Difference between revisions of "IMAGES"
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<p>Imagine us as passengers in a bus—which rushes at accelerating speed toward a disaster; because its headlights are way too dim to show us where to go.</p> | <p>Imagine us as passengers in a bus—which rushes at accelerating speed toward a disaster; because its headlights are way too dim to show us where to go.</p> | ||
<h3><em>Information</em> must illuminate our choices.</h3> | <h3><em>Information</em> must illuminate our choices.</h3> | ||
− | <p>And intervene between ourselves and the world; and I am not talking about <em>any</em> sort of information—but <em><b>information</b> that's been conscientiously | + | <p>And intervene between ourselves and the world; and I am not talking about <em>any</em> sort of information—but <em><b>information</b</em</em> that's been conscientiously <em>designed</em> for that function.</p> |
<p>In <em>Guided Evolution of Society</em>, in 2001, systems scientist Béla H. Bánáthy surveyed a broad range of sources and reached this conclusion:</p> | <p>In <em>Guided Evolution of Society</em>, in 2001, systems scientist Béla H. Bánáthy surveyed a broad range of sources and reached this conclusion:</p> | ||
<p>“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 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.”</p> | <p>“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 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.”</p> |
Revision as of 08:06, 20 November 2023
Contents
Federation through Ideograms
(Neil Postman in a televised interview to Open Mind, 1990)
"[...] of people not having any basis for knowing what is relevant, what is irrelevant, what is useful, what is not useful, where they live in a culture that is simply committed, through all of its media, to generate tons of information every hour, without categorizing it in any way for you", Postman continued.
To federate knowledge means to connect the dots.
And add insights to overloads of data; of which "Our house is on fire" is the canonical example: You may know all the room temperatures and even the CO2 levels; but it is only when you know that your house is on fire that you will act as your situation demands. An insight can ignite an emotional response; it can change the level of adrenaline in your bloodstream.
Our traditions have instructed us how to handle situations and contingencies by providing us a repertoire of insight and action pairs. But what about those situations that have not happened before?
We use ideograms to create and communicate insights. An ideogram can condense one thousand words into an image; and make the point of it all recognizable at a glance; and communicate know-what in a way that incites action.
The existing knowledge federation ideograms are only a placeholder—for a variety of techniques that will be developed through artful and judicious use of media technology.
Modernity ideogram
By depicting our society as a bus and our information as its candle headlights, Modernity ideogram renders our situation in a nutshell.
Imagine us as passengers in a bus—which rushes at accelerating speed toward a disaster; because its headlights are way too dim to show us where to go.
Information must illuminate our choices.
And intervene between ourselves and the world; and I am not talking about any sort of information—but information</b</em</em> that's been conscientiously designed for that function.</p>
<p>In Guided Evolution of Society, in 2001, systems scientist Béla H. Bánáthy surveyed a broad range of sources and reached this conclusion:</p>
<p>“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 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.”</p>
<p>To foster the awareness of this new opportunity and responsibility, and develop the <b>information</b> that can provide us “evolutionary guidance”—is the challenge the Modernity ideogram is pointing to.</p>
</div> </div>
<p>The Information ideogram is an “i” (for "information"), composed as a circle or dot or <b>point</b> on top of a <b>rectangle</b>; inscribed in a triangle representing the metaphorical <b>mountain</b>. You may interpret the <b>rectangle</b> as representing a myriad of documents; and the <b>point</b> as the point of it all; and this <b>ideogram</b> as a way to say what's obvious—that without a <b>point</b>, thousands and thousands of printed pages are just <b>point</b>-less! The triangle or the <b>mountain</b> symbolizes the purpose of it all—to, metaphorically, come out of "information jungle" by collectively climbing to a <b>mountain</b> top; and see (no longer only the trees, but) the forest too; and see where the roads are leading, and which one we need to follow. </p>
<p>How should <b>information</b> be structured? Ole-Johan Dahl and C.A.R. Hoare wrote in Structured Programming in 1972, in a chapter called “Hierarchical Program Structures”:</p>
<p>“As the result of the large capacity of computing instruments, we have to deal with computing processes of such complexity that they can hardly be understood in terms of basic general purpose concepts. The limit is set by the nature of our intellect: precise thinking is possible only in terms of a small number of elements at a time. The only efficient way to deal with complicated systems is in a hierarchical fashion. The dynamic system is constructed and understood in terms of high level concepts, which are in turn constructed and understood in terms of lower level concepts, and so forth.”</p>
<p>Dahl received the Turing Award (the computer science equivalent for the Nobel Prize) for co-authoring the Object Oriented Methodology; which empowers the programmers to deliver comprehensible, reusable, verifiable and modifiable code by structuring it in terms of "objects". The answer we offered, which the Information ideogram illustrates, is a remake of the same idea we call <b>information holon</b>; which is <b>designed</b> to serve as a document template; as a new basic unit or "piece" of information. A <b>holon</b> is both a whole in itself and a piece in a larger whole. When a myriad of documents are <b>federated</b> to produce the <b>point</b>—this <b>point</b> can be used to compose a higher-order <b>holon</b>; so that <b>holons</b> can be combined into a <b>holarchy</b>—which is what the <b>mountain</b> stands for.</p>
<p>Another word for "creation of meaning" is "abstraction". The Information ideogram points to three kinds of abstraction:</p>
<p>Another keyword we use is "categorization"; <b>structural abstraction</b> allows us to identify a handful of <b>categories</b> in terms of which a complex theme can and needs to be comprehended.</p>
<p>An overarching insight resulted from this experiment; which I propose for consideration in our <b>dialog</b>:</p>
<p>Our comprehension and handling of the core themes that determine our <b>know-what</b>, and set our society's evolutionary course—are at the level where our comprehension of natural phenomena was in pre-scientific times; we do not have any <b>knowledge</b>; all we really have to work with is <b>belief</b>.</p>
<p>The stars on Holotopia ideogram represent <b>prototypes</b>; and point to the <b>informed</b> course of action the <b>holotopia</b> initiative will enable and begin.</p>
<p>Which will liberate us from "the world" by providing us <b>insights</b> and principles.</p>
<p>And importantly—which will empower our next generation to create a different world. </p>
<p>My <b>point</b> is that this course of action is not only our human obligation—but also the necessary next step in academic evolution.</p>
<p>The <b>knowledge federation prototype</b> constitutes a case for this appeal—and at the same time makes it actionable.</p>
Information ideogram
Holotopia ideogram
We are not informed.
My appeal
(Albert Einstein, New York Times, 1946)
My appeal is to institute a new science.