Difference between revisions of "Holotopia"

From Knowledge Federation
Jump to: navigation, search
m
m
(23 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown)
Line 13: Line 13:
 
<small>Modernity <em>ideogram</em></small>  
 
<small>Modernity <em>ideogram</em></small>  
 
</div> </div>  
 
</div> </div>  
 
  
 
<div class="row">
 
<div class="row">
Line 102: Line 101:
 
<div class="col-md-7">
 
<div class="col-md-7">
  
<p><em>What do we need to do</em> to "change course" toward the <em>holotopia</em>?</p>  
+
<p><em>What do we need to do</em> to "change course" toward <em>holotopia</em>?</p>  
 
<blockquote>The <em>five insights</em> point to a simple principle or rule of thumb—making things  [[Wholeness|<em>whole</em>]].</blockquote>
 
<blockquote>The <em>five insights</em> point to a simple principle or rule of thumb—making things  [[Wholeness|<em>whole</em>]].</blockquote>
 
<p>This principle is suggested by the <em>holotopia</em>'s very name. And also by the Modernity <em>ideogram</em>. Instead of <em>reifying</em> our institutions and professions, and merely acting in them competitively to improve "our own" situation or condition, we consider ourselves and what we do as functional elements in a larger system of systems; and we self-organize, and act, as it may best suit the [[Wholeness|<em>wholeness</em>]] of it all. </p>
 
<p>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>
Line 179: Line 178:
  
 
<blockquote>The <em>holotopia</em> vision results.</blockquote>   
 
<blockquote>The <em>holotopia</em> vision results.</blockquote>   
 
<blockquote>Peccei's call to action is answered by the Holotopia project. </blockquote>
 
  
 
<p>The key to comprehensive change turns out to be the same as it was in Galilei's time—a new approach to knowledge, which allows for creation of general principles and insights. As the case was then, the development of this new approach to knowledge is shown to follow from the state of the art of <em>knowledge of knowledge</em>—and hence as an <em>academic</em> task.</p>  
 
<p>The key to comprehensive change turns out to be the same as it was in Galilei's time—a new approach to knowledge, which allows for creation of general principles and insights. As the case was then, the development of this new approach to knowledge is shown to follow from the state of the art of <em>knowledge of knowledge</em>—and hence as an <em>academic</em> task.</p>  
Line 372: Line 369:
 
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic may require systemic changes <em>now</em>.</p>  
 
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic may require systemic changes <em>now</em>.</p>  
  
<blockquote>So <b>who</b>, what institution or <em>system</em>, will lead us through our <em>next</em> evolutionary challenge—where we will learn how to recreate <em>the systems in which we live and work</em>; in <em>knowledge work</em>, and beyond?</blockquote>  
+
<blockquote><b>Who</b>—what institution or <em>system</em>—will take the leadership role, and guide us through our unprecedentedly immense creative and evolutionary challenges?</blockquote>
  
 
<p>Both Erich Jantsch and Doug 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 Vannevar Bush and Norbert Wiener before them, and so many others who followed. </p>  
 
<p>Both Erich Jantsch and Doug 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 Vannevar Bush and Norbert Wiener before them, and so many others who followed. </p>  
Line 378: Line 375:
 
<p>Why?</p>  
 
<p>Why?</p>  
  
<p>Isn't the call to restore agency to information and power to knowledge deserving of academic attention?</p>  
+
<p>Isn't the prospect of restoring agency to information and power to knowledge deserving 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>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>  
Line 417: Line 414:
  
  
<blockquote>In the course of our modernization, we made a <em>fundamental error</em>.</blockquote>   
+
<blockquote>In the course of our modernization, we made a <em>fundamental</em> error.</blockquote>   
  
 
<p>From the traditional culture we adopted a <em>myth</em> far more disruptive of modernization than the creation myth—that "truth" means "correspondence with reality"; and that the purpose of information, and of our pursuit of knowledge, is to "know the reality" objectively, as it truly is. 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>  
 
<p>From the traditional culture we adopted a <em>myth</em> far more disruptive of modernization than the creation myth—that "truth" means "correspondence with reality"; and that the purpose of information, and of our pursuit of knowledge, is to "know the reality" objectively, as it truly is. 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>  
Line 462: Line 459:
 
<li><b>Stringent limits to creativity</b>. A vast global army of selected, trained and publicly sponsored creative people are obliged to confine their repertoire of creative action to producing research articles in traditional academic fields. </li>  
 
<li><b>Stringent limits to creativity</b>. A vast global army of selected, trained and publicly sponsored creative people are obliged to confine their repertoire of creative action to producing research articles in traditional academic fields. </li>  
 
<li><b>Loss of cultural heritage</b>. A trivial observation will 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' was created that oriented people's ethical sense and behavior. To see that the ancient myths were, however, only a tip of an iceberg (a small part of a complex ecosystem whose purpose was to develop "human quality") this one-minute thought experiment—an imaginary visit to a cathedral—might be helpful: There is awe-inspiring architecture; Michelangelo's Pietà meets the eye, and his frescos are near by. Allegri's Miserere reaches us from above. And there's of course also the ritual. All this comprises an ecosystem—in which the emotions of awe and respect make one open to practicing and learning. By its complex dynamics, it resembles our biophysical environment—but there is a notable difference: There we have nothing equivalent to the temperature and CO2 measurements, to be able to diagnose problems and propose remedies. </li>  
 
<li><b>Loss of cultural heritage</b>. A trivial observation will 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' was created that oriented people's ethical sense and behavior. To see that the ancient myths were, however, only a tip of an iceberg (a small part of a complex ecosystem whose purpose was to develop "human quality") this one-minute thought experiment—an imaginary visit to a cathedral—might be helpful: There is awe-inspiring architecture; Michelangelo's Pietà meets the eye, and his frescos are near by. Allegri's Miserere reaches us from above. And there's of course also the ritual. All this comprises an ecosystem—in which the emotions of awe and respect make one open to practicing and learning. By its complex dynamics, it resembles our biophysical environment—but there is a notable difference: There we have nothing equivalent to the temperature and CO2 measurements, to be able to diagnose problems and propose 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, the bulk of which consists of a variety of ways in which "symbolic power" is used to <em>socialize</em> us in ways that suit the <em>power structure</em> interests. Scientific techniques are used — and here[https://youtu.be/lOUcXK_7d_c the story of Edward Bernays], Freud's American nephew who became "the pioneer of modern public relations and propaganda", is iconic.</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, the bulk of which consists of a variety of ways in which "symbolic power" is used to <em>socialize</em> us in ways that suit the <em>power structure</em> interests. Scientific techniques are used; [https://youtu.be/lOUcXK_7d_c the story of Edward Bernays], Freud's American nephew who became "the pioneer of modern public relations and propaganda", is iconic.</li>  
 
<li><b><em>Reification</em> of institutions</b>. Even when they cause us problems, and make us incapable of solving them.</li>  
 
<li><b><em>Reification</em> of institutions</b>. Even when they cause us problems, and make us incapable of solving them.</li>  
 
</ul>   
 
</ul>   
Line 540: Line 537:
 
<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>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>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 <em>define</em> an <em>epistemology</em>.</p>  
 
<p>The second step is to use <em>truth by convention</em> to <em>define</em> an <em>epistemology</em>.</p>  
Line 711: Line 708:
 
<p>The solution for structuring information we devised in <em>polyscopy</em> is called <em>information holon</em>. An <em>information holon</em> is closely similar to the "object" in object oriented methodology. 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>The solution for structuring information we devised in <em>polyscopy</em> is called <em>information holon</em>. An <em>information holon</em> is closely similar to the "object" in object oriented methodology. 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 general insight or a <em>gestalt</em>, it allows that insight to be integrated or "exported" as a "fact" into <em>higher-level</em> insights (while the contributing insights and data remain "hidden" in the <em>square</em>). When the <em>circle</em> is a <em>prototype</em>, the multiplicity of insights that comprise the <em>square</em> are given direct <em>systemic</em> impact, or agency.</p>  
+
<p>When the <em>circle</em>  is a general insight or a <em>gestalt</em>, it allows that insight to be integrated or "exported" as a "fact" into <em>higher-level</em> insights (while the contributing insights and data remain "hidden" in the <em>square</em>). When the <em>circle</em> is a <em>prototype</em>, the multiplicity of insights that comprise the <em>square</em> are given direct <em>systemic</em> impact, and hence agency.</p>  
 
</div> <div class="col-md-3">
 
</div> <div class="col-md-3">
 
[[File:Information.jpg]]<br>
 
[[File:Information.jpg]]<br>
Line 729: Line 726:
  
 
</div> </div>  
 
</div> </div>  
 +
  
 
<div class="row">
 
<div class="row">
Line 739: Line 737:
 
<b>Why</b> is "a great cultural revival" realistically possible?</blockquote>  
 
<b>Why</b> is "a great cultural revival" realistically possible?</blockquote>  
  
<p>What insight, and what strategy, may divert our"pursuit of happiness" from material consumption to human cultivation?</p>  
+
<p>What insight, and what strategy, may divert our "pursuit of happiness" from material consumption to human cultivation?</p>  
  
 
<p>We may approach the same theme from a different angle: Suppose we developed the <em>praxis</em> of <em>federating</em> information—and used it to combine <em>all</em> relevant heritage and insights—from the sciences, the world traditions, the therapy schools... </p>  
 
<p>We may approach the same theme from a different angle: Suppose we developed the <em>praxis</em> of <em>federating</em> information—and used it to combine <em>all</em> relevant heritage and insights—from the sciences, the world traditions, the therapy schools... </p>  
Line 751: Line 749:
 
<h3>Diagnosis</h3>  
 
<h3>Diagnosis</h3>  
  
<p>The "pursuit of happiness" 'in the light of a candle' made two values prominent, at the detriment of others:  <em>convenience</em> (favoring what <em>appears</em> to be pleasant and easy) and <em>egotism</em> (favoring narrowly conceived "personal interests"). Both appear as scientific: <em>convenience</em> because it resembles the experiment; <em>egotism</em> because it is (claim the followers of Darwin) the way in which the nature herself pursues <em>wholeness</em>. Both are endlessly supported by advertising.</p>  
+
<p>There is a popular <em>myth</em> which precludes information and knowledge to make a difference in this realm too—analogous and related to the <em>myth</em> of free competition that breeds the <em>power structure</em>. </p>
 +
 
 +
<blockquote>It is the belief that we don't really need information, or culture, because we can experience what makes us happy <em>directly</em>—and reach out toward it with the help of science and technology.</blockquote>
 +
 
 +
<p>Our "pursuit of happiness" 'in the light of a candle' made two values prominent, at the detriment of others:  <em>convenience</em> (favoring what <em>appears</em> to be pleasant and easy) and <em>egotism</em> (favoring narrowly conceived "personal interests"). Both appear as scientific: <em>convenience</em> because it resembles the experiment; <em>egotism</em> because it is the way in which nature herself pursues <em>wholeness</em>. Both values are, of course, endlessly supported by advertising.</p>
 +
 
 +
<blockquote>Those two values now guide <em>even</em> our choice and creation of information!</blockquote>
 +
 
