Socio-political implications

En-joying the World through En-joying Oneself (Part #9)

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This argument challenges current efforts to reframe cognitive radicalization as unquestionably associated, through conflation, with threats to a conventional "way of life" -- notably described as "non-negotiable". The increasingly evident inadequacies of global governance are associated with dependence on ever-increasing and unsustainable growth (Bob Lloyd, The Growth Delusion, Sustainability, 2009, 1, pp. 516-536). Enabling radical "new thinking", in the quest for new understandings of "sustainability", is usefully recognized as socially responsible -- in contrast with the social irresponsibility of inhibiting and criminalizing such tendencies.

Grooming vs Socialization: The argument raises the question as to whether efforts at normalization, and the elimination of "extremism", are to be usefully compared to "grooming" in its questionable sense (Norms in the Global Struggle against Extremism: rooting for normalization vs. rooting out extremism? 2005). This suggests that global civilization is being progressively forced to revert to a condition somewhat analogous to that in the People's Republic of China prior to 1957 -- when the Hundred Flowers Campaign was briefly promoted:

Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting progress in the arts and the sciences and a flourishing socialist culture in our land.

Following this brief liberalization, authorities engaged in repressive measures, forcing confessions, and sending the outspoken students to labour camps. An earlier variant is the requirement of an imprimatur by Catholic Church authorities, a declaration that a book or other printed work may be published -- confirming what is not contained therein, namely that it is is free of doctrinal or moral error. Digital imprimatur has been hypothesized as a system of internet censorship, about which there is increasing debate following leaks and invasions of privacy considered to be disruptive of conventional public order.

Will global "harmonization" and "normalization" come to be understood in such terms?

Authority: How are radically innovative approaches to psycho-social organization to be "authorized" in a period in which global governance authorities have proven to be highly constrained in their response to the conditions of the individual?

Does cognitive radicalization offer a poorly explored degree of freedom for the individual to "en-joy" the world otherwise?

Should conceptual "models" be recognized as "vehicles" which each is free to develop? Is it a case of "build your own" in a "do-it-yourself" mode -- where those claiming greaser competence are unable to deliver? (Metaphors as Transdisciplinary Vehicles of the Future, 1991)

Radicalization and the experience of terror: An earlier concern was with the identification of the nature of terror and who is exposed to it in the light of the range of its forms in the light of 9/11 (Varieties of Terrorism: extended to the experience of the terrorized, 2005). The purpose there was to demonstrate that "terror" is not just what lends itself to extensive representation according to media and legal criteria. The media cannot show the terror experienced daily by inarticulate "unimportant" people subject to every form of deprivation and suffering -- or even the bullying, intimidation and violence to which many are exposed in schools, housing estates or on the street -- whether or not these result in obviously violent death.

In a subsequent commentary, endeavouring to transcend the traps of simplistic moral relativism or moral equivalence, the concern was how to envisage the need for some other way of articulating the challenge (Thinking in Terror: refocusing the interreligious challenge from thinking after terror, 2005). As argued, there may well be a need to recognize new dimensions to the understanding and position of those righteously perceiving themselves as representing the innocent or "good" that are as questionable as the refusal to accept a degree of "good" in those framed as inherently "evil". This radical polarization, the "dualist thesis", excludes any possibility of dialogue. No doubt; no dialogue? It even suggests that attempts at such dialogue would be tantamount to "supping with the devil".

How is it that physics is empowered to explore even subtler "dimensions"?

That commentary concluded that there is a challenge offered by terrorism from both a spiritual perspective and from the scientific innovations offering ever more horrific means of causing terror. The challenge lies in whether the theoretical advances in the fundamental sciences regarding the nature of reality offer cognitive guidelines and templates through which dialogue can transcend the dualism separating religions. Pointers are, for example, offered by physicist David Bohm (Wholeness and the Implicate Order, 1980) and his subsequent deep involvement in dialogue processes, or by mathematician Ron Atkin (Multidimensional Man; can man live in 3-dimensional space?, 1981). People might thereby be carried into the "fabric of reality" through a process that may hold a key to the "invisible" character of the ubiquitous "unspeakable, inexplicable, unlocateable terror" (Engaging with the Inexplicable, the Incomprehensible and the Unexpected, 2010).

What exactly is the nature of the terror of the new -- and of change -- by which an aging population is likely to be ever more terrified? How will people be enabled to engage cognitively with such radical transformation? The challenge is already evident in the manner in which many are terrified by new technology and especially by information technology.

