Difference between revisions of "Holotopia"

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<p>We coined several [[keyword|<em>keywords</em>]] to point to some of the ironic sides of this development—as food for thought, and to prime our [[dialog|<em>dialog</em>]] in front of the [[mirror|<em>mirror</em>]].</p>  
 
<p>We coined several [[keyword|<em>keywords</em>]] to point to some of the ironic sides of this development—as food for thought, and to prime our [[dialog|<em>dialog</em>]] in front of the [[mirror|<em>mirror</em>]].</p>  
  
<p>From Newton we adapted the keyword [[giant|<em>giant</em>]], and use it for visionary thinkers whose contributions must be taken into account to see the emerging [[paradigm|<em>paradigm</em>]] (Newton reportedly "stood on the shoulders of giants" to "see further"). But as our anecdotes illustrate, the <em>giants</em> are now routinely <em>ignored</em>! The academic 'turf' has been minutely divided; a <em>giant</em> takes way too much space.</p>  
+
<p>From Newton we adapted the keyword [[giant|<em>giant</em>]], and use it for visionary thinkers whose contributions must be taken into account to see the emerging [[paradigm|<em>paradigm</em>]] (Newton reportedly "stood on the shoulders of giants" to "see further"). But as our anecdotes illustrate, the <em>giants</em> are now routinely <em>ignored</em>! The academic 'turf' has been minutely divided; a <em>giant</em> would take way too much space.</p>  
  
<p>From Johan Huizinga we adapted the keyword [[homo ludens|<em>homo ludens</em>]], and use it (along the lines explained in <em>socialized reality</em> insight) to point out that we are <em>not only</em> the <em>homo sapiens</em>, as we tend to believe. The <em>homo ludens</em> (man the game player) does not seek information and knowledge to orient himself; he learns what works from experience, and does that. The <em>homo ludens</em>' pursuit is the [http://kf.wikiwiki.ifi.uio.no/Five_insights#Giddens <em>ontological</em> security].</p>  
+
<p>From Johan Huizinga we adapted the keyword [[homo ludens|<em>homo ludens</em>]], and use it (along the lines explained in <em>socialized reality</em> insight) to point out that we are <em>not only</em> the <em>homo sapiens</em>, as we tend to believe. The <em>homo ludens</em> (man the game player) does not seek information and knowledge to orient himself; he learns what works from experience, and does that. The <em>homo ludens</em>' pursuit is of the [http://kf.wikiwiki.ifi.uio.no/Five_insights#Giddens <em>ontological</em> security].</p>  
  
<p>We addressed our proposal to [[academia|<em>academia</em>]], which we defined as "institutionalized academic tradition". We have seen that the university controls "a way to change course". It goes without saying that the academic tradition's all-important historical role is to help us make progress along the <em>homo sapiens</em> evolutionary course; to avoid becoming the <em>homo ludens</em>. The question must be asked—Is is the academic tradition institutionalized as it may serve this end?</p>
+
<p>We addressed our proposal to [[academia|<em>academia</em>]], which we defined as "institutionalized academic tradition". It goes without saying that the academic tradition's all-important historical role is to help us evolve as <em>homo sapiens</em>, not as <em>homo ludens</em>. But as we have seen, the <em>power structure</em> ecology, which drove the evolution of our systems almost without exception, favors this latter, degenerative course. The question must be asked—Has the academic tradition been institutionalized in a way that avoids this problem?</p>  
 
 
<blockquote><em>What values</em>—and <em>what evolutionary course</em>—are supported by its ecology?</blockquote>
 
  
 +
<blockquote><em>Or</em> is the <em>academia</em> itself now following the <em>homo ludens</em> evolutionary course?</blockquote>
  
 
</div> </div>  
 
</div> </div>  

Revision as of 11:55, 17 November 2020

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

Its essence

The core of our 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

Its substance

What would our handling of information be like, if we treated it as we treat other human-made things—if we took advantage of our best knowledge and technology, and adapted it to the purposes that need to be served?

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

The substance of our proposal is a complete prototype of the handling of information we are proposing—by which initial answers to relevant questions are given, and in part implemented in practice.

We call the proposed approach to information knowledge federation when we want to point to the activity that distinguishes it from the common practices. We federate knowledge when we make what we "know" information-based; when we examine, select and combine all potentially relevant resources. When also the way in which we handle information is federated.

The purpose of knowledge federation is to restore agency to information, and power to knowledge.

Like architecture and design, knowledge federation is both an organized set of activities, and an academic field that develops them.

Our call to action is to institutionalize and develop knowledge federation as an academic field and real-life praxis (informed practice).

We refer to our proposal as holoscope when we want to emphasize the difference it can make.

The purpose of the holoscope is to help us see things whole.

Holoscope.jpeg
Holoscope ideogram

We use the Holoscope ideogram to point to this purpose; and to explain how this purpose is achieved through knowledge federation. The ideogram draws on the metaphor of inspecting a hand-held cup, in order to see whether it is broken or whole. We inspect a cup by choosing the way we look; and by looking at all sides. This looking at all sides is what knowledge federation is about.

