Reimagining unification and reunification through metaphor

Affinity, Diaspora, Identity, Reunification, Return (Part #11)

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The theme, aspiration and practice of unification have been widely discussed. The focus here is to contrast the intense reflections on unification within fundamental physics with the quality of reflection in the case of socio-political domains. The approach is to consider the nature of the metaphors considered appropriate to such reflection. Wikipedia offers an extensive List of political metaphors. Few, if any, focus on the challenge of unification. This is also the case in early reviews (Jeffrey Scott Mio (Metaphor and Politics, Metaphor and Symbol, 1997; Eugene F. Miller, Metaphor and Political Knowledge, American Political Science Review, 1979).

This tends to be the case with more recent studies (Terrell Carver and Jernej Pikalo, Political Language and Metaphor: interpreting and changing the world, 2008; Archibald Cary Coolidge, Political Metaphors, 2000). Some indications occur in other works (Francis A. Beer and Christ'l de Landtsheer, Metaphorical World Politics, 2004; Andreas Musolff, Metaphor and Political Discourse: analogical reasoning in debates about Europe, 2004; Markus Kornprobst, et al. Metaphors of Globalization: mirrors, magicians and mutinies, 2008).

Conventional metaphors: Given the crisis of the times and acknowledgement of the need for "new thinking", the approach here sets aside conventional reflection on the frameworks which tend to be the preoccupation of initiatives such as the European Union. These include establishing or harmonising:

• a legal framework
• an accounting framework
• a trade or market framework (customs union, etc)
• a corporate framework, exemplified by acquisitions and mergers
• elaboration of common frameworks: technical standards, social security standards
• a leadership framework as suggested by the imperial tradition
• religion, as through global community (echoing heavenly order)

Partially explored metaphors: Understandings of unification might be explored through the images of organization suggested by Gareth Morgan (Images of Organization, 1986). These he clusters as: machines, organisms, brains, cultures, political systems, psychic prisons, flux and transformation, and instruments of domination.

To identify common metaphors for knowledge, two of the most-cited chapters in the knowledge management literature were analyzed by Daniel Andriessen (On the Metaphorical Nature of Intellectual Capital: a textual analysis, Journal of Intellectual Capital, 2006). The works reviewed were (Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi (The Knowledge-Creating Company, 1995, ch. 3) and Thomas H. Davenport and Laurence. Prusak (Working Knowledge, 2000, ch. 1). Andriessen elicited six types of metaphor: knowledge as something physical, knowledge as a wave, knowledge as a living organism, knowledge as thoughts and feelings, knowledge as a process, and knowledge as a structure.

Whether understood as "organization" or "knowledge, clusters of seemingly relevant metaphors for unification might therefore include:

• mechanical metaphors -- especialy from astronautics:
  • gravity models
  • planetary models / epicycles
  • sun and satellite
• architectural metaphors -- especially ideal cities and temples, possibly centro-symmetrical
• variable geometry: "sides" of a coin, transformation of polyhedra
• human relations -- friendship, marriage (and its consummation)
• theological metaphors -- especially embodied in a sovereign (as with the Holy Roman Empire)
• ecosystem metaphors -- especially in the light of biodiversity (" unity in diversity")
• culinary metaphors -- cutting the pie, breaking eggs to make an omelette, new wine and old bottles
• metaphors of alternation -- reunification through the dynamic

Specific indications are offered by Olivia Caramello (Unifying Theory: metaphors and analogies) in terms of: star-planet relation in astronomy, "bridges" for translating in linguistics, genetics (classifying topos as a form of DNA), toposes as "natural environments" for mathematical theories, photographs from a plane, "bridges" between perceptions.

Further possibilities are suggested by Don Ambrose (Unifying Theories of Creativity: metaphorical thought and the unification process, New Ideas in Psychology, 1996), by Andreas Musolff (Metaphor and Political Discourse: analogical reasoning in debates about Europe, 2004; Metaphor Scenarios in Public Discourse, Metaphor and Symbol, 2006), by Jörg Zinken (Ideological Imagination: intertextual and correlational metaphors in political discourse, Discourse Society, 2003) and by Pamela Hobbs (Surging ahead to a new way forward: the metaphorical foreshadowing of a policy shift, Discourse and Communication, 2008).

