Essay Abstract

Visions of utopia abound. Yet the work of philosophers and organizational theorists suggest that a transformation toward a better world must begin from within. Some renowned thinkers believe difficulties with such a transformation are tied to the way we perceive and interact with one another; the intersubjective world. This essay briefly describes the essentials of how Bakhtin, Habermas, and Argyris describe ideal interactions. It proposes a "dialogic web", which is an extension of existing web technologies, to develop humanity's potential to interact with one another in a way that will create the best possible future for humanity.

Author Bio

RAY LUECHTEFELD received his Ph.D. from Boston College in Organization Studies with a focus on organizational change and transformation. He holds an MBA from the University of Minnesota and a B.S.E.E. from the University of Missouri - Rolla. His career includes nine years with IBM developing communications hardware. His research interests focus on approaches to increasing organizational learning and effectiveness, particularly in turbulent organizational environments. He has been granted several patents for his work, and received a National Science Foundation CAREER award for the development and evaluation of portable, computationally intelligent team training.

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Hi Ray,

I'm intrigued by your notion that we could develop something like a personalized software "conscience" to help us improve our interaction skills, as well as our ability to participate in an ongoing on-line dialogue on matters of common concern. In my essay on communications media I didn't get to the point of envisioning specific proposals, but I very much agree that changes in how we interact with each other are basic to the evolution of humanity. And my essay suggests that the modern shift in perspective toward intersubjectivity and interpersonal connection is at least partly a result of emerging electronic media.

One theme that comes up in your essay is the danger of "dialogic" technology becoming a means of centralized social control. I noticed too that your section on "Development of the Dialogic Web" envisions a largely top-down process for building and evaluating the software. I have doubts whether being "controlled by an unaffiliated nonprofit" is an effective bar to abuse. But I wonder if this kind of software might not be more likely to evolve in a bottom-up fashion, through contributions by a large group of users, rather than through the focused effort of "experts in organizational behavior, computer science, psychology and philosophy." After all, these personal dialogic agents would need to adapt to each person's unique perspective and mediate their unique relationships with other individuals.

Just as a minor note -- I found myself skimming through the first pages of your essay, which were very general, until you got to your main issues on page 3 and 4. From that point I found it very interesting reading.

Thanks -- Conrad

    Hi Conrad,

    As part of a grant I received from the National Science Foundation I've already developed a system that can be used as a software "conscience" as well as virtual facilitator (alpha level, which I used as part of a small number of studies on efficacy). The "dialogic web" is a step forward from that, because it will be supported by an architecture (like the semantic web) that will improve the breadth of its operability and ease of use.

    As far as the top-down vs. bottom-up perspective - hmm, I didn't intend to convey a top-down process. I envision a process like something between Wikipedia and a large, open-source software development project like Linux or Firefox, where the contribution of expertise in an area will be valued, and evaluation of the results will be both by everyday individual users and researchers who can look at efficacy across a large number of users. A large number of experts in the areas I mentioned would be especially helpful, since they have particular insights that would help shape the system.

    Actually much of the knowledge that would be part of the dialogic web is already known, there is just an issue of delivering it to the right place at the right time. Expert facilitators, social scientists, etc., "know" how to prevent calamities like Deepwater Horizon, or the loss of the Challenger. Relationship counselors "know" how to help a couple work through their difficulties. And psychologists "know" how to help people recognize bias in their actions. It is just a matter of recognizing a context where the knowledge is needed and being able to deliver it in the moment of action. That is where the system architecture will play a key role. It would be "like" having a bunch of experts available anytime, anywhere.

    I'm hoping that this essay will spur the development of the dialogic web. There are some clear benefits that it could provide - after all, what would BP have paid to prevent Deepwater Horizon?

    Thanks for your note on the readability. I'll strive to remember that in my next essay.

    Best wishes,

    Ray

    Ray,

    That is an interesting hypothesis.

