Existential focus vs Radical reframing of "body of knowledge"

Engaging with Globality through Cognitive Circlets (Part #8)

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In what follows, circlets and torques are explored as a form of cognitive interface -- for the wearer -- between:

• a sense of personal identity, sustained by a variety of ways of knowing and engaging with the wider world inhabited by the individual. These may be variously described in terms of Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, the theory of subpersonalities of transpersonal psychology, psychometric measures of psychological preferences in perceiving the world and making decisions (as with the MBTI system based on the work of Carl Jung), by more formal disciplines, or by other frameworks (Systems of Categories Distinguishing Cultural Biases, 1993). These variously give rise to a locus or cognitive centre of gravity -- a sense of "being there", or being centered.
  
  
• a sense of the "knowable universe" or "body of knowledge" to which the individual potentially has access and within which he or she is embedded -- and with which some engagement may be required in the exercise of responsibility. Achieving such access is typically constrained by cognitive skills, memory, resources, time, and pressures and priorities for survival. A variety of descriptions of the vast scope and organization of this body of knowledge are offered by different disciplines and schools of thought on the basis of contributions of many over decades, or in the light of revelation. Its organization may be the preoccupation of the classification sciences, as with the International Society for Knowledge Organization. It may elicit schematic representations (Functional Classification in an Integrative Matrix of Human Preoccupations, 1982). Irrespective of contradictions and disagreements between them, such impersonal descriptions typically entail respect from those lacking authority, experience or accreditation -- who are expected to subscribe to such warpings of knowledge space in some way.

For the individual faced with the knowable universe in this way, and potentially disempowered by its dimensions and dynamics, there is a legitimate protective need to emulate pioneers in "circling the wagons" -- in this case the cognitive wagons. Whether as bracelet, necklace, tiara or torque, any circlet then echoes traditional cognitive arrangements exemplified by:

• amulets, especially those of schematic form, understood as devices to keep one out of trouble
• the BaGua mirror as an interface with change processes in their most generic sense
• mandala and yantra schematic designs providing a meta-pattern through which to engager with external experience
• circlets of prayer beads (rosary, mala), or even "worry beads" (kombolói), offering a protective ritual

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