Its method

While the characteristics of the holoscope—the 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 of them must be made clear from the start.

In the holoscope, the legitimacy of multiple ways to look at a theme is axiomatic.

The ways of looking are called scopes. The scopes and the resulting views have similar role and meaning as projections do in technical drawing.

This modernization of our handling of information, distinguished by purposeful, free and informed choice or creation of the way we look at the world, has become necessary, suggests the Modernity ideogram. But it also presents a challenge to the reader—to bear in mind that the resulting views are not "reality pictures", contending for that status with one other and with the conventional ones.

To liberate our worldview from the 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 insights reached in 20th century 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.

A way of looking or scope—which reveals a structural problem, and helps us reach a correct assessment of an object of study or situation—is a new kind of result that is made possible by (the general-purpose science that is modeled by) the holoscope.

We will continue to use the conventional way of speaking and say that something is as stated, that X is Y—although it would be more accurate to say that X can or needs to be perceived (also) as Y. The views we offer are accompanied by an invitation to genuinely try to look at the theme at hand in a certain specific way (to use the offered scope); and to do that collectively and collaboratively, in a dialog.

All elements in our proposal are deliberately left unfinished, as a collection of prototypes. Think of them as composing a 'cardboard model of a city', and a 'construction site'. By sharing them we are not making a case for a specific 'city'—but for 'architecture' as academic field, and real-life praxis.

A vision

A difference to be made

Suppose we used the holoscope as 'headlights'; what difference would that make?

The Club of Rome's assessment of the situation we are in provided us a benchmark challenge for putting our proposal 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 we are in a state of crisis that has cultural roots and must be handled accordingly, Peccei shared with a number of twentieth century 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:

"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".

Our future

Holotopia is a vision of a future that becomes accessible when proper 'light' has been 'turned on'.

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

As the optimism regarding our future waned, apocalyptic or "dystopian" visions became common. The "protopias" were offered as a compromise, where the focus is on smaller but practically realizable improvements.

The holotopia is different in spirit from them all. It ismore attractive than the futures the utopias projected—whose authors either lacked the information to see what was possible, or lived in the times when the resources we have did not exist. And yet the holotopia is readily attainable—because we already have the information and other resources that are needed for its fulfillment.

The holotopia vision is made concrete in terms of five insights.


FiveInsights.JPG
Five Insights ideogram

The five insights resulted when we applied the holoscope to illuminate five pivotal themes; "pivotal" because they determine the "course":
  • Innovation—the way we use our growing ability to create, and induce change
  • Communication—the social process, enabled by technology, by which information is handled
  • Epistemology—the fundamental assumptions we use to create truth and meaning; which determine the relationship we have with information
  • Method—the way in which truth and meaning are constructed in everyday life; or the way we look at the world, try to comprehend and handle it
  • Values—the way we "pursue happiness"; or choose "course"

In each case, when we 'connected the dots' (combined the available insights to reach a general one), we were able to identify a large structural defect. We demonstrated practical ways, partly implemented as prototypes, in which those structural defects can be remedied. We showed that such structural interventions lead to benefits that are well beyond curing problems.

The five insights establish an analogy between the comprehensive change that was germinating in Galilei's time, and what is in store for us now.

Power structure insight (analogy with Industrial Revolution)

We looked at the systems in which we live and work as gigantic socio-technical 'mechanisms'—which determine how we live and work; and what the effects of our efforts will be.

Castells.jpeg

When "free competition" or the market controls our growing capability to create and induce change, the systems in which we live and work evolve as power structures—and we lose the ability to steer a viable course. A dramatic improvement in efficiency and effectiveness of human work, and of the human condition at large, can result from systemic innovation, where we innovate by making things whole on the large scale, where socio-technical systems or institutions are made whole.

Collective mind insight (analogy with Gutenberg Revolution)

We looked at the social process by which information is handled.

Neil Postman observed:

“We’ve entered an age of information glut. And this is something no culture has really faced before. The typical situation is information scarcity. (…) Lack of information can be very dangerous. (…) But at the same time too much information can be dangerous, because it can lead to a situation of meaninglessness, 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.”

We saw that the new media technology is still being used to make the social process that the printing press made possible (publishing or broadcasting) more efficient—which breeds glut. Core elements of the new technology have been created to enable a different social process—whose results are function and meaning; where technology enables us to think and create together, as cells in a single mind do.

Socialized reality insight (analogy with Enlightenment)

We looked at the foundation on which truth and meaning are socially constructed, which we call epistemology. It was the epistemology change—from the rigidly held Biblical worldview of Galilei's prosecutors—that made the Enlightenment possible; that triggered comprehensive change.

We saw that a similar fundamental change, with similar consequences, is now mandated on both fundamental and pragmatic grounds.