 +
</div> </div>
 +
 
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-6">
  
 
<h3>Remedy</h3>  
 
<h3>Remedy</h3>  
  
 +
<p>We point to the remedy by the Convenience Paradox <em>ideogram</em>. Like all of us, the person in the picture wants his life to be convenient. But he made a wise choice: Instead of simply following the direction downwards, which <em>feels</em> easier, he paused to reflect whether this direction also leads to a more convenient <em>condition</em>. </p>
  
<p>The <em>convenience paradox</em> insight—by which we point to a remedial course—may be understood in terms of three more specific insights. They all become transparent as soon as we abandon the stories and <em>socialized realities</em>, and focus on the human experience that the traditions point to and embody.</p>  
+
<blockquote>It doesn't.</blockquote>  
  
<blockquote><em>1. Human wholeness exists.</em></blockquote>
+
<p>The <em>convenience paradox</em> is a <em>pattern</em>, where the pursuit of a more convenient direction leads to a less convenient situation. The iconic image of a "couch potato" in front of a TV is an obvious instance.</p>  
  
<p>And it feels better than anything that most of us can experience, or even imagine.</p>  
+
<p>The <em>convenience paradox</em> is a result of us simplifying "pursuit of happiness" by ignoring its two most interesting <em>dimensions</em>—time; and our own condition, which makes us inclined or <em>able to</em> feel</em> in any specific way.</p>
 +
 
 +
<p>By depicting the <em>way</em> to <em>wholeness</em> as "yang" in the traditional yin-yang <em>ideogram</em>, it is suggested that its nature os paradoxical and obscure—and that the <em>way</em> needs to be illuminated by suitable <em>information</em>. This <em>way</em> is what the Buddhists call "Dhamma" and the Taoists "Tao". </p>
 +
 
 +
 
 +
<p>However paradoxical, the <em>way</em> follows a certain pattern that <em>can</em> be understood; not in a mechanistic-causal way, not by studying what various cultures <em>believe</em> in—but by focusing on and <em>federating</em> the <em>phenomenology</em> repeated in the world traditions.</p>
 +
</div>
 +
<div class="col-md-3">
 +
[[File:Convenience Paradox.jpg]]
 +
<small>Convenience Paradox <em>ideogram</em></small>
 +
</div> </div>
 +
<div class="row">
 +
<div class="col-md-3"></div>
 +
<div class="col-md-7">
 +
<p><em>Wholeness</em> is such a beautifully inclusive value, with so many sides! We may have everything else in the world—and the lack of vitamin C will make it all futile. </p>
 +
 
 +
<blockquote>We showed that the <em>convenience paradox</em> is a <em>pattern</em> repeated or subtly reflected in all major aspects of our civilized human condition.</blockquote>
 +
 
 +
<p>To illustrate it, however, we here focus on what might be its least known and most interesting side—<em>our capacity to feel</em>. We'll elaborate it in terms of three specific insights.</p>
 +
 
 +
<blockquote>1. Human wholeness <em>feels</em> better than most of us can imagine.</blockquote>
  
 
<p>We called this insight "the best kept secret of human culture" , and made it a theme of one of our chosen <em>ten conversations</em>. </p>  
 
<p>We called this insight "the best kept secret of human culture" , and made it a theme of one of our chosen <em>ten conversations</em>. </p>  
  
<p><em>It was this glimpse or experience of human wholeness</em> that attracted our ancestors to the Buddha, the Christ, Mohammed and other adepts and teachers of the <em>way</em>, or "sages", or "prophets". In "Sermon on the Mount",  C.F. Andrews described this phenomenon:</p>
+
<p><em>It was a glimpse or an experience or side of human wholeness</em> that attracted our ancestors to the Buddha, the Christ, Mohammed and other adepts and teachers of the <em>way</em>, or "sages" or "prophets". C.F. Andrews described this in "Sermon on the Mount":</p>
 
   
 
   
 
<blockquote>"(Through their practice, the early disciples of Jesus found out) that the Way of Life, which Jesus had marked out for them in His teaching, was revolutionary in its moral principles. It turned the world upside down (Acts 17. 6). (...) They found in this new 'Way of Life' such a superabundance of joy, even in the midst of suffering, that they could hardly contain it. Their radiance was unmistakable. When the Jewish rulers saw their boldness, they 'marvelled and took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus' (Acts 4. 13). (...) It was this exuberance of joy and love which was so novel and arresting. It was a 'Way of Life' about which men had no previous experience. Indeed, at first those who saw it could not in the least understand it; and some mocking said, 'These men are full of new wine' (Acts 2. 13)."</blockquote>  
 
<blockquote>"(Through their practice, the early disciples of Jesus found out) that the Way of Life, which Jesus had marked out for them in His teaching, was revolutionary in its moral principles. It turned the world upside down (Acts 17. 6). (...) They found in this new 'Way of Life' such a superabundance of joy, even in the midst of suffering, that they could hardly contain it. Their radiance was unmistakable. When the Jewish rulers saw their boldness, they 'marvelled and took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus' (Acts 4. 13). (...) It was this exuberance of joy and love which was so novel and arresting. It was a 'Way of Life' about which men had no previous experience. Indeed, at first those who saw it could not in the least understand it; and some mocking said, 'These men are full of new wine' (Acts 2. 13)."</blockquote>  
Line 770: Line 801:
 
<p>The existence and character of this experience can, however, readily be verified by simply observing or asking the people who have followed the <em>way</em>, and tasted some of its fruits.</p>  
 
<p>The existence and character of this experience can, however, readily be verified by simply observing or asking the people who have followed the <em>way</em>, and tasted some of its fruits.</p>  
  
<blockquote><em>2. The way to it is paradoxical.</em></blockquote>  
+
<blockquote>2. The <em>way</em> to <em>wholeness</em> is counter-intuitive or paradoxical.</blockquote>  
 
 
<p>But it follows a "natural law", which can be understood—not by a mechanistic-causal but by a <em>phenomenological</em> approach.</p>
 
  
<p>This "natural law" or <em>way</em> is what the Buddhists call "Dhamma" and the Taoists "Tao". This second insight readily results when we observe the <em>uniformity</em> of both the practices that constitute the <em>way</em>, and of the experiences that reportedly resulted. </p>
 
 
<p>
 
<p>
 
[[File:LaoTzu-vision.jpeg]]
 
[[File:LaoTzu-vision.jpeg]]
Line 780: Line 808:
 
<p>To get a glimpse of it, compare the above utterances by Lao Tzu, with what Christ taught in his Sermon on the Mount. Why was Teacher Lao claiming that "the weak can defeat the strong"? Why did the Christ asked his disciples to "turn the other cheek"?</p>  
 
<p>To get a glimpse of it, compare the above utterances by Lao Tzu, with what Christ taught in his Sermon on the Mount. Why was Teacher Lao claiming that "the weak can defeat the strong"? Why did the Christ asked his disciples to "turn the other cheek"?</p>  
  
<p>A <em>contemporary</em> story, of Aldous Huxley and his book "Perennial Philosophy", will however <em>alone</em> be sufficient.  Coming from a family that gave some of Britain's leading scientists, Aldous Huxley undertook to <em>federate</em> some of the elements of a new <em>kind of</em> science—by showing, methodically and convincingly, the uniformity in what the adepts and followers of the <em>way</em> wrote and experienced, across historical periods and cultures. </p>  
+
<p>Aldous Huxley's book "Perennial Philosophy" is <em>alone</em> sufficient to make this point.  Coming from a family that gave some of Britain's leading scientists, Huxley undertook to not only <em>federate</em> some of the core insights about the <em>way</em> (by demonstrating the consistency of both the relevant practices <em>and</em> their results across historical periods and cultures), but to also make a case for the method he used, as an extension of science needed to support core elements of our cultural heritage.</p>
  
<blockquote><em>3. The key to unraveling the paradox is to reverse the values.</em></blockquote>  
+
<blockquote>3. The key to unraveling the paradox is to <em>reverse</em> the values.</blockquote>  
  
<p><em>Convenience</em> must be replaced by long-term <em>cultivation</em>, or <em>praxis</em>. <p>  
+
<p><em>Convenience</em> needs to be replaced by (to use Peccei's keyword) "human development". </p>  
  
<p><em>Egotism</em> must be overcome through selfless service.</p>  
+
<p><em>Egotism</em> needs to be overcome through "selfless service".</p>
 +
 
 +
<p>Lao Tzu, an iconic representative of the <em>way</em>, is often portrayed as reading a bull—which signifies that he's harnessed his <em>egotism</em>.</p>  
  
 
<p>While this insight can easily be <em>federated</em> in the manner just described, we here point to it by a curiosity.</p>   
 
<p>While this insight can easily be <em>federated</em> in the manner just described, we here point to it by a curiosity.</p>   
 +
 
<p>
 
<p>
 
[[File:Huxley-vision.jpeg]]
 
[[File:Huxley-vision.jpeg]]
 
</p>
 
</p>
<p>In "The Art of Seeing", Aldous Huxley observed that overcoming egotism is necessary even for mastering <em>physical</em> or psychomotoric skills!</p>  
+
<p>In "The Art of Seeing", Huxley observed that overcoming egotism is a necessary element of even <em>physical</em> wholeness!</p>  
  
<p>We leave this parabolic image for further exploration: We develop the technology to reduce effort; but the heaviest thing we ever lift and carry around we can never get rid of! What if effortlessness exists, and <em>can</em> be developed—but only as part and parcel of an integral approach to human <em>wholeness</em>!</p>  
+
<p>We may now perceive significant parts of our cultural history as struggle between <em>cultivation</em> of <em>wholeness</em> guided by insights into the nature of the <em>way</em>—and the <em>power structure</em>–related <em>socialization</em>, aided by the attraction of <em>convenience</em> and <em>egotism</em>. It is on the outcome of this struggle, Peccei observed, that our future will depend. </p>  
  
<p>We may now see in the history of our culture an age-long struggle between <em>cultivation</em> of <em>wholeness</em> guided by insights into the nature of the <em>way</em>—and the <em>power structure</em> aided by the attraction of <em>convenience</em> and <em>egotism</em>. It is a struggle which, Peccei observed, we seem to be losing. It is also a struggle on which our future will depend. </p>  
+
<blockquote>What hope do we have of reversing its outcome?</blockquote>  
  
<blockquote>What hope do we have of reversing its course, and outcome?</blockquote>  
+
<p>The answer is, of course, that we now have a whole new <em>dimension</em> to work with.</p>  
  
<p>The answer is, of course, that we now have a whole new realm, or dimension, to work with.</p>  
+
<blockquote>We can <em>design</em> communication.</blockquote>  
  
<blockquote>We can <em>design</em> communication.</blockquote>  
+
<p>We can create media content that will communicate the <em>convenience paradox</em> in clear and convincing ways; we can guide people to an <em>informed</em> use of information; <em>and</em> we can create various elements of culture to <em>socialize</em> us or <em>cultivate</em> us accordingly. Including, of course, <em>the systems in which we live and work</em>. </p>
  
<p>We can <em>both</em> create media content that will communicate the above messages in clear and convincing ways, <em>and</em> create various elements of culture to <em>socialize</em> us or <em>cultivate</em> us accordingly. Including, of course, <em>the systems in which we live and work</em>. We can create the very <em>way in which information is selected and consumed</em>.</p>
 
  
 
<blockquote>A <em>vast</em> creative frontier opens up.</blockquote>  
 
<blockquote>A <em>vast</em> creative frontier opens up.</blockquote>  
  
<p>We now illustrate this uniquely fertile creative space, which the Holotopia project has undertaken to prime and develop, by only a handful of examples.<p>  
+
<p>We illustrate it here by a handful of examples.</p>  
  