    A question though; What if such an open, democratic, inclusive social network proved to be naturally sustainably dynamic? Wouldn't it eventually outgrow its resources? Essentially what you suggest amounts to a positive feedback loop and they do exist throughout nature, but they then tend to be naturally balanced by negative feedback loops in order to maintain that natural equilibrium in which life must exist.

    I suspect that on that grand scale, some form of convective cycle of expansion and consolidation must prevail and if we want a society truly in equilibrium with nature, there has to be some moral accommodation with negative processes. The price we must pay to feel is that some of it is pain.

    Otherwise that perfect equilibrium ultimately will be a big flatline on the cosmic heart monitor.

    Currently we have a financial system which has sold society on the premise of ultimately growing returns and currently much valuable social and environmental resources are being drained in order to sustain that illusion. In my entry, I propose that if we were to start thinking of money as the contract between a community and its members, which it in fact is, rather than a form of personal possession, the accumulation of which has become an end goal for many, then we would be more motivated to treat society and the environment as natural stores of wealth, rather than just sources to be mined. This, I would think, would further what must be our main goal, passing on a viable world to succeeding generations.

    Regards,

    John

      Dear Mr. Luechtefeld,

      I found your essay quite an interesting read and I do hope that it does well in the competition.

      Regards,

      Joe Fisher

        Yes, that would be great. I appreciate your taking the time to put together a policy.

        Regards,

        Ray

        Hi John,

        I'm not sure if I am understanding clearly what you are asking, but I'll attempt a response and then if it doesn't respond well to you please let me know.

        In one sense, the "resources" that are being addressed are forms of "knowledge". Knowledge is essentially free to reproduce in our current era, so I don't see that as a concern.

        But there is the possibility of some negative feedback that will limit the growth of society at an advanced stage of development. Perhaps most obvious are those holding power who would have much to lose if society were more reflective. These are the ones George Orwell warned us about when he said, "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever." Even now many countries seek to limit or control internet access, this would only increase with a dialogic web. But, more subtly, limits will arise from fears by individual users. Some may be well-founded , but others will be fears of transparency, fears of not being good enough, or fears of learning one's own darknesses. Chris Argyris once said something like he really "teaches people to be courageous". This is not the kind of courage it takes to rescue someone from a burning building, it is quieter and more personal. It is the kind of courage it takes to stand up and speak up when someone is being bullied and everyone else is silent. It is the kind of courage that it takes to voice a plea for justice when there is the potential for personal consequences. That is what the dialogic web can nudge people toward, but it is up to them to choose.

        Yes, I think that issues around our relationships and perceptions of money (and other resources) should be a part of our conversations. There are innumerable topics that can be addressed, and the future of our children depends on being able to address these questions forthrightly and candidly, so that effective action can be taken. Right now there are major portions of some societies that simply deny that certain problems exist, which is in some cases blocking action.

        Ray

        Thanks Ray, First I have a few questions. "At the final stage [of moral development] there is no need for laws" you claim, resting on Habermas, "With sufficient members of society at the final stage, one might achieve a state that has no need for laws". Where does Habermas make this claim? Do you have a citation? - Mike

        Hi Mike,

        Thanks for the question. In Habermas' 1983 article on moral consciousness, he reinterprets Kohlberg's stages of development as increasing levels of discourse ethics. He describes Stage 6, the postconventional stage, as follows:

        Stage 6, the stage of universal ethical principles.

        Content: This stage assumes guidance by universal ethical principles, that all humanity should follow.

        1 Regarding what is right, Stage 6 is guided by universal ethical principles. Particular or social agreements are usually valid because they rest on such principles. When laws violate these principles, one acts in accordance with the principle. Principles are universal principles of justice: the equality of human rights and respect for the dignity of human beings as individuals. These are not merely values that are recognized, but are also principles used to generate particular, decisions,

        2. The reason for doing right is that, as a rational person, one has seen the validity of principles and has become committed to them.

