Paradoxical challenges of aperspectival complexity

Enacting Transformative Integral Thinking through Playful Elegance (Part #7)

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The argument here derives primarily from contributions and discussions in relation to the thematic thread on Reflections on Integrative Frameworks at the Symposium. Whether intentionally, by coincidence, or reflecting a particular cognitive bias, contributors to that theme were predominantly from Australia, or from "other" hemispheres (India and South Africa). The lead facilitator (from Europe) himself had a specifically "aperspectival" bias (Alec A. Schaerer, Systematic Integrality: a methodological arbitration between perspectivity and universality, 2010).

Transforming the dialogue between "Bore-dom" and "Wis-dom": As might be expected, any complementarity between psychosocial design and integrative cognitive design would be reflected in the complementarity between the varieties of dialogue and the varieties of transdisciplinarity.

In a global knowledge society giving primacy to linearity and developing a "line of argument", each is necessarily condemned to boring through knowledge space on some trajectory reflected in communications readily to be perceived as boring -- until constrained in some way by the geometry of that space. The associated ennui is perhaps usefully captured by the poem of John Masefield:

Dirty British Coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal, road-rail, pig-lead,
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.

The linearity implied by boring is curiously reflected in widespread use of "stake" -- as in stakeholder. Whether an adequately fortified cognitive domain cn be constructed by assembling them -- offering integrative security and integrity -- surely meritis reflection. Perhaps more problematic is the implication that for some the stake is a sword (of truth) -- or even a spear (of destiny) by which a future pathway is delineated (Engaging with Globality through Cognitive Realignment: making points and aligning a target, 2009).

What then is the art that engenders a transcendent wisdom purportedly associated with integrative cognition (Development beyond Science to Wisdom, 1979)? How does it relate to the not-said, ignored and denied (Global Strategic Implications of the Unsaid: from myth-making towards a wisdom society, 2003)? What is the attractor of wisdom and its cognitive condition, as may be speculatively explored (The Isdom of the Wisdom Society: embodying time as the heartland of humanity, 2003)? How is the paradoxical quality of any temporal trajectory across knowledge space to be embodied in an "aperspectival" perspective usefully exemplified by the much cited-verse of  T. S. Eliot's Little Gidding (the last of the Four Quartets):

How are insights of enactivism (as used by Bateson, Maturana, Rosch, Thomson, and Varela to label their theories) to be embodied in such knowing? There is an increasing sense of urgency to the challenge of integrative understanding, especially with the imminent prospect of "singularities"variously understood (Emerging Memetic Singularity in the Global Knowledge Society, 2009; Spontaneous Initiation of Armageddon -- a heartfelt response to systemic negligence, 2004). Concerns are expressed at the damage to long-term memory and creativity, with the increasing reliance on hyperlinks, overstimulation and group approval (Nicholas Carr, The Shallows: how the internet is changing the way we think, read and remember, 2010). This suggests a fruitful confrontation between the implications of the Sufi bird tale and those of Twitter as an exemplification of global bird song -- with its memetic challenges in a period of information overload and information underuse. How might local tweets be fruitfully configured globally, as partially explored (Global Street Twinning in Polyhedral Configurations, 2009)?

Given the dangers foreseen, and inspired by the famous account by Douglas Adams of The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980), there is therefore a case for subtitling the account of any integrative symposium as the Symposium at the End of the Universe (as above).

In a global knowledge society, in which every hyperlink "bores" its way across cyberspace along information highways, how might these be configured as a "mothering space" to give birth to a sustainable dynamic (From Information Highways to Songlines of the Noosphere: global configuration of hypertext pathways as a prerequisite for meaningful collective transformation, 1996; Sacralization of Hyperlink Geometry, 1997)? As "pathways", such highways may be reframed through mythical allusion cultivated in imaginative media blockbusters (Walking Elven Pathways: enactivating the pattern that connects, 2006). The latter suggests that:

The challenge is how to move (or dance) along the elven pathways -- across the evanescent bridges between particular ways of knowing and their communities. This dynamic may be the essence of "quality of life" without which development is essentially meaningless -- to all but the "gnomes" [of Zurich]. It might even be said that to "de-fine" such pathways within conventional modes of thought is to remove from them all that is "fine" in the quality of life that people seek.

