The main scientific tool of after-postmodern: computation, cybernetics, the digital world...

Probably the most important scientific product of the Postmodern Period was computation and its derivatives. 

Nonetheless, although computation was the climax of Postmodern, it was also one of the main tools of its end.

We can take any exemple of hard sciences, biological sciences or human sciences and we will see the deep influence of computation. We can even think of a library or any archive, and that influence is very important to find a new level of technic, scientific method and understanding of the world and the human being.

Paradoxically, when we get to such a level it becomes to be more dangerous to the limits of mankind and to ethics.

In the 20^th century, maybe the nineties would be completely different if there was not something like computation...and the postmodern era would not go down...

The digital world provided the conditions to the traps of the free market and at same time the conditions to surveillance over it.

George Orwell wrote in the modern times a prophetic book about the postmodern era: “1984”.

But now “The Big Brother” is more than ever over everyone...

And that is a paradox of After-postmodern: the digital world can free  - as the universality of the cell phone, or other comunications and information - and can be a new kind of jail...

Well, anyway, computation was one of the main propellers of the After-postmodern world.

  

complexity, the third included and after-postmodern

The "third included" is another pillar of the Transdisciplinarity.
The complexity can open the door to the third included.

In the Aristotelian Logic we know the "third excluded". It is a logic conclusion about something that doesn't fit to an afirmation like "This man is John or is not John". There is not any other possibility. There is not a "third possibility". He is John, or he is not John.

But, with the third "included" it is possible to go beyond this paradox.

Basarab Nicolaescu use to explain it with the concept of Quantum in Physics, that is something that goes beyond the paradox that some elementary particles that seem to be matter and energy at the same time.

In the Postmodern Era the thinkers of Transdisciplinarity seemed to be just "dreamers" to many people.

In the After-Postmodern we can bring the idea of "third included" to the day by day...

There is a paradox that we live with every moment and we don't give attention.

We use to say that everybody is equal.

We also use to say that each person is unique and that there is not a person completely equal to another, even in the case of twins...

In the Postmodern Era of bipolarity and reductionism it was not accepted a "third way" in a deep sense.

But now bipolarity and reductionism doesn't bring solutions or answers. Maybe it is possible to embrace some paradoxes understanding a multilevel of Reality where de apparent impossible conciliation of a paradox can reach a solution.

Maybe this is a way to world peace in the after-postmodern.

Maybe this is a way to understand that even very important Science is not the only way to find answers to the deep questions of life...

Back to the Pendulum of History

 The Postmodern years can be divided in decades of the 20^th century, from fiftys to ninetys.

At the same time that the “main postmodern program” was walking looking for efficiency and results, parallel movements, opposed or not to that program, capted different feelings about what was happening to the society.

From fiftys to sixtys, at the same time that the Counterculture Movement was growing, in the Arts it was a kind of “romantic feeling” in the 19^th century style.

It was a kind of “counterbalance” to the “main postmodern program”.

So, at the same time that people were dreaming with peace and liberty, they had a nostalgic feeling about life walking together with existentialist crisis of that days.

Then, in the sixties The Beatles sang that “yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away”, and that they “long for yesterday”.

The decade of seventys was a transitory decade toward the next apparent “victory” of the “main postmodern program”.

The decade of eightys was called “the lost decade” because of economic problems, but (and maybe because of it) it was also a time to the stablishment of a very pragmatic economic way that would be stronger in ninetys.

Well, in the eightys Duran Duran did not sing anymore like Beatles. The nostalgic feeling was replaced by a more realistic and conformist way of life and they sung a song named “Ordinary World” and talked that “I won’t cry for yesterday, there’s an ordinary world, somehow I have to find, and as i try to make my way, to the ordinary world, I will learn to survive”.

The nostalgic world of Beatles was a dreaming world and the ordinary world of Duran Duran was a “post-dreaming world” in front of a new reality, but it were two poetic ways to feel the current moment in that days.

The pendulum of history swang from a “romantic para-postmodern” to a “realistic para-postmodern” between fiftys-syxtys to eightys-ninetys.

The seventys was something different, a forgotten decade, a kind of “middle ages” in the Postmodern Era.     

complexity, transdisciplinarity and after-postmodern - part 2

Complexity is different of Holism.
Complexity can embrace Holism but it is not restricted to Holism.
Holism is interesting as a theory against the Reductionism, but sometimes Holism has its "traps".

