Recognizing failure of viable cognitive self-reflexivity as "angel falling"

Engaging with Hyperreality through Demonique and Angelique? (Part #9)

Much is made by religious tradition of the falling of angels and the nature of "fallen angels". However they may be understood to exist, those entities "falling" in this way can indeed be fruitfully recognized as thereby cognitively transformed into "demonic" forces -- namely the wicked or rebellious angels that have been cast out of "heaven" -- however that is to be understood as a context for existence. By implication, "heaven" is then the worldview within which all is harmoniously reconciled -- in contrast to the "hellish" fragmentation of a global civilization in crisis.The latter might then be understood as a condition tortured by unanswered questions, with the former one in which all questions have been answered.

Temptation and sin: Fundamental to any process of falling (or failing) is clearly the recognition of temptation, especially as articulated by religion, and variously framed as sin. As the pressure to give in to a desire for immediate gratification, it is recognized through synonyms such as allurement, enticement, and seduction.

Curiously the antonyms are less convincing as descriptors of the conation of the unfallen, except in relation to vigilance, prudence and precaution.

Hyperbolic discounting: With regard to any form of temptation, the extensive literature on hyperbolic discounting, is of particular relevance to the problematic implications of the quest for collective short-term gratification -- perhaps to be provocatively understood as "collective sinning". This is especially curious in relation to the argument here for insight in hyperbolic terms. The process refers to the tendency for people to choose a smaller-sooner reward over a larger-later reward. As described by Wikipedia, in economics, this is understood as a "time-inconsistent" model of discounting. Given two similar rewards, humans are recognized to show a preference for one that arrives sooner rather than later. They are then said to discount the value of the later reward, by a factor that increases with the length of the delay.

This process is conventionally modeled in form of exponential discounting, as a "time-consistent" model of discounting. By contrast, hyperbolic discounting is a mathematical model devised as an improvement over exponential discounting, in the sense that it better fits the experimental data about actual behaviour. However the time inconsistency of this behavior has some quite perverse consequences. In hyperbolic discounting, valuations fall very rapidly for small delay periods, but then fall slowly for longer delay periods. Individuals using hyperbolic discounting reveal a strong tendency to make choices that are inconsistent over time -- they make choices today that their future self would prefer not to have made, despite using the same reasoning.

Four prominent models of delay discounting have been usefully compared: a one-parameter exponential decay, a one-parameter hyperbola, a two-parameter hyperboloid in which the denominator is raised to a power, and a two-parameter hyperbola in which delay is raised to a power (Todd L. McKerchar, et al, A Comparison of Four Models of Delay Discounting in Humans, Behavioral Processes. 81, 2009, 2, pp. 256-259).

As clarified by J. Doyne Farmer and John Geanakoplos (Hyperbolic Discounting is Rational: valuing the far future with uncertain discount rates):

Conventional economics supposes that agents value the present vs. the future using an exponential discounting function. In contrast, experiments with animals and humans suggest that agents are better described as hyperbolic discounters, whose discount function decays much more slowly at large times, as a power law. This is generally regarded as being time inconsistent or irrational. We show that when agents cannot be sure of their own future one-period discount rates, then hyperbolic discounting can become rational and exponential discounting irrational. This has important implications for environmental economics, as it implies a much larger weight for the far future.

The significance is evident from the summary by Murray Bourne (Hyperbolic and exponential discounting SquareCirclez, 8 April 2015):

Hyperbolic discounting has many implications in the areas of savings rates (small pain now for future gain), climate change (impact of energy policy now on future environmental conditions), attitudes to health screening (some discomfort now for future health), lifestyle choices (amount of exercise now for reducing obesity) and behavior due to weather predictions (how many crops to plant for future benefit).

Present bias and collective learning: Time-inconsistency in decision-making has not featured significantly in public debate, despite efforts to highlight its implications (W. Kip Viscusi and Joel Huber, Hyperbolic Discounting of Public Goods, 2006; Larry Karpand Yacov Tsur, Climate Policy When the Distant Future Matters: Catastrophic Events with Hyperbolic Discounting, eScholarship, February 2007; Julie Rehmeyer, 'Discounting' the Future Cost of Climate Change, ScienceNews, 21 May2010; Joseph H. Guth, Resolving the Paradoxes of Discounting in Environmental Decisions, Climate Legacy Initiative 2009).

Irrespective of comprehension of the issue by authorities, the matter has been questionably framed in terms of voter bias (Robert Axtell and Gregory J. McRae, Changing How We Discount to Make Public Policy More Responsive To Citizens' Time Preferences, Brookings, March 2006; Alberto Bisin, et al, Government Policy with Time Inconsistent Voter).

