Divisive caricatures of complex psychosocial processes

Psychosocial Implication in Gamma Animation (Part #3)

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Politics is characterised by distinctions between "government" and the "opposition", notably between "left" and "right" -- with all these imply regarding "agreement" and "disagreement" in relation to governability (Ungovernability of Sustainable Global Democracy? 2011). Much controversy surrounds the distinction between "science" and "religion", between "development" and "environment", or between "male" and "female". Such controversies are evident with regard to ethnic groups, especially in the case of the Middle East. The question is whether there is a way of reframing such simplistic distinctions, as previously argued (Transcending Simplistic Binary Contractual Relationships: what is hindering their exploration? 2012).

Fourfold distinctions: The case of "science vs. religion" was explored separately (Eliciting wholth through associating mathematics and theology, 2013), noting the remarkable review of the dimensions of the science-religion relationship offered in Wikipedia (Relationship between religion and science). It provides a typology of the kinds of interaction characteristic of the relationship between science and religion, according to physicist and theologian John Polkinghorne (Science and Theology, 1998) following earlier work (Ian G. Barbour, Nature, Human Nature, and God, 2002: John Haught, Science and Religion: from conflict to conversation, 1995):

• Independence: treating each as quite separate realms of enquiry.
• Conflict: stating the disciplines contradict and are incompatible with each other.
• Dialogue: suggesting that each field has things to say to each other about phenomena in which their interests overlap.
• Integration: aiming to unify both fields into a single discourse.

However this fourfold articulation might itself be said to be remarkably simplistic from a mathematical perspective since it does little to recognize, or reconcile, the complex relationships implicit in this "fourfold way" of engaging with the "other". One approach suggested was to "expand" that fourfold articulation through application to the above pattern of the insight into a "quadrilemma" from an Eastern perspective, as articulated by Kinhide Mushakoji (Global Issues and Interparadigmatic Dialogue, 1988):

4-fold interrelationship of incommensurable 2-fold perspectives
	From a scientific perspective	From a religious perspective
Independence (ignoring any other)	science	religion
Conflict (defensive boundary protection)	not-science	not-religion
Dialogue (engagement with otherness)	science and not-science	religion and not-religion
Integration (transcendent reframing of relationship)	neither science nor not-science	neither religion nor not-religion

This approach introduces a necessary degree of paradox and uncertainty to an essentially complex relationship (cf. Garrison Sposito, Does a generalized Heisenberg Principle operate in the social sciences ? Inquiry, 1969). A related fourfold approach emphasizing the pattern as a complex cognitive system is presented separately as a diagram (Imagining the Real Challenge and Realizing the Imaginal Pathway of Sustainable Transformation, 2007).

Eightfold distinctions: The Eastern perspective on the fourfold can also be expanded in other ways through both the classic binary encoding system which inspired Leibniz and the mathematical insights of the Fibonacci series (Tao of Engagement -- Weaponised Interactions and Beyond: Fibonacci's magic carpet of games to be played for sustainable global governance, 2010).

The oversimplification of a fourfold pattern could also be highlighted by contrast, for example, with the richer articulations offered by the various "eightfold ways" -- whether of physics, of Buddhism, or of policy analysis -- especially in the light of the argument of Stephen Prothero (God Is Not One: the eight rival religions that run the world -- and why their differences matter, 2010).

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