We have to learn to think in a new way.
– Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein
On October 18, 2025 the Holotopia initiative has been launched. The function for which this blog was adapted—to serve it as a runway—is now taken over by this initiative’s website. The blog post Think “Process” is intended to serve as this blog’s new About page. This page, and the blog posts that precede the mentioned one, are left as they are, to document the process that led to the launch.
The twentieth century philosophy and science did warn us—through Russell and Einstein as icons, and many times over—that we have to learn to think in a new way; and about the situation we’ll end up in if we don’t. “People scarcely realize in imagination that the danger is to themselves and their children and their grandchildren, and not only to a dimly apprehended humanity”, Russell and Einstein warned in their 1955 Manifesto, from which I extracted the above call to action. “They can scarcely bring themselves to grasp that they, individually, and those whom they love are in imminent danger of perishing agonizingly.”
We’ve come to a road’s end!
To continue our journey, we have to learn to think in a new way. The aim of this blog is to help us self-organize in doing that.
When you look through the holoscope, you’ll see the holotopia.
You’ll see a different and radically better “world” (or societal-and-cultural order of things or paradigm).
And when we do that collectively—we’ll be able to act in a completely new way!
Instead of struggling to solve our problems, by thinking as we did when we created them—we’ll be creating a different world.
In Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System, Donella Meadows pointed to “the mindset or paradigm out of which the system—its goals, power structure, rules, its culture—arises” as the second most effective place to intervene in a system; and to “the power to transcend paradigms” as the first.
The holotopia strategy is to intervene in systems (in which we live and work) in this most effective way.
To see the corresponding leverage point (the place to intervene in systems, or ‘the button to press’), consider this question:
To whom did Russell and Einstein address their call to action?
To politicians? To people at large? It stands to reasons that only our schools and universities can teach us to think in a new way.
This is extremely good news!
To leave our children in a hopeful world, we don’t need to demonstrate in front of parliaments; it won’t help to occupy Wall Street; it doesn’t really matter who’s the US president.
The most effective way to ignite the sort of change we have to aim for is in the hands of publicly sponsored intellectuals!
So I turn academy into a keyword (and define it by making a convention; by saying how that word needs to be interpreted here, in the context of this blog); and use it to point to both “science and philosophy” and “our schools and universities”; and define academy as “institutionalized academic tradition”. I speak from within academy; so I face my academic colleagues and say:
We have to teach people to think in a new way.
What is that “new thinking” we now have to learn? How will it differ from the way we presently think? What difference will it make?
The above metaphorical image, called the mirror ideogram, sums up the answers I am about to propose. When we look at a mirror, we see the same world that we see around us; but we then also see ourselves in the world.
The academy is now facing the mirror; which bars its way ahead.
The world we see ourselves in, when we look at the mirror, is a world in trouble; and in dire need for creative action, and for structural change. What are we, the academy, doing in such a world?
We are looking at it from above—or presume we are!
And we do our best to report what we see “objectively”. Do the people out there listen to us? Obviously not! They don’t even understand our language! They no longer consider us relevant.
So we talk to one other.
And when we disagree—we create a smaller group; where we do agree.
There is a reason why the holotopia strategy (to focus our energies on fundamental and comprehensive paradigm shift, by changing the way we think to begin with) is unordinary potent at this point in academy‘s evolution.
Fundamental anomalies have been discovered.
Some of the assumptions that were used to create the way we think, and our information, and our academic and societal institutions, have been proven wrong.
Including the assumption that we are, and that we even can be standing above the world and looking at it “objectively”.
Fundamental anomalies put the academy in an entirely new position; to which the mirror ideogram is pointing. Instead of continuing our busy business as usual—we, the academy, have to stop and self-reflect. And as soon as we do that—as soon as we reconsider the assumptions that underlie how we see ourselves and what we do evidence-based—our self-conception and our priorities will change beyond recognition!
The academy has to guide us the people, us the oppressed, through the mirror—to an entirely different societal-and-cultural order of things or paradigm.
