Cyclic bridging between worlds of modality

Living as an Imaginal Bridge between Worlds (Part #15)

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Making ends meet: In this context there is a degree of irony to the experiential understanding of the common phrase "making ends meet" with respect to resources, especially with increasing threats to survival, austerity programmes, and the primary socioeconomic preoccupation with ensuring "growth" (however unsustainable).

In a systemic context, "making ends meet" then relates well to the cyclic challenge of resilience, or psychological resilience, in navigating the adaptive cycle (Adaptive Hypercycle of Sustainable Psychosocial Self-organization, 2010). This might include:

• any requisite alternation between distinct modes, states of cognition, or (potentially polarized) strategic styles -- as being variously "different worlds":
  • subjectivity / objectivity
  • certainty / uncertainty
  • positivity / negativity
  • "head" / "heart"
  • concrete / abstract
• cognitively "going knowhere" in the form of embodiment of learning/action cycles encompassing distinct phases or styles:
  • fruitful cycles, as implied by resilient recycling and the adaptive cycle and exemplified by:
    • the water cycle in the environment (precipitation, evaporation, etc)
    • geothermal cycle
    • the respiratory cycle (inspiration, expiration)
    • metabolic cycles
    • migratory cycles
  • problematic cycles (Web resources on "breaking the cycle", 2002), including:
    • vicious cycles (Examples of vicious problem cycles and loops, 1995)
    • cycles of violence (whether in domestic. neighbourhood, ethnic or regional contexts)

It is appropriate to note the fundamental irony of the phrase "making ends meet", given its Freudian connotations in a reproductive process entangled in the challenge of sustainable production on a resource challenged world -- but also the cognitive challenge mythically symbolised by the Ouroboros. As noted above, the experience of intercourse itself, and its operation as a strange attractor, could be understood in terms of the bridging metaphor, its relation to the quadrilemma, and of becoming an imaginal bridge. The visual cues framing the sexual attractiveness of females (and the possibility of physical intercourse) -- extensively exploited by fashion setters and by marketing -- can also be seen as entangled with intimate experience of "betwixt and between".

Encompassing cycles: Whilst such cycles can be readily described "objectively", their cognitive implications tend to be more elusive. This is a preoccupation with various meditative approaches to consciousness of breathing. The rediscovery (as for the first time) of "ends meeting" is well made by the poet T. S. Eliot: We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time (Little Gidding, 1943).

This can usefully be seen as indicative of the larger cognitive challenge of the dynamics of any cycle as a whole -- rather than the recognition of such peak moments within it. Examples of larger cycles posing challenges, typically experienced as unexpected and surprising, include:

• business, financial and economic cycles
• weather cycles, including patterns of drought and flooding
• resource cycles (scarcity and plenty)
• generational cycles (implying birth, youth, aging and death)

A cyclic context necessarily has implications for a larger and more dynamic sense of identity for both collectivities and individuals (Emergence of Cyclical Psycho-social Identity: sustainability as "psyclically" defined, 2007). Whilst the challenge may be described in terms of the adaptive cycle, cognitively there are potentially more radical implications. These derive from changing engagement with "categories" during a cycle, whether in terms of objectivity/subjectivity, certainty/uncertainty, concreteness/abstraction, etc. One useful framing of the range of such variation is offered as seven "axes of bias" as separately summarized (Axes of Bias in Inter-cultural Dialogue, 1993):

Axes of Cognitive Bias (adapted from W. T. Jones, The Romantic Syndrome: toward a new method in cultural anthropology and the history of ideas, 1961)
Dimensional "bias"	Cyclic alternation of cognitive framing between preference for
	"Conventional"	"Unconventional"
Order vs Disorder	system, structure, conceptual clarity, etc.	fluidity, muddle chaos, etc.
Static vs Dynamic	the changeless, eternal, etc.	movement, with explanation in genetic and process terms, etc.
Continuity vs Discreteness	a cognitive framing in terms of wholeness, unity, etc	discreteness, plurality, diversity, etc.
Inner vs Outer	being able to project oneself into the objects of one's experience (to experience them as one experiences oneself)	a relatively external, objective relation to the objects of experience
Sharp focus vs Soft focus	clear, direct experience	threshold experiences, felt to be saturated with more meaning than is immediately present.
This world vs Other world	belief in the spatio-temporal world as self-explanatory	belief that the world can only be comprehended in terms of other frames
Spontaneity vs Process	explanation through chance, freedom, accident, etc	explanations subject to laws and definable processes.

