Experimental "poetic" development of systemic insights

Sustaining a Community of Strange Loops (Part #3)

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The question in what follows is whether more can be made of this approach as a means of facilitating comprehension and engagement. The experimental approach to "forms of presentation" follows from work associated with an initiative, instigated by Johan Galtung, of the Goals, Processes and Indicators of Development (GPID) project of the United Nations University (Forms of Presentation and the Future of Comprehension, 1984).

Myth: An exemplar of the mythopoetic genre -- of worldwide contemporary significance -- is the epic tale of J. R. R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings, 1954). This might be understood as a celebration of the significance and power of "rings" in a cognitively complex system. Its scenario is classically synthesized in poetic form:

In the earlier paper (Relevance of Mythopoeic Insights to Global Challenges: cognitive integration implied by the Lord of the Rings, 2009) this mythopoetic scenario was used as a template to hold issues relating to global governance.

Strange loops: The above pattern may be further transformed through allusions in relation to strange loops, as previously discussed (Warp and Weft of Future Governance: ninefold interweaving of incommensurable threads of discourse, 2010).

In the above variant:

• the iconic exemplars of comprehensive integrative understanding of the development of human consciousness, as identified by Gidley (2007) -- Steiner, Gebser and Wilber -- are appropriately substituted for the "elven kings", given the subtlety of their preoccupations in contrast with those of ordinary mortals. Use of "mages", if not "I-Mages", offers an allusion to their focus on the evolution of consciousness of the "I", to the role of "images", and to that of the ego (to which reference is made below). The cognitive relevance of such reference to "magic" can be fruitfully associated with:
  • Douglas Hofstadter's Metamagical Themas, an eclectic collection of articles written for Scientific American during the early 1980s, and subsequently published together in book form
  • Arthur Clarke's third law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic
  • the sense in which "magic" remains the ultimate accolade of qualitative experience (performance art, dining, interpersonal relationships, tourism, etc)
  Such implications can be further discussed (Magic, Miracles and Image-building: Poetry-making and Policy-making, 1993). Given the reliance by governance on image and "spin", there is a case for recognizing the "I-magic" associated with any strange loop.
  
  
• the "dwarf lords" can then be fruitfully understood as relatively diminished through their cognitive specialization, whatever their stature in their own realms -- as with those identified by Hofstadter (1979), namely Gödel, Escher and Bach, together with other exemplars defining the fundamental spectrum of disciplines and modes of knowing. As "faculties" these may be understood as ensconced in their academic "halls of stone" with the latter then offering a delightfully appropriate reinterpretation of elegant "dry stonewalling" and the cognitive and procedural rigidity this reinforces in the problematic practice of other established institutions. Perhaps to be understood as the "stonehalling" so typical of the "corridors of power"?
  
  
• the fatal destiny of "mortal men" is then usefully associated with their problematic patterns of behaviour, most notably manifesting as lifestyle diseases in their various forms (Cognitive Implications of Lifestyle Diseases of Rich and Poor, 2010; Patterns essential to individual and global health? 2010; Implication of Personal Despair in Planetary Despair, 2010)
  
  
• the "unconscious civilization" theme has been articulated by John Ralston Saul (The Unconscious Civilization, 1995), also explored by Carl Jung in psychoanalytic terms as the collective unconscious and the "shadow"
  
  
• the related role of the psychological netherworld has been separately explored (Designing Global Self-governance for the Future: patterns of dynamic integration of the netherworld, 2010).

Systemic cycles: The pattern might be further transformed by substituting "cycles" -- common in ecological and economic discourse -- rather than the feedback "loops" (more generically understood in cybernetics). Both forms are however recognized in usage such as "vicious loops" and "vicious cycles", especially with reference to violence (Dysfunctional Cycles and Spirals: web resources on "breaking the cycle", 2002) .

In the above variant:

• the three environmentally vital cycles of Air, Water and Heat, might indeed have been appropriately symbolized by distinct "elven kings", although subtler entities of mythologies and traditional knowledge systems around the world might offer less anthropomorphic entities with more trans-sexual associations
  
  
• as the natural complement to Air-Water-Fire, "Earth" is then implicit in the "land" and the essentially "frozen categories" with which the "eco-scientists" are variously preoccupied -- whether "eco-nomists" or "eco-logist"s. This then alludes to the possibility that their rigidity might be unfrozen (Framing the Global Future by Ignoring Alternatives: unfreezing categories as a vital necessity, 2009). Commonly associated phonetically with the "eco" prefix is the problematic challenge of the "ego" factor as it relates to the Cognitive drama of the disciplines (2009). In a similar vein is the extent to which the eco-disciplines may be "economical with the truth".
  
  
• with respect to the humans "doomed to die", a ninefold pattern has been explored with respect to the boundaries of planetary ecosystems and the constraints on human response (Human remedial capacity: a ninefold challenge?, 2009)
  
  
• the strategic issue of "Unknowns" has been notoriously highlighted by the US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld (Unknown Undoing: challenge of incomprehensibility of systemic neglect, 2008). It may be fruitfully related to the manner in which strategies are designed with the "unconscious" omission of a key insight (Lipoproblems: developing a strategy omitting a key problem, 2009).
  
