Holotopia: Five insights

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Five Insights

Holotopia can become reality

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

The holotopia vision is made concrete or federated in terms of five insights. Together, they show why a comprehensive paradigm shift is ready to take place in our time, by exploring specific five insights that are ready to emerge in pivotal areas of interest—as soon as we begin to connect the dots.

Convenience Paradox insight

The Convenience Paradox insight points to a revolution in "pursuit of happiness" and in culture, similar to the Renaissance.

The Renaissance liberated our ancestors from a religious dogma, and empowered them to seek and experience the joy of living here and now. The lifestyle changed, and the arts blossomed. Could a similar advent be in store for us today?

We use knowledge to illuminate what has remained obscure: the way our own inner condition and our cultural and natural environments influence the way we feel, and our very ability to feel; and how our handling changes those conditions—in the long run.

Power Structure insight

The Power Structure insight points to a revolution in innovation, on the scale of the Industrial Revolution, by which human work will be made incomparably more effective and efficient.

We look at what remained ignored: the "systems in which we live and work" (which we'll here call simply systems). Think of those systems as gigantic mechanisms, comprising people and technology. Their purpose is to take everyone's daily work as input, and turn it into socially useful effects.

If in spite the technology we are still as busy as were—should we not see if our systems might be wasting our time?

And if the effect of our best efforts turns out to be problems rather than solutions—should we not check whether those systems might be causing us problems?

Collective Mind insight

The Collective Mind insight points to a revolution in communication, analogous to the advent of the printing press

In effect, the network-interconnected interactive digital media have connected us all together in a similar way as the nervous system connects together the cells in an organism. We look at the process which we use, as cells, to process the knowledge together. How does our collective mind work?

Our civilization is like an overgrown organism, so poorly coordinated that it presents a danger to its environment, and to itself. It has recently acquired a nervous system, which could help its organs coordinate their action; but its cells have not yet learned how to use it.

Socialized Reality insight

The Socialized Reality insight is about a new foundation on which the truth and the meaning are developed, and a possibility for a quantum leap in awareness, similar to the Enlightenment.

Without thinking, from the traditional culture we've adopted a myth, incomparably more subversive than the myth of creation—the myth that the purpose of knowledge is to show us "the reality" as it truly is.

I am inserting here freely—because the overall story seems to be taking a new and much more exciting shape. See my comments (also freshly inserted) about the sixth insight below...

So the creation of a "spectacle of a new kind"—how we've forgotten culture, values, and perhaps most interestingly, how we slipped from the homo sapiens evolutionary path, which the academia stood for, and... But the holotopia is about the good news. So the "spectacle" is a spectacular revival of the age-old human themes—in a down-to-earth, effective, contemporary, yet truly spectacular way!

Here we have a key point, which anchors those inflationary words and makes the possibility both palpable and palatable. The point here is to complete the (modernization?) process that was buddying in Galilei's time. The whole thing happened to us, and happened only half-way, or less... Now we make it happen. Completely.

The story here is, of course, about rebuilding the foundations so that they hold all of culture—instead of holding only science and technology, and damaging the rest.

The spectacle here is that all those words—such as "science", "culture" and "truth"—still resonate somehow in our collective memory. Albeit in a rather empty and hollow tone. The point here is to give them a whole new meaning; and power!

Now you may read what I wrote earlier, in my usual boring tone. The point—that will be elaborated very carefully in the detailed presentation of this insight—is that the academic evolutionary path has brought us here, in front of this mirror. What an awesome place to be!

The insight that we are constructing rather than "discovering" is now so well documented and so widely accepted, that we may consider it the state of the art in science and philosophy. But that's only one half of the story.

The other half is that the reality construction has been the tool of choice of traditional socialization—which has been the leading source of renegade power.

Narrow Frame insight

The Narrow Frame insight is about a new way to explore the reality, with similar consequences as the once that science had.

We here look at our 'eyeglasses'; we look at the very way in which we see the world.

Once we've seen that the scientific concepts and methods are our own creation—we become empowered to create new ways of looking at the world, in order to see more.

We can create the way we see the world!

Consequences of driving in the light of candles

The five insights allow us to see our contemporary condition in a similar light as we see the order of things in Galilei's time, in the twilight between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

Values

The convenience paradox is clearly a result of having no way of seeing the long-term consequences of our action (no foundation for culture), and relying on immediate sensory perception alone. The value we have appear scientific: the convenience because it's similar to the experiment; and egocenterendness</em> because it appears to follow from a more general principle that determines our knowledge about ourselves, the Darwin's theory.

Innovation

We ignore the larger picture, the systems in which we live and work; we adopt them from the past, without thinking; and we focus on optimizing our own careers, our own apartments in an apartment building that is about to fall apart.