<h3>Keywords</h3>  
+
<p>In a fractal-like manner, our definition of <em>culture</em> reflects the entire situation around <em>holoscope</em> and <em>holotopia</em>. So let us summarize it here in that way, however briefly. We motivated this definition by discussing Zygmunt Bauman's book "Culture as Praxis"—where Bauman surveyed a large number of historical definitions of culture, and reached the conclusion that they are so diverse that they cannot be reconciled with one another. How can we develop culture as <em>praxis</em>—if we don't know what "culture" means? We defined  <em>culture</em> as "<em>cultivation</em> of <em>wholeness</em>", where the keyword <em>cultivation</em> is defined by analogy with planting and watering a seed (which suits also the etymology of "culture") . Thereby (and in accordance with the general <em>holotopia</em> approach we discussed above), we pointed to a specific <em>aspect</em> of culture. No amount of dissecting and studying a seed would suggest that it needs to be planted and watered. Hence when we reduced "reality" to what we can explain in that way, the <em>culture</em> as <em>cultivation</em> is all gone! When, however, we consider and treat <em>information</em> as human experience, and look for what may help us redeem and further develop <em>culture</em>—then a remedial trend, modeled by <em>holotopia</em>, is already under way. </p>  
  
<p>We motivated our definition of <em>culture</em> by discussing Zygmunt Bauman's book "Culture as Praxis"—where Bauman surveyed a large number of historical definitions of culture, and reached the conclusion that they are so diverse that they cannot be reconciled with one another. How can we develop culture as <em>praxis</em>—if we don't know what "culture" means? The change of the relationship we have with information, or in other words of <em>epistemology</em>, allowed us to define <em>culture</em> as a <em>way of looking</em> at the real thing or phenomenon—which illuminates its core <em>aspect</em> that tends to be ignored. We defined  <em>culture</em> by de defined <em>culture</em> as "<em>cultivation</em> of <em>wholeness</em>", where the keyword <em>cultivation</em> is defined by analogy with planting and watering a seed. A key point here (intended as a parable) is to observe that no amount of dissecting and studying a seed would suggest that it needs to be planted and watered. And hence that <em>cultivation</em> profoundly depends on taking advantage of the experience of others—regarding how certain actions produce certain effects <em>in the long run</em>. As soon as we apply the same idea to <em>human</em> cultivation—similarly spectacular insights and the opportunities come within reach.</p>  
+
<p>We defined <em>addiction</em> as a <em>pattern</em>; and motivated this definition by observing that evolution equipped us, humans with emotions of comfort and discomfort to guide our choices toward <em>wholeness</em>. We, however, found ways to deceive nature—by creating pleasurable things called "addictions", which lead us <em>away</em> from <em>wholeness</em>. Since selling addictions is lucrative business, the <em>traditions</em> identified certain activities or <em>things</em> (such as opiates and gambling) as addictions and developed suitable legislation and ethical norms. But with the help of technology, contemporary industries can develop hundreds of <em>new</em> addictions—without us having a way to even recognize them as that. By defining <em>addiction</em> as a <em>pattern</em>, we can perceive it (as we did with the <em>power structure</em>) as an <em>aspect</em> of otherwise good and useful things. From a large number of obvious or subtle candidates or examples, we here mention only <em>pseudoconsciousness</em> defined as "<em>addiction</em> to information". Consciousness of one's situation and surroundings is, of course, an evolutionary need. In civilization we can, however, drown this need in massive facts and data—which give us the <em>sensation</em> of knowing, without telling us what we above all <em>need to</em> know.</p>  
  
<p>We motivated our definition of <em>addiction</em> by observing that evolution equipped us with pleasant and unpleasant emotions to guide our choices toward <em>wholeness</em>. But we humans has devised ways to deceive our perception—by creating attractive and pleasurable things that lead us <em>away</em> from <em>wholeness</em>. We defined <em>addiction</em> as a <em>pattern</em>, and offered it as a conceptual remedy for this anomaly. Since selling addictions has always been lucrative yet destructive, the <em>traditions</em> identified certain activities or <em>things</em> (such as opiates and gambling) as addictions and developed suitable legislation and ethical norms. But with the help of technology, contemporary industries can develop hundreds of <em>new</em> addictions—without us having a way to even recognize them as that. </p>  
+
<p>We adapted the definition that Martin Lings contributed, and defined <em>religion</em> as "reconnection with the <em>archetype</em>" (this again harmonizes with the etymological meaning of this word). The <em>archetypes</em> here include "justice", "beauty", "truth", "love" and anything else that may make a person overcome <em>egotism</em> and <em>convenience</em> and serve a "higher" ideal.</p>  
  
<p>We defined <em>religion</em> as "reconnection with the <em>archetype</em>". The <em>archetypes</em> here include "justice", "beauty", "truth", "love" and anything else that may make a person overcome <em>egotism</em> and <em>convenience</em> and serve a "higher" ideal.</p>  
+
<p>The NaCuHeal-Information Design was our project developed in collaboration with the European Public Health Association, through Prof. Gunnar Tellnes who was then its president. In Norway Tellnes developed an authentic approach to health, which was based on nature and culture-related activities. This collaboration resulted in several <em>prototypes</em>, of which we mention two. </p>  
  
<h3>Stories</h3>  
+
<p>We contributed "Healthcare as a Power Structure" to the European Association for the History of Medicine and Health. Historiographically, we based this research on the results  of Weston Price and Werner Kollath—two pioneers of the scientific "hygiene", understood as a scientific study of the ways in which civilized lifestyle influences people's health. But we also added a <em>methodological</em> contribution—a way to 'connect the dots' and supplement historiographic research by a general "law of change" result. By seeing that also our approach to health and medicine can develop pathological tendencies, we can explain the fact that the results of those pioneers are still virtually unknown even to medical professionals; and why, in spite of them, our "caring for health" so consistently ignores the lifestyle factors, and relies on far more costly interventions.</p>  
  
<p>Werner Kollath was a medical researcher, and pioneer of the scientific study of "hygiene" (which he understood most generally as life-enhancing lifestyle). Kollath observed that while scientific medicine developed through its successes in combating infectious diseases (where developing "causes" and "remedies" is most effective), the upsurge of lifestyle-caused diseases <em>requires a different approach to medicine</em> altogether. Kollath observed that this problem is <em>both</em> scientific <em>and</em> political (we must learn to overcome the <em>power structure</em>), and undertook to develop "political hygiene as science". The <em>power structure</em> of his day, however, thwarted his efforts.</p>  
+
<p>Kommunewiki—a <em>dialog</em>-based communication project for Norwegian municipalities (as basic units of Norwegian democracy)—was conceived to empower their members to counter <em>power structure</em> lifestyle tendencies, and develop <em>salutogenic</em> new ones.</p>  
  
<p>Aaron Antonovsky was a researcher in the sociology of health, who is today widely considered the progenitor of scientific "salutogenesis" (creation of health). In post-war Israel, Antonovsky studied women who were Holocaust survivers, and focused on about one third of them who did <em>not</em> develop otherwise common health problems. He found that what they had in common was a high level of what he branded "sense of coherence", which "integrates the meaningfulness, comprehensibility and manageability of a situation or disease". Later research confirmed his insight. </p>
+
<p>We developed the "Movement and Qi" educational <em>prototype</em> as a way to add to the conventional academic portfolio a collection of ways to use human <em>body</em> as medium—and work with "human quality" directly. And as a way to include the insights and techniques of the "human quality" traditions such as yoga and qigong into the academic repertoire. </p>
 
 
<p>Ven. Ajahn Buddhadasa was a Thai Buddhist monk and Buddhism reformer, who (having been disillusioned by the conventional monastery practice) withdrew into a forest near his home village Chaya and undertook to 'repeat the Buddha's experiment'. The result (Buddhadasa observed) was not only a rediscovery of the Buddha's  <em>way</em>—but also an antidote to the rampant materialism that in his time began to permeate the world. Dutifully, being a follower of Dhamma, Buddhadasa undertook to develop ways to <em>federate</em> his insight to the world.</p>
 
 
 
<h3>Prototypes</h3>
 
 
 
<!-- XXX
 
<p>
 
 
 
<p>We developed the "Movement and Qi" educational <em>prototype</em> as a way to add to the conventional academic portfolio a collection of ways to use human <em>body</em> as medium—and work with "human quality" directly.</p> 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
<!-- XXX
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
<p>We conclude this very brief exploration of our cultural blind spots and emergent opportunities by a handful of <em>keywords</em> and <em>prototypes</em>. As always, the [[design pattern|<em>design patterns</em>]] they embody will illustrate our handling of the larger issue at hand—how the change of the relationship we have with information (as modeled by the <em>holoscope</em>) can illuminate the way to "a great cultural revival" (modeled by the <em>holotopia</em>).</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>"Liberation", subtitled "Religion beyond Belief", is a book manuscript about to be turned into a book project. The book <em>federates</em> the message of Ven. Ajahn Buddhadasa, by
 +
<ul>
 +
<li>developing a concrete understanding of human <em>wholeness</em>, in terms of its four components (body, mind, creativity and vitality)</li>
 +
<li>explaining Buddhadasa's (or the Buddha's) insight as an essential and integral element of human <em>wholeness</em></li>
 +
<li>showing how the change of values that Buddhism is pointing also leads to social and cultural <em>wholeness</em>.</li>
 +
</ul>
 +
</p>
 +
<p>The "Liberation" book is intended to serve as part of the strategy to launch the Holotopia project. Religion tends to be a theme on which many people have strong opinions, either pro or against. What is told in the book will challenge both positions in equal measure—and at the same time offer a way to discharge and reconcile their differences.</p> 
 
</div> </div>  
 
</div> </div>  
 
<!-- XXX
 
 
  
  
Line 868: Line 881:
 
<h3>A revolution in the relationship we have with information</h3>  
 
<h3>A revolution in the relationship we have with information</h3>  
  
<p>By reviving the academic tradition (which had remained dormant for almost two thousand years), the Enlightenment empowered our ancestors to use reason to comprehend the world, and to evolve faster. The <em>socialized reality</em> insight shows that the evolution of the academic tradition has brought us to a new turning point—which will liberate us from  <em>reifying</em> our inherited <em>systems</em> and worldviews; and to enable our culture to evolve in a similar way and at a similar rate as science and technology have been evolving. This <em>fundamental</em> change will empower us to be creative in ways and on the scale that a "great cultural revival" requires.</p>  
+
<p>By reviving the academic tradition (which had remained dormant for almost two thousand years), the Enlightenment empowered our ancestors to use reason to comprehend the world, and to evolve faster. The <em>socialized reality</em> insight shows that the evolution of the academic tradition has brought us to a <em>new</em> turning point—which will liberate us from  <em>reifying</em> our inherited <em>systems</em> and worldviews; and enable us to evolve culturally, a similar rate as we've evolved technologically.</p>  
  
 
<h3>A revolution in method</h3>
 
<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>  
+
<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 traditional sciences left in the dark. </p>  
  
 
<h3>A revolution in culture</h3>  
 
<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 shows that our culture has once again become a victim of <em>power structure</em>; and that the liberation will lead us to a whole new <em>way</em> of evolving.</p>  
+
<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, manifested by the arts. The <em>convenience paradox</em> insight shows that our culture has once again become a victim of <em>power structure</em>; and that a <em>final</em> liberation is both possible and necessary.</p>  
  
