Rafiki Institute - a model (why the name?)
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This work is an iterative process of developing a new model for collaborative vision based upon community accepted open source standards. Out of these concepts, represented in software, can be woven models of vision and for decision-making, which occur informed and through a collective experience of cultural grounded in equitable respect. this respect is the social manifestation of the [efficient] interaction of the forms and models of Reason that arise for the way cultures schematize their world. By using respect as a foundation for the philosophical underpinnings of the system design we can best aim for an interface design is attentive to the present and ever-changing metaphors that are [tacit/pandemic] to the human condition.

The vision this system affords is one of patterns of association relevant to sufficient context. These associations afford connection and translation between system elements that appear highly dissimilar based upon one's own perspective as a result of culture schema. Cultural schema forms the basis of grammars, syntax and language of all levels and forms. As these schemas are the result of a people's place and [span of] time they are therefor a Language of Change that is rooted in the transformation [their] ecology (place and self).

among the primary grammars of a culture are those which meter social variety. As a facet of the relative whole, each is a form/model for reasoning (c.f. Qi, Complexity). Ways that each form of reasoning makes axiomatic/schematizes the world is therefore another relative perspective on the architectural foundations of the ecology. Myth, as the story of phenomena, begins (through its logic) to characterize the logic of phenomenology - that which is only generally knowable. When a modern model such as quantum mechanics is viewed from the standpoint of it information topology it too becomes a schema for only that which is generally knowable. The quantum thus becomes a method for models the dimensional edges of a system. When coupled/synchronized with a mythological schema for reasoning a connection between brain/body/consciousness and real world effects begins to be high/spotlighted. The shadows of this illumination are the forms of a general systems language - forms of such broad cultural archetype that they [become synaesthetic/cause synaesthesia] in their realization. Notably, such ideas leave open to possibility of redefining prayer as a system of consciousness.

In this framework, Story, through its illustrating the logic of phenomena can be rendered in relation to its 'mythic density' - a measure of its spiritual, cultural and physical proportions in relation to length. The Bible and Lord of the Rings, being the number one and two books consumed worldwide, exemplify the illustration of this proportion - as do all scriptures in their encyclopedic nature. From these sources are rendered fictional forms, such as Frank Herbert's "Orange Catholic Bible" and poignant cultural wisdom of Murphy's Laws. Veering away from 'meaning' and toward the pure/mathematical grammars of a General Systems Language we may find ourselves arriving at a Scale-less Quantum Foundations and a Periodic Table of Geometry. Allowing for consciousness' role in the process of the framework to admit that which can be dowsed - intuitive 'phenomena' - to broaden the scope of a General Systems Language to include the spiritual, such as ritual & ceremonial consciousness, ley lines and other ethereal forms.

Broadening a General Systems Language to be inclusive of the ethereal is likely to be the wisest choice. Those cultural forms that are inspired by the spiritual/ethereal, such as churches, shrines, statues, monuments, etc, tend to form the substrate of human imagination - both culturally and world-wide. When ethereal forms are incorporated into the matrix of associations that underlies macroscopic vision the result is the ability to image a General Systems Language that is inclusive tacit global human forms. Most notably these include Human Rights, Environmental Epidemiology and Cultural Property.

In the development of these global forms it becomes increasingly necessary to render the model of macroscopic vision as a tool. It is the nature of the Open Source community to gather together popular philosophical models for a piece of software's interface design and functionality. A variety of community and collaborative models have gained widespread acceptance for various purposes, including Blogs, Slashcode, Wikis, and Version Control. Philosophies for collating these community models are beginning to mature and become community models in-and-of themselves.

