Configuration of languages as a resonance hybrid

Review of Frameworks for the Representation of Alternative Conceptual Orderings as Determined by Cultural and Linguistic Contexts (Part #21)

Although Bohm's perspective clarifies the nature of the problem further, it does not say anything about the relationship between the different languages which emerge other than in the sense that they can be re-enfolded into an implicate order. Since the challenge is to deal with co-existant, and very different, modes of information processing another perspective is also fruitful.

The set of alternative structures, between which alternation takes place in any learning cycle, may be more clearly understood in the light of the theory of resonance. Johan Galtung first explored the possibility of using the organization of chemical molecules to clarify the description of social organization (53). He dealt with fixed structures and not with the transition between alternatives. The theory of resonance in chemistry is concerned with the representation of the actual normal state of molecules by a combination of several alternative 'resonable' structures, rather than by a single valence-bond structure. The molecule is then conceived as resonating among the several valence-bond structures, or rather to have a structure that is a resonance hybrid of these structures.

The classic example of a resonance hybrid is the benzene molecule of 6 carbon atoms for which F A Kekul introduced the idea of oscillation between two alternative structures. The pattern of oscillation was later extended by Linus Pauling to include three more distinct alternates. The actual configuration is a resonance hybrid of the five forms, which through quantum mechanics has been shown to have an energy less than any of the alternate structures. This is potentially of great significance for any social structure analogue, in view of the call for a low-energy society. Given the fundamental role of the benzene molecular configuration as the basis for most living structures, it is worth asking (in the light of the sixfold restraint discussed in earlier entries) why it is composed of six atoms. The answer is that it is this configuration which ensures minimal strain on the distribution of the four valency bonds of each carbon atom, thus resulting in a minimal energy configuration. It is worth reflecting on this model in the light of the research showing that the upper limit for effective committee or task force organization, the basis for social organization, is seven, plus or minus one.

Such structures recall the context of Bohm's arguments concerning unfoldment of explicate forms. The wave function representing a stationary state of a resonance hybrid in quantum mechanics can be expressed as the sum of the wave functions that correspond to several hypothetical alternates. The proper combination is that sum which leads to a minimal energy for the system. Of significance in any social structure analogue is that the higher energy of each alternate is associated with some degree of 'distortion' (different in kind in each case), which effectively renders the alternate meta-stable. (Also worth exploring is the contrasting concept of a'resonance particle'. This is any exceedingly unstable high energy particle, which may be considered as a composite of several relatively stable low energy particles into which it may decay.)

Resonance hybrids could well provide a key to the conception, design and operation of coalitions of people or groups using forms of information or modes of information processing so different that the coalitions could not cohere for any length of time in one single form but could be stable if the coalition alternated between distinct forms. Underlying this possibility, hybrids are also of interest in integrating incompatible perspectives, paradigms and policies without eroding their distinctiveness in some simplistic compromise. Whilst the value of using such resonance models may be contested, they do have the advantage of shifting the debate, currently somewhat sterile, to a level at which the merits of particular answers are no longer the sole issue. The need is for investigation of 'resonable' structures, however 'unreasonable' they may appear from any particular perspective. They open the way to more fruitful discussions both about how alternation between the contradictory information characteristic of a complex society can be improved and about the kinds of social structures that could be based upon such patterns of alternation.