Towards a "new set of wheels" for psychosocial navigation

Eightfold Configuration of Nested Cycles of Cognitive Transformations (Part #8)

[Parts: First | Prev | Next | Last | All] [Visuals] [Links: To-K | From-K | From-Kx | Refs ]

It is important to recall that the pattern of nested circles was suggested by the 2D projection of the hyperbolic (Riemannian) sphere discussed in the preceding paper with respect to the Smith Chart. As with the innovative 3D variant, commentary draws attention to the unconventional complexity of what is held by these mappings of an understanding of the complex plane. As noted, for immediate purposes, the horizontal axis of the pattern of circles could be compared to conventional understandings of tangible reality. The vertical axis could be compared to unconventional understandings of imaginary reality. Their relationship as axes of a complex plane is discussed separately (Imagining the Real Challenge and Realizing the Imaginal Pathway of Sustainable Transformation, 2007).

In relating the pattern to that of the periodic table of elements, it is appropriate that the cognitive transformations mapped onto the vertical axis are less commonly recognized -- even contested as non-existent -- irrespective of their occurrence in the reality of many, however difficult they may be to replicate. As with the corresponding elements, many experiences tend to be "unstable" (namely with short half-lives) and therefore "radioactive" -- and thus metaphorically appropriate to the "imaginary" nature of the axis. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that people live, to some degree, in relation to that vertical axis -- and perhaps to a greater degree than it is assumed that they live in relation to the horizontal axis. People may well be obliged to live "betwist and between" them (cf. Living as an Imaginal Bridge between Worlds Global: implications of "betwixt and between" and liminality, 2011).

As a trigger for the imagination, there is a case for use of the jargon phrase common in relation to acquisition of a new vehicle, namely the felt need for a "new set of wheels" to navigate liminal experience . Arguably the "Tabular Era" has successfully engendered one set of "cognitive wheels" -- a pattern echoed in the construction of automobiles, trucks and railway boxcars. Transportation around the global is now dominated by use of box-like containers consistent with that pattern.

The suggestion here is that nested circles offer a relation to a universe of knowledge informed by paradoxical hyperbolic principles -- the latest pattern esteemed to be of relevance to the organization of the physical universe. This has itself been held to be essentially based on information -- as in proposals by Craig Hogan regarding the "digital universe" (Michael Moyer, Is Space Digital? Scientific American, 17 January 2012).

Of relevance to imagining how a "new set of wheels" might be recognized to enable movement in other dimensions, is the work of Arthur M. Young (The Geometry of Meaning, 1976). As the developer of the Bell helicopter he went on to reflect on the design and operational principles of a "psychopter" as the "winged self" (cf. Engendering a Psychopter through Biomimicry and Technomimicry: insights from the process of helicopter development, 2011).

The question evoked here is how this "psychopter" might well need to be understood as a "hypercopter" (already cultivated as a metaphor). Imagination is encouraged by subsequent development of the helicopter and a degree of superficial resemblance to the nested circle image through configurations of rotor blades. The design in one dimensional framework may well prefigure the possibility in another (as suggested by the argument for technomimicry). Is this suggestive of the design for a "set of wheels" for those "kinesthetically intelligent" with respect to cognitive transformations (cf. Navigating Alternative Conceptual Realities: clues to the dynamics of enacting new paradigms through movement, 2002; Entering Alternative Realities -- Astronautics vs Noonautics: isomorphism between launching aerospace vehicles and launching vehicles of awareness, 2002).

[Parts: First | Prev | Next | Last | All] [Visuals] [Links: To-K | From-K | From-Kx | Refs ]