Nature of communication space

Communication with Whom, about What, Where and Why? (Part #4)

The disparate concerns above raise the question of the nature of the cognitive "space" in which they emerge. Is it possible that the future will understand this space in ways that are currently totally unforeseen -- as might be said of present understanding of global communication in comparison with that of centuries past?

What might be the dimensions, characteristics or cognitive "feel" of such a space? More specifically, what are the pointers with which I can work towards some such understanding?

questions: There is something fundamental to the nature and experience of questioning. This merits more attention to the set of WH-questions (who, where, why, what, when, how, which). How (etc.) do they function as gatekeepers and midwives to future potential? Why (etc.) are they so fundamental to communication with others? What (etc.) is so important about answers? (Am I Question or Answer? 2006; Engaging with Questions of Higher Order: cognitive vigilance required for higher degrees of twistedness, 2004)
identity: What is so special about a sense of identity, of cultivating it, of affirming it in communication? Identity with respect to whom?
others: What is this sense of "other" with whom one engages, notably in communication? Why (etc.) is it so distinct and problematic? ("Human Intercourse": "Intercourse with Nature" and "Intercourse with the Other", 2007).
disagreement: What is the curious need for agreement -- and the corresponding aggressivity (or despair) to those with whom one disagrees, or from those who claim to disagree? How best to focus one's disagreement with those who appear to inhibiting the emergence of more appropriate understanding -- as one understands it? Could disagreement be used more meaningfully? (Using Disagreements for Superordinate Frame Configuration, 1992)
persuasion: Why the need to persuade and convince others of an understanding that seems currently of significance? Why the assumption that they need to benefit from such insight in comparison with that with which they are seemingly satisfied?
cognitive catastrophes: What is the strange discontinuity and hubris associated with misunderstanding of any form, but notably polarization and radical opposition? (Conformality of 7 WH-questions to 7 Elementary Catastrophes: an exploration of potential psychosocial implications, 2006)
closure and convergence: Why the continuing expectation of cognitive closure, reconciliation and resolution of differences -- typically presented as "win-win" solutions? What forms of coherence might be expected in communication from embracing divergence rather than convergence? (Sustaining the Coherence of Dialogue through Apartness: patterns of systematic configuration of entities through hypertext, 1997; Coherent Policy-making Beyond the Information Barrier, 1999)
dynamics: If the challenges to communication are not readily resolved through some static model, how is one to encompass the complexities of a process approach to a dynamic situation? (Psychology of Sustainability: embodying cyclic environmental processes, 2002)
developmental direction: What is the sense of the direction towards which one's learning is developing -- from which a greater sense of one's own identity emerges? Where is it pointing and why? How is this to be reconciled with any cyclic sense of returning to (re)discover the significance of where one is now? To what extent is one "chasing after one's own tail "? (Emergence of Cyclical Psycho-social Identity: sustainability as "psyclically" defined, 2007)
configuration: Rather than a single linear direction of development and learning, to what extent is it a question of a multiplicity of interlocking cycles of learning? But how are they to be understood as configured, weaving together, or forming a connecting pattern -- beyond any "matrix"? (Spherical Configuration of Interlocking Roundtables: internet enhancement of global self-organization through patterns of dialogue, 1998; Council of the Whys: emergent wisdom through configuration of why-question dynamics, 2006; Beyond the Matrix: becoming other wise, 2007)
endless explication: What is this need to endlessly articulate understandings of how things (unfortunately) are and of how they (beneficially) ought to be? Is a sense of configuration a fruitful constraint that can channel such explication and shift attention to a more fruitful level of focus?
self-reflexivity and mirroring: To what extent is communication with others a surrogate for unrecognized discourse with oneself -- a mirroring of processes within one's understanding over which one cannot yet recognize ownership and responsibility? As with a failure to recycle the products one uses, is this a failure to "recycle" knowledge and information one uses in some way -- thereby effectively "dumping" it into the environment and onto "others"? (My Reflecting Mirror World: making my World Summit on Sustainable Development worthwhile, 2002; Consciously Self-reflexive Global Initiatives Renaissance zones, complex adaptive systems, and third order organizations, 2007; Being the Universe: a Metaphoric Frontier: co-existent immanence of evolutionary phases, 1999)
aesthetics and engagement: In contrast with linear explication, how does aesthetics "re-member" a vital connecting configuration enabling meaningful psychoactive engagement -- bridging between oneself and otherness? But why does aesthetic communication then offer a corresponding set of traps for the unwary? (Aesthetic Challenge of Interfaith Dialogue as Exemplified by Meditation, 1997)
strange attractor: Notably through a subtle elegance, perhaps echoing intimations of lost archetypal knowledge, what is the sense of transcendent harmony that is the "strange attractor" for faith, hope and belief, whether scientific or otherwise? What is the "strange repulsor" from whom one is so anxious to distance oneself? (Human Values as Strange Attractors Coevolution of classes of governance principles, 1993)
time: How unfruitfully biased is the conventional understanding of time in terms of which so much of life is organized? Are there other ways of understanding time as a context for more meaningful communication? How meaningful and illusory is any communication with the future? (Future Generation through Global Conversation: in quest of collective well-being through conversation in the present moment, 1997; Presenting the Future, 2001; Engaging Macrohistory through the Present Moment, 2004; Minding the Future: a thought experiment on presenting new information, 1980).
wisdom keepers: Who are the wisdom keepers and where are they? Why are those who claim to be so seemingly less wise in practice (especially in their communications with each other) then one would expect them to be? How are they related to the silo thinkers in the mighty towers of their respective disciplines? (Evaluating Synthesis Initiatives and their Sustaining Dialogues, 2000; The Isdom of the Wisdom Society: embodying time as the heartland of humanity, 2003; Being Other Wise: clues to the dynamics of a meaningfully sustainable lifestyle, 1998)
ignorance: What is it that I am so critically ignorant or unaware of, perhaps despite repeated exposure to relevant insight? Does this condemn me to a "slough of despond" -- of those who have not yet "got it" in the eyes of the truly wise? How meaningful is the degree to which others perceive me as knowing "more" in a manner similar to my own perception of others knowing "more"? But what is it that those who do know "more" are unaware of -- that seemingly undermines their ability to communicate more effectively, notably with each other?
higher quality of knowing: How is one to appreciate, from one's limited condition, any "higher" quality of knowing to which one might aspire? Or is it precisely in the extent to which it is as much "lower" as "higher" that the secret of future communication lies? (Self-reflective Embodiment of Transdisciplinary Integration (SETI): the universal criterion of species maturity? 2008; (Authentic Grokking: emergence of Homo conjugens, 2003; Enhancing the Quality of Knowing through Integration of East-West metaphors, 2000; Musing on Information of a Higher Quality, 1996)