        Habermas writes that discourse ethics... "in fact, reflects the very operations Kohlberg postulates for moral judgments at the postconventional level:: complete reversibility of the perspectives from which participants produce their arguments; universality, understood as inclusion of all concerned; and the reciprocity of equal recognition of the claims of each participant by all others.

        He sees stage 6 as the final stage of "decentering" of a person's understanding of the world, developed in the progression through succeeding stages of interaction.

        It also embodies a move towards "centering" responsibility for action, and hence "control" toward the individual and away from outside.

        In "Between Facts and Norms", Habermas asserts that "law" can be a coercive instrument designed to extract obedience through the power of enforcement. This is in comparison to "legitimate law". Legitimate law and radical democracy mutually presuppose one another, as they are arrived at through open, rational interactions. Freedom is achieved through self-governance via political participation, which is the means to develop "legitimate laws".

        When I say that, in a society that is essentially at "stage 6", there is "no need for law", I mean that individuals will behave freely based on universal principles, and that legal rules enacted by political systems will reflect those universal principles. So there will be no need for the coercive aspects of law. "Law" would merely exist as a record of mutually agreed-upon standards and norms of behavior. Thus my use of the term "beyond lawfulness", which you might also conceive of as "the end of law" (with the double entendre of "end" as both the expiration and the complete accomplishment of its aims).

        For an excellent overview of Habermas' work I recommend http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/habermas/ , which goes into more detail than I can here.

        This is the ultimate ideal state that might be accomplished through the use of a dialogic web as a tool to develop interaction abilities.

        Ray

        • [deleted]

        Ray,

        Sorry to have left this for so long.

        I do think we can function at a much higher level of interpersonal relations than we do now. The issue then becomes as to what inhibits us from reaching out and making those connections. Not to get too new agey about it, but having spent my life working with animals, specifically race horses, I think we have a far greater ability to connect on a subconscious level than we appreciate.

        In my own entry I point out the dichotomy of energy and information. In that energy manifests information, while information defines energy and that while they are inseparable sides of the same coin, they are quite different. That information is necessarily static, while energy is inherently dynamic. The problem is that our minds function as information processors, while reality is much more of an energy processor. Animals, for instance and many people not academically inclined, do tend to process reality as much more a sea of energetic action, everything from electrostatic charge to velocity and motion. So while advanced thinking is very much about manipulating arcane and complex patterns, think math, much of life is much more about receiving and responding to input. I think we are capable of much higher levels of processing such sensory input, even to the point of being able to better read each other's minds, etc, than we do currently, but those abilities are drowned by our tendency to distill and abstract complex, but still basic thoughts from our senses and miss much of what goes on.

        Currently, as I conclude in my essay, one of the most egregious expressions of this is to treat notational currency as a form of commodity, rather than the multiparty contract it really is and lay waste to the environment and society, in order to create the enormous amounts of unsustainable debt to facilitate this illusion of wealth. Think how much math brainpower goes to creating those networks of leveraged debt! There are lots of other ways we fool ourselves, but this is currently the most destructive.

        The fact is we all have limited capacities of perception and when they are being used for ultimately senseless pursuits, much is missed.

        Regards,

        John

        Ray, nowhere in your answer do I see Habermas claiming "no need for laws", as you say, or law enforcement. You point to Between Facts and Norms, but that's his "discourse theory of law".^[1] Far from dismissing its "coercive aspects", as you say, he begins by claiming their necessity:^[2] "the type of norms required" are those that "bring about willingness to comply simultaneously by means of de facto constraint and legitimate validity." To bring this about in modern times, long after "the metasocial guarantees of the sacred have broken down," requires a "system of rights that lends to individual liberties the coercive force of law."

        You must be confusing Habermas with someone else. He greatly values law and its enforcement. Growing up under the National Socialists (I remind you of the dangers), he witnessed the consequences of devaluing it.

        Mike

        [1] Jürgen Habermas. 1992. Between Facts and Norms. Translated by William Rehg, 1996. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. p. 7.

        [2] p. 27.