References to "present bias" and "intertemporal" perspectives recall concerns with the implications of short-termism as the bane of sustainability (David Foulke Hyperbolic discounting and Present bias, AlphaArchitect, 22 May 2014; Petra M. Geraats, Intertemporal Substitution and Hyperbolic Discounting, 2006; Roger L. Martin, Yes, Short-Termism Really Is a Problem, Harvard Business Review, 9 October 2015).

There is clearly a paradoxical context to be recognized, especially in the light of the arguments of John Ralston Saul (The Unconscious Civilization, 1995). If, as noted in the main paper, learning is especially necessary in order to avoid systemic failure, time consistency merits recognition as jeopardizing the requisite double-loop learning. The paradox is further complicated by the case for an existential focus on "now" (Peter Russell, The Spirit of Now; Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now, 1997). The dilemma can be explored as Presenting the Future (2001).

Logico-mathematical formalization of "sin"? Given the discussion in the main paper of the possibility of fruitful ordering of the patterns of failure of a viable system, it is useful to see such failure as encompassing the failure associated with succumbing to short-term temptation. The temptation process may itself be susceptible to a formalization, as suggested by the research on hyperbolic discounting, and as speculatively argued separately (Towards a Logico-mathematical Formalization of "Sin": fundamental memetic organization of faith-based governance strategies, 2004). This included the following sections:

Confusing variety of sins Sins and logical fallacies
Sins in relation to axes of cognitive bias
Sins as catastrophes
Sins and the mathematics of harmony
Sins as disruptions of the seamlessness of the cosmic plenum
"Sins" understood through the drama of psycho-social dynamics
"Sinful questions"
"Sins" in the light of number theory
Trigrams: a coding system for "sins"?
Enneagram of sin

Sins inherent in value polarities
"Sins" in the light of a Theory of Everything
"Wrongness": as "sins" of structural design and aesthetic composition
Statistical indicators of "sin"
Social process triangles as a potential framework for "sins"
Vector equilibrium as a dynamic configuration of tendencies to disorder or "sin"
Day of Judgement: multi-dimensional accounting for sin?
"Redemption of sins" and "healing"
Implications for faith-based governance
Role of mathematics in support of faith-based governance

Failing cognitively: Rather than projecting the process of falling by insubstantial entities into some distant (and hypothetical) time and realm, there is a case for exploring how this may offer a metaphor for erosion of a pattern of insight, namely a loss of some special form of present moment connectivity which it is a challenge to name and describe. The question of who or what does the falling may be far closer to home than is conventionally assumed -- whether it applies to an individual, a collective, or even to a global civilization.

As queried in the main paper, if there are as many as 72 "angelic" forces vital to the viability of sustainable global governance (as explored here), what is the danger that many will "fall through" any "cognitive safety net"? Possibly even all of them? What intuitive understanding is associated with the significance so extensively accorded to "fallen angel" in film, literature, music and song, as noted in a checklist in Wikipedia?

Such a safety net might indeed be understood in more conventional terms as the connectivity implied by concept maps, cognitive maps, mind maps, network diagram, or even maps of web hyperlinks. The loss of connectivity might then be understood as loss of conceptual links, social relationships, and erosion of memory, with their implications for creative inspiration. This could be readily recognized in the evident loss of capacity as a consequence of aging, dumbing down, psychic numbing, or the like -- through which solitude, loneliness and loss of self-esteem are variously engendered.

As cited with respect to collective memory (Societal Learning and the Erosion of Collective Memory, 1980), there is a striking parallel to be drawn between the many attempts by the UN Secretary-General (and others), to communicate to the world the urgency of humanity's present situation and the following fictional account by the Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing. This describes the encounter between a "galactic development agent" and the inhabitant of a "developing planet":

To say that he understood what went on was true. To say that he did not understand -- was true. I would sit and explain, over and over again. He listened, his eyes fixed on my face, his lips moving as he repeated to himself what I was saying. He would nod: yes, he had grasped it. But a few minutes later, when I might be saying something of the same kind, he was uncomfortable, threatened. Why was I saying that? and that? his troubled eyes asked of my face: What did I mean? His questions at such moments were as if I had never taught him anything at all. He was like one drugged or in shock.

