> | |
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| − | <p>What would information and our handling of information be like, if we treated them as we treat other human-made things—if we adapted them to the purposes that need to be served? </p>
| + | [[File:FiveInsights.JPG]] |
| − | | + | <center><small>The pairwise relationships between the <em>five insights</em> provide context for understanding and handling age-old challenges, in entirely new ways.</small></center> |
| − | <p>By what methods, what social processes, and by whom would information be created? What new information formats would emerge, and supplement or replace the traditional books and articles? How would information technology be adapted and applied? What would public informing be like? And <em>academic communication, and education</em>? </p>
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| − | <blockquote>The substance of our proposal is a <em>complete</em> [[Holotopia:Prototype|<em>prototype</em>]] of [[Holotopia:Knowledge federation|<em>knowledge federation</em>]], where initial answers to relevant questions are proposed, and in part implemented in practice. </blockquote>
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| − | <blockquote>Our call to action is to institutionalize and develop <em>knowledge federation</em> as an academic field, and a real-life <em>praxis</em> (informed practice).</blockquote>
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| − | <blockquote>Our purpose is to restore agency to information, and power to knowledge.</blockquote>
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| − | </div> </div>
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| − | <div class="row">
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| − | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>A proof of concept application</h2></div>
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| − | <div class="col-md-6">
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| − | <p>The Club of Rome's assessment of the situation we are in, provided us with a benchmark challenge for putting the proposed ideas to a test.</p>
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| − | <p>Four decades ago—based on a decade of this global think tank's research into the future prospects of mankind, in a book titled "One Hundred Pages for the Future"—[[Aurelio Peccei]] issued the following call to action: </p>
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| − | <blockquote>
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| − | "It is absolutely essential to find a way to change course."
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| − | </blockquote>
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| − | <p>Peccei also specified <em>what</em> needed to be done to change course:</p>
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| − | <blockquote>
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| − | "The future will either be an inspired product of a great cultural revival, or there will be no future."
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| − | </blockquote>
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| − | </div>
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| − | <div class="col-md-3">
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| − | [[File:Peccei.jpg]]<br><small>Aurelio Peccei</small>
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| − | <p>This conclusion, that we are in a state of crisis that has cultural roots and must be handled accordingly, Peccei shared with a number of twentieth century's thinkers. Arne Næss, Norway's esteemed philosopher, reached it on different grounds, and called it "deep ecology". </p>
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| − | <p>In "Human Quality", Peccei explained his call to action:</p>
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| − | <blockquote>
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| − | "Let me recapitulate what seems to me the crucial question at this point of the human venture. Man has acquired such decisive power that his future depends essentially on how he will use it. However, the business of human life has become so complicated that he is culturally unprepared even to understand his new position clearly. As a consequence, his current predicament is not only worsening but, with the accelerated tempo of events, may become decidedly catastrophic in a not too distant future. The downward trend of human fortunes can be countered and reversed only by the advent of a new humanism essentially based on and aiming at man’s cultural development, that is, a substantial improvement in human quality throughout the world."
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| − | </blockquote>
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| − | <p>
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| − | The Club of Rome insisted that lasting solutions would not be found by focusing on specific problems, but by transforming the condition from which they all stem, which they called "problematique".</p>
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| − | <blockquote>Could the change of 'headlights' we are proposing be "a way to change course"?</blockquote>
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| − | </div> </div>
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| − | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>A vision</h2></div>
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| − | <blockquote><em>Holotopia</em> is a vision of a possible future that emerges when proper light has been turned on.</blockquote>
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| − | <p>Since Thomas More coined this term and described the first utopia, a number of visions of an ideal but non-existing social and cultural order of things have been proposed. But in view of adverse and contrasting realities, the word "utopia" acquired the negative meaning of an unrealizable fancy.</p>
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| − | <p>As the optimism regarding our future waned, apocalyptic or "dystopian" visions became common. The "protopias" emerged as a compromise, where the focus is on smaller but practically realizable improvements.</p>
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| − | <p>The <em>holotopia</em> is different in spirit from them all. It is a <em>more</em> attractive vision of the future than what the common utopias offered—whose authors either lacked the information to see what was possible, or lived in the times when the resources we have did not yet exist. And yet the <em>holotopia</em> is readily realizable—because we already have the information and other resources that are needed for its fulfillment.</p>
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| − | <blockquote>The <em>holotopia</em> vision is made concrete in terms of <em>five insights</em>, as explained below.</blockquote>
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| − | </div> </div>
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| − | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>A principle</h2></div>
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| − | <div class="col-md-7">
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| − | <p><em>What do we need to do</em> to change course toward the <em>holotopia</em>?</p>
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| − | <blockquote>The <em>five insights</em> point to a simple principle or rule of thumb—making things [[Wholeness|<em>whole</em>]].</blockquote>
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| − | <p>This principle is suggested by the <em>holotopia</em>'s very name. And also by the Modernity <em>ideogram</em>. Instead of <em>reifying</em> our institutions and professions, and merely acting in them competitively to improve "our own" situation or condition, we consider ourselves and what we do as functional elements in a larger system of systems; and we self-organize, and act, as it may best suit the [[Wholeness|<em>wholeness</em>]] of it all. </p>
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| − | <p>Imagine if academic and other knowledge-workers collaborated to serve and develop planetary wholeness – what magnitude of benefits would result!</p>
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| − | </div> </div>
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| − | <div class="row">
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| − | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>A method</h2></div>
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| − | <div class="col-md-7">
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| − | <p>"The arguments posed in the preceding pages", Peccei summarized in One Hundred Pages for the Future, "point out several things, of which one of the most important is that our generations seem to have lost <em>the sense of the whole</em>." </p>
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| − | <blockquote>To make things [[Wholeness|<em>whole</em>]]—<em>we must be able to see them whole</em>! </blockquote>
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| − | <p>To highlight that the <em>knowledge federation</em> methodology described and implemented in the proposed <em>prototype</em> affords that very capability, to <em>see things whole</em>, in the context of the <em>holotopia</em> we refer to it by the pseudonym <em>holoscope</em>. </p>
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| − | <p>While the characteristics of the <em>holoscope</em>—the design choices or <em>design patterns</em>, how they follow from published insights and why they are necessary for 'illuminating the way'—will become obvious in the course of this presentation, one of them must be made clear from the start.</p>
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| − | <p>
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| − | [[File:Holoscope.jpeg]]<br>
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| − | <small>Holoscope <em>ideogram</em></small>
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| − | </p>
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| − | <blockquote>To see things whole, we must look at all sides.</blockquote>
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| − | <p>The <em>holoscope</em> distinguishes itself by allowing for <em>multiple</em> ways of looking at a theme or issue, which are called <em>scopes</em>. The <em>scopes</em> and the resulting <em>views</em> have similar meaning and role as projections do in technical drawing.</p>
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| − | <p>This <em>modernization</em> of our handling of information—distinguished by purposeful, free and informed <em>creation</em> of the ways in which we look at the world—has become <em>necessary</em> in our situation, suggests the bus with candle headlights metaphor. But it also presents a challenge to the reader—to bear in mind that the resulting views are not offered as "reality pictures", contending for that status with one another.</p>
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| − | <blockquote>In the <em>holoscope</em>, the legitimacy and peaceful coexistence of multiple ways to look at a theme is axiomatic.</blockquote>
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| − | <p>We will continue to use the conventional language and say that something <em>is</em> as stated, that <em>X</em> <em>is</em> <em>Y</em>—although it would be more accurate to say that <em>X</em> can or must (also) be perceived as <em>Y</em>. The views we offer are accompanied by an invitation to genuinely try to look at the theme at hand in a certain specific way; and to do that collaboratively, in a [[dialog|<em>dialog</em>]].</p>
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| − | <p>To liberate our worldview from the inherited concepts and methods and allow for deliberate choice of <em>scopes</em>, we used the scientific method as venture point—and modified it by taking recourse to insights reached in 20th century science and philosophy. </p>
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| − | <blockquote>
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| − | Science gave us new ways to look at the world: The telescope and the microscope enabled us to see the things that are too distant or too small to be seen by the naked eye, and our vision expanded beyond bounds. But science had the <em>tendency to keep us focused on things that were either too distant or too small to be relevant—compared to all those large things or issues nearby, which now demand our attention</em>. The <em>holoscope</em> is conceived as a way to look at the world that helps us see <em>any</em> chosen thing or theme as a whole—from all sides; and in proportion.
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| − | </blockquote>
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| − | <p>A discovery of a new way of looking—which reveals a structural problem, and helps us reach a correct general assessment of an object of study or a situation as a whole (whether the 'cup' is 'whole' or 'broken') is a new <em>kind of result</em> that is made possible by this general-purpose science, which is modeled by the <em>holoscope</em></p>
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| − | <p>To see more, we take recourse to the vision of others. The <em>holoscope</em> combines scientific and other insights to enable us to see what we ignored, to 'see the other side'. This allows us to detect structural defects ('cracks') in core elements of everyday reality—which when we look at them in our habitual way ('in the light of a candle'), appear to us as just normal. </p>
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| − | <p>All elements in our proposal are deliberately left unfinished, rendered as a collection of <em>prototypes</em>. Think of them as composing a cardboard map of a city, and a construction site. By sharing them, we are not making a case for building a specific 'city'—but for 'architecture' as an academic field, and a real-life <em>praxis</em>. </p>
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| | </div> </div> | | </div> </div> |
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| − | <div class="page-header" ><h2>Five insights</h2></div>
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| − | <div class="col-md-3"><h2><em>Scope</em></h2></div> | + | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>Future democracy</h2> </div> |
| − | <div class="col-md-7"> | + | <div class="col-md-7"><p>The [[Cybernetics and the Future of Democracy]] conversation has the [[Holotopia:Power_structure|<em>power structure</em>]] insight and the [[Holotopia:Collective mind|<em>collective mind</em>]] insight as context.</p> |
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| − | <blockquote>What is wrong with our present "course"? In what ways does it need to be changed? What benefits will result?</blockquote>
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| − | <p> | |
| − | [[File:FiveInsights.JPG]]<br> | |
| − | <small>Five Insights <em>ideogram</em></small>
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| − | </p>
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| − | <p>We use the <em>holoscope</em> to illuminate five <em>pivotal</em> themes, which <em>determine</em> the "course":</p>
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| − | <ul>
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| − | <li><b>Innovation</b>—the way we use our ability to create, and induce change</li>
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| − | <li><b>Communication</b>—the social process, enabled by technology, by which information is handled</li>
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| − | <li><b>Epistemology</b>—the fundamental assumptions we use to create truth and meaning, or "the relationship we have with information"</li>
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| − | <li><b>Method</b>—the way in which truth and meaning are constructed in everyday life, or "the way we look at the world, try to comprehend and handle it"</li>
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| − | <li><b>Values</b>—the way we "pursue happiness", which in the modern society <em>directly</em> determines the course</li>
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| − | </ul>
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| − | <p>In each case, we see a structural defect, which led to perceived problems.</p>
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| − | <blockquote>Those structural defects <em>can</em> be remedied.</blockquote>
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| − | <p>Their removal naturally leads to improvements that are well beyond the removal of symptoms.</p>
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| − | <blockquote>The <em>holotopia</em> vision results.</blockquote>
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| − | <p>From the <em>five insights</em> a <em>sixth insight</em> follows—that the more <em>basic</em> problem that underlies our problems is that "the tie between information and action has been severed". And that the key to solution, the "systemic leverage point" for "changing course" and continuing to evolve culturally and socially, in a new way, is the same as it was in Galilei's time: We must once again "change the relationship we have with information".</p>
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| − | <blockquote>A case for our proposal is thereby also made.</blockquote>
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| − | <p>In the spirit of the <em>holoscope</em>, we here only summarize each of the <em>five insights</em>—and provide evidence and details separately.</p>
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| − | </div> </div>
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| | + | <p>If it is to be governable, cybernetics taught us, a system must have a certain requisite structure. How can <em>anyone</em> be in control—in a bus without steering, with candle headlights?</p> |
| | + | </div></div> |
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| | <div class="row"> | | <div class="row"> |
| − | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>[[Holotopia:Power structure|<em>Power structure</em>]]</h2></div> | + | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>Future culture</h2> </div> |
| | <div class="col-md-7"> | | <div class="col-md-7"> |
| | + | <p>The [[Ludens—A Recent History of Humankind]] conversation combines the [[Holotopia:Collective mind|<em>collective mind</em>]] insight and the [[Holotopia:Socialized reality|<em>socialized reality</em>]] insight. </p> |
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| − | <h3><em>Scope</em></h3>
| + | <p>We have adapted to the complex world without vision, by simply giving up. While biologically equipped to evolve as the <em>homo sapiens</em>, we have culturally devolved as the <em>homo ludens</em>—who learns a profession as one would learn the rules of the game; and performs in it competitively. </p> |
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| − | <blockquote><em><b>What</b> do we need to do</em>, to become capable of "changing course"?</blockquote>
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| − | <p>"Man has acquired such decisive power that his future depends essentially on how he will use it", observed Peccei. Imagine if some malevolent entity, perhaps an insane dictator, took control over that power. </p> | |
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| − | <blockquote>The [[Power structure|<em>power structure</em>]] insight shows that no dictator is needed.</blockquote>
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| − | <p>Albeit in democracy, we are in that situation <em>already</em>.</p>
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| − | <p>While the nature of the <em>power structure</em> will become clear as we go along, imagine it, to begin with, as our institutions; or more accurately, as <em>the systems in which we live and work</em> (which we simply call <em>systems</em>).</p>
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| − | <p>Notice that <em>systems</em> have an <em>immense</em> power—<em>over us</em>, because <em>we have to adapt to them</em> to be able to live and work; and <em>over our environment</em>, because by organizing us and using us in a certain specific way, <em>they decide what the effects of our work will be</em>. </p>
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| − | <blockquote>The <em>power structure</em> determines whether the effects of our efforts will be problems, or solutions. </blockquote>
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| − | <h3>Diagnosis</h3>
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| − | <p>How suitable are <em>the systems in which we live and work</em> for their all-important role?</p>
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| − | <blockquote>Evidence shows that they waste a lion's share of our resources. And that they either <em>cause</em> problems, or make us incapable of solving them.</blockquote>
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| − | <p>The root cause of this malady is readily found in the way in which <em>systems</em> evolve. </p>
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| − | <blockquote>Survival of the fittest favors the <em>systems</em> that are predatory, not the ones that are useful. </blockquote>
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| − | <p>[https://youtu.be/zpQYsk-8dWg?t=920 This excerpt] from Joel Bakan's documentary "The Corporation" (which Bakan as a law professor created to <em>federate</em> an insight he considered essential) explains how the most powerful institution on our planet evolved to be a perfect "externalizing machine" ("Externalizing" means maximizing profits by letting someone else bear the costs, notably the people and the environment), just as the shark evolved to be a perfect "killing machine". [https://youtu.be/qsKQiVJkEvI?t=2780 This scene] from Sidney Pollack's 1969 film "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" will illustrate how the <em>power structure</em> affects <em>our own</em> condition.</p>
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| − | <p>The <em>systems</em> provide an ecology, which in the long run shapes our values, and our "human quality". They have the power to <em>socialize</em> us in ways that suit <em>their</em> needs. "The business of business is business"—and if our business will succeed in competition, we <em>must</em> act in a certain way. We either bend and comply—or get replaced. The effect on the <em>system</em> will be the same.</p>
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| − | <p>
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| − | [[File:Bauman-PS.jpeg]]
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| − | </p>
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| − | <p>A consequence, Zygmunt Bauman diagnosed, is that bad intentions are no longer needed for bad things to happen. Through <em>socialization</em>, the <em>power structure</em> can co-opt our duty and commitment; and even our heroism and honor.</p>
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| − | <p>Bauman's insight that even the holocaust was only a consequence and a special case, however extreme, of (what we are calling) the <em>power structure</em>, calls for careful contemplation: Even the concentration camp employees, Bauman argued, were only "doing their job"—in a <em>system</em> whose nature and purpose was beyond their ethical sense, and power to change. </p>
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| − | <p>While our ethical sensitivity is tuned to the <em>power structures</em> of the past, we are committing, in all innocence, the greatest [https://youtu.be/d1x7lDxHd-o massive crime] in human history.</p>
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| − | <blockquote>Our children may not have a livable planet to live on.</blockquote>
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| − | <p>Not because someone broke the rules—<em>but because we follow them</em>.</p>
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| − | <h3>Remedy</h3>