        Hi Mike,

        Yes, I agree that Habermas greatly values law and its enforcement (while also seeing its dangers, since the National Socialists operated under their "laws" though not "legitimate" laws).

        Just to clarify, this is what I wrote:

        "As individuals grow through the stages their ethical foundation becomes less dependent on outside definition and more internally grounded. Habermas describes this as a "de-centering" of a maturing person's understanding of the world. At the final stage there is no need for laws, in the sense that a person at that stage of moral development would act in the best interests of a civil society with or without a set of civil and criminal statutes in place.

        With sufficient members of a society at the final stage, one might achieve a state that has no need for laws, which has grown beyond lawfulness. In this state there will exist harmony, equality, ethical interaction, and plenty."

        While Habermas did not say "no need for laws", the reading suggests that for the special case, where sufficient members of a society are advanced in their practice of discourse ethics, there is no need for laws.

        Visiting the section of Between Facts and Norms you refer to (pages 26 and 27 duplicated below), it is clear that Habermas was not, as I am, referring to the best state humanity can achieve. He is referring to humanity "as it is", with strategic (self-interested) actors where the controlling aspects of religious authority are dissolving in a "modern economic society". His argument is that because there are strategic actors and because communicative action fails (which the dialogic web is intended to support) there is a need for laws. I completely agree with you that, in the present society and with humanity's current stages of discourse ethics, there is a need for laws, and Habermas agrees. But there is a situation that one may find by reading Habermas that points out where there is no such need.

        To simplify with an example, I would ask, "Did Mother Teresa need a law to prevent her from committing murder?" The answer is "Of course not". No matter where she lived she would not have murdered. Laws are needed only because there are those who act without the "legitimate validity" that arises from the use of discourse ethics. And the dialogic web is a tool that would provide a "virtual conscience" to steer humanity's future along the path of dialogic/discourse ethics/action science broadly and deeply, both reaching billions of people and aiding them in their smallest interaction.

        You seem quite stuck on the distinction between Habermas describing the world as it is and my describing the best state of society possible. They are very different, and by looking at the arguments Habermas makes about why laws are needed to see futures and circumstances where they may not be needed. In a world full of Mother Teresa's (or Dalai Lama's, or even the very kind person that probably lives down your street), there would be no need for laws against murder. What I'm working on is how to develop those attributes in humanity. And the dialogic web is the tool to do that.

        Ray

        Following from "Between Facts and Norms" by Habermas, Transl by William Rehg, 1996, MIT Press, pages 26 and 27.

        In what follows, I start from the modern situation of a predominantly secular society in which normative orders must be maintained without metasocial guarantees. Even lifeworld certainties, which in any case are pluralized and ever more differentiated, do not provide sufficient compensation for this deficit. As a result, the burden of social integration shifts more and more onto the communicate achievements of actors for whom validity and facticity - that is, the binding force of rationally motivated beliefs and the imposed force of external sanctions - have parted company as incompatible. This is true, at least, outside the areas of habitualized actions and customary practices. If, as I assume along with Parsons and Durkheim, complexes of interaction cannot be stabilized simply on the basis of the reciprocal influence that success-oriented actors exert on one another, then in the final analysis society must be integrated through communicate action.

