Enactive engagement with otherness


Cognitive Engagement with Spike Dynamics of a Polyhedral Coronavirus (Part #4)

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Each form of otherness naturally tends to evoke a particular pattern of response. The question is how to elicit new modes of response transcending the limitations of traditional patterns -- notably as may be suggest by the engagement with coronavirus. Some possibilities are discussed in the following:

Unusual possibilities, to which some may have recourse in response to coronavirus, or which may be cited as an inspiration, include the following, in no particualr order and potentially mutually entangled:

  • Stockholm syndrome, namely the well-recognized condition in which hostages develop a psychological alliance with their captors during captivity

  • Know thy enemy as thyself: namely the classic adage from Sun Szu (The Art of Warfare ), and variously discussed Marcello Rollando Know Thy Enemy as Thyself, Daily Kos, 12 January 2016), allegedly remarked by Arthur Koestler to George Orwell, and a theme of Bible study (video)

  • Martial art philosophy: Rather than a question of winning or losing in battle with an "enemy", the challenge might be more appropriately framed in the transcendent spirit of Eastern martial arts as how to learn from one's opponent to avoid the questionable enthusiasm for the restrictive cognitive conventions of zero-sum games, as variously imagined (Ensuring Strategic Resilience through Haiku Patterns: reframing the scope of the "martial arts" in response to strategic threats, 2006; James P. Carse, Finite and Infinite Games: a vision of life as play and possibility, 1986). Are there new possibilities, if we recognize that the form and operation of the coronavirus is a mysterious image of who we are, whether collectively or individually? Trump / Putim / Xi ***

  • Integration of the shadow: The successive phases in the evolution of insight are frequently depicted in Zen Buddhism by a traditional sequence of 10 ox-herding pictures, each with a brief commentary (cf D T Suzuki; Kubota Ji'un, Ten Ox-herding Pictures with the Verses Composed by Kakuan Zenji, 1996). As argued elsewhere (Enlightening Endarkenment: selected web resources on the challenge to comprehension, 2005; Progressive integration of the shadow of non-self-reflexivity, 2017), these are of special interest because of their indication of a person's progressive discovery and interplay with a shadowy element denoted by an ox (Consciously Self-reflexive Global Initiatives: Renaissance zones, complex adaptive systems, and third order organizations.

  • Mirroring the other , namely the sense in which the engagement with the coronavirus resembles that of the action of mirror neurons. This is a neuron which triggers both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another.Thus, the neuron "mirrors" the behaviour of the other, as though the observer were itself acting. From the perspective of common coding theory, sSome researchers in cognitive neuroscience and cognitive psychology consider that this system provides the physiological mechanism for perception/action coupling. Birds, for example, have been shown to have imitative resonance behaviors and neurological evidence suggests the presence of some form of mirroring system.

  • Engaging with the other via similarities, as especially cultivated in homeopathy, on the basis of a "Law of Similars", namely that a substance that causes symptoms of a disease in healthy people would respond to similar symptoms in sick people. As an example of alternative medicine, it is particularly deprecated by allopathic medicine as a pseudoscience, despite widespread use of products resulting from its methods -- and extensive efforts to prohibit them. The WHO recognizes that 170 Member States acknowledged their use of Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Medicine, however any such understanding includes practices based on "similarities", with or without the approval of medical science.

    Controversially examples of the use of such practices in relation to coronavirus are already cited (George Vithoulkas, George Vithoulkas, Homeopathy and Coronavirus, Defend Democracy Press, 18 March 2020; Alakananda Dasgupta, Indian Authorities Propose Use of Homeopathy to Prevent Coronavirus, The Scientist, 7 February 2020; Bhavya Dore, Hindu Nationalists Are Pushing Magical Remedies for the Coronavirus, Foreign Policy, 9 March 2020; Homeopaths promise coronavirus prevention and cures, as health officials criticise 'misinformation', The Telegraph, 2 March 2020; How the Queen relies on homeopathic remedies to keep her well during the coronavirus outbreak, The Sun, 27 March 2020). The controversy is separately discussed from a strategic perspective (Remedies to Global Crisis: "Allopathic" or "Homeopathic"? Metaphorical complementarity of "conventional" and "alternative" models, 2009)
    . .
  • Reframing otherness through metaphor: This approach can be understood in terms of "domestication" -- itself a metaphor (Robi Kroflic, How to Domesticate Otherness: three metaphors of otherness in the European cultural tradition, Paideusis, 16, 2007, 3; Ehsan Golahmar, Metaphors the East Is Othered by, Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 7, 2016, 5). Disease itself may be reframed by this means (Susan Sontag, Disease as Political Metaphor, The New York Review of Books, 23 February 1978). An conference is regularly held on "Metaphors of Marginality and Otherness"

