Conclusion

Enabling Wisdom Dynamically within Intertwined Tori (Part #10)

[Parts: First | Prev | All] [Visuals] [Links: To-K | From-K | From-Kx | Refs ]

Mention was variously made of the separate approaches of Yolles (2006, 2010) and Hays (2007, 2010) to the cognitive, cybernetic and organizational implications of the sets of causal loops they variously distinguish and represent diagrammatically. Of interest is the extent to which these can be usefully mapped onto a form like the drilled truncated cube -- as being both of requisite complexity and in enabling comprehension. The approach would appear to be potentially fruitful in relation to the vexatious problematic of "global" governance and engagement with the adaptive cycle, as notably clarified by Thomas Homer-Dixon (The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization, 2006).

The challenge of governance is compounded by the issue of how many instances of causal relevance and feedback loops can the strategic mind handle coherently and communicate credibly. Familiarity with the zoom facility of Google Earth suggests the need for an analogous facility with respect to the sphere of knowledge.

The potential of polyhedral forms has been discussed separately (Towards Polyhedral Global Governance: complexifying oversimplistic strategic metaphors, 2008; Coherent Value Frameworks: Pillar-ization, Polarization and Polyhedral frames of reference, 2008; Dynamic Exploration of Value Configurations: Interrelating traditional cultural symbols through animation, 2008).

The argument was first made from a policy science perspective by Harold Lasswell, in an early discussion of the applications of computers to international relations:

Why do we put so much emphasis on audio-visual means of portraying goal, trend, condition, projection, and alternative? Partly because so many valuable participants in decision-making have dramatizing imaginations. They are not enamoured of numbers or of analytic abstractions. They are at their best in deliberations that encourage contextuality by a varied repertory of means and where an immediate sense of time, space and figure is retained (The Transition towards more Sophisticated Procedures, 1968, pp. 307-314).

"Compressing wisdom": The problematic technicality of "compressing" the indication of wisdom -- a koan commentary -- to the Twitter format of 140 characters makes an ironic point. The choice was made to use a proportion of those characters, perhaps 15 percent, to provide a link from the tweet (as posted) to the more ample commentary. A degree of context was implied by including the identifying number (from 1 to 49), thereby losing a few characters more -- but relatively meaningless in an isolated tweet. For space reasons, no characters were used up to tag the tweet as a koan, following the tweeting practice which would have provided a degree of connectivity.

The irony then lies in the manner in which any connectivity to the pattern was deliberately broken -- or only potentially enabled through the link, for those who chose to follow it. This is typical of the "laundry list" articulation of gloval strategic "to-do" items -- as with Agenda 21.

Metapattern of connectivity: Disrupting any sense of pattern in this way can readily be understood in the light of the classic remark of Gregory Bateson, which should surely apply to the set of koan as a whole:

The pattern which connects is a metapattern. It is a pattern of patterns. It is that metapattern which defines the vast generalization that, indeed, it is patterns which connect. (Mind and Nature: a necessary unity, 1979, p.11)

To which he added: Destroy the pattern which connects and you destroy all quality. An extremely inadequate remedy can be achieved by posting the link to this explanatory commentary.

Essential dynamic: The compression of insight required by the Twitter format gives focus to the challenge of the degree of compression of text that is possible when seeking to convey insight -- and the manner in which dependence on the dynamics associated with that representation then increases, namely viewing a succession of tweets. There is a nice irony to the fact that the Twitter constraint derives from the line-based binary coding convention of the I Ching hexagrams, which was an inspiration to Gottfried Leibniz (Explication de l'Arithmétique Binaire, 1703). This subsequently enabled the development of modern computing. This makes the point that Chinese culture compressed its wisdom insights into a format far simpler than the 140 characters of Twitter -- but dependent on a dynamic which is also an essential feature of Twitter communication.

Poetic configuration: It is of course the case that Chinese and Japanese ideograms lend themselves to more compact expression of complex insights -- even within Twitter constraints. Of greater interest is the fact that the mnemonic expression of wisdom insight emphasized the poetic form to a high degree -- thereby achieving the memorable embodiment of a richer pattern of connotations, whether in the case of the koan commentary, the I Ching, or the related "wisdom classics". This suggests the interesting sense in which the drilled truncated cube potentially constitutes a "cognitive container" for a set of dynamically related "poems" -- effectively about governance of the dynamics of change, whether with individual or collective implication.

Curiously it might be appropriately said that Western culture has systematically designed the "poetry" out of the binary insights with which Eastern culture had so intimately associated their comprehension. It is in this sense that a case can be made for reassociating poetry and music with comprehensible articulation of the systemic challenges of radically polarized global governance, as separately argued (A Singable Earth Charter, EU Constitution or Global Ethic? 2006).