Interwoven cycles: The distinct "dimensions" are then each usefully understood as a learning/action cycle between two extreme cognitive modalities. Together the seven cycles could be understood as interwoven. Although Magoroh Maruyama offers a subtler articulation of contrasting "mindscapes", like Jones he does not indicate the dynamics of transition between them.

Learning/Action cycles between cognitive extremes (representing as cycles, between perigee and apogee, the "conventional" and "unconventional" extremes of the above table)

The above 7-fold pattern raises the question of how it relates to similar patterns of distinction based on larger or smaller numbers as highlighted separately (Systems of Categories Distinguishing Cultural Biases, 1993; Representation, Comprehension and Communication of Sets: the role of number, 1978). An obvious traditional example is the Eightfold Way of Buddhism. The case can be made more generally using the Periodic Table (Periodic Pattern of Human Knowing, 2009).

Mapping the associated pathways of higher orders of connectivity -- the pattern that connects -- could be explored through:

• connectivity of different degrees of probability (credibility and communicability) could be mapped onto various types of links between the distinct cycles suggested by the table above (possibly as aesthetic "correspondences"). Such patterns of links are a characteristic of spherical tensegrity structures.
• the characteristic ("dancing") dynamics of such associations, a feature of both tensegrity dynamics and liminality, can be encoded using the classic Chinese binary system within a Fibonacci spiral framework (Tao of Engagement -- Weaponised Interactions and Beyond Fibonacci's magic carpet of games to be played for sustainable global governance, 2010)
• "traffic on the geometry" of higher orders of connectivity as described mathematically by Ron Atkin through q-analysis (Social organization determined by incommunicability of insights, 1995)
• interrelating dysfunctional planetary patterns, giving rise to a map reminiscent of that above (Mapping the Global Underground, 2010)

Cyclic comprehension: Any such shift from linear to circular, effectively from "arrow of time" progress to circular time, is embodied in the myth of Eternal Return so potentially fundamental to the psychology of sustainability (Psychology of Sustainability: embodying cyclic environmental processes, 2002). This highlights the need for more powerful metaphors to enable such comprehension. Possibilities meriting exploration include:

• traditional reflections of eastern cultures on circulation of psychic energy (ch'i) within the human body, notably in relation to the spinal chord (Circulation of the Light: essential metaphor of global sustainability? 2010)
• fluid dynamics, notably in relation to toroidal geometry and vortex (smoke ring) formation (Enabling Governance through the Dynamics of Nature: exemplified by cognitive implication of vortices and helicoidal flow, 2010)
• topological paradoxes associated with the Mobius strip and the Klein bottle (Intercourse with Globality through Enacting a Klein bottle, 2009)
• aesthetic and other correspondences (as implied by the above table), beyond the conventional constraints of linear coherence in argumentation (Theories of Correspondences -- and potential equivalences between them in correlative thinking, 2007). Detection and expression of unusual correspondences (including "poetic logic") could well be understood as part of the traditional art of the troubadour and the court jester -- and associated with the trickster of myth, all notably associated with liminality and dancing in the space of "betwixt and between" (even at some personal risk)

Reframing convention: The above diagram, even in 2-dimensional form, helps to distinguish between several forms of "liminality" and "modal worlds" which could be unfortunately confused and conflated:

• between the extreme phases of perigee and apogee
• between the different cycles identified above

There is the further amusing sense of confusion to be derived from "liminality" and "limnology" which seemingly do not share any common etymology. The first is associated with notions of "threshold" and the second with the study of freshwater flows, including marshy conditions. Together they suggest qualities of experience of cognitive clarity and confusion -- including that of sinking into a marsh of incomprehensibility.