Narrow frame insight (analogy with Scientific Revolution)

We looked at the method by which truth and meaning are socially constructed.

Science eradicated prejudice and expanded our knowledge—where the methods and interests of its disciplines could be applied. We showed how to extend the scientific approach to knowledge, to questions we need to answer.

Convenience paradox insight (analogy with Renaissance)

We looked at the values that determine the way we "pursue happiness"; and our society's "course".

We showed that when proper 'light' illuminates the 'way'—our choices and pursuits will be entirely different.


Large change is easy

The "course" is a paradigm

The changes the five insights are pointing to are inextricably co-dependent.

We cannot, for instance, replace 'candles' with 'lightbulbs' (as the collective mind insight demands), unless systemic innovation (demanded by the power structure insight) is in place. And without having a general-purpose method for creating insights (which dissolves the narrow frame). We will remain unknowing victims of the convenience paradox, as long as we use 'candles' to illuminate the way.

We cannot make any of the required changes, without making them all.

We may use Wiener's keyword "homeostasis" negatively—to point to the undesirable property of systems to maintain a course even when it's self-destructive. The system springs back, and nullifies change.

It is because of this property of our global system that comprehensive change can be easy—even when smaller and obviously necessary changes may have proven impossible.


"A way to change course" is in academia's hands

Paradigm changes, however, have their own logic, and a manner in which they need to proceed.

A "disease" is a living system's stable pathological condition. A "remedy" is what has the power to change it. In systems terminology, we look for a "systemic leverage point" as remedy. And when handling social systems, we look at "the mindset or paradigm out of which the goals, rules, feedback structure arise", and seek to restore "the power to transcend paradigms" as the most powerful kind of systemic leverage point, as Donella Meadows pointed out.

The relationship we have with information is a remedy to our situation par excellence.

First of all because it is a simple way to restore the power to transcend paradigms, from which all other requisite changes, demanded by the five insights, follow. As soon as we abolish reification—of worldviews and institutions in general, and of journalism, science and other inherited ways of looking at the world in particular—we clearly see the imperative of changing them by adapting them to the purposes that must be served.

That is the core of the impending societal paradigm change; and the solution to our problems.

Then also because (as the socialized reality insight showed) this change is mandated on both fundamental and pragmatic grounds. It follows as a logical consequence of what we already know. It is an insight for which the evidence is overwhelming.

It will not be difficult to make it transparent.

And finally, because this fundamental change is fully in control of publicly sponsored intellectuals—the academia.

We do not need to occupy Wall Street.

The university is the systemic leverage point we need to focus on.

And for us who are in academic positions already, who are called upon to make this pivotal change—there is nothing we need to occupy. What we must do to "change course" is required by our occupation.

Human quality is the key

But what about culture? What about "human quality"?

On the morning of March 14, 1984, the day he passed away, Peccei dictated to his secretary from a hospital bed (as part of "Agenda for the End of the Century"):

"Human development is the most important goal."

A way to put this "humanistic" perspective on our map is by looking in the "evolutionary" way, as Erich Jantsch branded it. Jantsch explained it via the metaphor of a boat (representing a system, such as the natural world, or our civilization) on a river. The traditional science would position us above the boat, and have us look at it "objectively". The traditional systems science would position us on the boat, to seek ways to steer it effectively and safely. The "evolutionary" perspective invites us to perceive ourselves as—water. We are evolution!

The "human quality" determines how we are as 'water'; and hence what our evolutionary course will be.

The power structure insight showed that when we navigate the evolutionary stream by aiming to advance "our own" position—we unavoidably become part of the power structure; we create the systems that create problems.

To put our two pivotal themes together, notice that changing relationship we have with information should be to us dramatically easier than it was in Galilei's time—when it meant risking one's life or worse. The academia, not the Church, is now in change of "our ability to transcend paradigms"! But here's the rub: By being in charge, the academia is also part of the power structure!

To see what this means practically and concretely, follow us through a thought experiment: Imagine that an academic administrator, let's call him Professor X, has just received a knowledge federation proposal. (We say "a" proposal, because proposals of this kind were advanced well before we were born.) What would be his reaction?

When we do this thought experiment, Professor X moves on to his next chore without ado.

It is not difficult to see why. We have an amusing collection of anecdotes to support that prognosis. And anyhow, why would one invest time in comprehending a proposal of this kind, when one already knows, when the body knows already (see the socialized reality insight), that the academics won't like this sort of idea.

At the university too we make choices by taking recourse to embodied knowledge of "what works".

But this ethos is what the power structure demands of us, if we should be "successful". It is what binds us to power structure.

This ethos is blatantly un-academic.

If Galilei followed it, the Inquisition would still be in charge of rights and wrongs. If Socrates did that, there would be no academia.

The academic tradition was conceived as a way out of socialized reality, by developing knowledge work based on knowledge of knowledge; and applying it to develop ideas as guiding light for people to make choices. And isn't this exactly what knowledge federation proposals are about?