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| − | <p>The fact that we will not "solve our problems" unless we develop the capability to update our <em>systems</em> has not remained unnoticed. </p>
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| − | <p>
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| − | [[File:Jantsch-vision.jpeg]]
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| − | </p>
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| − | <p>The very first step that the The Club of Rome's founders did after its inception, in 1968, was to convene a team of experts, in Bellagio, Italy, to develop a suitable methodology. They gave "making things whole" on the scale of socio-technical systems the name "systemic innovation"—and we adapted that as one of our <em>keywords</em>. </p>
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| − | <p>The work and the conclusions of this team were based on results in the systems sciences. More recently, in "Guided Evolution of society", systems scientist Béla H. Bánáthy made a thorough review of relevant research, and concluded in a truly <em>holotopian</em> tone:</p>
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| − | <blockquote>We are the <em>first generation of our species</em> that has the privilege, the opportunity and the burden of responsibility to engage in the process of our own evolution. We are indeed <em>chosen people</em>. We now have the knowledge available to us and we have the power of human and social potential that is required to initiate a new and historical social function: conscious evolution. But we can fulfill this function only if we develop evolutionary competence by evolutionary learning and acquire the will and determination to engage in conscious evolution. These two are core requirements, because <em>what evolution did for us up to now we have to learn to do for ourselves by guiding our own evolution.</em></blockquote>
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| − | <p>In 2010, Knowledge Federation began to self-organize to become capable of making further headway on this creative frontier. The procedure we developed is simple: We create a [[prototype|<em>prototype</em>]] of a system, and organize a <em>transdisciplinary</em> community and project around it, to update it continuously. This enables the insights reached in the participating disciplines to have real or <em>systemic</em> impact <em>directly</em>.</p>
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| − | <p>Our very first project of this kind, the Barcelona Innovation Ecosystem for Good Journalism in 2011, developed a [[prototype|<em>prototype</em>]] of a public informing that turns perceived problems (that people report directly, through citizen journalism) into <em>systemic</em> understanding of causes and recommendations for action (developed by involving academic and other domain experts, and having their insights made accessible by a communication design team). </p>
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| − | <p>The experience with this <em>prototype</em> revealed a general paradox we were not aware of: The senior domain experts we brought together to represent (in this case) journalism <em>cannot change their own system</em> (their full capacity is engaged in performing their role within the system). What they, however, can and need to do is empower their next-generation (students, junior colleagues, entrepreneurs...) to do that. A year later we created The Game-Changing Game as a generic way to do that—and hence as a "practical way to craft the future". We subsequently created The Club of Zagreb, as an update (<em>necessary</em>, according to this insight) of The Club of Rome. The Holotopia project builds further on the results of this work.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Our portfolio contains about forty [[prototype|<em>prototypes</em>]], each of which illustrates [[systemic innovation|<em>systemic innovation</em>]] in a specific domain. Each <em>prototype</em> is composed by weaving together [[design pattern|<em>design patterns</em>]]—problem-solution pairs, which are ready to be adapted to other design challenges and domains.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The Collaborology <em>prototype</em>, in education, will highlight some of the advantages of this approach.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p> An education that prepares people for yesterday's professions, and only in a certain stage of life, is obviously an obstacle to <em>systemic</em> change. Collaborology implements an education that is in every sense flexible (self-guided, life-long...), and in an <em>emerging</em> area of interest (collaborative knowledge work, as enabled by new technology). By being collaboratively created itself (Collaborology is created and taught by a network of international experts, and offered to learners world-wide), the economies of scale result that <em>dramatically</em> reduce effort. This in addition provides a sustainable business model for developing and disseminating up-to-date knowledge in <em>any</em> domain of interest. By conceiving the course as a design project, where everyone collaborates on co-creating the learning resources, the students get a chance to exercise their "human quality". This in addition gives the students an essential role in the resulting 'knowledge-work ecosystem' (as 'bacteria', extracting 'nutrients') .</p>
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| − | | |
| | </div> </div> | | </div> </div> |
| − |
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| | | | |
| | <div class="row"> | | <div class="row"> |
| − | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>[[Holotopia:Collective mind|<em>Collective mind</em>]]</h2></div> | + | <div class="col-md-3"><h2><em>Academia quo vadis?</em></h2> </div> |
| − | <div class="col-md-7"><h3>Scope</h3> | + | <div class="col-md-7"><p>The [[Academia quo vadis]] conversation combines the [[Holotopia:Socialized reality|<em>socialized reality</em>]] insight and the [[Holotopia:Narrow frame|<em>narrow frame</em>]] insight.</p> |
| − | | + | <p>This is where the academic self-reflective <em>dialog</em> in front of the <em>mirror</em> takes place. Can science step through the <em>mirror</em>—and guide our society along a new evolutionary course?</p> |
| − | <p>We have just seen that our evolutionary challenge and opportunity is to develop the capability to update our institutions or <em>systems</em>, to learn how to make them <em>whole</em>.</p>
| + | <p>The name of this conversation points to a parallel—with the hint that Jesus (in a vision) gave to Peter...</p> |
| − | | |
| − | <blockquote><b>Where</b>—with what system—shall we begin?</blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The handling of information, or metaphorically our society's 'headlights', suggests itself as the answer for several reasons. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>One of the reasons is obvious: If we should use information as guiding light and not competition, our information will need to be different.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>In his 1948 seminal "Cybernetics", Norbert Wiener pointed to another reason: In <em>social</em> systems, communication is what <em>turns</em> a collection of independent individuals into a system. Wiener made that point by talking about ants and bees. It is the nature of the communication that determines a social system's properties, and behavior. Cybernetics has shown—as its main point, and title theme—that "the tie between information and action" has an all-important role, which determines (Wiener used the technical keyword "homeostasis, but let us here use this more contemporary one) the <em>sustainability</em> of a system. The full title of Wiener's book was "Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine". To be able to correct their behavior and maintain inner and outer balance, to be able to "change course" when the circumstances demand that, to be able to continue living and adapting and evolving—a system must have <em>suitable</em> communication and control.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <h3>Diagnosis</h3>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>That is presently <em>not</em> the case with our core systems; and with our civilization as a whole..</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <blockquote>The tie between information and action has been severed, Wiener too observed. </blockquote>
| |
| − | <p>Our society's communication-and-control is broken; it needs to be restored.</p>
| |
| − | <p>
| |
| − | [[File:Bush-Vision.jpg]] | |
| − | </p>
| |
| − | <p>To make that point, Wiener cited an earlier work, Vannevar Bush's 1945 article "As We May Think", where Bush urged the scientists to make the task of revising <em>their</em> communication their <em>next</em> highest priority—the World War Two having just been won.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <blockquote>These calls to action remained, however, without effect.</blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>"As long as a paradox is treated as a problem, it can never be dissolved," observed David Bohm. <em>Wiener too</em> entrusted his insight to the communication whose tie with action had been severed.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>We have assembled a formidable collection of academic results that shared the same fate—to illustrate a general phenomenon we are calling [[Wiener's paradox|<em>Wiener's paradox</em>]]. The link between communication and action having been broken—the academic results will tend to be ignored <em>whenever they challenge the present "course"</em> and point to a new one!</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>To an academic researcher, it may feel disheartening to see so many best ideas of our best minds ignored. Why publish more—if even the most <em>elementary</em> insight that our field has produced, the one that <em>motivated</em> our field and our work, has not yet been communicated to the public?</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>This sentiment is transformed into <em>holotopian</em> optimism when we look at 'the other side of the coin'—the creative frontier that is opening up. We are invited to, we are indeed <em>obliged</em> to reinvent <em>the systems in which we live and work</em>, by recreating the very communication that holds them together. Including, of course, our own, academic system, and the way in which it interoperates with other systems—<em>or fails</em> to interoperate. </p> | |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Optimism will turn into enthusiasm, when we consider also <em>this</em> commonly ignored fact:</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <blockquote>The information technology we now commonly use to communicate with the world was <em>created</em> to enable a paradigm change on that very frontier.</blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>'Electricity', and the 'lightbulb', have just been created—in order to <em>enable</em> the development of the new kinds of 'socio-technical machinery' that our society now urgently needs.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Vannevar Bush pointed to the need for this new paradigm already in his title, "As We May Think". His point was that "thinking" really means making associations or "connecting the dots". And that—given the vast volumes of our information—our knowledge work must be organized <em>in a way that enables us to benefit from each other's thinking</em>. That technology and processes must be devised to enable us to in effect "connect the dots" or think <em>together</em>, as a single mind does. Bush described a <em>prototype</em> system called "memex", which was based on microfilm as technology.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Douglas Engelbart, however, took Bush's idea in a whole new direction—by observing (in 1951!) that when each of us humans are connected to a personal digital device through an interactive interface, and when those devices are connected together into a network—then the overall result is that we are connected together as the cells in a human organism are connected by the nervous system. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Notice that the earlier innovations in this area—including both the clay tablets and the printing press—required that a physical object be <em>transported</em>; this new technology allows us to "create, integrate and apply knowledge" <em>concurrently</em>, as cells in a human nervous system do.</p> | |
| − | | |
| − | <blockquote> We can now develop insights and solutions <em>together</em>! We can have results <em>instantly</em>!</blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Engelbart saw in this new technology exactly what we need to become able to handle the "complexity times urgency" of our problems, which grows at an accelerated rate. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>[https://youtu.be/cRdRSWDefgw This three minute video clip], which we called "Doug Engelbart's Last Wish", offers an opportunity for a pause. Imagine the effects of improving the planetary <em>systems</em>, and our "development, integration and application of knowledge" to begin with. Imagine "the effects of getting 5% better", Engelbart commented with a smile. Then our old man put his fingers on his forehead, and looked up: "I've always imagined that the potential was... large..." The potential is not only large, it is <em>staggering</em>. The improvement that is both necessary and possible is <em>qualitative</em>—from a system that doesn't work, to one that does.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>To Engelbart's dismay, this new "collective nervous system" ended up being use to only make the <em>old</em> processes and systems more efficient. The ones that evolved through the centuries of use of the printing press. The ones that <em>broadcast</em> information. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>
| |
| − | [[File:Giddens-OS.jpeg]]
| |
| − | </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <blockquote>The above observation by Anthony Giddens points to the impact this has had on our culture; and on "human quality".</blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Dazzled by an overload of data, in a reality whose complexity is well beyond our comprehension—we have no other recourse but "ontological security". We find meaning in learning a profession, and performing in it a competitively.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>But that is exactly what <em>binds us</em> to <em>power structure</em>. </p>
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| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | <h3>Remedy</h3>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p><em>What is to be done</em>, to restore the severed link between communication and action?</p>
| |
| − | <blockquote><em>How can we begin to change our collective mind</em>—as our technology enables, and our situation demands?</blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Engelbart left us a clear and concise answer; he called it <em>bootstrapping</em>.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>His point was that only <em>writing</em> about what needs to be done would not have an effect (the tie between information and action having been broken). <em>Bootstrapping</em> means that we consider ourselves as a part in a larger whole; and that we self-organize, and behave, as it may best serve to restore its <em>wholeness</em>. Which practically means that we either <em>create</em> a new system by using our own minds and bodies, or help others do that.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The Knowledge Federation <em>transdiscipline</em> was created by an act of <em>bootstrapping</em>, to enable <em>bootstrapping</em>. What we are calling <em>knowledge federation</em> may now simply be understood as the functioning of a proper <em>collective mind</em>; including all the functions and processes this may require. Obviously, the impending <em>collective mind</em> re-evolution itself requires a <em>system</em>, or an institution, which will assemble and mobilize the required knowledge and human and other resources toward that end. Our first priority must be to secure that. Presently, Knowledge Federation is (a complete <em>prototype</em> of) the <em>transdiscipline</em> for <em>knowledge federation</em>—ready for inspection and deployment. We offer it as a proof-of-concept implementation of our call to action.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The <em>praxis</em> of <em>knowledge federation</em> itself must be <em>federated</em>. In 2008, when Knowledge Federation had its inaugural meeting, two closely related initiatives were formed: Program for the Future (a Silicon Valley-based initiative to continue and complete "Doug Engelbart's unfinished revolution") and Global Sensemaking (an international community of researchers and developers, working on technology and processes for collective sense making). </p>
| |
| − | <p>
| |
| − | [[File:BCN2011.jpg]]<br>
| |
| − | <small>Patty Coulter, Mei Lin Fung and David Price speaking at the 2011 An Innovation Ecosystem for Good Journalism workshop in Barcelona</small>
| |
| − | </p>
| |
| − | <p>We use the above triplet of photos ideographically, to highlight that Knowledge Federation is a true federation—where state of the art knowledge is combined in state of the art <em>systems</em>. The featured participants of our 2011 workshop in Barcelona, where our public informing <em>prototype</em> was created, are Patty Coulter (the Director of Oxford Global Media and Fellow of Green College Oxford, formerly the Director of Oxford University's Reuter Program in Journalism) Mei Lin Fung (the founder of Program for the Future) and David Price (who co-founded both the Global Sensemaking R & D community, and Debategraph—which is now the leading global platform for collective thinking).
| |
| − | </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Other <em>prototypes</em> contributed other <em>design patterns</em> for restoring the severed link between information and action. The Tesla and the Nature of Creativity TNC2015 <em>prototype</em> showed what may constitute the <em>federation</em> of a research result—which is written in an esoteric academic vernacular, and has large potential general interest and impact. The first phase of this <em>prototype</em>, completed through collaboration between the author and our communication design team, turned the academic article into a multimedia object, with intuitive, metaphorical diagrams, and explanatory interviews with the author. The second phase was a high-profile, televised and live streamed event, where the result was made public. The third phase, implemented on Debategraph, modeled proper online collective thinking about the result—including pros and cons, connections with other related results, applications etc. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The Lighthouse 2016 <em>prototype</em> is a conceived as a <em>direct</em> remedy for the <em>Wiener's paradox</em>, created for and with the International Society for the Systems Sciences. This <em>prototype</em> models a system by which an academic community can <em>federate</em> a single message into the public sphere. The message in this case was also relevant—it was whether or not we can rely on "free competition" to guide the evolution and the functioning of our <em>systems</em> (or whether we must use its alternative—namely the knowledge developed in the systems sciences). </p>
| |
| | | | |
| | </div> </div> | | </div> </div> |
| − |
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| − | BBB -->
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| | <div class="row"> | | <div class="row"> |
| − | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>[[Holotopia:Socialized reality|<em>Socialized reality</em>]]</h2></div> | + | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>Future education</h2></div> |
| − | <div class="col-md-7"><h3><em>Scope</em></h3> | + | <div class="col-md-7"><p>The [[Zero to One—Future Education]] conversation is in the context of the <em>narrow frame</em> insight and the <em>convenience paradox</em> insight. </p> |
| − | <p>
| |
| − | <blockquote>"Act like as if you loved your children above all else",</blockquote>
| |
| − | Greta Thunberg, representing her generation, told the political leaders at Davos. <em>Of course</em> the political leaders love their children—don't we all? But what Greta was asking them to do was to 'hit the brakes'; and when the 'bus' they are believed to be 'driving' is inspected, it becomes clear that its 'brakes' too are missing. The job of the politicians is to keep the 'bus on course' (the economy growing) for yet another four-year term. <em>Changing</em> the 'course', or the <em>system</em>, is well beyond what they can do, or even conceive of.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The COVID-19 pandemic may require that we update some of our <em>systems</em>, and ways in which we collaborate—<em>now</em>.</p> | |
| − | | |
| − | <blockquote>So <b>who</b>, what institution or <em>system</em>, will lead us through our <em>next</em> evolutionary task—where we will learn how to recreate <em>the systems in which we live and work</em>; first in <em>knowledge work</em>, and then beyond?</blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Both Jantsch and Engelbart believed that "the university" would have to be the answer; and they made their appeals accordingly. But the universities ignored them—just as they ignored Bush and Wiener before them, and others who followed. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Why?</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Isn't restoring agency to information and power to knowledge a task worthy of academic attention?</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>It is tempting to conclude that the university institution followed the general trend, and evolved as a <em>power structure</em>. But to see solutions, we need to look at deeper causes.</p>
| |
| − | <p>
| |
| − | [[File:Toulmin-Vision2.jpeg]] | |
| − | </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>We readily find them in the way in which the university institution developed.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The academic tradition did not originate as a way to practical knowledge, but to <em>freely</em> pursue knowledge for its own sake, in a way that is <em>disciplined</em> only by the <em>knowledge of knowledge</em> (what we learned about the meaning and purpose of information and knowledge, and about their relationship with truth and reality), which the academic tradition has been developing since antiquity. Wherever the free-yet-disciplined pursuit of knowledge took us, we followed. And as we pointed out in the opening paragraphs of this website, by highlighting the iconic image of Galilei in house arrest,
| |
| − | | |
| − | <blockquote>it was this <em>free</em> pursuit of knowledge that led to the last "great cultural revival".</blockquote>
| |
| − | </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>We asked:
| |
