Prepared
as an Invited Keynote Address: Culture of Peace - Intersymp 97
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Symposium on Culture
of Peace - Plenary Session … Cultivating a
Human Cognition by Dialogue, Heiner Benking, Creative Member, The Club of … General Discussion
on Culture of Peace Moderatorsw: Prof. George Lasker, IIAS, and Dr. Vladimir Lomeiko,
UNESCO AWARD CEREMONY |
Please also see the Ad-hoc Discussion Paper delivered
during the session http://open-forum.de/Culture-of-Peace-IIAS-1997.htm
http://open-forum.de/Culture-of-Peace-IIAS-1997.htm
9th
International Conference on Systems Research, Informatics and Cybernetics,
Aug.18-23, 1997,
Understanding and Sharing
in a Cognitive Panorama
Heiner Benking
Creative Member, The Club of Budapest - FAW - Research Center
for Applied Knowledge Processing, Ulm
ABSTRACT:
- presents a way to visualize complex issues
in connected space-scapes or situation rooms, which is called a Cognitive
Panorama,
- shows how to embody lateral thinking,
which we call diagonal as it crosses patterns and domains, igniting
creativity,
- combines synthetic and real pictures to
form models, which portray objects as they are seen from different
perspectives,
- presents ways to focus interest and invite
voices in dialogue, and
- summarizes lessons learned in areas such
as: education, knowledge organization, ethics, and policy making, or
communication in detail and in general.
In contrast to the metaphor
of the `Second Flood' (Lévy 1996), describing Cyberculture's impact due to its
1.) `open-ended' universality, 2.) loss of meaning, and 3.) loss of context,
this paper makes use of context to organize knowledge, and provides orientation
by localizing `what we know and miss', by mapping relations and connections.
Instead of accepting a `flat' chaotic mess of data, the concept actively
addresses critical issues such as mis-use, manipulation, and under-use of
messages and information, and searches for other factors, like quality, to help
further discrimination of data and knowledge. Some focus is on disorientation
and apathy, specialization and globalization, and specific schools, like
scientific or post-modern relativist's views. Central is the idea to use space
not only as a real world platform to position and share objects, but also to
bridge and follow meaning into embodied context and semantic spaces which form
an organic or holistic world- view. Through reflection on conceptual positions,
outlining and embodying situations or topics (logical places), we can also
scrutinize abstract `realities' and interconnectedness, explore participatory
approaches (Judge 1980- 97), (Harman 1996), (Benking, 1988-97), ways to share
more effectively and consistently in groups `where we are and what we think'
KEYWORDS
cognitive spaces,
education, metaphors, mental models, orientation, world views
OUTLINE
1. A Cognitive
2. Deeper Thinking for Better Understanding
3. Inviting and Sharing Voices and Views
As the paper tries to encompass
many aspects and ways to approach such a broad theme, the author had to gave up
the idea to tell all to some meaningful end in a few pages. Finally he decided
to follow the line of the paper and include various sources and media to
construct a more comprehensive overview of the issues at stake, more
comprehensive as the editors allow. The idea (As with The Club of Budapest) is
to overcome dualism and show the shades between seriousness and play, science
and arts, policy and chaos. The following both dismissed titles indicate
further aspects presented:
`CULTIVATING INSIGHT, EMPATHY, AND OVERVIEW IN
A COGNITIVE PANORAMA: An approach to augment and share understanding, policy
making, and responsibility' `Building, Inviting, and Sharing Ways and Meeting
Grounds to See, Imagine, Think, Talk, & Listen'.
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We cannot
departmentalize our thinking... Mary Parker Follett |
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The real
act of discovery Marcel Proust |
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INTRODUCTION
It is a privilege to start
off an address in a Symposium, chaired by Vladimir Lomeiko, by put- ting NEW
THINKING as the central issue and link between our perception and action. The
phrase "We have to learn to think in a new way" is from the first
page of Bertrand Russell's 'Man's Peril' (1954) and is the textual basis of the
Russell-Einstein Memorial. Gorbachev, after Gromyko and Lomeiko, used it later
for `new thinking' to `provide the intellectual framework in which both a
domestic and a foreign reform agenda could succeed'. This paper outlines such
an intellectual framework, literally builds a scaffolding or conceptual
superstructure of shareable information spaces, inhabitable and navigable
Problem-Learning-Solution spaces. These space-scapes can be explored,
transformed and merged, providing a platform for embodied lateral `deep'
thinking'.
