Ultimate self-reflexive irony of cyclic cognitive processes

Having Bought into a Wreck -- What Now? (Part #8)

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Self-reflexivity: As a seemingly definitive articulation, Arthur Young's table as a whole (however adapted) can be understood as corresponding to its first row. It only too evidently "is" -- however problematically so in that the processes suggested by the other rows necessarily call that explanation into question. Those of the second raise the question as to whether it is believable as presented.

As an exercise in self-reflexivity and expression, presentation of the table can be understood as consistent with the third row. The question there is why bother? What is its articulation seeking to engender? What dubious closure can it achieve? The table may however offer a form of container for the radical imagination which could be associated with the fourth row -- as presented later below.

There is a sense in which the interpretation of any given cell can be explored recursively by applying the dimensions of the other columns and rows to it.

Intellectual copyright: This exploration draws heavily on Young's process insights presented in a 12-fold cyclic framework. The argument notably highlights the manner in which a "solid" substantive product emerges through phases in that process. Missing from Young's argument, although implied therein, is the sense in which the Rosetta stone of meaning -- that his creativity has engendered -- is a substantive product in its own right -- metaphorically "written in stone". As with his book which describes it, this is of course the case with my adaptations of these insights (in the form of text and images) towards enabling me to fix my "automobile".

This "observation" (itself a feature of his table) is far from trivial in that Young's book is subject to intellectual copyright -- as with related insights featuring in the publications, videos and website which have inherited responsibility for them. This commodification of Young's insights is clearly a constraint on their exploration by others who, for whatever reason, lack the resources to access them .

Understood in this way, intellectual copyright is an aspect of my problem in endeavouring to fix my "automobile". The rigidity associated with this constraint is indeed to be recognized as an outcome of the creative process Young endeavours variously to render comprehensible. As with Young's Rosetta stone, the phenomenon can be recognized in related products deriving from the initiatives of others: "syntegration" (Stafford Beer, Beyond Dispute: the invention of team syntegrity, 1994); "synergetics" (Buckminster Fuller, Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, 1975); "Myers-Briggs Type Indicator"; etc., as discussed separately (Future Coping Strategies: beyond the constraints of proprietary metaphors, 1993).

There is a strange sense in which the many products of this kind are fated by the collective learning process to resemble those of more tangible form which accumulate to a scandalous degree in scrap heaps, as marine debris, or as orbiting space junk -- effectively polluting the cognitive environment. Framed more optimistically otherwise, they resemble monuments, having been effectively "enstoned" (Transforming and Interweaving the Ways of Being Stoned: imagination, promise, rocks, memorials, petrification, 2012).

A provocative metaphor is offered in the Arthurian fantasy by T. H. White (The Once and Future King, 1958) regarding the interminable search by various knights for the Questing Beast. The legendary creature has the head and neck of a serpent, the body of a leopard, the haunches of a lion and the feet of a hart. Its name comes from the great noise it emits from its belly, a barking like "thirty couple hounds questing" (reminiscent of the numerology of Stafford Beer's "syntegration" and of the tale of the Conference of the Birds). Appropriately, in the fantasy, the trail is only indicated to its pursuers by the Beast's excreted fewmets -- also vital to the determination of its health by its hunters. The objective products of any creative process can then be fruitfully compared with fewmets -- the producers thereof, as "questing beasts". having moved elsewhere.

Sentence formation? Young himself acknowledges an aspect of this challenge, but without applying it to his own intellectual process in producing the substantive product:

Sentence structure involving subject, verb, and object could be studied as an example of the threefold. The verb, of course, would supply the activity -- but only a verb in the present tense; the other tenses are not active. This is offered not as an illustration, but an area for further thought, and warns us of the subtleties of this pre-analytic stage (1976, p. 31).

The subtlety is all the greater in that such grammatical distinctions may be made otherwise in other languages, notably in artificial languages. The very process of objective articulation -- trapping in words -- would then itself appear to resemble a trap -- in the sense indicated by Geoffrey Vickers: A trap is a function of the nature of the trapped (Freedom in a Rocking Boat: changing values in an unstable society, 1972) and separately discussed (Metaphoric Entrapment in Time: avoiding the trap of Project Logic, 2000).

Products and productivity? The significance attributed to productivity is only too evident at this time. It is considered central to the obsessive quest for economic growth at any cost (Evaluating the Grossness of Gross Domestic Product, 2016). Understood as a phase in a learning cycle -- with consequences readily neglected -- there is every possibility that the nature of the trap it may constitute can be usefully reframed in cognitive terms. Will obsession with personal growth come to be similarly deprecated\/

Especially intriguing is the recognition of the dependence of productivity on other phases in a learning cycle. Young highlights the liquidity valued by economics, but subtler dimensions are evident in terms of calls for innovation to ensure survival in a highly competitive environment. This is subtly related to the experience of creativity, the associated excitement, and the attraction that these may engender. Ironically success in those processes is typically measured by the patents engendered by innovators -- products constraining their fruitful use by others.