We coined several keywords to point to some of the ironic sides of this development—as food for thought, and to prime our dialog in front of the mirror.

From Newton we adapted the keyword giant, and use it for visionary thinkers whose contributions must be taken into account to see the emerging paradigm (Newton reportedly "stood on the shoulders of giants" to "see further"). But as our anecdotes illustrate, the giants are now routinely ignored! The academic 'turf' has been minutely divided; a giant would take way too much space.

From Johan Huizinga we adapted the keyword homo ludens, and use it (along the lines explained in socialized reality insight) to point out that we are not only the homo sapiens, as we tend to believe. The homo ludens (man the game player) does not seek information and knowledge to orient himself; he learns what works from experience, and does that. The homo ludens' pursuit is of the ontological security.

We addressed our proposal to academia, which we defined as "institutionalized academic tradition". It goes without saying that the academic tradition's all-important historical role is to help us evolve as homo sapiens, not as homo ludens. But as we have seen, the power structure ecology, which drove the evolution of our systems almost without exception, favors this latter, degenerative course. The question must be asked—Has the academic tradition been institutionalized in a way that avoids this problem?

Or is the academia itself now following the homo ludens evolutionary course?

A strategy

We will not solve our problems

A role of the holotopia vision is to fulfill what Margaret Mead identified as "one necessary condition of successfully continuing our existence" (in "Continuities in Cultural Evolution", in 1964—four years before The Club of Rome was founded):

"(W)e are living in a period of extraordinary danger, as we are faced with the possibility that our whole species will be eliminated from the evolutionary scene. 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."

Still more concretely, we undertake to respond to this Mead's critical point:

"Although tremendous advances in the human sciences have been made in the last hundred years, almost no advance has been made in their use, especially in ways of creating reliable new forms in which cultural evolution can be directed to desired goals."

We, however, do not claim, or even assume, that "the huge problems now confronting us" can be solved".

Mead.jpg
Margaret Mead

Hear Dennis Meadows (who coordinated the team that produced The Club of Rome's seminal 1972 report "Limits to Growth") diagnose, recently, that our pursuit of "sustainability" falls short of avoiding the "predicament" that The Club of Rome was warning us about five decades ago:

"Will the current ideas about "green industry", and "qualitative growth", avoid collapse? No possibility. Absolutely no possibility of that. (...) Globally, we are something like sixty or seventy percent above sustainable levels."

We wasted precious time pursuing a dream; hear Ronald Reagan set the tone for it, as "the leader of the free world".

A sense of sobering up, and of catharsis, needs to reach us from the depth of our problems.

Small things don't matter. Business as usual is a waste of time.

Our very "progress" must acquire a new—cultural—focus and direction. Hear Dennis Meadows say:

"Will it be possible, here in Germany, to continue this level of energy consumption, and this degree of material welfare? Absolutely not. Not in the United States, not in other countries either. Could you change your cultural and your social norms, in a way that gave attractive future? Yes, you could."

Ironically, our problems can only be solved when we no longer see them as problems—but as symptoms of much deeper cultural and structural defects.

The five insights show that the structural problems now confronting us can be solved.

The holotopia offers more than "an atmosphere of hope". It points to an attainable future that is strictly better than our present.

And it offers to change our condition now—by engaging us in an unprecedentedly large and magnificent creative adventure.

Peccei wrote in One Hundred Pages for the Future (the boldface emphasis is ours):

For some time now, the perception of (our responsibilities relative to "problematique") has motivated a number of organizations and small voluntary groups of concerned citizens which have mushroomed all over to respond to the demands of new situations or to change whatever is not going right in society. These groups are now legion. They arose sporadically on the most variend fronts and with different aims. They comprise peace movements, supporters of national liberation, and advocates of women's rights and population control; defenders of minorities, human rights and civil liberties; apostles of "technology with a human face" and the humanization of work; social workers and activists for social change; ecologists, friends of the Earth or of animals; defenders of consumer rights; non-violent protesters; conscientious objectors, and many others. These groups are usually small but, should the occasion arise, they can mobilize a host of men and women, young and old, inspired by a profound sense of te common good and by moral obligations which, in their eyes, are more important than all others.

They form a kind of popular army, actual or potential, with a function comparable to that of the antibodies generated to restore normal conditions in a biological organism that is diseased or attacked by pathogenic agents. The existence of so many spontaneous organizations and groups testifies to the vitality of our societies, even in the midst of the crisis they are undergoing. Means will have to be found one day to consolidate their scattered efforts in order to direct them towards strategic objectives.

Diversity is good and useful, especially in times of change. Systems scientists coined the keyword "requisite variety" to point out that a variety of possible responses make a system viable, or "sustainable".

The risk is, however, that the actions of "small voluntary groups of concerned citizens" may remain reactive.

From Murray Edelman we adapted the keyword symbolic action, to make that risk more clear. We engage in symbolic action when we act within the limits of the socialized reality and the power structure—in ways that make us feel that we've done our duty. We join a demonstration; or an academic conference. But symbolic action can only have symbolic effects!