Communication

We ignore the principle of operation of the collective mind we as people now compose, when connected by technology; we adopt broadcasting, knowledge-work professions, traditional books and articles... and implement them in new technology. Isn't this exactly like recreating the candles by using fancy electrical technology? It's the cognitive overload we have, and the lack of alertness it produces, that is now keeping Galilei in house arrest.

Foundations

We adopted the reality myth, which enabled the traditions to evolve and function, and their power structures to keep the people under control. Our contemporary power structures then simply stepped into the place of the old ones.

Method

Adopting "the scientific method" as the general way to truth, even thought it's obviously way too narrow... and it's never been made for that purpose... isn't this exactly like adopting a pair of candles, to serve as hedlights?

Holotopia as a whole

While each of the five insights brings forth a spectacular development taking place imperceptibly slowly in our present time, considered together they afford an even more spectacular sight—of a complete new paradigm that is ready to emerge. The point here is to see that the five insights and the changes they are pointing to and demanding are so closely related to each other, that it is easiest and most natural to consider them as one single whole. And that the natural strategy is to change that whole as a whole.

It is a most revealing exercise, to begin with, to see that the black arrows in the above ideogram can be interpreted as signifying direct consequences. One thing leads to another! Together, they form a vicious cycle—within which the contemporary issues we are witnessing are perpetually recreated. Already this may be sufficient to see the holotopia's main insight—that comprehensive change can be easy, even when smaller changes appear to be impossible.

• CP –> PS When egocenteredness is our value and guiding principle, we naturally co-create dysfunctional, wasteful and harmful power structures. They do serve a purpose—but not the one they appear to serve. They serve as 'games' or 'turfs' in which our life and career games are played competitively.
• PS –> CM When our innovation in general is considering the existing systems to be "the reality", and as the constraints within which our repertoire of creative action is confined, then what we do with information and communication follows as a special case. Here we have a smaller vicious cycle—because we need new 'headlights' to see the 'bus', and become aware what needs to be done.
• CM –> SR Immersed in "information jungle", we have no other recourse but to adapt to the complex reality by becoming the homo ludens—simply learning how to perform in a role. Or in other words—to submit to socialization. It is indeed a breath-taking sight to see just how much this has become the case.
• SR –> NF When we are socialized to adopt the worldview we have as the reality, it is only natural to adopt the method that provides us this worldview as the 'headlights'—without taking a closer look whether it can fulfill that purpose.
• NF –> CP As mentioned, and as Heisenberg also observed, the values we have (convenience, egocenteredness...) follow as the consequence of looking at the world through the narrow frame ('in the light of a pair of candles').

The red arrows point to synergistic relationships. They show why the two insights or issues they connect may be perceived as two sides of a single coin. And why resolving one means resolving also the other.

• CP <—> CM If we should use long-term thinking instead of convenience to orient our pursuits, we would need suitable information—which would need to be federated from the world traditions. Conversely, bootstrapping—which Engelbart correctly diagnosed as the next step—crucially depends on our ability to transcend our narrowly conceived self-interests, and self-organize.
• PS <—> SR The power structure insight and the socialized reality insight are really two sides of the coin we've been calling power structure—the emergent 'enemy'. This is of course a key concept in holotopia as a whole. The reason why we do not see the systems in which we live and work, and that they have become our enemy, is that we've been socialized to accept them as reality. That's how the traditional culture functioned—and we've simply adopted that without thinking.
• CM <—> NF Here too we have two sides of a single coin, which is our knowledge work. To have knowledge federation as a social process, we need a general method for creating knowledge, on all levels of generality. The holoscope is exactly a prototype that includes both (knowledge federation as social process, and polyscopy as method).
• SR <—> CP Socialized reality includes the "reality" of sense perception. It also limits our conception of information to factual statements, to the 'square' or 'rectangle'—and ignores that our culture, just as any other culture in the past, is a result of complex socialization. Hence instead of knowledge that would guide our way, we have the advertising, which endlessly reconfirms and further misguides our naively conceived priorities.
• NF <—> PS When we begin to see our systems as human-made things that are supposed to serve certain functions, and make our society whole—most naturally we will look at science in that light, and ask "Can this thing perform the key social role which has been assigned to it?" Conversely, when polyscopy is in place, we can define the power structure as the generic enemy—and see just how much our systems have become power structures. Seeing 'the enemy' is what changes everything—even more so than the case was during the Englightenment. Here we may see why it may not be necessary, or even a good idea, to occupy Wall Street. Instead of confronting what we perceive as power holders, we can now simply co-opt them—in the war that matters, against our shared enemy!

