Internalizing the processes of nature through an eightfold way

Reimagining Principles Enabling an Existential Ecostery (Part #13)

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Ba Gua: However it may be related to the 12-fold configuration and the 5-fold dynamic (as discussed above), the credibility offered over millennia to a form of "eightfold way" -- at least within Chinese culture -- merits careful consideration, as suggested by the arguments of Susantha Goonatilake (Toward Global Science: mining civilizational knowledge, 1999; Cultural Consequences of the Shift to Asia, forthcoming), and separately discussed (Enhancing the Quality of Knowing through Integration of East-West metaphors, 2000). The dynamic pattern in question is the Ba Gua of eight trigrams, each closely associated with a phenomenon of the environment -- offering an integrative understanding of how those phenomena are interrelated, whether understood statically or dynamically.

Encoding paradox and ambiguity: Of particular relevance to this argument is the manner in which that pattern encodes the epistemological challenges and paradoxes to which reference was made above -- effectively including its own negation. However, rather than engendering a pattern of complexity of limited accessibility, the challenge of comprehension is deliberately embodied within the pattern as ambiguity with which the simplest facilitating metaphors are associated. This ambiguity is reminiscent of that highlighted as a requisite of quantum physics as the uncertainty principle. Furthermore, rather than dissociating the pattern from daily life, the relevance to decision-making in the dynamics enabling both individual and collective "thrival" becomes a focus of attention -- as a matter of choice in the moment.

Cognitive "zooming": Of further relevance to the epistemological challenges of "conflation" and "articulation" (as noted above) is the manner in which the encoding system specifically enables what amounts to "zooming" between different cognitive levels -- rendering implicit or explicit particular qualities. This is especially notably with respect to the articulation into the widely known 64-fold pattern of the I Ching (Discovering Richer Patterns of Comprehension to Reframe Polarization, 1998). The traditional commentary on this articulation has been experimentally adapted to a variety of domains (Transformation Metaphors -- derived experimentally from the Chinese Book of Changes (I Ching) for sustainable dialogue, vision, conferencing, policy, network, community and lifestyle, 1997).

Recreation as cognitive engagement with nature: With respect to cognitive implication in the dynamics of the 8-fold Ba Gua pattern, the felt need of individuals for recreation merits particular attention -- especially in the light of contrasting preferences for fulfilling "re-creation" and "re-freshment". It is in this sense that the pattern offers a form of bridge between a conceptual model and the features of the natural environment -- perhaps best to to be explored imaginatively (Living as an Imaginal Bridge between Worlds: global implications of "betwixt and between" and liminality, 2011).

Of relevance to this cognitive "refreshment" is the manner in which the environmental conditions indicated by the Ba Gua pattern can be recognized as closely associated with styles of "recreation": sky, lake, fire, thunder, wind, water, mountain, earth. It is through these that people can be understood (especially through "deep ecology") as achieving different forms of "refreshment" -- potentially implicit in periodic engagement in distinct forms of tourism (En-minding the Extended Body: enactive engagement in conceptual shapeshifting and deep ecology, 2003).

Internalization of nature as a key to health: Framed in this way, the question is whether "internalizing" natural processes offers an as yet unexplored strategic approach to the challenges of global sustainability (Psychology of Sustainability: embodying cyclic environmental processes, 2002; Embodying the Sphere of Change Reframing metaphors of the I Ching as a codification of the patterns of change, 2001).

Those challenges are then of "intimate" cognitive significance -- potentially rendering the "health" of the globe as being fundamental to that of the individual, and vice versa.

Psychosocial indications: Of relevance to this argument are patterns of distinctions elaborated with regard to "healthy" collaborative action. Of particular interest is that of Gareth Morgan (Images of Organization, 1986). This suggests that organizations may be qualitatively dististinguished as: machines, organisms, brains, cultures, political systems, psychic prisons, flux and transformation, or instruments of domination.

Of similar interest is the distinction made by Meredith Belbin (Management Teams, 1981) between roles in a team such that an effective team required members able to cover eight key roles in managing the team and carrying out its work. The number was later extended to nine, as distinguished by the Belbin Team Inventory. A similar variability in qualitative distinction is evident in the case of the forms of intelligence distinguished by Howard Gardner (Frames of Mind: the theory of multiple intelligences, 1983). Therein he distinguished eight forms: spatial, linguistic, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic. Subsequently he suggested the addition of moral intelligence

These distinctions are strongly suggestive of complementary cognitive styles -- however these may be experienced qualitatively.

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