Identity: Fundamental to terror is the sense of threat to identity, whether of the individual, the community or the culture -- possibly framed as a "way of life". Any implication of change to identity is inherently terrifying -- a terror typically minimized by those who wish to change or transform others. The change is then framed as being for the greater good of the individual or the community.

Identity is less threatened when it is understood in static unchanging terms -- perhaps associated with a gradual process of growth or development. The current rate of change, and the need to adapt nimbly to turbulent conditions, suggests the need to define more explicitly the nature of identity in dynamic terms. Templates for identity are offered by metaphor, most notably through the resources of geometry and topology (Geometry, Topology and Dynamics of Identity: cognitive implication in fundamental strategic questions and dilemmas, 2009; Topology of Valuing: dynamics of collective engagement with polyhedral value configurations, 2008).

Designer Genis Carreras, through his Philographics project, uses a series of posters, with each capturing a single western philosophical ideology through a simple geometric shape. As reported by Maria Popova (Major Movements in Philosophy as Minimalist Geometric Graphics, Brain Pickings, 30 August 2011), this explores from an artistic perspective what the geometry of knowledge has to do with negative space -- from relativism to absolutism.

There is a sense in which the coherence of identity is associated with a sense of globality -- and the geometry through which it is envisaged (Engaging with Globality through cognitive lines, circlets, crowns or holes, 2009). It could even be said that the "pursuit of happiness" then has geometrical implications: live for the moment, die in the moment; live on a line, die at the end; live in a circle, return again and again; live on a Möbius strip (a stange loop), return otherwise; etc. Of great interest is the potential of identity understood in cyclic terms -- appropriate to cognitive engagement with the cyclic processes associated with change (Emergence of Cyclical Psycho-social Identity Sustainability as "psyclically" defined, 2007).

Given the degree of "illusion" associated with images of change, and the promises made regarding it by those promoting some form of transformation, this engagement calls for a form of embodiment of the process by which it is engendered and by which confidence is elicted (Embodiment of Identity in Conscious Creativity: challenge of encompassing "con", 2011).

These possibilities call into question the nature of the "order" in terms of which collective measures are repeatedly legitimated. That order, with which authority is typically identified, is characteristically rigid and resistant to change. It might well be said to be terrified by it -- as a threat to the status quo which it is assumed must be maintained at all costs. Missing are the templates for change, and reflection on its possibilities, most notably as indicated by the resources of geometry and topology (Geometry of Thinking for Sustainable Global Governance, 2009).

Implict in "change", and the experiential threat it evokes, is the framing and experience of time. With respect to "order", this is framed by authority in terms of the "due process" of conventional "project logic" (Metaphoric Entrapment in Time: avoiding the trap of Project Logic, 2000). The radical question is whether thrival in a rapidly changing turbulent environment calls for new forms of engagement with time -- as is partially implied by emergent forms of music and its "new sounds" with which people may readily identify. As yet to be explored are the collective implications for the elaboration of new strategic approaches (Strategic Embodiment of Time: configuring questions fundamental to change, 2010; Embodying a Timeship vs. Empowering a Spaceship, 2003). There is the possibility that that may be where collective wisdom lies (The Isdom of the Wisdom Society Embodying: time as the heartland of humanity, 2003).

More radically challenging is the nature of any form of "transcendent order" with which people and communities may identify or aspire to identify -- as suggested by some poets, mystics and philosophers -- and fundamental to many religions. Again, given the role of geometry in giving symbolic and aesthetic expression to such subtleties and their complexity, it is tantalizing to consider how that order may be implicit in the discoveries of mathematics (Potential Psychosocial Significance of Monstrous Moonshine: an exceptional form of symmetry as a Rosetta stone for cognitive frameworks, 2007; Psycho-social Significance of the Mandelbrot Set: a sustainable boundary between chaos and order, 2005; Sustainability through the Dynamics of Strategic Dilemmas: in the light of the coherence and visual form of the Mandelbrot set, 2005).