In the creation of a macroscope the composite community models form the cognitive interface basis for grid-based web service architectures. These architectures form the basis of a 'cognition service bus' on top of which can be developed a new operating system. In the steps toward this operating system, what begins to emerge is a system of visualizing broad information of a given cultural domain within its own context, or inclusive of other cultural contexts. In visualizing across cultural contexts a synaesthesia-like learning comes into play and education becomes increasingly experiential. Among the visions of what we would see through such an interface include a view of the environment that has a 'resolution' of DNA and images genetic stressors in all forms, the conception utilization of genetic 'flexing' as a kind of CPU, and the experience of genetic flux at a bodily scale through being on-site in a given ecosystem.

A service-architected operating system is likely to grow slower than some of the more culturally tangible community and collaboration models. Increasingly smooth cognitive interfaces will be developed toward these social, academic and professional ends of culture. Through the composition of personal mindshare blogs with various forms of slashcode-style promotion to home pages and RSS feeds not only can community identity be further established, but also the most shared and nurtured ideas gain a history of stewardship. When histories are delineated through wiki-style resources, and all direct and ancillary material is tended with version control the stewardship of community property becomes formal.

In this model it is perhaps not always application code that is being stewarded, but ideas as well. Such ideas may initially have small support groups, but with patience and attention small groups may gain enough maturity to be implemented as Academic Groups within the context of an existing Program. Because of the clear and stable history of development such 'coagulations' begin to form a new notion of Intellectual Property. Coupled with the body of real-world community backing and interest, in time collections of these academic groups may gather and converge to become Programs and Institutes themselves. The precedent of groups becoming larger institute-like structures allows such institutes to mature into Schools in their own right. Schools formed through open source development, though conceptually radical, will gain acceptance through the overall stability that their developmental model provides, both in terms of oversight and clear community support for chosen aims and methods.

New model schools then have the ability to gather together and form Colleges as well, in the open source model used to grow them. It is likely that existing colleges will adopt an open source model into their existing bureaucracy first, shedding a bit of guiding light upon the fledgling open-source-bred colleges. With patience and time a well-developed tool for open source education development can steward enough material to draw it together in the form of an academic charter and seek University status. If the first catalyst of a reaction is the creation of an open source idea stewardship tool, then the second catalyst will be the utilization of that tool to create a university charter - leading to a chain reaction that would see open source collaboration as the model for all operations not involving private information.

An open source approach is already being considered by the corporate world. A challenge for open source development models, following proof of academic salience, will be that of governance. The first steps to collaboratively developing models of government via open source methodologies will be through the instruction of policy. Coordinating academic-scale development with an architecture for macroscopic vision will allow discussion to occur about the role of environmental patterns in the epidemiological cycle. New policy could be constructed around Environmental Epidemiology, which would create a staging ground for genuine and cognoscente inquiry into Planetary Ecology. The natural resource management capabilities can facilitate risk management that is not only more robust, but also attentive to modern complexities.

In tandem with these developments more thorough identification of objects and sites of Cultural Property could occur. Cultural Property identification is likely to happen with more involvement from open source community tools than macroscopic imaging - at least until there is a strong movement to define the natural resources involved in a Cultural Property site. As the foundation for Cultural Property is with international law and Human Rights provisions for widows and orphan, the development of Cultural Property will advance a global scale of policy, aiding in the conception of global governance. It is along these paths that open source collaboration models will gain sufficient footing to influence the way we govern ourselves.

Associated pieces

The Macroscope: Exploration of the human experience

This text investigates the scales of human perception, and our understanding of envelopes of experience.

Ars Botanica

Designing a Natural Resource Management System.

Semasiographic Language

The nature of this area of inquiry is to render patterns in nature iconographically as systemic concepts, such as the form of energy flows through the environment.

Rosetta Ley

Dowsing laser light to explore the connection between consciousness and gravity.

Going over the Rainbow: Bridges Between Human Knowledge and Patterns in Nature

Presentation on geometric correspondences between symbols of the human consciousness and the form of natural patterns.

The Name

The 'codename' Rafiki Institute comes from African stories of the shaman who called the heards for storytelling, and was advisor to the lion pride. As the wisest of the community, Rafiki's unexpected insights are a model for what this system can provide.

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