Holotopia

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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

In a nutshell

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


In detail

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?

The substance of our knowledge federation proposal is a complete prototype—by which the proposed modernization of information is made concrete, and practically realizable.

What consequences will knowledge federation have? How will information be different? How will it be used? By what methods, what social processes, and by whom will it be created? What new information formats will emerge, and supplement or replace the traditional books and articles? How will information technology be adapted? What will public informing be like? And academic communication, and education? The proposed prototype includes detailed answers to those and other related questions.


An application

The situation we are in

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 our present crisis 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 "Human Quality", Peccei explained his call to action 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."

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".

Can the proposed 'headlights' help us "find a way to change course"?

Why did Peccei's call to action remain unanswered? Why wasn't The Club of Rome's purpose—to illuminate the course our civilization has taken—served by our society's regular institutions, as part of their function? Isn't this already showing that we are 'driving with candle headlights'?

If we used knowledge federation to 'illuminate the way'—what difference would that make?

The Holotopia project is conceived as a knowledge federation-based response to Aurelio Peccei's call to action.

We coined the keyword holotopia as a placeholder for the vision, and the cultural and social order of things that will result from this quest.

The mission of the Holotopia project is to evolve (a prototype of) a pair of 'headlights', in actual practice, by which this new course will become visible; and to initiate the transformative cultural and social processes that are necessary for this vision to be created, and practically realized.

To prime this work, we have developed an initial Holotopia prototype, which includes both an initial vision, and a project infrastructure. This prototype is described on these pages.

A vision

The holotopia is not a utopia

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 harsh and contrasting realities, the word "utopia" acquired the negative meaning of an unrealizable fancy.

As the optimism regarding our future faded, 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 realizable—because we already have the information and other resources that are needed for its fulfillment.

Making things whole

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

From a comprehensive body of insights from which the holotopia emerges as a future realistically worth aiming for, we have distilled a simple principle or rule of thumb—"making things whole". And we suggested that principle by the holotopia's very name.

We must see ourselves as parts in a larger whole; and act in ways that make this larger whole more whole.

You will recognize that this principle is also suggested 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 or systems; and we self-organize, and act, as it may best suit their, and our, wholeness.

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

A method

Seeing things whole

To make things whole, we must be able to see things whole.

To highlight that the knowledge federation methodology we are proposing affords that very capability, in the context of the holotopia we refer to it by its pseudonym holoscope.

The characteristics of our current prototype of the holoscope—the main 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 characteristic, however, must be made clear from the start.

Looking at all sides

Holoscope.jpeg
Holoscope ideogram

If we conceive of the purpose of information as providing "an objectively true picture of reality", then only that which is "scientifically proven" will be given 'citizenship rights'. Whatever challenges our "reality picture" will be considered "controversial".

When, however, our goal is to see things whole in order to make them whole, then this attitude is no longer appropriate and must be modified. In the holoscope, the co-existence of a multiplicity of views, even when they might appear to contradict one another, is axiomatic. Those views are not considered as competing or contradictory "reality pictures", but as legitimate alternative ways to look a situation or issue, necessary if we should see it from all sides, in order to correctly assess its nature or condition, and see what needs to be done.

This change of attitude becomes mandatory when the object of our attention is a hand-held cup, but our 'bus' or civilization; when our goal is to see whether it has defects that must be attended to. Then a discovery of a way of looking that reveals a defect, even when that defect is only hypothetical, only a possibility, is obligatorily given the kind of prerogative that scientific discoveries have in the traditional academia.

This coexistence of a multiplicity of views is also a way to give ignored but potentially transformative ideas 'citizenship rights'.


Thinking outside the box

That “we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them" is a commonplace. A salient technical novelty in the holoscope is that free and deliberate choice of what we look at and how, which in our technical jargon is called scope, is made possible on rigorously academic grounds.

In the order of things or paradigm we are proposing, the core challenge is to perceive problems or issues in such a way that they do have solutions.

To liberate our thinking from the narrow frame of 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 state of the art insights in 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.

It goes without saying that the traditional-academic publishing and peer reviews will not be a social process suitable for maintaining this multiplicity of views. What we are calling knowledge federation can be understood as collective thinking or sense making, whereby overarching insights ("the cup is cracked") are distilled from a multitude of insights and data, and acted on. And as a social process that keeps a multiplicity of views coherent with one another; and of course also with academic result and other cultural artifacts; and with the people's and the society's contemporary needs.

FiveInsights.JPG
Five Insights ideogram

Illuminating problems to see solutions

Suppose that you had a flexible searchlight, which you could point at any theme or issue and illuminate what remained hidden while we looked at it 'in the light of the candle' (in the habitual or traditional way). Your goal is to see sweepingly large possibilities for improving our condition, on the scale that resulted from the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. What would you point it at? What would you see?

The holotopia vision is made concrete in terms of a collection of five such scope and view pairs; or five insights, as we are calling them.

In the spirit of the holoscope, we here provide for each of them only a short summary; and we present the supporting evidence and details in the corresponding detailed view or module.

We shall see in those detailed views that not only those issues were diagnosed, but that also solutions were identified and proposed—characteristically a half-century ago. And that Postman was right in observing that "the tie between information and action has been severed".

Power structure

"Man has acquired such decisive power that his future depends essentially on how he will use it", observed Peccei. We look at the way in which man uses his newly acquired and rapidly growing power—to innovate (create and induce change). We use suitable information to illuminate the resulting the way our civilization or 'bus' has been following in its evolution.

