The Design Science Revolution at Syn-U
We are living through a period of widespread degeneration. Systems of politics, economics and education are losing their integrity to endless bickering, advertising and gatekeeping. Our social trajectory must be altered. Synergetics University beckons every individual who refuses to belong to this madness yet still feels an obligation to human coexistence. We accept responsibility for these systems because we know they can be changed through co-operative action.
Regenerative systems are designed to render existing systems obsolete. They can take the form of material devices and structures or they can be networks and technologies that transform our invisible environment. Above all, regeneration is an attribute of Nature. The work of Buckminster Fuller - particularly Synergetics - explores nature’s co-ordinate system as a way of living on Earth. It gives us mathematical solutions to design problems that will change the course of our future. At Syn-U, we are dedicated to this cause for a regenerative species.
The Design Science Revolution is currently a diverse movement comprising several other organizations (see an updated list here). We find that many initiatives related to Fuller have overlooked the conceptual geometry of Synergetics, which lies at the very heart of his vision. Syn-U is a group of researchers committed to these foundational ideas and we are actively developing methods for their circulation: an online course and database with a textbook and physical artifacts. We hope to inspire existing pockets of the Revolution while bringing wider attention to the movement and attracting more researchers.
Fuller tried to catalyze the Revolution in 1961 when he made a comprehensive proposal to the International Union of Architects called ‘World Design Science Decade’. He presented his entire worldview across several documents, starting with his philosophy of “Man in Universe”. One of Fuller’s many criticisms of ordinary language was that it mistakenly refers to 'the universe' as a singular noun, which is an antiquated, static conception. Modern physics has shown that the word for Universe is really a mass noun, like ‘water’ or ‘groceries’. Every individual is Universe just as every drop of water is water and every bag of groceries is groceries.
Our collective awareness of this truth has accelerated since the dawn of the Internet. This technology - the medium through which this message reaches you - should renew your confidence in the freedom inherent to our species. We are doing ever more with ever less, moving our minds faster than ever before (see below). It is incumbent on us to disclose what Fuller anticipated more than half a century ago: humanity is free to design the world it wants and it has the means to make it work for everyone. All members of the Design Science Revolution must acknowledge this responsibility and nurture it as their own cause.
Fuller's Theory of Cultural Evolution: History of Man’s Ecological Sweep Out
Fuller described human evolution under the perspective of ‘synergy’: the unpredicted behaviour of whole systems. He posited three stages of cultural development, each one transcended by feats of the intellect:
Picture one may be called, ‘The first half million years were the hardest.’ Ignorant and isolated, man was unaware of other men and of the potentials of friendship, integrated resources, and mutual survival. The first picture is of a micro-bespeckled, enormous sphere, an arithmetical isolation, a physical impasse, escapable only through intellect, instrumented - through science.
Picture two shows man linking up resources and survival by lines of transport and communication. Wealth is generated astronomically. Standards go up. Health and life expectancy tend to double. But in 5000 years the velocity of integration and increased energy flow leads to an arterial cloggage and explosive high pressure. The two-dimensional picture is a neat linear equation, fulfilled - and again occurs an impasse escapable only by intellect.
Picture three shows the intellectual answer - a new volumetric and dynamic dimension - wireless, trackless, omnidirectional. It is a moving picture. Everywhere its physical facilities move with ever-increasing velocity and synchronized knowledge, allowing man to choose when and how and where he wishes to move. He specifically controls his own accelerations and decelerations.
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