The cyclic extremes of apogee and perigee, functioning as a Venn diagram, "define" both the "conventional" core mindset as well as a larger "unconventional" contextual context. By so doing they call into question any implication that the core is appropriately defined conventionally in the rigid sense of normal and normative expectations. It is in this sense that the above diagram can be explored in terms of the symbolism of the Chinese bi disk with its central empty core. The traditional tracery on such disks is reminiscent of the pattern of the above diagram.

The above diagram, and its associated Chinese symbolism, suggest three further reflections:

• the conventional core, reframed dynamically as in process of constant re-creation -- re-engendering reality -- is reminiscent of the sun as the systemic functional centre of conventional experience as celebrated in many traditional systems. The dynamics of "betwixt and between", "Neti Neti" or liminality might then be associated with those hypothesized as fundamental to solar processes -- the solar dynamo, the proton-proton chain reaction, the triple-alpha process, the CNO cycle.
• the stages through which epicycles are comprehended and "re-cognized" -- from centering cognition and significance on the mundanities of "earth", to the light-reflecting role of a "moon", to the centering on the "sun", with its vital significance, through photosynthesis, to enlivening"earth" thereby imbued with enhanced (rather than simply derivative) meaning
• the zones of intersection of the diagram, in the light of their experiential implications, are reminiscent of an array of keys of a musical instrument through which harmonies can be elicited and interrelated through "playing" appropriately. Hence the earlier reference to the metaphor of a a periodic table as an ordering of human knowing

Higher-orders of representation: The representation in interwoven cycles in two dimensions raises the question of the nature of the insight to be derived from (or associated with) a three-dimensional representation (Spherical configuration of interlocking roundtables: Internet enhancement of global self-organization through patterns of dialogue, 1998; Spherical Configuration of Categories to Reflect Systemic Patterns of Environmental Checks and Balances, 1994).

Traditional eastern symbolism notably frames the 2-dimensional pattern as "petals" of a "flower" folding into (or from) a 3-dimensional form. This understanding could be seen as the challenge of "globality" in contrast with the "flat earth" mentality (noted above).

Challenge of extraterrestrials? There is the ironic possibility that any such future contact could be severely challenged by the predilection of humanity for framing any communication in terms of "us and them". ETs might well be expected to centre their identity and communications in liminal modes beyond a 2-dimensional mode (Communicating with Aliens: the psychological dimension of dialogue, 2000).

Irrespective of any ETs, "THEM" (as an acronym) might well be provocatively indicative of "Terrestrial Humans with Extremist Mindsets" -- effectively of terrestrial "extras" (Norms in the Global Struggle against Extremism: rooting for normalization vs. rooting out extremism? 2005). With its echoes of eugenic and ethenic cleansing, the argument for "elimination" is made even more strongly by Audrey Shalinsky and Anthony Glascock (Killing infants and the aged in nonindustrial societies: removing the liminal, The Social Science Journal, 25, 3, 1988, pp. 277-287):

In nonindustrial societies defective babies and decrepit old people are killed occasionally as an adaptive response to short term changes in environmental and economic conditions. This is not murder. Analysis of the Human Relations Area Files demonstrates that such individuals are viewed as liminal, in ritual transition, and as nonhuman outsiders. They then may be killed justifiably. In other words, under certain circumstances, newborns and old people (and perhaps others) are defined through ritual process as not complete social persons and are killed.

This attitude could usefully be explored in relation to US foreign policy as articulated by Madeline Albright, US Ambassador to the United Nations, in a CBS 60 Minutes interview (1996) when asked about the deaths of Iraqis under US sponsored sanctions: "We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?". She responded "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price -- we think the price is worth it.". She was subsequently appointed US Secretary of State.

On the other hand, also meriting consideration is the sense in which some "terrestrials" are considered "extra" because of the degree to which they epitomize human qualities -- whether acknowledged as charisma, "a person for all seasons", "well-rounded", wise, or corresponding to some understanding of holy.

Meriting more reflection is the possibility that ETs may have criteria of consciousness analogous to those applied by humans to animals through the mirror test of self-awareness (Self-reflective Embodiment of Transdisciplinary Integration (SETI): the universal criteria of species maturity? 2008).

 

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