Genuine revolutions often result from a new way of perceiving the perennial issues of power and freedom. We offer the power structure as a means to that end. Think of it as a new way to conceive of the conventional idea of "power holder", whom we suspect might be our "enemy". While the exact meaning and character of the power structure will become clear as we go along, imagine it, to begin with, as our institutions. Or a bit more generally as the systems in which we live and work, which we'll refer to simply as systems. Notice that systems have an immense power—first of all over us, by providing the environment that determines how we live and work; and then also over our environment, because they organize us and use us in certain specific ways. The power structures, conceived of as systems determine what the effects of our work will be; whether they will be problems, or solutions.

How suitable are our systems for their all-important role?

We readily see that the bus with candle headlights metaphor applies not only to our handling of information, but to our systems in general. The structure of our systems tend to be of a Promethean ancientry, which has through centuries of existence been corrupted by the degenerative tendencies we'll talk about in a moment. And that at any rate, we have no reason to expect that they will still fulfill their purposes in the post-traditional and technologically advanced society we are living in presently.

So why don't we treat them as we treat other human-made things—by adapting them to the purposes that need to be served?

The reasons, and how to overcome them, will be a recurring theme in this brief introduction to the holotopia, and, we anticipate, also during its future evolution. One of them we have already suggested, by sharing the Modernity ideogram: We have not yet developed the habit of seeing things on that high level of generality or abstraction; we have no established way to see things whole. This is why such preposterous errors as 'using candles as headlights' can indeed be made on that very large scale, without us noticing.

A bit deeper assessment of reasons reveals that we tend to ignore the possibility of adapting systems to their purposes because they serve for us an entirely different purpose—they organize us together in our various turf strifes and power battles. Both within our system (where we compete for a better position), and and also without (where the systems struggle against each other).

Hence our civilization's evolution, or metaphorically the way our 'bus' is following, is steered by Darwinian evolution, the survival of the fittest. What "fitness criterion" steers this evolution? And what kind of systems result? It stands to reason—but we provide evidence to support this central point—that this evolution will favor the systems that are 'sharks', not 'sheeps'. We share examples and theoretical academic insights that show that our systems are wasting a lion's share of our resources; that they are causing our problems; and that they are generally organizing us in ways where our best efforts and intentions yield results that are outright cruel and evil.

We see, in other words, that those systems must be considered as our "enemy"—and not specific persons or groups who may appear to have power or do evil, because of their roles or "power positions" within those systems.

A salient characteristic of power structure as "enemy" is that no conspiracy is needed, no evil intention or even awareness of adverse effects. On the contrary—our best intentions, our usual "values" such as "doing a good job" and "minding our own business", are all that is needed in order to turn us into well-functioning cogs in a too-large-to-be-visible problem causing 'machinery'.

A still deeper understanding of this core issue reveals that the power structure is capable of creating both our culture, and our "human quality"—by socializing us in ways that suit their "interests" (it is a bit more accurate to say that we, and our culture, evolve as part of our systems, and hence within the power structure). This has, of course, been the case since the beginning of civilization. But if you'll for a moment consider that our not-so-distant ancestors were living meditative lives pursuing their chores in nature, and occasionally reading the Bible—you will easily see why this problem is far more acute today. <p> <p>And we may be growing and living in a media-constructed (or power structure–constructed) "reality".

Jantsch-vision.jpeg

That at this moment our and our society's key evolutionary task is to develop the capability to create or consciously evolve the systems in which we live and work has, of course, not remained unnoticed. Indeed, the very first step The Club of Rome's founders did after its inception, in 1968. Erich Jantsch, one of the co-founders, organized a meeting of a suitable expert team in Bellagio, Italy, where a suitable methodology was developed. They gave the holotopia's motto, to make things whole, a more technical name "systemic innovation", and we adopted and adapted systemic innovation as one of our keywords.

Collective mind

<p>If our key evolutionary task is to learn make things whole at the level of institutions—where should we begin?

Handling of information, or metaphorically our society's 'headlights', suggests itself as the answer for several reasons. One of them is that if we'll use information and not "the survival of the fittest" to guide our society's evolution, then our information and our creation, integration and application of information, will need to be entirely different.

Another reason is that "the tie between information and action has been severed". Evidence suggests that academic publishing influences the public opinion and policy only exceptionally; and as a rule—not at all! To think of all the excellent work of our best minds, who have been selected, trained, and publicly sponsored, prevented from benefiting our society which is in dire need for new ideas and directions—by the very system or institution that organizes them together—may feel disheartening.

Dismay, however, changes to holotopian optimism, when we see that the other side of this coin is a vast and most fertile creative frontier—where we, academic researchers, are allows to recreate our very system. Just as the founding father of academia did centuries ago. <p> <p>Our optimism turns into enthusiasm when we realize that characteristic parts of contemporary information technology (the network-interconnected, interactive digital media) have been created as enabling technology for that very task, by Doug Engelbart and his SRI team, and demonstrated in their famous 1968 demo.

DE-one.jpeg
Engelbart's opening slide, only slightly adapted graphically to suit our standard format.

We like to tell story of "Engelbart's unfinished revolution" (as Stanford University called it when it was first uncovered, in the 1990s), because it vividly, or strikingly, illustrates the kind of paradoxes and anomalies that we are now up against. Just imagine the Silicon Valley's premier innovator trying and trying—and failing—to explain to the Silicon Valley that if we should draw the kind of benefits from the information technology that can and need to be drawn, IT innovation will have to be systemic.

Engelbart explained in his second slide:

We ride a common economic-political vehicle traveling at an ever-accelerating pace through increasingly complex terrain.

Our headlights are much too dim and blurry. We have totally inadequate steering and braking controls.