Not-knowing where to go ?

Going Nowhere through Not-knowing Where to Go (Part #10)

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As suggested by the indications in the previous section, there is a real challenge to use of language in indicating the possibility of transforming the limitations of "going nowhere". The challenge includes:

• any expectation that there is an "answer" regarding "where to go" according to conventional understanding, rather than recognizing that the condition may itself be a "question"
• any assumption that the conventional question-answer dynamic is adequate to that transformation
• the manner in which "pointing" to possibilities invoke the questionable characteristics of "point" any sense of direction towards a more appropriate worldview. Such pointing recalls the challenge for any dog owner in seeking to focus attention of the dog on some distant matter of concern

Possible indications as to the nature of a process of not-knowing "where to go" might then include:

• the self-referential insight offered by Douglas Hofstadter (I Am a Strange Loop, 2007) following his earlier work (Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, 1979), as separately discussed (Sustaining a Community of Strange Loops: comprehension and engagement through aesthetic ring transformation, 2010)
• the manner in which question-and-answer might then be understood as embodied into a "strange loop" of which the paradoxical Mobius strip offers one useful indication and the Zen koan another. As a dynamic question-answer might then function such as to engender a form of cognitive energy -- a subtler form of knowing with which "enlightenment" is intuitively associated
• the manner in which more meaningful globality -- implied by "pointing" -- is essentially "enacted" as suggested by Francisco Varela (Laying Down a Path in Walking, 1987) and separately explored (En-joying the World through En-joying Oneself: eliciting the potential of globalization through cognitive radicalization, 2011; Intercourse with Globality through Enacting a Klein bottle: cognitive implication in a polysensorial "lens", 2009). This extends implication of the topological paradox of the Mobius strip to the Klein bottle, as extensively explored by Steven M. Rosen (Topologies of the Flesh: a multidimensional exploration of the lifeworld, 2006).
• the appropriate irony that the process of self-renewal, as the Holy Grail of the quest for sustainability, is perhaps best comprehended through cognitive analogues to the nuclear fusion cycle within the Sun, as separately discussed (Embodiment of Identity in Conscious Creativity, 2011; Enactivating a Cognitive Fusion Reactor: Imaginal Transformation of Energy Resourcing (ITER-8), 2006).

Attention can then usefully focus on mnemonic catalysts to enable such comprehension, as separately suggested (In Quest of Mnemonic Catalysts -- for comprehension of complex psychosocial dynamics, 2007; Imagining the Real Challenge and Realizing the Imaginal Pathway of Sustainable Transformation, 2007). The geocentric/heliocentric metaphor offers one such possibility. The work of Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander (Surfaces and Essences: analogy as the fuel and fire of thinking, 2013) may well imply a more specific relationship between creative "point-making" and the solar processes of "heliocentric" insight.

Using a depiction of Hathor, a mythological complement to the Egyptian deity Horus, the following animation then suggests a provocative representation of the requisite dynamic -- the "twinkle" -- in the strategic third eye of sustainability. The Oxfam "doughnut" has been incorporated there as part of the "twinkle cycle", previously presented and discussed in simpler form (Embodiment of Identity in Conscious Creativity: challenge of encompassing "con", 2011). The subtitle of that document emphasizes the necessary cognitive vigilance to transcend the confidence games so typical of conventional approaches to strategic governance.

Animation using Hathor as suggestive vehicle for transcendent insight? (Reproduced from Exploring the Hidden Mysteries of Oxfam's Doughnut: Recognizing the systemic negligence of an Earth Summit, 2012)

Given the desperate preoccupation with discovering "answers" to the sense of "going nowhere", thereby eliminating the "question", the situation might be fruitfully reframed by the following mnemonic (reproduced from Sustaining the Quest for Sustainable Answers, 2003)

Sustaining the Quest for Sustainable Answers

The following table suggests the possibility of another form of catalytic cognitive mnemonic -- exploiting a play on relevant words, notably those of the title. Each offers a distinct focus. Together they form a configuration of complementary modalities as separately discussed (Eliciting a 12-fold Pattern of Generic Operational Insights: recognition of memory constraints on collective strategic comprehension, 2011; Enabling a 12-fold Pattern of Systemic Dialogue for Governance, 2011)

		"space"		"time"
		here	there	when	then
"logic"	not	not here (implying there?)	not there (implying here?)	not when (implying then?)	not then (implying now?
"present"	now	now here (implying nowhere else?)	now there (implying not here?)	now when (implying not then?)	now then (implying now?)
"cognition"	know	know here (implying not there?)	know there (implying not here?)	know when (implying know then?)	know then (implying not now?)

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