SAGI
Science Art / ificer Thinktank: "Shaping Tomorrow's World Today"
Integrity * Dexterity * Transparency * Humanity * Futurity
SCIENCE-ARTIFICERS GUILD, Int'l - SAGI 2010
Disseminating Social & Scientific Innovations for Durable Futures
Attributes of Negentropic Deep Futuring
Virtual Personalities:
Interacting & Teaching in Social Networks; Gender Reunion; Makers, Producers and Servers, Communicative Action, Learning in Action; Action Research; Social Negentropy. An integrated politics of partnership no longer splits off the “private sphere” from the “public sphere” or “women’s rights” and “children’s rights” from “human rights.” The personal is individual, collective and political.
On the basis of criteria identified by Wildman (2003), some characteristics of social neg-entropy are:
1. Giving (in that giving from the heart without necessary expectation of return generates good will – an esoteric form of neg-entropy)
2· Empathy (care and concern for others health and well being as well as yourself)
3· Net energy creation (as contrasted to an energy sink)
4· Organologic (such as diversity encouraging, fractal geometry, spectral-reserve, self-organisation, recursiveness)
5· Diversity harmonising cp. to Conformity centralisation
6· Informal/outside the box (in that all the formal economic structures are now seriously entropic and generally shrink wrap any within house initiative); not one best way; the whole is more than the sum of the parts, neg-waste (another word for entropy)
7· Trans rational from either or to either and ie. towards the theory of the included middle where something can be both a and b rather than only a or b – with no middle overlap
8. Rebraiding thinking and doing
9· Replacing black with green letter law – this means being rewarded for what we will do right tomorrow and not punished for what we did wrong today. Wildman (2003).
Bridging & Bonding:
Wider and Deeper Global Networking; Learning Circles; Emotional and Action Learning
Value is viable and thus valuable neg-entropic complexity and evolution may be seen as the increasing of diversity within this viable complexity through self-organisation and fractal logic. This will then lead to the emergence of something valuable and potentially viable which can be found by such self-organising fluctuations among the neighbouring possibilities.
Ethical Economics:
Considerations of Ethical Economics includes for instance recognition of the importance of the Physical Economy cp. the Monetary Economy; Fractally Embedded Self-Reliant Economic and Political Systems; Creative Partnership Futures. See for instance Wildman (2003).
Cultural Reclamation:
Positive Sum Situations; Intentional Community; Anticipating Emerging Issues; Deliberative Democracy
Tocqueville 1825 identified a form of oppression as ‘mild despotism’, which he saw as erosion of liberty far more serious than violent form of despotism characteristic of feudal societies. Corporate feudalism rolls back the world clock by imposing propagandised groupthink of the lowest common denominator:
‘it covers society’s surface with a network of small, complicated, painstaking, uniform rules though which the most original minds and the most vigorous souls cannot clear a way to surpass the crowd: it does not break wills, but it softens them, bends them, and directs them; it really forces one to act, and constantly opposes itself to one’s acting; it does not destroy, it prevents things from being born; it does not tyrannise, it hinders, compromises enervates (deprives, weakens), extinguishes, dazes, and finally reduces each person to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals (robots?) of which the government is the shepherd.’ Young (2001:38).
Cultural Dynamics of Self-Organizing Chaos, Order and Negentropy
We may be able to organize boundary conditions under which evolution on earth can continue. These boundary conditions are therefore no longer purely biological they have evolved to be culturological. The spreading of this logical insight about the primacy of mental and cultural evolution is the key task, which, we have to fulfill in a hurry, and globally. We need a Socio-Cultural Neg-Entropic Innovation Process and we only have a generation to do it.
Such a Neg-Entropic Social Innovation Process (NESIP) needs to focus on:
1· Glocal Governance
2· Glocal responsiveness to socio-cultural events and acts of terrorism
3· Zones of Social Innovation – resourced e.g. through private philanthropy or the UN
4· Strong commitment to improve the health and well being of all people and peoples
5· A Physics Of Love that ennobles relationships between living entities and enriches our planet leading to a deeper respect for all life and what supports it. This way of being is called ‘relatio’ where relationships, as a way of knowing, become neg-entropic. Wildman (1996).
DEEP FUTURES:
Evergreen Revolution; Metafuture; Compassionate Community; Collective Responsibility. Futuring means bringing proactive concrete responses to future issues into present-day operation. Rebraiding thinking and doing, this approach is suitable to present day challenges derived from global issues. This ancient ‘rebraiding’approach to futuring demonstrates a better tomorrow today, cutting the lag time from innovation to diffusion, and has the following characteristics.
· Mapping the Present and the Future through methods and tools such as the futures triangle and the futures landscape
· Anticipating the Future through methods such as emerging issues analysis and the futures wheel
· Timing the Future, understanding the grand patterns of change, macrohistory and macrofutures.
· Deepening the Future through methods such as causal layered analysis and four quadrant mapping
· Creating Alternatives to the Present through methods such as scenarios and nuts and bolts
· Transforming the Present and Creating the Future through visioning, backcasting, action learning and the transcend conflict resolution method. (Sohail Inayatullah; www.metafuture.org/ )
Establishing a Roadmap
A roadmap is the outcome of a collaborative foresight process that can include general and structure plans as outlined above and also it is an outcome that considers a broad set of strategies important to reaching back from a goal in the future. In this article we argue that to be neg-entropic such roadmaps need grow organically from within the social cradle outlined above and in this sense can include vision statements, forecasts, scenarios, strategy and plans, and yet deepen as they go beyond such roadmap tools in three crucial ways:
1. They emerge in a collaboration network of transdisciplinary and cooperating experts,
2. They emphasise uncertainties and challenges in the environment and in causations in the environment as well as within the researcher and use fractal logic and evo-devo sustainability, as well as identifying probable and preferred futures, and
3. They have long-term time horizons (25 years plus is de rigueur as one must structurally move beyond ones lifetime) by comparison to traditional forecasts and plans. ( www.metaverseroadmap.org/roadmap.html)
Fractal Logic:
Scientists throughout the world working at the cutting edge of human survival technology are now seeking a multidisciplinary solution to the social, economic and environmental crises threatening us all. There is a desire in Western culture to try, in some way, to enhance human values. Clearly, waste-based Western technology and over-consumption is now systematically causing the destruction of human values and the degradation of the global environment. More holistic worldviews of science and technology (Poetry Science; Science-Art; Freestyle Multimedia; Know-Brow Art) can lead toward viable visions of an optimistic future.
Art connected to Source and the zeitgeist of its times has a living taproot in the matrix of evolution. Our works “work” when they work themselves through our culture, based on that culture’s underlying psychological need. They become meaningful if perceived as carrying revelatory weight that somehow illuminates our collective lives. They may not be “true”, but good things come of this generative vision, reaffirming and celebrating our humanity.
Recent major scientific discoveries have been made which demonstrate that the living process is indeed associated with a very complex infinite universal energy system. New understanding of complexity and self-organization in nature, nature’s own means of self-assembly, reveals its geometrical basis. This new paradigm, rooted in Chaos Theory, Complexity and Holographic Theory, also identifies the geometrical logic base that retrieves the lost ethical and humane physics value system.
We can use this scientific knowledge to construct a global human survival technology of unimaginable wealth, resources and human opportunity. The catalytic properties of art have been identified as the essential ingredient needed to provide the opportunity for this human survival technology to be developed. Artists actively demonstrate the environments of the future and create new valuecosms. Biotech and cosmotech are less likely than infotech to be disruptive over the next 30 years.
Human survival technology must link life to an aspect of infinite universal reality. The culture shock associated with collapse of the entropic paradigm is enormous. The issue embraces fundamental human ethical values, and sooner or later it must enter the international legal system on behalf of global human survival. Already the United Nations University Millennium Project, South Pacific Node, American Council, has fully endorsed the concept of using Creative Physics fractal logic for the cause of global world peace and such an awareness is growing via the internet.
Glocalisation for Survival
In this article we have argued that human survival requires nothing less that the re-emergence of negentropic science and art which are braided together much as the Science-Art Centre Guild indicates by the term ‘fractal logic.’ It represents a paradigm shift from materialistic to holistic attitudes and presumed truths as a negentropic survival strategy.
Chaos theory helps us explain how new forms, or orders, even new self-images, cultural paradigms, and innovative artworks and scientific discoveries emerge. It is the third revolution in science after relativity and quantum theory. It is the prime source of unpredictability in the macrocosmic world and the human scale, formerly described only by classical Newtonian physics. Chaos and complexity is nature’s own way of organizing systems and creating structure. All systems emerge from and eventually dissolve back into chaos.
Fractals, nature’s dynamic self-organizing pattern, exist in the paradoxical space between dimensions, levels and forces of existence. They arise at the interface between processes, at boundary zones where they serve both to connect and separate multiple levels. They translate information/energy, structuring dimensions by adding or recursively removing structure, embodying evolution and change. Fractal dynamics escalate change from tiny to large scales.
Social Innovation
We see Social Innovation as a person, organisation, product, service or process that has implemented practicalities that create a better future society. Such innovations tend to be ‘outside the box’, are actively practiced by those involved and have a strategy for developing alternative structures for linking the Social Innovation back to the mainstream.
We have found that in the area of technological innovation there are many conferences, activities and funding options.In the field of Social Innovation however, innovators tend to be disparate, lack peer support, government funding, corporate sponsorship and tax concessions that are available to technological innovators and innovations.
Now more than ever, we need to be looking at the future society that we are creating and supporting each other in our individual endeavours to get there.
Summarising
Holonism is a paradigm – a worldview, which is equally applicable to the universe and our human existence. It represents an escalation or change of domains from materialistic science. Chaos Theory is not a metaphor, per se, but functions as a science metaphor to describe systems, organisms, and dynamic behaviour, including complex adaptation. Fractal logic helps us access the aesthetic functions of ambiguity and paradox without polarization.
Order emerges from the creative edge of chaos – each self-similar local point is the Zero-Point centre of global fractal involvement, a mutual influence in the zone of interaction. Each point radiates creative potential. Local creativity is entangled in the totality of the global matrix. All interactions can be observed at all levels of complexity. The matrix of our creativity, active learning (by doing and shaping) and social structures helps us shape our glocal future. Elements link and combine in a virtually infinite contextual landscape and coordinate as concrete action.
Global connectivity – glocalization describes patterns within patterns — the multiplicity of factors and nonlocal relationships between each finite part of a system. In this post-Postmodern view, fragmentation is overcome synergetically. We are co-extensive with more vehicles for our consciousness than our physical bodies. Fractal logic helps us understand and exploit global processes, even when we can’t predict or control them.