| − | <blockquote>Could a similar advent be in store for us today?</blockquote></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The key to the answer is in the <em>historicity</em> of "the relationship we have with knowledge"—which we let Stephen Toulmin represent. And that is what we here focus on.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>To reach an answer, we follow the lead that Stephen Toulmin left us in the above excerpt, quoted from his last book, "Return to Reason". At the point where the modern university was taking shape, it was the Church and the tradition that had the prerogative of telling the people how to conduct their daily affairs and what to believe in. And as the image of Galilei in house arrest might suggest—they held onto that prerogative most firmly! But the censorship and the prison could not stop an idea whose time had come. They were unable to prevent a completely <em>new</em> way to explore the world to transpire from astrophysics, where it originated, and transform first our pursuit of knowledge—and then our society and culture at large.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>It is therefore natural that at the universities we consider the curation of this <em>approach</em> to knowledge to be our core role in our society. At the universities, we are the heirs and the custodians of a tradition that has historically led to some of <em>the</em> most spectacular evolutionary leaps in human history. Naturally, we remain faithful to that tradition. We do that by meticulously conforming to the methods and the themes of interests of mathematics, physics, philosophy, biology, sociology, philosophy and other traditional academic disciplines, which, we believe, <em>embody</em> the highest standards of <em>knowledge of knowledge</em>. People can learn practical skills at professional schools. It is the <em>university</em> education and the university education alone that can give them up-to-date <em>knowledge of knowledge</em>—and with it the ability to pursue knowledge in the right way in <em>any</em> domain of interest.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>We must ask:</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <blockquote>Can the evolution of the academic tradition, and of our handling of information and knowledge, continue still further? </blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Could the academic tradition, once again, give us a completely <em>new</em> way to explore the world?</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <blockquote>Can the free pursuit of knowledge, curated by the <em>knowledge of knowledge</em>, once again lead to "a great cultural revival" ?</blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <blockquote>Can "a great cultural revival" begin at the university?</blockquote>
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| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | <h3>Diagnosis</h3>
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | <blockquote>In the course of our modernization, we made a <em>fundamental error</em>—whose disastrous long-term consequences cannot be overstated.</blockquote>
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| − | | |
| − | <p>From the traditional culture we have adopted a <em>myth</em> far more disruptive of modernization than the creation myth—the myth is that "truth" means "correspondence with reality"; and that the purpose of information, and of our pursuit of knowledge, is to "know reality objectively", as it truly is.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>During modernization, we only learned to use this <em>myth</em> in a new way. As the members of the <em>homo sapiens</em> species, we've been told, we have the evolutionary prerogative to reach "objective" or "true" knowledge by using our rational faculties (not by Divine revelation)—and based on it, to direct our personal affairs and our society, by making rational decisions. Give us a "true picture of reality"—and we'll know what is best for us, and what is to be done.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>It may take a moment of reflection to see how much this <em>myth</em> permeates our popular culture, our society and institutions; how much it marks "the relationship we have with information"—in all its various manifestations.</p>
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| − | | |
| − | <p>This error has subsequently been detected and reported, but not corrected. (Yes, once again we witness that the link between information and action has been severed.)</p>
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| − | | |
| − | <p>
| |
| − | [[File:Einstein-Watch.jpeg]]
| |
| − | </p>
| |
| − | <p><em>It has turned out that it is simply impossible</em> to open up the 'mechanism of nature', and verify that our ideas and models <em>correspond</em> to the real thing!</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <blockquote>The "reality", the 20th century's scientists and philosophers found out, is not something we discover; it is something we <em>construct</em>. </blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Our "construction of reality" turned out to be a complex and most interesting process, in which our cognitive organs and our society or culture interact. From the cradle to the grave, through innumerably many "carrots and sticks", we are <em>socialized</em> to organize and communicate our experience <em>in a certain specific way</em>. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The vast body of research, and insights, that resulted in this pivotal domain of interest, now allows us and indeed <em>compels us</em> to extend the <em>power structure</em> view of social reality a step further, into the cultural and the cognitive realms.</p>
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| − | | |
| − | <p>In "Social Construction of Reality", Berger and Luckmann left us an analysis of the social process by which the reality is constructed—and pointed to the role that "universal theories" (which determine the relationship we have with information) play in maintaining a given social and political status quo. An example, but not the only one, is the Biblical worldview of Galilei's persecutors.</p>
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| − | | |
| − | <p>To organize and sum up what we above all need to know about the <em>nature</em> of <em>socialization</em>, and its relationship with power, we created the Odin–Bourdieu–Damasio [[thread|<em>thread</em>]], consisting of three short real-life stories or [[vignette|<em>vignettes</em>]]. (The <em>threads</em> are a technical tool we developed based on Vannevar Bush's idea of "trails"; we call them "threads" because we further weave them into <em>patterns</em>.) These insights are so central to <em>holotopia</em>, that we don't hesitate to summarize them also here, however briefly.</p>
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| − | | |
| − | <p>The first, Odin the Horse story, points to the nature of turf struggle, by telling a story that illustrates the turf behavior of horses. </p>
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| − | | |
| − | <p>The second story, involving Pierre Bourdieu observing the modernization of Algerian society during and after the 1954-62 Algerian War of Independence, invite us to look at the human culture as, in effect, a turf—similar to the meadow where Odin the Horse history is played out, only more complex—as much as our culture is more complex than the culture of the horses. This story allows us to see how much of what we call "culture" can emerge through sophisticated turf struggle—where no more than "symbolic power" is used.</p>
| |
| − | <p>
| |
| − | [[File:Bourdieu-insight.jpeg]]
| |
| − | </p>
| |
| − | <p>Bourdieu used interchangeably two keywords—"field" and "game"—to refer to this "turf". Calling it a field invokes the association with something akin to a magnetic field, which orients people's seemingly random or "free" behavior, even without anyone noticing. Calling it a game suggests something that structures or "gamifies" our social existence, by giving everyone a certain role. Those roles, Bourdieu observed, tend to be transmitted from one body to the next—usually without anyone noticing the subtle power play, or "turf behavior", they engender (Bourdieu used the keyword "habitus" to point to the embodied predispositions to act and think in a certain way, which correspond to a role). Everyone bows to the king, and I naturally do that too. For the socialized <em>experience</em>—that our social <em>and</em> natural "reality" is the only one that is possible (which plays a key role in <em>socialization</em>, determining the very structure and the rules of the game), Bourdieu used the keyword <em>doxa</em>. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Antonio Damasio, as cognitive neuroscientist, completes this <em>thread</em> by explaining that we, humans, are <em>not</em> the rational decision makers, as the founding fathers of the Enlightenment made us believe. Each of us has an <em>embodied</em> cognitive filter, which <em>determines what options</em> we rationally consider. This cognitive filter can be <em>programmed</em> through socialization. Damasio's insight shows that <em>socialization</em>, and <em>socialized reality</em> construction, carry far more power than the creators of our laws and institutions were able to imagine.</p>
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| − | | |
| − | <blockquote>But <em>socialized reality</em> construction is not only or even primarily an instrument of power struggle. It is, indeed, also <em>the</em> way in which the traditional culture reproduces itself and evolves. It has served as 'cultural DNA', the only one that was available.</blockquote>
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| − | | |
| − | <p>We may now perceive the earlier culture's "realities"—the belief in God and the Devil and the eternal punishments—as instruments of domination; <em>and</em> we may also see them as instruments of <em>socialization</em>, by which certain cultural values, and certain "human quality" are maintained. Both are correct, and both are relevant. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>It is their historical <em>interplay</em> that is most interesting to study—how the best insights of the best among us, of the historical enlightened beings and "prophets", were diverted to serve the <em>power structure</em>, and turned something quite <em>opposite</em> from what was intended. In the Holotopia project we engage in this sort of study to develop answers to perhaps <em>the</em> most interesting question, in any case from the point of view of the <em>holotopia</em>—What would our world be like, if we <em>liberated</em> the culture from the <em>power structure</em>?</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Some of the consequences of the historical error under consideration (that we adopted <em>reification</em> as "the relationship we have with information") include the following.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <ul>
| |
| − | <li><b>Undue limits to creativity</b>. On the one side we have a vast global army of selected, specially trained and publicly sponsored creative workers having to produce <em>more</em> articles in the traditional academic fields as the <em>only</em> way to be academically legitimate. On the other side of our society, and of our planetary ecosystem, in dire need for <em>new</em> ideas, for <em>new</em> ways to be creative. Imagine the amount of benefit that could be reached in that situation— by <em>liberating</em> the contemporary Galilei to once again bring completely <em>new</em> ways to create and handle knowledge!</li>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <li><b>Severed link between information and action</b>. The (perceived) purpose of information being to complete the 'reality puzzle'—every new piece appears to be equally relevant as the others, and necessary for completing this project. In the sciences, and in media informing, we keep producing large volumes of data every minute—as Neil Postman diagnosed. As the ocean of documents rises, we begin to drown in it. Informing us the people in some functional way becomes impossible.</li>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <li><b>Loss of cultural heritage</b>. We may as well here focus on the cultural heritage whose purpose was to cultivate "human quality". Already this trivial observation might suffice to make a point: With the threat of eternal fire on the one side, and the promise of heavenly pleasures on the other, a 'field' is created that orients the people's behavior toward what is considered more ethical. To see that this is, however, only the tip of an iceberg, join us for a minute on a thought experiment—an imaginary visit to a cathedral. There is awe-inspiring architecture; frescos of masters of old on the walls; we hear Bach cantatas; and there's of course the ritual. All this comprises an ecosystem—where emotions such as respect and awe make one to listening and learning in certain ways, and advancing further. The complex dynamics of our <em>cultural</em> ecosystem, and the way we handled it, bear a strong analogy with our biophysical environment, with one notable difference: There we have neither concepts nor methods, we have nothing equivalent to the temperature and the CO2 measurements, to even diagnose the problems—not to speak about proposing legislation and remedies. </li>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <li><b>"Human quality" abandoned to <em>power structure</em></b>. Advertising is everywhere. And <em>explicit</em> advertising too is only a tip of an iceberg, which consists of a variety of ways in which "symbolic power" is being used to <em>socialize</em> us in ways that suit the <em>power structure</em> interests—as a rule without anyone's awareness, as Bourdieu observed. The organized and <em>deliberate</em>, and even research-based manipulation should, however, not be underestimated. And here the [https://youtu.be/lOUcXK_7d_c person and the story of Edward Bernays], Freud's American nephew who became "the pioneer of modern public relations and propaganda", is iconic.</li>
| |
| − | </ul>
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | <p>A conclusion suggests itself.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <blockquote>The Enlightenment did not liberate us from power-related reality construction, as it is believed.</blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <blockquote>Our <em>socialization</em> only changed hands—from the kings and the clergy, to the corporations and the media.</blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Ironically, our carefully cultivated self-identity—as "objective observers of reality"—keeps us, academic researchers, and information and knowledge at large, on the 'back seat'—and without impact. We can, and do, diagnose problems; but we cannot be an active agent in their solution.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <h3>Remedy</h3>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>In the spirit of the <em>holoscope</em>, we introduce an answer by a metaphorical image, the Mirror <em>ideogram</em>. As the <em>ideograms</em> tend to, the Mirror <em>ideogram</em> too renders the essence of a situation, in a way that points to a way in which the situation may need to be handled—<em>and</em> to some subtler points as well.</p>
| |
| | | | |
| | + | <p>In that context we may see <em>why</em>, as Ken Robinson pointed out, "education kills creativity": Education has evolved as a way to <em>socialize</em> people to think and act within the <em>narrow frame</em>. </p> |
| | + | <p>The title of this conversation is borrowed from Peter Thiel's book, where it's intended to point to <em>a certain kind of</em> creativity. We know all about taking things that already exist from one to two, and to three and up to one hundred and beyond. What we need is the capability to conceive of and create things that <em>do not yet exist</em>.</p> |
| | + | <p>Can we free education from its role of <em>socializing</em> people into a worldview, and re-conceive it to have "human development" as goal? </p> |
| | </div> </div> | | </div> </div> |
| | | | |
| − | <div class="row">
| |
| − | <div class="col-md-3"></div>
| |
| − | <div class="col-md-6">
| |
| − |
| |
| − | <p>The main message of the Mirror [[ideogram|<em>ideogram</em>]] is that the free-yet-methodical pursuit of knowledge, which distinguishes the academic tradition, has brought us to a certain singular situation, which requires that we respond in a certain specific way. The <em>mirror</em> is inviting us, and indeed <em>compelling</em> us to interrupt the busy work we are doing, and to self-reflect in a similar manner and about similar themes as Socrates taught, at the point of the Academia's inception many centuries ago.</p>
| |
| | | | |
| − | <p>When we look at a mirror, we see ourselves—and we see ourselves <em>in the world</em>. The [[mirror|<em>mirror</em>]] metaphor is intended to reflect two insights, or two changes in our habitual self-identity and self-perception, which a self-reflection about the underlying issues of meaning and purpose, based on the academic insights reached in the past century, will lead us to. </p>
| |
| − |
| |
| − | <p>The first insight is that we must put an end to <em>reification</em>. Seeing ourselves in the <em>mirror</em> is intended to signify that the methods and vocabularies of the academic disciplines were not something that objectively existed, and was only discovered. <em>We</em> (the founders of our disciplines) <em>created</em> them. For <em>many</em> reasons, some of which have been stated above, we must liberate ourselves, and the people, from <em>reification</em> of our institutions, our worldviews, and of the very concepts we use to communicate. </p>
| |
| − |
| |
| − | <blockquote>The liberation from <em>reification</em> is the liberation from the <em>systems</em> we have been socialized to accept as "reality"—and hence also from the <em>power structure</em>.</blockquote>
| |
| − | </div>
| |
| − | <div class="col-md-3">
| |
| − | <p>
| |
| − | [[File:Mirror2.jpg]]<br>
| |
| − | <small>Mirror <em>ideogram</em></small>
| |
| − | </p>
| |
| − | </div> </div>
| |
| | <div class="row"> | | <div class="row"> |
| − | <div class="col-md-3"></div> | + | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>Future business</h2></div> |
| | <div class="col-md-7"> | | <div class="col-md-7"> |
| − | <p>The second consequence is the beginning of <em>accountability</em>. The world we see ourselves in is a world that needs <em>new</em> ideas, new ways of thinking, and of <em>being</em>. It's a world in dire need for creative yet methodical and <em>accountable</em> change. We see the key role that information and knowledge have in that world, and that situation. </p> | + | <p>The [[Co-opt Wall Street—the Future of Business]] conversation takes place in the context provided by the Convenience Paradox <em>insight</em> and the Power Structure <em>insight</em>.</p> |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | <blockquote>We see ourselves <em>holding</em> the key.</blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>An important point here is that the <em>academia</em> finds itself in a much larger and more important role than the one it was originally conceived for. The reason is a historical accident: The successes of science discredited the <em>foundations</em>, beginning from its <em>socialized reality</em>, on which the traditional culture relied in its function.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The key question then presents itself:</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <blockquote>How should we continue?</blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Yes, we do want to respond to our new role; indeed <em>we have to</em>, because nobody else can.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>At the same time—we do want to continue our tradition, of free–yet-methodical pursuit of knowledge for its own sake.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The most interesting insight reflected by the <em>mirror</em> is that we <em>can</em> do both. There is a way to <em>both</em> take care of the fundamental problem (liberate ourselves and the people from <em>reification</em>) <em>and</em> respond to this larger role.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Philosophically, <em>and</em> practically, this seemingly impossible or 'magical' way out of our double-bind, is to walk through the <em>mirror</em>. This can be done in only two steps.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The first is to use what philosopher Villard Van Orman Quine called "truth by convention"—which we adapted as one of our <em>keywords</em>.</p>
| |
| − | <p>
| |
| − | [[File:Quine–TbC.jpeg]] | |
| − | </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Quine opened "Truth by Convention" by observing:</p>
| |
| − | <blockquote>
| |
| − | "The less a science has advanced, the more its terminology tends to rest on an uncritical assumption of mutual understanding. With increase of rigor this basis is replaced piecemeal by the introduction of definitions. The interrelationships recruited for these definitions gain the status of analytic principles; what was once regarded as a theory about the world becomes reconstrued as a convention of language. Thus it is that some flow from the theoretical to the conventional is an adjunct of progress in the logical foundations of any science."
| |
| − | </blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>But if <em>truth by convention</em> has been the way in which <em>the sciences</em> augment the rigor of their logical foundations—why not use it to update the logical foundations of <em>knowledge work</em> at large?</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>As we are using this [[keyword|<em>keyword</em>]], the [[truth by convention|<em>truth by convention</em>]] is the kind of truth that is common in mathematics: "Let <em>X</em> be <em>Y</em>. Then..." and the argument follows. Insisting that <em>x</em> "really is" <em>y</em> is obviously meaningless. A convention is valid only <em>within a given context</em>—which may be an article, or a theory, or a methodology.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The second step is to use <em>truth by convention</em> to define an <em>epistemology</em>.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>We defined [[design epistemology|<em>design epistemology</em>]] by turning the core of our proposal (to change the relationship we have with information—by considering it a human-made thing, and adapting information and the way we handle it to the functions that need to be served) into a convention.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Notice that nothing has been changed in the traditional-academic scheme of things. The <em>academia</em> has only been <em>extended</em>; a new way of thinking and working has been added to it, for those who might want to engage in that new way. On the 'other side of the <em>mirror</em>', we see ourselves and what we do as (part of) the 'headlights' and the 'light'; and we self-organize, and act, and use our creativity freely-yet-responsibly, and create a variety of new methods and results—just as the founding father of science did, at the point of its inception. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>In the "Design Epistemology" research article (published in the special issue of the Information Journal titled "Information: Its Different Modes and Its Relation to Meaning", edited by Robert K. Logan) where we articulated this proposal, we made it clear that the <em>design epistemology</em> is only one of the many ways to manifest this approach. We drafted a parallel between the <em>modernization</em> of science that can result in this way and the emergence of modern art: By defining an <em>epistemology</em> and a <em>methodology</em> by convention, we can do in the sciences as the artists did—when they liberated themselves from the demand to mirror reality, by using the techniques of Old Masters. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <blockquote>As the artists did—we can become creative <em>in the very way in which we practice our profession.</em></blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>To complete this proposal—to the <em>academia</em> to 'step through the <em>mirror</em>' and to guide our society to a new reality—we developed the two <em>prototypes</em>—of the <em>holoscope</em> (to model the academic reality on the other side) and of the <em>holotopia</em> (to model the social reality).</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Technically or academically, each of them is a model of a <em>paradigm</em>—hence we have a <em>paradigm</em> in <em>knowledge work</em> ready to foster for a larger societal <em>paradigm</em>—exactly as the case was in Galilei's time.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>We bring these lofty and "up in the air" possibilities down to earth, by discussing one of the more immediately practical consequences of the proposed course of action.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>
| |
| − | [[File:Beck-frame.jpeg]]
| |
| − | </p>
| |
| − | <p>Beck continued the above observation:</p>
| |
| − | <blockquote>
| |
| − | "Max Weber's 'iron cage' – in which he thought humanity was condemned to live for the foreseeable future – is for me the prison of <em>categories and basic assumptions</em> of classical social, cultural and political sciences."
