Enlightening dialogue dynamics

Patterning Archetypal Templates of Emergent Order (Part #6)

The various themes explored above are used here to highlight the possibility of new ways in which dialogue within communities can be enhanced to new levels. However any such 'enlightenment' of dialogue between people and perspectives in society is seen as complementary to an enlightenment of internal dialogue within an individual, each reinforcing and sustaining the other.

Models: Recent decades have made much of conceptual 'models' in academic discourse, but especially in the ordered applications of insight by consultants to every variety of human and environmental activity, including dialogue processes. Indeed many such models are now proprietary, and carefully protected as intellectual property. For enthusiasts of Pythagoras (based in ancient Croton), there is a delightful multiple irony to the fact that Herman Kahn, an early futurist exemplifying such applications, had his base in Croton-on-Hudson -- then also the HQ of the World Modeling Association (that continues to make Model of the Year awards to beauties of the fashion business).

Typically conceptual models are based on a 2 x 2 matrix, through which four disparate dimensions are held in relationship -- echoing strangely the traditional integrative challenge expressed metaphorically in terms of earth, water, air and fire. Such models may have an inherent bias positioning one cell as exemplifying a totally unsatisfactory situation, two others as less unsatisfactory efforts at correcting the condition in contrasting ways, and a fourth that is indicative of the satisfactory goal. It is much rarer to find models (such as those for Junfgian personality types) that suggest that each of the four cells cell has associated strengths and weaknesses and that the satisfactory condition emerges from balancing all of them [more].

The cells may be seen as facets of a discourse -- facets that may well be reflected in facet-based document classification systems as originated by S R Ranganathan [more; more; more] and offering retrieval of information from facet spaces [more]. To the extent that dialogue can be usefully associated with discourse that moves from the perspectives of one cell to that of another, bouncing backwards and forwards between them, the model therefore serves to reflect insight back within its framework. However, there are clearly constraints on where it can ultimately 'go' -- especially if there is no preferred cell (as in the children's game of hopscotch). If the matrix of cells represents contrasting views on a relatively restricted domain, the incommensurabilities between them may be relatively low -- as contrasted metaphorically with the fundamental differences between earth, air, fire and water. For a restricted domain, the dialogue would then be relatively dull and boring.

Such a 2 x 2 matrix can be folded up to form the most basic three-dimensional structure, namely a tetrahedron. A gemstone cut in this way, perhaps as a kind of prism, does not have the same light enhancing ability as more complex cuts. It might be said that such a simple structure is a dull model for processing light -- or insight.

Of course there are much more complex models, often articulated in more complex matrices (3 x 4, 6 x 7, etc). Again it is possible to treat these models as maps of three-dimensional structures that can be formed by folding them. The reverse procedure of taking a three-dimensional polyhedron and unfolding it gives rise to what is referred to as a 'polyhedral net' map characteristic of that structure [more; more].

Curiously however the variety of such nets, or of their 3D-forms, is much greater than that used to hold the great variety of conceptual models. It would appear that the conceptual models for much of human behavioural management tend only to be associated with relatively simplistic structures, compared to the richer range that might be used. What is especially intriguing is that many polyhedral nets appear assymetrical and irregular in two-dimensions -- until they are folded up into their 3D form as in the case of the regular (Platonic) and semi-regular (Archimedean) forms. However it is interesting that some of these nets seem to resemble structures associated with integrative religious symbols -- for example, the truncated cube unfolds to form a structure like the Christian cross, whose particular elements have symbolic associations like the cells in the matrix representation of a conceptual model.

Is it possible that academic model building has unconsciously restricted itself to a range of conceptual models that are ill-adapted to some of the integrative tasks for which configurations of insights are required? Does this result from a predisposition to simple symmetries in two dimensions (notably tabular forms for ease of printing or inclusion in web pages) -- when important asymmetries need to be acknowledged and integrated together, as exemplified by structures in three dimensions? How does this predisposition constrain the nature of dialogue in a complex discourse between views corresponding to different facets of a topic on which society desperately needs a coherent, integrative outcome?

