Dependence of psychosocial life on meta-reflection and meta-cognition?

Memetic Analogue to the 20 Amino Acids as vital to psychosocial life? (Part #10)

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The value associated with the mirror test of self-recognition was noted above. It might be expected that extraterrestrials would make use of an analogous test of maturity (Self-reflective Embodiment of Transdisciplinary Integration (SETI): the universal criterion of species maturity? 2008). Given the appreciation of optical metaphors (vision, image, focus, and the like), there is a case for considering the extent to which psychosocial life is currently (overly) dependent on "reflection" and "speculation".

Complementary organizing principles: The configuration of polyhedra in the maps above suggests that the polyhedra could be understood as contrasting organizing principles -- necessarily complementary principles of organization. As a form of container, this is reminiscent of the organization of the biological cell within which life, as it is commonly known, is engendered and sustained. Its nature can be understood through other metaphors, as suggested by the much-cited study by Gareth Morgan (Images of Organization, 1986). The point is reinforced in the extensive study by Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander (Surfaces and Essences: analogy as the fuel and fire of thinking, 2012). In this sense the "container" recalls the preoccupation of alchemists with an athanor, combining the sense of furnace with that of container -- specifically framed in cognitive terms by Eastern reflection on "internal alchemy". Within the biological metaphor, it is the metabolic processes which engender the energy on which physical life is dependent. The container can be envisaged otherwise as a form of reactor (Enactivating a Cognitive Fusion Reactor: Imaginal Transformation of Energy Resourcing (ITER-8), 2006).

Curiously the emphasis here on the complementarity of the set of 12 semi-regular polyhedra fruitfully recalls the early association of polyhedra with classical Greece and the mythology of the Dodekatheon -- the 12 Gods of that culture, later coopted by the Roman Empire as the Dii Consentes. Are their respective organizing principles to be associated -- whether externally or internally -- with 12 complementary languages of psychosocial life, as speculatively explored (12 Complementary Languages for Sustainable Governance, 2003)?

Enabling meta-cognition through reflection: The interlocking of the organizing principles represented by the set of polyhedra was shown above to be ensured by a paradoxical form of "reflection", associated with the incidence of emirps warning of the associated psychosocial process of enantiodromia. There is then a sense in which the integrity of psychosocial life is dependent on a form of "meta-reflection" -- notably enabled by metaphor -- through which "meta-cognition" is enabled and sustained. One means of expressing this understanding is through the use of the Möbius strip to represent the emirp relationship between any pair of organizing principles. This might take the following form.

Use of Möbius strip to represent the emirp-style relationship (although 91 in the right-hand image is the product of 7x13)

This representation recalls the title of an earlier study by Douglas Hofstadter (I Am a Strange Loop, 2007), with its emphasis on self-reflexivity and its references to the Möbius strip. The challenge might be framed in terms of the co-existence and interlocking of complementary paradoxes of that kind, as partly argued separately (Sustaining a Community of Strange Loops: comprehension and engagement through aesthetic ring transformation, 2010).

The argument might be further developed by exploring the configuration of such emirps as in the following, given the role of 8 in the centre of the above maps (associated with 16 and 61, as another non-emirp prime). This would accord with the Chinese understanding of the Bagua configuration whose pattern of trigrams exemplifies the dynamics of such reciprocation / reversal.

Speculative configurations of emirps within the framework of the Chinese Bagua pattern of trigrams (NB: 91 is a product of the primes 7x13)

Life of the imagination: As a speculative exercise it might be asked how life within a biological cell might be imaginatively experienced, given the variety of interlocking processes. Shifting metaphors, given the recourse to insights offered by mathematics, more could be made of understanding the nature of the mathematical experience and its associated excitement. How are patterns detected and experienced? What is the satisfaction of recognizing them -- as in recreational mathematics and the long fascination with the significance of magic squares? Echoes of this are evident in widespread enthusiasm for sudoku, crosswords, and other brain teasers -- all increasingly available via new technologies.