We have seen that comprehensive change must be our goal.

It is to that strategic goal that the holotopia vision is pointing.

By supplementing this larger strategy, we neither deny that the problems we are facing must be attended to, nor belittle the heroic efforts of our frontier colleagues who are working on their solution.

The Holotopia project complements the problem-based approaches—by adding what is systemically lacking to make solutions possible.



We will not change the world

Like Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, the holotopia is a trans-generational construction project.

Our generation's job is to begin it.

Margaret Mead left us this encouragement:

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

Mead explained what exactly distinguishes a small group people that are able to make a large difference:

"(W)e take the position that the unit of cultural evolution is neither the single gifted individual nor the society as a whole, but the small group of interacting individuals who, together with the most gifted among them, can take the next step; then we can set about the task of creating the conditions in which the appropriately gifted can actually make a contribution. That is, rather than isolating potential "leaders," we can purposefully produce the conditions we find in history, in which clusters are formed of a small number of extraordinary and ordinary men and women, so related to their period and to one another that they can consciously set about solving the problems they propose for themselves."

SagradaFamilia.png
Sagrada Familia (for the moment we are borrowing this beautiful photo from the Web)

This capability—to self-organize and serve a cause that is beyond "our" interests—is where "human quality" is needed. And that's what we've been lacking.

The five insights showed that again and again. Our stories were deliberately chosen to be a half-century old—and demonstrate that "the appropriately gifted" have already offered us their gifts. But that "the conditions in which the appropriately gifted can actually make a contribution" are not in place.

It is not difficult to see that our culture, and the way it's created, is to blame. As this excerpt from the animated film "The Incredibles" might illustrate, we live in a cultural and an institutional ecology that will give us power only if we consent to make ourselves small, and be well-lubricated cogs in an institutional machinery. Not to the hero who would make a difference.

We must find strength to liberate ourselves.

The Holotopia project will not engineer "success" by making human quality unnecessary. On the contrary! We will focus on this "most important goal".

We know from chemistry that a crystal submerged in a solution of the same substance makes the substance crystallize according to its own shape. Our strategy is to be that 'crystal'.

Holotopia will not grow by "push", but by "pull".

We will not change the world.
You will.


A mission

Many centuries ago a philosopher portrayed the human condition by telling a parable. He proposed to imagine us humans chained in a cave, able to look only at the wall of the cave where a projection of shadows is at play. He in this way portrayed what we dubbed socialized reality—that we live in a "reality" created in part by power play, and in part by our error-prone perception. The philosopher pointed to the development of ideas as the way to liberation.

The five insights showed that we are still in the 'cave'.
And that we are positioned to make a breakthrough!

"A great cultural revival"—a change of evolutionary course that will lead to a comprehensive improvement of our condition—is ready to begin as an academic revival; just as in Galilei's time.

Jantsch-university.jpeg

When we say that the university needs to make structural changes within itself, to guide our society through a new phase in its evolution, we are not saying anything new. We only echo what others have said.

But the tie between information and action having been severed—calls to action of this kind remained without effect.
The mission of the Holotopia project is to restore the severed tie.

BrokenFeedback.jpeg

The above ideogram explains our mission, how we've undertaken do that, in system-theoretic terms.

We restore agency to information, and power to knowledge, by creating systemic prototypes; and a feedback structure around them, to update them continuously.

We will implement this mission in two steps.

Step 1: Enabling academic evolution

The first step is to institutionalize knowledge federation as an academic field. This step is made actionable by offering a complete prototype of knowledge federation that includes everything an academic field may need, ranging from epistemology and methods on the one side, to a community and a deployment strategy on the other.

The purpose of knowledge federation is to enable systems to evolve knowledge-based.
Knowledge work systems to begin with.

By reconfiguring academic work on design epistemology as foundation, knowledge federation undertakes to provide an academic space, where creativity can be applied and careers can be pursued by creating knowledge work. By changing our collective mind.

This step implements Erich Jantsch's call to action.

Step 2: Enabling societal evolution

The second step is to develop the Holotopia project in real life.

By offering an attractive future vision, and a feedback structure around it to update it continuously, and to make tactical steps toward its realization—we restore to our society the faculty of vision; and the ability to "change course".

This step implements Aurelio Peccei's call to action.
Notice that this process—by which we construct and pursue a vision—is our project's goal; not the vision it produces.




The Holotopia project is conceived as a collaborative strategy game, where we make tactical moves toward the holotopia vision.

We make this 'game' smooth and awesome by developing tactical assets.


Art

Holotopia is an art project.

Where "art" is a way of being, not a profession.

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The transformative space created by our "Earth Sharing" pilot project, in Kunsthall 3.14 art gallery in Bergen, Norway.

The idea of "a great cultural revival" brings to mind the image of Michelangelo painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and in the midst of an old order of things manifesting a new one. When Marcel Duchamp exhibited the urinal, he questioned what "art" may mean. But the deconstruction of tradition has been completed, and the time is now to construct.