Challenging conceptual models by this potential variety, and its greater integrative possibilities, calls for interesting explorations of the metaphorical significance of:

the transformation from 2D to 3D
the morphing of the square surfaces of model cells necessary for successful 2D-to-3D transformation
the cells, unforeseen in 2D, that may emerge as necessary to a more integrative 3D representation
possible transformations between 3D structures, and the significance for the integrative power of the resulting configuration

Implications of diamond faceting: There are considerable published resources (notably on the web) on polyhedral nets and polyhedra in general, and these are indeed an inspiration to certain kinds of exploration of the human condition (cf the work of R Buckminster Fuller). What appears to be lacking is any way of embodying the potential of such integrative ordering so as to offer coherence to human behaviour, whether collective or individual. The difficulty is in part conceptual in that the 3D structures are complex and it is difficult to associate significance with their individual facets. This contrasts with the facility of 2D model builders who can adapt their tabular formats to web menus and the like. It is also the case that people are reluctant to deal with arrays of topics where the integrative configuration is subtle. It is easier to treat one's immediate environment as flat, rather than to understand it as part of the surface of a globe whose curvature one cannot detect.

It is for such reasons that the faceting of gemstones, and especially of a diamond, provides such a rich and accessible metaphor for some of the conceptual issues of enlightening dialogue and ensuring its coherence. A cut diamond is a polyhedron, as discussed in relation to conceptual models (above). It is cut to ensure that incident light is reflected around within it so as to maximize the brilliance of the outcome. This appears to offer many accessible learnings concerning the movement and enhancement of insight within a model -- especially since there is a degree of commonality to the terminology:

'facets' of a topic, notably according to certain document classification systems
taking a 'cut' through a topic
concern with maximizing the 'brilliance' of a keynote speech, a dialogue, a panel, a conference, an agreement, or a thesis
concern with the design of the 'table' for any complex discussion (whether a dinner table, a negotiating table, or a summit)

Many of the descriptors of gemstones (see above) can be applied to a dialogue or its participants. Potentially they may also be applicable to the features of an enhanced internal dialogue of any individual in responding to the world. It is intriguing that research at the Gemmological Institute of America includes attention to computer techniques in the visualization of information.

The fact that diamonds cut to maximize brilliancy have 58 facets appears to result not from theory but from centuries of experiment, subsequently confirmed by theoretical studies and simulations (see above and [more]). Using this praxis as a point of departure, it is useful to ask questions about:

how does the 'table' of a diamond function with respect to light, as contrasted with how a 'roundtable' (especially the Camelot archetype) might function with respect to insight; indeed how could a table of the wise be best designed to enhance that wisdom?
the functioning of the 'table' of a diamond is dependent on the facets surrounding it, just as a 'roundtable' is dependent on its participants; but much is made of the precision of cut to reflect the light appropriately within a diamond, whereas little is acknowledged or understood about how participants might usefully (and in a disciplined manner) reflect insights amongst themselves
the facets defining the 'table' of a diamond [see diagram; diagram] are the 8 triangular 'star facets' which might be said to be matched in a 'roundtable' by the 'stars' or personalities on any panel respecting the plus-or-minus seven size constraint rule (including the G7, or G8, summits); interestingly, the 'star facets' are matched by 8 4-sided 'kite facets' (coin de table in French) of which only one apex meets the table -- that might again be said to correspond to the degree of involvement of any direct support personal in any dialogue 'roundtable'
the star and kite facets are backed by an outer ring of 16 'upper girdle facets' which might be considered to correspond to supporting experts at any high level summit roundtable, namely two per participant
under the 'girdle', and invisible from above the 'table' of the diamond, are the 16 'lower girdle facets', associated with a further 8 'pavillion facets'; the 'lower girdle facets' might be considered to the back-room support team in any summit dialogue, or those otherwise 'below the salt'. A feminist would probably argue that in a masculine world, the 8 spouses (the 'women behind the men') correspond to the 8 'pavillion facets'. It is from these that the light is reflected back through the table. More symbolically the facets below the girdle might be considered to correspond to the unconscious, or even the 'negative' counterpart to the 'positive' above the girdle.
the 'culet' (from the French cul) as the very small flat face at the base of a gem, cut parallel to the table to prevent splintering (and deriving from personal armour plating designed to protect the 'bum'), again invites, in the case of a 'roundtable', various realistic comparisons (of which the least pejoratively euphemistic might be 'spin doctor').

The structure of a Round Brilliant Cut diamond of 58 facets may also be reviewed in the light of the chakra system in which each chakra is associated with a circular mandala. Thus the part above 'the girdle' of the diamond is known as the 'crown', just as the seventh chakra is known as the 'crown chakra' -- and traditionally it would be those of royal or noble attribute that would wear a bejewelled 'crown'. The 'culet' might well be seen as corresponding to the first chakra, at the base of the spine. In fact taking horizontal slices through the diamond effectively gives a series of mandala shapes whose component parts are strikingly equivalent to those traditionally associated with each of the other chakras. For example, one source gives the number of 'petals' to the sequence of chakras is given as: 4, 6, 10, 16, 96, 972.

