Navigating the dynamics of information fluidity

Life-skill Learning from Animal Shareholders and Collaborators (Part #6)

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All species can be understood as embedded in information flows which they variously apprehend and to whose features and characteristics they variously attach significance. The process can be framed in terms of cognitive stimuli, whether or not "cognitive" is necessarily the most appropriate term for those with a minimal nervous system.

The framing is useful in that it emphasizes the fluid nature of the information environment as recognized in terms of finanical flows, movements of opinion, traffic flows, and the like. But is it experienced as a lake, a river, a waterfall, mist, a bog, a flood, a tornado. a storm, a gyre, a tide, a wave -- or otherwise, or any of them according to circumstance?

Distinguishing variety: Within that environment elements can be distinguished and variously ordered. Much is made of ordered arrays of categories in the case of humans. These can be usefully challenged from the perspective of cognitive psychology by the argument made with respect to mathematics by George Lakoff and Rafael Nuñez (Where Mathematics Comes From: how the embodied mind brings mathematics into being, 2001) [see review]. Categories of any kind can themselves be understood as emerging in this way -- contrary to the assumption that their boundaries are tidily defined by other processes. In this sense the boundaries distinguishing categories can be considered as arbitrary to some degree and a matter of convenience -- irrespective of how those boundaries are variously "set in stone" by authorities.

The argument applies to species as is clear from the manner in which they may or may not be distinguished in different cultures -- or by an individual with little need to discern any variety amongst "birds" or "dogs". At a more fundamental level, the argument applies to the subtlest concepts, including those of theology, as separately discussed with respect to apophasis and the merits of "unsaying" (Being What You Want: problematic kataphatic identity vs. potential of apophatic identity? 2008).

Framed in this way, an individual is to a significant degree free to engender or recognize categories as seems appropriate. This is clear in the case of species where 3 categories of bird might be distinguished, or 10, or 50. Enthusiasts would distinguish far more, but only specialists would presume to distinguish among the 3 to 30 million animal species. How many might the average person choose to distinguish?

How does this argument apply to other distinctions where some note many varieties? How is this distinguishing process constrained (as noted below)?

Role of metaphor: This suggests that for certain purposes engagement with a fluid information environment might call for 2 "fins" (or "feet", or "wings:), or possibly 4, or 6 or 8 -- or hundreds in the case of a centipede or dependence on cilia. It would be convenient to alter the number of appendages (or sense organs) according to circumstance. Some form of "all terrain" cognitive vehicle could be envisaged.

Rather than rigid conceptual "models", "metaphors" could prove to be the cognitive vehicles of the future, as separately argued (Metaphors as Transdisciplinary Vehicles of the Future, 1991). An imaginative stimulus for such investigation is provided by a science fiction scenario explored by a number of writers. It focuses on the challenge of comprehending high degrees of complexity in the information environment -- calling for decision-making under operational conditions (as is the case in global management). It can be stated as follows:

The problem is that of piloting or navigating a spacecraft through "hyperspace" or "sub-space", as imagined in the light of recent advances in theoretical physics and mathematics. Because of the inherent complexity of such environments, writers have explored the possibility that pilots and navigators might choose appropriate metaphors through which to perceive and order their task in relation to qualitative features of that complexity -- for example, flying like a bird, windsurfing, swimming like a fish, tunneling like a mole, etc.

The mass of data input derived from various arrays of sensors, and otherwise completely unmanageable, is then channelled to the pilot in the form of appropriate sensory inputs to the nerve synapses corresponding to his "wings" or his "fins". Perception through the chosen metaphor is assisted by artificial intelligence software and appropriate graphic displays. The pilot switches between metaphors according to the nature of the hyperspace terrain. Such speculations stimulate imagination concerning a possible "marriage" between metaphor and artificial intelligence in relation to governance.

Imposition of names: Such a possibility can be compared to the process of naming as a means of imposing a degree of order on a perceived information environment. Clearly people are potentially free to name the features visible from the perspective of their own worldview, without subscribing to those attributed by others.