Fractal logic is the logic of life, the basis of form, networks of nested networks – the logic of repeating patterns imposes itself at any level as an ingenious method of information storage, compression, transfer and indexing. The potentially infinite is actualized as a finite resource in a recursive fractal structure. De-centralized, de-territorialized platforms for communication, work and play, such as cell-phones, the Internet and Wii allow us to interact globally from any zero-point locale.
Wisdom and compassion are transmitted by harmonic resonance, by fractal affect – each of us carries within us the characteristics of all others. Thus, we move organically and experientially via cognitive and affective tuning from a paradigm of scarcity to one of infinite creative potential and hyper-connectivity, interdependence and spirituality for the betterment of the global human condition. This circular logic is embodied in Earth’s beautiful biosphere and promises a New Renaissance in science and art. The World will decide.
Ethical Economics is glocal – bottom up community economy development as opposed to top down Globalisation first. Further it is dedicated to the physical economy as opposed to the monetary economy we see so rampant today in our globalised nation based economies.
Rurban Planning – glocalisation requires self sufficient innovative bioregional permaculture netweaved sustainable settlements that braid rural and urban planning. These settlements need to ‘manage their footprint. Such planning also needs to be able to retrofit brownfield and design from scratch Greenfield sites.
Learning by thinking and doing – this is artificer learning, praxis learning, anticipatory action learning and so forth. In all instances this type of learning braids even blends thinking and doing and reflects what one may refer to as ‘indigenous circumstance’. Here kids and adults learn together vertically as well as horizontally in age cohorts.
Conclusion
In short the authors believe nothing less than the future of humanity depends of this redux of science and the re-emergence of neg-entropic science art~ifice. On this basis we have dedicated this site and established SAGI itself. We welcome contributions comments, ideas and projects along these lines. Maybe by featuring (y)our work we can help build towards a critical mass for this type of integrated science-art.
Virtual Personalities:
Interacting & Teaching in Social Networks; Gender Reunion; Makers, Producers and Servers, Communicative Action, Learning in Action; Action Research; Social Negentropy. An integrated politics of partnership no longer splits off the “private sphere” from the “public sphere” or “women’s rights” and “children’s rights” from “human rights.” The personal is individual, collective and political.
On the basis of criteria identified by Wildman (2003), some characteristics of social neg-entropy are:
1. Giving (in that giving from the heart without necessary expectation of return generates good will – an esoteric form of neg-entropy)
2· Empathy (care and concern for others health and well being as well as yourself)
3· Net energy creation (as contrasted to an energy sink)
4· Organologic (such as diversity encouraging, fractal geometry, spectral-reserve, self-organisation, recursiveness)
5· Diversity harmonising cp. to Conformity centralisation
6· Informal/outside the box (in that all the formal economic structures are now seriously entropic and generally shrink wrap any within house initiative); not one best way; the whole is more than the sum of the parts, neg-waste (another word for entropy)
7· Trans rational from either or to either and ie. towards the theory of the included middle where something can be both a and b rather than only a or b – with no middle overlap
8. Rebraiding thinking and doing
9· Replacing black with green letter law – this means being rewarded for what we will do right tomorrow and not punished for what we did wrong today. Wildman (2003).
Bridging & Bonding:
Wider and Deeper Global Networking; Learning Circles; Emotional and Action Learning
Value is viable and thus valuable neg-entropic complexity and evolution may be seen as the increasing of diversity within this viable complexity through self-organisation and fractal logic. This will then lead to the emergence of something valuable and potentially viable which can be found by such self-organising fluctuations among the neighbouring possibilities.
Ethical Economics:
Considerations of Ethical Economics includes for instance recognition of the importance of the Physical Economy cp. the Monetary Economy; Fractally Embedded Self-Reliant Economic and Political Systems; Creative Partnership Futures. See for instance Wildman (2003).
Cultural Reclamation:
Positive Sum Situations; Intentional Community; Anticipating Emerging Issues; Deliberative Democracy
Tocqueville 1825 identified a form of oppression as ‘mild despotism’, which he saw as erosion of liberty far more serious than violent form of despotism characteristic of feudal societies. Corporate feudalism rolls back the world clock by imposing propagandised groupthink of the lowest common denominator:
‘it covers society’s surface with a network of small, complicated, painstaking, uniform rules though which the most original minds and the most vigorous souls cannot clear a way to surpass the crowd: it does not break wills, but it softens them, bends them, and directs them; it really forces one to act, and constantly opposes itself to one’s acting; it does not destroy, it prevents things from being born; it does not tyrannise, it hinders, compromises enervates (deprives, weakens), extinguishes, dazes, and finally reduces each person to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals (robots?) of which the government is the shepherd.’ Young (2001:38).
Cultural Dynamics of Self-Organizing Chaos, Order and Negentropy
We may be able to organize boundary conditions under which evolution on earth can continue. These boundary conditions are therefore no longer purely biological they have evolved to be culturological. The spreading of this logical insight about the primacy of mental and cultural evolution is the key task, which, we have to fulfill in a hurry, and globally. We need a Socio-Cultural Neg-Entropic Innovation Process and we only have a generation to do it.
Such a Neg-Entropic Social Innovation Process (NESIP) needs to focus on:
1· Glocal Governance
2· Glocal responsiveness to socio-cultural events and acts of terrorism
3· Zones of Social Innovation – resourced e.g. through private philanthropy or the UN
4· Strong commitment to improve the health and well being of all people and peoples
5· A Physics Of Love that ennobles relationships between living entities and enriches our planet leading to a deeper respect for all life and what supports it. This way of being is called ‘relatio’ where relationships, as a way of knowing, become neg-entropic. Wildman (1996).
DEEP FUTURES:
Evergreen Revolution; Metafuture; Compassionate Community; Collective Responsibility. Futuring means bringing proactive concrete responses to future issues into present-day operation. Rebraiding thinking and doing, this approach is suitable to present day challenges derived from global issues. This ancient ‘rebraiding’approach to futuring demonstrates a better tomorrow today, cutting the lag time from innovation to diffusion, and has the following characteristics.
· Mapping the Present and the Future through methods and tools such as the futures triangle and the futures landscape
· Anticipating the Future through methods such as emerging issues analysis and the futures wheel
· Timing the Future, understanding the grand patterns of change, macrohistory and macrofutures.
· Deepening the Future through methods such as causal layered analysis and four quadrant mapping
· Creating Alternatives to the Present through methods such as scenarios and nuts and bolts
· Transforming the Present and Creating the Future through visioning, backcasting, action learning and the transcend conflict resolution method. (Sohail Inayatullah; www.metafuture.org/ )
Establishing a Roadmap
A roadmap is the outcome of a collaborative foresight process that can include general and structure plans as outlined above and also it is an outcome that considers a broad set of strategies important to reaching back from a goal in the future. In this article we argue that to be neg-entropic such roadmaps need grow organically from within the social cradle outlined above and in this sense can include vision statements, forecasts, scenarios, strategy and plans, and yet deepen as they go beyond such roadmap tools in three crucial ways:
1. They emerge in a collaboration network of transdisciplinary and cooperating experts,
2. They emphasise uncertainties and challenges in the environment and in causations in the environment as well as within the researcher and use fractal logic and evo-devo sustainability, as well as identifying probable and preferred futures, and
3. They have long-term time horizons (25 years plus is de rigueur as one must structurally move beyond ones lifetime) by comparison to traditional forecasts and plans. ( www.metaverseroadmap.org/roadmap.html)
Fractal Logic:
Scientists throughout the world working at the cutting edge of human survival technology are now seeking a multidisciplinary solution to the social, economic and environmental crises threatening us all. There is a desire in Western culture to try, in some way, to enhance human values. Clearly, waste-based Western technology and over-consumption is now systematically causing the destruction of human values and the degradation of the global environment. More holistic worldviews of science and technology (Poetry Science; Science-Art; Freestyle Multimedia; Know-Brow Art) can lead toward viable visions of an optimistic future.
Art connected to Source and the zeitgeist of its times has a living taproot in the matrix of evolution. Our works “work” when they work themselves through our culture, based on that culture’s underlying psychological need. They become meaningful if perceived as carrying revelatory weight that somehow illuminates our collective lives. They may not be “true”, but good things come of this generative vision, reaffirming and celebrating our humanity.
Recent major scientific discoveries have been made which demonstrate that the living process is indeed associated with a very complex infinite universal energy system. New understanding of complexity and self-organization in nature, nature’s own means of self-assembly, reveals its geometrical basis. This new paradigm, rooted in Chaos Theory, Complexity and Holographic Theory, also identifies the geometrical logic base that retrieves the lost ethical and humane physics value system.
We can use this scientific knowledge to construct a global human survival technology of unimaginable wealth, resources and human opportunity. The catalytic properties of art have been identified as the essential ingredient needed to provide the opportunity for this human survival technology to be developed. Artists actively demonstrate the environments of the future and create new valuecosms. Biotech and cosmotech are less likely than infotech to be disruptive over the next 30 years.
Human survival technology must link life to an aspect of infinite universal reality. The culture shock associated with collapse of the entropic paradigm is enormous. The issue embraces fundamental human ethical values, and sooner or later it must enter the international legal system on behalf of global human survival. Already the United Nations University Millennium Project, South Pacific Node, American Council, has fully endorsed the concept of using Creative Physics fractal logic for the cause of global world peace and such an awareness is growing via the internet.
Glocalisation for Survival
In this article we have argued that human survival requires nothing less that the re-emergence of negentropic science and art which are braided together much as the Science-Art Centre Guild indicates by the term ‘fractal logic.’ It represents a paradigm shift from materialistic to holistic attitudes and presumed truths as a negentropic survival strategy.
Chaos theory helps us explain how new forms, or orders, even new self-images, cultural paradigms, and innovative artworks and scientific discoveries emerge. It is the third revolution in science after relativity and quantum theory. It is the prime source of unpredictability in the macrocosmic world and the human scale, formerly described only by classical Newtonian physics. Chaos and complexity is nature’s own way of organizing systems and creating structure. All systems emerge from and eventually dissolve back into chaos.
Fractals, nature’s dynamic self-organizing pattern, exist in the paradoxical space between dimensions, levels and forces of existence. They arise at the interface between processes, at boundary zones where they serve both to connect and separate multiple levels. They translate information/energy, structuring dimensions by adding or recursively removing structure, embodying evolution and change. Fractal dynamics escalate change from tiny to large scales.