The sixth insight

Dispelling myths and errors

Myths and errors (newly added): With each of the five insights we discuss a collection of corresponding myths and errors. And from each such discussion a strong sense of irony results. How is it at all possible that an advanced civilization like ours could be making such completely fundamental, and sweeping, errors? How can we be believing in things that are so obviously myths...? Well, that's exactly the juicy material we are working with.

Our answer to the "How is it at all possible?" question is a slight generalization of the following Einstein's "autobiographical note" (the point here is that a meme that originated in 'modern science' which Einstein represents for us as icon, is spreading through the rest of our culture and society, as it indeed should):

"Now to the field of physics as it presented itself at [the turn of the 20th century, when Einstein entered it]. In spite of great productivity in particulars, dogmatic rigidity prevailed in matters of principle: In the beginning (if there was such a thing), God created Newton’s laws of motion together with the necessary masses and forces. This is all; everything beyond this follows from the development of appropriate mathematical methods by means of deduction."

Society of spectacle revisited

A way to see the whole thing is, as diagnosed in Toffler's "Future Shock", that we got simply stunned by all the changes that happened to us; and remained in a kind of a spasm or shock—as Nietzsche diagnosed already more than a century ago. Responded to it by just making ourselves busy-busy-busy, trying to cope...

Lacking any frame of reference we could rely on, slid to the homo ludens evolutionary track.

The scene is properly speaking spectacular. It requires hardly any effort at all to turn what's going on—into a real spectacle.

What is really going on

While still drafting polyscopy, around 1998, I drafted a book manuscript with title "What's Going On?", and subtitle "A Cultural Renewal" (we may change this to "Revival", to completely agree with Peccei). The point was to re-define what constitutes the news; and the spectacle. What's presented in the book is a most spectacular moment in human history, which we are living through right now, without being a single bit aware of that. (Isn't that why so many of us are able to fully focus on making our apartments nice and cosy, and ignore that the whole house is falling apart?)

The insight here is that the "problems" we are experiencing are like cracks in the walls of a house whose foundations are failing. Indeed (when we dig a bit under the surface of things and take a look)—there aren't any foundations, really, to speak about. What's there has never been constructed. We are just building on whatever terrain things happened to be placed. Just building further. And higher.

What's Going on ideogram (the first half)

But the holotopia is about the good news. We can develop the architecture; we can found insights and other things consciously. This can do to culture (and other things) what architecture did to house construction... The point is to create a suitable foundation for every piece (...).

Isn't that what polyscopy and knowledge federation are really all about?!

Holotopia as a conversation

The holotopia is, however, not about one-way communication. The shift to a new paradigm definitely demands audience participation.

The five insights here present us with a context within which age-old themes and challenges can be explored and understood in a completely new way—in the context of the emerging paradigm, the holotopia. Hence we here, in this context, open the dialogs on fifteen most timely themes—which we label by the five insights, and their ten direct relationships. Since we've already seen the insights, it remains to name the relationships.

The black arrows (starting from convenience paradox):

Collaboration—the Future of Politics

The Collaboration—the Future of Politics conversation takes place within the Convenience Paradox insight and the Power Structure insight as context.

How can the emerging re-evolution ever have enough power to overthrow the powerful? We don't need to do that; we can just simply co-opt them!

Systemic Innovation—the Future of Democracy

The Cybernetics and the Future of Democracy conversation has the Power Structure insight and the Collective Mind insight as context.

Without suitable communication–and–control, nobody is in control, and "democracy" is only a fiction. The Wiener–Jantsch–Reagan thread, detailed in Federation through Conversations, provides us a suitable springboard story.

Ludens—A Recent History of Humankind

The Ludens—A Recent History of Humankind conversation combines the Collective Mind insight and the Socialized Reality insight.

While we may be biologically equipped to evolve as the homo sapiens, we have in recent decades devolved culturally as the homo ludens, man the (game) player—who shuns knowledge and merely learns his various roles, and plays them out competitively. The Nietzsche–Ehrlich–Giddens thread, detailed in Federation through Conversations, will provide a suitable start.

Future Science

The Future Science conversation combines the Socialized Reality insight and the Narrow Frame insight.

However it might appear today, the original purpose of the academia (which we define as "the institutionalized academic tradition") is not the pursuit of "symbolic power", or academic careers. On the contrary—since its inception, its purpose has been to provide an antidote to the homo ludens devolution, by developing knowledge work and knowledge based on knowledge of knowledge. Could a similar advent be in store for us today? The socialized reality and the narrow frame insights will provide us a suitable context for proactively answering this question. The vignettes about Socrates and Galilei (founding fathers of Academia, and of science) will give us a head start.

From Zero to One—The Future of Education

The From Zero to One—The Future of Education conversation is in the context of the Narrow Frame insight and the Convenience Paradox insight.

