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Paradigm

We use this keyword in two ways:

• To point to a general societal-and-cultural order of things where everything depends on everything else; and importantly to its basic fractal-like structure—where even the smallest detail reflects the overall shape of the whole big thing
• As Thomas Kuhn did; to point to
  • new way to conceive a domain of interest
  • which resolves the reported anomalies
  • and opens a creative frontier to research and development.

The domain of interest here is not a traditional academic field, where paradigm shifts have been (as Kuhn demonstrated) relatively common—but information and knowledge in general.

The point here is this lovely paradox:

Comprehensive change can be easy—even when small and obviously necessary changes have proven impossible.

And that an impending new paradigm information—concretely transdisciplinarity—naturally begets the comprehensive societal and cultural paradigm; and that this new paradigm in information is now demanded by three categories of anomalies—each of them alone sufficient to mandate the change:

• Fundamental insights reached in science and philosophy
• Contemporary global condition
• New information technology