Social Innovation
We see Social Innovation as a person, organisation, product, service or process that has implemented practicalities that create a better future society. Such innovations tend to be ‘outside the box’, are actively practiced by those involved and have a strategy for developing alternative structures for linking the Social Innovation back to the mainstream.
We have found that in the area of technological innovation there are many conferences, activities and funding options.In the field of Social Innovation however, innovators tend to be disparate, lack peer support, government funding, corporate sponsorship and tax concessions that are available to technological innovators and innovations.
Now more than ever, we need to be looking at the future society that we are creating and supporting each other in our individual endeavours to get there.
Summarising
Holonism is a paradigm – a worldview, which is equally applicable to the universe and our human existence. It represents an escalation or change of domains from materialistic science. Chaos Theory is not a metaphor, per se, but functions as a science metaphor to describe systems, organisms, and dynamic behaviour, including complex adaptation. Fractal logic helps us access the aesthetic functions of ambiguity and paradox without polarization.
Order emerges from the creative edge of chaos – each self-similar local point is the Zero-Point centre of global fractal involvement, a mutual influence in the zone of interaction. Each point radiates creative potential. Local creativity is entangled in the totality of the global matrix. All interactions can be observed at all levels of complexity. The matrix of our creativity, active learning (by doing and shaping) and social structures helps us shape our glocal future. Elements link and combine in a virtually infinite contextual landscape and coordinate as concrete action.
Global connectivity – glocalization describes patterns within patterns — the multiplicity of factors and nonlocal relationships between each finite part of a system. In this post-Postmodern view, fragmentation is overcome synergetically. We are co-extensive with more vehicles for our consciousness than our physical bodies. Fractal logic helps us understand and exploit global processes, even when we can’t predict or control them.
Fractal logic is the logic of life, the basis of form, networks of nested networks – the logic of repeating patterns imposes itself at any level as an ingenious method of information storage, compression, transfer and indexing. The potentially infinite is actualized as a finite resource in a recursive fractal structure. De-centralized, de-territorialized platforms for communication, work and play, such as cell-phones, the Internet and Wii allow us to interact globally from any zero-point locale.
Wisdom and compassion are transmitted by harmonic resonance, by fractal affect – each of us carries within us the characteristics of all others. Thus, we move organically and experientially via cognitive and affective tuning from a paradigm of scarcity to one of infinite creative potential and hyper-connectivity, interdependence and spirituality for the betterment of the global human condition. This circular logic is embodied in Earth’s beautiful biosphere and promises a New Renaissance in science and art. The World will decide.
Ethical Economics is glocal – bottom up community economy development as opposed to top down Globalisation first. Further it is dedicated to the physical economy as opposed to the monetary economy we see so rampant today in our globalised nation based economies.
Rurban Planning – glocalisation requires self sufficient innovative bioregional permaculture netweaved sustainable settlements that braid rural and urban planning. These settlements need to ‘manage their footprint. Such planning also needs to be able to retrofit brownfield and design from scratch Greenfield sites.
Learning by thinking and doing – this is artificer learning, praxis learning, anticipatory action learning and so forth. In all instances this type of learning braids even blends thinking and doing and reflects what one may refer to as ‘indigenous circumstance’. Here kids and adults learn together vertically as well as horizontally in age cohorts.
Conclusion
In short the authors believe nothing less than the future of humanity depends of this redux of science and the re-emergence of neg-entropic science art~ifice. On this basis we have dedicated this site and established SAGI itself. We welcome contributions comments, ideas and projects along these lines. Maybe by featuring (y)our work we can help build towards a critical mass for this type of integrated science-art.
JOIN US
Scientists * Artists * Philosophers * Futurists * Benchworkers * Outsiders * Healers * Networkers * Inventors * Imagineers * Economists * Activists * Entrepreneurs
JOIN US: SAGI -- a Nonlocal Action Thinktank -- invites you to network, collaborate and collectively dream, design and build exemplars of Cultural Rebirth with us as we envision and embody the future in the present. Let's create practical exemplars as the foundation memes for the next few decades. What visions of ourselves do we need to actively embody to ensure our survival as we move forward?
SAGI offers exemplar projects for the hot futures of a New Renaissance as an alternative to Apocalypse. It is a vision rooted in the negentropic forces of life itself. Let's transcend boundaries in diverse fields, including durable lifestyles, political theory, health science, intelligence, macrohistory, women's studies, art history, deep economics, ethics, medical best practice, communications theory, and more. Today's research challenges are so complex it takes many minds to find viable solutions. We urgently need new options for collective participatory wisdom. SAGI is one such option -- may we commend it to you.
VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY: The transdiciplinary Science-Artificers Guild, Int'l (SAGI) is a glocalized association for artists, scientists, engineers, artificers, mentors, healers and others interested in work that crosses the artificial boundaries separating contemporary arts and sciences as well as the divide that separates thinking and doing. Together, we form a Virtual University or Subversity of Scholar-Practitioners.
SCI-ART FUSION: We feature illustrated articles written by artists and scientists about their own work as well as articles by historians, theoreticians, philosophers and other researchers that are particularly concerned with issues related to the interaction of the arts, sciences and technology in contemporary society and their contribution to a positive creative and sustainable future society for our grandchildren.
Negentropic Futures: In today’s complex and turbulent world it is vital to have artful futurists who can collaborate on collective projects, focus on action codified in exemplar projects and validate actions towards a better world. Unfortunately current ‘education’ systems focus almost exclusively on the individual learner and have separated the learner from the praxis of the lived life. Furthermore classrooms separate the learner from design, production and integration of learning into community life.
Future Perfect Tense: SAGI argues that overcoming this separation of thinking and doing is one of the key challenges for modernity and in futures in particular. We applaud wider application of "Intern" programs, learning while doing. We encourage mentoring at every scale in every niche opportunity. Ideas at the leading edge of culture cannot, by their very nature, be adequately reviewed by conventional peer review processes. There is simply no one there capable of graspng the concepts adequately. But those who can, DO...
Subversity: The periphery is a source of power in terms of new research directions. Smaller universities are vital in this regard. On the outer periphery are independent scholars and further in are 'pracademics' and in the inner sanctum the 'career' academics with little or no 'outside experience.' Incredible skills and enthusiasm are possessed by those effectively excluded from the conventional University system by the systems of exclusiveness and preciousness so dear to the academic profession. Universities are no longer relevant in that the public sector, banking, armed forces, large corporations etc are all downsizing. Part-time work and associated 'multiployment' is in the increase. The informal sector is booming. We encourage 'Polyphonic Multiversities.'
DEFINITIONS: We may be able to meet this challenge as ‘Artificers’ - innovative individuals who look forward wisely and solve collective problems today through applying their ingenuity with what is available. Integrating thinking, doing and being in ancient times was called Poiesis and in Medieval times ‘artificing’ and today can be seen in Action Learning and the Artificer.
Artists in Action: Many artists in this technical age are faced with perpetually learning new protocols for artistic production. Several media require elaborate production knowledge and technical skill. Much of this leading edge tech has to be self-taught, then unique applications in art may be discovered. One needs technical craft to produce digital fine art, for example. Today's artist also has to find and meet commercial and competetive goals in promotion, marketing and design.
Practicum: Blending personal and business acumen in the enterprise of your life. The four principles, as well as examples, of the Science-Artificer approach are discussed including their exemplar projects. Finally, the importance of the Artificer approach to ‘futuring’ and creating living breathing examples today of a future our children can live with is emphasised and collaboration sought. Having a product in demand now means you're dead in five years. The University system cannot solely answer 'how can we then live?' (note live not think). A system of learning needs to be practical and respond to the huge transdisciplinary and intergenerational challenges upon us such as:
A Science-Artificer or artificer learner now may be defined as:
someone who while being deeply and broadly technically skilled is reflexively orientated and who ethically and participatively explores the big picture and prioritises, chooses, designs and enacts forward wisely by creatively developing prototypes towards a world transformed. [Paul Wildman 15-12-03]
French: Bricoleur - A bricoleur is a ‘Jack of all trades or a kind of tinkerer, a professional do-it-yourself person.’ There are many kinds of bricoleurs - interpretive, narrative, theoretical, practical and political. The bricoleur produces a bricolage - that is, a pieced-together set of representations or components that are fitted to the specifics of a complex situation [closest English equivalent – tinkerer – though usually used disparagingly]
French: L’esprit Accor – is the art of blending skills, of combining traditions of the past with the modern innovation, adding the generosity, discipline, imagination and warmth which can carry our work to a higher level of excellence. L’esprit Accor then is a transforming vision of success (the closest English equivalent is – efficacious magnanimousness/morale – 20 per cent fit).
Critical Futures Praxis – here futures related praxis is used to problematise or criticalise the present.
Futuring – proactive action research to establish actual futures oriented demonstration projects today – to show that a different future is possible. This may be termed Futuring ‘acting ahead wisely’ and is called in this study Artificing commonly know as Artificering. Here reality is established through enactment that is the braiding of thinking and doing. Certainly in terms of futuring this research project suggests that a Artificer approach may be seen as one direct application or manifestation thereof.
Intentional Action Research - in this concept action research is directional and intentional in that it anticipates a change in the status quo and works from that perspective backwards
Communicative Action - Communicative Action refers to active citizen engagement in discourse-ethical dialogue with diverse others in order to develop actionable outcomes towards a better collective world.
Photo credit: Ellen Sanford, Bird on a Wire, Costa Rica
AUSSIE STYLE ARTIFICER OUT OF THE BOX THINKING / DOING
In Australia there is a term for someone who can act forward wisely and solve problems with what is available while developing innovations ‘in the field’ so to speak that respond to broader needs – this person is called a ‘Artificer’.NB: A Artificer is committed to the use of personal ingenuity for self reliance and excellence at her task of developing innovative exemplar project and is not to be confused with a ‘backyard mechanic’ who does shoddy work.
The Artificer is deeply ingrained into the Australian national psyche indeed the runner up for the national anthem – Waltzing Matilda – is about a bushie who steals a sheep for food and ultimately takes his own life rather than be caught by the law.Conventionally a bushie is someone who can fix a practical problem with ‘fencing wire’ and do a great job to boot and the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s Artificer series (see web site section in resources) literally shows just that particularly in indigenous communities.