You’ll easily comprehend this blog, what’s really going on here, if you imagine that three decades ago (quite exactly at the time of this writing) I caught a glimpse of that mirror; and saw that there is a way—an academic way—to step through the mirror; and that I took that step and found myself on a wondrous creative frontier on the other side! I had just moved from the United States, where I did my doctorate, to Norway, to a tenured academic position; with a career ahead of me and a stress-free environment around me—I dedicated myself fully to this new frontier’s exploration.
Having been trained as a theoretical scientist, I began by drafting an epistemology (new fundamental assumptions, and a way to think) and a methodology (an update to “scientific method” applicable to all those various questions to which we the people urgently need answers that are both reliable and relied on). And I continued by drafting its proof-of-concept applications (and demonstrating that the core beliefs and institutions we take for granted will change beyond recognition when the fundamental anomalies are duly attended to).
Much of the time, I was fortunate to work with constellations of collaborators; who were often creative leaders in their domains. As of 2008, I coordinated an international R & D community called Knowledge Federation; together, we co-created institutional solutions and socio-technical implements for “new thinking”.
The overall result is what I now call knowledge federation prototype.
All along I’ve been using this metaphorical image—this modernity ideogram as I call it—to try and explain what exactly I saw; and point to the meaning of the work on the other side of the mirror; and to the difference it can make.
The bus in this image represents modernity (our post-traditional society-and-culture); and its headlights—which are a pair of traditional candles—represent our information (I use this keyword to point to both the artifacts, such as scientific articles and TV news, and to the processes and systems by which information artifacts are created and put to use). Its intended message—and the holotopia strategy I’ll invite you to engage in together—is to insist on a reconception.
And (instead of reifying the information we have, and the worldview it creates for us—regardless of how obsolete, dysfunctional or downright suicidal they may have become) consider information as a human-made things for human purposes; and adapt it to the functions it needs to perform.
Of which the most important is the function of providing us vision and guidance in this time of need.
The core of the knowledge federation prototype is a prototype of the socio-technical ‘lightbulb’; or of transdisciplinary science as I am calling it. Other parts detail the holotopia vision—and show how we’ll see the world when proper ‘light’ has been turned on. One of the reasons for calling this a prototype is to point out that what it consists of are not just ideas—but models that are already functioning, in real-life.
I am not telling you how the world is; or how it may have to be like.
My aim is to ignite a process by which the transition to an informed “new thinking” (conceived and implemented as the change of modernity‘s ‘headlights’) can be made.
I use prototype as keyword to point to the character of that process.
What does one do with a prototype (think, for instance, of an automobile)? The first step is to examine it; see whether it’s been built according to the rules of the art. The second step is to experiment with it, and verify that it does what it’s supposed to do. The third step is to put it into production and general use.
If errors are detected, the prototype will be corrected; and if they are too large and numerous, the prototype will be remade.
In any case the process of change will be set in motion.
Recently we had a chance to do just that with the knowledge federation prototype—to submit it to tests by expert audiences. In Zagreb, Croatia, we organized three events, corresponding to the three steps I’ve just mentioned.
- The first, titled “Knowledge Federation as Ecosophy” and staged at Croatia’s Excellence Centre for Integrative Bioethics, was meant to examine the construction of transdisciplinary science (as it’s been modeled by knowledge federation prototype)
- The second event, titled “Transdisciplinarity Is the Way to Change Course” and organized in Croatian Association for Philosophical Practice (Croatia’s salon philosophique), was intended to verify that transdisciplinary science does what it’s meant to do (guide us to a radically better evolutionary course and paradigm)
- The third, called “Simply Dialog” and organized in a private home, was meant to begin to put “new thinking” into practice; by using it to reflect on what’s been presented in the first two events and propose improvements.
Prototypes—the academic results on the other side of the mirror—are not “objective descriptions” of the world but parts of the world; designed to make it a better world. More concretely, prototypes are
- models—detailing how something may be re-created or improved
- interventions—to achieve that
- experiments—showing what works well and what needs to be changed.
As an experiment, our three-event intervention in Zagreb showed that something essential was still amiss in the knowledge federation prototype.
