Holotopia

We are the first generation of our species that has the privilege, the opportunity, and the burden of responsibility to engage in the process of our own evolution. We are indeed chosen people. We now have the knowledge available to us and we have the power of human and social potential that is required to initiate a new and historical social function: conscious evolution. But we can fulfill this function only if we develop evolutionary competence by evolutionary learning and acquire the will and determination to engage in conscious evolution. These are core requirements, because what evolution did for us up to now we have to learn to do for ourselves by guiding our own evolution.

– Béla H. Bánáthy

The holotopia initiative will be launched on October 18. This is an initial and personal draft of its statement of purpose, deliberately left unpolished; which our core team will turn into the real thing. This personal blog of mine is presently seeding the holotopia website, which is yet to be co-created. But to a degree, holotopia will always remain what it is now—a prototype.

Holotopia is an entity or institution or system unlike any other.

Like a traditional political party, holotopia organizes us in achieving a common goal. But this goal is the enlightened interest of every human being on our planet; which is to be pursued through comprehension and collaboration—not by propagandist competition.

Like a traditional religion, holotopia undertakes to unite us around shared worldview and values. But this worldview is academically conceived based on evidence; and those values are not enforced by recourse to a belief in afterlife—but by correctly understanding our actual condition, here and now.

Like a traditional publishing house, holotopia undertakes to disseminate information and knowledge. But unlike publishing—the communication it engenders is co-creation.

The holotopia strategy is to change our collective mind—and empower us to comprehend and create together; as our new situation necessitates, and our new technology enables.

Holotopia has a transdisciplinary academy at its core.

Which we’ll develop based on academically published evidence; by unraveling age-old beliefs that have shaped our academic and other institutions. Which we’ll then use to upgrade our collective thinking and our handling of information. The cryptic formula is that by becoming transdisciplinary, the academy will give the holoscope to society (a functional or correct way to see the world); not only the telescope and the microscope and other such things.

When we look through the holoscope, we’ll see the holotopia.

The holotopia vision is not a future vision in an ordinary sense; it is a vision of our world today; which shows how this world can and has to be transformed. In the above holotopia ideogram, this vision is rendered as five pillars; which represent holotopia’s five insights. The yellow lines suggest that when other pivotal themes (including creativity, happiness, democracy and education) are considered in the context of the five insights—their comprehension and handling too will be thoroughly reversed.

The holotopia strategy may be comprehended by studying the holotopia ideogram bottom-up.

The first step is to update (in accord with fundamental discoveries and the nature of our situation) the foundation of our thinking, and information; by considering information as something we humans create for human purposes; which needs to be adapted—in both structure and content—to the core functions that need to be served.

The second step is to update the methods and the social processes by which information is handled; to claim information back from the power structure. This co-creative revolutionary process is guided by the holoscope principle—”see things whole”.

The third step is to update the way we organize ourselves in action. The rule of thumb here is the holotopia principle—”make things whole”. The motivating insight is that wholeness needs to become our enlightened goal, instead of narrowly conceived self-interest; and that immense improvements in our condition can be achieved by making ourselves (or culture) and our institutions (or systems) whole.

And that this inner-and-outer transformation of our condition needs to be pursued through synergy of its inner and outer elements.

I am not a writer.

I’ve just had the unusual fortune to spend thirty years producing a clear and simple vision; by thinking and working in a way that’s become all but impossible. The last six years I spent in a self-imposed “quarantine”, to put it all together in a comprehensible and actionable form—which is now called the holotopia paradigm prototype.

Experience has shown that the holotopia paradigm prototype manifests the “black swan” dynamic: People look at it, but don’t see it. Consequently it’s been impossible for me to break the spell in which habit is holding us, and ignite the process this prototype is meant to enable.

Unavoidably, much of this prototype is still in my intuition.

I could easily spend another thirty years (if I’ll live that long) elaborating its details; then you could spend another few years (if you’ll still be around) processing and comprehending what I wrote. And even then we would not have made even a single step along the critical path—where we’ll self-organize for impact.

What I’m proposing instead—and implementing with audience participation—is a process whereby that will be achieved. As I explained in How to Shift a Paradigm, the gist of this process is to put the holotopia paradigm prototype into the public sphere; and organize a dialog around it (which is an evolving and media-enabled “new thinking”).

The holotopia paradigm prototype is the result of devoted labor of a number of excellent people.

For several reasons, I chose to render this prototype in a personal tone. One of them is that this gave me the freedom to follow my own creative process with no strings attached.

The next step is to self-select and self-organize around this prototype; in a manner that will enable it to evolve and grow, and have impact.

On a more detailed level, you’ll recognize the gist of this process in most if not all what’s been written in this blog: The liberation of our next generation from “the world that has been pulled over their eyes”; and their empowerment to create a different world, on the other side of the metaphorical “mirror”; through “the game-changing game”. This re-evolutionary process cannot and mustn’t be delayed.

Our key challenge is to give to holotopia a pure and strong core.

And avoid that it dwindles into yet another failed attempt within this paradigm. To that end, the present holotopia embryo is conceived of my son Noah and myself. I’ll continue to be present in its future unfolding in the manner in which I’ve been present in it so far—by considering it the only way to be a father; and indeed also an academic; and a human being on planet Earth, in its present condition.

Giving holotopia a suitable institutional structure is a creative challenge we’ll need to address.

I asked my brother Erol (who is in business) about it; and he said “Don’t worry, everything is possible”. That’s where we are now.

My thought is to organize holotopia as a “value-based franchise” (whose concrete structure we’ll create together and continue to evolve). Instead of sharing (only) the brand and the recipes, as McDonald’s does, the value-based franchise will share the holotopia vision, strategy and mission; and invite everyone to be creative in contributing to them.

Erol and I have a great-grandfather—Mustafa Sidki Karabeg—whose legacy might help us give this initiative a pure and strong core. Mustafa Sidki was a mufti, the youngest in our region’s history; and famously incorruptible. He ended up dying young and as a martyr—not in battle, but on the contrary, by being committed to preventing a useless and self-destructive war. I was recently invited to take part in a ceremonial opening of his restored tomb.

The idea now is to restore to function also the house in which he lived; and use it as holotopia’s headquarters and creative dialog space—and a place where his flame is kept alive.