SAGI ~ Showcasing Exemplar Projects & Resources for more Durable Futures "Compassion is the deepest form of memory." --Eve Ensler
SAGI MISSION: The immediate goal of SAGI and glocalization's scale-relativity is practical development of pilot projects and best practice exemplars and policies that can be applied in many if not all areas. It includes proposals and concrete initiatives that promote balance of local and global dimensions via information sharing on a global or transregional basis. We foster truly innovative research initatives linking with the best researchers in social, physical and life sciences, in and out of universities to establish new forms of science-art.SAGI VISION: Glocalization is a potential movement, an artful and heartful peace-building activity combining realism and idealism. It is a bottom-up view of the complex process of harmonizing local and global needs for sustainable futures. It brings globalization issues down to the human scale.
Social Synergy: Glocalization links committed local and global actors, including virtual personalities, individuals, local, national and international business, governmental and nonprofit entities, coupling and decoupling for positive sum solutions. We can harness the benefits of multinational globalization, ethical economics and repurposing open-source information for local realities by extensive local and long-distance interactions.
SAGI AFFILIATES: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=42775855291 Creative Class Network Transnational Party
SAGI THINKTANK
“The concept of learning is changing from an emphasis on cognitive learning only to one of linking learning styles, seeing connections in dissimilar ideas, and applying new knowledge in new ways. This group will dialogue about how learning can meet the needs of the present through hands-on action, and, at the same time in parallel, focus on creating new knowledge for the future.” ~Wildman
Founding Members:
Paul Wildman, Ph.D., Australia
[email protected]
Iona Miller, CHT, United States
[email protected]
ADVISORY BOARD
Paul Henrickson, Ph.D., Malta
<[email protected]>
Leane Roffey Line, Ph.D., USA
<[email protected]>
Laurence Gartel, Digital Pioneer
<[email protected]>
Leutrell Osborne, Sr., CIA veteran
<[email protected]>
David Valdez, Musicologist, USA
<[email protected]>
Robert Pope, Science-Artist, Au
<[email protected]>
Paolo Manzelli, Science-Artist, Italy
<[email protected]>
SAGI Annual Conferences
2009 -
GREY LITERATURE Prize
Each year SAGI awards its choice in Grey Literature, i.e. that which exceeds the bounds of conventional peer review.
** Changing your mind because of emotion - that is faith.
** Changing your mind because of thinking - that is philosophy.
** Changing your mind because of facts - that is science.
**Changing your mind because of manipulation is mind control.
Science-Artificer
FROM ACTION LEARNING TO ARTIFICER LEARNING
Artificers then may be seen as a type of action learning that:
·Focuses on the learner, not only the thinking (academic education) but also action (although much action is seen as ‘behaviourist’ vocational education), such that it…
·Draws from experience, yet is proactive and intentional, towards a better world and…
·Embraces the overall Design process covering Idea | Design | Implementation
(I | D | I): including intelligent understanding of the basic concept; prototype design; establishment and critical reflection on subsequent outcomes by…
·Embodying the agency of the learner; not only in seeking to address structural issues/projects but is also…
·Directed to the good of the person and the good of society (integrity and ethics) i.e. virtuous action towards the good (of) society by…
·Linking action directly to the priorities from the ‘global problematique’ and is concretised in an exemplar project or master piece, that…
·Moves frompraxis to poiesis i.e. from doing to making and shaping, i.e. action as prototype development, for the general good through a focus on critically informed instrumental action.
Artificer Learning or Artificer Learning then is a form of action learning focused on the learner - who learns by making or shaping an action decided on collectively and intended for some particular application towards a better world.Such learning is always threefold – internal to the learner (integrity, values etc), external to the learner (ethics and how the world works), and bridging between the two (dexterity delivered content).
PAUL WILDMAN SITES
http://www.kal.net.au/
or a more direct
http://www.kalgrove.com/adultlearning/
Paul Wildman [Kalgrove Pty/Ltd - http://www.kal.net.au/ ]
PO 73 Northgate 4013 Brisbane Australia
ph +61 7 32667570 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting +61 7 32667570 end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting +61 7 32667570 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting +61 7 32667570 end_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlighting +61 7 32667570 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting +61 7 32667570 end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting +61 7 32667570 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting +61 7 32667570 end_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlighting . Mob 0412027818
Bush Mechanic in other languages Ummanu http://www.piney.com/BabGloss.html The Seven Sages, who wrote the great epic poems such as those of Erra and Gilgamesh in the Babylonian epics. ‘Ammenon, another of the forms into which Enmenluanna was corrupted, is in (1) Akkadian ummanu, 'artificer,' 'artisan,' which, when translated into Hebrew, becomes Kenan and in an abbreviated form, Cain.’ (George Barton). In the Apocalyptic literature Jubal, Jabal, Tubal-Cain and Naamah are all summed up under the name Genun. Pilikam, [(2) Sumerian‘with intelligence to build.’] In (3) Babylonian Semitic it would be literally Ina-uzni-eresu, or, ummanu, ‘artificer.’ The (4) Hebrew translation of this is Kenan, which means ‘artificer.’ Also Melamkish gives us the Hebrew Lamech by the simple elision of the first and last consonants. Langdon makes the suggestion that Lamech is the Sumerian, Luma, an epithet of the Babylonian god Ea as the patron of music. (Barton, George, Archaeology and the Bible, p. 323). No. 4 on the list, Ammenon is the Babylonian Ummanu, meaning ‘artificer,’ and is the equivalent of Kenan (Cainan) which means ‘smith.’ (5) Hindi Jugaadu – artisan. (6) American – farmer astronaut. Juggad. n. an improvised or jury-rigged solution; inventiveness, ingenuity. Jugaad literally means a work around, which have to be used because of lack of resources and will power. This is a Hindi term also widely used by people speaking other Indian languages, and people of Indian Origin around the word. Jugaado/Jugaadu a person who practices Jugaad [see http://www.jugaadu.com/ ]. (7) French bricoleur. In (8) ancient Greecea word also often used for craftsman was demioergos (public~demios and productive~ergon). (9) Japanese daiku – the carpenter the great among craftsmen he is the master builder and the designer through the use of his carpenters sketch book where ideas, prototypes and experiences are recorded via. Tatami layout (tatami are floor units that link all rooms in a common denominator were originally a mat the size of two men sitting and eventually came to mean the whole floor unit of about 1x2mtrs) sketch of floor plans which is drawn by the family that will live in the home in conjunction with the daiku in order to achieve
Enfilade [old French – to thread a needle - from Sennett (2008:259&263)] The sequence of, interface and flow between, rooms of a house so that one room yields gracefully to another – based on floor plan and door design, generally with a vista down the length of the building viz. Queenslander hallway ~ in all a crucial aspect of architectural design. Other terms: sub-altern, demiurge, practical philosopher, futuring, critical futures praxiser, anticipatory action learner, Prohairesist – Greek for one who chooses ahead wisely– (Bushie extended to acting ahead wisely); one who practices Poietal knowledge ((10) Greek) viz. producing – forming and making and therefore designing - i.e. artificing; Phronesisist – Greek forone who practices wise action, practical wisdom (Bushie actually!!) ethical praxis. Creactivist (Paul Wildman). Science Artists in Action
In order to understand the Science-Artificer approach, we need to embrace the vital role of praxis in the design process viz. Idea | Design | Implementation (action). I have found that, in social innovations in the ‘real’ world, up to nine tenths of project energy is absorbed in implementation and compliance rather than (re)conceptualising an idea or active experimentation towards improving the concept’s application.This compares, for instance, with up to nine tenths of the energy expended in the conventional academic process in conceptualisation.
And regrettably in Vocational Education today, which is assessed by correct behaviour not understanding, up to nine tenths of energy is directed to action, not as praxis or poiesis, but in behaviour, not to understanding as in conceptualisation let alone active experimentation.Additionally, the actions of those concerned with implementation tend to be limited in scope to operations only and bigger conceptual issues are seldom engaged.
This fundamental structural mismatch in education (action-less conception and concept-less action) has emerged over the past 200 years and been identified and explored previously by many educational innovators, yet possibly has not been adequately applied to futures/foresight. This article maintains this as one of the fundamental critiques of the positivist and post positivist paradigms by action learning/action research circles, and one of its key areas in urgent need of redemptive innovation.
Emergence of the division between thinking and doing
Boyte after Arendt, explains that it was Plato who introduced ‘the division between those who know and do not act and those who act and do not know’. Boyte [1], Arendt [2].
Newton’s view extended this Platonic perspective in that for him ‘The Universe was a mechanical one whose order was maintained by a distant God’, and the best man could hope for was to understand the mechanics of it all – not the underlying rationale.Newton, in fact, wrote more on alchemy, at essence concerned with ultimate causes and transformations, than mathematics: he saw the universe tinctured and enviviated by emotion and love.These works, however remain unpublished. Coulter [3], Christianson [4]. After the tradition shaped by Plato and enhanced by Newton, in the West, we have doggedly followed a staunchly mechanist view, that culminates in the structural separation of thinking and doing in our schools, Universities, bureaucracies and scientific research laboratories.
DEXTERITY
What this means for today's humans - some 200,000 years after the transition from Homo Erectus to Homo sapiens - is that our learning abilities and creativity are still very deeply connected to our manual capacities. The two are linked by dexterity. Cultures such as ours dichotomize 'mind' and 'body' and hold to what Wilson calls a 'cephalocentric view of intelligence,' whereby the importance of the hand-brain nexus is bypassed and the role of dexterity is largely ignored. Wilson [5]. As a result, we overvalue symbolic knowledge (the ability to manipulate words and numbers to describe or represent meaning in abstract theoretical linguistic symbols) while undervaluing 'bodily knowledge' or 'hand knowledge' (or what Wilson calls mimetic knowledge i.e. knowledge which uses conceptual-manual dexterity to directly transform physical reality i.e. the world around us and vice versa. Wilson [6].
Such Mimetic knowledge he severely differentiates from imitation because mimesis includes more than just copying and includes elements of intentionality and understanding and capability generally manifest through dexterity i.e. learning or as I call it here ‘futuring’.
For example in car manufacturing in the 50’s and 60’s many accused Japan of just copying the design of western vehicles and selling them back to the West at a much cheaper price, however in the subsequent 25 years it has become clear that the situation was one of mimesis not simple copying as the Japanese mastered the deeper conceptual and design arts and now have generated for instance in Toyota one of the most innovative and largest vehicle manufacturers on earth, and many of the companies producing the vehicles originally ‘copied’ e.g. Leyland are not in business.