Combining once more the focus on organization and knowledge in relation to unification, the comment of Daniel Andriessen and Marien Van Den Boom (In Search of Alternative Metaphors for Knowledge: inspiration from symbolism, Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management, 2009) with respect to knowledge management and intellectual capital (IC) is of relevance:

Knowledge innovation places organizations in a situation comparable to recent emancipation movements (black consciousness, feminism) looking for a new language and new emancipatory metaphors to express the journey to self-definition challenging externally defined images... Andriessen and Van den Boom (2007) explored alternative metaphors for knowledge from Asian philosophies. An alternative metaphor, Knowledge as energy, was explored in (Bratianu and Andriessen 2008). However, more alternatives are needed to cope with the richness of the knowledge concept. Therefore this turns to the field of symbolism to address the question: What alternative metaphors can highlight important aspects of knowledge and other intangibles that the IC metaphor cannot?

The authors mention use of the metaphor Understanding is Grasping (noted above). The metaphor can be provocatively questioned, especially with respect to identity and unification (Beyond Harassment of Reality and Grasping Future Possibilities: learnings from sexual harassment as a metaphor, 1996). Especially questionable is the association of grasping with closure -- using the five fingers of the hand. A different order of "grasping" is implied by the higher (and less restrictive) order of "closure" achieved using the five senses -- and the metaphors associated with them (Strategic Challenge of Polysensorial Knowledge: bringing the "elephant" into "focus", 2008). This notably transcends the single-sense limitations of the "vision" metaphor favoured by politicians -- and the questionable closure it offers.

In the face of the evident challenge of (re)unification, the question is where are the guiding or generative metaphors gathered and considered in the light of their relevance and communicability? Is there a need to be attentive to a condition which might be termed "metaphorical impoverishment" (In Quest of Uncommon Ground: beyond impoverished metaphor and the impotence of words of power, 1997).

This was a consideration in the Metaphor Project of the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential (Generative metaphor and policy-making, 1995). Current possibilities are discussed in terms of Psychosocial potential of analogy detection (2013), notably in the light of the Metaphor Program initiated by the US Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) to build a world repository of metaphors enabling a computer system capable of understanding metaphors used in a variety of languages (see MetaNet: A Multilingual Metaphor Repository). As noted, this is however more likely to focus at this time on the defensive potential of metaphor for the security of the US "homeland" -- rather than on any proactive, constructive understanding of the "global homeland" of humanity.

Of specific interest is any study of divided countries and cities in terms of the metaphors used to reframe the challenge to discourse and reimagining "unification":

Preliminary searches did not yield any systematic approach to the question (in contrast to the earlier Metaphor Project), with only the occasional reference to relatively trivial metaphors. This is especially surprising in the case of South Korea which has a Ministry of Unification and is renowned for the establishment of a Unification Church. Of complementary interest is the effort to profile the range of approaches to integration in an earlier Integrative Knowledge Project. The challenge has been highlighted by more recent understandings of "integration" (Self-reflexive Challenges of Integrative Futures, 2008).

An earlier experiment in 1991 explored the application of the same basic set of dynamic metaphors to: a Scottish identity, a Middle Eastern identity, a European identity, a Canadian identity, and others. The six metaphors used in each case were: an ecology of options, a physiology of interdependent organs, a nuclear fusion reactor, an organic molecule of variable geometry, a pattern of circulating traffic, and a crop rotation cycle.

Similar inquiries could of course be extended to interdisciplinary, interfaith and ideological differences given the potential of (re)unification which they variously assume to be possible anddesirable -- and to which they aspire to "return" by some means..

More powerful metaphors? There is a case for assuming that relevant "global" metaphors might be especially associated with the more extraordinary discoveries of science -- specifically physics and mathematics -- at the frontier of what the human mind can comprehend. The role of analogy and metaphor in creativity has been extensively explored in a recent study by Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander (Surfaces and Essences: analogy as the fuel and fire of thinking, 2013). Is there a need for a higher degree of "fuel and fire" in considering unification?

The argument here is that the creativity now believed to be required to engage with complexity in nature may echo in some way that required to address the psychosocial issues of "unification", as discussed separately (Engendering a Psychopter through Biomimicry and Technomimicry: insights from the process of helicopter development, 2011; In Quest of Mnemonic Catalysts -- for comprehension of complex psychosocial dynamics, 2007).