 
</div> </div>  
 
</div> </div>  
Line 885: Line 898:
 
<div class="col-md-7">
 
<div class="col-md-7">
  
INSERT <p>We have deliberately chosen Socrates (the forefather of Academia) and Galilei (a pioneer of science) to represent the academic tradition in our proposal. Both Socrates and Galilei were charged and sentenced for "impiety" (challenging <em>socialized reality</em>), and for <em>epistemology</em> (which Socrates practiced through <em>dialogs</em>, and Galilei by allowing the reason to challenge the truth of the Scripture). Thereby we pointed out that substituting <em>knowledge of knowledge</em> for <em>socialized reality</em> construction has been <em>the</em> core theme of the academic tradition since its inception. </p>
+
<p>Combined together, the <em>five insights</em> readily lead to a more general <em>sixth insight</em>. </p>  
 
 
END I
 
 
 
<p>When the <em>five insights</em> are combined together, they readily lead to a more general <em>sixth insight</em>, which is even more germane to the <em>holotopia</em>'s message and spirit. The <em>sixth insight</em> may be roughly formulated as follows:</p>
 
 
 
<blockquote>To change anything, we need to change the whole thing.</blockquote>
 
 
 
<p>The reason is the close co-dependence of both the structural problems the <em>five insights</em> reveal, and of their solutions.</p>  
 
  
<p>We have seen (while exploring the <em>power structure</em> insight) that we will not be able to resolve the characteristic contemporary issues and resume our cultural and societal evolution, unless we learned to direct our power to innovate by using suitable information and knowledge, instead of the "free competition" and the market. But that requires (as we have seen while exploring the <em>collective mind</em> insight) that we restore the severed tie between information and action—that instead of merely broadcasting information, we learn to <em>federate</em> the insights that can motivate and inform action. This, however (as the <em>socialized reality</em> insight showed) requires that we change the relationship we have with information—from considering it as a mirror image of reality, to considering it a vital element of our core <em>systems</em>, which must be adapted to the purposes it needs to serve within those <em>systems</em>. </p>  
+
<blockquote>We must be able to create insights.</blockquote>  
  
<p>When that is done (the <em>narrow frame</em> insight showed)—the opportunity opens up to <em>create</em> "the way we look at the world, try to comprehend and handle it", to be used both by academic researchers who wish to work in this way, and the general public. And when that is in place (we showed while exploring the <em>convenience paradox</em> insight), the resulting <em>informed</em> way of "pursuing happiness" will lead to completely different values, and direction. Furthermore, the values that result will be exactly those that are needed to empower us to resolve the <em>power structure</em> issue, by self-organizing and co-creating <em>systems</em> that <em>resolve</em> our problems. This closes the circle.</p>  
+
<p>We <em>have</em> all the knowledge we need to begin "a great cultural revival". What we are lacking is a way to put it together, and make sense of it.</p>  
  
<p>A <em>strategic</em> insight results:</p> 
 
  
<blockquote>A large change may be easy; small changes may be difficult or impossible.</blockquote>  
+
<blockquote>A case for our proposal is hereby also completed.</blockquote>  
  
<p>But a large and comprehensive change has its own logic, or process, or "leverage points". </p>  
+
<p>The Holotopia project completes the <em>federation</em> of Peccei's vision, by making it actionable.</p>
  
<p>And the most powerful <em>kind of</em> leverage point, [http://kf.wikiwiki.ifi.uio.no/CONVERSATIONS#Donella Donella Meadows pointed out], is "the power to transcend paradigms". It is exactly that power that we are proposing to restore.</p>
+
<p>It also completes the <em>knowledge federation</em> [[prototype|<em>prototype</em>]], by serving as 'the dot on the i'.</p>  
 
 
 
 
<p>The <em>holotopia</em> is offered as the vision that results.</p>
 
 
 
<p>The Holotopia project is conceived as a way to streamline the actualization of that vision.</p>  
 
  
 
</div> </div>  
 
</div> </div>  
Line 922: Line 921:
 
<div class="col-md-6">
 
<div class="col-md-6">
  
<blockquote>The Holotopia project is conceived as a co-creative strategy game.</blockquote>
+
<p>The Holotopia project is conceived as a space, where we make co-creative strategic moves toward "changing course".</p>  
 
 
<p>The project is conceived as a space—where we are empowered to use our creativity to "change course", and <em>create</em> a future. This "future", however, begins instantly.</p>  
 
  
<p>We implement a strategy that <em>federates</em> Margaret Mead's specific insights, how to respond to the situation we are in :
+
<p>We implement Margaret Mead's recommendations for responding to the situation we are in:
 
<blockquote>  
 
<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."
 
"(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."

Revision as of 12:01, 1 September 2020

Imagine...

You are about to board a bus for a long night ride, when you notice the flickering streaks of light emanating from two wax candles, placed where the headlights of the bus are expected to be. Candles? As headlights?

Of course, the idea of candles as headlights is absurd. So why propose it?

Because on a much larger scale this absurdity has become reality.

The Modernity ideogram renders the essence of our contemporary situation by depicting our society as an accelerating bus without a steering wheel, and the way we look at the world, try to comprehend and handle it as guided by a pair of candle headlights.

Modernity.jpg Modernity ideogram

Our proposal

The core of our knowledge federation proposal is to change the relationship we have with information.

What is our relationship with information presently like?

Here is how Neil Postman described it:

"The tie between information and action has been severed. Information is now a commodity that can be bought and sold, or used as a form of entertainment, or worn like a garment to enhance one's status. It comes indiscriminately, directed at no one in particular, disconnected from usefulness; we are glutted with information, drowning in information, have no control over it, don't know what to do with it."

Postman.jpg
Neil Postman

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?

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 academic communication, and education?

The substance of our proposal is a complete prototype of knowledge federation, where initial answers to relevant questions are proposed, and in part implemented in practice.
Our call to action is to institutionalize and develop knowledge federation as an academic field, and a real-life praxis (informed practice).
Our purpose is to restore agency to information, and power to knowledge.

A proof of concept application

The Club of Rome's assessment of the situation we are in, provided us with a benchmark challenge for putting the proposed ideas to a test.

Four decades ago—based on a decade of this global think tank's research into the future prospects of mankind, in a book titled "One Hundred Pages for the Future"—Aurelio Peccei issued the following call to action:

"It is absolutely essential to find a way to change course."


Peccei also specified what needed to be done to "change course":

"The future will either be an inspired product of a great cultural revival, or there will be no future."

Peccei.jpg
Aurelio Peccei

This conclusion, that we are in a state of crisis that has cultural roots and must be handled accordingly, Peccei shared with a number of twentieth century's thinkers. Arne Næss, Norway's esteemed philosopher, reached it on different grounds, and called it "deep ecology". In what follows we shall assume that this conclusion has been federated—and focus on the more interesting questions, such as how to "change course"; and in what ways may the new course be different.

In "Human Quality", Peccei explained his call to action:

"Let me recapitulate what seems to me the crucial question at this point of the human venture. Man has acquired such decisive power that his future depends essentially on how he will use it. However, the business of human life has become so complicated that he is culturally unprepared even to understand his new position clearly. As a consequence, his current predicament is not only worsening but, with the accelerated tempo of events, may become decidedly catastrophic in a not too distant future. The downward trend of human fortunes can be countered and reversed only by the advent of a new humanism essentially based on and aiming at man’s cultural development, that is, a substantial improvement in human quality throughout the world."

The Club of Rome insisted that lasting solutions would not be found by focusing on specific problems, but by transforming the condition from which they all stem, which they called "problematique".

Could the change of 'headlights' we are proposing be "a way to change course"?


A vision

Holotopia is a vision of a possible future that emerges when proper 'light' has been 'turned on'.

Since Thomas More coined this term and described the first utopia, a number of visions of an ideal but non-existing social and cultural order of things have been proposed. But in view of adverse and contrasting realities, the word "utopia" acquired the negative meaning of an unrealizable fancy.

As the optimism regarding our future waned, apocalyptic or "dystopian" visions became common. The "protopias" emerged as a compromise, where the focus is on smaller but practically realizable improvements.

The holotopia is different in spirit from them all. It is a more attractive vision of the future than what the common utopias offered—whose authors either lacked the information to see what was possible, or lived in the times when the resources we have did not yet exist. And yet the holotopia is readily actionable—because we already have the information and other resources that are needed for its fulfillment.

The holotopia vision is made concrete in terms of five insights, as explained below.


A principle

What do we need to do to "change course" toward holotopia?

The five insights point to a simple principle or rule of thumb—making things whole.

This principle is suggested by the holotopia's very name. And also by the Modernity ideogram. Instead of reifying our institutions and professions, and merely acting in them competitively to improve "our own" situation or condition, we consider ourselves and what we do as functional elements in a larger system of systems; and we self-organize, and act, as it may best suit the wholeness of it all.

Imagine if academic and other knowledge-workers collaborated to serve and develop planetary wholeness – what magnitude of benefits would result!

A method

"The arguments posed in the preceding pages", Peccei summarized in One Hundred Pages for the Future, "point out several things, of which one of the most important is that our generations seem to have lost the sense of the whole."

To make things wholewe must be able to see them whole!

To highlight that the knowledge federation methodology described and implemented in the proposed prototype affords that very capability, to see things whole, in the context of the holotopia we refer to it by the pseudonym holoscope.

While the characteristics of the holoscope—the design choices or design patterns, how they follow from published insights and why they are necessary for 'illuminating the way'—will become obvious in the course of this presentation, one of them must be made clear from the start.


Holoscope.jpeg
Holoscope ideogram

To see things whole, we must look at all sides.

The holoscope distinguishes itself by allowing for multiple ways of looking at a theme or issue, which are called scopes. The scopes and the resulting views have similar meaning and role as projections do in technical drawing. The views that show the whole from a certain angle are called aspects.

This modernization of our handling of information—distinguished by purposeful, free and informed creation of the ways in which we look at any theme or issue—has become necessary in our situation, suggests the bus with candle headlights. But it also presents a challenge to the reader—to bear in mind that the resulting views are not "reality pictures", contending for that status with our conventional ones.

In the holoscope, the legitimacy and the peaceful coexistence of multiple ways to look at a theme is axiomatic.

We will continue to use the conventional way of speaking and say that something is as stated, that X is Y—although it would be more accurate to say that X can or need to (also) be perceived as Y. The views we offer are accompanied by an invitation to genuinely try to look at the theme at hand in a certain specific way (to use the offered scopes); and to do that collaboratively, in a dialog.

To liberate our worldview from the inherited concepts and methods and allow for deliberate choice of scopes, we used the scientific method as venture point—and modified it by taking recourse to insights reached in 20th century science and philosophy.

Science gave us new ways to look at the world: The telescope and the microscope enabled us to see the things that are too distant or too small to be seen by the naked eye, and our vision expanded beyond bounds. But science had the tendency to keep us focused on things that were either too distant or too small to be relevant—compared to all those large things or issues nearby, which now demand our attention. The holoscope is conceived as a way to look at the world that helps us see any chosen thing or theme as a whole—from all sides; and in proportion.