More provocatively, for those who aspire to "upload" their sense of identity with the aid of advances in information technology, there is the question of the nature of the "transcendental order" which such "mind uploading" may imply in their quest for "immortality". It is curious that this preoccupation with immortality should be shared (to a degree) between the transhumanists of today and the Taoists of yore -- the former focused on anticipated developments in neurotechnology and the latter on so-termed internal alchemy. Such "internal alchemy" is presumably intimately related to the current Muslim Sufi practice originally advocated by Al-Ghazali (The Alchemy of Happiness). Intimations of immortality are then to be seen "through" the world, as "through a glass darkly". The preoccupation is curiously related to current collective preoccupation with sustainability (Identity in time: sustainability and immortality, 2010). Alchemy has been used to relate preoccupations of physics with those of Jungian therapy by F. David Peat (Alchemical Transformation: Consciousness and Matter, Form and Information, Club of Budapest, 1995 [text].

Identification with externalities: Despite the extremely radical reconceptualization of space and time, so intensively explored by physicists, the implications for the traditional identification of individuals and communities with "their" land (and property) remain to be explored. And yet it is precisely this ancient cognitive modality which is at the very root of widespread territorial violence disruptive of global civilization.

There are many clues to other possibilities, especially for cultural traditions heavily imbued with speculation in mathematics and geometry -- as is the case of Judaism and Islam (And When the Bombing Stops? Territorial conflict as a challenge to mathematicians, 2000). Provocatively, this failure might be attributed to the contrasting significance they respectively attach to number theory and to geometry -- sub-disciplines subtly and insightfully integrated within more fundamental forms of mathematics.

Given the many extant references to "mathematical joy", it might be asked whether "space" (in the form of "land") could be "en-joyed" in ways which remain to be explored. This could naturally be associated with "en-joying" time in new ways, as noted above (Timeship: Conception, Technology, Design, Embodiment and Operation, 2003). How might such approaches to "spacetime" offer scope for "en-joying" the world -- and oneself?

Of particular interest in a time of massive migration, with its controversial consequences, is the possibility that such consideration might offer new insight into the sense of place and homeland, with which people identify so deeply -- as a desirable place "to be" -- as explored by a variety of authors (Christopher Day, Spirit and Place: healing our environment, healing environment, 2002; Yi-Fu Tuan, Space and Place: the perspective of experience, 1977; Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building, 1979; Edward S. Casey, Getting Back into Place: toward a renewed understanding of the place-world, 1991; James A. Swan, The Power of Place: sacred ground in natural and human environments, 1991). Understood as the spirit of place, this has been recognized internationally by the Québec Declaration on the Preservation of the Spirit of Place (2008).

Approaches to the experience are explored by the disciplines of psychogeography and mythogeography (Merlin Coverley, Psychogeography, 2006; Phil Smith, Mythogeography: a guide to walking sideways, 2010). With respect to the "pusuit of happiness", this fruitfully reframes the experience of being "here" in contrast with the desire to be "elsewhere" -- potentially within a "spacetime" context which radically reframes their relationship through "en-joyment".

It is intriguing that such speculation is intrinsic to imaginative media products -- books, games, movies, virtual worlds -- which are widely appreciated by the young. And yet there is a paucity of speculation of immediate relevance to world views in conflict (Islam-Judaism, science-religion, etc). This suggests a fundamenytal need for imaginal education informed by the subtleties of mathematical insight such as to enable greater "en-joyment" (Imaginal Education: game playing, science fiction, language, art and world-making, 2003). Remedial global strategies call for simulation of the dynamics of requisite "en-joying".

In a universe which astrophysicists now claim to be characterized by a very high proportion of "dark matter" and "dark energy", it is appropriate to consider that the universe of knowledge could well be similarly characterized -- especially to the extent that it is to a high degree "ignorance-based". The possibilty of "en-joying the universe", projected into the possibility of travel through spacetime, can however be imaginatively redirected into travelling the knowledge universe (Towards an Astrophysics of the Knowledge Universe: from astronautics to noonautics? 2006; Noonautics: Four modes of travelling and navigating the knowledge "universe"? 2006;  Entering Alternative Realities -- Astronautics vs Noonautics: isomorphism between launching aerospace vehicles and launching vehicles of awareness, 2002; Navigating Alternative Conceptual Realities: clues to the dynamics of enacting new paradigms through movement, 2002).

Transcending strategic paradoxes

The following mnemonic configuration is presented to highlight several fruitfully provocative complementarities arising from the above argument (and notably from discussion of cognitive paradox in the Annex).

