Difference between revisions of "CONVERSATIONS"
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<div class="col-md-7"><h3>Changing the way we speak</h3> | <div class="col-md-7"><h3>Changing the way we speak</h3> | ||
<p>When we knowledge federators sometimes say such off-the-wall Trump-like things as "the climate change is a red herring", we do not mean to belittle the excellent and necessary work that our colleagues have been doing on that frontier. Our point is that the climate, or any other "problem" becomes a red herring when it diverts all our attention from those deeper and evolutionary tasks on which our ability to find lasting solutions now depends.</p> | <p>When we knowledge federators sometimes say such off-the-wall Trump-like things as "the climate change is a red herring", we do not mean to belittle the excellent and necessary work that our colleagues have been doing on that frontier. Our point is that the climate, or any other "problem" becomes a red herring when it diverts all our attention from those deeper and evolutionary tasks on which our ability to find lasting solutions now depends.</p> | ||
− | <p>By focusing on the [[invisible elephant|<em>elephant</em>]], we will work on contemporary issues, both large and small, both global and local, without even mentioning them by name! Instead of struggling to coerce the people and systems who created the problems to create solutions, we undertake to co-create solutions ourselves. Instead of doing what we | + | <p>By focusing on the [[invisible elephant|<em>elephant</em>]], we will work on contemporary issues, both large and small, both global and local, without even mentioning them by name! Instead of struggling to coerce the people and systems who created the problems to create solutions, we undertake to co-create solutions – and systems – ourselves. Instead of only doing what we <em>have to</em> do, we engage in what we above all <em>want to</em> do.</p></div> |
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<div class="col-md-3"><h2>The nature of our conversations</h2></div> | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>The nature of our conversations</h2></div> | ||
− | <div class="col-md- | + | <div class="col-md-7"><h3>We are not just talking</h3> |
<p>Don't be deceived by this seemingly innocent word, "conversations". These conversations, with which we want to extend and continue our initiative, are where the real action begins; and the real fun.</p> | <p>Don't be deceived by this seemingly innocent word, "conversations". These conversations, with which we want to extend and continue our initiative, are where the real action begins; and the real fun.</p> | ||
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<p>[[File:Elephant.jpg]]<br><small><center>Our goal is to organize this activity, and foster this collective capability - of federating knowledge or 'connecting the dots'.</center></small></p> | <p>[[File:Elephant.jpg]]<br><small><center>Our goal is to organize this activity, and foster this collective capability - of federating knowledge or 'connecting the dots'.</center></small></p> | ||
− | <p></p> | + | <p> </p> |
− | <p> | + | <p>When we say "conversations", we don't mean "only talking". On the contrary! Here truly the medium is the message. By developing these conversations, we want to develop a way for us to put the themes that matter into the focus of our shared attention. We want to engage our collective knowledge and ingenuity to bear upon understanding, and handling, of our time's important issues. We want to give voice to ideas that matter, and to people who merit our attention. And above all – by developing these conversations, we want to <em>create a manner of conversing</em> that works. We want to re-create our public sphere. We want to change our [[collective mind|<em>collective mind</em>]] so that it <em>can</em> think new thoughts! </p> |
− | <p> | + | <p>The guiding vision we are co-creating together will not only change our understanding of our world, but also the way we handle it. We will no longer be struggling to improve our candles; we will be creating light bulbs.</p> |
− | </div></div> | + | <h3>All conversations merge into one</h3> |
+ | <p>This simple strategy, to [[knowledge federation|<em>federate</em>]] a vision, and to self-organize differently, can make <em>any</em> conversation matter. Two people can be conversing across a coffee table; by just recording and sharing what's been said, they can make their conversation be part of this larger one.</p> | ||
+ | <p>What we above all have in mind, however, is to stage public conversations. Conversations that will enrich our large global one with the knowledge and insights of their participants. Conversations that will put important themes into our public sphere. Conversations which, when recorded and shared, will be <em>real</em> reality shows, showing the birth pains of a whole new stage of our evolution.</p></div> | ||
+ | </div> | ||
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− | + | <div class="col-md-6"><h3>Dialog not debate</h3> | |
− | <p> | + | <p>This <em>re</em>-evolution will be nonviolent not only in action, but also in its manner of speaking. The technical word is [[dialogs|<em>dialog</em>]]. The [[dialogs|<em>dialog</em>]] is to the emerging [[paradigm|<em>paradigm</em>]] as the debate is to the old one. The [[dialogs|<em>dialog</em>]] too might have an icon [[giants|<em>giant</em>]], physicist [[David Bohm]]. Let's hear what Bohm had to say about this matter. |
