Complementarity and Self-Reflexivity: between nuclear fusion and cognitive fusion

Clarifies the challenges of controlled nuclear

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Annex A of Enactivating a Cognitive Fusion Reactor: Imaginal Transformation of Energy Resourcing (ITER-8)
[See also website of ITER-8: Cognitive Fusion Reactor]

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Summary
Background
EXPERIMENTAL CHALLENGES
-- Experimental challenge of fusion for ITER
-- Experimental challenge of "cognitive fusion" for ITER-8
COMPLEMENTARITY AND SELF-REFLEXIVITY (Annex A)
-- Complementarity between ITER-8 and the ITER fusion project
-- ITER-8 self-reflexive design
-- Torus dynamics common to ITER and ITER-8
DEMATERIALIZATION AND VIRTUALIZATION (Annex B)
-- Dematerialization | Virtualization | Correspondence between the virtual reality of ITER and ITER-8
-- Complementary fusion metaphors: "plasma dynamics" and "attention dynamics"
-- Towards a language appropriate to dynamic engagement
---- Form and dimensionality | Embodiment | Didjeridu playing
-- 3-fold Complementarity (nuclear fusion, didjeridu, cognitive fusion)
-- Helical threading of "incommensurables"
---- Snake metaphor | Incommensurable rings and the challenge of cognitive fusion
---- Cognitive "traffic" around a "hole" | Spiral dynamics
---- Supercoiling and field effects in cognitive organization (of knowledge)
---- Simulation possibilities
COACTIVE CONTEXTUAL RELATIONSHIPS (Annex C)
-- ITER-8: a necessarily underdefined entity
-- Resonant associations to other "ITER" projects
-- People | Institutions | Technologies
COGNITIVE FUSION THROUGH MYTH AND SYMBOL MAKING (Annex D)
-- Myth and indigenous knowledge
-- Archetypal symbolism indicative of the fundamental dimensions of ITER-8
CONCLUSION
References

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Complementarity and Self-Reflexivity
ITER-8 self-reflexive design
Torus dynamics common to ITER and ITER-8

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Complementarity between ITER-8 and the ITER fusion project

The reservation above regarding the parallel between the "burning plasma" and "burning attention" processes, as necessary to any form of "fusion", is fundamental to any understanding of the distinctive methodology of ITER-8 in contrast with ITER. Whilst both are focused on "fusion", ITER-8 is necessarily far more open to "cooler" approaches. Without necessarily seeking parallels to "cold fusion" possibilities, ITER-8 might be fruitfully understood as exemplifying "cool fusion" in terms of the distinction drawn by McLuhan. ITER-8 seeks to benefit from the insights most capable of engendering psychosocial energy sustainably. The sophisticated thinking and modelling incorporated into the design of the fusion processes of ITER are therefore a rich source of insight to fuel the design processes and implementation of ITER-8. But other sources may also prove valuable.

Of necessity, ITER-8 can have no conventional formal relationship to the complementary preoccupations of ITER. "Formal" is here to be understood as a descriptor in the standard project logic of conventional legal, financial and other arrangements. Nor is ITER-8 to be understood as an "alternative" or "shadow" lobby -- now typical of many intergovernmental initiatives and conferences (eg TOES: Toward Another Economic Summit, World Social Forum, etc).

However, irrespective of the absence of contacts of this form, ITER-8 maintains a close "formal" relationship with ITER in the following senses:

• Mirroring: ITER-8 mirrors and reflects the conceptual and technical design challenges of ITER within a psychocultural framework or container. Mathematically and cognitively this might be understood in terms of "conformality" (cf 2006)
  • ITER-8: In contrast to the highly critical "ITER Watch" pattern that typically emerges in response to other intergovernmental initiatives (eg UNWatch, World Bank/IMF Watch, OECD Watch, etc) or corporate initiatives (Corporate Watch, Davos Watch, etc), ITER-8's "critical" observation of ITER is entirely focused on eliciting new insights of value to engendering psychosocial energy through new forms of psychosocial organization. In effect it is a psychosocial simulation -- in cognitive terms -- of the energy management processes of ITER. The mirroring may also be understood:
    • in terms of the football metaphor of "marking" members of the opposing team or
    • in the light of the term "syzygy" (meaning "yoked together") as used by Carl Jung to denote an archetypal pairing of opposites symbolic of the communication of the conscious and unconscious minds, of animus and anima.
  • ITER: From an ITER-8 perspective, ITER could be considered as the most comprehensive simulation of the operation of the processes of consciousness under dynamic conditions. It is the template of requisite variety by which the challenges cognitive fusion can be modelled. These have every possibility of corresponding to those reportedly associated with "creativity", "inspiration" and "illumination". This can be considered a significant contribution to artificial intelligence and understanding of the future operation of some form of "global brain" (cf Simulating a Global Brain: using networks of international organizations, world problems, strategies, and values, 2001). In contrast with many other simulations of the brain, the quantum mechanics of ITER, in terms of which the simulation is defined, offers both a degree of objectivity as well as a non-mechanistic dimension that may better reflect the dynamics of consciousness (cf resources on quantum mind theories).
    