Mimetics then are acts that embody a theory of knowledge, an epistemology, that manifests in intentional, representational and concrete acts (e.g. making a stone axe 1,000,000 years ago or an exemplar project today as discussed in this article) that are not mythic (symbolic narrative) or theoretic (abstract calculus) but mimetic.Thus they are not just copying as in monkey see monkey do, but replicating with understanding including intentionality leading to the capability to manipulate the elements of our physical environment to create meaningful actions and objects in our lives.For Wilson this mimesis involves the invention of intentional socially encoded representations and their articulation into communal reality. Wilson [7]
The results of this split are readily seen to day in terms of the specialisation of skills, separation of academia from actual social change projects, separation of producing from consuming e.g. we are moving rapidly away from being ‘prosumers’ - having our own gardens, making our own clothes, and the pejorative position that vocational education or the self-taught takes in relation to higher education, and so forth.Arendt claims this is the challenge for modernity: to re-braid thinking and doing, in sort facilitating the re-emergence of mimesis.
Email Dr. Paul Wildman
FUTURING: The New Social Cradle
We can create an evolutionary politics to build a more creative future. We can empower ourselves to resist status quo politics and shape ourselves a better destiny - a 21st century Manifest Destiny that fulfills our positive spiritual potential. If we don't want a dark future for humanity, we must reinvent ourselves and our culture from the foundation upwards. Even if that is fantastically radical, it can still happen, one inspired person at a time and cascade toward a visionay approach to large-scale societal transformation that heals personal and global socioeconomical scars.
Competent citizenry can learn to implement constructive visions for our collective planetary future. Deep and broad visions can stimulate reflection and lively discussion of contemporary solutions that can become the scaffolding for action plans from the community level upwards. A courageous and truly integrated vision would include a detailed strategy for a vibrant and life-sustaining future. Individually and collectively we have to redefine what it means to thrive with more compassion for others, not just survive. The paradigm needs to switch from "dog eat dog" to "we're all in it together."
Futuring includes six synergetic aspects: 1) mapping acceleration, 2) anticipating, 3) timing and 4) deepening the future, 5) creating alternatives to the present and 6) transformation. Aspirational futuring includes environmental scanning, forecasts, scenarios, visions, audacious goals and understanding change and strategic issues (analysis). Trends identify key forces shaping the future. Environmental scanning includes global, local, political, economic, technological, environmental and social trends.
Roadmaps help us visualize strategies and collaborative foresight. Paradigms are the assumed truths of our logic. Acceleration is built into the physics of the universe. We propose a negentropic paradigm for the valuecosm and governing principle of ecological development. ‘Edge’ artists as strange attractors are a source of negentropy in society, catalysts of contemporary life. We can draw from the organic metaphors of quantum physics, field theory, and chaos theory to illuminate the state of the arts.
THE EVOLUTIONARY SPIRAL
JOIN US: SAGI -- a Nonlocal Action Thinktank -- invites you to network, collaborate and collectively dream, design and build exemplars of Cultural Rebirth with us as we envision and embody the future in the present. Let's create practical exemplars as the foundation memes for the next few decades. What visions of ourselves do we need to actively embody to ensure our survival as we move forward?
SAGI offers exemplar projects for the hot futures of a New Renaissance as an alternative to Apocalypse. It is a vision rooted in the negentropic forces of life itself. Let's transcend boundaries in diverse fields, including durable lifestyles, political theory, health science, intelligence, macrohistory, women's studies, art history, deep economics, ethics, medical best practice, communications theory, and more. Today's research challenges are so complex it takes many minds to find viable solutions. We urgently need new options for collective participatory wisdom. SAGI is one such option -- may we commend it to you.
VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY: The transdiciplinary Science-Artificers Guild, Int'l (SAGI) is a glocalized association for artists, scientists, engineers, artificers, mentors, healers and others interested in work that crosses the artificial boundaries separating contemporary arts and sciences as well as the divide that separates thinking and doing. Together, we form a Virtual University or Subversity of Scholar-Practitioners.
SCI-ART FUSION: We feature illustrated articles written by artists and scientists about their own work as well as articles by historians, theoreticians, philosophers and other researchers that are particularly concerned with issues related to the interaction of the arts, sciences and technology in contemporary society and their contribution to a positive creative and sustainable future society for our grandchildren.
Negentropic Futures: In today’s complex and turbulent world it is vital to have artful futurists who can collaborate on collective projects, focus on action codified in exemplar projects and validate actions towards a better world. Unfortunately current ‘education’ systems focus almost exclusively on the individual learner and have separated the learner from the praxis of the lived life. Furthermore classrooms separate the learner from design, production and integration of learning into community life.
Future Perfect Tense: SAGI argues that overcoming this separation of thinking and doing is one of the key challenges for modernity and in futures in particular. We applaud wider application of "Intern" programs, learning while doing. We encourage mentoring at every scale in every niche opportunity. Ideas at the leading edge of culture cannot, by their very nature, be adequately reviewed by conventional peer review processes. There is simply no one there capable of graspng the concepts adequately. But those who can, DO...
Subversity: The periphery is a source of power in terms of new research directions. Smaller universities are vital in this regard. On the outer periphery are independent scholars and further in are 'pracademics' and in the inner sanctum the 'career' academics with little or no 'outside experience.' Incredible skills and enthusiasm are possessed by those effectively excluded from the conventional University system by the systems of exclusiveness and preciousness so dear to the academic profession. Universities are no longer relevant in that the public sector, banking, armed forces, large corporations etc are all downsizing. Part-time work and associated 'multiployment' is in the increase. The informal sector is booming. We encourage 'Polyphonic Multiversities.'
DEFINITIONS: We may be able to meet this challenge as ‘Artificers’ - innovative individuals who look forward wisely and solve collective problems today through applying their ingenuity with what is available. Integrating thinking, doing and being in ancient times was called Poiesis and in Medieval times ‘artificing’ and today can be seen in Action Learning and the Artificer.
Artists in Action: Many artists in this technical age are faced with perpetually learning new protocols for artistic production. Several media require elaborate production knowledge and technical skill. Much of this leading edge tech has to be self-taught, then unique applications in art may be discovered. One needs technical craft to produce digital fine art, for example. Today's artist also has to find and meet commercial and competetive goals in promotion, marketing and design.
Practicum: Blending personal and business acumen in the enterprise of your life. The four principles, as well as examples, of the Science-Artificer approach are discussed including their exemplar projects. Finally, the importance of the Artificer approach to ‘futuring’ and creating living breathing examples today of a future our children can live with is emphasised and collaboration sought. Having a product in demand now means you're dead in five years. The University system cannot solely answer 'how can we then live?' (note live not think). A system of learning needs to be practical and respond to the huge transdisciplinary and intergenerational challenges upon us such as:
- environmental and economical
- social, ie crime, violence and unemployment
- ethical, ie from genetic and biophysical engineering
- from 'classroom teaching' to 'elsewhere learning'
- artificial intelligence and the web
A Science-Artificer or artificer learner now may be defined as:
someone who while being deeply and broadly technically skilled is reflexively orientated and who ethically and participatively explores the big picture and prioritises, chooses, designs and enacts forward wisely by creatively developing prototypes towards a world transformed. [Paul Wildman 15-12-03]
French: Bricoleur - A bricoleur is a ‘Jack of all trades or a kind of tinkerer, a professional do-it-yourself person.’ There are many kinds of bricoleurs - interpretive, narrative, theoretical, practical and political. The bricoleur produces a bricolage - that is, a pieced-together set of representations or components that are fitted to the specifics of a complex situation [closest English equivalent – tinkerer – though usually used disparagingly]
French: L’esprit Accor – is the art of blending skills, of combining traditions of the past with the modern innovation, adding the generosity, discipline, imagination and warmth which can carry our work to a higher level of excellence. L’esprit Accor then is a transforming vision of success (the closest English equivalent is – efficacious magnanimousness/morale – 20 per cent fit).
Critical Futures Praxis – here futures related praxis is used to problematise or criticalise the present.
Futuring – proactive action research to establish actual futures oriented demonstration projects today – to show that a different future is possible. This may be termed Futuring ‘acting ahead wisely’ and is called in this study Artificing commonly know as Artificering. Here reality is established through enactment that is the braiding of thinking and doing. Certainly in terms of futuring this research project suggests that a Artificer approach may be seen as one direct application or manifestation thereof.
Intentional Action Research - in this concept action research is directional and intentional in that it anticipates a change in the status quo and works from that perspective backwards
Communicative Action - Communicative Action refers to active citizen engagement in discourse-ethical dialogue with diverse others in order to develop actionable outcomes towards a better collective world.
Photo credit: Ellen Sanford, Bird on a Wire, Costa Rica
AUSSIE STYLE ARTIFICER OUT OF THE BOX THINKING / DOING
In Australia there is a term for someone who can act forward wisely and solve problems with what is available while developing innovations ‘in the field’ so to speak that respond to broader needs – this person is called a ‘Artificer’.NB: A Artificer is committed to the use of personal ingenuity for self reliance and excellence at her task of developing innovative exemplar project and is not to be confused with a ‘backyard mechanic’ who does shoddy work.
The Artificer is deeply ingrained into the Australian national psyche indeed the runner up for the national anthem – Waltzing Matilda – is about a bushie who steals a sheep for food and ultimately takes his own life rather than be caught by the law.Conventionally a bushie is someone who can fix a practical problem with ‘fencing wire’ and do a great job to boot and the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s Artificer series (see web site section in resources) literally shows just that particularly in indigenous communities.
SAGI ~ Showcasing Exemplar Projects & Resources for more Durable Futures "Compassion is the deepest form of memory." --Eve Ensler
SAGI MISSION: The immediate goal of SAGI and glocalization's scale-relativity is practical development of pilot projects and best practice exemplars and policies that can be applied in many if not all areas. It includes proposals and concrete initiatives that promote balance of local and global dimensions via information sharing on a global or transregional basis. We foster truly innovative research initatives linking with the best researchers in social, physical and life sciences, in and out of universities to establish new forms of science-art.SAGI VISION: Glocalization is a potential movement, an artful and heartful peace-building activity combining realism and idealism. It is a bottom-up view of the complex process of harmonizing local and global needs for sustainable futures. It brings globalization issues down to the human scale.
Social Synergy: Glocalization links committed local and global actors, including virtual personalities, individuals, local, national and international business, governmental and nonprofit entities, coupling and decoupling for positive sum solutions. We can harness the benefits of multinational globalization, ethical economics and repurposing open-source information for local realities by extensive local and long-distance interactions.