Similar correspondences of potential significance may emerge from consideration of the Radiant Cut with 62-70 facets or of the Princess Cut of 76 facets. A simpler cut, such as the Eight Cut (or Single Cut) only has eight four-sided facets on the crown, eight on the pavilion, plus the table and culet, making 18 in total. The Swiss Cut is halfway between a brilliant and an Eight Cut, with 34 facets in total. There is an intriguing relationship to the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching, notably with respect to the 8 star facets that delineate the table of the Round Brilliant, recalling the 8-house scheme of the Chinese system.

Each such polyhedral combination could be unfolded, as for the conceptual models (discussed earlier), into a characteristic 2D polyhedral net. These could be explored as potentially ideal options for the design of a dialogue or negotiating table. Note that in contrast to those of the matrix models, the polyhedral nets associated with these cuts are each centred on a 'table' which they effectively serve. They are centro-symmetric. Note also the distinction from the topological net of the dimaond as a crystral lattice structure [more; more]

Providing a container for the dynamics of coherence: Whilst using a particular diamond cut may provide an interesting metaphor for the configuration of participants in a dialogue, the challenge is to find ways to use it to explore the dynamics of dialogue that the configuration makes possible. Two examples increase the credibility of such an investigation:

Interactive human motion acquisition from video sequences: Human motion modelling for animation and virtual reality has reached a level of capturing live motion data from people using various visual and non-visual sensors [more]. The 'movement of the ball between players' in football games can now be converted for dynamic analysis, notably to improve game strategy. The question is when the 'movement of a point between participants' in a dialogue will be graphically recorded, as a complement to minute writing, to enhance the quality of the dialogue. E-mail dialogues lends themselves readily to such analysis and to redesign of communication of protocols in the light of conclusions [more] ??? Ironically 'Diamond Mind' figures most prominently on the web in relation to baseball -- namely a computer game dedicated to providing the most realistic strategy-oriented baseball games for use on home computers and the web [more]
Tracking user movement within websites: This is an important aspect of finding ways to ensure that a website retain users attention -- maximizing 'stickiness'. Software tracking devices offer one systematic approach. Another is provided by fitting test subjects with gear that follows eyeballs from webpage to webpage. The equipment is strapped to users' foreheads and tracks shifting gazes and measures pupils as they expand and contract. Using information gained through this high-tech monitoring, this identifies impediments to navigation and ease of use, and provide online companies with straightforward recommendations on how to improve their sites [more]. The multi-site (or cross-sectoral) variant of this issue is to be seen in the organization of 'web rings' through which users are passed from site to site within a particular (and currently disorganized) configuration of sites [more; more].
Computer mediated discourse: Computer-mediated discourse is the communication produced when human beings interact with one another by transmitting messages via networked computers. The study of computer-mediated discourse (henceforth CMD) is a specialization within the broader interdisciplinary study of computer-mediated communication (CMC), distinguished by its focus on language and language use in computer networked environments, and by its use of methods of discourse analysis to address that focus. [more]. An associated focus is the management of persistent discourse [more], text visulization [more], and comparisons of discourse and picture processing [more].

These examples suggest a degree of equivalence between tracking the movement of light through a diamond and the movement of a point within a discourse. Whether there is a relationship between movement in the case of a diamond cut for maximum brilliancy (and 'fire') and the movement of a point in a 'brilliant' ('fiery') discourse remains to be explored. The case of user movement through a 'brilliant' website of suitably configured pages perhaps offers an accessible intermediary experimental environment -- notably to contrast movements in simply-facetted sites (namely few internal links) with those in many-facetted sites (namely many links). Each web page on the site can then be seen as a facet of the site as a whole. How they are configured together on the site should be one of the determinants of the 'brilliancy' of the site (in contrast to design analogues to the other optical properties, discussed above, such as 'lustre') -- perhaps even leading to the notion of a site of 'diamond quality'. Of course single-page sites might be usefully understood in the light of the cabochon cut, which depends for its attractiveness on dynamic graphical effects that recall the optical properties of asterism and chatoyancy (see above).

