Holotopia: Five insights

H O L O T O P I A P R O T O T Y P E

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

Convenience paradox

The Renaissance liberated our ancestors from preoccupation with the afterlife, and empowered them to seek happiness here and now. Their lifestyle changed, and culture blossomed. Have we followed the pursuit of happiness to its end? Or could a surprising new turn, a "change of course", still be possible?

We federate information from a broad variety of cultures, historical eras and sources, to illuminate the way to human fulfillment.

Lacking such information, and following our general cultural bias, we've confused happiness with convenience—i.e. with what appears as attractive at the moment. Instead of using information to choose the way, we use convenience to choose even—information!

Needless to say, this grave error of perception of ours has been endlessly amplified by advertising.

By applying the holoscope, we show that convenience is a deceptive, illusory value. And that in the shadow of its delusion, endless possibilities for improving our lives—through human development—wait to be uncovered.

Turn of our fortunes can be made by pursuing wholeness, instead of convenience.

Power structure

At the turn of the 20th century, it appeared that the technology would liberate us from drudgery and toil, and empower us to engage in finer human pursuits. But we seem to be more busy and stressed than ever! What happened with all the time we've saved?

We look at the systems in which we live and work. Imagine them as gigantic machines, comprising people and technology, whose function is to take our daily work as input, and turn it into socially useful effects. If we are stressed and busy—should we not see if they might be wasting our time? And if the result of our best efforts are problems rather than solutions—should we not see whether they might be causing those problems?

We federate insights from a variety of sources, including both technical sciences and the humanities, to develop a view where the systems in which we live and work are seen as power structures—which are both results of power struggle, and implements of disempowerment.

Those insights show that there is no "invisible hand", which we can rely on to turn our self-serving acts into the greatest common good. As the Modernity ideogram might suggest, enormous improvements of our condition can be reached by deliberately making our socio–technical systems more whole.

Collective mind

The printing press revolutionized communication, and enabled the Enlightenment. But we too have a similar revolution, which is well under way—the Internet; and the interactive digital media. Are we calling that a 'candle'?

This new technology connects us together in a similar way in which a nervous system connects the cells in an organism. We all now take part in a collective mind! The question is—how does this collective mind operate? What sort of process or 'program' is it using? What is its principle of operation?

Without even noticing that, we have used the new technology to recreate the way of working that suited the old one—broadcasting. But broadcasting, in a collective mind, leads to collective madness—not to "collective intelligence", as the inventor who created this technology intended.

Socialized reality

The Enlightenment was a fundamental change—of the very way in which truth and meaning are conceived of and created—from which a sweeping "cultural revival" followed. Could a similar advent be in store for us today?

From the traditional culture we have adopted a myth incomparably more subversive than the myth of creation. This myth now serves as the foundation stone, on which the edifice of our culture has been constructed.

Galilei is once again in house arrest—but his prison has acquired a new shape, and we didn't recognize it. Culture has once again been turned into an instrument of power.

Narrow frame

Science replaced the faith in the bible and the tradition—and gave us powers that people in Galilei's time couldn't even dream of. We cannot call that a 'candle'?

Science was never created for the role in which it now finds itself—the role which Benjamin Lee Whorf branded "the Grand Revelator of modern Western culture". Science found itself in that role by proving its superiority on a much narrower terrain—where causal explanations of natural phenomena are found.

Consequently science served us well for the purpose for which it was created—for developing science and technology; and it served us poorly for others—notably for developing culture.

But its main disadvantage is that it constitutes a fixed and narrowly focused way to look at the world. It has been said that to a person with a hammer in his hand everything looks like a nail. The problem with science, as the trusted provider of truth and meaning, is that it constitutes a 'hammer'.

The five insights form a whole

The black arrows point to a vicious cycle

Follow the black arrows in the Five Insights ideogram, to see that the anomalies they connect together cause or create one another:

It is our pursuit of narrowly conceived self-interest that makes the systems in which we live and work dysfunctional and oppressive
It is the power structure that created our dysfunctional communication
It is the lack of communication that keeps us in socialized reality
It is by founding knowledge in "reality" that we ended up with the narrow frame
It is by using the narrow frame that we mistook convenience for happiness

The red arrows point to a benign cycle

Follow the red arrows to see that we cannot really change one of the insights they connect, without also changing the other.

