</a>Einstein's theory as a mirror of the creative process -- a representation

Einsteins Implicit Theory of Relativity - of Cognitive Property? Unexamined influence of patent office procedures (Part #8)

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It is curious that explanations of the special theory of relativity are made in terms of an observer whose only active role is observation. The elaboration of the theory (by Einstein) is however an act of creative discovery -- of invention -- as with any theory.

For a patent examiner, as for a peer reviewer of the associated intellectual property, the question as to whether the theory is novel and original is vital to its acceptance. It is this that leads to "re-cognition". Such "re-cognition" affects other frames and fields of reference, to the extent that it "matters" -- again of importance to patent acceptance in terms of "utility" or "applicability".

And, to the extent that it matters, it also affects the inventor in terms of the "energy" subsequently derived from the invention, typically in financial terms but possibly also as some form of "psychic income". Potentially also, the "re-cognition" may be so fundamental that it ensures a form of determining control over other frames of reference that then become dependent on it.

Although "light" is fundamental to the preoccupations of the theory of relativity, the creative process of Einstein from which the theory emerged is seemingly designed out of the theory. And yet "light" is one of the most fundamental metaphors through which the creative process is described ("seeing the light", "enlightened", "in the dark", etc). It would appear that the theory lacks any self-referential characteristic. The theory is about frames of reference, but not about how frames of reference get created. At best, for that theory, this would be considered a separate issue of astrophysics.

One possible conclusion is that the theory is only concerned with a particular form of light, excluding a more generic understanding which would have included qualities and characteristics of light associated with creativity -- with the process through which frames are created. Effectively it is light of a "lower order". Observers step unimaginatively into the frames so created without questioning how they arose -- or sensing any need to be aware of that process.

Another possible conclusion, however, is that the theory of relativity is a surreptious or unconscious mirroring of the creative process. In the process of "invention", so central to the creation of intellectual property, what then might be understood to be occurring -- notably in the case of the formulation by Einstein?

For any "inventor" there is a process of "drawing in" disparate elements of "in-formation" in a creative process. The novelty is the new frame created -- the "pattern that connects" in the terms of Gregory Bateson (Mind and Nature: a necessary unity, 1979). Subsequent presentation of the cognitive property so created, whether for peer-reviewed publication or in a patent application, is a form of "out-venting" or "out-formation". Metaphorically the latter suggests a movement of air, consistent with meditative reflection on inspiration and expiration -- most fundamentally from the belly or hara. It may also be understood in terms of the exploration by David Bohm (Wholeness and the Implicate Order, 1980) of enfolding and unfolding -- a holomovement in reflecting implicate order in explicate order.

Frame creation through this process effectively "bends" cognitive space -- at least for the inventor engaged in the creative process. Whether this is felt to be so from other frames -- from which "re-cognition" may be evoked -- depends on the extent to which it "matters", and the gravitas associated with its communication.

In the light of the first conclusion above, why is the theory purportedly about "observers" who do not invent or reframe but just travel randomly around the universe in variously accelerated frames -- measuring their relationship to other frames? To what extent does this theory mirror the implicit "real" theory -- a more generic, self-referential one about the creative process -- about how frames get invented (and made into cognitive property) to ensure "re-cognition"? Such "re-cognition" entails a degree of reframing on the part of other observers obliged then to engage in other processes than measurement observation.

It could be argued that it was understandings of the explicit theory, used as a metaphor, that gave relativism a "bad name" by failing to take explicit and proper account of the creative process -- thereby obscuring the nature of frame creation and the relationship between frame creators of distinct cognitive properties.

From such a perspective both Einstein, and Newton before him, were effectively providing "de-scriptions" of their understanding of their own creative process -- in each case a "self-portrait of the artist" at work, or more precisely of how the artist worked. Like an artist they each chose a medium on which to "de-scribe" that process -- to "cut it" out of, or into, the medium using symbolic forms of their choice. Rather than accepting the inappropriate constraints of the conventional flat writing surface, they were obliged by the complexity of their insights to use more complex surfaces -- as clarified by Michael Schiltz (Form and Medium: a mathematical reconstruction, Image [&] Narrative, 6, 2003).

Inventors of cognitive property might thus be said to be engaged in a process of poiesis -- of "making" in an aesthetic sense -- whose scientific relevance derives from the degree to which this is effectively a process of autopoiesis, of self-creation. Most inventors would accept the attractive power of elegance, driving the creative process and finally embodied in their invention. Representatives of many disciplines have recognized this (cf Ian Stewart, Why Beauty is Truth: the history of symmetry, 2007). The elegance of the theory of relativity may be recognized in the sparsity of symmetrcally interwoven postulates amenable to comprehension as a whole.

The cognitive property to which inventors give birth is then better understood dynamically as a form of standing wave in the moment -- with which their identity is intimately bound. As with patents, there is a continuing need for them to "re-vision" the bounds of such property periodically in any serious patenting strategy. It is particularly unfortunate in a dynamic universe that such property -- as a "frame" -- is defined statically, how ever often it is "re-vised" (cf Emergence of Cyclical Psycho-social Identity: sustainability as "psyclically" defined, 2007)

To the extent then that Einstein's theory is only to be understood as an abstraction regarding the physics of space-time, with which virtual observers may be associated, it loses its relevance to the manner in which such frames and property are created within psycho-social systems -- as with the theory itself and Einstein's role as its (partial) inventor in cognitive property terms. But the implict preoccupations of the patent examiner or peer reviewer establish the relevance -- in knowledge "space-time" -- to other frames competing for "re-cognition" and "energy" in terms of the degree to which one "matters" more than another.

Einstein's theory is acknowledged to have been fundamental to the destructive power of the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bomb. Through failing to embody explicitly their creator (and the creation process) in the theory, this fails to address the nature of the problematic cognitive property relationships between interdisciplinary, interfaith and, intersectoral frames of reference -- however they are created. A consequence is epitomized by the "clash of civilizations". This is even more obvious in the various forms of unmediated violence between social groups at street level -- where the appeal for "re-cognition" is framed in terms of "re-spect". As argued elsewhere, mathematics has more to offer (And When the Bombing Stops? Territorial conflict as a challenge to mathematicians, 2000).

Implicitly, however, it can be argued that there is some commonality to the nature of light as recognized in Einstein's theory and as recognized in the immediacy of what is understood as the moment of creativity, discovery, invention, conception, realization or enlightenment. This is fundamental to the "re-cognition" of frames of reference and to their inventors' enactivation of the patterns that connect (cf Walking Elven Pathways: enactivating the pattern that connects, 2006) .

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