Enabling comprehension "at a glance"? The argument for exploring new ways to configure the set of 48 koan is surely consistent with taking advantage of the capacity of modern technology to process information better to enable comprehension. Hence the exploration of polyhedral configurations to imply a sense of the integration to which it is assumed that the koan variously point. A particular challenge of the set of koan and their commentaries is the time required to engage with them, if only momentarily, and beyond that the time for reflection on them. This demand is a severe challenge in the emerging "blip culture" -- as named by Alvin Toffler (The Third Wave, 1980). In relation to the wisdom necessary for survival and thrival, the requirement for new cognitive modalities for engaging with time can be variously argued (The Isdom of the Wisdom Society: embodying time as the heartland of humanity, 2003; Engaging Macrohistory through the Present Moment, 2004; Ungovernability of Sustainable Global Democracy? Towards engaging appropriately with time, 2011)

The possibility of polyhedral configuration of the facets of wisdom is delightfully reminiscent of the "illumination" and "enlightenment" to which the koan purportedly point. Understood as a set, the so-called "Gateless Gate" is indeed a form of "jewel" -- undeniably a cultural treasure. As a polyhedral configuration, successive attention to these facets is then reflected, refracted and focused within that configuration in a moment of time -- as with exposure to the highly-valued "sparkle" of any precious stone, appropriately cut and polished (Patterning Archetypal Templates of Emergent Order: implications of diamond faceting for enlightening dialogue, 2002). The interactive engagement with polyhedral transformation (as suggested by the images above) then offers a powerful metaphor of a learning opportunity -- a "mnemonic catalyst" transcending the constraints of time and potentially with very personal implications (In Quest of Mnemonic Catalysts -- for comprehension of complex psychosocial dynamics, 2007).

Metaphors as transdisciplinary vehicles of the future: As teasingly remarked by Kenneth Boulding (Ecodynamics; a new theory of societal evolution, 1978):

Our consciousness of the unity of self in the middle of a vast complexity of images or material structures is at least a suitable metaphor for the unity of a group, organization, department, discipline, or science. If personification is only a metaphor, let us not despise metaphors -- we might be one ourselves. (p. 345).

This highlights the question of the kind of comprehensible form which can "carry" both the identity of a global civilization and the pattern of insights which constitute its wisdom. If Ancient Egypt invested so evidently in pyramids to that end, it might be asked whether more complex polyhedra are appropriate to the integrative insights of the present -- as might be expected to be engendered by an "Earth Summit".

The capacity to explore the dynamics potentially implied by such structures as resonance hybrids highlights the potential of what can be understood as "partial comprehension". This may be essential to survival under conditions in which it is inappropriate to depend on the possibility of closure on "complete" understanding (Towards the Dynamic Art of Partial Comprehension, 2012). There is an intriguing sense, in relation to metaphors as "vehicles", in which the case for "resonance hybrid" can be usefully understood as offering "multi-modal transport" -- with the "vehicles" being effectively different "models" from a cognitive perspective.

The sense of comprehension being "partial" is then neatly evident in the variety of modes of transport characteristic of a transportation system: pedestrian, horse/cart, bicycle, automobile, 4WD, truck, rail, boat, plane. With all such people may variously identify -- using each as appropriate. The question is how recognition of the cognitive analogue to such a transportation system is enabled. It is perhaps in this sense that the issues of an Earth Summit are effectively about "ways of seeing" and their interrelationship as metaphors in their own right, as argued with respect to Rio+10 (My Reflecting Mirror World, 2002). The coherence sought from an Earth Summit is then to be understood in terms of the more empowering metaphors it can engender in support of governance.

The capacity for such pluraslistic cognitive flexibility is indicated by the work of Gareth Morgan (Images of Organization, 2007) who notably explores the metaphors of organizations as machines, organisms, brains, cultures, political systems, psychic prisons, as well as in terms of flux. Can the "issues" of an Earth Summit then be understood as cognitive "frames" through which distinctive modes of governance are articulated metaphorically? The "polyocular" argument of Magoroh Maruyama in relation to "mindscapes" suggests how they might be integrated -- by analogy to "stereoscopic" vision (Polyocular Vision or Subunderstanding? Organization Studies, 2004). In those terms, might "subunderstanding" be a condition to which an Earth Summit is only too vulnerable?

Cognitively, the nature of their multi-modal radical complementarity is then helpfully suggested by the counter-intuitive wave/particle duality of physics and the associated uncertainty principle. As suggested by the dynamics of resonance, is there then a healthy "periodicity" to the use of distinct framing metaphors, even opening the possibility of a "periodic table", as suggested by the work of Michael Burt (The Periodic Table of the Polyhedral Universe) and the geometric periodic table of polyhedra of Yasushi Kajikawa (Transitions in the Topology of Polyhedra. Leonardo, 1993). This could offer an approach to the ways of knowing vital to governance (Periodic Pattern of Human Knowing, 2009)? Understood in this way there is a fruitfully challenging relationship between the worldview of a political "party" and the sense in which comprehension is necessarily "partial".

The case for dependence on the dynamics of resonance recognizes its role in enabling life itself and therefore suggests the merit of more general cognitive implications of significance to governance and identity.

Mapping of Chinese idiograms onto the 62 faces of a rhombicosidodecahedron (folded and unfolded representations) (achieved by the removal of the first two "exceptional" hexagrams from the 64)

Mapping of hexagrams onto the 62 faces of a rhombicosidodecahedron (folded and partially folded representations) (achieved by the removal of the first two "exceptional" hexagrams from the 64)

Mapping of English translations of hexagrams onto the 62 faces of a rhombicosidodecahedron (achieved by the removal of the first two "exceptional" hexagrams from the 64)

[Parts: First | Prev | All] [Visuals] [Links: To-K | From-K | From-Kx | Refs ]