Central to the
understanding of this contribution is the role of cognitive maps and their
combi- nation for our world-views. A good primer for this subject is the book
`Changing Visions' by Laszlo, Artigiani, Combs, Csányi (1996). The author was
acknowledged by Laszlo after the completion of `Changing Visions' for his
design of combining such cognitive maps into the `
The underlying idea is to
provide ways to help find orientation and understanding by proposing a layout
for inhabitable information or problem-learning-solution spaces. The
combination of such spaces into one simple coherent layout allows us to order,
map, and edit concepts. By treating context as meta-information we can trace
meanings across scales, nomenclatures and representations. The concept of rooms
or space-scapes is ideal as it is immanent in all cultures; and it permits
localizing, ordering, and explaining across languages. The definition of such a
common realm puts to test ubiquitous `sectarian' mental territories. Even when
the need for `common frames' is undisputed, the proposal of `common grids' is
controversial as people are afraid of people classifying for them.
Aware of the dangers of
rigid control of terminology, this proposal is only a `rough' or coarse
orientation scheme which can help us to see the connections, which also need a
way to be represented. Details in disarray or no array at all, is no
alternative. Since such a grid should be seen as an `open space', not as a cell
with boundaries, as places and regions which can be easily edited and
transcended for the sake of location and orientation, maybe we can bring order
not only to warehouses and homes, but to our store of knowledge!
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The
greatest single achievement of science |
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Objective
Knowledge |
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1. A Conceptual
Superstructure or Cognitive Panorama
Bridge
The challenge of developing
an `intellectual framework' was taken up by the author unknowingly. His
projects in the late 80s were in the field of visualization in all areas of
application and environmental research and management. The idea evolved as the
author was searching a solution for three communication problems: integrating
environmental information collected in the micro- and meso-scale, see `The Flying
Magnifying Glass'(German: `Fliegende Lupe') (Benking 1990), data structures for
a multi-media, multi-lingual meta-database for the international environmental
information harmonization project UNEP-HEM), (Keune et. al. 1991), (Benking
et.al. 1992) the `gulf' between compatibility/comparability, coded/noncoded,
and generalization/- specialization , and the transfer between scale platforms
and `logical meeting' places. search for concepts which can be shared between
different audiences and which increase awareness, as the central objective of
the `GLOBAL CHANGE - Challenges...' exhibition . The answer to these challenges
was to visualize spaces by realizing them physically and literally as abstract
or cognitive spaces, by building a `Situation or Operation Space '. In this way
it was possible to globally index abstract issues and point at topoi for topics
(logical places). The proposal evolved further as a simple, common,
transparent, coherent, navigable, and exploitable `Problem-Learning- Solution
Space called `Blackbox' on the basis of: workshops with children, e.g.: `Our
View of Life is too flat' `Be & Feel Part of Life and Nature' reviews of
the Agenda 21 objectives (Brown 1994), (Benking 1994) in the Earth Summit
process. When we accept that cognitive spaces are vehicles or open rooms,
ideally suited to carry meaning across domains and cultures, we can think about
the dimensions: width, height, and depth. The moment we agree on transparent,
coherent, and adequate layouts for maps or models of what we know or miss
(Benking 1996) we have made one possible decision on how to handle the immense
complexity we are confronted with in our daily life. Making use of open
multi-linked spaces is an ideal way to show connectedness and allows selective
explorations in the worlds of understanding and orientation, as we explore
physical space as if babies. To be sure, we just go for overview here, a bird's
eye, not for everything in every detail, just as a map has it's scale and
thematic and professional standards. It is more like a way to facilitate a
selective exploratory approach using a telescope, panning and zooming, but not
having the `Totale/Totality' and fine grained details concurrently.