| |
| − | </blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | <blockquote><em>Reification</em> is what keeps us in 'iron cage'.</blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <blockquote><em>Truth by convention</em> is an academically rigorous way out.</blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The [[keyword|<em>keywords</em>]] we've been using all along are all defined by convention.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The discussions of two examples—of [[design|<em>design</em>]] and [[implicit information|<em>implicit information</em>]]—which we offer separately, and here only summarize—will illustrate subtle yet central advantages this approach offers. Each of those [[keyword|<em>keywords</em>]] has been proposed to corresponding academic communities, and well received. Hence they are also [[prototype|<em>prototypes</em>]]—illustrating the possibility and the need for assigning purpose, by convention, to already <em>existing</em> academic fields and practices.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The definition of <em>design</em> was proposed to the design community as a way to develop the logical foundations for design as an academic discipline. Concretely, the PhD Design online community asked the question, "What does it mean to give a doctorate in design? What shall we base it on?" The natural answer, the community leaders thought, would be classical philosophy. It is, after all, a <em>philosophy</em> doctorate we are awarding. We proposed that classical philosophy as foundation also has its problems. But that we can <em>design</em> a foundation—by using <em>truth by convention</em>, and the approach we've drafted. We offer the fact that Danish Designers chose our presentation to be repeated as opening keynote at their anniversary conference, out of so many at the triennial conference of European Academy of Design, as a confirmation that the design community found our proposal useful. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Its salient feature was to define <em>design</em> as "alternative to <em>tradition</em>", where <em>design</em> and <em>tradition</em> are two alternative ways to <em>wholeness</em>. <em>Tradition</em> relies on spontaneous, Darwinian-like evolution. We practice <em>design</em> when we consider ourselves accountable for the <em>wholeness</em> of the result. The point here is that when <em>tradition</em> cannot be relied on—<em>design</em> must be in place.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>In the light of this definition, the bus with candle headlights can be understood as a result of a transition: We are no longer <em>traditional</em> (our technology has evolved by <em>design</em>); But we are not yet <em>designing</em>—because "the relationship we have with information" is still <em>traditional</em>. The core of our proposal can now be understood as the proposal to <em>complete</em> modernization. <em>Truth by convention</em> can be understood as a fundamental or academic technical device by which this can be done—in the manner of <em>continuing</em> and further developing the core tenets of the academic tradition.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The definition of <em>implicit information</em> and of <em>visual literacy</em> as "literacy associated with <em>implicit information</em> for the International Visual Literacy Association was in spirit similar—and the point was similarly central.</p>
| |
| − | <p>
| |
| − | [[File:Whowins.jpg]]
| |
| − | </p>
| |
| − | <p>We showed the above <em>ideogram</em> as depicting a situation where two kinds of information—the <em>explicit information</em> with explicit, factual and verbal warning in a black-and-white rectangle, and the visual and "cool" rest—meet each other in a direct duel. Our immeiate point was that the <em>implicit information</em> wins "hands down" (or else this would not be a cigarette advertising). Our larger point was that while our legislation, ethical sensibilities and "official" culture at large are focused on <em>explicit information</em>, our culture is largely created through subtle <em>implicit information</em>. Hence we need a <em>literacy</em> to be able to decode those messages. It is easy to see how this line of thought and action directly continues what's been told above about the negative consequences of <em>reification</em>. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | </div> </div>
| |
| | | | |
| − | <!-- XXX | + | <p>How can the <em>holotopia</em> overcome the existing <em>power structure</em>? No conflict is needed; we can <em>co-opt</em> the powerful!</p> |
| | + | <p>The key is to see that the power of the powerful is an illusory one—only <em>borrowed</em> from the <em>power structure</em>, as compensation for services. The price paid is of course <em>wholeness</em>—both personal and systemic. It is the prerogative of <em>power structure</em> to make us pursue "power" <em>against</em> our interests.</p> |
| | + | <p>The Adbusters left us a useful keyword, "decooling"; a <em>decooling</em> of our popular notions of success and power that is ready to take shape, in the context of those mentioned two insights.</p> |
| | + | </div></div> |
| | | | |
| | + | ----- |
| | <div class="row"> | | <div class="row"> |
| − | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>[[Holotopia:Narrow frame|<em>Narrow frame</em>]]</h2></div> | + | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>How to put an end to war</h2></div> |
| − | <div class="col-md-7"><h3><em>Scope</em></h3> | + | <div class="col-md-7"><p>The [[How to put an end to war]] conversation takes place in the context of the [[Holotopia:Power_structure|<em>power structure</em>]] insight and the [[Holotopia:Socialized reality|<em>socialized reality</em>]] insight. </p> |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The question we'll explore here is the one posed by the Modernity <em>ideogram</em>: <b>How</b> do we need to "look at the world, try to comprehend and handle it". </p> | |
| − | | |
| − | <p>We build part of our case for the <em>holoscope</em> and the <em>holotopia</em> by developing an analogy between the <em>last</em> "great cultural revival", where a <em>fundamental</em> change of the way we look at the world (from traditional/Biblical, to rational/scientific) effortlessly caused nearly <em>everything</em> to change. Notice that to meet <em>that</em> sort of a change, we do not need to convince the political and business leaders, we do not need to occupy Wall Street. It is the prerogative of our, academic occupation to uphold and update and give to our society this most powertful agent of change—the standard of "right" knowledge.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | <h3>Diagnosis</h3>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <blockquote>So how <em>should</em> we look at the world, try to comprehend it and handle it? <br>
| |
| − | Nobody knows! </blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Of course, countess books and articles have been written that could inform an answer to this most timely question. But no consensus has emerged—or even a consensus about a <em>method</em> by which that could be achieved. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>That being the case, we'll begin this diagnostic process by simply sharing what <em>we</em>'ve been told while we were growing up. Which is roughly as follows.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>As members of the <em>homo sapiens</em> species, we have the evolutionary privilege to be able to understand the world, and to make rational choices based on such understanding. Give us a correct model of the natural world, and we'll know exactly how to go about satisfying "our needs", which we of course know because we can experience them directly. But the traditions got it all wrong! Being unable to understand how the nature works, they put a "ghost in the machine", and made us pray to the ghost to give us what we needed. Science corrected this error. It <em>removed</em> the "ghost", and told us how 'the machine' <em>really</em> works. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>"Truth", or "scientific" understanding of real-life matters, is what can be explained by using deductive reasoning from this new "reality picture", what follows logically from it, and only that. Isn't this how we, finally, understood that women can't fly on broomsticks—that this would violate some scientifically established natural laws?</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Perhaps no rational person would <em>write</em> this sort of "philosophy". But—and this is one of our key points in this diagnosis—this "philosophy" has <em>not</em> been written. It simply <em>emerged</em>—around the middle of the 19th century, when Adam and Moses as cultural heroes were replaced for so many of us by Darwin and Newton. Science originated, and shaped its disciplinary divisions and procedures <em>before</em> that time, while still the tradition and the Church had the prerogative of telling people how to see the world, and what values to uphold. When the latter lost popular trust, the people were left to their own devices—to develop a new, "scientific" understanding of everyday matters; from whatever scraps of the 19th century science appeared to be suitable.</p>
| |
| | | | |
| − | <blockquote>It is this ad-hoc scrapbook of 19th century ideas, frozen into a "reality picture", that most modern people, including surprisingly many scientists, still consider as "scientific worldview".</blockquote>
| + | <p>Alfred Nobel had the right idea: Empower the creative people, and the humanity's problems will naturally be solved. But when applied to the cause of peace, our creativity has largely been restricted to palliative approaches (resolving specific conflicts and improving specific situations). </p> |
| − | | + | <p>What would it take to <em>really</em> put an end to war—once and for all? And to turn political strife into collaboration?</p> |
| − | <p>From a collection of reasons why this popular way to create truth and meaning needs to be updated, we here mention only two.</p> | |
| − | | |
| − | <p>
| |
| − | [[File:Heisenberg–frame.jpeg]]
| |
| − | </p>
| |
| − | <blockquote>The first reason is that the nature is <em>not</em> a mechanism.</blockquote>
| |
| − | <p>The mechanistic or "classical" worldview of 19th century's science was disproved and disowned by modern science. It has turned out that even the <em>physical</em> phenomena cannot be understood by reasoning as we do when we try to understand a machine.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Werner Heisenberg, one of the progenitors of this research, expected that the largest impact of modern physics would be <em>on popular culture</em>—that it would lead to (what Peccei called) a "great cultural revival", by removing (what he called) "the narrow and rigid frame"—the way of looking at the world that our popular culture adopted from the 19th century's science—which damaged culture and <em>prevented</em> it from evolving. In "Physics and Philosophy" Heisenberg described how the destruction of religious and other traditions on which the continuation of culture and "human quality" depended, and the dominance of "instrumental" thinking and values (which Bauman called "adiaphorisation") followed from the assumptions that the modern physics <em>proved</em> were wrong. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <blockquote>True, Heisenberg might have responded to the argument (that what is popularly thought of as "scientific worldview" helped us see that women can't fly on broomsticks), the <em>narrow frame</em> enabled us to eliminate so many of the superstitions our ancestors were living with; but we also threw out the baby (culture) with the bath water!</blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Needless to say, also this <em>Heisenberg's</em> insight remained without due action—as just another casualty of the <em>Wiener's paradox</em>.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>In 2005, Hans-Peter Dürr, Heisenberg's intellectual "heir", co-authored the Potsdam Manifesto, whose title and message was "We have to learn to think in a new way". The new way of thinking, conspicuously impregnated by "seeing things whole" and seeing ourselves as part of a larger whole, was shown to follow from the worldview of new physics, and the environmental and larger social crisis.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <blockquote>The second reason is that even mechanisms, or more precisely the "classical" systems, when they are "complex"—as social and natural systems undoubtedly are—cannot be understood in causal terms.</blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>We offer this as the second core insight that we the people need to acquire from the systems sciences, and from cybernetics in particular.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>
| |
| − | [[File:MC-Bateson-vision.jpeg]]
| |
| − | </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>It has been said that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. There is a <em>scientific</em> reason for that: The "hell" (which you may imagine as the global issues, or as the destination toward which our 'bus' is currently taking us) is largely composed of "side effects" of our best efforts and "solutions"—of relationships that are obscured from us by the system's nonlinearity; of boomerang effects of our best intentions reaching us through the system's many 'feedback loops'. To see just how consistently simple causality is popularly considered as "modern" or even "scientific" thinking, what disastrous consequences this has had, and what wonderful possibilities have remained in its shadow—is to see the <em>holotopia</em>.
| |
| − | <p>
| |
| − | [https://youtu.be/nXQraugWbjQ?t=57 Hear Mary Catherine Bateson] (cultural anthropologist and cybernetician, and the daughter of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson who pioneered both fields) say:
| |
| − | <blockquote>
| |
| − | "The problem with Cybernetics is that it is not an academic discipline that belongs in a department. It is an attempt to correct an erroneous way of looking at the world, and at knowledge <em>in general</em>. (...) Universities do not have departments of epistemological therapy!"
| |
| − | </blockquote>
| |
| − | </p> | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | <h3>Remedy</h3>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The remedy we proposed is to spell out the rules, by defining a <em>general-purpose methodology</em> as a convention; and by turning it into a <em>prototype</em> and developing it continuously—to remain consistent with the state of the art of relevant knowledge, technology, and our society's needs.</p> | |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Our <em>prototype</em> is called Polyscopic Modeling <em>methodology</em>, and nicknamed <em>polyscopy</em>. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <blockquote>By defining a <em>methodology</em>, we can <em>define</em> an approach to knowledge.</blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p><em>Polyscopy</em>, for instance, specifies that for "knowledge" to be real knowledge, <em>information</em> must be <em>federated</em>. This means that we must abolish the habit of throwing out whatever fails to fit our "scientific worldview", or <em>socialized reality</em> or <em>narrow frame</em>. "Knowledge" maintained by <em>ignoring</em> counter-evidence does not merit that name. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>This does not mean, of course, that anything goes. Rather, it demands a <em>praxis</em> that may be understood by analogy with constitutional democracy—in the realm of ideas. As even a hateful criminal has the right for a fair trial, so does an idea have the right to be considered. Based on this simple rule of thumb, we would, for instance, be advised to <em>not</em> ignore Buddhism because we don't find it appealing, or because we don't believe in reincarnation. The work of <em>knowledge federation</em> is here similar to the work of a dutiful attorney—it is to carefully sift through the heritage, find pieces that we <em>may</em> need to integrate; and support them with a convincing case.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p><em>Knowledge federation</em> turns insights and data into principles and rules of thumb, which help us orient action. Especially valuable are the ones we call <em>gestalts</em>. A <em>gestalt</em> is an interpretation of a situation that suggests suitable action. "Our house is on fire" is a canonical example. This <em>keyword</em> allows us to <em>define</em> the intuitive notion "informed"—as having a <em>gestalt</em> that is appropriate to one's situation. You will easily recognize now that we'll be using this idea all along, by rendering our general situation as the Modernity <em>ideogram</em>, and our academic one as the Mirror <em>ideogram</em>. And that we are making headway toward a third—the <em>holotopia</em> vision. Suitable techniques for communicating and 'proving' or <em>justifying</em> such claims are offered, most of which are developed by generalizing the standard toolkit of science.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>A parabolic image will help us see some practical consequences of this approach. Imagine you are talking on the phone with your neighbor, that he's at work and you are at home, and that you see that his house is on fire. Yet you tell him about the sale in the neighborhood fishing gear store. While from a <em>factual</em> point of view nothing is wrong (your neighbor is an avid fisherman, and the sale you are telling him about will deeply interested him), in this new "reality" we are proposing you are being untruthful and dangerously deceptive, <em>because a wrong gestalt is implicit</em> in the "reality picture" you present. You will easily see how this reflects upon our conventional media informing, and the way in which it constructs the "reality" we are living in.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The Polyscopic Modeling <em>methodology</em> is defined as a convention. We could turn <em>anything</em> into a convention—and it would be fine as long as it serves the purpose; as long as it "works". We, however, chose to <em>federate</em> this <em>methodology</em>, and turn it into a <em>prototype</em>. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <blockquote>This gives us a way to make the idea of "right" information this <em>methodology</em> represents a function of relevant insights reached in the sciences; and to allow it to evolve.</blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>To illustrate this approach, and to point at some further nuances that are worth highlighting, we now describe a single instance of a source that has been <em>federated</em> in this way—and to give due credit.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>A situation with overtones of a crisis, closely similar to the one we now have in our handling of information at large, arose in the early days of computer programming, when the buddying industry undertook ambitious software projects—which resulted in thousands of lines of "spaghetti code", which nobody was able to understand and correct. [https://holoscope.info/2019/02/07/knowledge-federation-dot-org/#InformationHolon The story] is interesting, but here we only highlight the a couple of main points and lessons learned.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>
| |
| − | [[File:Dahl-Vision.-R.jpeg]]
| |
| − | </p>
| |
| − | <p>They are drawn from the "object oriented methodology", developed in the 1960s by Old-Johan Dahl and Krysten Nygaard. The first one is that—to understand a complex system—<em>abstraction</em> must be used. We must be able to <em>create</em> concepts on distinct levels of generality, representing also distinct angles of looking (which, you'll recall, we called <em>aspects</em>). But that is exactly the core point of <em>polyscopy</em>, suggested by the methodology's very name.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The second point we'd like to highlight is is the <em>accountability</em> for the method. Any sufficiently complete programming language including the native "machine language" of the computer will allow the programmers to create <em>any</em> sort of program. The creators of the "programming methodologies", however, took it upon themselves to provide the programmers the kind of programming tools that would not only enable them, but even <em>compel</em> them to write comprehensible, reusable, well-structured code. To see how this reflects upon our theme at hand, our proposal to add systemic self-organization to the <em>academia</em>'s repertoire of capabilities, imagine that an unusually gifted young man has entered the <em>academia</em>; to make the story concrete, let's call him Pierre Bourdieu. Young Bourdieu will spend a lifetime using the toolkit the <em>academia</em> has given him. Imagine if what he produces, along with countless other selected creative people, is equivalent to "spaghetti code" in computer programming! Imagine the level of improvement that this is pointing to!</p>
| |
| | | | |
| | + | <p>Gandhi and Arne Næss...</p> |
| | </div> </div> | | </div> </div> |
| | | | |
| | <div class="row"> | | <div class="row"> |
| − | <div class="col-md-3"></div> | + | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>The largest contribution to knowledge</h2></div> |
| − | <div class="col-md-6">
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The object oriented methodology provided a template called "object"—which "hides implementation and exports function". What this means is that an object can be "plugged into" more general objects based on the functions it produces—without inspecting the details of its code! (But those details are made available for inspection; and of course also for continuous improvement.)</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The solution for structuring information we provided in <em>polyscopy</em>, called <em>information holon</em>, is closely similar. Information, represented in the Information <em>ideogram</em> as an "i", is depicted as a circle on top of a square. The circle represents the point of it all (such as "the cup is whole"); the square represents the details, the side views. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>When the <em>circle</em> is a <em>gestalt</em>, it allows this to be integrated or "exported" as a "fact" into <em>higher-level</em> insights; and it allows various and heterogeneous insights on which it is based to remain 'hidden', but available for inspection, in the <em>square</em>. When the <em>circle</em> is a <em>prototype</em> it allows the multiplicity of insights that comprise the <em>square</em> to have a direct <em>systemic</em> impact, or agency.</p>
| |
| − | </div> | |
| − | | |
| − | <div class="col-md-3">
| |
| − | | |
| − | [[File:Information.jpg]]<br>
| |
| − | <small>Information <em>ideogram</em></small>
| |
| | | | |
| | + | <div class="col-md-7"><p>What might be the <em>largest</em> possible contribution to human knowledge? We converse about this theme in the context of the <em>collective mind</em> insight and the <em>narrow frame</em> insight.</p> |
| | + | <p>An academic researcher may require uncommon courage to even consider the possibility that the great work she has published may have no social impact whatsoever—because the structure of our <em>collective mind</em> prevents impact. In what way will our knowledge and our knowledge work need to change?</p> |
| | + | <p>It is not difficult to see why, in such circumstances, the <em>systemic</em> contributions to knowledge (improvements of the processes and systems by which knowledge is handled in our society) are likely to be distinctly larger than any <em>specific</em> ones. And that an even <em>larger</em> contributions will be the ones that innovate the systems and processes by which those systemic solutions are <em>updated</em>, and allowed to evolve further.</p> |
| | + | <p>This conversation is about our <em>knowledge federation</em> proposal. </p> |
| | </div> </div> | | </div> </div> |
| | | | |
| | <div class="row"> | | <div class="row"> |
| − | <div class="col-md-3"></div> | + | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>Religion beyond belief</h2></div> |
| − | <div class="col-md-7">
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The <em>prototype</em> <em>polyscopic</em> book manuscript titled "<em>Information</em> Must Be <em>Designed</em>" book manuscript is structured as an <em>information holon</em>. Here the claim made in the title (which is the same we made in the opening of this presentation by talking about the bus with candle headlights) is <em>justified</em> in four chapters of the book—each of which presents a specific angle of looking at it.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>It is customary in computer methodology design to propose a programming language that implements the methodology—and to <em>bootstrap</em> the approach by creating a compiler for that language in the language itself. In this book we did something similar. The book's four chapters present four angles of looking at the general issue of information, identify anomalies and propose remedies—which are the <em>design patterns</em> of the proposed <em>methodology</em>. The book then uses the <em>methodology</em> to justify the claim that motivates it—that makes a case for the proposed <em>paradigm</em>, by using the <em>paradigm</em>. </p>
| |
| | | | |
| | + | <div class="col-md-7"><p>The [[Liberation—The Future of Religion]] conversation has the Socialized Reality <em>insight</em> and the Convenience Paradox <em>insight</em> as context.</p> |