SAGI AFFILIATES: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=42775855291 Creative Class Network Transnational Party
SAGI THINKTANK
“The concept of learning is changing from an emphasis on cognitive learning only to one of linking learning styles, seeing connections in dissimilar ideas, and applying new knowledge in new ways. This group will dialogue about how learning can meet the needs of the present through hands-on action, and, at the same time in parallel, focus on creating new knowledge for the future.” ~Wildman
Founding Members:
Paul Wildman, Ph.D., Australia
[email protected]
Iona Miller, CHT, United States
[email protected]
ADVISORY BOARD
Paul Henrickson, Ph.D., Malta
<[email protected]>
Leane Roffey Line, Ph.D., USA
<[email protected]>
Laurence Gartel, Digital Pioneer
<[email protected]>
Leutrell Osborne, Sr., CIA veteran
<[email protected]>
David Valdez, Musicologist, USA
<[email protected]>
Robert Pope, Science-Artist, Au
<[email protected]>
Paolo Manzelli, Science-Artist, Italy
<[email protected]>
SAGI Annual Conferences
2009 -
GREY LITERATURE Prize
Each year SAGI awards its choice in Grey Literature, i.e. that which exceeds the bounds of conventional peer review.
** Changing your mind because of emotion - that is faith.
** Changing your mind because of thinking - that is philosophy.
** Changing your mind because of facts - that is science.
**Changing your mind because of manipulation is mind control.
Science-Artificer
FROM ACTION LEARNING TO ARTIFICER LEARNING
Artificers then may be seen as a type of action learning that:
·Focuses on the learner, not only the thinking (academic education) but also action (although much action is seen as ‘behaviourist’ vocational education), such that it…
·Draws from experience, yet is proactive and intentional, towards a better world and…
·Embraces the overall Design process covering Idea | Design | Implementation
(I | D | I): including intelligent understanding of the basic concept; prototype design; establishment and critical reflection on subsequent outcomes by…
·Embodying the agency of the learner; not only in seeking to address structural issues/projects but is also…
·Directed to the good of the person and the good of society (integrity and ethics) i.e. virtuous action towards the good (of) society by…
·Linking action directly to the priorities from the ‘global problematique’ and is concretised in an exemplar project or master piece, that…
·Moves frompraxis to poiesis i.e. from doing to making and shaping, i.e. action as prototype development, for the general good through a focus on critically informed instrumental action.
Artificer Learning or Artificer Learning then is a form of action learning focused on the learner - who learns by making or shaping an action decided on collectively and intended for some particular application towards a better world.Such learning is always threefold – internal to the learner (integrity, values etc), external to the learner (ethics and how the world works), and bridging between the two (dexterity delivered content).
PAUL WILDMAN SITES
http://www.kal.net.au/
or a more direct
http://www.kalgrove.com/adultlearning/
Paul Wildman [Kalgrove Pty/Ltd - http://www.kal.net.au/ ]
PO 73 Northgate 4013 Brisbane Australia
ph +61 7 32667570 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting +61 7 32667570 end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting +61 7 32667570 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting +61 7 32667570 end_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlighting +61 7 32667570 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting +61 7 32667570 end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting +61 7 32667570 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting +61 7 32667570 end_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlighting . Mob 0412027818
Bush Mechanic in other languages Ummanu http://www.piney.com/BabGloss.html The Seven Sages, who wrote the great epic poems such as those of Erra and Gilgamesh in the Babylonian epics. ‘Ammenon, another of the forms into which Enmenluanna was corrupted, is in (1) Akkadian ummanu, 'artificer,' 'artisan,' which, when translated into Hebrew, becomes Kenan and in an abbreviated form, Cain.’ (George Barton). In the Apocalyptic literature Jubal, Jabal, Tubal-Cain and Naamah are all summed up under the name Genun. Pilikam, [(2) Sumerian‘with intelligence to build.’] In (3) Babylonian Semitic it would be literally Ina-uzni-eresu, or, ummanu, ‘artificer.’ The (4) Hebrew translation of this is Kenan, which means ‘artificer.’ Also Melamkish gives us the Hebrew Lamech by the simple elision of the first and last consonants. Langdon makes the suggestion that Lamech is the Sumerian, Luma, an epithet of the Babylonian god Ea as the patron of music. (Barton, George, Archaeology and the Bible, p. 323). No. 4 on the list, Ammenon is the Babylonian Ummanu, meaning ‘artificer,’ and is the equivalent of Kenan (Cainan) which means ‘smith.’ (5) Hindi Jugaadu – artisan. (6) American – farmer astronaut. Juggad. n. an improvised or jury-rigged solution; inventiveness, ingenuity. Jugaad literally means a work around, which have to be used because of lack of resources and will power. This is a Hindi term also widely used by people speaking other Indian languages, and people of Indian Origin around the word. Jugaado/Jugaadu a person who practices Jugaad [see http://www.jugaadu.com/ ]. (7) French bricoleur. In (8) ancient Greecea word also often used for craftsman was demioergos (public~demios and productive~ergon). (9) Japanese daiku – the carpenter the great among craftsmen he is the master builder and the designer through the use of his carpenters sketch book where ideas, prototypes and experiences are recorded via. Tatami layout (tatami are floor units that link all rooms in a common denominator were originally a mat the size of two men sitting and eventually came to mean the whole floor unit of about 1x2mtrs) sketch of floor plans which is drawn by the family that will live in the home in conjunction with the daiku in order to achieve
Enfilade [old French – to thread a needle - from Sennett (2008:259&263)] The sequence of, interface and flow between, rooms of a house so that one room yields gracefully to another – based on floor plan and door design, generally with a vista down the length of the building viz. Queenslander hallway ~ in all a crucial aspect of architectural design. Other terms: sub-altern, demiurge, practical philosopher, futuring, critical futures praxiser, anticipatory action learner, Prohairesist – Greek for one who chooses ahead wisely– (Bushie extended to acting ahead wisely); one who practices Poietal knowledge ((10) Greek) viz. producing – forming and making and therefore designing - i.e. artificing; Phronesisist – Greek forone who practices wise action, practical wisdom (Bushie actually!!) ethical praxis. Creactivist (Paul Wildman). Science Artists in Action
In order to understand the Science-Artificer approach, we need to embrace the vital role of praxis in the design process viz. Idea | Design | Implementation (action). I have found that, in social innovations in the ‘real’ world, up to nine tenths of project energy is absorbed in implementation and compliance rather than (re)conceptualising an idea or active experimentation towards improving the concept’s application.This compares, for instance, with up to nine tenths of the energy expended in the conventional academic process in conceptualisation.
And regrettably in Vocational Education today, which is assessed by correct behaviour not understanding, up to nine tenths of energy is directed to action, not as praxis or poiesis, but in behaviour, not to understanding as in conceptualisation let alone active experimentation.Additionally, the actions of those concerned with implementation tend to be limited in scope to operations only and bigger conceptual issues are seldom engaged.
This fundamental structural mismatch in education (action-less conception and concept-less action) has emerged over the past 200 years and been identified and explored previously by many educational innovators, yet possibly has not been adequately applied to futures/foresight. This article maintains this as one of the fundamental critiques of the positivist and post positivist paradigms by action learning/action research circles, and one of its key areas in urgent need of redemptive innovation.
Emergence of the division between thinking and doing
Boyte after Arendt, explains that it was Plato who introduced ‘the division between those who know and do not act and those who act and do not know’. Boyte [1], Arendt [2].
Newton’s view extended this Platonic perspective in that for him ‘The Universe was a mechanical one whose order was maintained by a distant God’, and the best man could hope for was to understand the mechanics of it all – not the underlying rationale.Newton, in fact, wrote more on alchemy, at essence concerned with ultimate causes and transformations, than mathematics: he saw the universe tinctured and enviviated by emotion and love.These works, however remain unpublished. Coulter [3], Christianson [4]. After the tradition shaped by Plato and enhanced by Newton, in the West, we have doggedly followed a staunchly mechanist view, that culminates in the structural separation of thinking and doing in our schools, Universities, bureaucracies and scientific research laboratories.
DEXTERITY
What this means for today's humans - some 200,000 years after the transition from Homo Erectus to Homo sapiens - is that our learning abilities and creativity are still very deeply connected to our manual capacities. The two are linked by dexterity. Cultures such as ours dichotomize 'mind' and 'body' and hold to what Wilson calls a 'cephalocentric view of intelligence,' whereby the importance of the hand-brain nexus is bypassed and the role of dexterity is largely ignored. Wilson [5]. As a result, we overvalue symbolic knowledge (the ability to manipulate words and numbers to describe or represent meaning in abstract theoretical linguistic symbols) while undervaluing 'bodily knowledge' or 'hand knowledge' (or what Wilson calls mimetic knowledge i.e. knowledge which uses conceptual-manual dexterity to directly transform physical reality i.e. the world around us and vice versa. Wilson [6].
Such Mimetic knowledge he severely differentiates from imitation because mimesis includes more than just copying and includes elements of intentionality and understanding and capability generally manifest through dexterity i.e. learning or as I call it here ‘futuring’.
For example in car manufacturing in the 50’s and 60’s many accused Japan of just copying the design of western vehicles and selling them back to the West at a much cheaper price, however in the subsequent 25 years it has become clear that the situation was one of mimesis not simple copying as the Japanese mastered the deeper conceptual and design arts and now have generated for instance in Toyota one of the most innovative and largest vehicle manufacturers on earth, and many of the companies producing the vehicles originally ‘copied’ e.g. Leyland are not in business.
Mimetics then are acts that embody a theory of knowledge, an epistemology, that manifests in intentional, representational and concrete acts (e.g. making a stone axe 1,000,000 years ago or an exemplar project today as discussed in this article) that are not mythic (symbolic narrative) or theoretic (abstract calculus) but mimetic.Thus they are not just copying as in monkey see monkey do, but replicating with understanding including intentionality leading to the capability to manipulate the elements of our physical environment to create meaningful actions and objects in our lives.For Wilson this mimesis involves the invention of intentional socially encoded representations and their articulation into communal reality. Wilson [7]
The results of this split are readily seen to day in terms of the specialisation of skills, separation of academia from actual social change projects, separation of producing from consuming e.g. we are moving rapidly away from being ‘prosumers’ - having our own gardens, making our own clothes, and the pejorative position that vocational education or the self-taught takes in relation to higher education, and so forth.Arendt claims this is the challenge for modernity: to re-braid thinking and doing, in sort facilitating the re-emergence of mimesis.
