Emergent integrity of a configuration of cognitive cycles -- a "Lord of the Rings"

Cognitive Cycles Vital to Sustainable Self-Governance (Part #4)

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The following might be a way of fruitfully and self-reflexively interrelating the 3 sets of "rings" or cycles (3-fold, 9-fold, and 7-fold) and thereby providing a sense of an emergent cycle to integrate and "rule them all" -- the "Lord of the Rings":

• 3-set: reframing what was noted above as aesthetics, philosophy and science as the "cognitive arts", "natural philosophy" and "technique" respectively, accepting the subtle shifts in interpretation as being characteristic of the generality implied by each. The rings of the 3-set distinguish the complementary styles of knowing needed to understand the dynamic engagment of the 9-set and the 7-set
  
  
• 9-set: the distinct cycles might be usefully understood as modes of attention that are not independently sustainable, whatever the indications to the contrary in the short-term -- hence their "wraith-like" quality. Of greater significance is their implied polarization between an internalized cognitive abstraction and an externalized sense of "reality". The latter organizes the environment in terms of what might be fruitfully clustered as a 9-fold set of "natural" cycles -- hence the "planetary boundaries" (previously discussed) -- perhaps systemic echoed through a 9-fold set of metabolic pathways. The former might be understood as a 9-fold set of cognitive "biases" or "orientations" which are mutually correcting within the set (as with the 2-fold complementarity between the equally "erroneous" wave and particle understandings of light). Explorations of the enneagram are helpful in distinguishing the variety of cognitive modalities.
  
  The challenge with this set -- and for their respective "wraiths" -- is the engagement across the gap between "internal" and "external" modes. It is here that the 3-fold set of understandings is fundamental to the cognitive construction of that "bridge" and how the internalized "plugs into" the externalized (and vice versa). The cognitive bridge then has the quality of a "correspondence", noting the ambiguity between the older "symbolist" and the more recent "scientific" variants (Theories of Correspondences -- and potential equivalences between them in correlative thinking, 2007).
  
  Using an electrical metaphor, the bridge might for example be understood as operating like a transformer in which there is indeed no tangible "connection" between the wiring carrying one voltage and that carrying another. The bridge then takes the form of electromagnetic induction across the gap between the two circuits -- namely, in this case, between internalized and externalized understandings of reality. The dynamic within the one effectively entrains that within the other. The two understandings are then to be understood as "inductively coupled" (see also discussion in Electrical Systems as a Guiding Metaphor for Stages of Group Dialogue, 2001).
  
  Especially interesting is any experiential dysfunctionality between the sense and behavioral patterns of individuality and the reality of daily life, namely in the form of so-called lifestyle diseases. The suggests the merit of exploring a 9-fold clustering of such diseases as representing behavioural "biases" that call for correction, rebalancing or better integration as a set.
  
  
• 7-set: these rings might best be understood in terms of the phases of any cycle in which some form of "work" is done in its most general sense. The emphasis is on the technique and timing through which the integrity of the cycle is sustained. Useful insights into the organization of learning/action cycles are provided in the explorations of Arthur M. Young (The Reflexive Universe: Evolution of Consciousness, 1976).

Poetry has offered insights into cycles of time and a sense of non-linear time characteristic of some cultures, notably the Mayan and the Hindu (Sarah Eron, On Borrowed Time: cycles of narrative, nature, and memory in the work of Tennyson and Eliot, The Victorian Web, 2004). A speculative commentary on the insights into time in The Lord of the Rings is offered by Jay Weidner and Sharron Rose (Tolkien at the End of Time: alchemical secrets of The Lord of the Rings, New Dawn, 2004, 82). The nature of any emergent "Lord" is implied by such frameworks.

Musical instruments offer a useful metaphor for distinguishing the ways in which the above sets can be understood and the cognitive roles they play. Such instruments can then be understood as associated with distinct ways of knowing. Appropriately the classification of musical instruments continues to evolve beyond the most common 3-fold set: string, wind and percussion (Musical instrument classification). An orchestra may have a wide variety of instruments that can indeed be clustered into that 3-fold set. For the purpose of this argument, one might image a 9-fold clustering as representative of the spectrum of modes of attention. This is then the requisite variety to achieve a meaningful symphonic opus -- rendering comprehensible and emergent order -- based on a vital combination of musicality and technique.

The musical metaphor provides a context through which to identify the nature of the binding integrity associated with a creative opus -- too readily confused with the composition of the score (as a "metric") or the directing role and understanding of a conductor (as "Lord of the Rings"). The challenge for any form of governance is the subtle nature and expression of that role -- of the "One Ring to Rule them All" -- beyond the inadequacies of the all too familiar simplistic forms of direction and governorship. Catalyst, enabler and mediator hold other dimensions that emerge through engagement with the music in that role -- through the cyclic expression of the various "rings". It is this that gives integrative expression to the 3-fold emergence of value, viability and operacy. The necessarily subtle understanding of "rule" is then itself emergent.

The charm of the mythopoeic for anybody in this case is that the "Lord of the Rings" -- the Ringmeister -- is as much oneself as any distant governor of the world. Everyone is then necessarily an emergent "Lord of the Rings" in terms of the understanding of the operation of the "One Ring to Rule them All" -- governing the range of cognitive rings and cycles vital to individual systemic survival. But as the tale illustrates, it is the quality and subtlety of that understanding which is necessarily to be challenged given the possibility of premature closure on dysfunctional rigidity. Identity in that role is essentially dynamic and unexpressible, as previously explored (Emergence of Cyclical Psycho-social Identity Sustainability as "psyclically" defined, 2007; Being What You Want: problematic kataphatic identity vs. potential of apophatic identity? 2008). It relates to the exploration of entelechy by the human potential movement (Entelechy: actuality vs future potential, 2000).

In metaphoric terms, the tale may also be understood as a "vehicle" for understanding equipped with various sets of "wheels" to give it traction over varied terrain, to give it motive power, and to enable it to be driven -- namely the sets of rings or cycles. This does not preclude the design of other "vehicles" with other combinations of "wheels" (Metaphors as Transdisciplinary Vehicles of the Future, 1991).

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