| | + | <p>In <em>traditional</em> cultures, religion served to connect each person to a purpose, and people together into a community. Can a completely different idea of <em>religion</em> play a similar role in <em>this</em> time?</p> |
| | + | <p>Can we put an end to religion-inspired hatred, terrorism and conflict—by <em>evolving</em> religion further?</p> |
| | </div> </div> | | </div> </div> |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | <div class="row"> | | <div class="row"> |
| − | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>[[Holotopia:Convenience paradox|<em>Convenience paradox</em>]]</h2></div> | + | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>Future art</h2></div> |
| − | <div class="col-md-7"><h3><em>Scope</em></h3>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>In this last of the <em>five insights</em> we take up perhaps the most interesting question that remained:</p>
| |
| − | <blockquote><b>Why</b> is "a great cultural revival" realistically possible?</blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p><em>Why</em> is the <em>holotopia</em> a better alternative? What is to be gained by "changing course"—and instead of reaching out for all the fun and pleasurable <em>things</em> that an advanced material civilization has to offer—engage in something as elusive and distant as "human development"?</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>In Galilei's time, concern with the "original sin" and "eternal punishment" were soon to be replaced; happiness and beauty would be lived here and now, and elevated and celebrated by the arts. What might the <em>next</em> "great cultural revival" be like? </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <h3>Diagnosis</h3>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <blockquote>We (the <em>power structures</em> we compose) have done the same to <em>culture</em> and to ourselves, as we did to natural environment. </blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>With one notable difference.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <blockquote>We do not have 'a science of culture'—which would give us the equivalent of the temperature and the CO2 measurements, so that we may even <em>hope</em> to turn this into an issue!</blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>By looking at the world through the <em>narrow frame</em>, by seeing the world as a machine and focusing on immediate causality, we have made <em>convenience</em> (or "instant gratification") the value that orients our private pursuits; and <em>egotism</em> (or "egocenteredness") the value that orients our social ones.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Our point here will be that this is not only leading us into a trap through the social and natural "feedback loops", as we have already seen—but also <em>directly</em>, by separating us from the kind of happiness and fulfillment that only culture, and "human development" can lead to. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | <h3>Remedy</h3>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Here too there is an insight, a rule of thumb, that reverses our "pursuit of happiness" quite thoroughly; and leads us to a realm of fulfillment that most of us consider possible.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>We've called it "the best kept secret of human culture", and offered it for dialog and elaboration as one of our selected <em>ten themes</em>. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Long story short—there is an incomparably better way to be human, than what we've known and experienced.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>This is what attracted our distant ancestors to persons like the Moses, the Buddha, the Christ or Mohammad. Yet always—the <em>power structure</em> managed to divert the <em>way</em> they were pointing to into something quite different, and at not rarely into <em>its very opposite</em>! </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>So what can <em>we</em> do that is different?</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>We can introduce <em>knowledge of knowledge</em>; offer, and teach <em>information about information</em>. We can <em>create</em> a communication channel, which is wide enough and clear enough for these things to be seen!</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>As soon as we <em>begin</em> to do that, to <em>federate</em> suitable insights to illuminate that realm of possibilities, the <em>convenience paradox</em> is clearly seen.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The <em>convenience paradox</em> insight is that <em>convenience</em> is a deceptive and useless value, behind which <em>enormous</em> cultural opportunities have remained hidden. The idea of a "couch potato" provides a common-sense illustration—but, we show, the depth and breadth of possibilities for improving our condition through long-term cultivation is beyond what most of us will dare to consider possible.</p>
| |
| − | <p>
| |
| − | [[File:LaoTzu-vision.jpeg]]
| |
| − | </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Human <em>wholeness</em> does exist; and it feels, and looks, incomparably better than most of us will dare to imagine. It is this that drove people to the Buddha, Christ, Mohammed and other founders of religion. We represent them all here by Lao Tzu, who is often considered the founder of "Taoism". "Tao" literally means "way". The point here is to develop one's way of live, and culture, based on on <em>where the way is leading to</em>—and not (only) based on how attractive a direction may feel at the moment.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The most fascinating insight is reached as soon as we ignore the differences in worldview, what the adherents of different religion "believe in"—and pay attention to the <em>symbolic environment</em> they produce, and the kind of values and way of being they nourish. Compare, for instance, the above Lao Tzu's observations with what Christ told his disciples in the Sermon on the Mount. </p>
| |
| − | <p>
| |
| − | [[File:Huxley-vision.jpeg]]
| |
| − | </p>
| |
| − | <p>Most interestingly, even a superficial <em>federation</em> (when we no longer focus on what religious traditions "believe in", but on the <em>symbolic environments</em> they create and the values they promote) the <em>transcendence</em> of <em>egotism</em> is a key element of the "way". </p>
| |
| − | <p>Lao Tzu is often pictured as riding a bull, which signifies that he conquered and tamed his ego. We here quote Aldous Huxley, to point out that transcending <em>egotism</em> is so much part of our <em>wholeness</em>, that even <em>physical</em> effort and effortlessness—which we now handle exclusively by developing the technology—is conditioned by it. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Motivation: Bauman's "Cuture as praxis". Definition of <em>culture</em> as "<em>cultivation</em> of <em>wholeness</em>. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Definition of <em>religion</em> as "reconnection with archetypes". </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The book "Liberation" subtitled "Religion beyond Belief" is an ice breaker. It <em>federates</em> "the best kept secret", and creates a <em>dialog</em>. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Movement and Qi is a template how to put the <em>language</em> of "movement" (doing something with the body) into the academic repertoire. And how to put the heritage of the world traditions such as yoga and qigong into academic repertoire.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | </div> </div>
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | <div class="row">
| |
| − | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>A great cultural revival</h2></div>
| |
| − | <div class="col-md-7">
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The <em>five insights</em> have been chosen to reflect five <em>aspects</em> of the last "great cultural revival", to which we point by bringing up the image of Galilei in hose arrest. Our point is that when those five centrally important aspects of our society's 'drive into the future' are no longer looked at by using the <em>inherited</em> ways of looking at the world ('in the light of a pair of candles') but by a deliberately <em>designed</em> way (represented by the <em>holoscope</em>), or in other words when our minds and eyes are liberated from the habit and the tradition and we allow ourselves to <em>create</em> the way we look at the world—then once again the blind spots and the opportunities for creative action are seen that <em>naturally</em> lead to a deep and comprehensive change.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Hence the <em>five insights</em> together reveal a vast creative frontier, where dramatic improvements can be reached. And which <em>together</em> constitute "a great cultural revival"—each of them being a piece in the large puzzle, a mechanism that unleashes our creative potential on such major scale.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <h3>A revolution in innovation</h3>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>By bringing a radical improvement of the efficiency and effectiveness of human work, through innovation, the Industrial Revolution liberated our ancestors from the toil for survival, and empowered them to devote themselves to more humane pursuits such as developing their "human quality", by developing culture. Or so we were told. The real story may, however, be entirely different. Research has shown that the hunger-gatherers used only a small fraction of their time for hunting and gathering. The <em>power structure</em> insight shows that not only today—but throughout history the improvements in effectiveness and efficiency in human work have been largely wasted by the <em>systems in which we live and work</em></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>We saw, by illuminating those systems and the way in which they evolve, that this age-old negative trend in our evolution can be countered by innovating differently—through [[systemic innovation|<em>systemic innovation</em>]], or by "making things whole". And how this <em>socio-technical</em> innovation can, finally, liberate us from toil and empower us to engage in cultural revival.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <h3>A revolution in communication</h3>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The printing press enabled the Enlightenment by enabling a revolution in literacy, and in communication. The <em>collective mind</em> insight shows that the new information technology enables a <em>similar</em> revolution—whose effects will not be only a mass production of volumes of information, but most importantly a revolution in the production of <em>meaning</em>. A revolution where information is considered and treated as the lifeblood of human society—and enabled to make all the differences it can and needs to make, in a post-industrial society.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <h3>A revolution in vision</h3>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The Enlightenment was a combined revolution; our ancestors were first empowered to use their reason to <em>understand</em> the world; and then to see that the royalties were not divinely ordained, but indeed part of a human-made <em>power structure</em>. The whole revolution, however, began as a relatively minor epistemological innovation in astrophysics. By putting the Sun into the center of the Solar system, a scientific explanation of the movement of the planets became possible. We have seen that a <em>continuation</em> of that revolution is now due, by which all <em>reification</em> is seen as obsolete and a product of <em>power structure</em>; and in particular the <em>reification</em> of our worldview, and of our <em>systems</em>. By liberating the <em>academia</em> from the pitfall of <em>reification</em>, we can both empower ourselves to adapt our <em>systems</em> to the purposes they need to serve <em>and</em> liberate the vast global army of academic researchers from the disciplinary constraints on creativity—and empower them to be creative in ways and on the scale that a "great cultural revival" enables and requires.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <h3>A revolution in method</h3>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Galilei in house arrest was really <em>science</em> in house arrest. It was this new way to understand the natural phenomena that liberated our ancestors from superstition, and empowered them to understand and change their world by developing technology. The <em>narrow frame</em> insight shows that the "project science" can and needs to be extended into all walks of life—to illuminate all those core issues that science left in the dark. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <h3>A revolution in culture</h3>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The Renaissance <em>was</em> a "great cultural revival"—a liberation and celebration of life, love, and beauty, by changing the values and the lifestyle, and developing the arts. The <em>convenience paradox</em> insight illuminates two <em>dimensions</em> of this most fertile creative domain we've neglected—the time dimension, and the inner one. When this is done, a completely new <em>direction</em> of human pursuits readily emerge as natural—where our goal is the cultivation of inner <em>wholeness</em>, by developing culture. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>This new revolution perhaps finds its most vivid expression in re-evolution of religion—by which an age-old conflict between science and religion is seen as a conflict between two <em>power structures</em>, which hindered the evolution of <em>both</em> our understanding of the world and our understanding of our selves. And how a completely <em>new</em> phase in this relationship can now begin.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | </div> </div>
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | <div class="row">
| |
| − | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>The sixth insight</h2></div>
| |
| − | <div class="col-md-7">
| |
| − | | |
| − | <h3>The solution is a <em>paradigm</em></h3>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Already this very brief sketch of the <em>five insights</em> gives us a glimpse of the anatomy and pathophysiology of the "problematique". And lets us anticipate why the "solutionatique" will not be a result of mere preoccupation with what we perceive as issues or "problems". And why its results will be a lot more than mere solutions to problems; why the solution will indeed be "a great cultural revival", or the <em>holotopia</em>.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The <em>power structure</em> insight showed that we cannot "solve our problems" without changing <em>the systems in which we live and work</em>—which organize us in ways that <em>create</em> problems; <em>or</em> make us collectively incapable of understanding them and taking care of them.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The <em>collective mind</em> insight gave us a natural place to begin. We need to first of all update communication—which is what <em>turns</em> us the people into a system. And which—the tie between communication and action having been severed—turns us into systems that make us collectively 'brain dead'—and hence scheduled for extinction.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The <em>socialized reality</em> and the <em>narrow frame</em> insight together pointed to a place where the not is tied, and how to untie it (or technically, to the "systemic leverage point" and to the natural strategy for change). As long as we consider the purpose of information to be giving us "an objective reality picture", or in other words as long as we <em>reify</em> our present knowledge-work institutions and practices and the information they give us, there is no hope for change, and vice versa. The <em>reification</em> results in mass production of "pieces", in the sciences and the media, which not only are unsuitable for seeing what each of us personally has to do—but indeed (having evolved within the <em>power structure</em>) systemically serve for (as Herman and Chomsky put it) "manufacturing consent".</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>What we are lacking—and the key element of solution—is the ability to create high-level insights, principles, rules of thumb, which can orient our action. Ways to <em>federate</em> the massive data into the kind of "pieces" that have agency and purpose. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>As soon as we do that, the <em>convenience paradox</em> insight showed, our very values and our "human quality" is bound to change radically—and lead to exactly the kind of values and behavior patterns on which the restructuring our <em>systems</em>, and resolving the <em>power structure</em> issue, now depends.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <h3>Large change can be easy</h3>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>As we have just seen, the <em>five insights</em> and their solutions are so closely interdependent, that resolving one requires resolving all of them. This first part of a, larger <em>sixth insight</em> follows.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <blockquote>A large and comprehensive change can be easy—even when much smaller and obviously necessary changes may have proven impossible.</blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Comprehensive change, as the change of the system as a whole, has its own <em>systemic</em> way in which it may most easily be done. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <h3>Occupy the university</h3>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>We have also seen that each of the <em>five insights</em> is really a result of <em>federating</em> published more specific insights. And that our collective capability to do that now requires that "the relationship we have with information" be changed. That <em>this</em> is the natural leverage point to the large and comprehensive change, just as the case was in Galilei's time. Hence the second part of the <em>sixth insight</em> results.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <blockquote>The systemic leverage point is the university</blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The relationship we have with information is no longer in the hands of the Church, but of the university as institution, as the contemporary representative of the academic tradition. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>From the point of view of the <em>holotopia</em>, this is <em>extremely</em> good news. To make decisive headway toward "a great cultural revival", we do not need to convince the political and business leaders. We do not need to occupy Wall street. We, publicly sponsored public servants, have the key to solution in our hands. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Since upholding the standard of "right" knowledge is the core task of <em>our</em> academic occupation, there is really nothing to occupy. We only need to do our job.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>To make a completely clear argument, we defined <em>academia</em> as "institutionalized academic tradition". And we represented the academic tradition by Socrates as the progenitor of the original Academia, and Galilei as a progenitor of science and the academic tradition's revival, which led to the larger cultural revival. Both Socrates and Galilei stood up to the <em>power structure</em> of the day, by representing <em>new</em> ways to look at the world, based on <em>knowledge of knowledge</em>. The question, then, is <em>What does the contemporary university institutionalize</em>? Is it supporting <em>that</em> sort of work—or maintaining status quo, through <em>reification</em> of the existing habits and structures?</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>When reiterating the call to action voiced by Vannevar Bush, Norbert Wiener, Erich Jantsch, Doug Engelbart, and so many others—we do that by submitting a complete <em>paradigm proposal</em>; by showing that their call to action can be responded to based on the time-honored academic standards. And indeed that the time-honored academic standards <em>demand</em> that we do that.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <h3>Human quality</h3>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The critical resource is—and has always been—people who love knowledge, or truth, or humanity, beyond the comfort of fitting into the <em>power structure</em> of the day. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>We have seen that the social and cultural ecology of the day is vehemently opposing it—so much so that we may be lacking even the critical amount that we need—even all other things being in place—to begin "a new course".</p>
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| − | | |
| − | <p>The Holotopia project may be understood as a strategic undertaking to create a space, and a <em>system</em> or social dynamic, in which a sufficiently strong remedial trend can emerge.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | </div> </div>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <div class="page-header" ><h2>A strategy</h2></div>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <div class="row">
| |
| − | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>We will <em>not</em> solve "the huge problems now confronting us"</h2></div>
| |
| − | <div class="col-md-6">
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Already in 1964, four years before The Club of Rome was established, Margaret Mead wrote:
| |
| − | <blockquote>
| |
| − | "(W)e are living in a period of extraordinary danger, as we are faced with the possibility that our whole species will be eliminated from the evolutionary scene. One necessary condition of successfully continuing our existence is the creation of an atmosphere of hope that the huge problems now confronting us can, in fact, be solved—and can be solved in time."
| |
| − | </blockquote> </p>
| |
| − | <p>Despite the <em>holotopia</em>'s optimistic tone, we <em>do not</em> assume that the problems we are facing <em>can</em> be solved.</p>
| |
| − | </div>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <div class="col-md-3">
| |
| − | [[File:Mead.jpg]]<br>
| |
| − | <small>Margaret Mead</small>
| |
| − | </div> </div>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <div class="row">
| |
| − | <div class="col-md-3"></div>
| |
| − | <div class="col-md-7">
| |
| − | <p>[https://youtu.be/U7Z6h-U4CmI?t=223 Hear Dennis Meadows] (the leader of the team that produced The Club of Rome's seminal 1972 report Limits to Growth) diagnose, based on 44 years of experience on this frontier, that our pursuit of "sustainability" falls short of avoiding the "predicament" they were warning us about back then:</p>
| |
| − | <blockquote>
| |
| − | "Will the current ideas about "green industry", and "qualitative growth", avoid collapse? No possibility. Absolutely no possibility of that. (...) Globally, we are something like sixty or seventy percent <em>above</em> sustainable levels."
| |
| − | </blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Yes, we've wasted a precious half-century pursuing the neoliberal dream ([https://youtu.be/0141gupAryM?t=95 hear Ronald Reagan] set the tone for it, in the role of "the leader of the free world"). </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>So no, we do not claim that our problems can be solved. Neither do we deny them. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>There is a sense of sobering up, and of <em>catharsis</em>, of empowerment, of deep understanding that small things don't matter, that only being creative in the manner and on the scale we are proposing <em>can</em> matter—which needs to reach us from the depth of our problems. <em>That</em> must be our very first step.</p>
| |
| − | <p>We take a deep dive into that depth. But we do not <em>dwell</em> there.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>"The huge problems now confronting us" <em>must</em> be dealt with, conscientiously and resolutely. We, however, do not do that. We propose to add to those most necessary and timely efforts a strategy—through which the solutions may be made easy; and which may well be necessary for the solutions to even exist.</p>
| |
| − | </div> </div>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <div class="row">
| |
| − | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>We will begin "a great cultural revival"</h2></div>
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| − | <div class="col-md-7">
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Ironically, our problems can only be solved when we no longer see them as problems—but as <em>symptoms</em> of much deeper, structural or systemic defects, which <em>can</em> and must be corrected to continue our evolution, or "progress", irrespective of problems.</p>
| |
| − | <p>And most interestingly, our evolution, or "progress", can and <em>must</em> take a completely new—cultural—direction and focus.
| |
| − | <p>[https://youtu.be/U7Z6h-U4CmI?t=291 Hear Meadows say], in the same interview:</p>
| |
| − | <blockquote>
| |
| − | "Will it be possible, here in Germany, to continue this level of energy consumption, and this degree of material welfare? Absolutely not. Not in the United States, not in other countries either. Could you <em>change</em> your cultural and your social norms, in a way that gave attractive future? Yes, you could."