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 (see if 'the cup is broken or whole') is a new kind of result that is made possible by the general-purpose science that is modeled by the holoscope

To see more, we take recourse to the vision of others. The holoscope 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 appear to us as just normal, when we look at them in our habitual way ('in the light of a candle').

All elements in our proposal are deliberately left unfinished, rendered as a collection of prototypes. Think of them as composing a 'cardboard model of a city', and a 'construction site'. By sharing them we are not making a case for a specific 'city'—but for 'architecture' as an academic field, and a real-life praxis.


Scope


What is wrong with our present "course"? In what ways does it need to be changed? What benefits will result?

FiveInsights.JPG
Five Insights ideogram

We use the holoscope to illuminate five pivotal themes, which determine the "course":

  • Innovation—the way we use our ability to create, and induce change
  • Communication—the social process, enabled by technology, by which information is handled
  • Epistemology—the fundamental assumptions we use to create truth and meaning; or "the relationship we have with information"
  • Method—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"
  • Values—the way we "pursue happiness", which in the modern society directly determines the course

In each case, we see a structural defect, which led to perceived problems. We demonstrate practical ways, partly implemented as prototypes, in which those structural defects can be remedied. We see that their removal naturally leads to improvements that are well beyond the removal of symptoms.

The holotopia vision results.

The key to comprehensive change turns out to be the same as it was in Galilei's time—a new approach to knowledge, which allows for creation of general principles and insights. As the case was then, the development of this new approach to knowledge is shown to follow from the state of the art of knowledge of knowledge—and hence as an academic task.

A case for our proposal is thereby also made.

In the spirit of the holoscope, we here only summarize the five insights—and provide evidence and details separately.


Scope

What might constitute "a way to change course"?

"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.

The power structure insight allows us to see why no dictator is needed.

While the nature of the power structure will become clear as we go along, imagine it, to begin with, as our institutions; or more accurately, as the systems in which we live and work (which we simply call systems).

Notice that systems have an immense power—over us, because we have to adapt to them to be able to live and work; and over our environment, because by organizing us and using us in certain specific ways, they decide what the effects of our work will be.

The power structure determines whether the effects of our efforts will be problems, or solutions.

Diagnosis

How suitable are the systems in which we live and work for their all-important role?

Evidence shows that the power structure wastes a lion's share of our resources. And that it either causes problems, or make us incapable of solving them.

The root cause of this malady is in the way systems evolve.

Survival of the fittest favors the systems that are predatory, not those that are useful.

This excerpt from Joel Bakan's documentary "The Corporation" (which Bakan as a law professor created to federate 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 predator. This scene from Sidney Pollack's 1969 film "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" will illustrate how the power structure affects our own condition.

The systems provide an ecology, which in the long run shapes our values and "human quality". They have the power to socialize us in ways that suit their needs. "The business of business is business"—and if our business is to succeed in competition, we must act in ways that lead to that effect. We either bend and comply—or get replaced. The effect on the system of both options will be the same.

Bauman-PS.jpeg

A consequence, Zygmunt Bauman diagnosed, is that bad intentions are no longer needed for bad things to happen. Through socialization, the power structure can co-opt our duty and commitment, and even heroism and honor.

Bauman's insight that even the holocaust was a consequence and a special case, however extreme, of the power structure, calls for careful contemplation: Even the concentration camp employees, Bauman argued, were only "doing their job"—in a system whose character and purpose was beyond their field of vision, and power to change.

While our ethical sense is tuned to the power structures of the past, we are committing (in all innocence, by acting only through power structures that bind us together) the greatest massive crime in history.

Our children may not have a livable planet to live on.

Not because someone broke the rules—but because we follow them.

Remedy

The fact that we will not solve our problems unless we develop the capability to update our systems has not remained unnoticed.

Jantsch-vision.jpeg

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 keywords.

The work and the conclusions of this team were based on results in the systems sciences. In the year 2000, in "Guided Evolution of society", systems scientist Béla H. Bánáthy surveyed relevant research, and concluded in a true holotopian tone:

We are the first generation of our species that has the privilege, the opportunity and the burden of responsibility to engage in the process of our own evolution. We are indeed chosen people. 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 what evolution did for us up to now we have to learn to do for ourselves by guiding our own evolution.

In 2010 Knowledge Federation began to self-organize to make further headway on this creative frontier. The procedure we developed is simple: We create a prototype of a system, and a transdisciplinary community and project around it to update it continuously. The insights in participating disciplines can in this way have real or systemic effects.

Our very first prototype, the Barcelona Innovation Ecosystem for Good Journalism in 2011, was of a public informing that identifies systemic causes and proposes corresponding solutions (by involving academic and other experts) of perceived problems (reported by people directly, through citizen journalism).

A year later we created The Game-Changing Game as a generic way to change systems—and hence as a "practical way to craft the future"; and based on it The Club of Zagreb, as an update to The Club of Rome.

Each of about forty prototypes in our portfolio illustrates systemic innovation in a specific domain. Each of them is composed in terms of design patterns—problem-solution pairs, ready to be adapted for other applications and domains.

The Collaborology prototype, in education, will highlight some of the advantages of this approach.

An education that prepares us for yesterday's professions, and only in a certain stage of life, is obviously an obstacle to systemic change. Collaborology implements an education that is in every sense flexible (self-guided, life-long...), and in an emerging 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 dramatically reduce effort. This in addition provides a sustainable business model for developing and disseminating up-to-date knowledge in any 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') .


Scope

We have just seen that our evolutionary challenge and opportunity is to develop the capability to update our institutions or systems, to learn how to make them whole.

Where—with what system—shall we begin?

The handling of information, or metaphorically our society's 'headlights', suggests itself as the answer for several reasons.

One of them is obvious: If we should use information as guiding light and not competition, our information will need to be different.

In his 1948 seminal "Cybernetics", Norbert Wiener pointed to another reason: In social systems, communication is what turns 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 sustainability 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 suitable communication and control.

Diagnosis

That is presently not the case with our core systems; and with our civilization as a whole.

The tie between information and action has been severed, Wiener too observed.

Our society's communication-and-control is broken; it needs to be restored.

Bush-Vision.jpg

To make that point, Wiener cited an earlier work, Vannevar Bush's 1945 article "As We May Think", where Bush urged the scientists to make the task of revising their communication their next highest priority—the World War Two having just been won.

These calls to action remained, however, without effect.

"As long as a paradox is treated as a problem, it can never be dissolved," observed David Bohm. Wiener too entrusted his insight to the communication whose tie with action had been severed.

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. The link between communication and action having been broken—the academic results will tend to be ignored whenever they challenge the present "course" and point to a new one!

To an academic researcher, it may feel disheartening to see that so many best ideas of our best minds remained ignored.

This sentiment is transformed into holotopian 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 obliged to reinvent the systems in which we live and work, 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—or fails to interoperate.

Optimism will turn into enthusiasm, when we consider also this widely ignored fact:

The information technology we now use to communicate with the world was created to enable a paradigm change on that very frontier.

'Electricity', and the 'lightbulb', have already been created—for the purpose of giving our society the 'headlights' it needs.

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 in a way that enables us to benefit from each other's thinking. Bush's point was that technology and processes must be devised to enable us to in effect "connect the dots" or think together, as a single mind does. He described a prototype system called "memex", which was based on microfilm as technology.

Douglas Engelbart, however, took Bush's idea significantly further than Bush himself envisioned, and indeed 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.

All earlier innovations in this area—the clay tablets and the printing press—required that a physical object with a message be physically transported.

This new technology allows us to "create, integrate and apply knowledge" concurrently, as cells in a human nervous system do.

We can now develop insights and solutions together.

Engelbart conceived this new technology as a necessary step toward becoming able to tackle the "complexity times urgency" of our problems, which he saw as growing at an accelerated rate.

This three minute video clip, which we called "Doug Engelbart's Last Wish", will give us an opportunity for a pause and an illuminating reflection. Think about the prospects of improving the planetary collective mind. Imagine "the effects of getting 5% better", Engelbart commented with a smile. Then our old man put his fingers on his forehead, and raised his eyes up: "I've always imagined that the potential was... large..." The potential is not only large; it is staggering. The improvement that is both necessary and possible is qualitative—from a system that doesn't really work, to one that does.

To Engelbart's dismay, our new "collective nervous system" ended up being used to only make the old processes and systems more efficient. The ones that evolved through the centuries of use of the printing press. The ones that broadcast information.

Giddens-OS.jpeg

The above observation by Anthony Giddens points to the effects that our dazzled and confused collective mind had on our culture; and on "human quality".

Our sense of meaning having been drowned in an overload of data, in a reality whose complexity is well beyond our comprehension—we have no other recourse but "ontological security". We find meaning in learning a profession, and performing in it a competitively.

But that is exactly what binds us to power structure!


Remedy

What is to be done, to restore the severed link between communication and action?

How can we begin to change our collective mind—as our technology enables, and our situation demands?

Engelbart left us a clear and concise answer; he called it bootstrapping.

His point was that only writing about what needs to be done would not have an effect (the tie between information and action having been broken). Bootstrapping means that we consider ourselves as parts in a collective mind; and that we self-organize, and act, as it may best serve its restoration to wholeness.

The key to solution is to either create new systems with the material of our own minds and bodies—or to help others do that.

The Knowledge Federation transdiscipline was conceived by an act of bootstrapping, to enable bootstrapping.

What we are calling knowledge federation is an umbrella term for a variety of activities and social processes that together comprise the functions of a collective mind. Obviously, the development of the collective mind paradigm will requires a system, a new kind of institution, which will assemble and mobilize the required knowledge and human and other resources toward that end. Presently, Knowledge Federation is a complete prototype of the transdiscipline for knowledge federation, ready for inspection, co-creative updates and deployment.

But may will have the requisit knowledge, and who may be given the power—to update our collective mind?

The praxis of knowledge federation itself must, of course, also be federated.

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).

BCN2011.jpg
Patty Coulter, Mei Lin Fung and David Price speaking at the 2011 An Innovation Ecosystem for Good Journalism workshop in Barcelona

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 systems. The featured participants of our 2011 workshop in Barcelona, where our public informing prototype 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).

Other prototypes contributed other design patterns for restoring the severed link between information and action. The Tesla and the Nature of Creativity TNC2015 prototype showed what may constitute the federation 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 prototype, 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.

The Lighthouse 2016 prototype is a conceived as a direct remedy for the Wiener's paradox, created for and with the International Society for the Systems Sciences. This prototype models a system by which an academic community can federate a single core 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 systems; or whether we must use its alternative—the knowledge developed in the systems sciences.

Scope

"Act like as if you loved your children above all else",
Greta Thunberg, representing her generation, told the political leaders at Davos. Of course 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 the 'brakes' too are missing. The job of a politician is to keep 'the bus on course' (the economy growing) for yet another four years. Changing the 'course' or the system is well beyond what they are able to do, or even imagine doing.

The COVID-19 pandemic may require systemic changes now.

Who—what institution or system—will take the leadership role, and guide us through our unprecedentedly immense creative and evolutionary challenges?

Both Erich Jantsch and Doug 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 Vannevar Bush and Norbert Wiener before them, and so many others who followed.

Why?

Isn't the prospect of restoring agency to information and power to knowledge deserving of academic attention?

It is tempting to conclude that the university institution followed the general trend, and evolved as a power structure. But to see solutions, we need to look at deeper causes.

Toulmin-Vision2.jpeg

We readily find them in the way in which the university institution originated.