Fig.1: The Blackbox Nature
or Rubik's Cube of Ecology, an `open' space for combinations, interaction along
and across scales, and exemplary illumination.
Fig.2: The Cognitive
Panorama, a circumspection of `what we know and miss'. Three adjacent rooms of
knowing are connected in one scheme (3Space/Time)
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You
cannot camouflage the whole picture Steve Kurtz |
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To
understand that the universe is not a collection of objects, Thomas Berry |
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1.1 The Blackbox Nature, a
model or central switch to bridge between objects and subjects
Many thinkers have been
exhibiting a deep logic and alerting humankind that we have no apparatus for
observing critical, but abstract issues (for example: E. F. Schumacher -
scales, G. Bateson, H. Lübbe - times, rhythms, and change, U. Eco - semantics
and Babel). The proposal of the cognitive, synthetic space of the Blackbox
brings together these three most critical and in themselves coherent and
complete dimensions, which are necessary for understanding ecological dynamics.
The resulting space is a
situation, issue or operation space which we can inhabit and share as we take
on positions and look at virtual but critical issues and thereby find a way to
leave our observer position which was typically more a position of apathy and
feeling excluded, and instead enter this new realm of contemplation, which
gives rise to identification and concern. The moment we can talk about it,
share positions and views, it is real to us and we start to act on the
findings.
The missing step has been
to find a way to allow us to think and make real, embody, and share the above
dimensions of time, size, and terms and not give up, become apathetic or
aggressive, or become perplexed when confronted with dynamics and complexity? A
way to imagine, point at and approach issues in the same way, regardless if
talking to children, scientists, or politicians! Examples of such `simple'
questions are: What is ecology?, What do ecologists do? Is ecology a
discipline? What do we need to know, which field, which details?
M. Mead, M. Ferguson, D.
Bohm, K. Wilber, F. Capra, and many others have pointed out, that ecology is
the key to the design of a new world-view, perhaps in the direction of deep
ecology, but the author didn't know about that in 1989. He had to design a way
to communicate the breadth and width of ecology, and `reinvented' some of the
fundamental ideas of Holism (Smuts 1926) (as Smuts was not widely available in the
80ies). The author's approach as presented here was a combination of visually
and structurally ordering data as one learns in school and praxis when making
use of a background in surveying, engineering, planning, organization,
communication, visualization and management. Here a short synopsis of these two
different but complementary views of Ecology and other cornerstones of the
Rubik's Cube design:
- Ekistics, the science of human settlements
(Greek: oikos) (Doxiadis 1967) (Benking 1992) where information is
structured in a grid and can be visually accessed and assimilated very
efficiently,
- The Trilogy and motion of `Enhancing the
Credibility of Ecology' (diCastri, Hadley 1988). Issues are: `interaction
along & across scales and disciplines', `switching scales to
understand process, pattern, and constraints', strengthen the role of
ecology at the interface between sciences & society, providing
channels for interpretation of data and scientific communication.
- Dahlberg's and Judge's matrices and for
universal ordering of information. Dahlberg (1970-97) developed a raster
for classifying the concepts of subject fields, for example for library
information systems, Judge (1970-97 a `Functional Classification' scheme
which can also incorporate dynamic or process related func- tions to be
used to order the wealth of information of international GO - NGO
Organizations in Yearbooks and Encyclopedias (UIA 1980-97) and provides as
an `active' matrix web access.
- Kline's (1996) `hierarchy of
constitutions' matches with the scheme of the Cube and makes us see the
need and pro's and con's in any coherent school, be it reductionistic,
synoptic, or holistic.
- Gazzaniga (1985) postulated an
`interpreter', like a switchboard, to bring together different repre-
sentations in the brain; the Blackbox is such an interpreter or cubic
transformer, which by the way, is in accord with the Japanese bioholistic
`Ba' concept of the mind (Schimizu 1987), and also underlies the idea of
the semantic space as a global multi-lingual index for terms from
different classification and switching systems (Dahlberg 1980-96). The
Blackbox below is such a spacial switch between science and society,
theoreticians `being silent about time and scale' and the laypersons who
are not aware where they are and select `the' scale arbitrarily (
The result of this exercise
in 1990 was to build and have others discuss and share issues at hand in the
`virtual reality' of a conceptual framework, a cyberworld making sense and
hopefully augmenting intellect. The Blackbox invites us to imagine, touch and
feel, helps us to find the positions and anchor points of our reasoning, and
last but not least share it by building on the same blocks, pictures and
perspectives.