| |
| − | </blockquote>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Margaret Mead encouraged us, with her best known motto:
| |
| − | <blockquote>
| |
| − | "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
| |
| − | </blockquote> </p>
| |
| − | <p>And she also pointed to the critical task at hand: "Although tremendous advances in the human sciences have been made in the last hundred years, almost no advance has been made in their use, especially in ways of creating reliable new forms in which cultural evolution can be directed to desired goals."</p>
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| − | | |
| − | <p>It is that "creating" that the Holotopia project is about. We set it up as a research lab, for resolutely working on that goal. We create a transformative 'snowball', with the material of our own bodies, and we let it roll. </p>
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| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | <p>"(W)e take the position that the unit of cultural evolution is neither the single gifted individual nor the society as a whole", Mead wrote, "but <em>the small group of interacting individuals</em> who, together with the most gifted among them, can take the next step; then we can set about the task of creating the conditions in which the appropriately gifted can actually make a contribution. That is, rather than isolating potential "leaders," we can purposefully produce the conditions we find in history, in which clusters are formed of a small number of extraordinary and ordinary men and women, so related to their period and to one another that they can consciously set about solving the problems they propose for themselves."</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>As we have seen, and will see, the "single gifted individuals" have already offered us their gifts, already a half-century ago. But their insights failed to incite the kind of self-organization and action that would enable them to make a difference.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Here the <em>holotopia</em>'s "rule of thumb", to "make things <em>whole</em>", which is really an ethical stance, plays a central role. While we are creating a small 'snowball' and letting it roll, the cohesive force that holds it together is of a paramount importance. We are not developing this project to further our careers; nor to earn some money, or get a grant. We are doing that because it's beautiful. And because it's what we need to give to our next generation.</p>
| |
| − | <p>We are developing the <em>holotopia</em> as (what Gandhi would have called) our "experiments with truth".</p>
| |
| − | </div> </div>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <b>To be continued...</b>
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| − | | |
| − | <div class="page-header" ><h2>Tactical assets</h2></div>
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| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | <div class="row">
| |
| − | <div class="col-md-3"></div>
| |
| − | <div class="col-md-7"><p>The Holotopia project continues to evolve as a collaborative strategy game—where we make tactical moves toward the <em>holotopia</em> vision. We bring to this 'game' a collection of tactical assets we've developed—to make it flow. </p>
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| − | | |
| − | </div> </div>
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| − | | |
| − | <div class="page-header" ><h2>A pilot project</h2></div>
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| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | <div class="row">
| |
| − | <div class="col-md-3"></div>
| |
| − | <div class="col-md-7"><p>To bring all this down to earth, we describe the pilot project we've developed in art gallery Kunsthall 3.14 in Bergen. </p>
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| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | [[File:KunsthallDialog01.jpg]]
| |
| − | <br>
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | <!-- ZZZ
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | <div class="row">
| |
| − | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>Before we begin</h2></div>
| |
| − | <div class="col-md-7"><p>Before we share the "tactical assets" we've put together to prime the Holotopia project, a couple of notes are in order to explain how exactly we want them to be understood and received.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <h3>A 'cardboard city'</h3>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>While each of these "assets" is created, to the best of our ability, to serve as a true solution, <em>we do not need to make that claim</em>, and we are not making it. Everything here is just <em>prototypes</em>. Which means models, each made to serve as a "proof of concept", to be experimented with and indefinitely improved.</p>
| |
| − | <p>Think of what's presented here as a cardboard model of a city. </p>
| |
| − | <p>It includes a 'school', and a 'hospital', a 'main square' and 'residential areas'. The model is complete enough for us to see that this 'city' will be a wonderful place to be in; and to begin building. But as we build—<em>everything</em> can change!</p>
| |
| − | <p>One of the points of using this keyword, <em>prototype</em>, is to consider them as placeholders. A city needs a school, and a hospital, and... The whole thing models a 'modern city' (an up-to-date approach to knowledge).</p>
| |
| − | <p>Another important point: <em>design patterns</em>. The <em>prototypes</em> * model * a multiplicity of challenge–solution pairs. <em>With</em> provisions for updating the solutions continuously. The point here is that while solutions can and need to evolve, the <em>design patterns</em> (as 'research questions') can remain relatively stable.</p>
| |
| − | <p>This will all make even more sense when one takes into consideration that the core of our proposal is not to build a city; it is <em>to develop 'architecture'</em>!</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <h3>A 'business plan'</h3>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>No, we are not doing this to start a business, or to make money. But a 'business plan' is still a useful metaphor, because we <em>do</em> "mean business". The purpose of the Holotopia project is <em>to make a difference</em>. In the social and economic reality we are living in.</p>
| |
| − | <p>These "tactical assets" can then also be read as points in a business plan—which point to the realistic <em>likelihood</em> of it all to achieve its goals.</p>
| |
| − | <p>The point here is not money, but impact. Making a <em>real</em> difference. From the business point of view, perhaps a suitable metaphor could be 'branding'. And 'strategy'. There are numerous movements, dedicated to a variety of causes. Can we unite under a single flag and mission, not as a monolithic thing but a 'federation', or a 'franchise' of sorts, so that the <em>holotopia</em> offers <em>these</em> resources.</p>
| |
| − | <p>Peccei wrote in One Hundred Pages for the Future (the boldface emphasis is ours):</p>
| |
| − | <blockquote><p>For some time now, the perception of (our responsibilities relative to "problematique") has motivated a number of organizations and small voluntary groups of concerned citizens which have mushroomed all over to respond to the demands of new situations or to change whatever is not going right in society. These groups are now legion. They arose sporadically on the most variend fronts and with different aims. They comprise peace movements, supporters of national liberation, and advocates of women's rights and population control; defenders of minorities, human rights and civil liberties; apostles of "technology with a human face" and the humanization of work; social workers and activists for social change; ecologists, friends of the Earth or of animals; defenders of consumer rights; non-violent protesters; conscientious objectors, and many others. These groups are usually small but, should the occasion arise, they can mobilize a host of men and women, young and old, inspired by a profound sense of te common good and by moral obligations which, in their eyes, are more important than all others.</p>
| |
| − | <p>They form a kind of popular army, actual or potential, with a function comparable to that of the antibodies generated to restore normal conditions in a biological organism that is diseased or attacked by pathogenic agents. The existence of so many spontaneous organizations and groups testifies to the vitality of our societies, even in the midst of the crisis they are undergoing. <b>Means will have to be found one day to consolidate their scattered efforts in order to direct them towards strategic objectives.</b></p> </blockquote>
| |
| − | <p>An obvious problem is the lack of a shared and effective strategy that would allow the movements to <em>really</em> make a difference. As it is, they are largely reactive and not <em>pro</em>-active. But as we have seen, the problems can only be solved when their <em>systemic</em> roots are understood and taken care of.</p>
| |
| − | <p>But there is a subtle and perhaps even more important difficulty—that our efforts at making a difference tend to be <em>symbolic</em>. We adapted this <em>keyword</em> from political scientist Murray Edelman, and attribute to it the following meaning.</p>
| |
| − | <p><em>Real</em> impact, we might now agree, is impact on <em>systems</em>. They are the 'riverbed' that directs the 'current' in which we are all swimming. We may 'swim against the current' for awhile, with the help of all our courage and faith and togetherness—but ultimately we get exhausted and give up.</p>
| |
| − | <p>The difficulty, however, is our <em>socialization</em>—owing to which we tend to take <em>systems</em> for granted; they <em>are</em> the "reality" within which we seek solutions. And so our attempts at solution end up being akin to social rituals, where we <em>symbolically</em> act out our "responsibilities" and concerns (by writing an article, organizing a conference, or a demonstration) and put them to rest.</p>
| |
| − | <p>The alternative is, of course, <em>to restore agency to information, and power to knowledge</em>—i.e. to create a clear guiding light under which efforts can be <em>effectively</em> focused.</p>
| |
| − | <p>The <em>five insights</em>, which we'll list as our first "tactical asset", are our <em>prototype</em> placeholder in that role.</p>
| |
| − | <p>So here we have a <em>design pattern</em>: The challenge is How to create a shared strategy, so that efforts can be coordinated and meaningfully directed? The <em>holotopia</em> is offered as a <em>prototype</em>. As all <em>prototypes</em> do, here too the solution part has provisions for updating itself continuously—with everyone's participation</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | </div> </div>
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | <div class="row">
| |
| − | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>[[Holotopia:Five insights|Five insights]]</h2></div>
| |
| − | <div class="col-md-7"><p>They provide us a frame of reference, around which the <em>city</em> is built. They serve as foundation stones, or as 'five pillars' lifting the emerging construction up from the mundane reality, and making it stand out.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>In our challenge to come through the sensationalist press and reach out to people, each of them is a sensation in its own right; but a <em>real</em> sensation, which merits our attention.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>In our various artistic, research, media... projects—they provide us building material.</p>
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| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | </div> </div>
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| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | <div class="row">
| |
| − | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>The <em>mirror</em></h2></div>
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| − | | |
| − | <div class="col-md-7">
| |
| − | <p>POINT: Bring in the fundamental element. CHANGE of WORLDVIEW begins with FOUNDATIONS—and here we orchestrate it carefully. BRING ACADEMIA ALONG! LIBERATE the enormous creative potential it contains. WE DO NOT NEED TO "PUBLISH OR PERISH".</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The appeal here is to institutionalize a FREE academic space, where this line of work can be developed with suitable support.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <h3>A way out</h3>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>That there is an unexpected, seemingly magical way into a new cultural and social reality is really good news. But is it realistic?</p>
| |
| − | <p>We here carefully develop the analogy with Galilei's time, when a new <em>epistemology</em> was ready to change the world, but still kept in house arrest. All we need to do is to set it free.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <h3>The discovery of ourselves</h3>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The <em>mirror</em> symbolizes the ending of <em>reification</em> (when we see ourselves <em>in the world</em>, we realize that we are not above it and observing it "objectively"); and the beginning of accountability (we see the world in dire need for creative action; and we see our own role in it).</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>This insight extends into ending of the <em>reification</em> of our personal preferences, feelings, tastes... <em>What we are able to</em> feel, think, create... is determined, to an astounding degree, by the degree in which our "human quality" has been developed. And our ability to develop it depends in an overwhelming degree on the way in which our culture has been developed.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <h3>The <em>academia</em>'s situation</h3>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>The <em>mirror</em> symbolizes also the <em>academia</em>'s situation, just as the bus with candle headlights symbolizes our civilization's situation. The point is that the hitherto development of the academic tradition brought us there, in front of the <em>mirror</em>. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>An enormous liberation of our creative abilities results when we realize they must not be confined to traditional disciplinary pursuits and routines. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Especially important is the larger understanding of <em>information</em> that the self-reflection in front of the <em>mirror</em> brings us to; <em>information</em> is no longer only printed text; it includes <em>any</em> artifacts that embody human experience, refined by human ingenuity. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | <h3> Occupy the university</h3>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Who holds 'Galilei in house arrest'</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>We don't need to occupy Wall Street. The key is in another place.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>We really just need to occupy our own profession—by continuing the tradition that our great predecessors have created.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <h3>A sand box</h3>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>On the other side of the <em>mirror</em> we create a 'sandbox'; that's really the <em>holotopia</em> project. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Note: on the other side of the <em>mirror</em> the contributions of Jantsch and Engelbart are seen as <em>fundamental</em> (they were drafting, and <em>creating</em> strategically, a new 'collective mind'). </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>See the description of 'sandbox' in our contribution [https://holoscope.info/2013/06/22/enabling-social-systemic-transformations-2/ Enabling Social-Systemic Transformations] to the 2013 conference "Transformations in a Changing Climate"</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | </div> </div>
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | <div class="row">
| |
| − | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>[[Holotopia:Ten themes|Ten themes]]</h2></div>
| |
| − | <div class="col-md-7">
| |
| − | <p>The <em>five insights</em>, and the ten direct relationships between them, provide us reference—in the context of which some of the age-old challenges are understood and handled in entirely new ways.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <h3>How to put an end to war</h3>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p>Consider, for instance, this age-old question: "How to put an end to war?" So far our progress on this all-important frontier has largely been confined to palliative measures; and ignored those far more interesting <em>curative</em> ones. What would it take to <em>really</em> put an end to war, once and for all?</p>
| |
| − | <p>When this question is considered in the context of two direction-changing insights, <em>power structure</em> and <em>socialized reality</em>, we become ready to see the whole compendium of questions related to justice, power and freedom in a <em>completely</em> new way. We then realize in what way exactly, throughout history, we have been coerced, largely through cultural means, to serve renegade power, in the truest sense our enemy, by engaging our sense of duty, heroism, honor and other values and traits that constitute "human quality". We then become ready to redeem the best sides of ourselves from the <em>power structure</em>, and apply them toward true betterment of our condition.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <h3>Religion beyond belief</h3>
| |
| − | <p>Or think about religion—which has in traditional societies served to bind each person with "human quality", and the people together into a culture or a society. But which is in modern times all too often associated with dogmatic beliefs, and inter-cultural conflicts.</p>
| |
| − | <p>When religion is, however, considered in the context provided by <em>socialized reality</em> and <em>convenience paradox</em>, a whole <em>new</em> possibility emerges—where <em>religion</em> no longer is an instrument of <em>socialization</em>—but of <em>liberation</em>; and as an essential way to cultivate our personal and communal <em>wholeness</em>.</p>
| |
| − | <p>A <em>natural</em> strategy for remedying religion-related dogmatic beliefs and inter-cultural conflicts emerges—to <em>evolve</em> religion further!</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <h3>The ten themes cover the <em>holotopia</em></h3>
| |
| − | <p>Of course <em>any</em> theme can be placed into the context of the <em>five insights</em>, and end up being seen and handled radically differently. To prime these eagerly sought-for conversations, we provided a selection of ten themes (related to the future of education, business, science, democracy, art, happiness...) that—together with the <em>five insights</em>—cover the space of <em>holotopia</em> in sufficient detail to make it transparent and tangible.</p>
| |
| − | </div> </div>
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | <div class="row">
| |
| − | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>The <em>dialogs</em></h2></div>
| |
| − | <div class="col-md-7"><h3>The <em>dialog</em> is an art form</h3>
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| − | <p>We make conversation themes alive through dialogs.</p>
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| − | <p>We turn conversations into artistic and media-enabled events (see the Earth Sharing <em>prototype</em> below).</p>
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| − | <h3>The <em>dialog</em> is an attitude</h3>
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| − | <p>The <em>dialog</em> is an integral part of the <em>holoscope</em>. Its role will be understood if we consider the human inclination to hold onto a certain <em>way</em> of seeing things, and call it "reality". And how much this inclination has been misused by various social groups to bind us to themselves, and more recently by various modern <em>power structures</em>. (Think, for instance, about the animosity between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, or between Sunni and Shia Muslims in the Middle East.)</p>
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| − | <p>The attitude of the <em>dialog</em> may be understood as an antidote.</p>
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| − | | |
| − | <h3>The <em>dialog</em> is an age-old tradition</h3>
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| − | <p>The dialogues of Socrates marked the very inception of the academic tradition. More recently, David Bohm gave the evolution of the dialogue a new and transformative direction. Bohm's dialogues are a form of collective therapy. Instead of arguing their points, the participants practice "proprioception" (mindfully observe their reactions), so that they may ultimately listen without judging, and co-create a space where new and transformative ideas can emerge.</p>
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| − | <p>We built on this tradition and developed a collection of <em>prototypes</em>—which <em>holotopia</em> will use as construction material, and build further.</p>
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| − | | |
| − | <h3>We employ contemporary media</h3>
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| − | <p>The use of contemporary media opens up a whole new chapter, or dimension, in the story of the <em>dialog</em>. </p>
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| − | <p>Through suitable use of the camera, the <em>dialog</em> can be turned into a mirror—mirroring our dysfunctional communication habits; our turf strifes.</p>
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| − | <p>By using Debategraph and other "dialog mapping" online tools, the <em>dialog</em> can be turned into a global process of co-creation of meaning.</p>
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| − | | |
| − | <h3>The <em>dialog</em> as <em>spectacle</em></h3>
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| − | <p>The <em>holotopia</em> dialogs will have the nature of <em>spectacles</em>—not the kind of spectacles fabricated by the media, but <em>real</em> ones. To the media spectacles, they present a real and transformative alternative.</p>
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| − | <p>The <em>dialogs</em> we initiate are a re-creation of the conventional "reality shows"—which show the contemporary reality in ways that <em>need</em> to be shown. The relevance is on an entirely different scale. And the excitement and actuality are of course larger! We engage the "opinion leaders" to contribute their insights to the cause.</p>
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| − | <p>When successful, the result is most timely and informative: We are <em>witnessing</em> the changing of our understanding and handling of a core issue.</p>
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| − | <p>When unsuccessful, the result is most timely and informative in a <em>different</em> way: We are witnessing our resistances and our blind spots, our clinging to the obsolete forms of thought.</p>
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| − | <p>Occasionally we publish books about those themes, based on our <em>dialogs</em>, and to begin new ones.</p>
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| − | | |
| − | <h3>The <em>dialog</em> is an instrument of change</h3>
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| − | <p>This point cannot be overemphasized: Our <em>primary</em> goal is not to warn, inform, propose a new way to look at the world—but <em>to change our collective mind</em>. Physically. The <em>dialog</em> is the medium for that change. </p>
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| − | <blockquote>
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| − | We organize public dialogs about the <em>five insights</em>, and other themes related to change, in order to <em>make</em> change.</blockquote>
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| − | | |
| − | <p>Here the medium in the truest sense is the message: By developing <em>dialogs</em>, we re-create our <em>collective mind</em>—from something that only receives, which is dazzled by the media... to something that is capable of weaving together academic and other insights, and by engaging the best of our "collective intelligence" in seeing what needs to be done. And in <em>inciting, planning and coordinating action</em>.</p>
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| − | <p>In the <em>holotopia</em> scheme of things everything is a <em>prototype</em>. The <em>prototypes</em> are not final results of our efforts, they are a means to an end—which is to <em>rebuild</em> the public sphere; to <em>reconfigure</em> our <em>collective mind</em>. The role of the <em>prototypes</em> is to prime this process.</p>
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| − | </div> </div>
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| − | | |
| − | <div class="row">
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| − | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>The <em>elephant</em></h2></div>
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| | <div class="col-md-7"> | | <div class="col-md-7"> |
| − | <p> | + | <p>The [[Future Art]] conversation takes place in the context of the Narrow Frame insight and the Power Structure insight. </p> |
| − | [[File:Elephant.jpg]]<br> | + | <p>Art has always been an instrument of cultural reproduction; and on the forefront of change. When Duchamp exhibited the urinal, he challenged the traditional <em>conception</em> of art. What comes next? What will art need to be like, in a world where our task is no longer to challenge the tradition—but to <em>create</em> an order of things that makes us <em>whole</em>? </p> |
| − | <small>Elephant <em>ideogram</em></small>
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| − | </p>
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| − | | |
| − | <h3>The <em>elephant</em></h3>
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| − | <p>Imagine the 20th century's visionary thinkers as those proverbial blind-folded men touching an elephant. We hear them talk about things like "a fan", "a water hose" and "a tree trunk". But they don't make sense, and we ignore them.</p>
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| − | <p>Everything changes when we realize that they are really talking about the ear, the trunk and the leg of an imposingly large exotic animal, which nobody has yet had a chance to see—a whole new <em>order of things</em>, or cultural and social <em>paradigm</em>! </p> | |
| − | | |
| − | <h3>A spectacle</h3>
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| − | <p>The effect of the <em>five insights</em> is to <em>orchestrate</em> this act of 'connecting the dots'—so that the spectacular event we are part of, this exotic 'animal', the new 'destination' toward which we will now "change course" becomes clearly visible.</p>
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| − | <p>A side effect is that the academic results once again become interesting and relevant. In this newly created context, they acquire a whole new meaning; and <em>agency</em>!</p>
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| − | | |
| − | <h3>Post-post-structuralism</h3>
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| − | | |
| − | <p>The structuralists undertook to bring rigor to the study of cultural artifacts. The post-structuralists "deconstructed" their efforts, by observing that <em>there is no</em> such thing as "real meaning"; and that the meaning of cultural artifacts is open to interpretation.</p>
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| − | <p>This evolution may be taken a step further. What interests us is not what, for instance, Bourdieu "really saw" and wanted to communicate. We acknowledge (with the post-structuralists), that even Bourdieu would not be able to tell us that, if he were still around. We acknowledge, however, that Bourdieu <em>saw something</em> that invited a different interpretation and way of thinking than what was common; and did what he could to explain it within the <em>old</em> paradigm. Hence we give the study of cultural artifacts not only a sense of rigor, but also a new degree of relevance—by considering them as signs on the road, pointing to an emerging <em>paradigm</em></p>
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| − | | |
| − | <h3>A parable</h3>
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| − | <p>While the view of the <em>elephant</em> is composed of a large number of stories, one of them—the story of Doug Engelbart—is epigrammatic. It is not only a spectacular story—how the Silicon Valley failed to understand or even hear its "giant in residence", even after having recognized him as that; it is also a parable pointing to many of the elements we want to highlight by telling these stories—not least the social psychology and dynamics that 'hold Galilei in house arrest'.</p>
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| − | <p>This story also inspired us to use this metaphor: Engelbart saw 'the elephant' <em>already in 1951</em>—and spent a six decades-long career to show him to us. And yet he passed away with only a meager (computer) mouse in his hand (to his credit)!</p>
| |
| | </div> </div> | | </div> </div> |
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| |
| | | | |
| | <div class="row"> | | <div class="row"> |
| − | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>The <em>holoscope</em></h2></div> | + | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>The best kept secret of human culture</h2></div> |
| − | <div class="col-md-7"><h3>Seeing things whole</h3>
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| − | <p>Peccei concluded his analysis in "One Hundred Pages for the Future":
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| − | <blockquote>
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| − | 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>.