What sort of art will manifest the holotopia?

In "Production of Space" Henri Lefebvre offered an answer, which we'll summarize in holotopia's buddying vernacular.

The crux of our problem, Lefebvre observed, is that past activity, crystalized as the systems in which we live and work or power structure, keeps us in check. "What is dead takes hold of what is alive". Lefebvre proposed to reverse that.

"But how could what is alive lay hold of what is dead? The answer is: through the production of space, whereby living labour can produce something that is no longer a thing, nor simply a set of tools, nor simply a commodity."
Holotopia project produces a space—where what is alive in us can overcome what is making us dead.

Where in the artist as the retort, new ways of feeling, thinking and being are created.



Five insights

Holotopia's creative space is spanned by five insights.

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The pentagram, which represents the five insights, lends itself to artistic interpretations.

Creation takes place in the context of the five insights. That makes the creation knowledge based.

Like five pillars, the five insights lifts up the creative space, from what socialized reality might allow.

Art meets science in that space, and curated knowledge in general. Not for a visit, not just for a coffee; but to live and work together. By sharing five insights, science tells art "Here is how far I've gotten; here is where you take over."

Like everything else here, the five insights are a prototype—of a minimal collection of insight that can overturn the paradigm. Being a prototype, they evolve continuously.

To make the five insights bring to the fore what is most transformative in our collective knowledge is one of Holotopia's core goals.

The mirror

The mirror is the entrance to holotopia.

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Mirror prototypes from Vibeke Jensen's Berlin studio.

Of course we enter the new reality by looking at the world differently. This time, the new way to look is to put ourselves into the picture.

The discovery that will change the world is the discovery of ourselves.

"Know thyself" has always been the battle cry of humanity's teachers. We can walk through the mirror once we've seen that our beliefs, emotions, desires... take shape within ourselves, through complex interaction with our culture.

The culture becomes a premier object of creation.
The mirror is also the entry door to academic revival.

Through self-reflective dialog, the academia revives its original ethos; and then like the mythical messiah liberates the oppressed—by guiding us through the mirror.

Divine intervention is no longer needed.

To walk through the mirror, it is sufficient to bring what we know to a logical conclusion; and to act accordingly.

The dialog

The dialog organizes us together and enables us to co-create.

Holotopia's communication is as different from what is common in the media, as holotopia is different from the social reality that the media reflect. We use this keyword, dialog, to point to this difference.

The dialog is an instrument for changing our collective mind.

As a way to revolutionize communication, the dialog is as old as the academia. New developments, however, gave its long evolution a new turn. One of them is David Bohm's related work.

Instead of imposing our "reality" on others, Bohm insisted, we must use "proprioception" (mindfully observe ourselves) and inhibit that.

Isn't this what the mirror is also suggesting?

Another revolutionary development is the advent of "dialogue mapping" and other media tools.

The holotopia changes the world by changing the way we communicate.

To point to some of the dialog's possibilities as tactical asset, we contemplate adapting "reality show" as one of our keywords. When the dialog brings us together to daringly create, we see an engaging vision of a new social reality, which is about to emerge. When it doesn't, we witness the grip that socialized reality has on us, which is a handicap we all share.

Creative camera work gives this use of the dialog an interesting dimension.


Keywords

A warning reaches us from sociology.

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Beck explained further:

"Max Weber's 'iron cage' – in which he thought humanity was condemned to live for the foreseeable future – is for me the prison of categories and basic assumptions of classical social, cultural and political sciences."

Imagine us in this "iron cage"—compelled, like mythical king Oedipus, to draw closer to a tragic destiny as we do our best to avoid it, by a dysfunctional way we look at the world.

We offered the creation of keywords as remedy.

While we've been seeing examples of keywords all along, we here share three more canonical examples, which will in a fractal-like way illustrate some of the larger related issues.

Culture

In "Culture as Praxis", Zygmunt Bauman surveyed a large number of historical definitions of culture, and concluded that they are too diverse to be reconciled.

We do not know what "culture" means!

Not a good venture point for developing culture as praxis (informed practice).

We defined culture as "cultivation of wholeness"; and cultivation by analogy with planting and watering a seed (which suits also the etymology of "culture").

In this way we defined this specific way of looking at culture: No amount of dissecting and studying a seed will suggest that the seed should be planted and watered; we depend on the communicated experience of others to tell us that. In a closely similar way, the cultivation of human wholeness depends on subtle cultural practices that must be phenomenologically understood; and integrated in our culture.

Addiction

The traditions identified activities such as gambling, and things such as opiates as addictions. But selling addictions is a lucrative business. What will hinder businesses from using new technologies and create new addictions?

By defining addiction as a pattern, we made it possible to identify it as an aspect of otherwise useful activities and things.

To make ourselves and our culture whole, even subtle addiction must be identified and taken care of.