  
• navigating that shadowy world might fruitfully be understood as a necessary phase in the adaptive cycle (Adaptive Hypercycle of Sustainable Psychosocial Self-organization, 2010; Enlightening Endarkenment: selected web resources on the challenge to comprehension, 2005).

Knowledge cybernetics: As a further transformation, a more systemic general language might be used.

In the above variant:

• the first line recognizes both the the nature of values as "strange attractors" and the minimum threefold interlocking, clarified by R. Buckminster Fuller, as necessary to an emergent system (Human Values as Strange Attractors: coevolution of classes of governance principles, 1993; Spherical Configuration of Interlocking Roundtables: Internet enhancement of global self-organization through patterns of dialogue, 1998).
  
  
• with regard to the disparate "ways of knowing", reference may be made to various efforts to distinguish them and the constraints on the capacity of human resolution of distinctions (Systems of Categories Distinguishing Cultural Biases, 1993). Beyond "vision", this relates also to "re-cognizing" the range of possibilities of integrative "union" (some yet to be discovered) and the potential need for polysensorial modes of knowing (Dynamic Reframing of "Union": implications for the coherence of knowledge, social organization and personal identity, 2007; Strategic Challenge of Polysensorial Knowledge: bringing the "elephant" into "focus", 2008).
  
  
• as noted above, the issue of "problematic human behaviours" has been reviewed (Human remedial capacity: a ninefold challenge?, 2009).
  
  
• aside from the "unconscious" issue articulated by Saul (1995), as noted above, that of self-reflexivity has been separately explored (Consciously Self-reflexive Global Initiatives: Renaissance zones, complex adaptive systems, and third order organizations, 2007). Consideration can also be given to the aperspectival argument of Jean Gebser and of Alec Schaerer (A General Methodology for Reconciling Perspectivity and Universality, 2008)
  
  
• with regard to the "enactive insight" in the final line, this has been discussed separately (En-minding the Extended Body: enactive engagement in conceptual shapeshifting and deep ecology, 2003; Walking Elven Pathways: enactivating the pattern that connects, 2006; Existential Embodiment of Externalities, 2009).

Riddles and puzzles: In the light of Gidley's case for "post-formal" discourse, there is a strong argument for further transformation through reframing the assertions of conventional "kataphatic" discourse. Possibilities including formulation in terms of questions or as a form of puzzle -- even the traditional riddle with which leaders of the past have been confronted in myth and legend. Enthusiasm for this mode is evident in the appeal of The Da Vinci Code (2003),  its imitators and software requiring creative engagement (such as Myst and its imitators).

Questions: In the following transformation, use has been made of the classical set of 7 WH-questions (what, how, which, why, when, where, who). These are also interesting because of their possible relationship to the set of catastrophes noted by catastrophe theory (Conformality of 7 WH-questions to 7 Elementary Catastrophes: an exploration of potential psychosocial implications, 2006).

Reframing the question-answer dynamic: Such a set of questions -- a ring of questions -- might be further transformed by rethinking their formulation in the light of the traditional Zen koan. The issue is how to shift from the conventional question-to-answer mode to one in which the question evokes reflection on itself such as to transform the answer into a new modality (Am I Question or Answer? 2007; Clustering Questions of Existential Significance, 2010).

In that sense the koan process can be understood as a fundamental educational process -- eliciting evolition of consciousness.

Cognitive implications of music: The transformation might also be taken further in the light of the epistemological arguments regarding the cognitive role of music. Such explorations are facilitated by the work of Dmitri Tymoczko (The Geometry of Musical Chords, Science, 2006). As noted separately, music has always been associated with tanatalizing insights into the "circulation of the light" (Circulation of the Light: essential metaphor of global sustainability? 2010). As mentioned there, it is therefore of considerable interest to note the results of psychoacoustic experiments by C L Krumhansl and E J Kessler (Tracing the dynamic changes in perceived tonal organization in a spatial representation of musical keys, Psychological Review, 1982) of the inter-key relations of all major and minor keys can be represented geometrically on a torus -- as shown by Benjamin Blankertz, Hendrik Purwins and Klaus Obermayer (Constant Q Profiles and Toroidal Models of Inter-Key Relations -- ToMIR, 1999) in the following image.

Geometric representation of the inter-key relations of all major and minor keys (derived from psychoacoustic experiments by Krumhansl and Kessler)

Further implications have notably been developed by Antonio de Nicolas (Meditations through the Rg Veda, 1978) regarding the use of languages based on tone in his study of the four complementary conceptual languages of the Rg Veda considered necessary to hold the complexity of insights and experience. His explorations were associated with the musical theory of Ernest G. McClain (Myth of Invariance: the origins of the gods, mathematics and music from the Rg Veda to Plato, 1976) and offered the following insight relevant to the nature of cognitive embodiment.

This was cited in the argument for A Singable Earth Charter, EU Constitution or Global Ethic? (2006).

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