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<blockquote> | <blockquote> | ||
− | + | I give a meaning to the word 'dialogue' that is somewhat different from what is commonly used. The derivations of words often help to suggest a deeper meaning. 'Dialogue' comes from the Greek word dialogos. Logos means 'the word' or in our case we would think of the 'meaning of the word'. And dia means 'through' - it doesn't mean two. A dialogue can be among any number of people, not just two. Even one person can have a sense of dialogue within himself, if the spirit of the dialogue is present. The picture of image that this derivation suggests is of a stream of meaning flowing among and through us and between us. This will make possible a flow of meaning in the whole group, out of which will emerge some new understanding. It's something new, which may not have been in the starting point at all. It's something creative. And this shared meaning is the 'glue' or 'cement' that holds people and societies together. | |
− | </blockquote> | + | Contrast this with the word 'discussion', which has the same root as 'percussion' an 'concussion'. It really means to break things up. It emphasises the idea of analysis, where there may be many points of view. Discussion is almost like a Ping-Pong game, where people are batting the ideas back and forth and the object of the game is to win or to get points for yourself. Possibly you will take up somebody else's ideas to back up your own - you may agree with some and disagree with others- but the basic point is to win the game. That's very frequently the case in a discussion. |
− | </p></div> | + | In a dialogue, however, nobody is trying to win. Everybody wins if anybody wins. There is a different sort of spirit to it. In a dialogue, there is no attempt to gain points, or to make your particular view prevail. Rather, whenever any mistake is discovered on the part of anybody, everybody gains. It's a situation called win-win, in which we are not playing a game against each other but with each other. In a dialogue, everybody wins. |
− | <div class="col-md-3 round-images">[[File: | + | </blockquote></p></div> |
+ | <div class="col-md-3 round-images">[[File:Bohm.jpg]]<br><small><center>[[David Bohm]]</center></small></div> | ||
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<div class="col-md-3"><h2>Paradigm strategy dialogs</h2></div> | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>Paradigm strategy dialogs</h2></div> | ||
− | <div class="col-md-7"><h3> | + | <div class="col-md-7"><h3>XXXXXXX</h3> |
+ | <p>While the choice of themes for our dialogs is of course virtually endless, we have three concrete themes in mind to get us started.</p> | ||
<p></p> | <p></p> | ||
<p>[[File:PSwithFredrik.jpeg]]<br><small><center>Fredrik Eive Refsli, the leader of our communication design team, jubilating the completion of The Paradigm Strategy poster.</center></small></p> | <p>[[File:PSwithFredrik.jpeg]]<br><small><center>Fredrik Eive Refsli, the leader of our communication design team, jubilating the completion of The Paradigm Strategy poster.</center></small></p> | ||
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− | <!--- | + | <!--- KF DIALOG |
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+ | <div class="row"> | ||
+ | <div class="col-md-3"><h2>Knowledge federation dialogs</h2></div> | ||
+ | <div class="col-md-7"><h3>Conversation about the prototype</h3> | ||
+ | <p>Prototype becomes complete when there's a feedback loop that updates it continuously. And when it lives in the community, acting upon how we think and what we do. This conversation will serve both ends.</p> | ||
+ | <p>The prototype, as we have seen, was carefully designed to serve as a paradigm proposal, and as a proof of concept. We motivated our proposal by pointing to three sweeping changes and trends, and to the need to adapt what we do with knowledge to those trends. We then showed how substantial, qualitative, quantum-leap improvements can be achieved within the order of things or paradigm modeled by [[knowledge federation|<em>knowledge federation</em>]]: | ||
+ | <ul> | ||
+ | <li>Regarding the foundations for truth and meaning: We saw how in the new paradigm a foundation can be created that is <em>triply</em> solid: (1) it is a convention – and a convention is true by definition (2) it reflects the epistemological state of the art in science and philosophy; (3) it is a prototype – hence ready to be changed when new insights are reached</li> | ||
+ | <li>Regarding the pragmatic side, making knowledge responsive to new needs of people and society: The prototype has that as an explicit goal. The improvements that are possible within it cannot be overstated – and we pointed to them by using various framings such as "the largest contribution to human knowledge", as what we <em>must</em> do to make our civilization sustainable, and as "evolutionary guidance", necessary for meaningfully continuing our cultural and social evolution.</li> | ||
+ | <li>Regarding the IT side – we have seen that this technology offers a whole new <em>principle</em> of communication – and hence a new principle of operation to our knowledge work and our institutions. We have seen that this technology was <em>created</em> with that very purpose in mind, with Douglas Engelbart and his lab, and demonstrated in 1968. We have seen that (was it because it did not fit into the prevailing paradigm?) their proposal was not yet even <em>heard</em>.</li> | ||