Our troubles may well be reduced to a single, very basic error: We've adopted from the traditional culture an approach to education which is on the surface stuffing young people with data; and 'deep down' socializing them into a paradigm. Here socialization means replacing the young people's natural curiosity and creativity by boredom and obedience.

I am here once again inserting... references to a possible spectacle... Imagine...

Imagine if we all got, somehow, lobotomized... Not in hardware, of course, but in software. Would this not explain some of our stunning paradoxes? Perhaps my best shot at federating this possibility is by sharing my own experience. But a much better job can, of course, be done!

I've described this in my blog in a couple of places, in sufficient detail. So here comes a summary: Not only the creative mind, but also the good old sense making, seems to function as a slow, annealing-like process. The point is that it takes uninterrupted time—quite a bit more of it, than what most of us ever have. So just imagine the consequences.

And now about the education. I first of all had to undo its consequences, painstakingly and never completely. But OK, it works. If I give things enough of this uninterrupted time. What we have as education is a perfect substitute. Or should we say—a murder of this essential human capability. Where to perform, we are compelled to give up this kind of time and reflection completely, and... well.. just perform!

What consequences might this have for contemporary academia?

In the back of my mind, not wanting to interrupt this work, I am writing a blog post titled "In Conversation with Noah". Two years ago he was virtually begging me not to take him to school. It's not that I didn't know what to do—I didn't see anything that I might do. It turned out that I had a kid who had this ability, naturally. Not any more. I was unable to help him! But to a problem that seemed completely hopeless, a holistic solution creatively emerged—to engage Noah in holotopia. Let's empower him (and of course all those other kids...) to change the system; to make a difference. This is of course not meant to be my private story, but a parable. End of insert

Can we envision, and even begin to implement, an education that develops "the human quality", as Peccei would have it? The combination of (a resolution of) the socialized reality, with (a resolution of) the convenience paradox will provide a fertile context for developing this conversation, and the corresponding line of action.

From One to Infinity—The Future of Happiness

The From One to Infinity—The Future of Happiness conversation combines the Convenience Paradox insight and the Collective Mind insight.

All we know about happiness is in the interval between zero (complete misery) and one ("normal" happiness); but what about the rest? What about the happiness between one and plus infinity?

This conversation is about the humanity's best kept secret; and about the challenge to reveal it, by federating the experience of those who have explored this realm.

How to Put an End to War

The How to Put an End to War conversation takes place in the context provided by the Power Structure insight and the Socialized Reality insight

Alfred Nobel had the right idea: Empower the creative people and their ideas, and the humanity's all-sided progress will naturally be secured. But our creativity, when applied to the cause of peace, has largely favored the palliative approaches (resolving specific conflicts and improving specific situations), and ignoring those more interesting curative ones. What would it take to really put an end to war—once and for all? A combination of the power structure insight and the socialized reality insight will help us see why this is realistically possible. The Chomsky–Harari–Graeber thread, discussed in Federation through Conversations, will give us a head start.

Largest Contribution to Knowledge

The Largest Contribution to Knowledge conversation has the Collective Mind insight and the Narrow Frame insight as context.

If you've followed us thus far, you may have already understood why that the systemic contributions to human knowledge (improvements of the 'algorithm' by which knowledge is handled in our society and in all walks of life) are likely to be incomparably larger than any specific contributions of knowledge. A fine important point is that a real breakthrough in this all-important domain needs to include both the social process and the method by which knowledge is handled—because they are the yin and the yang of knowledge work. Hence the collective mind and the narrow frame insight—and especially the ways in which we propose to handle them—will provide us exactly the right context for this quest.

Liberation—The Future of Religion

The Liberation—The Future of Religion conversation has the Socialized Reality insight and the Convenience Paradox insight as context.

In the traditional societies, religion has played the all-important role of connecting the people to an ethical purpose, and to each other. While discussing the consequences of the narrow frame (the narrow conceptual frame and way of looking at the world that our society adopted from the 19th century science), Heisenberg singled out the destruction of religion and the erosion of values. Can this trend be reversed? Imagine a world where instead of religions quarreling with one another, and the rest of us quarreling with religion—we evolve religion, so that we may learn from all traditions; and so that we may all benefit and evolve further. We offer the strategy to re-evolve religion, knowledge-based, as a natural antidote to religion-inspired hatred, terrorism and politics. The story of Buddhadasa's rediscovery of the Buddha's original insight will be a natural way to begin.

Future Art

The Future Art conversation takes place in the context of the Narrow Frame insight and the Power Structure insight. The vastest realm of creative opportunities...

Marcel Duchamp exhibited the urinal, and changed art forever. Certainly, art has always been on the forefront of change. Now that we have effaced the old and must create anew—what will the new art be like?