This recalls the process of psychosocial appropriation of a space at the collective level, described as land nam by Ananda Coomaraswamy (The Rg Veda as Land-Nama Book, 1935), to refer to the Icelandic tradition of claiming ownership of uninhabited spaces through weaving together a metaphor of geography of place into a unique mythic story. This territorial appropriation process, notably practiced by the Navaho and the Vedic Aryans, was further described by Joseph Campbell (The Inner Reaches of Outer Space: metaphor as myth and religion, 2002):

Land nam ("land claiming or taking") was [the Norse] technical term for this way of sanctifying a region, converting it thereby into an at once psychologically and metaphysical Holy Land.... Land nam, mythologization, has been the universally practiced method to bring this intelligible kingdom to view in the mind's eye. The Promised Land, therefore, is any landscape recognized as mythologically transparent, and the method of acquisition of such territory is not by prosaic physical action, but poetically, by intelligence and the method of art; so that the human being should be dwelling in the two worlds simultaneously of the illuminated moon and the illuminating sun.

Knowledge management: In both the above cases the response can be understood as a particular style of knowledge management.

The relevance to this argument lies in the suggestion that individuals be enabled to adopt cognitively the behavioural form of an animal with particular skills in navigating in an information environment of a specific quality with characteristic challenges and opportunities. How many feet, wings or fins? What shape and size -- swallow, leopard, snake, elephant, mosquito?

Rather than life-long adoption of a totem animal, the issue is how to acquire the flexibility to shift between forms in terms of the circumstantial need for knowledge management. This adaptability has been suggestively anticipated by the much-cited study of D'Arcy Thompson (On Growth and Form, 1917) and by the work of Rene Thom (Structural Stability and Morphogenesis: an outline of a general theory of models, 1972), especially its cognitive and semiotic implications (Semio Physics: a sketch, 1990).

Rather than a single conventional entity, this might even take the form of a collective entity -- as with a flock, a swarm, a shoal, or a pack -- as suggested by the manner in which intelligent agents may come to be controlled and by current reflections on crowdsourcing.

Framed in this way there is a strong case for considering the manner in which flows of information can be experienced and moulded,, namely how they engage, hold and channel attention. How does attention "ride" any "waves" of information -- perhaps understood as a carrier wave? The process is implied to a degree by "web-surfing". The question is whether there are more specific articulations of the process with which people could engage through creative imagining. Some possibilities include:

• Movement of water and in it: Remarkable insights have been associated with the flow of water as a consequence of the work of Viktor Schauberger through his learnings from trout, as described separately (Enabling Governance through the Dynamics of Nature: exemplified by cognitive implication of vortices and helicoidal flow, 2010). The latter includes sections on:
  
  

  Being "in the flow" -- learnings from a trout Governance and the flow of information Information flow: threads and vortices Vortex generation and mandalas Experiential application of vortex insights Helicoidal integration of dynamics of self-referential initiatives?

  Vortex management Overcoming psychosocial fragmentation and buffetting Navigating psychic space? Global governance vs. Toroidal governance Technological innovation as template for cognitive innovation Sustainable "global" governance through double helicoidal invagination?

  
  
• Cognitive modulation understood through electrical metaphors: The ability to switch perspective is especially striking in relation to the widely used Smith Chart, invented by the electrical engineer Phillip H. Smith (and independently by Kaneyuki Kurokawa, a Japanese engineer). This is a graphical aid for electrical and electronics engineers specializing in radio frequency engineering to assist in solving problems with transmission lines and matching circuits. A generalized 3D Smith Chart based on the extended complex plane (Riemann sphere) and inversive geometry has recently been proposed (as discussed below). The relevance is extensively discussed separately with graphics and ainimations (Modulating cognitive transformations: electrical metaphors and semiconduction, 2012)
  
  
• Attention flow and cognitive fusion as suggested by control of plasma in nuclear fusion: Much is now made of the potential of nuclear fusion and of the design challenges in enabling it as the ultimate source of energy. As a challenge this might be compared with that of fruitfully controlling attention, as separately discussed (Enactivating a Cognitive Fusion Reactor: Imaginal Transformation of Energy Resourcing (ITER-8), 2006).
  