Yet it seemed that he did absorb information for sometimes he would talk as if from a basis of shared knowledge: it was as if a part of him knew and remembered all I told him, but other parts had not heard a word. I have never before or since had so strongly that experience of being with a person and knowing that all the time there was certainly a part of that person in contact with you, something real and alive and listening -- and yet most of the time what one said did not reach that silent and invisible being, and what he said was not often said by the real part of him. It was as if someone stood there bound and gagged while an inferior impersonator spoke for him". (Re: Colonised Planet 5 - Shikasta, 1979, pp. 56-57).

Feedback processes and angelic orders: In the modern jargon of management cybernetics, one overly simplistic approach to the experience of "angels" and "demons" is in terms of positive feedback and negative feedback respectively. Here the sense of "positive" and "negative" is borrowed from their use in describing "good" feedback (especially of an inspiring, empowering nature) in contrast with "bad" feedback (especially of a critical, disempowering nature).

Missing from this interpretation is of course the sense in which positive feedback may further exacerbate a problem and negative feedback may be vital to any corrective learning. The ambiguity is evident in use of metaphors that challenge the appearance of good (as with a wolf in sheep's clothing) or bad (as with a benefactor in dubious disguise). The point has been argued by Barbara Ehrenreich (Smile Or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World, 2009).

As is evident in cybernetics, the control of any complex system -- and the achievement of sustainability -- requires a complex balace of positive and negative feedback, as discussed separately (Being Positive Avoiding Negativity: management challenge of positive vs negative, 2005). Exposure to the "demonic" may be vital for new forms of learning as a complement to the inspiration and support offered by the "angelic".

Presented in this way, the traditional pattern of thinking regarding the angelic and demonic orders could be recognized as an early effort to organize engagement with collective issues -- now framed by cybernetics in systemic terms. Both the earlier framing and the modern one offer challenges to comprehension, but of a different nature. Where are checklists now to be found of the forms of positive feedback and of negative feedback required for the achievement of sustainability? This is now acquiring an aura resembling goals of the past (In Quest of Sustainability as Holy Grail of Global Governance, 2011; In-forming the Chalice as an Integrative Cognitive Dynamic: sustaining the Holy Grail of global governance, 2011).

How many factors are considered appropriate for such a checklist -- given the relatively limited number highlighted in relation to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals? Where is the systemic map of their interrelationship -- in the light of the degree of organization sought and presented in the case of angelic and demonic orders? What subtler factors are to be distinguished, despite their elusive nature -- in contrast with those which lend themselves readily to representation in terms of sets of socio-economic and environmental indicators?

Erosion of self-reflexivity and learning capacity: The question here is whether the cognitive failure is of a quite different nature, better framed by the significance of the mirror self-recognition test. Rather than limiting this to its simplest conventional form, are higher orders of "mirror test" to be envisaged? This was previously explored with respect to the hypothetical encounter with extraterrestrials who, in cognitive terms, might well be comparable to angels (Self-reflective Embodiment of Transdisciplinary Integration (SETI): the universal criterion of species maturity? 2008; Sensing Epiterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Embedding of "extraterrestrials" in episystemic dynamics? 2013).

Following the arguments in the main paper, such "higher orders" can be explored in the light of knowledge cybernetics, effectively as higher orders of self-reflexivity, as articulated by Maurice Yolles and Gerhard Fink (A General Theory of Generic Modelling and Paradigm Shift: cybernetic orders, Kybernetes, 44, 2015). Varying degrees of self-reflexivity are distinguished meriting exploration and recognition. As phrased by the authors:

First-order cybernetic feedback is typically seen to be associated with Newtonian mechanical objectivity. It is therefore positivist, centring on systemic objects being observed by some external objective observer
Second-order cybernetics embraces radical constructivism, allowing for instrumental learning and agnosticism towards objective reality..
Third-order simplex cybernetic spaces should be seen to represent the observed and observing systems together forming another system, from which a new relativistic interactive worldview arises from self-observing viewers that have self-observed worldviews. Third-order cybernetics is also characterised by the way it resolves undecidabilities, these being constituted in the logic of the present moment by the anticipations of the system.
It is possible to formulate a statement of fourth order cybernetics in terms of the higher levels of relationship between observed and observing systems.... However, a more pragmatic and satisfactory... approach allows one to respond to the variety in a complex situation with an invariant generic construct more capable of generating requisite variety. Higher orders of simplex modelling have this capability since they provide new ways of explaining complexity by representing external influences as internal imperatives, thereby creating greater complexity for the immanent agency dynamics, but reducing undecidability. To explain the use of higher order models, rather than use observers relationships, a more minimal way is to adopt a concept of generic loop learning..., even if this redirects us away from... adaptability. Here then, fourth order cybernetics could be represented as triple loop generic learning (beyond the double loop generic learning of third cybernetics), referring to the way in which knowledge is not only acquired but also identified.
On the way to developing our general theory, the paper gave examples of first, second, third and fourth order simplexity. Higher orders of simplex modelling under complexity exist through the conceptual generic concepts that define them. This is the result of conceptual emergence, important to processes of systemic modelling. So far we have not attempted to move beyond fourth order simplexity, awaiting for new concepts able to generate fifth and higher orders of simplexity. However, we have shown that higher order simplex models can be generated through the use of recursion.