Many questions are asked
about the name Blackbox, such as whether the Blackbox is like a computer
system, which can help you model, display, detail, and connect on a global and
general level. The answer is `No'. The cube is like a 3-dimensional map, a
generalized, thematic space, an agreed upon framework, which we can use and
explore in search of specific answers. Also called "magic cube", it
is since 1990 an attraction at the GLOBAL CHANGE touring exhibition. It
displays beauty and variety, symmetry adn harmony and includes some illumination
of issues, even a motion graphics display. On the other hand it is physically,
really a `black box', which we cannot enter; and we have little or no idea of
the inner workings or harmonic building principles. The term `Black Box' is a
convention between scientists and engineers, coined by anthropologist G.
Bateson, to explain a whole which is taken as such and not elaborated to fine
detail. Engineers stop at a certain point for practical and intelletual reasons
with investigation and tread the `whole' as one subject, one unit, a `black
box'. It is a term to signify what the whole is about or doing, but no answer
to the question of how it is functioning. To elaborate in our case the physical
and literal side of the `Blackbox' metaphor further; we can obviously focus and
show exemplary details, we only need to switch on the light, (illuminate - as
there are about 1000 Watt of light bulbs in there), but it also makes much
sense to imagine, come to grips and grasping a physical model of one possible
whole, manifesting abstract aspects like of wholeness and knowledge: the
connectedness and interplay of order, structures, symmetries, functions, and
relations.
Perhaps clearer is the
picture of humankind being lost with only torch-light in a dark forest, without
any map or direction. We specialize and magnify details we find, but lose the
context and do not know how to move to other places with available tools. It is
a very effective way of exemplary exploration, but as with the joke about the
drunken man, searching for his lost keys only under the street light, we forget
to care about dark spots or do not bother about the rest anyway, believing we
already have the `truth'. The open Cube is a model to signify how we can
penetrate behind the screen of words, sometimes....
1.2 A Cognitive Panorama
A Cognitive Panorama is
proposed to conceptually categorize data and information from vari- ous fields
in the same way. It is a composite of three cognitive landscapes which can be
seen as spacial scaffoldings to help find and order objects, subjects, and
context in one common searchable schema (global index). Central is the
relationship between subjects and objects, here represented as a magic
switch-room or Blackbox as covered above. Jonas Salk called two basic units of
knowledge and the relationship between them `the basic building blocks of the
universe' and so we have a basic conceptual foundation here, which can be
followed through the history of thought (Benking 1996).
The Panorama design, a
combination of the physical, contextual, and semantic space (3Space/Time), is
based on the concept of space-scapes (Benking, Brauer 1994), or deep structured
orders, which can be explored and approached with different glasses
(lenses/perspectives/empha- sis/selection/focus). The leading metaphor is a
3-dimensional realm which can be embodied and filled, and therefore the term
landscape (or physical model) best describes a (deep) map which invites an
embodied experience of language and exercises a view from an elevated position
(bird's eye). In the Panorama we can map, outline, merge, morph, and edit such
schemes, as they have topological and orientational properties. See also the
poetry of Rueckert above and the Philosophy of Science (Toulmin 1953) which
show that flexibility and overcoming fixation is like mobility, and the need
for shifting categories and moving boundaries between areas of investigation is
acceptable in the physical world and much easier conceptually! Only when we
call it mental mobility (as the cheapest form of therapy) or viewpoint
transportation (Benking, Judge 1994) is it considered suspect; if we call it
flexibility or imagination it is one of the most precious capabilities.
TWO POSSIBLE VIEWS OF THE SAME PHENOMENON
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Complexity:
Hostile to any participation |
Transparency:
Ready for exchange and participation |
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Fig.3: Position and Perspective, not only models, guide perception and
create transparency or anxiety.
