From: Unleesh-AT-aol.com
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1999 09:16:41 EST
Subject: proposal : Construction of Transversal Knowledge Systems


Proposal:

Investigation of Belief-Systems
=09=09    To
    Construct An
Integrated Human Knowledge

The project involves the bricolage of jargons,
Belief-systems,  behavioral and social experiments,
Deterritorializing them to make them available for
Detournement.

It begins with a thought-experiment. Imagine that you
Are an alien coming down to study Earth Knowledge.
To do so, you must investigate every group and come
To see how they view their world. 

Now, from the beginning, you have no criteria from which to rate or rank one
knowledge-set or belief-
System from another. You are allowed to note how many people believe in each
system, but this provides
You with no criteria for valueing one over the other.

Thusly, you begin with different assumptions than are ordinary in our society,
where it is expected that there are certain hegemonic belief-systems or
knowledge-sets
Whose presumptions and styles you are expected to use if you are to be taken
seriously.

However, in the thought-experiment, you have been assigned by your home planet
to Collect All Earth Knowledges , Collate them, and Synthesize them into one
integrated knowledge system, to enrich your people. Your planet is not
particularly interested in earth per se. However, it has found that every
knowledge system can be useful, for your planet believes that every
perspective shows some valid truth about the way of things. In fact, your
planet's slogan is "Multiply Eyes", meaning learn, grow, and add more
viewpoints.

Well, what you find immediately is that there is a certain set of groups who
devote themselves to the study of knowledge itself, who already collect
knowledge-systems. These are the intelligentsia of any nation. A subgroup of
the intelligentsia is the Academy,
The set of universities, colleges, and other official learning institutions
which have developed particular ways of classifying knowledge and therefore
seeing the world. There is a general "academic" style that pervades this
milieu and which is required for any knowledge to be considered valid.

However, clearly these people make up a minority of those creating, creatively
participating in, or even studying belief-systems. Despite this, the Academy
tends to promote itself as the "official" knowledge-system. By making people
think within its forms, it
Monopolizes discourse and orthodoxizes style.

You will come to notice that there are All Sorts of groups with all sorts of
worldviews, and many of them have alternative interpretations of the others.
Some are aware of the academy and have their own perspective on the academy.

What you are in essence doing is a XenoSociology of Knowledge, an Anthropology
of Knowledge. Because of this, however, you cannot be loyal to any one belief-
system, including the Academy. 

Let us further stipulate that your planet has a rather interesting methodology
for doing research, a methodology called "Active Serendipity", involving an
open, creative, active search to what may come along. Rather than predesigning
a rubric for how to collect knowledge, your planet encourages each
investigator to be open to modelizations which come along and strike the
researcher, who then uses that modelization or rubric for as long as it is
useful, only to move on to the next rubric.  Thus, knowledge on your planet is
constantly morphing, changing shape-style, and resembles a kaleidoscope. It is
constantly being reclassified, reformatted, retaxonomized, and this is
considered a creative, necessary part of the art of knowledge, or "multiplying
eyes".

One of the pasttimes on your homeworlds is the creation of new ways of
thinking about things, just for the sake of generation innovation. There is a
sort of "temple" or institution to which anyone may submit a proposal, receive
a grant, and find volunteers to explore various social experiments to Live Out
new knowledge systems.

Others explore the galaxy to engage in Temporary Immersion Experiments,
whereby they live with others to experience their experience, to Taste Their
World. "Taste My World" is a general greeting of good cheer on your planetThe return saying is "And May More Worlds Grace Your Palatte."

The most curious thing about your investigation on earth is establishing how
any one knowledge systems gains hegemony over other knowledge systems. Is this
hegemony established through reasoning, appeals to authority, what? Perhaps
you will find that the foundational axioms themselves are based upon choices,
lifestyle choices even.

In learning how Earthers divide their world, you will want to pay especial
attention to the different ways of dividing Time, Space, and Activity. You
will need to study different calendars, clocks, language systems, measuring
systems, how people distinguish various activities from each other. Most
importantly, you will want to study the Intricacy, Distribution, and
Proliferation of STYLES, FORMATS, and Ways of Configuring Perception ; this of
course includes art, design, and pattern. You will undoubtedly find the earth
philosopher Marshal McLuhan'' statement "the medium is the message" helpful in
this regard.

In constructing your Synthesis to report back to the homeworld, you will want
to Experiment With Styles, translating knowledges back and forth from one
style, one format, one jargon, one dialect, one classification system to
another and back again. This sort of juggling or what is known on your
homeworld as Style Lottery will end up creating Strange Hybrids of Knowledge
and Belief Systems that will be pleasing to the Multiplayers of Eyes on your
homeworld. Indeed, the slogan of your world might be better translated
"Multipl(a)y Eyes".

What are the various oral and graphic ways that people configure their
divisions of the world? How do they tell stories? How do they talk to each
other in everyday life? How do they sing to each other? How are their musical
instruments and musical notation configured? How do they write? Draw? How do
they farm the land? What are the various marks that are used?

For example, from your point of view, gameboard layouts, agricultural grids,
embroidery patterns, wallpaper, books, tattoos, calendars, and architecture
might all be considered graphs. After all, on your home world, Knowledge and
Game are integrated in what earthers call the "workplace" or the various
places of production, with mobile centers of creating that are reconfigured as
styles change and morph=85 Food is grown on grids or patterns which are
themselves gameboards so that planting and tending the food also constitutes a
sport between players. Marks sewn into clothing constitute "books".

Obviously what you end up with will be much different than any one system of
knowledge that presently exists on earth, official or unofficial, because
there have seldom been attempts to integrate knowledge.

Once you have integrated this thought-experiment into your daily life, it can
be a way of playing with the belief-systems you encounter. You can then expand
to discover others who are willing to engage the thought-experiment, compare
notes, and possibly engage in Lifestyle Experimentation based on Creative
Exchange of Styles and the Art of Living the Day. We can imagine new groups