Imagine...

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

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

Modernity ideogram

Our proposal

The core of our knowledge federation proposal is to change the relationship we have with information. And through information—with the world; and with ourselves.

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."

Suppose we handled information as we handle other man-made things—by suiting it to the purposes that need to be served.

What consequences would this have? How would information be different? How would it be used? By what methods, what social processes, and by whom would it be created? What new information formats would emerge, and supplement or replace the traditional books and articles? How would information technology be adapted? What would public informing be like? And academic communication, and education?

Our knowledge federation proposal is a complete and academically coherent answer to those and other related questions; an answer that is not only described and explained, but also implemented—in a collection of real-life embedded prototypes.

An application

What difference will this make? The Holotopia prototype, which is under development, is 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 our ideas to test. A half-century ago—based on a decade of this global think tank's research into the future prospects of mankind, in a book titled "One Hundred Pages for the Future"—Aurelio Peccei issued the following warning:

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

Aurelio Peccei

Already this event constitutes an anomaly, which motivates the paradigm we are proposing (we attribute to these keywords a similar meaning as Thomas Kuhn did). Why did Peccei's call to action remain unanswered? Why wasn't The Club of Rome's quest—to illuminate the course our civilization has taken—handled by our society's institutions, as part of their function? Isn't this already showing that we are 'driving with candle headlights'?

Peccei also specified what would need 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."

"Let me recapitulate what seems to me the crucial question at this point of the human venture", Peccei explained in "Human Quality". "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 found by focusing on specific problems, but by transforming the condition from which they all stem, which they called "problematique", and "the predicament of mankind".

The Holotopia project is a structured, academic and social-entrepreneurial response to The Club of Rome.

Peccei's following observation, with which he concluded his analysis in "One Hundred Pages for the Future", will also be relevant:

The arguments posed in the preceding pages (...) point out several things, of which one of the most important is that our generations seem to have lost the sense of the whole.

Seeing things whole

In the context of Holotopia, we refer to our proposal by its pseudonym holoscope, which highlights its distinguishing characteristic—it helps us see things whole.

Perspective ideogram

The holoscope uses suitable information in a suitable way, to illuminate what remained obscure or hidden, so that we may 'see through' the whole, and correctly assess its shape, dimensions and condition (correct our perspective).

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

The holoscope complements the usual approach in the sciences:

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 correct proportions.

A vision

What possible futures would we see, if a proper 'light' were used to 'illuminate the way'?

The holotopia is an astonishingly positive future scenario.

This future vision is indeed more positive than what the familiar utopias offered—whose authors lacked the information to see what was possible; or lived in the times when the resources we have did not yet exist.

But unlike the utopias, the holotopia is readily realizable—because we already have the information that is needed for its fulfillment.

Making things whole

What exactly do we need to do, to "change course", and pursue and fulfill the holotopia vision?

The evidence that the holotopia brought together, allowed us to distill a simple principle or rule of thumb:

We need to see ourselves and what we do as parts in a larger whole or wholes; and act in ways that make those larger wholes more whole.

But that is, of course, exactly the course of action that the Modernity ideogram is pointing to.

A project

As a project, Holotopia federates, and fulfills, the holotopia vision.

Margaret Mead's familiar dictum points to this project's core mission:

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

It is, however, the 'small print' that we found most useful—Mead's insights, based on her research, into what exactly distinguishes "a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens" that is capable of making a large difference.

The Holotopia project undertakes to make a difference by organizing us differently. And by putting a (snow-) ball in play.

The following Mead's observation, made more than fifty years ago, points to an immediate effect of the Holotopia project:

"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."

Five insights

The five insights constitute the 'engine' that drives the Holotopia project to its destination—the holotopia.

At the same time, the five insights provide us a concrete way to federate the The Club of Rome's work.

Strategically located in five pivotal domains of interest: values (the "pursuit of happiness"), innovation (the way we use our majestically grown capability to create and induce change), communication (the way information technology is used and information is handled), foundations (what the creation of truth and meaning is based on) and method (the ways in which we look at the world and try to comprehend it), the five insights disclose large anomalies that obstruct progress in those domains, and demand structural or paradigmatic changes. Together, they show what, metaphorically speaking, is keeping Galilei is house arrest, once again in our era.

Each of the five insights points to an overarching opportunity for creative change:

• a revolution in culture analogous to the Renaissance, and hence in "human quality"
• a radical improvement of effectiveness and efficiently of human work, and the liberation from stress and toil that the Industrial Revolution promised but did not quite deliver
• a revolution in communication analogous to what the printing press made possible)
• a revolutionary empowerment of human reason to explore and understand the world, analogous to the Enlightenment
• a revolution in conceptual tools and methods for understanding our social and cultural world, and hence improving the human condition, similar to what science brought to our understanding of natural phenomena

Each of the five insights is reached by using the holoscope to federate information from disparate sources, that is, by seeing things whole. Each of the anomalies is resolved by using the proposed rule of thumb—by making things whole.

Perhaps the most immediately interesting, however, are the relationships between the five insights—which provide us a context for perceiving and handling, in informed and completely new ways, some of the age-old challenges such as:

• How to put an end to war
• Where the largest possible contribution to human knowledge might reside, and how it may be achieved
• How to overcome the present dichotomy between science and religion, and use a further evolved approach to knowledge to revolutionize religion

This provides us a wealth of strategic and tactical possibilities, which power the Holotopia project.

Sixth insight

The five anomalies, and their resolutions, are so interdependent, that to realistically resolve any of them—we need to resolve them all. Another, more general sixth insight follows:

Comprehensive change can be easy, even when smaller and obviously necessary changes have proven to be impossible.

In this way the recommendation of The Club of Rome is federated, and the strategy that distinguishes holotopia (to focus on changing the whole order of things) is confirmed.

A space

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

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

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

Fireplace

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

Library

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

Workshop

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

Gallery

The gallery is where the resulting prototypes are displayed

Stage

The stage is where our events take place.

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

The Box

A model of The Box.

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

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

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

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

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

A vocabulary

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

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

Wholeness

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

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

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

Tradition and design

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

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

Keyword and Prototype

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

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

Human development and cultural revival as ways to change course

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

A prototype

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

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

A strategy

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

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

Elephant ideogram </p>

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

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

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

What may all this mean in an academic context?

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

The stage has thus been set for a new stage in this development (for "post-post-structuralism"...): Instead of asking what, for example, Bourdieu "really" saw and wanted to say, we acknowledge that he probably saw something that was not as we tend to believe; and that he struggled to understand and explain what he saw in the manner of speaking of our traditional order of things, where what he saw no longer fits in.

We then consider what he wrote as a sign on the road—which, together with so many other signs, points to a whole new course for us to take.