Nobody understood the character of the process we intended to ignite!
We completely failed to disrupt the magnetism of the business as usual! There was no reference whatsoever to transdisciplinary science, to knowledge federation prototype, or to the new academic paradigm we invited the participants to examine and begin to foster together.
So when I returned to Oslo, I updated the knowledge federation prototype; by reconfiguring this blog and refocusing it on a single function. Which is to explain, organize and set in motion this new process.
The blog is now conceived as a new paradigm proposal.
Where the word paradigm is adapted from Thomas Kuhn (who used it to explain how scientific revolutions take place), and signifies
- a reconception in a certain domain of interest, which
- resolves the reported anomalies and
- opens up a new creative frontier for research and development.
To detail this proposal, I rewrote the three blog posts we used as background for the mentioned three events:
- We M U S T Learn to Think in a New Way now outlines the anomalies and explains why we have to reconceive information as a human-made things for human purposes
- Knowledge Federation as Ecosophy details how exactly this can be done in an academically coherent way, by adding transdisciplinary science to academy
- Transdisciplinarity Is the Way to Change Course demonstrates that transdisciplinary science can make the difference that has to be made; and outlines the vast and momentous creative frontier that transdisciplinary science will foster.
And I added two blog posts that pinpoint the holotopia mission—how, concretely, we intend to facilitate the transition to “new thinking” or the change of ‘headlights’:
- Let’s Institute Transdisciplinary Science details the requisite academic action
- About Dialog outlines how we intend to bring “new thinking” into media and everyday use.
As illustrations, I’ll use the lecture slides I had in Zagreb; and I’ll share excerpts from the Holotopia book. Both were crafted by Fredrik Eive Refsli—a flamboyantly gifted young designer, who designed all our communication. In the knowledge federation prototype Fredrik iconizes the new function that art and media design need to fulfill in the emerging paradigm:
Enable us to communicate.
As for all the rest—I deleted most of this blog’s postings; and left only the ones—typically the oldest—that will help you comprehend what all this means; by showing you some of its origins. The oldest, Through the Mirror, highlights this blog’s overall main point:
We—our present generation—cannot change the world.
Because that would be rather like reconstructing a passenger jet while it’s still in flight. And yet we also cannot—we must not—compel our next generation, our students and children, to reproduce the world as it is; because that would be unthinkably cruel.
We have to empower our next generation to create a different world.
And that’s what the process I am inviting you to be part of, and the holotopia initiative as its practical realization, are all about.
Noah and the Elephant is a more recent rendering of that same main point; where the next generation is iconized by Noah, my teenage son. Young people no longer read, Noah warned me. In Noah and the Elephant you’ll find a short video trailer that bears the same name; intended to serve as an audiovisual invitation to holotopia; and as an embryo of holotopia‘s media production.
Noah and the Elephant also introduces the Holotopia book manuscript; whose cover image is an even more concise rendering of the same main point: The guiding star toward which the liberated bird is flying is the holotopia vision; which is elaborated in the book.
Holotopia vision is not a future vision in the usual sense of those words.
It is rendered in terms of five insights—which prototype the basic general ideas and principles to live by (necessitated by contemporary global condition; and made possible by “new thinking” and transdisciplinary science); and point to key directions that have to be focused on and developed; two of which permeate the remaining blog posts:
- Cultural revival is a Scientific Revolution-like development in ethics and culture
- Systemic innovation is an Industrial Revolution-like development in society’s core institutions.
Allow me to emphasize:
The aim of the holotopia initiative—and my aim, and the aim of this blog—is to facilitate a process; whereby we’ll empower our students and children to create a different world or paradigm; by learning to think in a new way to begin with.
The moment you begin to explore this possibility—and I hope this blog will give you a head start—you’ll find out that the fundamental and comprehensive change the holotopia vision points to is already unfolding; because we own all the data points needed to create it.
The elephant is already in the room. We only need to face up to our cognitive biases, and connect the dots.
The aim of the holotopia initiative is to help us self-organize in doing that.
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