The academic tradition did not originate as a way to practical knowledge, but to freely pursue knowledge for its own sake; in a manner disciplined only by knowledge of knowledge—which philosophers have been developing since antiquity. Wherever this 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,

it was this free pursuit of knowledge that led to the last "great cultural revival".

We asked:

Could a similar advent be in store for us today?

The key to the positive answer to this question—which is obviously central to holotopia—is in the historicity of "the relationship we have with knowledge"—which Stephen Toulmin explicated so clearly in his last book, "Reurn to Reason", from which the above quotation was taken. So that is what we here focus on.

As Toulmin pointed out, at the time when the contemporary academic ethos 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 may 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 new way of exploring the world to transpire from astrophysics, where it originated, and transform first our pursuit of knowledge in general—and then our society and culture at large.

It is therefore natural that at the universities we consider the curation of this approach to knowledge to be our core role in our society. Being the heirs and the custodians of a tradition that has historically led to some of the most spectacular evolutionary leaps in human history, 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, embody the highest standards of that tradition. People can learn practical skills elsewhere. It is only at the university that they can acquire the highest standards of knowledge of knowledge—and the ability to pursue knowledge effectively in any domain.

We must ask:

Could the academic tradition evolve further?

Could this tradition once again give us a completely new way to explore the world?

Can the free pursuit of knowledge, curated by the knowledge of knowledge, once again lead to "a great cultural revival" ?

Can "a great cultural revival" begin at the university?


Diagnosis


In the course of our modernization, we made a fundamental error.

From the traditional culture we adopted a myth far more disruptive of modernization than the creation myth—that "truth" means "correspondence with reality"; and that the purpose of information, and of our pursuit of knowledge, is to "know the reality" objectively, as it truly is. It may take a moment of reflection to see how much this myth permeates our popular culture, our society and institutions; how much it marks "the relationship we have with information"—in all its various manifestations.

This fundamental error has subsequently been detected and reported, but not corrected. (We again witness that the link between information and action has been severed.)

Einstein-Watch.jpeg

It is simply impossible to open up the 'mechanism of nature', and verify that our ideas and models correspond to the real thing!

The "reality", the 20th century's scientists and philosophers found out, is not something we discover; it is something we construct.

This "social construction of reality" is a result of complex interaction between our cognitive organs and our culture. From the cradle to the grave, through innumerably many 'carrots and sticks', we are socialized to organize and communicate our experience in a certain specific way.

The socialized reality construction has has served as the 'DNA', which enabled the traditional cultures to reproduce themselves and evolve.

Information, in other words, has traditionally served as 'headlights'; the purpose of the traditional myths was not to tell the people how the world really originated—but to serve as foundation for principles and norms, which oriented their behavior; and the development of "human quality".

Information, however, and socialization, have always served also a different purpose—as instruments of power; as media which the power relationships were maintained. And hence as core elements of the power structure.

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.

To organize and sum up what we above all need to know about the nature of socialization, and about the relationship between power and culture, we created the Odin–Bourdieu–Damasio thread, consisting of three short real-life stories or vignettes. (The thread is an adaptation of Vannevar Bush's technical idea for organizing collective mind work, which he called "trail".)

The first, Odin the Horse vignette, points to the nature of turf struggle, by portraying the turf behavior of horses.

The second vignette, featuring Pierre Bourdieu as leading sociologist, shows that we humans exhibit a similar behavior—and that our culture may be perceived as a complex 'turf'.

Bourdieu-insight.jpeg

Bourdieu used interchangeably two keywords—"field" and "game"—to refer to this 'turf'. By calling it a field, he portrayed it as something akin to a magnetic field, which orients our seemingly random or "free" behavior, without us noticing. By calling it a game, he portrayed it as something that structures or "gamifies" our social existence, by giving each of us certain "action capabilities" (which Bourdieu called "habitus"), pertaining to a role, which tends to be transmitted from body to body directly. Everyone bows to the king, and we do that too. With time, we become socialized to accept those roles and behaviors as the "reality". Bourdieu called this experience (that our social reality is as immutable and real as the physical reality) doxa.

The third story, featuring Antonio Damasio in the role of a leading cognitive neuroscientist, completes this thread by explaining that we, humans, are not the rational decision makers, as the founding fathers of the Enlightenment made us believe. Each of us has an embodied cognitive filter, which determines what options we are able to rationally consider. This cognitive filter is programmed through socialization. Damasio's insight allows us to understand why we civilized humans don't rationally consider taking off our clothes and walking into the street naked; and that for cognitively similar reasons we don't consider changing the systems in which we live and work.

Socialized reality constitutes a pseudo-epistemology.

Hence the socialized reality insight, which we have so far only touched upon, delineates and opens up a truly wonderful creative frontier—where three realms that are usually considered as independent are inextricably intertwined: culture, power and epistemology (or "the relationship we have with information").

As an understandable consequence of historical circumstances, as Toulmin showed, our hitherto modernization has ignored these subtleties—and we've assumed that (1) the purpose of information is to mirror reality and (2) the traditions got it all wrong. The consequences are far reaching and central to holotopia.

  • Severed link between information and action. The (perceived) purpose of information being to complete the 'reality puzzle'—every new piece appears to be as relevant as others, and necessary for completing the 'puzzle'. In the sciences and in the media, enormous quantities of information are produced "disconnected from usefulness"—as Neil Postman diagnosed.
  • Stringent limits to creativity. A vast global army of selected, trained and publicly sponsored creative people are obliged to confine their repertoire of creative action to producing research articles in traditional academic fields.
  • Loss of cultural heritage. A trivial observation will 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' was created that oriented people's ethical sense and behavior. To see that the ancient myths were, however, only a tip of an iceberg (a small part of a complex ecosystem whose purpose was to develop "human quality") this one-minute thought experiment—an imaginary visit to a cathedral—might be helpful: There is awe-inspiring architecture; Michelangelo's Pietà meets the eye, and his frescos are near by. Allegri's Miserere reaches us from above. And there's of course also the ritual. All this comprises an ecosystem—in which the emotions of awe and respect make one open to practicing and learning. By its complex dynamics, it resembles our biophysical environment—but there is a notable difference: There we have nothing equivalent to the temperature and CO2 measurements, to be able to diagnose problems and propose remedies.
  • "Human quality" abandoned to power structure. Advertising is everywhere. And explicit advertising too is only a tip of an iceberg, the bulk of which consists of a variety of ways in which "symbolic power" is used to socialize us in ways that suit the power structure interests. Scientific techniques are used; the story of Edward Bernays, Freud's American nephew who became "the pioneer of modern public relations and propaganda", is iconic.
  • Reification of institutions. Even when they cause us problems, and make us incapable of solving them.

This conclusion suggests itself.

The Enlightenment did not liberate us from power-related reality construction, as it is believed.
Our socialization only changed hands—from the kings and the clergy, to the corporations and the media.

Ironically, our carefully cultivated academic self-identity—as "objective observers of reality"—keeps us on the 'back seat'; we diagnose problems—but we cannot federate solutions.

Remedy

We have already seen the remedy.

The remedy is to change the relationship we have with information.

To consider information as the core element of our systems; and to adapt it to the functions that need to be served.

When making this proposal, we are not saying anything new; we are indeed only echoing the calls to action that many have made before us.

Jantsch-university.jpeg

We, however, also federate those calls.

In the spirit of the holoscope, we condensed the fundamental part of this argument by a metaphorical image, the Mirror ideogram. This ideogram renders the essence of the academic situation we are in.

The Mirror ideogram invites us to interrupt what we are doing and self-reflect—as Socrates used to invite his contemporaries, at the Academia's point of inception.


This self-reflection leads us to two insights.

We are compelled to abolish reification.

When we look at a mirror, we see ourselves in the world. We are not above the world, observing it "objectively". The disciplinary interests, methods and institutions are not something that objectively existed, which our predecessors only discovered. They created them—in certain historical circumstances. Hence it is academically legitimate to create new ones.

We are compelled to embrace accountability.

The world we see ourselves in, when we look at the mirror, is a world in dire need—for new ideas, new ways of thinking and being. We see that, by virtue of the role we have in that world, we hold the very key to its transformation.

Mirror2.jpg
Mirror ideogram

We are then also compelled to ask:

How can we be accountable in our new social role, without sacrificing the academic rigor—which has been the distinguishing trait of our tradition?

The answer offers itself as an unexpected result of our metaphorical self-reflection:

We can walk right through the mirror!

This takes only two steps.

The first is to use what philosopher Villard Van Orman Quine called "truth by convention"—which we adapted as one of our keywords.

Quine–TbC.jpeg

Quine opened "Truth by Convention" by observing:

"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."

But if truth by convention has been the way in which the sciences augment the rigor of their logical foundations—why not use it to update the logical foundations of knowledge work at large?

As we are using this keyword, the truth by convention is the kind of truth that is common in mathematics: "Let X be Y. Then..." and the argument follows. Insisting that X "really is" Y is obviously meaningless. A convention is valid only within a given context—which may be an article, or a theory, or a methodology.

The second step is to use truth by convention to define an epistemology.

We defined design epistemology by rendering 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) as a convention.

Notice that nothing has been changed in the traditional-academic scheme of things. The academia has only been extended; 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 mirror', 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.

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 design epistemology is only one of the many ways to manifest this approach. We drafted a parallel between the modernization of science that can result in this way and the emergence of modern art: By defining an epistemology and a methodology 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.

As the artists did—we can become creative in the very way in which we practice our profession.

To complete this proposal and make it concrete, we developed two prototypes: the holoscope models the academic reality on the other side; the holotopia models the corresponding social reality.

Let us illustrate these abstract ideas by brief and self-contained module, comprising an academically stated challenge, and two examples of its resolution—by using the techniques just described. Each of the examples includes both a concept definition by convention, and a prototype (of disciplinary or institutional re-definition) that was embedded and tested in academic practice, with encouraging results.


This challenge is reaching us from sociology.

Beck-frame.jpeg

Beck continued the above observation:

"Max Weber's 'iron cage' – in which he thought humanity was condemned to live for the foreseeable future – is for me the prison of categories and basic assumptions of classical social, cultural and political sciences."

Our 'candle headlights' (the practice of inheriting the way we look at the world, try to comprehend it and handle it) are keeping us in 'iron cage'!


The definition of design allowed us to capture the essence of our post-traditional cultural condition, and suggest how to adapt to it.

We defined design as "alternative to tradition", where design and tradition are (by convention) two alternative ways to wholeness. Tradition relies on spontaneous, gradual, Darwinian-style evolution. Change is resisted, small changes are tried—and tested and assimilated through generations of use. We practice design when we consider ourselves accountable for wholeness.

When tradition cannot be relied on, design must be used.

The situation we are in, which we rendered by the bus with candle headlights metaphor, can now be understood as a result of a transition: We are no longer traditional (our technology evolves by design); but we are not yet designing ("the relationship we have with information" is still traditional). Our call to action can be understood as a practical way to complete modernization.

Reification can now be understood as the foundation for truth and meaning that suits the tradition; truth by convention is what empowers us to design.

We proposed this definition to the academic design community, as part of an answer to its quest for logical foundations. The fact that Danish Designers chose our presentation to be repeated as opening keynote at their tenth anniversary conference suggests that this praxis, of assigning a purpose to a discipline and a community by using ruth by convention, may be of immediately interest.