The football, website and dialogue cases make clear that, although light may indeed move to enhance brilliancy in the diamond for an observer, there is also a participative dimension to the appreciation of brilliance in each of them from which an external observer is necessarily excluded. Whether the experiential identification is with the player (football, dialogue), the ball (football, website, dialogue), or the interaction as a whole, the sense of brilliancy is then effectively internal to each environment. The equivalent in the case of the diamond would be associated with the integrity of the pattern of light rays within the diamond and how it effectively constituted a 'light body' recalling the Buddhist preoccupations of the Diamond Way (see above) -- as they might apply to the enhancement and integrity of an internal dialogue.

It is somewhat extraordinary that diamond, as perhaps the most valuable material commodity in society, only embodies that value through enhancing light in an elegant way -- and in marked contrast to the more powerful capacity of an optical system or laser to do so. Again the question might be asked as to whether the most valuable non-material attribute of human civilization might not similarly be associated with enhancing insight in an elegant way.

Enlightening dialogue: How then does the diamond metaphor help to understand the experience of 'brilliant' dialogue -- and the integrative experiences associated with the archetypal metaphors in the first section of this paper (Eden, Glass Bead Game, Realms of the Gods, Camelot, etc)? What makes for a diamond quality dialogue?

Issues that might be considered include:

significance of subjective evaluations that there is 'lots of energy around' or 'good vibrations'
how the nature, direction and quality of the sources of insight feeding into the dialogue through its facets may be understood in terms of light incident on a diamond
how insights reflected from one facet of the topic to another may be understood in terms of light reflected between facets in a diamond
how insights incident on one facet in a particular way may simply pass out of the dialogue environment, just as light may pass through a diamond without being enhanced
how insights are enhanced through refraction, drawing them together, just as light enhancement results from light being subject to non-linear refraction towards the normal within a diamond -- to a greater degree than within other substances (because of its high refractive index)
how experience of dialogue dynamics as 'seductive' may be understood in terms of the seductive qualities of a diamond
how insights incident on the group through the array of participants 'at the table', bounced around by the 'back room' support teams ('smoke filled rooms'), then emerging enhanced through the table may be usefully compared to the movement of light incident on the crown facets and reflected back from the pavillion facets through the table
the conditions under which greater complexity in the organization of the facets of a dialogue may lead to its greater enhancement and 'brilliance' in contrast with simpler organization -- as suggested by differences in enhancement of light in diamonds of simpler or more complex cuts
how might a community of the wise understand its process of 'holding the light' when such light, unlike proprietary insights, is denatured by being grasped and held; is the 'holding' a process of reflecting it back amongst the participants -- somewhat akin to the movement of a frisbee (and as opposed to tennis)? Does such 'holding' depend on sustaining a pattern of movement as in any ecosystem? Is this intuitively associated with traditional exchanges that 'keep the gift moving'?
is there a way in which 'loss of face' in any dialogue can be understood as failure to reflect insights back in an integrative manner?
does the need for complemenarity of precisely angled cuts to enhance brilliancy in a diamond suggest the need for a higher order of discipline in the selection and configuration of participants in any collective dialogue aspiring to enlighten? Are relevant insights associated with such descriptions of dialogue as 'playing the angles', 'angling for support', and 'approaching a topic from another angle'?
does the significance of geometric 'duals' [more; more] in the functioning of 'jewels' point beyond their phonetic equivalence to intriguing possibilities of transcending sets of dualities and dualisms through the kind of movement associated with light?
what can be learnt from diamond faceting about how disparate insights are taken in though facets, oreinted to contrasting inputs, and then given a degree of coherence as they are emitted back through the crown -- presumably as a feature of 'diamond mind' functioning?
what can be learnt from diamond regarding the alternating function of facets as brilliant emitters and dark absorbers, according to their orientation to any source -- and how might this relate to the I Ching dynamic patterning of opposites such as light and dark?

Would exploration of such questions improve the quality of global summits and their final communiqués? Given the expenditure of US$100 million per participant for the Okinawa G7 Summit in July 2000 -- far exceeding the investment in many of the programs agrred there -- surely there is an opportunity for enhancing its insight-processing performance? Could the pattern of interactions between viewpoints and themes at such an event be usefully traced out (as described above) to form a structure that might resemble a diamond? Would such a structure be a symbol and a measure of the integrity of the meeting? Would the final outcome, in the form of a communiqué (and a virtual hyper-construct), then be enhanced like the light emerging from a gem? How would this contrast with a facetted structure of mirrored surfaces, that glittered in reflecting back much-hyped external insights, but in no way performed any other insight enhancing function?