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| − | </blockquote>
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| − | </p>
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| − | <p>In the context of Holotopia, we refer to <em>knowledge federation</em> by its pseudonym [[Holotopia: Holoscope|<em>holoscope</em>]], to highlight one of its distinguishing characteristics—it helps us see things whole. </p>
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| | | | |
| − | <p>Different from the sciences that have been "zooming in" (toward finer technical details); and promoting a <em>fixed</em> way of looking at the world (a domain of interest, a terminology and a set of methods being what <em>defines</em> a scientific discipline); and the informing media's focus on specific spectacular events, the <em>holoscope</em> allows us to <em>chose</em> our <em>scope</em> –"what is being looked at and how".</p>
| + | <div class="col-md-7"><p>[[The best kept secret of human culture]] conversation is about the pursuit of happiness "between one and plus infinity"; it combines the Convenience Paradox <em>insight</em> and the Collective Mind <em>insight</em>. </p> |
| − | | + | <p>All we know about happiness is in the interval between zero (complete misery) and one ("normal" happiness); but what about the rest? </p> |
| − | | + | <p>This conversation is about the humanity's best kept secret: There are <em>realms</em> of thriving and fulfillment, beyond what we've experienced, or know about. </p> |
| − | </div> </div>
| + | <p>But the opportunity to develop them comes with a challenge—we must develop ways to <em>federate</em> the missing knowledge.</p> |
| − | | + | <p>Could this be an answer to Peccei's call to action— to "find a way to change course"?</p> |
| − | <div class="row">
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| − | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>Stories</h2></div> | |
| − | <div class="col-md-7">
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| − | | |
| − | <p>We bring together stories (elsewhere called <em>vignettes</em>)—which share the core insights of leading contemporary thinkers. We tell their stories.</p>
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| − | <p>They become 'dots' to connect in our <em>dialogs</em>.</p>
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| − | <p>They also show what obstructed our evolution (the emergence of <em>holotopia</em>). </p> | |
| − | </div> </div>
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| − | | |
| − | <div class="row">
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| − | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>Ideograms</h2></div>
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| − | <div class="col-md-7"><h3>Art meets science</h3>
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| − | | |
| − | <p>Placeholder. The point is enormous—<em>federation</em> of insights, connecting the dots, not only or even primarily results in rational insights. It results in <em>implicit information</em>; we are undoing our <em>socialization</em>! </p> | |
| − | <p> | |
| − | [[File:H side.png]]<br>
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| − | <small>A paper model of a sculpture, re-imaging the <em>five insights</em> and their relationships.</small>
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| − | </p> | |
| − | <p>The <em>ideograms</em> condense lots of insights into a simple image, ready to be grasped. </p> | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | <p>As the above image may suggest, the pentagram—as the basic icon or 'logo' of <em>holotopia</em>—lends itself to a myriad re-creations. We let the above image suggest that a multiplicity of ideas can be condensed to a simple image (the pentagram); and how this image can be expanded into a multiplicity of artistic creations.</p>
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| | </div> </div> | | </div> </div> |
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| − | <div class="row">
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| − | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>Keywords</h2></div>
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| − | <div class="col-md-7">
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| − | <p>The Renaissance, and also science, brought along a whole new way of speaking—and hence a new way to look at the world. With each of the <em>five insights</em> we introduce a collection of <em>keywords</em>, in terms of which we come to understand the core issues in new ways.</p>
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| − | <p>The <em>keywords</em> will also allow us to propose solutions to the anomalies that the <em>five insights</em> bring forth.</p>
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| − | </div> </div>
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| − | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>Prototypes</h2></div>
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| − | <div class="col-md-7">
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| − | <p>Information has agency only when it has a way to impact our actual physical reality. A goal of the Holotopia project is to co-create <em>prototypes</em>—new elements of our new reality. We share the <em>prototypes</em> we've already developed, to put the ball in play.</p>
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| − | </div> </div>
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| − | <div class="page-header" ><h2>Earth Sharing <em>prototype</em></h2></div>
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| − | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>These titles will change</h2></div>
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| − | <h3>Art leads science</h3>
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| − | <p>How the action began... </p>
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| − | <h3>Seeing differently</h3>
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| − | <p>Up and down</p>
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| − | <h3>The vault</h3>
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| − | <p>Precious space for reflection—where the stories are told, and insights begin to take shape.</p>
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| − | <h3>Holotopia is an art project</h3>
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| − | <p>The Holotopia is an art project. We are reminded of Michelangelo painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and in the heart of the old world order planting the seeds of the new one.</p>
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| − | <p>Duchamp's (attempted) exhibition of a urinal challenged what art may be, and contributed to the legacy that the modern art was built on. Now our conditions demand that we deconstruct the deconstruction—and begin to <em>construct</em> anew. </p>
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| − | <p>What will the art associated with the <em>next</em> Renaissance be like? We offer <em>holotopia</em> as a creative space where the new art can emerge.</p>
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| − | <p>
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| − | [[File:KunsthallDialog01.jpg]]
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| − | <br>
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| − | <small>A snapshot of Holotopia's pilot project in Kunsthall 3.14, Bergen.</small>
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| − | </p>
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| − | <p>Henri Lefebvre summarized the most vital of Karl Marx's objections to capitalism, by observing that capital (machines, tools, materials...) or "investments" are products of past work, and hence represent "dead labour". That in this way past activity "crystalyzes, as it were, and becomes a precondition for new activity." And that under capitalism, "what is dead takes hold of what is alive"</p>
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| − | <p>Lefebvre proposes to turn this relationship upon its head. "But how could what is alive lay hold of what is dead? The answer is: through the production of space, whereby living labour can produce something that is no longer a thing, nor simply a set of tools, nor simply a commodity.</p>
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| − | <p>As the above image may suggest, the <em>holotopia</em> artists still produce art objects; but they are used as pieces in a larger whole— which is a <em>space</em> where transformation happens. A space where the creativity of the artist can cross-fertilize with the insights of the scientist, to co-create a new reality that none of them can create on her own. 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>
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| − | <h3>Going online</h3>
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| − | <p>Debategraph was not yet implemented. But David was there!</p>
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| − | The key novelty in the <em>holoscope</em> is the capability it affords to deliberately choose the way in which we look at an issue or situation, which we call <em>scope</em>. Just as the case is when inspecting a hand-held cup to see if it is whole or cracked, and in projective geometry, the art of using the <em>holoscope</em> will to a large degree consist in finding suitable ways of looking—which show the <em>whole</em> from all sides, and afford a correct "big picture"</em>
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| − | <p>Especially valuable will be those <em>scopes</em> that illuminate what our habitual ways of looking left in the dark.</p>
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| − | <p>This capability, to create <em>views</em> by choosing <em>scopes</em> on any desired level of detail, adds to our work with contemporary issues a whole new 'dimension' or "degree of freedom"—where we <em>choose</em> what we perceive as issues; so that the issues <em>can</em> be resolved, and <em>wholeness</em> can be restored. </p>
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| − | <h3>Thinking outside the box</h3>
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| − | <p>That we cannot solve our problems by thinking as we did when we created them is a commonplace. But this presents a challenge when academic rigor needs to be respected.</p>
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| − | <p>While we did our best to ensure that the presented views accurately represent what might result when we 'connect the dots' or <em>federate</em> published insights and other relevant cultural artifacts, <em>we do not need to make such claims</em>; and we are not making them. It is a <em>paradigm</em> we are proposing; it is the <em>methodology</em> by which our views are created that gives them rigor—as "rigor" is understood in the <em>paradigm</em>.</p>
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| − | <p>The <em>methodology</em> itself is, to the best of our knowledge, flawlessly rigorous and coherent. But we don't need to make that claim either.</p>
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| − | <p><em>Everything</em> here is offered as a collection of [[Holotopia:Prototype|<em>prototypes</em>]]. The point is to show <em>what might result</em> if we changed the relationship we have with information, and developed, both academically and on a society-wide scale, the approach to information and knowledge we are proposing.</p>
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| − | <p>Our goal when presenting them is to initiate the <em>dialogs</em> and other social processes that constitute that development.</p>
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| − | <p>The Knowledge Federation <em>prototype</em> is conceived as a portfolio of about forty smaller <em>prototypes</em>, which cover the range of questions that define an academic field—from epistemology and methods, to social organization and applications.</p>
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| − | <p>We use our main keyword, <em>knowledge federation</em>, in a similar way as the words "design" and "architecture" are used—to signify both a <em>praxis</em> (informed practice), and an academic field that develops it and curates it.</p>
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| − | <p>To see what all this practically means, in the context of our theme (we are <em>federating</em> Peccei), we invite you to follow us in a brief thought experiment. We'll pay a short visit to a cathedral. No, this is not about religion; we are using the image of a cathedral as an <em>ideogram</em>—to correct the proportions, and "see things whole".</p>
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| − | <p>So there is architecture, which inspires awe. We hear music play: Is it Bach's cantatas? Or Allegri's Miserere? There are sculptures, and frescos by masters of old on the walls. And there is the ritual...</p>
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| − | <p>But there is also a little book on each bench. Its first few paragraphs explain how the world was created.</p>
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| − | <p>Let this difference in size, between the beginning of Genesis and all the rest—the cathedral as a whole, with its physical objects and the activities it provides a space for—point to the difference in <em>importance</em> between the factual explanations of the mechanisms of nature and <em>our culture as a whole</em>, relative to our theme, the "human quality". For <em>there can be no doubt</em> that a function of the cathedral—<em>and</em> of culture—is to nourish the "human quality" in a certain specific ways. By providing a certain <em>symbolic environment</em>, in which certain ethical and emotional dispositions can grow. Notice that we are only pointing to a <em>function</em>, without making any value judgement of its results. </p>
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| − | <p>The question is—How, and by whom, is the evolution of culture secured today? <em>Who</em> has the prerogative of <em>socializing</em> people in our own time?</p>
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| − | <p>The answer is obvious; it suffices to look around. All the advertising, however, is only a tip of an iceberg—comprised by various instruments of <em>symbolic power</em>, by which our choices are directed and our values modified—to give us the "human quality" that will make us consume more, so the economy may grow.</p>
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| − | <p>The ethical and legal norms we have do not protect us from this dependence. </p>
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| − | <p>The humanities researchers are, of course, well aware of this. But the "objective observer" role to which the academic researchers are confined, and the fact that "the tie between information and action is broken", makes this all but irrelevant.</p>
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| − | <p>While most of us still consider ourselves as "rational decision makers", who can simply "feel" their "real interests" or "needs" and bring them to the market of goods, or as voters to the market of political agendas (which will like a perfect scale secure justice by letting the largest ones prevail), the businesses and the politicians know better. <em>Scientific</em> means are routinely used by their advisers, to manipulate our choices.</p>
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| − | however, will require an unprecedented level of international collaboration, and restructuring of the global economy, the widely read [https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-188550/ Rolling Stone article] reeports. The COVID-19 exacerbates those demands and makes them even more immediate. Considering the way in which things are related, restructuring of the world economy will not be possible without restructuring other systems as well.