Morellet Sphere, Rive Gauche Gallery, Brussel, photo: A.J.N. Judge
Alternation of positions
secures depth and high fidelity. How it is perceived individually and shared in
groups is the next question. The pictures below show that not only can the
appearance of an object be quite different, but also that there are quite different
emotions connected to it.
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The word
or the language, written or spoken, The mental building
blocks of thinking Albert Einstein [t] |
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Whoever
imagines mental barriers which actually do not exist Rückert , Wisdom of Brahmins [t] |
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2. Deeper Thinking for
Better Understanding
The author is deeply
indebted to the concept of lateral thinking as developed by Edward de Bono. His
ways to create new ideas have been described as the 'other' road, unorthodox,
changing structures, positions and perspectives. What is actually done is
changing the `environment' or oscillating between perspectives, making it very
clear that creativity is a transformation and transportation process. Ideas are
carried across boundaries or scales to new applications, and visual/geometrical
terms are used to indicate that we `envision' by creating solutions from
morphed or `assembled' views. The next step is not only to be aware of such
combinational mental mobility or locomotion (Rückert above or Toulmin 1953),
but also to focus attention onto the origin of structures and proportions. By
mapping creativity we see that we carry patterns, elements, symbols, or
archetypes `along and across scales' see diCastri, Hadley (1988) and chapter
1.1, trying to match problems and potentials with possible solutions. To make
it more real, just take the example of bionics.
The proposal is to not only
map the generation of new thought by following some known traces or paradigms,
but to also create maps which help us to locate and share issues, and to
realize that this engendering takes place by moving ideas across schools of
thought. A prerequisite is to understand, that in contrast to the Nominalist's
view we present here an embodied Conceptualist's view , . If we structure our
knowledge accordingly (Jaenecke 1995), for example along Dahlberg's ICC (1980-
96) or Judge's Functional Classification (Judge 1994/95) we are able to have a
view on integral order and dynamics of usages, the connections between clusters
and patterns. For details and a broader view on Dahlberg's work, especially in
relation to Aristotle, Kant, and Haase,.... see also Heinrichs (1986, 1996),
but also for the universal organic whole (Laszlo 1996), (Smuts 1926) and the
presentation of `Schau-Logik' (Wilber 1995). Based on such a
multi-hierarchical, orthogonal framework we can imagine organisation lenses ;
we can in this way not only see terms in their relations and differences, their
halos or neighborhoods, but can also tackle the qualitative and quantitative
aspects of the information glut in innovative ways, addressing the dilemma of
message overload fundamentally! (Jaenecke 1995). The layout or operation space
for such creative thinking could revive and engender a figurative, synthetic,
plastic, or a more living, embodied language, within common frames of terms!,
concepts and contexts (Benking 1996).
With children we have often
sought an order for areas we can know. When the puzzle is solved, we know that
temporarily the order is complete. New things and details will always be found
and will find their place. But there is no need in `overview ` mode to change
the matrix, as long as schemes, like the proposals of Dahlberg (1980-1997) and
Judge (1980-97) suffice . When science and philosophy were still one subject,
200 years ago, visual knowledge organization was ubiquitous. With the
information flood, knowledge trees, hierarchical classifications for many
domains, and subjectivity prospered, - but overview - was lost. As universal
and holistic do not mean total, only coherence in the sense of overview and
connectedness, we can lay open a central crack in our modern understanding.
Afraid of totality, which always had a political and dogmatic tint, society has
developed into overspecialization. Here we might have discovered a central
crack as universal knowing is knowing where things have their place. This
applies in no way to all things we can know or not know. Maybe disorientation
and confusion of scales, segments, and levels of knowing and maps and their
communication structures are central issues and misunderstandings of modern
times, and surely this has widest repercussion on education, sciences, politics
and ethics.
To be sure: What we mean
here is the possibility to know the place in the scheme of things. Not the only
scheme, map, or dogma, but a simple, coherent, and adequate layout or
scaffolding, one which is useful and easily picked up conceptually by children
at about the age of 10-12. Before that age, they have fun with puzzles and the
real environment, later, as abstract reasoning comes in, they should be able to
find answers themselves, instead of complaining that our `View of Life is too
flat' !
