Psychosocial evolution: beyond the dinosaur and globalization

Engendering a Psychopter through Biomimicry and Technomimicry (Part #4)

---

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

---

Framed in this way, how might it be appropriate to seek inspiration from nature with regard to evolution "beyond the dinosaur" -- subsequent to any "extinction event" of which equivalents are variously envisaged for the current global civilization?

One approach is clearly the attentive study of the evolution of species in the light of the principles of biomimicry. The question, understood in systems terms, is what mode of organization became viable after that event. How can this be defined cybernetically in terms of the implication for the design and operation of new styles of organization? The work of Maurice Yolles would be particularly relevant (Knowledge Cybernetics: a metaphor for post-normal science, 2010; Organisations as Complex Systems: an introduction to knowledge cybernetics, 2006).

Another approach, potentially closely related, would be to explore the new modalities which became evident subsequent to the extinction of the dinosaurs. As noted above, a curious historical coincidence is the strategic implication of the incredible rapidity of the current development and application of drones  -- in ironic support of forms of governance reflecting a seemingly obsolete mindset. Are these, together with surveillance satellites, to be understood as a "last gasp" effort of "dinosaurs" to "get off the ground" and obtain a fruitful sense of perspective -- like the pterosaurs?

There is considerable irony to the official name for drones -- "unmanned aerial vehicles" -- in that their essentially questionable nature is exemplified by the implication that they might well be piloted by "eunuchs" or, far more controversially by "women". That their use requires not an iota of human courage, compunction or compassion implies that they might as well have been named "unmanly aerial vehicles". In the quest for the principles of operation of a "psychopter" however, this suggests the possibility that such a vehicle may well need to be "engendered" through insights into sexuality.

Corporations learning to "dance" may not be enough (Rosabeth Moss Kanter, When Giants Learn To Dance, 1990), nor may other non-confrontational strategies such as thinking "like a dolphin" (Dudley Lynch and Paul L. Kordis, The Strategy of the Dolphin: scoring a win in a chaotic world, 1989). Curiously the latter has inspired many imitations ("mimicry"?) reflective of the old mindset: thinking like a CEO, thinking like a manager, thinking like a millionaire, etc.

It is a relief to note the popularity of the science fiction tale of James Patrick Kelly (Think Like a Dinosaur, Asimov's Science Fiction, June 1995). An instructional pack for teachers has been designed to enable learning about the world of dinosaurs through dance, drama and music -- including how their world came to an end (Jayne Bolsover, Dancing with Dinosaurs, 2001). 

The dance metaphor as been variously explored in song by Steven Curtis Chapman (Dancing With the Dinosaur) and in relation to religion by William Easum (Dancing with Dinosaurs: Ministry in a Hostile and Hurting World, 1993) and by Mark Patrick Hederman (Dancing with Dinosaurs: a spirituality for the 21st Century, 2011). Hederman  extends the metaphoras a metaphysical conceit for our relationship with God in an effort to clarify the landscape between this world and the next.

The metaphor is used very perceptively by Chris Hedges (Dancing with Dinosaurs, The New Humanist, 122, 2, March/April 2007). He relates the disastrous effects of increasing globalization to the displays at the Creation Museum in the USA -- where dinosaurs are portrayed as coexisting with early humans. The tendency to "dance" in relation to current environmental policies, most notably in relation to climate change, has been challenged by Neal Peirce (Stop dancing with dinosaurs, The Seattle Times, 19 June 2008).

The archetypal dolphin metaphor may suggest that the alternative approach is intimately related to the systemic significance of "flying" -- most readily understood in ecosystemic terms as a means of ensuring cross-fertilization. This is currently used as a metaphor in describing the capacity of projects to "get off the ground" -- typically whether a design concept "flies".

The consequent nature and significance of such three-dimensional movement is evident both in discussion of flocking behaviour and "swarm intelligence" (notably by the military) and of the collective intelligence potentially emergent from social networking. Enabling fruitful collective behaviour might then be seen as a specific challenge for the current Occupy Wall Street initiative.

A Designer's Insight from a Duck Flying reproduced with permission from John Chris Jones,a duck flying, technology changes, princelet editions, 1984, pp. 17-18

Yesterday, walking on the Heath, I got enthralled by rapid movements of the wings of a duck flying away from me. So fast, so fast. About five wing-beats a second I should think. And, within each beat, too fast to see or even to think about, each wing changing its shape progressively, passing through many 'aerofoil sections' as we crudely call them, many configurations akin to but much more quick and subtle than those astonishing motions of flap and slot, airbrake, spoiler, etc., that one sees appearing out of the wingsurfaces when a jetplane transforms itself into a kind of lumbering biplane/triplane so that it can fly slowly enough to land. Marvellous as that is, in itself. But in the case of the duck how much more so? Not only must something like all that be happening many times a second as each wing bends from downward curve to upward, the wingtips almost meeting above and below, but, on the upward stroke, as when one swims, the shape of the whole structure must be entirely reshaped from that of controlled thruster to streamlined shape that can return to the top without pushing the air with it and thus defeating the effort to support and propel the duck's quite heavy body. But that's not all. What got me thinking all this, in that flash with which the brain lets one realise such things, was the thought that, inside all this incredibly complex and rapid motion of the wing as a whole is another process, an order of magnitude faster and more complicated: the separate motions of each feather, no doubt anticipating the wing-motions I've tried to guess at, so that each successive wing-shape is smoothly arrived at... ...Which leads me to a favourite thought, to the entity or process which I like most: the nervous system. Having attempted to think and describe motions and sub-motions of the duck's wing ... one can think, with ever-growing respect, of the seemingly unbounded capacity of the system of nerves-and-gaps-between-nerves (the synapses), firing intermittently, and operating as much decentrally as centrally, by which all this beautiful complexity is able to appear in time and space in each and every creature. Plants too, though with somewhat different systems of awareness and control and letting-be. The same system, in the main, in every living thing. There, in this process, in its varieties, its adaptability, its speed, faster than the action it regulates, and in its invisibility, its unconsciousness, is the model, or metaphor at least, for what we seek to do, but fail to do, so far, in our ways of organising human life, beyond the given, the natural. How stiff, in comparison, are our rules, our laws, our plans, our designs, our modes of management-in-the-large, of government, of organising radio and tv, and even our methods of programming computers. All such processes, as we do them now, seem to me to be tied to notions of simplicity, conscious control, centralism, cheapness, and total disrespect for what we are, for what the duck is too, and thus to have no chance of working right. None at all.....

---

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