The argument is consistent with the work of Christopher Alexander (The Nature of Order: an essay on the art of building and the nature of the universe, 2003-4) and its development (New Concepts in Complexity Theory: an overview of the four books of the Nature of Order with emphasis on the scientific problems which are raised, 2003; Harmony-Seeking Computations: a science of non-classical dynamics based on the progressive evolution of the larger whole, International Journal for Unconventional Computing (IJUC), 2009). He emphasizes the importance of geometric adaptation in order to enable comprehension of a higher order, as discussed separately (Harmony-Comprehension and Wholeness-Engendering: eliciting psychosocial transformational principles from design, 2010).

Framed otherwise, it might be asked whether a distinction can usefully be made between "first order" explanations (and their relevant metaphors) and those of "second" and higher orders. Why might explanations of "lower order" be inadequate to vital issues of governance -- especially when there is extensive recourse to mathematics of "higher order" in the exploitation of possibilities of the financial markets, if not of their governance from a cybernetic perspective (Uncritical Strategic Dependence on Little-known Metrics: the Gaussian Copula, the Kaya Identity, and what else? 2009; Consciously Self-reflexive Global Initiatives: Renaissance zones, complex adaptive systems, and third order organizations, 2007).

Relevant arguments have been developed with respect to the cognitive "hole" from which "Black Swans" emerge, as described by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (The Black Swan: the impact of the highly improbable, 2007; Antifragile: things that gain from disorder, 2012). At the time of writing, such relevance is highlighted by a natural disaster -- Typhoon Haiyan -- described, like many disastrous predecessors, as "unimaginable".

A useful metaphor, appropriate to the neglected role of diasporas in governance, is highlighted by the argument of Katia Moskvitch (Forgotten Force: the other great cosmic attractor, New Scientist, 7 November 2013):

When it comes to the cosmos, gravity is the big attraction. The same force that keeps our feet on the ground also shapes the universe. It takes clouds of gas and sculpts them into planets and stars. It fashions hundreds of billions of stars into galaxies, which clump together to form clusters, then superclusters. Yet gravity isn't the only player in the game -- another force operates across the cosmic landscape, and that is magnetism. Magnetic fields stretch for vast distances in the near-nothingness of deep space, even spanning the billions of light years between galaxies. Admittedly, these fields are feeble. A fridge magnet is more than a million times stronger than the weak, all-pervading sea of magnetism in the Milky Way and beyond. That might explain why cosmology has largely ignored magnetism. After all, how could something so puny influence a galaxy?

As a metaphor this draws attention to the possibility of other weak forces with which diasporas may be associated, namely human values with their own implications for unification, notably when understood as strange attractors (Human Values as Strange Attractors, 1993). Is the faint sentiment of "Britishness", of "being European", or of "being human", then to be compared with the relative strength of "magnetism" within the "cosmos" (in contrast with a "fridge magnet")?

A striking example of a form of potential metaphorical value is the Mandelbrot set, an "object" engendered in the so-called complex plane. It is suggestive of possibilities of variously ordering and mapping psychosocial issues and rendering them comprehensible, as separately discussed (Imagining the Real Challenge and Realizing the Imaginal Pathway of Sustainable Transformation, 2007).

In offering a visual representation of the boundary between evident chaos and the order characteristic of unification, the much-studied set is of particular interest (Sustainability through the Dynamics of Strategic Dilemmas -- in the light of the coherence and visual form of the Mandelbrot set, 2005). Visually it offers a sense of degrees of association of relevance to the sense of diaspora outlined above, whilst giving a sense of the ordered complexity at the core of what could be the preoccupation of governance -- with its focus on the "foces of law and order".