The definition of implicit information and of visual literacy as "literacy associated with implicit information for the International Visual Literacy Association was in spirit similar—but its point was different.

Whowins.jpg

We showed the above ideogram as depicting a situation where two kinds of information—the explicit information 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. The image shows that the implicit information 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 explicit information, our culture is largely created through subtle implicit information. Hence we need a literacy to be able to decode those messages—and reverse the negative consequences of reification.

Lida Cochran, the only surviving IVLA founder, found that this definition expressed and served the founders' original intention.



Scope

We have just seen that the academic tradition—instituted as the modern university—finds itself in a much larger and more central social role than it was originally conceived for. We look up to the academia, and not to the Church and the tradition, for an answer to the pivotal question:

How should we look at the world, to be able to comprehend and handle it?

That role, and that question, carry an immense power!

It was by providing a completely new answer to that question, that the last "great cultural revival" came about.


Diagnosis

So how should we look at the world, to be able to comprehend and handle it?
Nobody knows!

Of course, countess books and articles have been written about this theme since antiquity. But in spite of that—or should we say because of that—no consensus has emerged.

The way we the people look at the world, try to comprehend and handle it, shaped itself spontaneously—from scraps of science that were most visible around the middle of the 19th century, when Darwin and Newton as cultural heroes replaced Adam and Moses. What is today popularly considered as the "scientific worldview" took shape then—and remained largely unchanged.

As members of the homo sapiens species, this worldview would make us believe, we have the evolutionary privilege to be able to comprehend the world in causal terms, and to make rational choices accordingly. Give us a correct model of the world, and we'll know exactly how to satisfy our needs (which we can experience directly). But the traditional cultures got it all wrong: Not knowing how the nature works, they put a "ghost in the machine", and made us pray to him to give us what we needed. Science corrected this error—and now we can satisfy our needs by manipulating the mechanisms of nature directly, with the help of technology.

It is this causal or "scientific" understanding of the world that made us modern. Isn't that how we understood that women cannot fly on broomsticks?

From our collection of reasons why this way of looking at the world is neither scientific nor functional, we here mention only two.

Heisenberg–frame.jpeg

The first reason is that the nature is not a mechanism.

The mechanistic way of looking at the world that Newton and his contemporaries developed in physics, which around the 19th century shaped the worldview of the masses, was later disproved and disowned by modern science. Research in physics showed that even the physical phenomena exhibit the kinds of interdependence that cannot be understood in "classical" or causal terms.

In "Physics and Philosophy", Werner Heisenberg, one of the progenitors of this research, described how "the narrow and rigid" way of looking at the world that our ancestors adapted from the 19th century science was damaging to culture—and in particular to its parts on on which the "human quality" depended, such as ethics and religion. And how as a result the "instrumental" thinking and values, which Bauman called "adiaphorized", became prominent. Heisenberg believed that the dissolution of that "rigid and narrow frame" would be the most valuable gift of his field to the humanity.

In 2005, Hans-Peter Dürr (considered as Heisenberg's scientific "heir") co-wrote the Potsdam Manifesto, whose title and message is "We need to learn to think in a new way". The proposed new thinking is similar to the one that leads to holotopia: "The materialistic-mechanistic worldview of classical physics, with its rigid ideas and reductive way of thinking, became the supposedly scientifically legitimated ideology for vast areas of scientific and political-strategic thinking. (...) We need to reach a fundamentally new way of thinking and a more comprehensive under­standing of our Wirklichkeit, in which we, too, see ourselves as a thread in the fabric of life, without sacrificing anything of our special human qualities. This makes it possible to recognize hu­manity in fundamental commonality with the rest of nature (...)"

The second reason is that even complex mechanisms ("classical" nonlinear dynamic systems) cannot be understood in causal terms.

MC-Bateson-vision.jpeg

It has been said that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Research in the systems sciences, one of which is cybernetics, explained this scientifically: The "hell" (which you may imagine as global issues, or the 'destination' toward which our 'bus' is believed to be headed) tends to be a "side effect" of our best efforts and "solutions", reaching us through "nonlinearities" and "feedback loops" in the natural and social systems we are trying to manipulate.

Hear Mary Catherine Bateson (cultural anthropologist and cybernetician, daughter of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson who pioneered both fields) say:

"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 in general. (...) Universities do not have departments of epistemological therapy!"

Remedy

Truth by convention allows us to explicitly define and academically develop a way to look at the world, in order to comprehend and handle it.

We called the result a methodology, and our prototype the Polyscopic Modeling methodology or polyscopy.

A methodology is in essence a toolkit; anything that does the job would do. We, however, defined polyscopy by turning state of the art epistemological insights into conventions.

That constitutes a way in which the severed link between the scientific insights and the popular worldview can be restored.

The polyscopy definition comprises eight aphorismic postulates; by using truth by convention, each of them is given an exact interpretation.

The first postulate defines information as "recorded experience". It is thereby made explicit that the substance communicated by information is not "reality", but human experience. Since human experience can be recorded in a variety of ways (a chair is a record of experience related to sitting and chair making), the notion of information is extended beyond written documents. The first postulate enables knowledge federation across cultural traditions and fields of interests; the barriers of language and method are bridged by reducing all that is of relevance to human experience, as a 'common denominator'.

The second postulate is that the scope (the way we look) determines the view (what is seen). In polyscopy the experience (or "reality" or whatever is "behind" experience) is not assumed to have an a priori structure. We attribute to it a structure with the help of the concepts and other elements of our scope. This postulate enables us to create new ways of looking, and to make the basic approach of science generally applicable—as prototyped by the holoscope.

Polyscopy did not talk about knowledge. We may now improvise this new axiom:

Knowledge must be federated.

This only states the intuitive or common-sense idea of "knowledge": If we should be able to say that we "know" something, we must federate not only supporting evidence, but also potential counter-evidence—and hence information in general. Academic peer reviews implement that principle in science; but this federation tends to be restricted to a discipline. An analogy with constitutional democracy also comes to mind—where even a hated criminal has the right for a fair trial. Like a dutiful attorney, knowledge federation does its best to gather suitable evidence, and back each federated insight with a convincing case.

A methodology allows us to state explicitly what information needs to be like; and what being "informed" means. We modeled this intuitive notion with the keyword gestalt. To be "informed", one needs to have a gestalt that is appropriate to one's situation. "Our house is on fire" is a canonical example. The knowledge of gestalt is profoundly different from only knowing the data (such as the room temperatures and the CO2 levels.). To have an appropriate gestalt means to be moved to do the action that a situation is calling for.

Can we be uninformed—in spite of all the information we have?

"One cannot not communicate", reads one of Paul Watzlawick's axioms of communication. Even when everything in a news report is factually correct, the gestalt it conveys implicitly can be profoundly deceptive—because we are told what Donald Trump has said, and not Aurelio Peccei.

Polyscopy offers a collection of techniques for communicating and 'proving' or justifying general or high-level insights and claims. Knowledge federation is conceived as the social process by which such insights can be created and maintained. To create the methodology, we federated methodological insights from a variety of fields:

  • Patterns have a closely similar function as mathematics does in traditional sciences—and at the same time completely generalize the implementation of this function
  • Ideograms allow us to include the expressive power and the insights and techniques from art, advertising and information design
  • Vignettes implement the basic technique from media informing, where an insight or issue is made accessible by telling illustrative and engaging or "sticky" real-life people and situation stories
  • Threads implement Vannevar Bush's technical idea of "trails" as a way to combine specific ideas into higher-level units of meaning


We conclude by telling a vignette—which will illustrate some of the further nuances of this methodological approach to information and knowledge.

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. The buddying industry undertook ambitious software projects—which resulted in thousands of lines of "spaghetti code", which nobody was able to 'detangle' (understand and correct). The solution was conceived as "computer programming methodology"; the longer story is interesting, but we only highlight a couple of lessons learned from the "object oriented methodology", developed in the 1960s by Ole-Johan Dahl and Krysten Nygaard.


The designers of a computer programming language made themselves accountable for the "usability" of the results, and developed a methodology.

Any sufficiently complete programming language, even the "machine language" of the computer, will allow the programmers to create any application program. The creators of the object oriented methodology, however, took it upon themselves to provide the programmers the kind of programming tools that would enable them, or even compel them, to write comprehensible, reusable and well-structured code.

Dahl-Vision.-R.jpeg

To understand a complex system, abstraction must be used. We must be able to create views of the complex whole on distinct levels of generality.

The object oriented methodology provided a structuring 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 the burden of the details of its code.

We have seen, in socialized reality, that the academia too needs to consider itself accountable for the tools and processes by which information and knowledge are handled—both for the ones used by academic researchers, and for the ones used by people at large. To see what those two lessons learned may mean practically, Imagine a highly talented young person, let's call him Pierre Bourdieu to be concrete, about to become a researcher. The academia will give Bourdieu a certain way to render his results, which he'll be using throughout his career. The "usability", comprehensibility and in a word—the usefulness of Bourdieu's life work will largely depend on the format in which he'll render his results. This format, however, will not be in his power to change, and it is unlikely that even Bourdieu would even think about doing that.

Bourdieu is, of course, only a drop in an ocean.


The solution for structuring information we devised in polyscopy is called information holon. An information holon is closely similar to the "object" in object oriented methodology. Information, represented in the Information ideogram 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.

When the circle is a general insight or a gestalt, it allows that insight to be integrated or "exported" as a "fact" into higher-level insights (while the contributing insights and data remain "hidden" in the square). When the circle is a prototype, the multiplicity of insights that comprise the square are given direct systemic impact, and hence agency.

Information.jpg
Information ideogram

The holotopia may now be understood as the circle by which our knowledge federation proposal is federated; a vision is not only provided and published—but already turned into a collaborative strategy game whose goal is to "change course".

A prototype polyscopic book manuscript titled "Information Must Be Designed" is structured as an information holon. 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 justified in four chapters of the book—each of which presents a specific angle of looking at it. The book's four chapters present four aspects of our handling of information; they identify anomalies and propose remedies—which are the design patterns of the proposed methodology.

It is customary in programming language design to showcase the language by creating its first compiler in the language itself. In this book we described the paradigm that is modeled by polyscopy, and then used polyscopy to make a case for that paradigm.

The book's introduction is available online. What we then branded information design is today completed and called knowledge federation.


Scope

We turn to culture and to "human quality", and ask:

Why is "a great cultural revival" realistically possible?

What insight, and what strategy, may divert our "pursuit of happiness" from material consumption to human cultivation?

We may approach the same theme from a different angle: Suppose we developed the praxis of federating information—and used it to combine all relevant heritage and insights—from the sciences, the world traditions, the therapy schools...

Suppose we used real information to guide our choices, instead of advertising. What changes would develop? What difference would they make?

During the Renaissance, preoccupations with original sin and eternal reward gradually gave way to a pursuit of happiness and beauty here and now; and the arts prospered.

What might the next "great cultural revival" be like?

Diagnosis

There is a popular myth which precludes information and knowledge to make a difference in this realm too—analogous and related to the myth of free competition that breeds the power structure.

It is the belief that we don't really need information, or culture, because we can experience what makes us happy directly—and reach out toward it with the help of science and technology.