As there is a widening rift
between `schools', and children suffer form a lack of orientation and consistency,
a general remark seems to be indicated: The anxious debate of the `Sokal Hoax'
between postmodern realism and the objective scientific schools shows that a
framework and broader education is desperately needed if we ever want to be
less vulnerable to dualism and dogma. At present the gap is widening and
tolerance decreases, and definitions are used as weapons to support the archaic
fight for territories, this time conceptual territories. The central confusion
seems to be in the identification of a term with an object or concept, ignoring
the context (level, time, culture) on or in which a meaning was expressed. The
upcoming cyberculture and robots and automatic agents `serving' us, will have a
severe impact as the idea of orientation and a feeling for coherence, context,
source, proportions, and consistency may be impossible to develop.
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The
village is a small world Holger Magel |
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T - Qualification
R.E. Machol (1965),
G.Ropohl (1975), H.P. Dürr (1987) |
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3. Empowering by inviting
and sharing voices and views in group processes
This is done by sharing
interests in groups or gatherings, and cultivating the art of the arts -
conversation - visualizing the flow of communication and interests. Gatherings
and meetings have to cross two deep canyons ! The first barrier is to somehow
spot through awareness and empathy where the other person is, his/her frame of
mind, where she/he (is in his mind's eye), what she/he might be seeing or
contemplating about with her telesopic or organization lenses or `glasses'. It
is not only the internal but also the external orientation, to understand focus
and perspective, proportions and background of the specific cultural
environment. The second barrier is how to channel and orchestrate interests in
the group giving room for surprise and dynamic change of focus and emphasis as
a dialogue moves forward, typically having to meet given time frames or
external conditions.
Fig.4: share, invite, listen
Fig 5.: many models/viewpoints
Fig.6: see who sees - reflections
Illustrations: Tim Casswell
For the history of time
credits, how they have been used to share interest, manage surprises and
dynamics in groups, and reorganize meetings and gatherings (conferences) see
A.J.N. Judge (1980- 97) and reports by the author from the International Peace
College or the UN Climate Summit ` 95.
SUMMARY
The objective of this paper
was to help us be more aware and conscious about what and how we perceive and
share information about our environment. This environment may be very close to
us, as we in a senso-motor fashion explored it in all aspects from our bed and
room as a baby, and within physical reach as the house and village we learned
to know in every corner as a child. But this is not enough. As we grew up and
modern society developed new means, we created effects and are subject to these
effects, even when they are out of sight and out of reach, we change our
`global environment' in the widest sense, and change ourselves by changing our
traditional patterns and values.
We have shown that our
thinking is fragmented, it is in disarray, or worse, in chaos, in `no array' at
all, without any predictability and orientation. It is obvious that without
frames of reference we have no scheme to connect emotions and values. As we
have shown above, modern information technology can be misused, and the basic
structures of our communication are very sensitive. This can lead to further
loss of orientation, guidelines, trust, and the art of exchanging our feelings
and attitudes. If we proceed to produce messages without context and meaning,
coherence and reference to the world, we can threaten the whole social system.
The message of this paper
is look out for common understanding and use all vehicles and approaches
possible to increase sharing as the glue to social cohesion. The proposed
building blocks are space and perspective if only we define and agree on some
conceptual frameworks, and try to use our potentials to bridge from the
physical to the conceptual world. The design of attached situation spaces in a
cognitive panorama is one possible way to index and find things. It is a scheme
to have order, at least from a high stand, creating in a distance between us
and the details.It is a way to at least regain some overview, some world-view
which is so desperately needed.