The obvious difficulty is that such language is far from enabling the understanding of self-reflexivity suggested by the possibility of more complex forms of mirror test. As noted, further difficulties are suggested by the process of "falling" from a higher to a lower order, as might be recognized (and experienced) through the aging process or the use of narcotics. Especially perverse is the deliberate instigation of any such fall through dumbing down.

An issue central to this argument is the relative incomprehensibility and meaninglessness of a higher order of self-reflexivity from the perspective of a lower order. Expressed otherwise, insights deriving from higher order understanding are extremely difficult to communicate into frameworks relying on lower orders of reflexivity and connectivity. The further challenge is to represent such challenges to the communication/comprehension process. Hence the merit of adapting insights associated with the Poincaré disk.

Curiously appropriate, two noted specialists in cybernetics have resorted to a quite distinctive mode in order to communicate their insights. W. Ross Ashby made a systematic collection of 159 aphorisms (published by the Cybernetics Society). Russell L. Ackoff made use of fables (Ackoff's Fables: irreverent reflections on business and bureaucracy, 1991; Jonathan H. Klein, Ackoff's Fables revisited: stories to inform operational research practice, Omega, 2009). This follows in the long tradition of many cultures, as discussed separately (Reframing connectivity through metaphor, 2011). As yet unaddressed is how these sets, whether aphorisms or fables, are effectively pattern languages -- precautionary or otherwise -- meriting particular attention from the perspective of requisite self-reflexivity.

"Demon raising"? Ironically, to be recognized as the converse of "angel falling", is the process of "demon raising". This could be understood as the transformation from the most limited forms of self-reflexity to those of higher orders -- however these might be understood, as tentatively explored separately (Engaging with Insight of a Higher Order: reconciling complexity and simplexity through memorable metaphor, 2014).

It is of course the case that understandings of these processes have been articulated both within mystical traditions and through a variety of spiritual disciplines, as profiled in the Human Development Project. Ken Wilber has been most assiduous in endeavouring to order and reconcile the contrasting languages used by them (Integral Psychology: consciousness, spirit, psychology, therapy, 2000; The Spectrum of Consciousness, 1977). Especially problematic is the degree to which those identifying with particular disciplines and languages endeavour to lay special and exclusive claim to the originality of their insight. Aspects of this tendency are -- perhaps necessarily -- evident in those promoting the integral theory pioneered by Wilber. Perhaps necessarily again in systemic terms, this is indicative of the constraints on any universal uptake.

As stressed above, it would appear that there is a particular requirement for avoidance of cognitive closure, whether premature or otherwise, in imagining the nature of the self-reflexivity of angels. The following are therefore merely suggestive indications, potentially framing further exploration.

Knots -- ideal and otherwise: The cognitive failure of self-reflexivity associated with "falling" can be fruitfully explored in terms of knots, as has been done from a psychoanalytic perspective (R. D. Laing, Knots, 1972) as discussed separately (Knot Being: to be or knot to be, 2001). The knot metaphor featured in Laing's development of the so-called "double bind". As explained by Christine Wertheim (To Be or Knot to Be, Cabinet, 22, Summer 2006), Jacques Lacan appropriated geometry, topology, and eventually knot theory for his notion of the psyche, making particular use of the Borromean knot (depicted above). This offered a model in which psychic reality is (re)presented as a complex of three separate, but interrelated spheres: the Real, the Symbolic, and the Imaginary. ?

With respect to any hypothetical "angelic" condition, and the relation between "angels", the knot metaphor can be explored further in terms of the understanding of the ropelength with which a link or knot is associated in physical knot theory. Intuitively this is the minimal length of an ideally flexible rope that is needed to tie a given link, or knot. Knots and links that minimize ropelength are termed ideal knots and ideal links respectively. This could be presumed to have implications for patterns of hyperlinks and their comprehensibility.

Such perspectives raise the possibility that the vicious cycles associated with wicked problems might be fruitfully explored in terms of knots.