Holotopia: Keywords

Holotopia: Keywords

A vocabulary

Every new paradigm brings with it a new way of speaking. This collection of keywords is an alternative natural entry point to holotopia.

• Wholeness

Wholeness is what distinguishes a healthy organism, and a whole and well-functioning mechanism. The point here is to see that it's not any detail as such, but the wholeness they compose together that makes "a difference that makes a difference". Wholeness is etymologically related to both "health" and "holiness". It is, as already mentioned, the value that defines the holotopia.

• Epistemology

The epistemology, identified as the knowledge of knowledge and its various consequences, is the keyword we use to point to the very core function of the academic tradition. What Socrates, and Galilei, and other founding fathers of the academic tradition had in common, was that they used knowledge of knowledge to counter the effects of renegade and power-based socialization. And in that way help knowledge, and humanity, come out of its evolutionary pitfalls, and evolve further.

• Academia

We define academia as "institutionalized academic tradition". Has this institutionalization been done correctly—in a way that secures the preservation of the academic tradition's social function, and values? And if errors have been made—what would it take to correct them?

• Knowledge federation

Imagine a world where people don't try to make their ideas consistent, in any way. Where they just believe in—whatever. Yes, I know, it is difficult to even imagine such a world. It is the nature of a healthy mind to try to keep ideas consistent. As Kurt Vonnegut wrote: Lion got to hunt...

So let this "keeping things consistent" be, roughly, knowledge federation, by definition.

The question then is—how do we federate knowledge? "During philosophy's childhood it was rather generally believed that it is possible to find everything which can be known by means of mere reflection", wrote Einstein. You'll notice that that's what Socrates was doing—engaging people in seeing that their ideas were not logically consistent. Galilei (the science) added mathematical theories, and experiments. And modern science saw clearly the limits of reason (as Oppenheimer observed in "Uncommon Sense").

So how shall we now federate knowledge? There is a meta movement here—we federate better ways to federate knowledge, by federating the knowledge of knowledge... Which is, of course, what our knowledge federation proposal is about, academically speaking.

So knowledge federation may be understood as "meta-epistemology"... It's what our mind does anyway, and we only need to do it on the meta-level, so that our mind may do that better. And, importantly, that's what our collective mind needs to do as well. A single mind is no longer capable of federating all the knowledge we own. We must learn to do it together.

CORE POINT: This is what the academic tradition is really about, since its inception. KF vs. socialization!... As a verb, knowledge federation points to all those various activities that enable us to combine specific insight into overarching more general ones–and thereby give them more visibility, and power. The federation is not completed before those insights are reflected in institutionalized and common ways in which issues are comprehended and handled. Thus naturally, knowledge federation is what enables us to create new meaning. And to change a paradigm.

The holotopia can be understood as a result of federating the knowledge we own—and consciously handling the priorities.

• Socialization

Let's think of it, for now, as the alternative to knowledge federation.

• Homo ludens

It's a devolution. We use "ontological security" or "socialization", to cope with the increasing complexity of our world, not knowledge. Extremely dangerous!!!

• Mirror

Is the academia guiding our society along the homo sapiens evolutionary path? Or the homo ludens evolutionary path?

The mirror is a gestalt, which points to the nature of the condition the contemporary academia is in. We keep busy with business as usual; but our condition demands that we stop and self-reflect.

When we do that, in the light of available insights, we see that a major change of epistemology is called for, leading to a change of our self-perception, and self-identity. On the Holotopia map featuring the five insights, this insight is what we called socialized reality, which is in the holotopia scheme of things analogous to the astrophysical insights of Copernicus and others (from which the epistemology of Galilei and others naturally followed).

Two insights result from the self-reflection in front of the mirror: (1) That what we believed was "objective reality" was really our own (that is, our culture's construction—hence that criterion for "right knowledge" (the maintenance of which is the academia's core social role) cannot be "objectivity" or "correspondence with reality". (2) The need of our society for effective knowledge has become vital and acute. The overall resulting main point is that it is the academia's natural mandate and duty is to act according to the values of the tradition on which legacy it's been created—and lead our society through the mirror, symbolically speaking.

The holoscope, and the holotopia, are the names we have given to the academic and the social reality on the other side of the mirror.

• Truth by convention

What is "truth" if it's not "correspondence with reality"? The holoscope consistently uses truth by convention—which is the kind of truth used in mathematics: "When I say X, I man Y. There is no point asking whether X "really is" Y. The truth by convention fully liberates information and knowledge from its dependence on "reality" (read "tradition"). It is offered as a new 'Archimedean point', which can once again empower knowledge to 'move the world' (shift the paradigm).

• Keyword

The keywords are defined by convention—hence they are allowed to have different meanings than they do in our traditional paradigm. The keywords allow us to speak, and also think differently. Until we find a better way, we distinguish them by writing them in italics.

• Paradigm

A paradigm is an "order of things"—a collection of things that are so related to each other, that changing one of them requires that we change them all.

• Elephant

The elephant is almost synonymous to the paradigm. We use this keyword to point to the fact that an emerging paradigm is like the proverbial "elephant in the room". That the visionary thinkers who anticipate it, like the proverbial "blindfolded men touching the elephant", see and described its different parts, in ways that may at first seem unrelated and meaningless. And that our core aim is to use their insights as roadsigns, which help us see the whole big thing.

• Culture

Culture is defined as cultivation of wholeness; cultivation is defined by analogy with planting and watering a seed.

• Information

Just as we do in cultivation of land, we depend on the experience of others to do any sort of cultivation. We define information as "recorded experience".

• Gestalt

A gestalt is a way in which any situation or theme is comprehended, which points to a way in which it may need to be handled. The point here is that multiple gestalts tend to be possible. As this keyword is defined within the holoscope, having a gestalt that is appropriate to one's situation is tantamount to being "informed".

• Dialog

It is a natural tendency of our mind to hold on to a certain gestalt, and reject others. The dialog is a culture of communication where we consciously resist and counteract this tendency. David Bohm rightly considered the dialog as a prerequisite to true communication; to changing the paradigm; and to resolving our core issues by evolving further.

• Socialization

Sergei Chakhotin was a researcher in Ivan Pavlov's laboratory; he then participated in the 1932 German electoral campaign against Hitler. We mention him here because of the observation he made—that Hitler was doing to the German people what Pavlov was doing to his dogs: he was socializing them. We use this keyword to point to all various ways in which people's worldviews (and gestalts, and values...) can be subtly or overtly converted, even without anyone taking notice.

Once we've been socialized to accept a certain worldview as "reality", we'll tend to respond to anything that disrupts it with antagonism; or even anger. The dialog requires that we be mindful of such tendencies. And that we consciously counteract them.

Thus the holotopia may be understood as an intervention into our contemporary condition, which empowers us to overcome the effects of renegade socialization, acquire new gestalts, and become able to change our paradigm.

Just as our ancestors did in Galilei's time. And so many times before then.