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| − | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>Five solutions</h2></div>
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| − | <h3>The <em>power structure</em> issue <em>can</em> be resolved</h3>j
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| − | <p>The [[Holotopia:Power structure|<em>power structure</em> issue]] is resolved through [[systemic innovation|<em>systemic innovation</em>]]—by which [[system|<em>systems</em>]], and hence also [[power structures|<em>power structures</em>]], evolve in ways that make them <em>whole</em>; with recourse to information that allows us to "see things whole", or in other words the <em>holoscope</em>. </p>
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| − | <p>We give structure to <em>systemic innovation</em> by conceiving our [[prototype|<em>prototypes</em>]] by weaving together suitable [[design pattern|<em>design patterns</em>]]—which are design challenge–design solution pairs, rendered so that they can be exported and adapted not only across <em>prototypes</em>, but also across application domains.</p>
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| − | <p>All our <em>prototypes</em> are examples of <em>systemic innovation</em>; any of them could be used to illustrate the techniques used, and the advantages gained. Of about a dozen <em>design patterns</em> of the Collaborology educational <em>prototype</em>, we here mention only a couple, to illustrate these abstract ideas,</p>
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| − | <p>(A challenge)The traditional education, conceived as a once-in-a-lifetime information package, presents an obstacle to systemic change or <em>systemic innovation</em>, because when a profession becomes obsolete, so do the professionals—and they will naturally resist change. (A solution) The Collaborology engenders a flexible education model, where the students learn what they need and at the time they need it. Furthermore, the <em>theme</em> of Collaborology is (online) collaboration; which is really <em>knowledge federation</em> and <em>systemic innovation</em>, organized under a name that the students can understand.</p>
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| − | <p>By having everyone (worldwide) create the learning resources for a single course, the Collaborology <em>prototype</em> illustrates the "economies of scale" that can result from online collaboration, when practiced as <em>systemic innovation</em>/<em>knowledge federation</em>. In Collaborology, a contributing author or instructor is required to contribute only a <em>single</em> lecture. By, furthermore, including creative media designers, the economies of scale allow the new media techniques (now largely confined to computer games) to revolutionize education.</p>
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| − | <p>A class is conceived as a design lab—where the students, self-organized in small teams, co-create learning resources. In this way the values that <em>systemic innovation</em> depends on are practiced and supported. The students contribute to the resulting innovation ecosystem, by acting as 'bacteria' (extracting 'nutrients' from the 'dead material' of published articles, and by combining them together give them a new life). </p>
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| − | <p>The Collaborology course model as a whole presents a solution to yet another design challenge—how to put together, organize and disseminate a <em>new</em> and <em>transdisciplinary</em> body of knowledge, about a theme of contemporary interest.</p>
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| − | <p>Our other <em>prototypes</em> show how similar benefits can be achieved in other core areas, such as health, tourism, and of course public informing and scientific communication. One of our Authentic Travel <em>prototypes</em> shows how to reconfigure the international corporation, concretely the franchise, and make it <em>serve</em> cultural revival.</p>
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| − | <p>Such <em>prototypes</em>, and the <em>design patterns</em> they embody, are new <em>kinds of</em> results, which in the <em>paradigm</em> we are proposing roughly correspond to today's scientific discoveries and technological inventions.</p>
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| − | <p>A different collection of design challenges and solution are related to the methodology for <em>systemic innovation</em>. Here the simple solution we developed is to organize a transdisciplinary team or <em>transdiscipline</em> around a <em>prototype</em>, with the mandate to update it continuously. This secures that the insights and innovations from the participating creative domains (represented by the members of the <em>transdiscipline</em>) have <em>direct</em> impact on <em>systems</em>. </p>
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| − | <p>Our experience with the very first application <em>prototype</em>, in public informing, revealed a new and general methodological and design challenge: The leading experts we brought together to form the <em>transdiscipline</em> (to represent in it the state of the art in their fields) are as a rule unable to change <em>the systems in which they live and work</em> themselves—because they are too busy and too much in demand; and because the power they have is invested in them by those <em>system</em>. But what they can and need to do is—empower the "young people" ("young" by the life phase they are in, as students or as entrepreneurs) to <em>change</em> systems ("change the world"), instead of having to conform to them. The result was The Game-Changing Game <em>prototype</em>, as a generic way to change real-life systems. We also produced a <em>prototype</em> which was an update of The Club of Rome, based on this insight and solution, called The Club of Zagreb.</p>
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| − | <p>Finally, and perhaps <em>most</em> importantly, progress toward resolving the <em>power structure</em> issue can be made <em>by simply identifying the issue</em>; by making it understood, and widely known—because it motivates a <em>radical</em> change of values, and of "human quality".</p>
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| − | <p>Notice that the <em>power structure</em> insight radically changes "the name of the game" in politics—from "us against them", to "all of us against the <em>power structure</em>.</p>
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| − | <p>This potential of the <em>power structure</em> insight gains power when combined with the <em>convenience paradox</em> insight and the <em>socialized reality</em> insight. It then becomes obvious that those among us whom we perceive as winners in the economic or political power struggle are really "winners" only because the <em>power structure</em> defined "the game". The losses we are all suffering in the <em>real</em> "reality game" are indeed enormous.</p>
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| − | <p>The Adbusters gave us a potentially useful keyword: <em>decooling</em>. Fifty years ago, puffing on a large cigar in an elevator or an airplane might have seemed just "cool"; today it's unthinkable. Let's see if today's notions of "success" might be transformed by similar <em>decolling</em>.</p>
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| − | <h3>The <em>collective mind</em> issue <em>can</em> be resolved</h3>
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| − | <p>Here it may be recognized that <em>knowledge federation</em> is really just a name, a <em>placeholder</em> name, for the kind of "collective thinking" that a 'collective mind' needs to develop to function correctly. The mission of the present Knowledge Federation <em>transdiscipline</em> is to <em>bootstrap</em> the development of <em>knowledge federation</em> both in specific instances (by creating real-life embedded <em>prototypes</em>), and in general (by developing <em>knowledge federation</em> as an academic field, and as a real-life <em>praxis</em>). </p>
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| − | <h3>The <em>socialized reality</em> issue <em>can</em> be resolved</h3>
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| − | <p>This is <em>extremely</em> good news: To <em>begin</em> the transformation to <em>holotopia</em>, we do not need to convince the politicians to impose on the industries a strict respect for the CO2 quotas; or the Wall Street bankers to change <em>their</em> rules. The first step is entirely in the hands of publicly supported intellectuals. </p>
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| − | <p>The key is "to change the relationship we have with information"—from considering it "an objective picture of reality", to considering it as <em>the</em> key element in our various systems.</p>
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| − | <p>Notice that if we can do this change successfully (by following the time-honored values of the academic tradition) then the academic researchers—that vast army of selected, specially trained and sponsored free thinkers—can be liberated from their confinement to traditional disciplines, and mobilized and given a chance to give their due contribution to urgent <em>contemporary</em> issues.</p>
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| − |
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| − | <p>Notice that the creative challenge that Vannevar Bush and others pointed to as <em>the</em> urgent one, and which Douglas Engelbart and others pursued successfully but <em>without</em> academic support (to recreate the very system by which do our work)—can in this new <em>paradigm</em> be rightly considered as "basic research".</p>
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| − |
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| − | <p>The key to all these changes is <em>epistemology</em>—just as it was in Galilei's time!</p>
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| − |
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| − | <p>The <em>reification</em> as the foundation for creating truth and meaning means also <em>reification</em> of our institutions (democracy <em>is</em> the mechanism of the "free elections", the representatives etc.; science <em>is</em> what the scientists are doing). That it is also <em>directly</em> preventing us from even imagining a different world.</p>
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| − | <p>Observe the depth of our challenge: When I write "worldviews", my word processor underlines the word in red. <em>Even grammatically</em>, there can be only one worldview—the one that <em>corresponds</em> with reality! Even when we say "we are constructing reality" (as so many scientists and philosophers did in so many ways during the past century)—this is still interpreted as a statement <em>about</em> reality. By the same token, if we would say that "information is" anything <em>but</em> what the journalists and scientists are giving us today, someone would surely object. How can we <em>ever</em> come out of this entrapment?</p>
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| − | <p>
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| − | [[File:Quine–TbC.jpeg]]
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| − | </p>
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| − | <p>A solution is found by resorting consistently to what Villard Van Orman Quine called "truth by convention". It is a conception of "truth" entirely independent of "reality" or <em>reification</em>. Or metaphorically, it is the 'Archimedean point' needed to empower information to once again "move the world". </p>
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| − |
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| − | <p>Based on it, we can say simply, as a convention, that the purpose of <em>information</em> is not <em>reification</em>, but to serve as 'headlights' in a 'bus'. Notice that no consensus is needed, and that there is no imposing on others: The convention is valid only <em>in context at hand</em>—which may be an article, a methodology, or the Holotopia <em>prototype</em>. To define "X as Y" by convention does not mean the claim that X "really is" Y—but only to consider X <em>as</em> Y, to see it in that specific way, from that specific 'angle', and see what results.</p>
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| − |
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| − | <p>By using <em>truth by convention</em>, we can attribute new and agile meaning to concepts; and <em>purposes</em> to academic fields! </p>
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| − | <p>The concrete <em>prototypes</em</em> are the <em>design epistemology</em>—where the new "relationship we have with information", and the new meaning of <em>information</em>, is proposed as a convention. Here of course, the proposed meaning is as the bus with candle headlight suggests—to consider information as a function in the organism of our culture; and to create it and use it as it may best suit its various roles.</p>
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| − | <h3>The <em>narrow frame</em> issue <em>can</em> be resolved</h3>
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| − | <p>The issue here is the way or the method by which truth and meaning are created. And specifically that the way that emerged based on 19th century science constitutes a <em>narrow frame</em>—i.e. that it is far too narrow to hold a functioning culture. That it was <em>destructive</em> of culture.</p>
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| − | <p>The solution found is to define a <em>general purpose methodology</em>.
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| − | <p>Suitable metaphors here are 'constitutional democracy', and 'trial by jury'. We both spell out the rules—<em>and</em> give provisions for updating them.</p>
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| − | <p>Information is no longer a 'birth right' (of science or whatever...). </p>
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| − | <p>The 'trial by jury' metaphor concerns the <em>knowledge federation</em> as process: Every piece of information or insight has the right of a 'fair trial'; nobody is denied 'citizenship rights' because he was 'born' in a wrong place...</p>
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| − | <p>Further <em>prototypes</em> include the <em>polyscopy</em> or Polyscopic Modeling <em>methodology</em>—whereby information can be created on <em>any</em> chosen theme, and on any level of generality.</p>
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| − | <h3>The <em>convenience paradox</em> issue has a solution</h3>
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| − | <p>The issue here is values. The problem with values—they are mechanistic, short-term, directly experiential... </p>
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| − | <p>The resolution is —<em>cultivation</em> of <em>wholeness</em>—which means to develop support for long-term work on <em>wholeness</em>; watering 'the seeds' of <em>wholeness</em>. And to <em>federate</em> information from a variety of cultural traditions, therapeutic methods, scientific fields... to illuminate the <em>way</em> to <em>wholeness</em>. </p>
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| − | <p>Concrete <em>prototypes</em> include educational ones, the Movement and Qi course shows how to embed the work with "human quality" in academic scheme of things—by <em>federating</em> the therapy traditions and employing the body (not only books) as the medium.</p>
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| − | <p>The big news is that <em>wholeness exists</em>; and that it involves the value of serving <em>wholeness</em> (and foregoing egocentricity)—which closes the cycles to <em>power structure</em>.
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| − | <blockquote>Why do we put up with such <em>systems</em>? Why don't we treat them as we treat other human-made things—by adapting them to the purposes that need to be served?</blockquote>
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| − | <p>The reasons are interesting, and in <em>holotopia</em> they'll be a recurring theme. </p>
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| − | <p>One of them we have already seen: We do not <em>see things whole</em>. We don't see <em>systems</em> when we look in conventional ways—as we don't see the mountain on which we are walking.</p>
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| − |
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| − | <p>A reason why we ignore the possibility of adapting <em>the systems in which we live and work</em> to the roles they have in our society is that they perform for us a <em>different</em> role—they provide a stable structure to our various power battles and turf strifes. Within our <em>system</em>, they provide us "objective" and "fair" criteria for competing for positions; and in the world outside, they give us as a system the "competitive edge".</p>
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| − |
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| − | <p>This, for instance, is the reason why the media corporations don't <em>combine</em> their resources and give us the awareness we need; they must <em>compete</em> with one another—and use whatever means are the most "cost-effective" for acquiring our attention.</p>
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| − |
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| − | <p>The most interesting reason—which we will revisit and understand more thoroughly below—is that the <em>power structures</em> have the power to <em>socialize</em> us in ways that suit <em>their</em> interests. This basic idea, of <em>socialization</em>, can however be understood if we think of our
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| − | in the opening slides of his "A Call to Action" presentation, which were prepared for a 2007 panel that Google organized to share his vision to the world (but not shown!).</p>
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| − | <p>
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| − | [[File:DE-one.jpeg]]
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| − | </p>
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| − |
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| − | <p>In the first slide, Engelbart emphasized that "new thinking" or a "new paradigm" is needed. In the second, he pointed out what this "new thinking" was. </p>
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| − | <blockquote>
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| − | <p>We ride a common economic-political vehicle traveling at an ever-accelerating pace through increasingly complex terrain.</p>
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| − | <p>Our headlights are much too dim and blurry. We have totally inadequate steering and braking controls. </p>
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| − | </blockquote>
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| − | <p>Part of this construction is a function of our cognitive system, which turns "the chaotic diversity of our sense-experience" into something that makes sense, and helps us function. The other part is performed by our society. Long before we are able to reflect on these matters "philosophically", we are given certain concepts through which to look at the world and organize it and make sense of it. Through innumerable 'carrots and sticks', throughout our lives, we are induced to "see the reality" in a certain specific way—as our culture defines it. As everyone knows, every "normal human being" sees the reality as it truly is. Wasn't that the reason why our ancestors often considered the members of a neighboring tribes, who saw the reality differently, as not completely normal; and why they treated them as not completely human?</p>
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| − | <p>Of various consequences that have resulted from this historical error, we shall here mention two. The first will explain what really happened with our culture, and our "human quality"; why the way we handle them urgently needs to change. The second will explain what holds us back—why we've been so incapable of treating our <em>systems</em> as we treat other human-made things, by adapting them to the purposes that need to be served. </p>
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| − | <p>To see our first point, we invite you to follow us in a one-minute thought experiment. To join us on an imaginary visit to a cathedral. No, this is not about religion; we shall use the cathedral as one of our <em>ideograms</em>, to put things in proportion and make a point.</p>
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| − | <p>What strikes us instantly, as we enter, is awe-inspiring architecture. Then we hear the music play: Is it Bach's cantatas? Or Allegri's Miserere? We see sculptures, and frescos by masters of old on the walls. And then, of course, there's the ritual...</p>
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| − | <p>We also notice a little book on each bench. When we open it, we see that its first paragraphs explain how the world was created.</p>
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| − | <p>Let this difference in size—between the beginning of Genesis and all the rest we find in a cathedral—point to the fact that, owing to our error, our pursuit of knowledge has been focused on a relatively minor part, on <em>explaining</em> how the things we perceive originated, and how they work. And that what we've ignored is our culture as a complex ecosystem, which evolved through thousands of years, whose function is to <em>socialize</em> people in a certain specific way. To <em>create</em> certain "human quality". Notice that we are not making a value judgment, only pointing to a function.</p>
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| − |
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| − | <p>The way we presently treat this ecosystem reminds of the way in which we treated the natural ones, at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. We have nothing equivalent to CO2 measurements and quotas, to even <em>try</em> to make this a scientific and political issue.</p>
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| − | <p>So how <em>are</em> our culture, and our "human quality" evolving? To see the answer, it is enough to just look around. To an excessive degree, the <em>symbolic environment</em> we are immersed in is a product of advertising. And explicit advertising is only a tip of an iceberg, comprising various ways in which we are <em>socialized</em> to be egotistical consumers; to believe in "free competition"—not in "making things <em>whole</em>".</p>
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| − | <p>By believing that the role of information is to give us an "objective" and factual view of "reality", we have ignored and abandoned to decay core parts of our cultural heritage. <em>And</em> we have abandoned the creation of culture, and of "human quality", to <em>power structure</em>. </p>
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| − | <p>To see our second point, that reality construction is a key instrument of the <em>power structure</em>, and hence of power, it may be sufficient to point to "Social Construction of Reality", where Berger and Luckmann explained how throughout history, the "universal theories" about the nature of reality have been used to <em>legitimize</em> a given social order. But this theme is central to <em>holotopia</em>, and here too we can only get a glimpse of a solution by looking at deeper dynamics and causes.</p>
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| − | <p>To be able to do that we devised a <em>thread</em>—in which three short stories or <em>vignettes</em> are strung together to compose a larger insight.</p>
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| − | <p>The first <em>vignette</em> describes a real-life event, where two Icelandic horses living outdoors—aging Odin the Horse, and New Horse who is just being introduced to the herd where Odin is the stallion and the leader—are engaged in turf strife. It will be suffice to just imagine these two horses running side by side, with their long hairs waving in the wind, Odin pushing New Horse toward the river, and away from his pack of mares.</p>
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| − | <p>The second story is about sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, and his "theory of practice"—where Bourdieu provided a conceptual framework to help us understand how <em>socialization</em> works; and in particular its relationship with what he called "symbolic power". Our reason for combining these two stories together is to suggest that we humans exhibit a similar turf behavior as Odin—but that this tends to remain largely unrecognized. Part of the reason is that, as Bourdieu explained, the ways in which this atavistic disposition of ours manifests itself are incomparably more diverse and subtle than the ones of horses—indeed as more diverse so as our culture is more complex than theirs. </p>
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| − | <p>Bourdieu devised two keywords for the symbolic cultural 'turf'" "field" and "game", and used them interchangeably. He called it a "field", to suggest (1) a field of activity or profession, and the <em>system</em> where it is practiced; and (2) something akin to a magnetic field, in which we people are immersed as small magnets, and which subtly, without us noticing, orients our seemingly random or "free" movement. He referred to it as "game", to suggests that there are certain semi-permanent roles in it, with allowable 'moves', by which our 'turf strife' is structured in a specific way.</p>
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| − | <p>To explain the dynamics of the game or the field, Bourdieu adapted two additional keywords, each of which has a long academic history: "habitus" and "doxa". A habitus is composed of embodied behavioral predispositions, and may be thought of as distinct 'roles' or 'avatars' in the 'game'. A king has a certain distinct habitus; and so do his pages. The habitus is routinely maintained through direct, body-to-body action (everyone bows to the king, and you do too), without conscious intention or awareness. Doxa is the belief, or embodied experience, that the given social order is <em>the</em> reality. "Orthodoxy" acknowledges that multiple "realities" coexist, of which only a single one is "right"; doxa ignores even the <em>possibility</em> of alternatives.</p>
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| − | <p>Hence we may understand <em>socialized reality</em> as something that 'gamifies' our social behavior, by giving everyone an 'avatar' or a role, and a set of capabilities. Doxa is the 'cement' that makes such <em>socialized reality</em> relatively permanent.</p>
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| − | <p>A [[vignette|<em>vignette</em>]] involving Antonio Damasio as cognitive neuroscientist completes this <em>thread</em>, by helping us see that the "embodied predispositions" that are maintained in this way have a <em>decisive role</em>, contrary to what the 19th century science and indeed the core of our philosophical tradition made us believe. Damasio showed that our socialized <em>embodied</em> predispositions act as a cognitive filter—<em>determining</em> not only our priorities, but also the <em>options</em> we may be able to rationally consider. Our embodied, socialized predispositions are a reason, for instance, why we don't consider showing up in public naked (which in another culture might be normal). </p>
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| − | <p>This conclusion suggests itself: Changing <em>the systems in which we live and work</em>—however rational, and necessary, that may be—is for <em>similar</em> reasons inconceivable. </p>
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| − | <blockquote>We are incapable of changing our <em>systems</em>, because we have been <em>socialized</em> to accept them as reality.</blockquote>
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| − | <p>We may now condense this diagnosis to a single keyword: <em>reification</em>. We are incapable of replacing 'candle headlights' because we have <em>reified</em> them as 'headlights'! "Science" has no systemic purpose. Science <em>is</em> what the scientists are doing. Just as "journalism" is the profession we've inherited from the tradition. </p>
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| − | <p>
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| − | [[File:Beck-frame.jpeg]]
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| − | </p>
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| − | <p>But <em>reification</em> reaches still deeper—to include the very <em>language</em> we use to organize our world. It includes the very concepts by which we frame our "issues". Ulrich Beck continued the above observation:</p>
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| − | <blockquote>
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| − | "Max Weber's 'iron cage' – in which he thought humanity was condemned to live for the foreseeable future – is for me the prison of <em>categories and basic assumptions</em> of classical social, cultural and political sciences."
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| − | </blockquote>
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| − | <p>We may now see not only our inherited physical institutions or <em>systems</em> as 'candles'—but also our inherited or socialized concepts, which determine the very <em>way</em> in which we look at the world.</p>
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| − | <p><em>Reification</em> underlies <em>both</em> problems. It is what <em>keeps us</em> in 'iron cage'.</p>
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