The subtlety in question is usefully highlighted by the Triple Helix thesis (as a focus of the Triple Helix Research Group of Stanford University) regarding the potential for innovation and economic development in a knowledge society. This is framed in terms of a more prominent role for the university and in the hybridisation of elements from university, industry and government to generate new institutional and social formats for the production, transfer and application of knowledge. It is in this sense that the triadic thinking underlying the activities promoted by the Triple Helix Association merits particular attention, as instigated by Henry Etzkowitz (Triple Helix: a new model of innovation, 2005).

In contrast to an earlier study for the Club of Rome (The Double Helix of Learning and Work, 2003), the requisite subtlety of a triadic approach can be evoked in critiquing the limitation of a more recent report for that Club organized in triadic form (Towards a higher order of coherent global strategic organization? 2018).

"Existence"? Curiously the substantive nature of a range of collective constructs can be readily called into question -- as "products" -- most notably as argued in relation to the so-called international community (International Community as God or Sorcerer's Apprentice? 2015). Surprisingly the same may be said of nation states as argued by Alexander Wendt and more specifically by Stephen Clarkson (Does North America Exist? Governing the Continent after NAFTA and 9/11, Woodrow Wilson Center, 2008). The question with respect to the USA is currently of great relevance in the light of the ongoing debate regarding the right to exist of Palestine -- recognized as it is by the vast majority of countries (John V. Whitbeck, The State of Palestine Exists, The Huffington Post, 1 September 2013). To what extent can USA be held to exist, or to have a right to exist?

There is great irony to the fact that current controversy regarding arguments with respect to the existence of God can be understood to be as questionable as those with respect to the existence of the "United States" or "Israel" -- whether framed in scientific, legal, historical or theological terms. Within each of these frames, the issue is the nature of "concrete proof" and the manner in which its status and credibility is determined, as with fiat currency. Hence the concern regarding adherence to so-called "fiat beliefs". The current massive exercise in "printing money" is therefore of relevance (ECB launches 1 trillion euro rescue plan to revive euro economy, Reuters, 22 January 2015). Given such an example, the more general question is whether there are other instances in which demands for concrete proof could be appropriately and rightfully made (10 Demands for Concrete Proof by We the Peoples of the World, 2012).

Attitudinal posture? Faced as I am by a junkyard of parts and manuals for fixing my "automobile", various postures could be appropriately adopted. I can appeal to the international community as so many now do, however questionable the results. My appeal could take the form of begging, as is the case for many, also with questionable results (Confusion in Exchanging "Something" for "Nothing": cognitive implication in the asymmetrical processes of begging and its surrogates, 2015). Possibly I could reframe my attitude to external authorities in terms of the famous tales of The Emperor's New Clothes and The Boy Who Cried Wolf, as discussed separately (Entangled Tales of Memetic Disaster: mutual implication of the Emperor and the Little Boy, 2009).

I could recognize the imminence of disaster through even more pointed metaphors (Resource Insights from Plus or Minus 12 People on a Liferaft: thought experiment to highlight global dilemmas in a comprehensible context, 2014). Inspired by the work of Kathleen Forsythe (Cathedrals in the Mind: the architecture of metaphor in understanding learning. Cybernetics and Systems '86, pp 285-292), I could indeed engage in an intangible equivalent to the heroic initiative of Justo Galego Martinez (Don Justo's Self-Built Cathedral: metaphoric learnings for contemporary alternative initiatives, 2003).

As noted above, potentially more intriguing, since I am necessarily exposed to the vagaries of the weather in my junkyard, is to appreciate the learning embodied in its processes in offering me a sense of direction (Weather Metaphors as Whether Metaphors: transcending solar illusion via a Galilean-style cognitive revolution? 2015).

Aesthetic embodiment? The limitations of any analytic approach to self-reflexivity can be usefully highlighted and reframed by aesthetic and experiential considerations, as suggested above. However, rather than reframing comprehension of my "automobile" in such terms, it is "my automobile" which could then be fruitfully reframed -- namely "my" possession or ownership of the "automobile" as a product of my various cognitive endeavours. One necessarily questionable example is discussed separately (Being a Poem in the Making: engendering a multiverse through musing, 2012). This recalls more conventional appreciation of being "self-made". In a period in which emphasis is placed on the individual quest for "freedom", there is then some irony to the internet adage to the effect that "if it free, then you are the product".

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