Interweaving disparate modalities

Global Challenge of the Global Challenge (Part #6)

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• Simulation: Given the complexity of the situation, and the variety of proposals and preferences, there is a good case for making use of increasing simulation facilities to give a readily deliverable focus to the decision-making challenge. This might seek to encompass:
  • a multiplicity of problems
  • a multiplicity of proposed strategic responses
  • a wide variety of preferences and sensitivities in regard to both problems and strategies
  • a multiplicity of approaches to decision-making, and the quest for consensus, in a context in which a degree of variety may be healthy, if not essential and realistic
  • the challenge of comprehension of any such variety, especially with regard to perceived needs for oversight and surveillance -- notably taking into account the issues of information access, overload and constrained attention span
  • the probability of any initiative being a focus of disruption and hacking by parties who perceive themselves inadequately recognized by the simulation -- or motivated by the possibility of other benefits from it
  • the capacity to test unforeseen "surprises", including those triggered by disruptive hacking
  • the relevance to collective discourse and debate in engaging with such variety and deriving insight from any simulation -- potentially benefiting from the increasingly sophisticated analysis of team sports (notably passing patterns in ball games)
    
    
  A focus on simulation could benefit from insights in neural learning networks and their use in the possible detection of previously unrecognized windows of opportunity. It could also benefit from simulations of democratic decision-making and voting systems. Indications include efforts to simulate world governance through analogues to the United Nations, as well as a variety of world decision-making games, whether in online video form as originally proposed by Buckminister Fuller (as noted below). Especially interesting would be insights emerging from new approaches to disagreement between incommensurable alternative perspectives. These might offer the possibility of designing viable (eco)systems which do not require universal agreement (Coherent Patterns of Schism Formation, Bifurcation and Disagreement -- and the associated bonding, encounters and agreements they evoke, 2001; (Beyond Method: engaging opposition in psycho-social organization, 1981; Using Disagreements for Superordinate Frame Configuration, 1992)
  
  It is of course the case that the processes, concerns and decision-making of any Global Challenge initiative lend themselves to such simulation -- especially as a means of anticipating large numbers of submissions and the challenge they represent to effective assessment. This would reflect, to some degree the challenge faced by international institutions, such as the European Commission, in calling for proposals and endeavouring to evaluate their significance for its pre-defined agenda. Simulating the existence of any such agenda could offer further insight into the constraints on the emergence of unforeseen innovations.
  
  
• Elaborating a holding framework: Whether as a feature of any simulation exercise, or as a resource which could enable simulation, there is a case for an information framework into which perceived problems, proposed strategies, and the like, could be "filed". In anticipation of any processing, whether foreseen or not, this would constitute a basic resource for decision-making.
  
  It is of course the case that every international institution with a variety of preoccupations maintains such a data base, whether online, publicly accessible, or subject to major access constraints. A difficulty for collective decision-making is that there are major issues in reconciling the data so held -- as is only to evident in the challenges experienced by fragmented security and intelligence services.
  
  Illustrative examples of holding frameworks are indicated above, notably the example offered by a Global Solutions Wiki (2009) and the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential.
  
  
• Multimodal: With a few notable exceptions, the tendency is to design information systems to focus on text and statistical data. Search engines such as Google offer an unprecedented level of world wide access to imagery. YouTube and the like offer access to video presentations. Both are seemingly disassociated from what is conventionally considered appropriate for decision-making -- despite their widespread appeal.
  
  Given the contrasting preferences for information, a more systematic approach could be taken to enabling access to the following and the relationships between them of relevance to decision-making -- namely the "translation" between such modalities as:
  • text, including conversion between long and short through text mining (Convertor from Text to Poetry, Song or Music: computer-assisted aesthetic enhancement of treaties, declarations and agreements, 2007)
  • visualization and mapping, notably in 3D and 4D as explored on this site (Configuring Global Governance Groups: experimental visualization of possible integrative relationships, 2008)
  • sonification: exemplified by the implications for strategy articulation (A Singable Earth Charter, EU Constitution or Global Ethic? 2006)
  • poetry, exemplified by epic poetry (Poetry-making and Policy-making, 1993; Poetic Engagement with Afghanistan, Caucasus and Iran: an unexplored strategic opportunity? 2009)
  • learning stories (Educational fables for faith-based global governance, 2006)
  • art forms, including painting, sculpture, dance (Aesthetics of Governance in the Year 2490, 1990)
  • symbolism, include mandalas and rosaries (Concordian Mandala as a Symbolic Nexus: insights from dynamics of a pentagonal configuration of nonagons in 3D, 2016; Designing Cultural Rosaries and Meaning Malas to Sustain Associations within the Pattern that Connects, 2000)
  • metaphors (Through Metaphor to a Sustainable Ecology of Development Policies, 1989)
  • aphorisms, as the most succinct form of governance-related wisdom (V.S.M. de Guinzbourg, Wit and Wisdom of the United Nations, 1961)
  • humour (Humour and International Challenges: augmenting problem and strategy comprehension through psycho-cultural catalysts, 1998)
  • mathematical representation
    
    
• Participation: There is of course a strong case for rendering any new approach appropriately participative, enabling those with information, suggestions, insights or feedback to "file" them accessibly. Relevant considerations include:
  • Enabling the challenge to be remade and reconfigured dynamically, according to particular preferences and biases:
    • effectively remaking the challenge in one's own image, possibly even playfully (Possibilities for Massive Participative Interaction including voting, questions, metaphors, images, constructs, melodies, issues, symbols, 2007)
    • encouraging experimentation with the deliverability of meaning (notably through symbolism, song, stories related to learning pathways)
  • Enabling explorations of the possibility of consensus and coherence -- as an evolving focus of research on unity and integration, under conditions of diversity and complexity
  • Offering the possibility for indications of
    • supportive agreement, and indication of complementary initiatives and concerns
    • disagreement and critical feedback, rendered explicit (through critical links between alternatives) rather than implicit
    • indifference and tokenism
    • questions challenging conventional framings, especially in anticipation of potential surprises
  • Enabling richer forms of discourse, possibly through elaboration of a relevant pattern language
    
    
• Enabling and embodying dynamic insight: As may prove to be especially significant in the case of values (Freedom, Democracy, Justice: Isolated Nouns or Interwoven Verbs? Illusory quest for qualities and principles dynamically disguised, 2011).
  
  
• Excellence detection: Enabling new approaches to recognition of creativity (and the controversy evoked) possibly in the light of the extensive experience with the dynamics and criteria of the competitions, or their simulation (as noted below)
  
  
• Emergency preparedness and speed of response: as illustrated by the case of deep oil spill containment (Enabling Collective Intelligence in Response to Emergencies, 2010)
  
  
• Pattern fitting and relevance: Enhancing recognition of relevance through pattern fitting (In Quest of a Strategic Pattern Language: a new architecture of values, 2008). This would encourage exploration of the extent to which "everything is relevant somehow", as a complement to the recognition "everything is connected" (cf Six degrees of separation). Of value is then the assumption that in some way, and to some degree, yet to be discovered, "everything is relevant"

The above possibilities are necessarily a reflection of the biases of the author of this document. Many aspects reflect the motivation for originally instigating the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential, now online with its participatory and visualization possibilities. This was approved for funding by the European Commission and the World Bank (see respectively Ecolynx: Information Context for Biodiversity Conservation and Intercept: Interactive Contextual Environment planning Tool for Developing Countries).

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