Email Dr. Paul Wildman
FUTURING: The New Social Cradle
We can create an evolutionary politics to build a more creative future. We can empower ourselves to resist status quo politics and shape ourselves a better destiny - a 21st century Manifest Destiny that fulfills our positive spiritual potential. If we don't want a dark future for humanity, we must reinvent ourselves and our culture from the foundation upwards. Even if that is fantastically radical, it can still happen, one inspired person at a time and cascade toward a visionay approach to large-scale societal transformation that heals personal and global socioeconomical scars.
Competent citizenry can learn to implement constructive visions for our collective planetary future. Deep and broad visions can stimulate reflection and lively discussion of contemporary solutions that can become the scaffolding for action plans from the community level upwards. A courageous and truly integrated vision would include a detailed strategy for a vibrant and life-sustaining future. Individually and collectively we have to redefine what it means to thrive with more compassion for others, not just survive. The paradigm needs to switch from "dog eat dog" to "we're all in it together."
Futuring includes six synergetic aspects: 1) mapping acceleration, 2) anticipating, 3) timing and 4) deepening the future, 5) creating alternatives to the present and 6) transformation. Aspirational futuring includes environmental scanning, forecasts, scenarios, visions, audacious goals and understanding change and strategic issues (analysis). Trends identify key forces shaping the future. Environmental scanning includes global, local, political, economic, technological, environmental and social trends.
Roadmaps help us visualize strategies and collaborative foresight. Paradigms are the assumed truths of our logic. Acceleration is built into the physics of the universe. We propose a negentropic paradigm for the valuecosm and governing principle of ecological development. ‘Edge’ artists as strange attractors are a source of negentropy in society, catalysts of contemporary life. We can draw from the organic metaphors of quantum physics, field theory, and chaos theory to illuminate the state of the arts.
THE EVOLUTIONARY SPIRAL
- HELP ME (Basic Survival)
- TRIBAL We (Collective Survival
- GRATIFY Me (Immediate Wants)
- RIGHTEOUS We (Stable Authority)
- COMPETETIVE Me (Material Success)
- HOLISTIC Us (Global Harmony)
- INTERDEPENDENT Me (Sustainable World)
- SPIRITUAL We (Collective Renewal)
Science-Artificers
About Science-Artificers in the World Collective Responsibility Principle – the Science-Artificer as a Socially Responsible Citizen responding locally, proactively, concretely and collaboratively to the Global Problematique.
The outcome of my grounded theory whereby theory is build up from local or grounded observations not as is usually the case in ‘grand theory’ local data are sought to prove or disprove the grand or general theory[8] Glaser [17]. Based on a two year research period working with some 4 Artificers identified the following four key principles.During this period I kept a field journal and recorded learning insights therein. Grounded Theory was then applied to code these insights and identify key emergent ‘meta categories’ from this field data records.The key or paramount category that emerged, one that all other categories related to, was ‘the exemplar project’ (see Principle 1 immediately below) Glaser [17], Dick [18]. This action research protocol for this project is explicated in Wildman and Hadkins [19].
Artificer Principle 1: The Exemplar Project Principle
Exemplar project – or bricolage - means a best in class project/prototype designed to address a collectively prioritised need, and demonstrates a better world is possible for our children.
For example a project that is based on Artificer learning over a decade of praxis, such praxis helps generate a grasp of the big picture while understanding the small picture, its components and interface. Interface is that interdisciplinary surface between skill sets that are to be integrated if knowledge is to be efficaciously applied.For instance a project/prototype requires such interface/interdisciplinary integration for its successful testing and in fact much of the beta version is about working out the interfaces i.e. working out efficacious ways various skill sets/knowledge areas can interface effectively.
In this way active practical knowledge/wisdom through the exemplar project embeds interdisciplinary interface in the very ‘D’esign process and often occurs at the edges of the formal | informal economy.The project tends to be innovative rather than inventive, and combines business discipline, vocational expertise and social context, that braids thinking and doing; part and whole; individual and collective and is aimed at bettering the lot of our fellow human in line with the requirements of the global problematique.[9]In a social sense then the Exemplar Project integrates/interfaces Social Futures | Action Research and | Change Management.
Such interface involves the following key interface/interdisciplinary arenas:
[1] Technical Interface category
[2] Human Ecology Interface category
[3] Ends Interface (Normative and Strategic) category
[4] Lateral Interface category
[5] Informal Interface category
[6] Learning Interface category
[7] Design Interface category
[8] Butterfly Effect Interface category
[9] Interface as Focus
[10] Failure Interface category
[11] Tool Interface category
[12] The Polis as interface nest
Should these be applied to a learning institution we end up not with a ‘University’ (one way of knowing)but rather with what may be called a ‘polyversity’ (many ways of knowing).That is from monophonic university to polyphonic multiversity. Wildman [20]
Artificer Principle 2: Social Betterment Principle
The exemplar project is seen by the Artificer as an example of a social betterment.Such betterment can be for the corporation and its community interactions, for the community independent of the corporation, or for society as a whole.
The exemplar project although it may manifest in an technological or organisational manner is actually seen by the Artificer as a social betterment or holon, after Koestler [21].That is as self organising nested system which is simultaneously part and whole, hierarchically situated yet autonomous, using fixed rules yet flexible strategies, such as the heart in the circulation system of our body.
The Artificer then may be seen as a Renaissance person and sees the exemplar project at essence not uniquely materialistic i.e. a technological endeavour yet to be understood in terms of social betterment.Artificers tend to integrate life at the individual perspective with social betterment.
Artificer Principle 3: Collective Responsibility Principle – the Artificer as a Socially Responsible Citizen responding locally, proactively, concretely and collaboratively to the Global Problematique. The Artificer or Artificer sees themself as a Global citizen responding locally, concretely, participatively, anticipatively, and proactively with the above two attributes to global futures via. the global problematique by blending internal and external ethics e.g. the redefinition of psychological markers such as income, status, time and task etc.One of the closest historical parallel to this type of combined vocational skill and consciousness raising that has emerged in Australia and the UK is, for instance, the Workers Education Association (WEA) movement.
In this sense the bushie sees the exemplar project as a living prototypical response to the question ‘how then should we live together? – a sort of ‘Stargate’ portal to one aspect of a better world’
Artificer Principle 4: Learning Principle – Learning from actions, based on the above 3 principles, demonstrating a better world is possible. This includes individual and collaborative and collective learning from and with the engagement/embodiment/action of establishing the exemplar project.
Towards a revised definition of Artificer/Artificer Based on these four key outcomes of the Artificer/Artificer grounded research project we may now postulate a new definition of same.
A Artificer is someone who, over a period of years and with substantial effort, resources and commitment, and as part of their responsibility as world citizen, participative and anticipatively conceives designs, establishes and learns through an exemplar project tin order to demonstrate today a better world is possible for our children’s children. [Paul Wildman 15-01-2006]
In short someone who acts ahead wisely.
We can begin by admitting our addiction to our false GOD -- Gold, Oil & Drugs.
MANIFEST DESTINY: How can we manifest the common destiny of a peaceful and prosperous future for all of mankind? We can create an evolutionary politics to build a more creative future. Calculated cycles of commodification and scarcity, business and war have driven the military-industrial complex and the manipulative/exploitative multinational corporate climate. Cover Ups, media distortion, disinformation and confusion have paralyzed us with apathy and cynicism so nothing significant can be trusted, believed or known. But we do know this: 1% of humanity controls 40% of global wealth.
FROM GREEDY TO NEEDY: But we can empower ourselves to resist propaganda, consumerism, fear factors, status quo politics and meta-control to shape ourselves a better destiny - a 21st century MANIFEST DESTINY that fulfills our positive spiritual potential. Spiritual bankruptcy, the failure to consider our effects on the whole system, is a symptom of our collective ethical and economic failures.
ETHICAL ECONOMICS: If we don't want a dark future for humanity, we must reinvent ourselves, our ethical economics and our culture from the foundation upwards. Even if that is fantastically radical, it can still happen any moment, one inspired person or community at a time, cascading toward a visionay approach to large-scale societal transformation that heals personal and global socioeconomical scars. Active reconciliation must replace passive resignation to our fate. We have to "check it before we wreck it," that is, check our overweening narcissism, self-indulgence and gluttony as a nation-state.
COMPASSIONATE CONSUMPTION: Competent citizenry can learn to impliment constructive visions for our collective planetary future. We can wrestle our future from the grip of sociopathic control freaks, fiscal irresponsibility and deluded mental processes. Deep and broad visions can stimulate reflection and lively discussion of contemporary solutions that can become the scaffolding for action plans from the community level upwards. A courageous and truly integrated vision would include a detailed strategy for a vibrant and life-sustaining future.
SURVIVAL STRATEGIES: Individually and collectively we have to redefine what it means 'to thrive' not just survive with more compassion for others and life in general. The paradigm needs to switch from materialistic "dog eat dog" to universalist "we're all in it together." We must remain self-reflectively vigilant for mass stupidity, cultural bigotry and racial intolerance. We have to develop an active courage to change and to impliment more intelligent choices.
CONSCIOUS EVOLUTION: Evolution has made us self-aware and self-conscious. But those terms are not states but a spectrum of states, which can be up-regulated with simple techniques, such as concentration, self-reflection and meditation. Even biological evolution is now under the direction of human Conscious Evolution. Hard technolgies and spiritual tech are expanding our ideas of what it means to be human, and our inherited potential for realization and self-expression. Conscious Evolution is a worldview that supercedes the Manifest Destiny philosophy, a higher octave of the comprehension that "our reality is what we make it."
ENLIGHTENMENT: Many are pro-actively implementing their personal and collective vision of social potential and an emergent worldview that is negentropic and integrative, personally and culturally. Greed is unenlightened self-interest, myopic selfishness. Enlightened Self Interest is a good place to begin. It is an ethical philosophy demonstrating when we act in the interest of others, we promote our own well-being. An illumined state is not the goal, but the platform for creative interaction within the authentic Self, or essence, in a collective context. Conscious Evolution links discipline, practice and service. Our culture can be enriched by our present actions.
EMERGENT PARADIGM: The new paradigm embraces chaos, complexity, emergent creativity and self-organization. We all participate in the evolution of consciousness, whether our transformations are conscious or unconscious. Conscious Evolution is the ethical, philosophical, intentional governance of human change and cultural engineering.