The variety relished in such experience is notably evident in certain games, exemplified by poker, chess and go. There is a sense in which the meta-cognition associated with psychosocial life involves engagement with "dancing" patterns, as separately explored (Sustainability through Magically Dancing Patterns: 8x8, 9x9, 19x19 -- I Ching, Tao Te Ching / T'ai Hsüan Ching, Wéiqí (Go), 2008). The metaphor of dance has long been one used to frame the experience of life, as well as that of doing physics (Gary Zukav, The Dancing Wu Li Masters: an overview of the new physics, 1979).

Avoiding closure: Of particular interest is the role of cognitive closure, as may be implied by use of the container metaphor, and explored by Hilary Lawson (Closure: A Story of Everything, 2002). Here again the paradoxical form associated with the Möbius strip is of value in reframing boundedness -- namely the Klein bottle (Intercourse with Globality through Enacting a Klein bottle: cognitive implication in a polysensorial "lens", 2009).

There is some irony to the manner in which alchemy was preoccupied with alkahest as the universal (cognitive?) solvent, capable of dissolving the form of any container -- given the current preoccupation of nuclear fusion reactor design with preventing the plasma it contains from coming into contact with its toroidal container. This could prove to be a valuable caution against seeking closure in route map elaboration -- if this is liable to inhibit creative reflection vital to the living experience, as may be speculatively discussed (Paradoxes of Engaging with the Ultimate in any Guise: Living Life Penultimately, 2012).

It is in this sense that there is a strange interplay between the incompleteness theorems of Kurt Godel in mathematical logic and the aspirations to a form of closure through metamathematics by Gregory Chaitin (Meta Math!: The Quest for Omega, 2006). Curiously psychosocial life would seem to be fundamentally dependent on the process of not-knowing, however this may be interpreted, as may be variously discussed (Global Strategic Implications of the "Unsaid": from myth-making towards a "wisdom society", 2003; Being What You Want: problematic kataphatic identity vs. potential of apophatic identity? 2008; University of Ignorance: engaging with nothing, the unknown, the incomprehensible, and the unsaid, 2013).

It is in the latter sense that psychosocial life can be framed through the metaphor of a multiverse, exploiting the poetic connotations (Enactivating Multiversal Community: hearing a pattern of voices in the global wilderness, 2012; Being a Poem in the Making: engendering a multiverse through musing, 2012).

Epimemetics? The main paper was instigated in response to the suggestion that the organizing pattern of the genetic code had a hidden code originally embedded within it by extraterrestrials -- most notably indicated by the number 37. Any preoccupation with extraterrestrials can be fruitfully reframed by recognition of the demonstrated determinative inadequacy of "genetics" and the subsequent emphasis on "epigenetics". The issue of "extraterrestrials" can be similarly reframed by a focus on "epiterrestrials" and the potentially greater significance of epimemetics -- in contrast with memetics (Sensing Epiterrestrial Intelligence (SETI): embedding of "extraterrestrials" in episystemic dynamics? 2013).

The quest for "20 amino acids" sustaining psychosocial life would seem to be intimately associated with a form of game-playing reminiscent of music -- and recalling traditional interest in the music of the spheres (Musica Universalis), perhaps understood here through the approximations offered by polyhedra. This metaphor can be fruitfully explored through the study by James P. Carse (Finite and Infinite Games: a vision of life as play and possibility, 1987). Highlighting the game metaphor potentially reframes those games involving opposing teams -- exemplifying the "Us and Them" dynamics explored in the main paper. Further speculation is required on the felt appropriateness of team size in the light of emirp indications regarding reversal, as discussed separately (Numbers in play in psychosocial organization, 2014).

Recognizing the nature of the "20 amino acids" is therefore very much associated with the traditions of a quest. It would appear to be a question of comprehending elusive patterns characteristic of ordinary experience -- and rendering them memorable rather than evanescent. It is largely irrelevant as to whether the game was designed by "extraterrestrials", however intriguing any such encounter might be, as speculated separately (Engaging with Insight of a Higher Order: reconciling complexity and simplexity through memorable metaphor, 2014).

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