  
• Engaging with manifold abstraction: As exemplars of imaginative creativity, mathematicians and physicists now articulate the most appropriate understanding of the complexity of reality through the abstraction of a manifold. This is a topological space of potentially high dimensionality that nevertheless resembles Euclidean space near each point. Whilst necessarily eluding normal comprehension, other than through the formalism of mathematics, the nature of the spaces so indicated is consistent with the quality of the intuited experience of the existential nothingness to which so many feel exposed in one form or another -- a place that is existentially terrifying (Thinking in Terror, 2005). The radical cognitive challenge may well be how to be attentively in that place more fruitfully -- how to embody the otherwise alien nature of any such surface as that from which any distinguished forms emerge. As separately discussed, this can be variously framed, notably through Buddhist understanding of "dependent origination" (cf P. A. Payutto, Dependent Origination: The Buddhist Law of Conditionality) or "dependent co-arising" (cf Thanissaro Bhikkhu, Analysis of Dependent Co-arising). The cognitive implications of this topological insight have been remarkably articulated by Steven M. Rosen (Topologies of the Flesh: a multidimensional exploration of the lifeworld, 2006; Dimensions of Apeiron: a topological phenomenology of space, time, and individuation, 2004). In subequent work, Rosen has attached particular significance to recognition of the "animal within" (Dreams, Death, Rebirth: a multimedia topological odyssey into alchemy's hidden dimensions. 2013). One understanding of manifold by physics is as a multidimensional brane -- of which of which membrane is a two-dimensional instance. the question is how to engage cognitively and experientially with that insight, as may be speculatively explored (Global Brane Comprehension Enabling a Higher Dimensional Big Tent? Strategic implication in encompassing nothing and coming to naught, 2011).
  
  
• Attentive association of information flow with qi (ch'i): As noted by Susantha Goonatilake (Toward a Global Science: mining civilizational knowledge, 1999), the metaphors developed by Asian cultures could prove vital. As a specific example, the increasingly appreciative understanding of qi offers indications as to how attention might be integrated with information flows. Classicially qi is understood as an active principle forming part of any living thing -- typically explained as "life force", or "energy flow". In the light of the above argument, it can be readily extended to the cognitive modality through which information is attentively managed. This is consistent with traditional recognition of its underlying role in Chinese medicine and martial arts.

The last example is helpful in enabling the individual to recognize how it is possible to be centered within a dynamically configured cognitive flow -- variously associated with information and knowledge, and variously moulded according to circumstance. It could be understood as unicellular, but is better understood as taking on -- according to circumstance -- any animal form to which evolution has given rise along the evolutionary pathways. This suggests that tather than thinking of evolution as taking place over millions of years, the forms it has explored are indicative of creative possibilities for (re)configuring attention in the moment. Ironically, there is a sense in which this can be understood as a particular form of "creationism" -- with the individual as the Creator variously elaborating and collapsing categories through functions playfully enacted.

The latter dynamic may well be en-joyed, as separately imagined (En-joying the World through En-joying Oneself: eliciting the potential of globalization through cognitive radicalization, 2011). It is however the existential terror of nothingness, indicated above as a reality of living, which merits recognition -- as fruitfully framed by Omar Khayyám, the polymath and "poet of uncertainty", in the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, in quatrains such as the following:

The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon Turns Ashes -- or it prospers; and anon, Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face Lighting a little Hour or two -- is gone.

And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press, End in the Nothing all Things end in -- Yes -- Then fancy while Thou art, Thou art but what Thou shalt be -- Nothing -- Thou shalt not be less.

Consideration of the cognitive possibilities is facilitated by recognition of the support provided by geometry as discussed and illustrated separately (Metascience Enabling Upgrades to the Scientific Process: beyond Science 2.0 in the light of polyhedral metaphors? 2014). However the inherent flexibility of qi as "attention in motion" can be usefully compared to current discussion of the experiential process of embedding in virtual reality environments. This suggests the possibility of geometrical configurations of greater than three dimensions with which identification is then possible. In this sense such confogurations become viable dynamic vehicles for identity.

Especially interesting in this respect are those configurations capable of holding transformations which are otherwise considered as paradoxically impossible in three dimensions. This is exemplified by the nature of the Klein bottle and the process of sphere inversion (World Introversion through Paracycling: global potential for living sustainably "outside-inside", 2013; Psychosocial Implication of Without Within, 2013). These are suggestive of complex forms potentially appropriate to individual self-reflexivity -- and its credible engagement with engendering corresponding collective forms vital for global governance (Sustaining a Community of Strange Loops: comprehension and engagement through aesthetic ring transformation, 2010).

The fluidity and malleability of form can be usefully illustrated and imagined through the diagrams originally presented by D'Arcy Thompson (On Growth and Form, 1917). Rather than reproduce his images, the process can be admirably illustrated by the manipulation of images using the functionality of Adobe Illustrator, as separately discussed (Computer Use as Philosophy in Operation: metaphors of the inner game, 2003). These are embodied in the animation below. He made the point that the appearance of many distinct species arose from a simply "distortion" of a geometrical framework.

elescope fish (Mendosoma lineatum) (reproduced from Wikipedia )

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