Illustrative rendering of Mandelbrot set oriented as a means of suggesting a range of diasporas (produced using the interactive fractal zoomer Xaos)

Examples of renderings of the Mandelbrot set with alternative colourings of inner structure

Examples of other metaphors that merit particular attention might then include:

• Symmetry and paradoxical topology: Reference was made above to the insights associated with polyhedral organization, and discussed elsewhere (Metaphorical Geometry in Quest of Globality -- in response to global governance challenges, 2009; Middle East Peace Potential through Dynamics in Spherical Geometry: engendering connectivity from incommensurable 5-fold and 6-fold conceptual frameworks, 2012). Such considerations can be extended to a far higher degree (Potential Psychosocial Significance of Monstrous Moonshine: an exceptional form of symmetry as a Rosetta stone for cognitive frameworks, 2007; Topological Clues to a Memorable 12-fold Systemic Pattern, 2012). Such possibilities provide a focus for discussion on comprehension (Dynamics of Symmetry Group Theorizing: comprehension of psycho-social implication, 2008).
  • paracycling ***
    
    
• Astrophysics: Much is made of the awesome reality of the Universe as an imaginative trigger, conveyed to some degree by pictures of ever increasing quality. As a reasonably well integrated cognitive enterprise, the manner whereby the solar system and galaxies have been rendered comprehensible, beyond the past focus on constellations and planets suggests that its features can be borrowed as fruitful metaphors of relevance to unification -- as well as a fruitful degree of dispersion characteristic of a diaspora. These can then serve as a basis for a more comprehensive mapping of detailed insight into the "universe of knowledge" and the "cyberspace" through which it may now be navigated to some degree (Towards an Astrophysics of the Knowledge Universe from astronautics to noonautics? 2006; Emerging Memetic Singularity in the Global Knowledge Society, 2009; Psychosocial Implications of Stellar Evolution? Reframing life's cycles through the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, 2013). Especially intriguing are the insights that might be suggested by the extension of the preoccupation of astrophysics into the nature of a multiverse and a metaverse (Being a Poem in the Making: engendering a multiverse through musing, 2012; Enactivating Multiversal Community Hearing a pattern of voices in the global wilderness, 2012).
  
  Astrophysics and cosmology, in reflecting on the creation and collapse of universe(s), also suggest insights into the dynamics of alternation underlying unification and reunification -- with the necessity of intermediary conditions suggestive of a higher order of governance and identity.
  
  
• Standard model of fundamental physics: Following decades of research, a Standard Model of the evolution of the Universe has been developed from a compromise between the observable data and the known physical constraints -- in the light of the coherence of the associated mathematics. The Standard Model combined with general relativity is currently the best explanation of how the Universe works -- although it has inadequacies. The question is whether such thinking is suggestive of one that could to be fruitfully applied to the psychosocial challenges of unification (Beyond the Standard Model of Universal Awareness: Being Not Even Wrong? 2010). The latter argument was further extended (Epistemological Panic in the face of Nonduality: Does nothing matter? 2010). Given the psychosocial challenges of the "nothing" in terms of which many are now obliged to envisage their future, such arguments justify exploration of more radical insights (Emerging Significance of Nothing, 2012; Import of Nothingness and Emptiness through Happening and Mattering, 2008; Going Nowhere through Not-knowing Where to Go, 2013; Way Round Cognitive Ground Zero and Pointlessness? 2012).
  
  
• Cognitive fusion: The extensive investment in engaing with the design and implementation challenges of nuclear fusion as a source of energy, most notably through the ITER project, are suggestive of insights that merit exploitation with respect to possible psychosocial analogues, as separately discussed (Enactivating a Cognitive Fusion Reactor: Imaginal Transformation of Energy Resourcing (ITER-8), 2006). Given the crisis of the times, remarkably little attention has been given to the role of "psychosocial energy" (Reframing Sustainable Sources of Energy for the Future: the vital role of psychosocial variants, 2006; Massive Elicitation of Psychosocial Energy: requisite technology for collective enlightenment, 2011).
  

Quantum reality: Further to the previous points, considerable significance is now attached to reality as framed by quantum mechanics. It is framed as "more real" than the reality through which psychosocial dynamics are currently understood and discussed. It would seem that this has not been taken into serious consideration in reflecting on the requirements for adequate ordering of understanding of possibilities of psychosocial unification.

This would appear to be especially relevant to the binary dynamics through which "us-and-them" relationships are so widely and disastrously ordered (Transcending Simplistic Binary Contractual Relationships: what is hindering their exploration? 2012). Various possibilities can be considered (Encountering Otherness as a Waveform -- In the light of a wave theory of being, 2013; Being Neither a-Waving Nor a-Parting: cognitive implications of wave-particle duality in the light of science and spirituality, 2013; Potential of Feynman Diagrams for Challenging Psychosocial Relationships? Comprehending the neglect of an unexplored possibility, 2013).

