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Imaginative composition of ways of looking or listening
Anticipating When Blackbirds Sing Chinese (Part #11)
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The commentary evoked by Stevens' "thirteen ways" has inspired exploration of "ways of looking" in many other domains -- but seemingly not with respect to invasive surveillance. The above-mentioned commentary of Umberto Eco might be considered an exception (Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt, New York Review of Books, 22 June 1995, pp.12-15), framed otherwise by Naomi Wolf (Fascist America, in 10 easy steps, The Guardian, 24 April 2007). Stevens has created a form of template inviting imaginative responses of every quality -- as is evident from the literature. This preceded the current enthusiasm for articulating laundry lists of "ways" of framing challenges.
It might be expected that these responses would have given rise to insightful schematic depictions of how any set of ways could be configured. This does not appear to have been the case.
Number of possible ways: The concern can be related to the more general question of the number of ways which can be fruitfully distinguished, by whom and under what conditions. Clearly some would favour "one way of looking", others would opt for 2, 3, 4, etc. Increasing the number of ways challenges comprehension in engaging with complexity. The challenge with two ways is indicated by the uncertainty principle of physics. The challenge of 12 ways can be variously explored (Enabling a 12-fold Pattern of Systemic Dialogue for Governance, 2011; Checklist of 12-fold Principles, Plans, Symbols and Concepts, 2011).
According to the number of "ways", a "systematic" approach can be speculatively taken to the patterns of comprehension associated with distinctive, complementary (but essentially incommensurable) ways. One exercise with a particular methodology explored the range of ways of looking -- from 1-fold through to 20-fold (Distinguishing Levels of Declarations of Principles, 1980). An effort was made to articulate the qualitative distinctions between the elements within each pattern. These were tentatively labelled as follows:
Any such pattern of distinctions necessarily raises the question why not 12 (or less), or 14 (or more)? The argument can therefore be developed further by making use of a particular geometrical configuration with which 13 ways can be imaginatively associated.
Multiverse of memescapes? Curiously an imagined "universe" or "world", as a memescape of particular dimensionality, is readily understood as spherical -- for those living imaginatively (if only cocoon-like) "within their own world". More curious is the focus on the spatial (geometrical) nature of such globality -- if only as a metaphor. Multiple universes can then constitute a multiverse -- consistent with the verses of Stevens' poem.
However it is also readily understood that a world has dynamics -- implying time -- such as rotation and revolution. It is however less clear what these dynamics imply in temporal terms for the "world" of any individual or group. Especially challenging is how the cycles of a world are to be understood in relation to one another -- and to other "worlds". One approach to cyclic understanding of a world is through toroidal dynamics (Complexification of Globalization and Toroidal Transformation, 2010; Implication of Toroidal Transformation of the Crown of Thorns: design challenge to enable integrative comprehension of global dynamics, 2011)
Sphere packing as a fundamental spatio-temporal pattern: The imaginative challenge in retaining a relationship to 12, embodying 13, and "moving on" to 14 (or more), can be explored through sphere packing. This assumes that the spatio-temporal cognitive "worlds" are somehow packed in cognitive spacetime -- in terms of their potential outfolding (explication) and infolding (implication).
A key contribution to such explorations is the work of R. Buckminster Fuller (Synergetics: explorations in the geometry of thinking, 1975; Synergetics 2: further explorations in the geometry of thinking, 1979) -- as separately discussed (Geometry of Thinking for Sustainable Global Governance: cognitive implication of synergetics, 2009).
Of particular relevance to "reconciling" 12, 13 and 14, is the related work of Keith Critchlow (Order in Space: a design source book, 1969). He explores the relationship between the Platonic forms and Archimedean forms of polyhedra, so fundamental to many conventional patterns (Examples of Integrated, Multi-set Concept Schemes: Annexes to Patterns of N-foldness, 1984). It is the representation of the configuration of them which is especially relevant to this argument.
As noted in that compilation with respect Polygons and Polyhedra (1984), there are 13 distinct Archimedean polyhedra in which similar arrangements of regular, convex polygons of two or more different kinds meet at each vertex of the polyhedron [which can itself be circumscribed by a tetrahedron, with 4 common faces]. Such semi-regular polyhedra are defined by the fact that all their vertices lie on a circumscribing sphere. Critchlow configures 12 of them, within their circumscribing spheres, in a closest packing configuration around the circumscribing sphere of the 13th -- a truncated tetrahedron -- as shown below. The truncated tetrahedron is the only semi-regular solid with 12 independent axes passing through its vertices from its centre. Removal of the central sphere allows the 12 other spheres to close into a more compact icosahedral configuration.
Archimedean polyhedra | |
Successive truncations of octahedron | Successive truncations of icosahedron |
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truncated tetrahedron (8 polygons: 3 / 6 sided) | |
| Arrangement of the 12 Archimedean polyhedra in their most regular pattern, a cuboctahedron, around a truncated tetrahedron (from Keith Critchlow, Order in Space, 1969, p. 39). Arrows indicate the succession of truncations from 1 to 6 in each case. (Disabled: Clicking on a polyhedron links to a spinning image) | |
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Missing from such explicated spatial representation is a sense of their implicated cognitive dynamics -- ensuring the distinctive integrity of each world, as a mode of knowing, to those "inhabiting" any one of them. These dynamics are implied to a degree by the interlocking circles characteristic of each of the above spherically symmetrical polyhedral forms.
Potentially these circles offer the possibility of sustaining future reinforcement in ordering social networking on the web (cf. Spherical Configuration of Interlocking Roundtables: Internet enhancement of global self-organization through patterns of dialogue, 1998; Polyhedral Empowerment of Networks through Symmetry: psycho-social implications for organization and global governance, 2008). They also have strategic implications (cf. Representation of Interlocking Elements for a Sustainable Global System: configuring strategic dilemmas in intersectoral dialogue, 1995).