Pseudoconsciousness, defined as "addiction to information", is an interesting example. Consciousness of one's situation is, of course, a necessary element of wholeness. Our consciousness can, however, be drown in facts and data, which give us the sensation of knowing—without telling us what we really need to know.


Religion

In "Physics and Philosophy" Werner Heisenberg described some of the consequences of the narrow frame:

It was especially difficult to find in this framework room for those parts of reality tht had been the object of the traditional religion and seemed now more or less only imaginary. Therefore, in those European countries in which one was wont to follow the ideas up to their extreme consequences, and open hostility of science toward religion developed (...). Confidence in the scientific method and in rational thinking replaced all other safeguards of the human mind.

If you too happen to be affected by the narrow frame in this way, consider our way of handling concepts as 'recycling'—as giving old words new meaning; as giving them the function they need to perform "in the post-traditional cosmopolitan world".

We adapted the definition that Martin Lings contributed, and defined religion as "reconnection with the archetype". (This harmonizes with the etymological meaning of that word.) We further adapted Carl Jung's keyword, and defined the archetype as whatever in our psychological makeup that may empower us to transcend selfishness. "Heroism", "justice", "motherhood", "freedom", "beauty", "truth" and "love" are examples.

Imagine a world where truth, love, beauty, justice... bind us to our purpose; and to each other.
Isn't that what "a great cultural revival" is all about?

But what about religion as a belief system, and an institution? Aren't we misinterpreting "religion", when we elevate it in this way?

"The Agony and the Ecstasy" is a biographical novel and a film, where the agony and the ecstasy are what accompanied Michelangelo's creative process, while painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling. And of course also every true creative act. Pope Julius II appears in the story as he was—as the "Warrior Pope". He, however, did exercise his piety, by making it possible for Michelangelo to complete his work. Julius knew, and so did Michelangelo, that it was the artist and not the pope that God was speaking through.

Everything in holotopia is a prototype; and a prototype is only complete when a dialog keeps it alive and evolving.

The five insights are interesting dialog themes.

And so is almost anything else—when placed in the context of the five insights.

We selected the ten themes from a myriad possibilities. They correspond to the ten lines that join the five insights pairwise together in a pentagram.

How to put an end to war?

What would it take to really put an end to war, once and for all?

The five insights allow us to understand the war as an extreme consequence of the manner in which societies and cultures have been evolving—which gave "competitive advantage" to those societies that developed aggressive qualities and weapons, over those who "turned the other cheek".

By placing this theme in the context between the power structure insight and the socialized reality insight, we give ample reasons why this evolutionary course is now ready to change, and has to change.

Alienation

This theme offers to reconcile Karl Marx with "the 1%"; and the radical left with Christianity.

By having the convenience paradox and the power structure insights as context, this theme allows us to understand deeply that the power structure evolution alienated all of us from wholeness. It helps us discharge age-old tensions, and give holotopia power by co-opting the powerful.

Enlightenment 2.0

By placing the conversation about the reissue of the Enlightenment in the context of the convenience paradox insight and the collective mind insight, two opportunities for transdisciplinary cross-fertilization open up.

One of them is to take advantage of new media technology, and our collective mind, and create the media material that make the convenience paradox transparent, and help us "change course". The other one is to use the insights into human wholeness, to inform the development and use of new media.


Academia quo vadis?

This title is reserved for the academic self-reflective dialog in front of the mirror.

By placing this conversation between the socialized reality and the narrow frame insight, the necessity of academic transformation is made transparent.

We gave it this name to point to a historical analogy: Nearly two millennia ago, when the foundations of the Roman Empire were shaking, the Christian Church stepped into the role of a guiding light. Can the university assume that role today?


Stories

Our stories are vignettes. This in principle journalistic technique helps us render academic and other insights in a way that makes them palatable to public, and usable to artists and journalists. Being a meme, a vignette may do more than just convey ideas.

We illustrate this technique by a single example, The Incredible History of Doug Engelbart. In a fractal-like way, this story illustrates some of the "incredible" sides of the emerging paradigm, notably its difficulty to be seen and understood.

The Incredible History of Doug Engelbart is a contemporary 'Galilei in house arrest'.

A giant who brought to light significant parts of the emerging paradigm is still 'in house arrest'; confined to it by contemporary power structure; and our inability to comprehend ideas.

Erich Jantsch wrote:

"The task is nothing less than to build a new society and new institutions for it. With technology having become the most powerful change agent in our society, decisive battles will be won or lost by the measure of how seriously we take the challenge of restructuring the “joint systems” of society and technology."

What Engelbart contributed—and we failed to receive—were means to secure decisive victories in those "decisive battles".



The elephant

The elephant symbolizes the academic and cultural paradigm, which is now ready to emerge.

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Elephant ideogram

This metaphor points to a quantum leap in relevance and interest, which specific academic and other insights will acquire when presented in the context of "a great cultural revival".

There is an "elephant in the room", waiting to be discovered.