    
• Powerful metaphors: To the extent that the realization of ITER is a challenge to conceptual creativity, potentially dependent on design breakthroughs based on the discovery of more powerful generative metaphors, ITER-8 is designed to elicit more powerful metaphors that are also:
  • facilitative of the kind of lateral, "out-of-the-box" thinking fundamental to the success of both ITER and ITER-8
  • potentially enabling with respect to the ITER fusion project, and in this sense every single technical challenge of ITER is understood to have a metaphoric complement that may be reframed through common metaphors of relevance to ITER-8
    
    
• Isomorphism: In terms of systems thinking, notably that previously the focus of the Society for General Systems Research, there are patterns of relationships common to the design principles and processes of ITER and ITER-8. These can be understood as isomorphic and as such offering opportunities for the transfer of knowledge and insight between them
  
  
• Faith-dependence: ITER and ITER-8 have complementary relationships to the "objective" and "subjective" decision processes from which they emerged:
  • ITER: has emerged as the result of a "faith-based" assessment by politicians, advised by scientists -- themselves acting on their own form of "faith", in the absence of certainty, regarding the results of further experiment as suggested by past fusion experiments (cf Fusion Dreams, 2002; UK spearheads world search for *dream energy' of nuclear fusion, 2002; France clings fusion dreams, 2004). Given the time envisaged for completion of experimental work at ITER, and the resources that will be required from the "faithful" until 2050, the challenge of completing the project may possibly be compared with that of the construction of the of St Peter in Rome and the resources acquired to that end (through the "sale of indulgences" to the faithful) [more]. Faith-dependence is also evident in the comparison with the only other research project requiring more research funds than ITER, namely the Space Station project formally initiated in 1993. Throughout the 1990s, construction delays hit the project, budget projections were heavily revised and the ISS structure was modified frequently. The ISS has been far more expensive than originally anticipated despite continuing budget cuts. The overall cost from the start of the project in the late 1980s to the prospective end in 2016 to be in the region of €100 billion. By then it will be only a shell of the project as originally envisaged [more]
  • ITER-8: has emerged in response to "faith" in the potential of ITER -- but in the light of the experientially-based practices of millions over centuries, reinforced by "faith-based" judgements.
    
    
• Societal mega-project: To the extent that a reframing of their relationship is called for, ITER and ITER-8 are effectively, in the following sense, the cognitive extremes of one of the most challenging societal projects of humanity:
  • together they exemplify the incommensurability of polarized thinking that is undermining coherent approaches -- of adequate complexity in a systemic sense -- to the condition of the planet. This can be variously described as the "two culture problem" (fed by interdisciplinary prejudices) or the "clash of civilizations" (fed by religious prejudices) that results in disorderly, uncreative violent interactions of painful consequences to many. More fundamentally it relates to the subject/object distinction (cf Max Deutscher, Subjecting and Objecting : an essay in objectivity, 1983) and to the challenges highlighted by enactivism (cf George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh : the embodied mind and its challenge to western thought, 1999). Curiously there is increasing reference to the "fusion" of science and religion
    • "We are entering the greatest era of science-religion fusion since the Enlightenment last attempted to reconcile the two, three centuries ago" (Gregg Easterbrook, The New Convergence, Wired, December 2002)
    • "The educational and dialogical program proposed assumes not that we possess truths at the outset, but that truth may emerge through a rigorous, open and exploratory encounter between the domains of science and religion. We assume that a 'fusion of

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