To step beyond the convenience paradox and engage in "human development", we need a collective mind that illuminates the way
To stand up to the power structures, we must liberate ourselves from the socialized reality they created for us
Our collective mind cannot federate knowledge, unless we have a general method for creating knowledge
We can only liberate ourselves from socialized reality, if our values and our "human quality" are on the level
To broaden or replace our narrow frame, we must unravel the power structure that keeps it in place

The holotopia strategy follows

We can now see why

A comprehensive change can be easy, even when smaller and obviously necessary changes may have proven impossible.

The strategy that defines the holotopia naturally follows: Instead of struggling with any of the details, we focus on changing the order of things as a whole.

This more informed and more effective strategy has "leverage points" through which it is most easily pursued—exactly as the bus with candle headlights might suggest.

What is really going on

One of our prototypes is a book manuscript titled "What's Going On?", and subtitle "A Cultural Revival". The book redefines what constitutes the news—by pointing to a breathtakingly spectacular event taking place in our own time. Slowly!

By knowing what's going on in this way, we know what needs to be done. The "problems" we are experiencing are like cracks in the walls of a house whose foundations are failing. Our situation calls for rebuilding, not fixing.

What's Going on ideogram

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.

Business

The Co-opt Wall Street—the Future of Business conversation takes place in the context provided by the Convenience Paradox insight and the Power Structure insight.

How can the holotopia overcome the existing power structure? No conflict is needed; we can co-opt the powerful!

The key is to see that the power of the powerful is an illusory one—only borrowed from the power structure, as compensation for services. The price paid is of course wholeness—both personal and systemic. It is the prerogative of power structure to make us pursue "power" against our interests.

The Adbusters left us a useful keyword, "decooling"; a decooling of our popular notions of success and power that is ready to take shape, in the context of those mentioned two insights.

Democracy

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

If it is to be governable (cybernetics has taught us), a system must have a certain minimal structure—which our systems do not. Can anyone be in control—in a bus with candle headlights?

Evolution

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

How did we adapt to living in a fast-moving world—without theinformation that would help us unravel its complexity?

By abandoning logic and reason, and relying on socialization instead. While we are biologically equipped to be the homo sapiens, we have culturally devolved as the homo ludens—who learns his social roles, and performs in them competitively.

Science

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

This is the promised academic dialog in front of the mirror: Has science become the "plagiarist of its own past", as Benjamin Lee Whorf predicted?

Can science step 'through the mirror'—and guide our society to a new course?

Religion

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

The narrow frame has been damaging to religion. Can the holoscope help reverse this trend?

Can we put an end to religion-inspired hatred, terrorism and conflict—by evolving religion further?

Happiness

The 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?

This conversation is about the humanity's best kept secret: There are realms of thriving and fulfillment, beyond what we've experienced, or know about.

But the opportunity to develop them comes with a challenge—we must develop ways to federate the missing knowledge.

Could this be an answer to Peccei's call to action— to "find a way to change course"?

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 the humanity's problems will naturally be solved. But when applied to the cause of peace, our creativity has largely been restricted to palliative approaches (resolving specific conflicts and improving specific situations).

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

Knowledge

The Largest Contribution to Knowledge conversation is in the context of the collective mind insight and the narrow frame insight.

It is not difficult to see why the systemic contributions to knowledge (improvements of the processes and systems by which knowledge is handled in our society) are larger than the specific ones. But still larger contributions are the ones by which those systemic solutions are allowed to evolve!

This conversation is, in other words, about knowledge federation; and our proposal.

Education

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

In that context we may see why, as Ken Robinson pointed out, "education kills creativity": Education has evolved as a way to socialize people into a "reality picture"; and to serve the power structure.

The title of this conversation is borrowed from Peter Thiel's book, where it's intended to point to a certain kind of creativity. We know all about taking things that already exist from one to two, and to three and up to one hundred and beyond. What we need is the capability to conceive of and create things that do not yet exist.

Can we conceive an education that has no longer socialization, but "human development" as goal?

Art

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

Art has always been an instrument of cultural reproduction; and on the forefront of change. When Duchamp exhibited the urinal, he challenged the traditional conception of art. What comes next? What will art need to be like, in a world where our task is no longer to challenge the tradition—but to create an order of things that makes us whole?

Tactical opportunities follow: To create sensations or spectacles of a completely new kind. And to create dialogs around them.</p>

And by doing that—to rebuild our public sphere, by changing both our manner of communicating, and the themes that our conversations are about.

Navigation menu