+ | </ul> | ||
+ | </p> | ||
+ | <p>Thomas Kuhn's view of new paradigms points to "anomalies" and to new possibilities for creative work as distinguishing characteristics. And so, by telling stories or [[vignettes|<em>vignettes</em>]], we could point to large anomalies that were reported a half-century ago by Werner Heisenberg, Vannevar Bush, Norbert Wiener, Douglas Engelbart, Erich Jantsch and very many other [[giants|<em>giants</em>]] – without meeting the kind of response that might reasonably be expected. On the side of the new achievements, we showed a large collection of [[prototypes|<em>prototypes</em>]], each pointing to creative challenges and opportunities, and vast possibilities for improvement and achievement, in their specific areas.</p> | ||
+ | <p>Is there room for this new academic species at the university? What action should follow?</p> | ||
+ | <h3>Conversation about transdisciplinarity</h3> | ||
+ | <p>Knowledge federation defines itself as a [[transdiscipline|<em>transdiscipline</em>]]. Norbert Wiener began his 1948 Cybernetics by describing a pre-war transdisciplinary group of scientists in the MIT and Harvard, discussing the issues of the method. Cybernetics emerged, from Mas as a common language and methodology through which the sciences can share their results across their disciplinary dialects. Mathematica biologist / philosopher Ludwig von Bertalanffy developed the general system theory for a similar purpose. In 1954, at Stanford University, von Bertalanffy, Kenneth Boulding, Ralph Gerard, James G. Miller and Anatol Rapoport initiated what later became the International Society for the Systems Sciences. What we've added to these most worthwhile efforts is "the dot on the i", the capacity to turn this into something we the people can understand and be guided by.</p> | ||
+ | <p>All these efforts to melt the disciplinary silos and make knowledge freely flowing and accessible to all were by their nature transdisciplinary, of course. Was <em>that</em> reason why they never really met with the kind of response, at our universities, that would give them universal visibility and impact? Similarly, as we have seen, Douglas Engelbart and Erich Jantsch – whom we credit as "founding fathers" of [[knowledge federation|<em>knowledge federation</em>]] and [[systemic innovation|<em>systemic innovation</em>]] respectively – found no response at major universities for their ideas. Engelbart liked to tell the story how he left U.C. Berkeley where he worked for a while after completing his doctorate, when a colleague told him "if you don't stop dreaming, and don't start publishing peer-reviewed articles, you will remain an adjunct assistant professor forever." </p> | ||
+ | <p>"The individual players are compelled by their own cupidity to form coalitions", Wiener observed in Cybernetics, commenting on the kind of social dynamics that develop in a competitive environment, that was diagnosed by von Neumann's results in game theory. Is the academic discipline such a coalition? Can we evolve the university in a collaborative way, and make it more humane and more useful to our society?</p> | ||
+ | <p>Let's begin by acknowledging that this theme could not be more interesting and relevant than it is. To say this more technically, what we are talking about is arguably <em>the</em> "systemic leverage point" with highest potential impact. Every society has a number of especially creative individuals, who are capable of doing what may seem impossible. The question now is about the ecology by which creative people are empowered to contribute to the core issues of our time – or not.</p> | ||
+ | <p>In the conventional order of things, when strengthening the university's usefulness and responsibility or responsiveness to the society is on the agenda, there are essentially two strong voices that are heard: (1) Tighten the funding and the publish or perish, and force the researchers to prove themselves (or rove the value of their work) on the academic market; let them "publish or perish"; (2) Tighten the funding and make the academic researchers prove themselves on the real-world market; let them survive if they can secure their own funding. We however champion a third possibility – where creative human beings are given the freedom to pursue socially relevant causes. The university that is marked by dialog and collaboration, not strife and competition. While our initiative was largely self-funded (by the enthusiasm and savings of our inspired members), it must also be said that it would have been impossible without at least some of us being on tenured academic positions – and in places such as Japan and Norway where the academic freedom is still valued and carefully protected. We would like to submit to this conversation that <em>more freedom</em> not less is what our general conditions are calling from. The academic "publish or perish" is so obviously "Industrial-age" that we really don't need to say more about that. On the other hand, the university can now take the leadership in the transformation of our society to the extent that it is capable of first of all transforming its own culture and values. It is noteworthy that some of the [[giants|<em>giants</em>]] that initiated [[knowledge federation|<em>knowledge federation</em>]] and [[systemic innovation|<em>systemic innovation</em>]] did not find support for their work at the leading universities. Can we do better now?</p> | ||