        Such a situation intensifies the problem: how can disenchanted internally differentiated and pluralized lifeworlds be socially integrated if, at the same time, the risk of dissension is growing, particularly in the spheres of communicate action that have been cut loose from the ties of sacred authorities and released from the bonds of archaic institutions? According to this scenario, the increasing need for integration must hopelessly overtax the integrating capacity of communicative action, especially if the functionally necessary spheres of strategic interaction are growing, as is the case in modern economic societies. In the case of conflict, persons engaged in communicative action face the alternatives of either breaking off communication or shifting to strategic action - of either postponing or carrying out the unresolved conflict. One way out of this predicament, now, is for the actors themselves to come to some understanding about the normative regulation of strategic interactions. The paradoxical nature of such regulation is revealed in light of the premise that facticity and validity have split apart, for the acting subjects themselves, into two mutually exclusive dimensions. For self-interested actors, all situational features are transformed into facts as they evaluate in the light of their own preferences, whereas actors oriented toward reaching understanding rely on a jointly negotiated understanding of the situation and interpret the relevant facts in the light of intersubjectively recognized validity claims. However, if the orientations to personal success and to reaching understanding exhauste the alternatives for acting subjects, then norms suitable as socially integrating constraints on strategic interactions must meet two contradictory conditions that, form the viewpoint of the actors, cannot be simultaneously satisfied. On the one hand, such rules must present de factor restrictions that alter the relevant information in such a way that the strategic actor feels compelled to adapt her behavior in the objectively desired manner. On the other hand, they must at the same time develop a socially integrating force by imposing obligations on the addressees - which, according to my theory, is possible only on the basis of intersubjectively recognized normative validity claims.

        According to the above analysis, the type of norm required would have to bring about willingness to comply simultaneously by means of de facto constraint and legitimate validity.

        Dear Ray,

        Thank you, very deep analytical essays and concept to a specific program of action. I have only one "but": "dialogical agent" and its necessity. I believe that the new concept of social networks should consider the real state of society , they must be self-organizing , on the new economic, social and technological principles. Otherwise, the danger of which you write, can destroy the idea of a "Dialogic Web».

        It is very important that you give your deep philosophical foundation concept. The world situation is very alarming (politics, ecology, all existential risks) and therefore our responsibility to future Generations requires action. We need to hear the voice of the Earth, voice of the People to give up Hope to New Generation of Earthlings. We need a new "Big Common Cause" to save Peace, Nature and Humanity. Time has come and we start the path ... The New Era and a New Generation demanded action. We can not be utopian, we must be realistic and deeply aware of the dangers that threaten to Humanity.

        Thank FQXi that brings together people for "brainstorming" on very important topics of modern Humanity and modern Science! I invite you to comment on and appreciate my ideas.

        High regard,

        Vladimir

          Thanks Ray,

          So the inference "no need for laws" is yours, not Habermas's as implied on p. 3.

          I've another question please. I wonder if we could gain some technical experience with the dialogic web before the necessary artificial intelligence is fully developed. It apparently needs a human-like intelligence. Might we train a few humans themselves to be competent in the role of dialogic agent, "to intervene in and guide the conversation" of the user (p. 7), and so gain some useful early experience in the technical requirements, and so forth? - Mike

          5 days later

          PS - Thanks for your answers thus far, Ray. This is just a note to say I'll be rating your essay (along with the others on my review list) some time between now and May 30. I still hope you'll be able to review mine. All the best, and bye for now, - Mike

          • [deleted]

          Hi Aaron, thanks for posting.

          I'll be looking at a more specific breakdown in my reviews, evaluating each of several criteria and then summing the results.

          1. How well was "what is the ideal (achievable) state of humanity" defined?

          2. How well was "how can we get there" defined?

          3. How well was "what are the specific steps to take" defined?

          4. My evaluation of whether 2 and 3 are achievable. Something airy-fairy or magical like "design a cure for everything" or "develop a limitless, non-polluting, risk-free, and no-cost source of energy" would get a zero on this count. I'm looking for hard-nosed, specific and achievable steps that can realistically make a real difference in helping humanity steer its future.

          6 days later

          Ray,

          Thank you for a very interesting essay. I thought I had pretty much looked at all the essays, but I somehow never got to yours. I find your idea of personal web-based "dialogic" agents helping us to better steer our lives and humanity as a whole, to be very promising. I hope your essay makes it to the finals, and I have rated it accordingly.

          Good luck!

          Marc

            Thanks Marc,

            My National Science Foundation CAREER award allowed me to make some great strides in understanding the requirements and parameters of this kind of system, and in developing and testing a prototype. I'm hoping that this will provide some contacts and collaborators to move it forward.

            Ray Luechtefeld, PhD