Beyond both Rhyme and Reason in the Face of Polycrisis?

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Much interest has been evoked by the challenge of AI and the potential of quantum computing. The latter is based on the obscurities of quantum mechanics of which it as been famously asserted by Richard Feynman that if anyone claims to understand quantum mechanics they clearly do not understand quantum mechanics -- on which many continue to comment. And yet it clearly "works" as a theory, as so obviously exemplified by the viability of quantum computing.

The question could then be asked of other frameworks deemed to be fundamental to the understanding of reality. For example, is it the case that those claiming to understand deity in any form should be recognized as "not understanding" deity? And yet their understanding clearly "works" -- for them. The irony is that the contrasting understandings of deity, notably by the Abrahamic religions seem to have contributed especially significantly to conflict over centuries, and to the current highly fragmented condition of a global civilization society faced with polycrisis (Fundamental Need for Human Sacrifice by Abrahamic Religions, 2018; Root Irresponsibility for Major World Problems, 2007).

Collectively those religions have no viable coherent response to "wicked problems" and polycrisis, despite variously claiming individually to exemplify the requisite coherent understanding. The pattern extends to other domains claiming fundamental insights into coherence, most notably science. The curious feature of each such acclaimed understanding of coherence is that it vigorously and righteously asserts how fundamentally and unquestionably correct is its own understanding -- and how necessarily wrong or misguided is any other such understanding, potentially justifying its eradication by any means. This belief clearly informs political strategy and aspirations to global hegemony of any kind -- especially at this time in countries acclaiming their religious identity.

Most curiously ironical is the definitive deprecation by science of alternative perspective -- effectively colonizing its own future development and precluding the insight of scientists "centuries hence". Unlike poetry, conventional frameworks seem unable to allow for the manner in which history will ensure they are superceded (Walt Whitman, Centuries Hence, 1860).

Given the current dominant role of Christianity in reinforcing this pattern geopolitically, despite the claims and aspirations of other fundamental frameworks, there is a case for exploring how it has been reinforced over centuries by the remarkably influential poetic articulation of the Trinity by Dante Alighieri (Divine Comedy, 1321). Especially relevant to this exploration is the study of "three wheels", as a paradoxically imaginative depiction of the Trinity (Arielle Saiber and Aba Mbirika, The 'Tre Giri' of Paradiso XXXIII. Dante Studies, 131, 2013). This remarkable interdisciplinary study combines insights from speculative theology, geometry and knot theory, as discussed separately (Borromean challenge to comprehension of any trinity? 2018).

Whilst the "tre giri" study establishes an insightful relation to the elusive cognitive implications of the geometry of Borromean rings, there is a case for recognizing the cognitive value of the aesthetic articulation of memorable coherence in poetic form -- in contrast to unmemorable conventional approaches to such framing, most notably by science and in the realm of strategy. That possibility is discussed separately (Poetry-making and Policy-making: arranging a marriage between Beauty and the Beast, 1993; Poetic Engagement with Afghanistan, Caucasus and Iran: an unexplored strategic opportunity? 2009; Improvisation in Multivocal Poetic Discourse: Basque lauburu and bertsolaritza as catalysts of global significance, 2016). Appropriately the potential for challenging hegemony through the aesthetic pattern that connects is also echoed in music (Reimagining the Canon to the Sounds of Cannon Fire, 2024).

Rather than assume the unquestionable adequacy of any particular understanding of coherence -- and the fundamental inadequacy of any suggested alternatives -- the following exercise, with extensive AI input, explores the possibility of memorably elusive correspondences between Dante's 3-fold poesis and 3-fold encodings in a disparate array of other domains (trigrams, genetic codons, triplicities, and the like). Particular use is made of the characteristics of the Platonic polyhedra which have been a formative inspiration over millennia for science, religion and the arts. The mutual exclusiveness of such encodings suggests that they might be recognized as particular instances of misplaced concreteness -- in failing to allow for the possibility that they may constitute distinctive cognitive projections of intuited dimensionality of reality of a higher order. These may indeed appear to "work" -- as with the many efforts of geographers to map the 3-dimensionality of the planet on 2D maps (List of Map Projections, Wikipedia).

A tentative comparison is therefore explored between Dante's Terza rima encoding and that of the Chinese pattern of trigrams as combined into hexagrams -- especially since the latter is accompanied by a traditional commentary in poetic form of relevance to decision-making (Cognitive Adaptation of the I Ching Conditions for the Existentially Challenged, 2015). There is also a curious irony to any comparison of the Terza rima encoding with that of the genetic code (and any memetic analogue), especially given the experiments in the use of music in the sonification of the genetic form.

The assumption made in what follows is that comprehension of viable coherence may indeed be elusive, inherently paradoxical, and strangely self-reflexive (Engaging with Elusive Connectivity and Coherence, 2018; Engaging with Elusive Connectivity and Coherence, 2019; Sustainable Development Goals through Self-reflexive Root Cause Analysis, 2023). The implications of Feynman's assertion are especially exemplified by the discovery -- through the correspondences of "moonshine mathematics" -- of a "monstrous" degree of fundamental symmetry beyond any possibility of human comprehension (Potential Psychosocial Significance of Monstrous Moonshine, 2007). Evocation of a "monster" by mathematics is strangely reminiscent of the "Fear-of-God" meme long-cultivated by religion, and of any implications of the unconscious fear of humanity for its own collective shadow (Thinking in Terror, 2005). Polycrisis may indeed be a manifestation of such a monster -- a hyperobject as framed by Timothy Morton (Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World, 2013).

As implied by the poetry of Dante, it is curiously the process of triangulation which is fundamental to any mapping of global significance and to the geometry of polyhedra, as discussed separately (Triangulation of Incommensurable Concepts for Global Configuration, 2011). The following exercise progressively calls into question the manner in which the particular "triangulation" of Dante's framework -- so explicitly fundamental to Christian theology -- precludes consideration of other frameworks better understood as complementary

The exercise endeavours to navigate between the symbolic significance for many religions of simpler numbers (with their mystical importance in sacred numerology) and the abstractions of number theory (far beyond the comprehension of most). The fact that many religions attach strong significance to similar numbers -- without being able to reconcile their differences in that light -- is evoked as a potential role for mathematical theology and any ordered comprehension of cosmology (Mathematical Theology: Future Science of Confidence in Belief

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