Our "pursuit of happiness" 'in the light of a candle' made two values prominent, at the detriment of others: convenience (favoring what appears to be pleasant and easy) and egotism (favoring narrowly conceived "personal interests"). Both appear as scientific: convenience because it resembles the experiment; egotism because it is the way in which nature herself pursues wholeness. Both values are, of course, endlessly supported by advertising.

Those two values now guide even our choice and creation of information!

Remedy

We point to the remedy by the Convenience Paradox ideogram. Like all of us, the person in the picture wants his life to be convenient. But he made a wise choice: Instead of simply following the direction downwards, which feels easier, he paused to reflect whether this direction also leads to a more convenient condition.

It doesn't.

The convenience paradox is a pattern, where the pursuit of a more convenient direction leads to a less convenient situation. The iconic image of a "couch potato" in front of a TV is an obvious instance.

The convenience paradox is a result of us simplifying "pursuit of happiness" by ignoring its two most interesting dimensions—time; and our own condition, which makes us inclined or able to feel</em> in any specific way.

By depicting the way to wholeness as "yang" in the traditional yin-yang ideogram, it is suggested that its nature os paradoxical and obscure—and that the way needs to be illuminated by suitable information. This way is what the Buddhists call "Dhamma" and the Taoists "Tao".


However paradoxical, the way follows a certain pattern that can be understood; not in a mechanistic-causal way, not by studying what various cultures believe in—but by focusing on and federating the phenomenology repeated in the world traditions.

Convenience Paradox.jpg Convenience Paradox ideogram

Wholeness is such a beautifully inclusive value, with so many sides! We may have everything else in the world—and the lack of vitamin C will make it all futile.

We showed that the convenience paradox is a pattern repeated or subtly reflected in all major aspects of our civilized human condition.

To illustrate it, however, we here focus on what might be its least known and most interesting side—our capacity to feel. We'll elaborate it in terms of three specific insights.

1. Human wholeness feels better than most of us can imagine.

We called this insight "the best kept secret of human culture" , and made it a theme of one of our chosen ten conversations.

It was a glimpse or an experience or side of human wholeness that attracted our ancestors to the Buddha, the Christ, Mohammed and other adepts and teachers of the way, or "sages" or "prophets". C.F. Andrews described this in "Sermon on the Mount":

"(Through their practice, the early disciples of Jesus found out) that the Way of Life, which Jesus had marked out for them in His teaching, was revolutionary in its moral principles. It turned the world upside down (Acts 17. 6). (...) They found in this new 'Way of Life' such a superabundance of joy, even in the midst of suffering, that they could hardly contain it. Their radiance was unmistakable. When the Jewish rulers saw their boldness, they 'marvelled and took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus' (Acts 4. 13). (...) It was this exuberance of joy and love which was so novel and arresting. It was a 'Way of Life' about which men had no previous experience. Indeed, at first those who saw it could not in the least understand it; and some mocking said, 'These men are full of new wine' (Acts 2. 13)."

The existence and character of this experience can, however, readily be verified by simply observing or asking the people who have followed the way, and tasted some of its fruits.

2. The way to wholeness is counter-intuitive or paradoxical.

LaoTzu-vision.jpeg

To get a glimpse of it, compare the above utterances by Lao Tzu, with what Christ taught in his Sermon on the Mount. Why was Teacher Lao claiming that "the weak can defeat the strong"? Why did the Christ asked his disciples to "turn the other cheek"?

Aldous Huxley's book "Perennial Philosophy" is alone sufficient to make this point. Coming from a family that gave some of Britain's leading scientists, Huxley undertook to not only federate some of the core insights about the way (by demonstrating the consistency of both the relevant practices and their results across historical periods and cultures), but to also make a case for the method he used, as an extension of science needed to support core elements of our cultural heritage.

3. The key to unraveling the paradox is to reverse the values.

Convenience needs to be replaced by (to use Peccei's keyword) "human development".

Egotism needs to be overcome through "selfless service".

Lao Tzu, an iconic representative of the way, is often portrayed as reading a bull—which signifies that he's harnessed his egotism.

While this insight can easily be federated in the manner just described, we here point to it by a curiosity.

Huxley-vision.jpeg

In "The Art of Seeing", Huxley observed that overcoming egotism is a necessary element of even physical wholeness!

We may now perceive significant parts of our cultural history as struggle between cultivation of wholeness guided by insights into the nature of the way—and the power structure–related socialization, aided by the attraction of convenience and egotism. It is on the outcome of this struggle, Peccei observed, that our future will depend.

What hope do we have of reversing its outcome?

The answer is, of course, that we now have a whole new dimension to work with.

We can design communication.

We can create media content that will communicate the convenience paradox in clear and convincing ways; we can guide people to an informed use of information; and we can create various elements of culture to socialize us or cultivate us accordingly. Including, of course, the systems in which we live and work.


A vast creative frontier opens up.

We illustrate it here by a handful of examples.

In a fractal-like manner, our definition of culture reflects the entire situation around holoscope and holotopia. So let us summarize it here in that way, however briefly. We motivated this definition by discussing Zygmunt Bauman's book "Culture as Praxis"—where Bauman surveyed a large number of historical definitions of culture, and reached the conclusion that they are so diverse that they cannot be reconciled with one another. How can we develop culture as praxis—if we don't know what "culture" means? We defined culture as "cultivation of wholeness", where the keyword cultivation is defined by analogy with planting and watering a seed (which suits also the etymology of "culture") . Thereby (and in accordance with the general holotopia approach we discussed above), we pointed to a specific aspect of culture. No amount of dissecting and studying a seed would suggest that it needs to be planted and watered. Hence when we reduced "reality" to what we can explain in that way, the culture as cultivation is all gone! When, however, we consider and treat information as human experience, and look for what may help us redeem and further develop culture—then a remedial trend, modeled by holotopia, is already under way.

We defined addiction as a pattern; and motivated this definition by observing that evolution equipped us, humans with emotions of comfort and discomfort to guide our choices toward wholeness. We, however, found ways to deceive nature—by creating pleasurable things called "addictions", which lead us away from wholeness. Since selling addictions is lucrative business, the traditions identified certain activities or things (such as opiates and gambling) as addictions and developed suitable legislation and ethical norms. But with the help of technology, contemporary industries can develop hundreds of new addictions—without us having a way to even recognize them as that. By defining addiction as a pattern, we can perceive it (as we did with the power structure) as an aspect of otherwise good and useful things. From a large number of obvious or subtle candidates or examples, we here mention only pseudoconsciousness defined as "addiction to information". Consciousness of one's situation and surroundings is, of course, an evolutionary need. In civilization we can, however, drown this need in massive facts and data—which give us the sensation of knowing, without telling us what we above all need to know.

We adapted the definition that Martin Lings contributed, and defined religion as "reconnection with the archetype" (this again harmonizes with the etymological meaning of this word). The archetypes here include "justice", "beauty", "truth", "love" and anything else that may make a person overcome egotism and convenience and serve a "higher" ideal.

The NaCuHeal-Information Design was our project developed in collaboration with the European Public Health Association, through Prof. Gunnar Tellnes who was then its president. In Norway Tellnes developed an authentic approach to health, which was based on nature and culture-related activities. This collaboration resulted in several prototypes, of which we mention two.

We contributed "Healthcare as a Power Structure" to the European Association for the History of Medicine and Health. Historiographically, we based this research on the results of Weston Price and Werner Kollath—two pioneers of the scientific "hygiene", understood as a scientific study of the ways in which civilized lifestyle influences people's health. But we also added a methodological contribution—a way to 'connect the dots' and supplement historiographic research by a general "law of change" result. By seeing that also our approach to health and medicine can develop pathological tendencies, we can explain the fact that the results of those pioneers are still virtually unknown even to medical professionals; and why, in spite of them, our "caring for health" so consistently ignores the lifestyle factors, and relies on far more costly interventions.

Kommunewiki—a dialog-based communication project for Norwegian municipalities (as basic units of Norwegian democracy)—was conceived to empower their members to counter power structure lifestyle tendencies, and develop salutogenic new ones.

We developed the "Movement and Qi" educational prototype as a way to add to the conventional academic portfolio a collection of ways to use human body as medium—and work with "human quality" directly. And as a way to include the insights and techniques of the "human quality" traditions such as yoga and qigong into the academic repertoire.

"Liberation", subtitled "Religion beyond Belief", is a book manuscript about to be turned into a book project. The book federates the message of Ven. Ajahn Buddhadasa, by

  • developing a concrete understanding of human wholeness, in terms of its four components (body, mind, creativity and vitality)
  • explaining Buddhadasa's (or the Buddha's) insight as an essential and integral element of human wholeness
  • showing how the change of values that Buddhism is pointing also leads to social and cultural wholeness.

The "Liberation" book is intended to serve as part of the strategy to launch the Holotopia project. Religion tends to be a theme on which many people have strong opinions, either pro or against. What is told in the book will challenge both positions in equal measure—and at the same time offer a way to discharge and reconcile their differences.


A great cultural revival

The five insights together compose a vision of "a great cultural revival". They complete the analogy between our time and the situation at the twilight of the Middle Ages and the dawn of the Renaissance, which we've been pointing to by using the iconic image of Galilei in house arrest.

A revolution in innovation

By bringing a radical improvement of the efficiency and effectiveness of human work, through innovation, the Industrial Revolution promised to liberate our ancestors from hardship and toil, so that they may focus on developing culture and "human quality". The power structure, however, thwarted our aspirations. This issue can be resolved, and progress can be resumed, by learning to "make things whole" on the level of the systems in which we live and work.

A revolution in communication

The printing press enabled the Enlightenment by enabling a revolution in literacy and communication. The collective mind insight shows that the new information technology can power a similar revolution—whose effect will be a revolution of meaning. The kind of revolution that can make the differences that needs to make, in a post-industrial society.

A revolution in the relationship we have with information

By reviving the academic tradition (which had remained dormant for almost two thousand years), the Enlightenment empowered our ancestors to use reason to comprehend the world, and to evolve faster. The socialized reality insight shows that the evolution of the academic tradition has brought us to a new turning point—which will liberate us from reifying our inherited systems and worldviews; and enable us to evolve culturally, a similar rate as we've evolved technologically.

A revolution in method

Galilei in house arrest was really science 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 narrow frame insight shows that the "project science" can and needs to be extended into all walks of life—to illuminate all those core issues that traditional sciences left in the dark.

A revolution in culture

The Renaissance was a "great cultural revival"—a liberation and celebration of life, love, and beauty, by changing the values and the lifestyle, manifested by the arts. The convenience paradox insight shows that our culture has once again become a victim of power structure; and that a final liberation is both possible and necessary.


The sixth insight

Combined together, the five insights readily lead to a more general sixth insight.

We must be able to create insights.

We have all the knowledge we need to begin "a great cultural revival". What we are lacking is a way to put it together, and make sense of it.


A case for our proposal is hereby also completed.

The Holotopia project completes the federation of Peccei's vision, by making it actionable.

It also completes the knowledge federation prototype, by serving as 'the dot on the i'.

This Holotopia project description will be completed by elaborating:

The Holotopia project is conceived as a space, where we make co-creative strategic moves toward "changing course".

We implement Margaret Mead's recommendations for responding to the situation we are in:

"(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."

Mead.jpg
Margaret Mead


To the above co-creative space we bring a portfolio of assorted tactical assets.


To bring all this down to earth, we describe the pilot project we've developed in art gallery Kunsthall 3.14 in Bergen.


KunsthallDialog01.jpg