The technology engendered by humanity in its struggles may be interpreted as a form of anticipative or implicit dreaming of the future, as argued by Robert D. Romanyshyn (Technology as Symptom and Dream, 1989). The latest advances in technology can then be usefully explored for relevant insights (Enactivating a Cognitive Fusion Reactor: Imaginal Transformation of Energy Resourcing (ITER-8), 2006). Cognitive cocoons within which people are able to bore across knowledge space might even be transformed into "wizdomes" (Transforming Static Websites into Mobile "Wizdomes": enabling change through intertwining dynamic and configurative metaphors, 2007).

Implications of globality for integrative reflection: What contrasting perspectives do those from "other" hemispheres bring to integrative discourse? Why the preoccupation with an "art of integration" from an Indian perspective? Writing as an Australian in Europe, it might be argued that this implies an existential experience of the challenges of globality. This contrasts with curious suggestions that the integration associated with globalization implies a flattening of the Earth (Thomas Friedman, The World Is Flat: a brief history of the Twenty-first Century, 2005), as deprecated previously (Irresponsible Dependence on a Flat Earth Mentality -- in response to global governance challenges, 2008).

As argued elsewhere such "superficiality", reflected in current "facist" [sic] European preoccupation with the burkha, fails to acknowledge a major cognitive challenge -- the existence of an "underside". Ironically this might be reflected in the contrast between the widely known Facebook facility and -- at the other end of the cognitive universe -- the almost unknown, but predictable, Arsebook facility (offering to place people in touch with those they dislike). Australia is the country whose prime minister notoriously declared his country to be the "the arse end of the world". Such a radically alternative perspective is consistent with a concern with cognitive body odour and pheromones subconsciously alienating and attracting participants in any integrative endeavour (Epistemological Challenge of Cognitive Body Odour: exploring the underside of dialogue, 2006). Does this imply a special sense of urgency to the quest for an overarching integrative framework -- as sensed "from the other end"?

Mathematicians have long explored -- with speculative humour -- the cognitive challenges of insights richer than those of any "flatland" (Edwin Abbott Abbot, Flatland: a romance of many dimensions, 1884; Dionys Burger, Sphereland: a fantasy about curved spaces and an expanding universe, 1965; Ian Stewart, Flatterland, 2001). These notably highlight the experience in 3D of four fingers of a 4-dimensional hand and have been the basis for movie adaptations. Given the emphasis in integrative symposia on making points and developing lines of argument (in two dimensions), a case might be made for reflection on the animated tale of Norton Juster (The Dot and the Line: a romance in lower mathematics, 1965) or that of A. K. Dewdney (A Symposium on Two-Dimensional Science and Technology, 1981). In relation to comprehension, a most insightful case has been made by mathematician Ron Atkin, notably in the light of communication patterns within a university (Multidimensional Man; can man live in 3-dimensional space?, 1981). Implications of his argument have been separately summarized (Social organization determined by incommunicability of insights, 1995; Beyond Edge-bound Comprehension and Modal Impotence: combining q-holes through a pattern language, 1981). a relevant exploration of "space perception", in the light of understandings of perspective, notably developed by artists, is the theme of a study by Patrick Heelan (Space-Perception and the Philosophy of Science, 1989), integrating earlier concerns with quantum relativity.