We can each conduct ourselves compassionately with spiritual responsibility for the health and unfolding of human progress.Thinking and behaving with creative intent, we form a graceful society, approaching our ideal, incorporating loving, harmonious methods also in harmony with nature. The post-metaphysical desire is to contribute to the spiritual fulfillment of all people. The needs of the many resonate with the needs of the one.
COMMITMENT TO TRUTH: What is our shared vision today? Shared visions arise from those truly committed to their personal visions. What is the true nature of this "reality" we are creating? Are we on purpose and achieving our collective destiny or has our country been hijacked by special interests? Why do we obsessively overwork, overspend, cover up, get aggressive and perpetuate sick organizations? How can we let go of our old national identity, pass through the 'neutral zone' and experience transforming rebirth? We need a paradigm that superimposes the new on the old. First comes a change in attitudes or worldview that embodies a different set of values in cultural rebirth.
CREATIVE STRATEGIES: How can we raise the bar? Shared vision uplifts our aspirations, gives us courage and ignites our spirit. It pulls us toward an overarching goal. It creates room for risk taking and experimentation by fostering long term commitment. We can extend principles and insights from personal mastery into the world of discipline, collective aspiration and shared commitment. The vision may come before its time is ripe, but we have to try, even to fail. We need a transition plan or crisis and confusion will arise. We can look to the past to get to the root of the problem.
The outcome of my grounded theory whereby theory is build up from local or grounded observations not as is usually the case in ‘grand theory’ local data are sought to prove or disprove the grand or general theory[8] Glaser [17]. Based on a two year research period working with some 4 Artificers identified the following four key principles.During this period I kept a field journal and recorded learning insights therein. Grounded Theory was then applied to code these insights and identify key emergent ‘meta categories’ from this field data records.The key or paramount category that emerged, one that all other categories related to, was ‘the exemplar project’ (see Principle 1 immediately below) Glaser [17], Dick [18]. This action research protocol for this project is explicated in Wildman and Hadkins [19].
Artificer Principle 1: The Exemplar Project Principle
Exemplar project – or bricolage - means a best in class project/prototype designed to address a collectively prioritised need, and demonstrates a better world is possible for our children.
For example a project that is based on Artificer learning over a decade of praxis, such praxis helps generate a grasp of the big picture while understanding the small picture, its components and interface. Interface is that interdisciplinary surface between skill sets that are to be integrated if knowledge is to be efficaciously applied.For instance a project/prototype requires such interface/interdisciplinary integration for its successful testing and in fact much of the beta version is about working out the interfaces i.e. working out efficacious ways various skill sets/knowledge areas can interface effectively.
In this way active practical knowledge/wisdom through the exemplar project embeds interdisciplinary interface in the very ‘D’esign process and often occurs at the edges of the formal | informal economy.The project tends to be innovative rather than inventive, and combines business discipline, vocational expertise and social context, that braids thinking and doing; part and whole; individual and collective and is aimed at bettering the lot of our fellow human in line with the requirements of the global problematique.[9]In a social sense then the Exemplar Project integrates/interfaces Social Futures | Action Research and | Change Management.
Such interface involves the following key interface/interdisciplinary arenas:
[1] Technical Interface category
[2] Human Ecology Interface category
[3] Ends Interface (Normative and Strategic) category
[4] Lateral Interface category
[5] Informal Interface category
[6] Learning Interface category
[7] Design Interface category
[8] Butterfly Effect Interface category
[9] Interface as Focus
[10] Failure Interface category
[11] Tool Interface category
[12] The Polis as interface nest
Should these be applied to a learning institution we end up not with a ‘University’ (one way of knowing)but rather with what may be called a ‘polyversity’ (many ways of knowing).That is from monophonic university to polyphonic multiversity. Wildman [20]
Artificer Principle 2: Social Betterment Principle
The exemplar project is seen by the Artificer as an example of a social betterment.Such betterment can be for the corporation and its community interactions, for the community independent of the corporation, or for society as a whole.
The exemplar project although it may manifest in an technological or organisational manner is actually seen by the Artificer as a social betterment or holon, after Koestler [21].That is as self organising nested system which is simultaneously part and whole, hierarchically situated yet autonomous, using fixed rules yet flexible strategies, such as the heart in the circulation system of our body.
The Artificer then may be seen as a Renaissance person and sees the exemplar project at essence not uniquely materialistic i.e. a technological endeavour yet to be understood in terms of social betterment.Artificers tend to integrate life at the individual perspective with social betterment.
Artificer Principle 3: Collective Responsibility Principle – the Artificer as a Socially Responsible Citizen responding locally, proactively, concretely and collaboratively to the Global Problematique. The Artificer or Artificer sees themself as a Global citizen responding locally, concretely, participatively, anticipatively, and proactively with the above two attributes to global futures via. the global problematique by blending internal and external ethics e.g. the redefinition of psychological markers such as income, status, time and task etc.One of the closest historical parallel to this type of combined vocational skill and consciousness raising that has emerged in Australia and the UK is, for instance, the Workers Education Association (WEA) movement.
In this sense the bushie sees the exemplar project as a living prototypical response to the question ‘how then should we live together? – a sort of ‘Stargate’ portal to one aspect of a better world’
Artificer Principle 4: Learning Principle – Learning from actions, based on the above 3 principles, demonstrating a better world is possible. This includes individual and collaborative and collective learning from and with the engagement/embodiment/action of establishing the exemplar project.
Towards a revised definition of Artificer/Artificer Based on these four key outcomes of the Artificer/Artificer grounded research project we may now postulate a new definition of same.
A Artificer is someone who, over a period of years and with substantial effort, resources and commitment, and as part of their responsibility as world citizen, participative and anticipatively conceives designs, establishes and learns through an exemplar project tin order to demonstrate today a better world is possible for our children’s children. [Paul Wildman 15-01-2006]
In short someone who acts ahead wisely.
We can begin by admitting our addiction to our false GOD -- Gold, Oil & Drugs.
MANIFEST DESTINY: How can we manifest the common destiny of a peaceful and prosperous future for all of mankind? We can create an evolutionary politics to build a more creative future. Calculated cycles of commodification and scarcity, business and war have driven the military-industrial complex and the manipulative/exploitative multinational corporate climate. Cover Ups, media distortion, disinformation and confusion have paralyzed us with apathy and cynicism so nothing significant can be trusted, believed or known. But we do know this: 1% of humanity controls 40% of global wealth.
FROM GREEDY TO NEEDY: But we can empower ourselves to resist propaganda, consumerism, fear factors, status quo politics and meta-control to shape ourselves a better destiny - a 21st century MANIFEST DESTINY that fulfills our positive spiritual potential. Spiritual bankruptcy, the failure to consider our effects on the whole system, is a symptom of our collective ethical and economic failures.
ETHICAL ECONOMICS: If we don't want a dark future for humanity, we must reinvent ourselves, our ethical economics and our culture from the foundation upwards. Even if that is fantastically radical, it can still happen any moment, one inspired person or community at a time, cascading toward a visionay approach to large-scale societal transformation that heals personal and global socioeconomical scars. Active reconciliation must replace passive resignation to our fate. We have to "check it before we wreck it," that is, check our overweening narcissism, self-indulgence and gluttony as a nation-state.
COMPASSIONATE CONSUMPTION: Competent citizenry can learn to impliment constructive visions for our collective planetary future. We can wrestle our future from the grip of sociopathic control freaks, fiscal irresponsibility and deluded mental processes. Deep and broad visions can stimulate reflection and lively discussion of contemporary solutions that can become the scaffolding for action plans from the community level upwards. A courageous and truly integrated vision would include a detailed strategy for a vibrant and life-sustaining future.
SURVIVAL STRATEGIES: Individually and collectively we have to redefine what it means 'to thrive' not just survive with more compassion for others and life in general. The paradigm needs to switch from materialistic "dog eat dog" to universalist "we're all in it together." We must remain self-reflectively vigilant for mass stupidity, cultural bigotry and racial intolerance. We have to develop an active courage to change and to impliment more intelligent choices.
CONSCIOUS EVOLUTION: Evolution has made us self-aware and self-conscious. But those terms are not states but a spectrum of states, which can be up-regulated with simple techniques, such as concentration, self-reflection and meditation. Even biological evolution is now under the direction of human Conscious Evolution. Hard technolgies and spiritual tech are expanding our ideas of what it means to be human, and our inherited potential for realization and self-expression. Conscious Evolution is a worldview that supercedes the Manifest Destiny philosophy, a higher octave of the comprehension that "our reality is what we make it."
ENLIGHTENMENT: Many are pro-actively implementing their personal and collective vision of social potential and an emergent worldview that is negentropic and integrative, personally and culturally. Greed is unenlightened self-interest, myopic selfishness. Enlightened Self Interest is a good place to begin. It is an ethical philosophy demonstrating when we act in the interest of others, we promote our own well-being. An illumined state is not the goal, but the platform for creative interaction within the authentic Self, or essence, in a collective context. Conscious Evolution links discipline, practice and service. Our culture can be enriched by our present actions.
EMERGENT PARADIGM: The new paradigm embraces chaos, complexity, emergent creativity and self-organization. We all participate in the evolution of consciousness, whether our transformations are conscious or unconscious. Conscious Evolution is the ethical, philosophical, intentional governance of human change and cultural engineering.
We can each conduct ourselves compassionately with spiritual responsibility for the health and unfolding of human progress.Thinking and behaving with creative intent, we form a graceful society, approaching our ideal, incorporating loving, harmonious methods also in harmony with nature. The post-metaphysical desire is to contribute to the spiritual fulfillment of all people. The needs of the many resonate with the needs of the one.
COMMITMENT TO TRUTH: What is our shared vision today? Shared visions arise from those truly committed to their personal visions. What is the true nature of this "reality" we are creating? Are we on purpose and achieving our collective destiny or has our country been hijacked by special interests? Why do we obsessively overwork, overspend, cover up, get aggressive and perpetuate sick organizations? How can we let go of our old national identity, pass through the 'neutral zone' and experience transforming rebirth? We need a paradigm that superimposes the new on the old. First comes a change in attitudes or worldview that embodies a different set of values in cultural rebirth.
CREATIVE STRATEGIES: How can we raise the bar? Shared vision uplifts our aspirations, gives us courage and ignites our spirit. It pulls us toward an overarching goal. It creates room for risk taking and experimentation by fostering long term commitment. We can extend principles and insights from personal mastery into the world of discipline, collective aspiration and shared commitment. The vision may come before its time is ripe, but we have to try, even to fail. We need a transition plan or crisis and confusion will arise. We can look to the past to get to the root of the problem.