+ | <h3>Conversation about knowledge federation / systemic innovation</h3> | ||
+ | <p>There are several themes and questions here. Can we give the university the capability of evolving its own system? Can we direct innovation, or creative work, in a systemic way, and help direct our society's evolution? </p> | ||
+ | <p>Another pivotal issue – how do we use the 'muscles' of our technology? In what direction is our capability to create and induce change taking us the people, and our civilization? Can we refine our steering of this centrally important activity?</p> | ||
+ | <p>Essentially this is what Erich Jantsch tried to do. And what Wiener started. And what Engelbart struggled with. The issue is – shall we let uninformed selfishness and competition, streamlined by "the market" or "the survival of the fittest", guide the way we steer and build our systems? And how we use our capability to create? Or do we need freedom, responsibility, information, and knowledge? And if this latter is the case (which we should be able to show beyond reasonable doubt – but leave it open to conversations which will build something even more important – our capability to talk through this important matter) – then what should this information be like? Who will do [[systemic innovation|<em>systemic innovation</em>]]? In what way? Jantsch's proposal is of course a starting point. Our various [[prototypes|<em>prototypes</em>]] are another. There is infrastructure being built up at the ISSS and the ITBA. Can we build on those?</p> | ||
+ | </div> | ||
+ | </div> | ||
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Revision as of 14:22, 11 September 2018
Contents
Federation through Conversations
Changing our collective mind
Changing the subject
You might consider, just as we do, the news about Donald Trump or some terrorists as nothing really new. Why give those people the attention they don't deserve? Why use the media to spread their messages? If you are entertaining such thoughts, then you might be ready for some really good news!
Also five centuries ago an abundance of daily spectacles occupied the people's minds. And yet when we look back, what we see is Leonardo, and Copernicus... We see the rebirth of the arts and the emergence of the sciences. We see those large and slow events because they give meaning and relevance to all particular ones. We notice them even from this distance because they were so spectacularly large – and that's also why the people living at that time failed to notice them! But how much more spectacular will it be to witness this sort of development in our own time!
Although we don't talk about him directly, the elephant in the above ideogram will be the main theme of all our conversations. It is a glimpse of him that we want to give and have by talking about all those people and things. And when we talk about the elephant, you should imagine the exotic large animal appearing in a room full of people – not today, but five centuries ago, when perhaps some of those people had heard of such a creature, but none of them had ever seen one yet. The elephant in the room is a breath-taking sensation! We use this visual metaphor to point to the whole big thing – the Renaissance-like change that now wants to emerge. The elephant is invisible, but we will have glimpses of him as soon as we begin to 'connect the dots'. And isn't that what we've been doing all along!
Changing the protagonists
By shirting our attention from Trump to the elephant, we can also give attention and credit to our giants. We can begin to truly understand what they were talking about. If earlier we heard them talk about all sorts of different things such as "the fan", "the hose" and "the rope", we can now see that they were really talking about the elephant's ears, trunk and tail. And given the spectacular size and importance of our 'animal', we will then not only appreciate our giants' insights as a new and welcome kind of sensations; we will also appreciate the fact that we've ignored them so long as a new and intolerable kind of scandal.
"The human race is hurtling toward a disaster. It is absolutely necessary to find a way to change course", Aurelio Peccei (the co-founder, firs president and the motor power behind The Club of Rome) wrote this in 1980, in One Hundred Pages for the Future, based on this global think tank's first decade of research.
Peccei was an unordinary man; in 1944, as a member of Italian Resistance, he was captured by the Gestapo and tortured for six months without revealing his contacts. Peccei was also an unordinarily able business leader. While serving as the director of Fiat's operations in Latin America (and securing that the cars were there not only sold but also produced) Peccei established Italconsult, a consulting and financing agency to help the developing countries catch up with the rest. When the Italian technology giant Olivetti was in trouble, Peccei was brought in as the president, and he managed to turn around its fortune. And yet the question that most occupied Peccei was a much larger one – the condition our civilization as a whole was in, and the way this condition was changing.
