Empowering enlightenment through sexy technomimicry?

Marrying Strategic White Holes with Problematic Black Holes (Part #13)

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As framed by the above argument, the question is then how to take seriously the psychosocial driving forces that are so skillfully designed out of a neutered future. How might a "sexy" future be envisaged -- enabled by the insights of technological innovation by which people are increasingly enthralled? Using the common electrical metaphor, how best to "get a charge" out of the extremes of doom--mongering and hope-mongering? How best to harness whatever "turns people on" -- rather than ignoring it completely?

The question can be understood as posing a challenge of method. The issue may not be so much whether certain insights are relevant. Rather than whether they fit into such a vision, it may be a question of how they fit. It is curious to note how sexuality is both deprecated as a strategic concern and accepted as an unquestionable given. The same might be said of technological innovation, despite the ways in which it may endanger the environment and quality of life.

Supposing it might be possible to engage insights from both technology and sexuality in some imaginative manner, how might this be "re-cognized"? Suggestively provocative titles in this respect might include:

• Ken Wilber: Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: the spirit of evolution (1995)
• Robert Romanyshyn: Technology as Symptom and Dream (1989)
• Erik Davis: TechGnosis: myth, magic, and mysticism in the Age of Information (2015).
• John M. Wolf: Technosexuality: technology, sexuality, and convergence (2012)
• Alan Drengson: The Practice of Technology: exploring technology, ecophilosophy, and spiritual disciplines for vital links (1995)

If the design of drones has been inspired by bird-flying through the emerging discipline of biomimicry, could new modes of "flying" be discovered through technomimicry, as separately argued (Engendering a Psychopter through Biomimicry and Technomimicry: insights from the process of helicopter development, 2011)?

Similarly, if the challenge is one of engaging creatively with doom-mongering and hope-mongering, what is to be learned from the insights of Nikola Tesla (Reimagining Tesla's Creativity through Technomimicry: psychosocial empowerment by imagining charged conditions otherwise, 2014)? Given his skills in relating positive and negative charges to achieve light, might there be a means of relating the positive and negative by which psychosocial systems are challenged? There is the delightful possibility -- as yet unexplored -- that empowering collective enlightenment could be enabled through electrical metaphors.

In a period when there are ineffectual appeals for "moral awakening" (Vatican official calls for moral awakening on global warming, The Guardian, 28 April 2015), could such "awakening" be empowered by technomimicry -- as with "enlightenment"? Tesla's creativity clarified designs enabling a circulation between positive and negative in electromagnetic terms. In a period of moral challenge, what might be understood as "circulating" and how might this be enabled (From Quantitative Easing (QE) to Moral Easing (ME) a stimulus package to avert moral bankruptcy? 2010; Circulation of the Light: essential metaphor of global sustainability? 2010). What might be the analogue to the "light bulb" -- now so essential to worldwide "enlightenment"?

The argument and schematics above suggest forms of circulation in relation to imagination, creativity, fun and play -- together enabling and framing fruitful intercourse, understood in sexual terms or otherwise. These all involve an experiential dynamic by which people are attracted, engaged and "turned on". It is therefore extraordinary to recognize the degree of unexplored formal similarity between:

• the design of the toroidal nuclear fusion reactor on which hopes for unlimited energy have been based by the ITER International Fusion Energy Organisation (IIFEO). This is however suggestive of a psychosocial analogue with respect to the processing of collective attention (Enactivating a Cognitive Fusion Reactor: Imaginal Transformation of Energy Resourcing (ITER-8), 2006)
• the wiring patterns of electrical motors and dynamos developed by Tesla through his insight into the rotation of the electromagnetic field. This is however suggestive of psychosocial analogues (Imagining a method for adapting Tesla's insights to a psychosocial context, 2014; Potential implications of alternation and rotation in psychosocial fields, 2014). What might the psychosocial analogue to a "rotating magnetic field" -- as yet to be "re-cognized"?
• the adaptation by Oxfam of the much-debated report on nine Planetary Boundaries: exploring the safe operating space for humanity (2009) into the form of a doughnut (Kate Raworth (A Safe and Just Space for Humanity: can we live within the doughnut?, 2012). This toroidal form invites exploration in the light of the above argument (Exploring the Hidden Mysteries of Oxfam's Doughnut: recognizing the systemic negligence of an Earth Summit, 2012; Implication of Toroidal Transformation of the Crown of Thorns: design challenge to enable integrative comprehension of global dynamics, 2011).

Missing from any formal description, characteristic of neutered reports, is how "sexy" might be embodied in the light of such technomimicry. There is some irony to the possibility that the Kama Sutra and Tantra might be instructive in this respect -- especially given their conventional deprecation by "contraceptive methodologies". One approach is to confront s variety of systematic approaches to otherness (Reframing the Dynamics of Engaging with Otherness: triadic correspondences between Topology, Kama Sutra and I Ching, 2011).

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