Contributions from "other" hemispheres necessarily introduce a form of paradox to the requisite complexity of any integrative "framework" -- as is evident from the above-mentioned insights of the Japanese scholars Magoroh Maruyama and Kinhide Mushakoji. This requires integration of the "hidden" and the "unsaid" from a "netherworld", as previously argued (Engaging with the Future with Insights of the Past, 2010). As with its historical function in integrating behaviours judged unacceptable by conventional frameworks, Australia (and most notably Tasmania) is an historical vehicle for problematic perspectives (now associated with the supposedly evil-intentioned of Guantanamo Bay) -- whilst being a continent with two thirds of its area necessarily reserved for spiritual experience with a contrasting sense of time and the role of imagination (Interweaving Demonic and Daimonic Associations in Collective Memory, 2008).

In a first session the Australian contributors variously enabled a context for a richer sense of integrative frameworks (Gary Hampson, Toward a genealogy and topology of Western Integrative Thinking, 2010; Jennifer Gidley, Global Knowledge Futures: interpreting the emergence of imaginaries that cohere, 2010; Mark Edwards, Towards an Integral Meta-Studies: describing and transcending boundaries in a global holarchy of sense-making, 2010). The latter introduced the paradoxical cognitive challenge of self-reflexivity in relation to enactivism. It could even be argued that that preoccupation is echoed in an iconic symbol of Australia, namely the boomerang.

In addition to the previously mentioned contribution by Ananta Kumar Giri (Towards A New Art of Integration, 2010), the second session included that of John van Breda (The Implications of a New Social Ontology of Irreduction for Transcending the Disciplinaty Divide, 2010) understood as a precondition for responding to the current planetary challenges, and that of the only "European", appropriately addressing the challenge of an "outsider" perspective (Mike King, Outsider Scholarship and the Isthmus Theory of Knowledge Domains, 2010). Given the term "reflections" in the title of the session, and use of iconic photos of the Earth from the Moon, seen as a trigger for an emergent sense of globality, consideration could also be given to the symbolic role of the Moon, notably as associated with a mothering context.

These considerations emphasize the challenge of the vision metaphor, of the consequent cognitive blindspots implied by any "other" perspective (as stressed by Alec Schaerer), notably that framed as an "underside". More generally it relates to how to work with cognitive illusions, a theme raised in a plenary keynote presentation by Roy Bhaskar in the quest for non-duality (Unity of Theory and Practice, Interdisciplinarity, and Non-duality, 2010). Consistent with the introductory Sufi tale, the argument has been succinctly formulated by Reshad Feild (The Last Barrier: a journey into the essence of Sufi teachings, 2002) as one of "removing the point from which we view".

• hold to a higher standard of of qualitative integration

Challenge to integrative comprehension of ignorance and uncertainty: The paradox and the necessarily hidden nature of any underside highlights the current policy challenge of responding to uncertainty and ignorance despite the surfeit of information. This has been succinctly, and notoriously, expressed by Donald Rumsfeld in poetic terms.

Many have acknowledged the significance to Rumsfeld's poem. As described by Errol Morris (The Anosognosic's Dilemma: Something's Wrong but You'll Never Know What It Is New York Times, 20 June 2010), it is related to the Dunning-Kruger Effect: how incompetence masks the ability to recognize one's own incompetence (David Dunning and Justin Kruger, Unskilled and Unaware of It: how difficulties of recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1999, vol. 77, no. 6, pp. 1121-1134).

The unknown was acknowledged in the first keynote speech to the Symposium, by Ruben Nelson, focusing appropriately on Surprises Ahead: what will be special about the 21st Century and why we need boundary-crossing research (2010). This reflects the views of other authors (Karen A. Cerulo, Never Saw It Coming: cultural challenges to envisioning the worst, 2006; Joshua Cooper Ramo, The Age of the Unthinkable: why the new world disorder constantly surprises us and what we can do about it, 2009; Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: the impact of the highly improbable, 2007). At the time of writing the major "surprise" has been the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico with all the challenges it implies for collective intelligence gathering (Enabling Collective Intelligence in Response to Emergencies: illustrated by the case of deep oil spill containment, 2010).

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