The project is not the
project of any person and should not be protected and copyrighted as this is
the way our economic system creates territories and domains, and the wish to
compete for our neighbors garden. It is a proposal for a basic right of
`orientation and understanding' not the right to access data, but to have a
basis for meaning generation. If we can not find a common ground, a
commonwealth, also for intellectual exercises, we have
The challenge is to put
emphasis on quality communication, not just boosting the amount of data and
messages, akin to the role of the microscope in the sixteenth century. And to
find ways to share understanding, secure values, and guide responsible,
sustainable action in the service of the Whole. This paper wants to make us
aware and feel responsible for abstract factors and dimensions, `Anschauung' is
essential as it can guide us `from the view of all, to the feeling of
responsibility for all' (in German: `Sicht auf's Ganze, Pflicht fürs Ganze'.
Children told the author
that their `view of life is too flat', and they subscribed to the vision of the
orientation space of the Blackbox presented, an imaginary world of meaning
which can be explored and played in, for the sake of finding reason and
understanding. Many world pictures can co-exist and we can co-create more every
day if we check our models and visions, first as they are built the way Nature
is and if they create a climate of peace and co-existence.
In a nutshell: We live with
and by our pictures and visions; and if we do not create or find visions to
subscribe to, we are subject to `implanted' pictures. On a sublime, unconscious
level, implanted vision becomes the reality of catastrophe and chaos. This
paper is written to oppose metaphors like the `Second Flood', a development
without alternative ! and propose instead the play with different competing
alternative representations, perhaps a bouquet of metaphors. The author feels,
that the Information Society should not be built by focusing primarily on the
development of information filters, brokers, and robots, but instead by looking
for locations and proportions in agreed-upon knowledge maps. In this way we
have a resource for co-creation, joint imaginations and shared visions, by
thinking one further level or `deeper'. Some `Pathfinder Projects' are on the
way to chart our course and to provide maps, from which we can build on new
understanding based on an evolutionary and holistic fundament. If we watch out
for our metaphors, Flood or Ocean, Desktop, Tree or Space, we will abstain from
only surfing, but will focus more on the context, on the feeling for
proportions and harmony, and finally avoid the surfing and instead go for
diving and flying, taking over control about where we are and what we do in
ensembles of morphed, inter-operable metaphors (Judge 1980-96).
The best way to summarize
the scope and width of this paper is by subscribing to the objectives of The
New Evolutionary Paradigm by Loye (1990), which includes: 1.) improved
forecasting, 2.) improved interventional guides, 3.) participatory rather than
authoritarian problem solving, 4.) providing clearer long term goals and
humanistic images.
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To solve
a puzzle, T. S. Kuhn |
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Responsibility
lies in the heart of ethics, Hans Jonas |
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Imagination
is more important than knowledge Albert Einstein |
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Acknowledgments: I thank
Anthony J.N. Judge and Ingetraut Dahlberg for their ideas. The contributions to
the topic covered here is so large that they could very well be the author and
take the credit themselves. I am indebted to Ralph G.H. Siu for his
cheerfulness and personal encouragement in the right pace, quality, space and
time. And last but not least to Steve Kurtz for his work of polishing and
editing this text and helping me to understand some subtleties of the English
language. Please note that this paper is an extract only, a comprehensive
summary of a book to appear soon: `The Co-Creation Edge: Orientation,
Communication, and Understanding in a Cognitive Panorama'.
|
The
scientist, like the artist, Lesham and Margeau, Einstein Space & Van Gogh Sky |
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The most
productive and yielding research Doppler |
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Scale is
more than size A. Buzacott |
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Müßet in Naturbetrachten J.W. v. Goethe [t] |
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REFERENCES
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CHANGE special edtition, GeoJournal und Bild der Wissenschaften, Vol, pp.*****:
Die fliegende Lupe - Umweltschutz mit Adlerblick.
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Applications - A Conceptual Superstructure, Outline;
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- Reflections on Viewpoint transportation systems, Invited workshop at on
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Hypermedia Technology (acm- ECHT' 94), Edinburgh
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K., Pestel, R., Radermacher, F.J.: (1995): A Robust Path to Global Stability:
Touch but Feasible, Group IV: Futures and Economy, and:
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Consequences in Shared Perspective, Group III: Eco-Philsophy/Environmental Ethics,
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Nairobi, 25. - 29. July
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NOTES:
- How to address complexity is the central
question. This approach combines three connected orthogonal reference
systems (3Space/Time) to have a coherent global index for issues,
resources, problems, and solutions.
