Paradoxical container for the uncontainable: prescriptive constraints on creativity

Improvisation in Multivocal Poetic Discourse (Part #12)

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Whether understood through through the Lauburu as a tetralemma, or otherwise, the fundamental cognitive interplay between externally "proposed" patterns and internally "engendered" patterns is essentially paradoxical, irrespective of how this paradox is set aside through opting for one in preference to the other. There is an ironic, but fundamentally problematic, process in which each endeavours to "contain" or encompass the other -- as is only too evident in the relation between any "governor" and those perceived as needing to be "governed". Any performer may, in that sense, aspire to "govern" the attention of the audience -- potentially in defiance of conventional authority.

The dilemma recalls the traditional aspiration of some alchemists, namely to discover (or design) a container for the universal solvent (alkahest) -- one capable of dissolving anything, including the container itself. That quest can now be understood as the essential task of plasma containment in designing a container for nuclear plasma in order to achieve a fusion reaction as a sustainable source of energy -- given that the plasma is capable of destroying any conventional container. The design challenge may be used as a valuable metaphor for that of cognitive fusion (Enactivating a Cognitive Fusion Reactor: Imaginal Transformation of Energy Resourcing (ITER-8), 2006). The design is based on a toroidal container -- with electromagnets preventing the plasma from contacting it.

Tao symbol: One approach to such a paradoxical container is through the classical symbol of the Tao -- with the challenge of relating it meaningfully to the pattern of the Lauburu. This is discussed separately as another means of transforming "periodic tabulation characteristic of the archetypal table of chemical elements into a "periodic container" as discussed separately (Eightfold Configuration of Nested Cycles of Cognitive Transformations: meta-pattern of connectivity through a hypersphere? 2012). A smaller version of the larger image of the Lauburu can be mapped into the branches of the larger image -- recursively engendering a fractal form. Two such recursive mappings are illustrated in the following

Superposition of a reduced version of the geometrical construction of the Lauburu as a whole within each branch of the Lauburu (as with a fractal)	Shading of the geometry of the Lauburu (left-hand image) to highlight one orientation of the Tao symbol and emergence of its traditional "eyes" from the geometry

Electrical metaphors of communication: Animation of the image on the right potentially offers further insights, as explored separately (In Quest of a Dynamic Pattern of Transformations: sensing the strange attractor of an emerging Rosetta Stone, 2012). The argument with respect to modulating cognitive transformations is taken further there in terms of a "yin-yang" switching perspective through metaphorical use of the widely used Smith Chart, invented by the electrical engineer Phillip H. Smith (and independently by Kaneyuki Kurokawa, a Japanese engineer). This is a graphical aid for electrical and electronics engineers specializing in radio frequency engineering to assist in solving problems with transmission lines and matching circuits. (Randy Rhea (The Yin-Yang of Matching, High Frequency Electronics, 2006).

Dynamic pattern of transformations (through experimental animation of the 8 types on a Smith Chart)	Possibility of more complex transformations (animation of the right-hand image above with rotation of the nested structures of smaller scale)

Use of electrical metaphors is consistent with their fundamental significance for communication, especially when understood in wave terms are intuitively more consistent with experiential reality, as discussed separately (Encountering Otherness as a Waveform In the light of a wave theory of being, 2013).

Tao of snoring? Although obviously a form of communication, snoring could be considered to be the antithesis of any aspiration to multivocal poetic improvisation -- although dormitory accommodation can offer "multivocal" forms with distinctive rhythms, possibly to be understood as "poetic", if not creatively "improvised".

However snoring offers unusual clues to the relationship between what is valued and what is deprecated -- given the manner in which the snorer may be unconscious of that communication and even deny its existence. With the common reference to people and groups being "asleep", this offers a useful self-reflexive challenge to the paradoxical dynamics of awareness of one's personal condition, as discussed separately (Snoring of The Other: a politically relevant psycho-spiritual metaphor? 2006). Reference is made there both to the Tao symbol and to the Lauburu.

Another metaphor offering similar insight into the paradoxical nature of alienating communication is that of odour, as separately (Epistemological Challenge of Cognitive Body Odour: exploring the underside of dialogue, 2006). Both metaphors are indicative of how failure to understand how one may be part of the problem may ensure failure to understand the nature of the solution required.

Polyhedral mapping: With respect to the "containment" of creativity (as explored here), there is a case for developing the argument through mapping the dimensions identified onto a necessarily unusual form -- one which is itself a challenge to comprehension. Recognizing the need to hold the complex dynamics associated with multivocal poetic improvisation (as identified above), one approach is to map the seven dimensions (each identified distinctively by a Lauburu) onto a symmetrical form. This becomes possible by allowing each Lauburu to take two alternative forms reflective of the dynamics embodied. A suitable form is then the cuboctahedron, as shown below.

Mapping of distinctive mappings of lauburur onto cuboctahedron
Folded into 3D	Unfolded to 2D
Prepared with features of the Stella Polyhedron Navigator software package

Consistent with this approach is the identification of 7 axes of bias variously engendering difference, disagreement, and distinctive identity, as presented by W. T. Jones (The Romantic Syndrome: toward a new method in cultural anthropology and the history of ideas, 1961). This distinguishes 14 extreme conditions of relevance to poetic discourse -- ordered by 7 axes, as summarized separately (Axes of Bias in Inter-Cultural Dialogue, 1993):

• Order vs disorder: Namely the range between a preference for system, structure, conceptual clarity, etc. and a preference for fluidity, muddle chaos, etc.
• Static vs dynamic: Namely the range between a preference for the changeless, eternal, etc. and a preference for movement, for explanation in genetic and process terms, etc.
• Continuity vs discreteness: Namely the range between a preference for wholeness, unity, etc and a preference for discreteness, plurality, diversity, etc.
• Inner vs outer: Namely the range between a preference for being able to project oneself into the objects of one's experience (to experience them as one experiences oneself), and a preference for a relatively external, objective relation to them.
• Sharp focus vs soft focus: Namely the range between a preference for clear, direct experience and a preference for threshold experiences, felt to be saturated with more meaning than is immediately present.
• This world vs other world: Namely the range between preference for belief in the patio-temporal world as self-explanatory and preference for belief that it is not and can only be comprehended in terms of other frames.
• Spontaneity vs process: Namely the range between a preference for chance, freedom, accident, etc and a preference for explanations subject to laws and definable processes.

Although these can be readily associated with the cuboctahedron, and memorably integrated by it, there is a case for challenging this "regularity" by looking for a more unique and unusual form consistent with the quest for the elusive nature of multivocal poetic improvisation. Seemingly there is a need for a form consistent with the insight articulated in a much-cited short poem.

Multivocal poetic improvisation symbolised by a "strange device" ?

The shades of night were falling fast, As through an Alpine village passed A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice, A banner with the strange device, Excelsior!

Poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1841)

One unique form which strangely embodies such characteristics is the Szilassi polyhedron. This is topologically a torus but has 7 hexagonal faces -- onto which the 7 distinguished variants of the Lauburu could each be mapped -- as indicative of 7 axes of bias. Highly unusual is the fact that each face shares an edge with each other face -- with implications for the communication process in dialogue. As a result, it requires seven colours to colour each adjacent face. Its 14 vertices can then be associated with the 14 extremes of the 7 axes of communication bias.

Szilassi polyhedron
Alternative representation	Multicoloured faces (rotation)	Alternative representation
Prepared with features of the Stella Polyhedron Navigator software package

Exploring the relevance of "strangeness" as a metaphor would appear to be appropriate given the significance attached to strangeness in approaches to unification in fundamental physics.

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