Friday, September 10, 2004
Background
material on why a National Project is required
Social Constructions and
Symbols à
Manhattan Project to Integrate Human-centric Information Production à
Paul,
I am
academic outsider, who is neither an American nor
principally inclined towards any kind of 'National Project', and
yet I share many of the group's experiences. I am pleased that you have placed my past
comments into the bead game. Please
include the following comment into the bead games.
We are
trying to introduce some very profound innovations, basically challenging
in one-way or another a very old and deeply entrenched paradigm of modern
science and society, namely the belief that all things can and should be
reduced to single origins.
This
hierarchical belief has been challenged many times, recently by quantum
field theory, postmodern philosophy, neurobiology and cognitive sciences. It still survives very stubbornly,
especially in computing due mainly (in may opinion) to the logic
architecture of the Turing machine.
The
Turing machine can simulate any other machine (one at a time) and can claim to
be 'universal' in the class of “machine”.
Each of this class of machines is a hierarchical mechanism in the above
sense, making it part and parcel of the paradigm of modernism.
It
delivers the major metaphors for most other sciences and popular thinking, and
thus plays a critical role in the preservation of modern mechanical
thought.
All our
institutions, from companies, churches, parties to governments are also still
dominated by hierarchical structures, i.e. they are part of the 'holy
order' of organizations and mechanisms from ancient Egypt to modernity.
Advocating postmodern
computing techniques challenges the predominance of hierarchy.
To be
successful, we should find allies in the sciences, the humanities, in politics,
culture and arts, social movements - in short everywhere where there is an
interest to challenge the principles of hierarchic, monologic thinking and
promote the idea of complexity.
I
believe we will not find these allies by calling upon the
protagonists of the old order to establish national or other projects
potentially undermining this order. We
will find allies among those who are beginning to think and work along similar
lines.
What we
need most are convincing explanations of our ideas and successful
implementations of our research and development proving that we can
deliver better explanations, better tools, and better solutions.
As you
have said many times, there is no conspiracy.
The situation is far more complex that what one can describe with a
conspiracy theory.
The
idea of conspiracy is a hierarchical idea: a conspiracy is
basically another paranoid structure from which we are trying to get
away. The concept itself does not allow stratified thinking to come into
place, because the concept of conspiracy takes the position that all causes
have to be local to an individual or a group.
The concept of conspiracy can be replaced with the concept of
groupthink.
Getting
rejected again and again usually has many causes: from unclear explanations (the
fault of the presenter) to fear of change or loss of certainties (fault of the
evaluator).
My
suggestion is to build an international, interdisciplinary network as a an
informal platform to exchange ideas, share experiences and promote new
approaches that are related by just one basic common thread: the search for
complex, non-hierarchical explanations, approaches and solutions.
The
term "polylogic" is a brand for such a common platform. Polylogic referential pointer is not towards
a company or product brand and not yet occupied by major players. My group, here in Germany, will support any
other branding that is capable of expressing the basic approach.
We have
no war to fight, no enemies to defeat and not territories to conquer. We just
have some ideas that might be helpful to open new opportunities and
possibilities for others.
best
regards,
Peter
Peter Krieg
Pile
Systems Inc
www.pilesys.com