- (inter-transdisciplinary) - across
disciplines, - between applications,- comparability, -bottom-up.
(sectoral) - along subjects, -within procedures, -compatibility,
-top-down, (BENKING 1992). See also footnote 9.
- GLOBAL CHANGE traveling exhibition, opened
in May 1990 in the Federal Chancellery in
- WACR MÜNCHEN Situation SPACES
- CHILDREN WFSF UND BUDAPEST
- The mandate was put forward by the
Director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) in New York was:
(extract) establish common frames of reference, Develop common
understanding, common levels of co-operation and common strategies,
mobilize best and brightest, harness capabilities, initiate more solid
foundations for policies and strategies, gauge the human prospectus, ....
The author was invited to present conclusions and proposals on behalf of
that Director, to present results from such internationally long requested
initiatives, e.g. G7 summits or world wide expert hearings, has worked in
this harmonisation projects under the auspices of UNEP (in co-operation
with the widest rage of organisations (GO's and NGO's, industry, academia,
public, ..
- Personal exchange with Prof. Hiroshi
Shimizu, Ba research institute with focus on bioholonics, see
- From Wisdom of Brahmins, Cassirer. E. -
Symbol, Technik, Sprache - Mythischer, aesthetischer, theoretischer Raum
(p. 93 - 117) see also Stephen E.Toullmin, The Philosophy of Science. An
Introduction,
- Webster: All universal or abstract terms
are mere necessities of thought or conveniences of language and therefore
exist as names only and have no general realities corresponding to them.
- The author is very well aware that
typically English speaking experts of philosophical terminology,
influenced through the positivistic School of Thought of
- see for the metaphorical embodyment of
meaning in science and daily life: Bies (1996), Luyten, N.A., Meessen,
et.al. (1986), or Awald (1980) or the phenomenological origine. If we do
not follow Lambert 1774, but Hegel (1806), reducing the phenomena
according to extention and intension (Dahlberg 1980) we come to the
`T'(footnote ), the combination of endeavor in width and depth, which is
basic to this synthetic embodied approach. We stick here to Hegel,
avoiding the hermeneutic interpretations of concealed LOGOS in the line of
Husserl, Scheler, Heidegger,.. and go on to highlight and access common
harmonical aspects along and across scales and categories by making
visually explicit, trying to clarify humanity's concepts.
- The work of Dahlberg and Judge can not be summarized here. As far as the semantic space as part of the Panorama is concerned, see chapter 2.2. We recommend Dahlberg 1980-1996 ****, and Judge 1980-96 ****.
- Wilber (1994) uses the kind of plastic imaginative language the author is talking about. He uses not only the term Schau, Anschauung , and Weltanschauung, but also terms like `flatland' holists and `flatland' atomists to signify a shallow approach to deep concepts, for example for subtle reductionism p. 183 the reduction of intention to extention, quality to quantity. See also `phenomenology' chapter in this paper and (Smuts 1927).
- Optics, panning and zooming were seen as
the first and major amplifications of mental realms. Computers are seen to
be tools, like optics before, to open new horizons. This paper argues,
that organizational glasses (like `looking glasses' with
- the magazine `Ethik und Sozialwissenschaften' Streitforum für Erwägungskultur, Westermann Verlag Bd**** recently cpublished the contribution of Dahlberg: Die Begriffskultur der Sozialwissenschaften, lassen sich ihre Probleme lösen? (see also letter (Benking 1997) bd vol page** , and the footnote
- T-Qualifications, the concept of deep
specialization in one field and the learned ability to apply it somewhere
else (horizontal bar) (see: Machol, Ropohl,Dürr in (Benking 1994), and
C.P.Snow. In foodnote 2 the same principle is applied to the
compatibility/comparability- standardization/harmonization debate (Benking
1994), (Benking, Budin 1996). 1 Symposium on Culture of Peace - Intersymp
`97 - Invited Keynote Address - 9th International Conference on Systems
Research, Informatics and Cybernetics, Aug.18-23, 1997