Mnemonic configuration of Mobius strips
circulation of light
circulation of confidence	circulation of genes
circulation of information / memes

The configuration highlights the following complementarities arising from the above argument:

• those pairs interrelated through their positioning within the four individual Möbius strips -- suggestive of the challenging dynamic of that relationship in each case
  
  Through use of nouns, and in the absence of verbs, the conventional terms used in each case obscure the dynamics with which each is associated. This is especially true of the term:
  
  -- immediately above each strip, indicative of a transcendent dynamic order -- potentially to be described as a complex system or a cognitive attractor of some kind.
  -- immediately beneath each strip, indicative of typical conflation and oversimplification of meaning with reference to the term above
  
  
• that between the developing/enveloping figure relating to a collective dynamic, and the masculine/feminine figure relating to an individual dynamic.
  
  Whilst that on the left is of fundamental consequence to the individual, and that on the right is of fundamental consequence to the collective, the challenge of relating them appropriately remains unresolved -- and is effectively denied and ignored. This is exemplified by the current strategic dependence of the collective on population growth and the longer-term problematic consequences for the quality of life of the individual preoccupied with biological reproduction in a resource-constrained society.
  
  The two figures might be understood together in terms of sustainable "confidelity", as separately explored (Primary Global Reserve Currency: the Con? Cognitive implications of a prefix for sustainable confidelity, 2011)
  
  
• that between the lower figure relating to the external, physical reality and the upper figure relating to the internal, subjective reality of enjoyment.
  
  Whilst the lower may indeed engender a "Theory of Everything", the physics of "everything" is currently conceived to be of no relevance to the subjective process of enjoying it, however that might be more fruitfully understood. Indeed, although there may be every enjoyment in "doing physics", the insights do not enable the happiness of others -- or of physicists in their relationship with their peers and their partners.
  
  
• that between the various forms of "circulation" associated with the figures, understood as representing a dynamic -- even as a standing wave. These forms of circulation of meaning might be variously described in terms of:
  • circulation of light (Circulation of the Light: essential metaphor of global sustainability? 2010)
  • circulation of confidence and trust, exemplified by the gift economy (Enabling Moral Currency Circulation: reframing a stimulus package to avert moral bankruptcy, 2010)
  • circulation of people and genes, ensuring requisite variety in a population
  • circulation of information, knowledge, insight

It is appropriate to note that the above configuration necessarily has a degree of relationship to the dimensions of the AQAL quadrant system of integral theory inspired by the work of Ken Wilber (Daryl S. Paulson, Wilber's Integral Philosophy: A Summary and Critique, Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 2008; Steve McIntosh, Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution, 2007).

As a further mnemonic exercise, the separate figures above may be considered as subsumed within a larger dynamic as indicated below -- in accordance with the argument for playful elegance (Enacting Transformative Integral Thinking through Playful Elegance, 2010).

Interrelationship of 2 Mobius strips

Use of interrelation of 2 Mobius strips

The above figure offers the possibility of interrelating several fundamental cognitive dynamics, typically held to be incommensurable:

• wonder ∞ drama: interrelating the cognitive engagement with integrative appreciation and explanation of externalities
  • wonder, as the cognitive dynamic characteristic of transcendent "bliss" and "felicity" variously reported by poets and mystics. The term offers a potentially valuable association between "won", for those preoccupied with the goal of "winning", and a phonetic allusion "to one", as a fundamental integrative dynamic
  • drama, as the cognitive recognition of the dynamics of "external" reality with which engagement is elicted (Existential Embodiment of Externalities: radical cognitive engagement with environmental categories and disciplines, 2009; Participative Democracy vs. Participative Drama: Lessons on social transformation for international organizations from Gorbachev, 1991)
• hope ∞ despair:
  • hope, as the cognitive dynamic response to sensed potential, despite recognition of risk and possibly tragedy (Credibility Crunch engendered by Hope-mongering, 2008)
  • despair, as the cognitive dynamic in response to the encounter with the world and its tragedies (Implication of Personal Despair in Planetary Despair: avoiding entrapment in hopeful anticipation, 2010)

The figure above may of course be further articulated, as suggested by the following adaptation to the classical Chinese pattern of the BaGua (reproduced from ¡¿ Defining the objective ∞ Refining the subjective ?! Explaining reality ∞ Embodying realization, 2011). This offers an encoding of cognitive inversion.

Representation of BaGua Earlier Heaven arrangement embodied within four interwoven Möbius strips

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