Holism can be a kind of Reductionism if it only accept the "vision of the whole" has the unique approach to Reality... So it can become another "reductionist tendency", if it reduces everything to "the whole".

Holism appeared in Modern times but it became a strong and maybe "fashioned" way of thinking in Postmodern Era, because it was a strong way to oppose to Reductionism. 

The Postmodern Era was a time of "strong polarity" with Reductionism at one side and Holism at the other.

In the After-Postmodern times, Complexity can embrace traces of reductionistic and holistic tendencies but going beyond polarities.   

Systems Theory is also interesting and can also be embraced by Complexity. But, as Edgar Morin wrote in his great work "La Méthode", Systems Theory can have also a kind of "trap" that we could say can be similar to Holism.

So, Holism and Systems Theory are good tools to better understand Reality, but Complexity can help us to do not reduce Reality to any of both ways of thought.

The third pillar of Transdisciplinarity, "the third included" can harmonize paradoxes. It can help to harmonize reductionistic and holistic tendencies.

complexity, transdisciplinarity and after-postmodern

As we wrote, Complexity is the second pillar of the Transdisciplinarity. 

Transdisciplinarity has a "not reductionist" philosophy.

Complexity is a strong "not reductionist" tool.

We could say "anti-reductionist" instead of "not reductionist", but if we start to assume an attitude of "anti-this", "anti-that", we will end staying out of the transdisciplinary comprehension, and having a kind of reductionist position.

It is better to point a "positive opinion", or "what we are for" instead of acumulate a collection of "antis".

The Complexity is something that has a space to "the exceptions".

In the Post-modern philosophy, the exception is seen as a menace to "the rules". That is a fear of the exception, because "maybe the exception could become the rule".

But, in true the exception gives reason to the rule. There is exception because there is a rule and vice-versa.

Transdisciplinarity is not against the rule, but is not in the side of a kind of "a rulism" that doesn't give place to exceptions.

Without exception we "dehumanize"... If we give space to exception we humanize...

interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity and after-postmodern - Part 3

The current crisis needs multidisciplinary level with the opinion of specialists, but it needs also some approach in the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary level. As we said before, in the "after-postmodern" the specialist is necessary but is not sufficient to achieve new ways to guide the crisis.

Transdisciplinarity has three pillars: different levels of reality; complexity; the "third included".

People are trying to deal with the crisis almost only and strictly in the level of the discipline of Economy.

Maybe other levels of knowledge can bring help to that discussion, as Philosophy, Sociology, Anthropology. Even "not official knowledge" could bring new models of thinking and deal with the problems.

So, as suggested by transdisciplinarity, if we see reality by and through several levels, maybe we can see new solutions for old problems.

Perhaps there is a third way between the polarity of "all or none" alternatives to solve the crisis.

At same time that mesures suggested by specialists are started, maybe activities that could reach people in local way and not just global, could help to find new ideas and actions.

Maybe people could have thousands of peaceful areopagus spread around the world where they could discuss the problems under the local conditions of their own cultural and social variables. 

interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity and after-postmodern - Part 2

One characteristic of the Postmodern times (mainly the second half of the 20th century) was "the specialist" and "the specialization". More and more the paradigm of specialization was necessary and sufficient to solve problems and answer questions. The "multi-specialization" was typical of "multidisciplinarity". So, there was a great competition among specialists of the same field, or yet a competition among specialties around of which could be "the best answerer to all questions". 

Under the strengh of this paradigm, interdisciplinarity and much more transdisciplinarity seemed to be matter for "poets and philosophers" but not for pragmatists that conducted policy and economy. 

But in the 21th century came the depletion of that model and was the end of that kind of efficiency.

So, in the After-Postmodern, specialization and multidisciplinarity are still necessary but they are not sufficient to solve many problems and answer many questions. 

In the After-Posmodern, it is necessary a new paradigm to be sufficient to bring solutions to the current crisis. 

The interdisciplinarity and the transdisciplinarity can be the tools to achieve a new way to deal with several difficulties.

It means that we still need the specialist, but we now need people that work "transverselly" with the connections between specialties, or within "the net" that goes beyond the limit of the disciplines.