Embodying incommensurability: With respect to the degree of paradox and self-reflexivity associated with the post-binary challenge of concern here, the schematic above is suggestive of the degree of incomprehensibility inherent in the relationships "between the worlds".
Indicative of geometrical transformation, the lines are also indicative of a requisite cognitive shift from one "way of looking" to another -- from one logical modality to another. The schematic is necessarily misleading since any such "way" might be treated as central through the window or lens through which reality is imagined -- as the focus of attention in the moment (however illusory from any other perspective). It is in this sense that each can be understood both as the "baleful eye" of the blackbird (as raven) and as a particular mode of singing and imaginatively sung reality. Ironically the number of facets in the schematic as a whole is of a similar order to the number of songs in a blackbird repertoire.
Further insights can be derived from the extensive exploration by Buckminster Fuller of the transformational dynamic of the structure which he termed a vector equilibrium (Vector Equilibrium and its Transformation Pathways, 1980).
From looking to listening? It is curious that the focus of Stevens' poem concerns "looking" at the blackbirds, rather than evoking the possibility of "listening" to them. Looking might well be consistent with the blackbirds understood in their "raven/crow" modality rather than in their "songster" modality.
With respect to listening, the schematic above suggests a multiverse of memescape worlds based on sound, rather than one to be "envisaged" (Bradley Wiggins and G. Bret Bowers, Memes as Genre: a structurational analysis of the memescape, New Media and Society, 26 May 2014). Bird song might then be mapped onto the many lines of the schematic -- as song lines. Each spherical polyhedron then offers a distinctive pattern of potential song lines, variously oriented to one another in framing the globality of the whole. This is reminiscent of experiments in 3D musical notation ***
With one of the collective nouns for ravens being "congress", this offers an association to the 4,300 line epic tale of the Conference of the Birds. In that poem, the birds of the world gather to decide who is to be their king, as they have none. The the wisest of them all suggests that they should find the legendary Simorgh, a mythical Persian bird roughly equivalent to the western phoenix. After much decision-making discussion, when the group of 30 birds finally reach the dwelling place of the Simorgh, all they find is a lake in which they see their own reflection.
The progressive articulation of the relationship between the thirty birds recalls the argument from the perspective of management cybernetics by Stafford Beer for a syntegration process based on the 30-edged icosahedron (Beyond Dispute: the invention of team syntegrity; 1994). The icosahedron is one of the forms through which the vector equilibrium can be transformed.
From description to question? The stanzas of the poems take the form of descriptions. This form has led many to compare them with haiku. A haiku may well imply the possibility of a question. In that sense, it can pose the cognitive challenge of a koan. The strategic relevance of haiku has been discussed separately (Ensuring Strategic Resilience through Haiku Patterns: reframing the scope of the "martial arts" in response to strategic threats, 2006). The challenge of "13 ways" could then fruitfully be understood in relation to both haiku and koan.
The schematic multiverse would then constitute a pattern of questions to be fruitfully understood as existentially challenging. Considered in this way, this argues for the function of the blackbird as a kind of marker at the point when any inadequate conclusion is assumed regarding binary oppositions or their reconciliation (as noted above by Akin, and discussed below). The blackbird then brings reflection "up short" -- offering a mysterious darkened mirror, into, or through, which one might step (Stepping into, or through, the Mirror: embodying alternative scenario patterns, 2008).
Some such schematic could then be understood as a mapping of cognitive traps implied by premature closure on answers of lower dimensionality. This offers the association to blackbirding as a term used in the past for kidnapping for slavery -- suggestive of how one might be cognitively kidnapped and enslaved in restrictive dimensionality.
Self-reflection and engaging with an other: Arguments include:
- Thirteen Ways of Looking at Oneself (Fourteen Ways of Looking in a Mirror, Hello Poetry, 2010)
- Donald Moss (Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Man: psychoanalysis and masculinity, 2012)
- Lisa Raphals (Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Self in Early China, History of Philosophy Quarterly, 26, 2009)
- Keath Fraser (Thirteen Ways of Listening to a Stranger, 2005).
Polysensorial intercourse: Taken further, this offers the sense in which Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird can be used as a template for comprehension through other senses, notably listening. As suggested by Terra Brockman :
I am convinced that if the poet Wallace Stevens had worked outdoors on an organic farm rather than indoors at the Hartford, he would have written 13 Ways of Listening to Cicadas instead of 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird. Take my adaptation as an example of imitation being the sincerest form of flattery -- or a sign of insanity triggered by the cicadas' ear-splitting buzz (13 Ways of Listening to Cicadas, Center for Humans and Nature, 20 August 2012).
Related possibilities include:
- Thirteen Ways of Listening to Oneself
- Mithril-Moony (Thirteen Ways of Listening to Water)
- Gibbons Ruark (Thirteen Ways Of Listening To The Songbirds The Cortland Review, 2004).
Global strategic discourse is primarily based on vision -- despite the unrelated importance attached to music (Metaphor and the Language of Futures, 1992). As a potential cognitive trap in its own right, this suggests that looking at a polysensorial approach merits consideration, if the proverbial "elephant in the living room" is to be recognized (Strategic Challenge of Polysensorial Knowledge bringing the "elephant" into "focus", 2008).
The mirroring/marker function of the blackbird -- and possibly its song -- could be considered even more generally in terms of Thirteen Modes of Intercourse with the Other, as variously noted ("Human Intercourse": "Intercourse with Nature" and "Intercourse with the Other", 2007; Intercourse with Globality through Enacting a Klein bottle Cognitive implication in a polysensorial "lens", 2009 )
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