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“We 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.”

(Margaret Mead, Continuities in Cultural Evolution, 1964)

I am about to advance a radical proposal.

Radical both in the sense of going all the way to roots of the matter—and by being thoroughly game-changing.

I propose to institute and empower transdisciplinarity—and use it as Archimedean point to engender a comprehensive (academic, social and cultural) paradigm change.

As an incisive response to "the huge problems now confronting us"; and more generally—to the academic, social and cultural situation we are in; and more concretely—as a way to continue cultural evolution; which is presently standing still or worse.

This proposal is operationalized and made concrete by offering knowledge federation as a complete prototype of a transdiscipline; ready to be examined, tested and taken into production. A salient characteristics of it is that it has the holotopia vision and project as its proof-of-concept application; which is a realizable vision of a distinctly better order of things or paradigm or "future".

Although the knowledge federation prototype is the result of work of many excellent people—after giving this matter some thought I decided to make a case for it in my own human voice; and instead of hiding behind academic colleagues and language—stand accountable for what I'm about to say.

I am by background a theoretical scientist, practically a mathematician. So from an academic point of view, my work is completely rigorous, as mathematical axioms and theorems are. I will, however, here only point to the rigorous side of this work; and let you discover it through the public dialog that will be the first step toward implementing this proposal. The only thing I accept from you is to accept two ethical axioms: The human axiom is that we the people must do what we can to begin the process of recovery; not leave this mess to our children! The academic axiom is that we need to build on knowledge—not ignore it. Both are illustrated by Margaret Mead's timely 1964 warning: We did not heed her call.

I am prepared to show you that those two axioms compel us to take the steps I am proposing.

Another reason why I want to speak in my natural human voice is that I want this to be an outcry; because the first step—before anything else can be done—is to break the spell of academic routine business as usual; due to which it has become impossible to do or say anything that does not fit the routine. In the dialog we are about to begin, as the first step toward implementing this proposal—will be a public discourse where we'll come together and use our human voices and minds to contemplate and implement the further steps.

This website complements my Liberation book, which is about to come out in print. The book will tell stories called vignettes. And through stories present a wealth of information and ideas as material for the dialog. Here I'll let knowledge federation speak for itself, in its own language. In Federation through Keywords I'll define and use a handful of custom-defined terms, which are necessary for comprehending what goes on; in Federation through Ideograms I'll use three simple metaphorical images; in Federation through Prototypes you'll see how information is taken into concerted action, empowered to make a difference; and in Federation through Action I'll point out what exactly I propose as the next two steps—to make the sort of difference that must be made.

Dino Karabeg

Margaret Mead