In 1977, in "The Human Quality", Peccei formulated his answer as follows:
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.
Let us note in passing that the all-important insights that were reached by Peccei and The Club of Rome a half-century ago have not been ignored only by "climate deniers", but also by "climate believers" and activists. Already in 1968, at the point of the Club's inception, its founders decided that they would not focus on individual problems, but on the overall condition or "problematique" from which they all spring – and look for systemic solutions.
Changing the way we speak
When we knowledge federators sometimes say such off-the-wall Trump-like things as "the climate change is a red herring", we do not mean to belittle the excellent and necessary work that our colleagues have been doing on that frontier. Our point is that the climate, or any other "problem" becomes a red herring when it diverts all our attention from those deeper and evolutionary tasks on which our ability to find lasting solutions now depends.
By focusing on the elephant, we will work on contemporary issues, both large and small, both global and local, without even mentioning them by name! Instead of struggling to coerce the people and systems who created the problems to create solutions, we undertake to co-create solutions – and systems – ourselves. Instead of only doing what we have to do, we engage in what we above all want to do.
The nature of our conversations
We are not just talking
Don't be deceived by this seemingly innocent word, "conversations". These conversations, with which we want to extend and continue our initiative, are where the real action begins; and the real fun.
When we say "conversations", we don't mean "only talking". On the contrary! Here truly the medium is the message. By developing these conversations, we want to develop a way for us to put the themes that matter into the focus of our shared attention. We want to engage our collective knowledge and ingenuity to bear upon understanding, and handling, of our time's important issues. We want to give voice to ideas that matter, and to people who merit our attention. And above all – by developing these conversations, we want to create a manner of conversing that works. We want to re-create our public sphere. We want to change our collective mind so that it can think new thoughts!
The guiding vision we are co-creating together will not only change our understanding of our world, but also the way we handle it. We will no longer be struggling to improve our candles; we will be creating light bulbs.
All conversations merge into one
This simple strategy, to federate a vision, and to self-organize differently, can make any conversation matter. Two people can be conversing across a coffee table; by just recording and sharing what's been said, they can make their conversation be part of this larger one.
What we above all have in mind, however, is to stage public conversations. Conversations that will enrich our large global one with the knowledge and insights of their participants. Conversations that will put important themes into our public sphere. Conversations which, when recorded and shared, will be real reality shows, showing the birth pains of a whole new stage of our evolution.
Dialog not debate
This re-evolution will be nonviolent not only in action, but also in its manner of speaking. The technical word is dialog. The dialog is to the emerging paradigm as the debate is to the old one. The dialog too might have an icon giant, physicist David Bohm. Let's hear what Bohm had to say about this matter.
I give a meaning to the word 'dialogue' that is somewhat different from what is commonly used. The derivations of words often help to suggest a deeper meaning. 'Dialogue' comes from the Greek word dialogos. Logos means 'the word' or in our case we would think of the 'meaning of the word'. And dia means 'through' - it doesn't mean two. A dialogue can be among any number of people, not just two. Even one person can have a sense of dialogue within himself, if the spirit of the dialogue is present. The picture of image that this derivation suggests is of a stream of meaning flowing among and through us and between us. This will make possible a flow of meaning in the whole group, out of which will emerge some new understanding. It's something new, which may not have been in the starting point at all. It's something creative. And this shared meaning is the 'glue' or 'cement' that holds people and societies together. Contrast this with the word 'discussion', which has the same root as 'percussion' an 'concussion'. It really means to break things up. It emphasises the idea of analysis, where there may be many points of view. Discussion is almost like a Ping-Pong game, where people are batting the ideas back and forth and the object of the game is to win or to get points for yourself. Possibly you will take up somebody else's ideas to back up your own - you may agree with some and disagree with others- but the basic point is to win the game. That's very frequently the case in a discussion. In a dialogue, however, nobody is trying to win. Everybody wins if anybody wins. There is a different sort of spirit to it. In a dialogue, there is no attempt to gain points, or to make your particular view prevail. Rather, whenever any mistake is discovered on the part of anybody, everybody gains. It's a situation called win-win, in which we are not playing a game against each other but with each other. In a dialogue, everybody wins.