The frontier thinkers have been touching this elephant, and excitedly reporting what they saw. We heard them talk about "the fan", "the water hose" and "the tree trunk". But they don't make sense, and we ignored them.

This changes thoroughly once we've realized that they were describing 'the ear', 'the trunk' and 'the leg' of a large exotic animal—which nobody has seen!

To make the elephant visible, we orchestrate 'connecting the dots'.
We also offer a way to give new rigor to the study of cultural artifacts.

The structuralists undertook to bring rigor to this study. The post-structuralists "deconstructed" their efforts, by observing that cultural artifacts have no "real meaning"; that their meanings are open to interpretation.

We, however, consider them as 'dots' to be connected.

What interests us is not what, for instance, Bourdieu "really saw" and wanted to communicate; with the post-structuralists, we acknowledge that even Bourdieu would not be able to tell us that, if he were still around. Yet undoubtedly Bourdieu saw something—and undertook to communicate it by taking recourse to the old language and paradigm, which obscured from us his vision. Hence what is truly relevant, and what we can do—is to see what Bourdieu's theory might mean, in the context of the emerging paradigm.

Books and publishing

Occasionally we publish books about of the above themes—to punctuate the laminar flow of events, draw attention to a theme and begin a dialog.

Shall we not recreate the book as well—along with all the rest? Yes and no. In "Amuzing Ourselves to Death", Neil Postman—who founded "media ecology"— left us a convincing argument why the book is here to stay. His point was that the book creates a different "ecology of the mind" than the contemporary "immersive" audio-visual media do; it gives us a chance to reflect.

We, however, embed the book exist in an 'ecosystem' of media. By publishing a book we 'break ice' and place a theme—which may or may not be one of our ten themes—into the focus of the public eye. We then let our collective mind digest and further develop the proposed ideas; and by doing that—develop itself!

In this way, a loop is closed through which an author's insights are improved by collective creativity and knowledge—leading, ultimately, to a new and better edition of the book.

Liberation

The book titled "Liberation", with subtitle "Religion beyond Belief", is scheduled to be completed during the first half of 2021, and serve as the first in the series.

In a fractal-like way, this book reflects the holotopia as a whole. We are accustomed to think of "religion" as a firm or dogmatic belief in something, impervious to counter-evidence. The Liberation book turns this idea of religion inside out—so that religion is understood as liberation from not only rigidly held beliefs, but from rigidly held anything.

The age-old conflict, between science and religion, is resolved by the book by further evolving both science and religion.

Prototypes

Prototypes, as we have seen, are a way to federate information by weaving it directly into the fabric of everyday reality. A prototype can be literally anything.

In the Holotopia prototype, everything is a prototype. In that way we subject everything to knowledge-based evolution.

The events are prototypes we have not yet talked abou. They are multimedia and multidimensional prototypes—which include a variety of more specific prototypes. Events are used to 'punctuate the equilibrium'—to create a discontinuity in the ordinary flow of events, draw attention to a theme, create a transformative space, both physical and in media, engage people and make a difference.

In what follows we illustrate this idea by describing the holotopia's Earth Sharing pilot event, which took place in June of 2018 in Bergen, Norway.

Vibeke Jensen, the artist who created what we are about to describe, is careful to avoid interpreting the space, the objects and the interaction she creates. The idea is to use them as prompts, and allow new meaning to emerge through association and group interaction. The interpretation we are about to give is by us others. It is, however, only a possible interpretation.

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The physical space where the event took place was symbolic of the purpose of the event. The building used to be a bank in the old center of Bergen, and later became an art gallery. It remained to turn the gallery, holotopia-style, into a transformative space.

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The space was upstairs—and Vibeke turned the stairs too into a symbolic object. Going up, the inscription on the stairs reads "bottom up"; going down, it reads "top down". In this way the very first thing that meets the eye is the all-important message, which defines the polyscopy and the holoscope—namely that we can reach insights in those two ways.

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The BottomUp - TopDown intervention is a tool for shifting positions. It suggests transcendence of fixed relations between top and bottom, and builds awareness of the benefits of multiple points of view (polyscopy), and moving in-between.

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The mirror—the core symbol of holotopia transformation—is seen almost everywhere. In particular, a one-way mirror serves as the entrance into the space that used to be the vault of the bank. One enters the vault by literally stepping through a physical mirror. Instead of money and other physical treasures, the vault is a "safe space" for reflection. The inside of the vault was not illuminated, but one could see the world outside through the semi-transparent door, and reflect on it. From the speakers in the vault one could hear edited fragments from an earlier dialog—offered as information to build on and develop ideas further. There was a bag with seeds hanging in the vault.

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We like to think of the objects that populated the space as furniture—and give that world a designed meaning. When one enters a room, the furniture in the room (a sofa, a couple of armchairs...) automatically invites a certain kind of interaction. Our furniture, however, was nothing like conventional furniture; it invites to recreate the interaction. And, of course, it offers certain prompts.