Engaging with distinctions

Eightfold Configuration of Nested Cycles of Cognitive Transformations (Part #5)

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As an indication of the dysfunctional manner in which people are encouraged to think, the case may be further emphasized by the following adaptation of the above table. The successive "unfolding" or "unpacking" by stages, from left to right, highlights the following pattern of distinctions.

First unfolding: the immediate preference accorded to binary distinctions (currently exemplified by the US presidential campaign) in which issues are only too readily categorized and limited to "black or white", or "us or them" -- as discussed separately (Us and Them: Relating to Challenging Others -- patterns in the shadow dance between "good" and "evil", 2009; Transcending Simplistic Binary Contractual Relationships: what is hindering their exploration? 2012). As with the periodic table, there is a marked aspiration to a unitary perspective (subsuming the "other"), evident in the focus on being "number one", or the "world's policeman" (cf. John Maclain, Should the United States be the World's Policeman? WikiSource, 2012).

A considerable proportion of daily discourse is focused on complaints regarding the problematic actions of "others" -- whether to be regretted as misguided or demonised. It is questionable whether there is then the capacity to count "beyond 2" -- as though that was assumed to be the mathematical base of the number system. The binary focus may however be framed otherwise in the light of the considerable psychosocial energy it engenders -- on which people are variously dependent and trough which recognition is enabled -- appropriately recalled by the primary process of nuclear fusion in the Sun, through which the nuclei of the first element are fused into the second

Second unfolding, suggesting the greater elegance is evident in the articulation of the eightfold patterns of the second "unfolding" in the image below -- which embodies the first. This can be understood as recognition of a larger variety of cognitive processes -- a requisite variety in cybernetic terms -- to enable a viable "living system". Hence the value of exploring 8-fold systems, most notably the Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism, the Eightfold Way of particle-physics theory, the Eight-circuit Model of consciousness, and the Eightfold Path of policy analysis.

Efforts at personality types tend to focus on patterns of this level of complexity. In practice however, recognition of eightfold organization does not ensure the harmonious psychosocial organization it might be held to imply, as is implicit in the argument of Stephen Prothero (God Is Not One: the eight rival religions that run the world -- and why their differences matter, 2011). Of interest in this argument is the aspiration of each of the eight to be "number one" and driving commitment to that end (often at any cost).

Third unfolding, highlighting the inadequacy of the simpler, neatly ordered patterns. This is evident in recognition of the complexities of the "real world" -- the "dirty" world of politics, commerce, industry and security preoccupations. This transcends the neatness of such models in practice -- typically calling upon "real world" experience. Ready use is made of tenfold classification systems to manage disparate variety -- avoiding consideration of systemic relationships. The challenge to simpler (tabular) understandings of "law and order" becomes even more evident through the "orthogonal" portions of the table emanating from the two blank cells in the image below, namely the lanthanides and the actinides (noted in the image above).

The need to represent them as orthogonal -- out of the plane of the table -- is suggestive of another logic which does not "fit" into the tabular presentation, implying another understanding of "law and order" (as with the "dirty tricks" of government covert operations and organized criminality). This is appropriately suggested by widespread recognition of transactions "under the table". This unconventional logic is apparent in a different way, and to a potentially heightened degree, with regard to understanding of the further development of the periodic table to include the superactinides (only noted in the image above) -- as might be the case of initiatives based on revelation. The point can be more provocatively made by the alternative logic introduced by an erection, humour, drugs, birth, death, or suicide (bombing) -- readily recognized as being "out of order" with respect to convention, as argued by Paul Feyerabend (Against Method: outline of an anarchistic theory of knowledge, 1975; Conquest of Abundance: a tale of abstraction versus the richness of being, 1999). Strategically it could be understood in terms of surprise and the so-called black swan theory developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (The Black Swan: the impact of the highly improbable, 2007).

Note that in each case the increase in complexity acknowledged in the cognitive unfolding from left to right is matched by increasing complexity from top to bottom of each column. However the complexity in the latter case is one which increasingly encounters unfamiliarity, ignorance, uncertainty and paradox (Living with Incomprehension and Uncertainty: re-cognizing the varieties of non-comprehension and misunderstanding, 2012). Assumptions may be made to deny the relevance of this in practice. Efforts may be made to "fit" complexity into a conveniently simple pattern.

Presidential debates may be relatively incapable of transcending binary distinctions -- "me right, you wrong" -- namely the possibility of counting beyond two. This may imply forms of knowledge of which those focused "at the top" of each column are not aware -- or would prefer to ignore. That reality is only too evident in the world of criminality, gang culture and survivalism -- only too real to many in the world. Ironically such alternative logics may be of relevance to extraterrestrial cultures, as separately argued (Self-reflective Embodiment of Transdisciplinary Integration (SETI): the universal criterion of species maturity? 2008).

Suggestive indication of conceptual unfoldings patterned by the Periodic Table

One effort to indicate the progressives difficulties in handling n-fold distinctions is presented separately (Distinguishing Levels of Declarations of Principles, 1980).

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