  • Illness as an illusion: (Meredith Oenning-Hodgson, Illness as an Illusion of Misfortune: the Hermetic Wings of the Dragonfly, Psychological Perspectives, 52, 2009, 1)
    • The author describes her relationship with the reality of Parkinson's disease—how she twists and turns and pivots and falls with this rapacious intrusion, and how a new, hitherto unknown space opens between Parkinson's and herself. This new space claims its own dynamic, objective reality. In attempts to consciously access the reality of this third space, the author faces paradox, “plays” with metaphor, and tries to recognize the right “reality.” She considers Freud's reality and pleasure principles, Winnicott's iconoclastic declaration of “health being the ability to play with psychosis,” and Jung's transcendent function. She also calls on Hermes with his wings to fly through otherwise impenetrable borders. As an incantation, an evocation or a pathway, she implores Hermes to breathe in flight. In the midst of this inner work, the dragonfly literally appears, emanating transformation.
    • Linda Edwards The Other Side of the Valley: healing through altered states of consciousness John Hunt Publishing, 2019
    • At the core of Christian Science is the teaching that illness is an illusion caused by faulty beliefs, and that prayer heals by replacing erroneous thoughts with spiritual (true) ideas

  • Making friends with an enemy (including a disease)? As noted by the first source noted below, this is a strategy to challenge dysfunctional thinking and hopefully develop a more open relationship with the experience of pain: Given the manner in which the coronavirus has been framed as an enemy to be eradicated, rendering highly suspect any views to the contrary, there is a case for recalling the prevalence of that attitude in past condemnation of all "bugs" and microbes. It is only very recently that there has been recognition of the extent to which a human is dependent on such micro-life, whether for agricullture or as embodied as an ecosystem within the body. The human microbiome is the aggregate of all microbiota that reside on or within human tissues and biofluids along with the corresponding anatomical sites in which they reside. The number of microbial cells and the number of human cells are both estimates, with recent research indicating that the number of human cells as approximately 37.2 trillion. The ratio of microbial-to-human cells is closer to 3:1, if not 1:1. This goes far beyond "befriending the enemy"; rather it is a case of "my house is your house". A virus is not however considered to be living, although if such was detected on Mars then "life" might then be reframed.

  • Aesthetic reframing of othermess : For some the preference is to reframe otherness through song, music, dance, poetry, painting, or humour. Some traditions highlight the manner in which a threatening monster can be "enchanted" by music. Most recently this aesthetic mode has been evident in the case of coronavirus:
  • Shamanistic cognitive engagement: Exemplified by the classic tale of a rainmaker invited to a Chinese village, to bring rain -- for the village is experiencing drought. The rainmaker requests a cottage far from the village, and asks not to be disturbed. Three days later, rain and snow fall on the village. The rainmaker explains that he did not bring the rain. As he had felt immediately infected by the imbalance of the village people upon arrival, he took refuge to balance himself -- naturally balancing the outside world through that process -- and it rained.

  • I and Thou, as articulated by Martin Buber (1923) in distinguishing between:
    • an attitude of the "I" towards an "It", towards an object that is separate in itself, which we either use or experience.
    • an attitude of the "I" towards "Thou", in a relationship in which the other is not separated by discrete bounds.

In the spirit of the argument here, these might be better configured visually, as tentatively indicated in the Venn diagram in 2D below. This has the necessary implication that the cognitive modalities variously overlap in whats which might be determined in the future. It is the underlying common experiential modality which is necessarily beyond any simple form of explication and is readily to be considered hyperdimensional. A 3D version would evoke other reflections more consistent with integrative global understanding.

Framing subtle engagement with otherness

Together or separately, these might be recognized as forms of cognitive enactivism, as separately discussed (Enveloping Development through Cognitive Enactivism: engaging with climate change by changing apprehension of climate, 2009; Cognitive Implications of Lifestyle Diseases of Rich and Poor: transforming personal entanglement with the natural environment, 2010). Response to the coronavirus pandemic, given the strategic confusion and misinformation, could be seen as variously analogous to an information disease, as speculatively explored (Memetic and Information Diseases in a Knowledge Society: speculations towards the development of cures and preventive measures, 2008).

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