The increasing comprehensibility of quantum reality is indicated by the recent amendment by Google's Artifical Intelligence Lab to its popular Minecraft game to reflect some principles of quantum mechanics (Google's Quantum AI Lab adds quantum physics to Minecraft, The Verge, 20 October 2013; Minecraft gets quantum blocks in Google mod, New Scientist, 20 October 2013). As the latter indicates:

Google's modification, qCraft, adds blocks with a quantum twist. Some can have multiple possible properties and will change their appearance based on when they are observed, linked to the quantum concept of superposition. Pairs of blocks can also be entangled, so that the appearance of one will influence that of another no matter how far apart they are in the virtual world.

With the addition of such observer-dependency properties, some of the new blocks can be "activated" simply by looking at them, while others are prone to disappear at any moment. In considering elective affinities and the significance variously attributed to the focus of diasporas (indicated above), is there not a case for benefitting from the insights built into intelligent gaming of this kind?

The relevance of this framework can be explored with respect to the challenge of understanding of how an electron "moves". This question was addressed to readers of New Scientist in the form Where does the energy come from to keep electrons moving around the nucleus of an atom? (Quantum question, 22 October 2013). In reproducing the best answers received, the website Energy Realities indicated that "nobody has all the answers to the world's energy questions". The commentary specifically noted the inadequacy of understanding and hence the merit of the following (extracts from) those articulations:

Jon Richfield: ... electrons don't move round the nucleus like moons kept in orbit by their mass and gravity - electrons behave more like standing waves resonating with the nuclear field.... Another way to look at it is that an atom-bound electron described in quantum physics has a particular probability of being found in any particular place within its orbital- a three-dimensional shell around the nucleus. That electron has no exact position, even at absolute zero, so it hasno way to keep any stiller than by staying in itsorbital. No energy is involved in that at all.

Sam Buckton: It might at first appear that the electron is in a kind of perpetual motion about the atomic nucleus. The reality, however, is perhaps even more interesting. Electrons behave in a rather unintuitive way that we have had to accept as a fundament ofnature.... they do not really "move" at all. They exist in a haze of probability around the nucleus, and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that we cannot knowthe electron's position or momentum simultaneously to a satisfactory degree of accuracy.... In summary, electrons stick around the nucleus thanks to the electromagnetic force, plus a generous helping of quantum weirdness.

It is most curious to note how recent explorations of quantum reality have employed a term -- "discord" -- which so aptly characterizes the psychosocial relations of diasporas, exemplified by the case of the Middle East. Use of the term is closely related to another -- "noisy" -- which is equally apt. As noted by Hugo Cable and Kavan Modi (Noise is the key to quantum computing, New Scientist, 20 November 2013), current research is exploring the possibility:

In practice, quantum devices are proving extremely difficult to build because they must operate under noise-free conditions. But what if we could create "noisy" quantum devices? This may be possible, thanks to an obscure property of the quantum world called discord - a hot but controversial topic.

Could this not be appropriately said of the ideal models presented as solutions to the challenges of the Middle East? Can the ever-present "noise" be exploited in some counterintuitive manner? As the authors note, the qubits of quantum computers share a property unique to the quantum world, namely entanglement -- whereby two particles become inextricably linked no matter how far they are apart. This could be readily said of the actors in the Middle Eastern drama -- clearly "far apart" in their negotiating positions. They continue:

Controlling entanglement, however, is a frustrating goal...heat and many other factors create noise which rapidly degrades this quantum feature... What if we could build quantum devices that tolerate noise -- or even exploit it? Within the last two years this has become a real possibility....The once-obscure line of discord research is rapidly becomoing mainstream now that there is clear evidence that noisy quantum devices will provide stepping stones to powerful quantum technologies. Discord might even play a role in our understanding of the quantum-to-classical transition that explains the emergence of our everyday experience of the real world...

Should the wider relevance of such thinking be considered, given the bloody daily consequences of the unimaginative proposals currently on the table?

Process of emergence?

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