CONCLUSION: Globality, viability and comprehensibility

Polyhedral Pattern Language: Software facilitation of emergence, representation and transformation of psycho-social organization (Part #24)

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The key question is whether the possibilities of representation on a form -- whose integrity only fully emerges virtually in 3D -- augments the range of possibilities of negotiating necessary constraints in practice in order to achieve such integration. A crude experiential metaphor is whether a game of bridge is more feasible, interesting and sustainable where there is a recognized need for 2 pairs of players such that, if only 3 are immediately available, ensuring the presence of a fourth is desirable. A related illustration is the (arbitrary) statutory restriction on numbers of members of some elite clubs.

The simplest regular polyhedra may be considered the least "global" -- as exemplified by "spherical" -- in that, compared to more complex Platonic or Archimedean polyhedra, the facets are most distant from the circumsphere through the vertices. "Globality" is therefore essentially implicit in these simpler and most readily comprehensible cases. It is however the simplest that are the most easiest to construct in practice and are the most stable.

The ease of representation of the more complex polyhedra in Stella lies in the many advantages of a virtual environment. Ironically it might be argued that articulation of any complex sets of values -- as virtues -- is also much easier in a "virtual environment", unconstrained by the challenge of implementation in practice.

The structural viability of the more complex polyhedra relies on tensional integrity in practice -- namely an artful balance between compression and tension elements ("checks and balances") that is the focus of tensegrity architecture. The "art" of achieving this lies in the requisite variety of the multiplicity of differently oriented facets of such polyhedra -- that together, in psycho-social terms, reflect the sustaining culture of the whole.

It should be stressed however that, in the case of psycho-social organization, "in practice" is concerned with the necessary patterns of communication between the parts of the whole -- the necessary feedback loops. In a society constructed on information flows through cyberspace, viable "virtual organization" is therefore dependent on how these communication pathways get designed into the structure and reflected in e-mail exchanges, for example.

This is the significance of the tensegrity "operationalization" of polyhedra. It provides a map of both the requisite communication patheways and the necessary separators (or insulators) in order for a new degree of order to emerge -- with sufficient robustness to redistribute stresses globally, thus dynamically resisting any tendency of its constitutive network to collapse. It may be fruitful to consider the "insulators" as regulators (as provided by governance through directives and regulatory authorities), with the flexible communication pathways as exemplifying the "freedom" essential to resilience and the aspirations of the governed.

The challenge indeed lies in "bridging the chasm" between the simple and the complex, the "virtual" and the "concrete". This is a generalization of the challenge of "speaking across the chasm of frame conflict" in human communication (fruitfully discussed by Schroeder) -- to which the different orientations of the faces of polyhedra draw attention. It is also recognized as the two-culture chasm between the "sciences" and the "arts" -- exemplified in the realm of governance by the cognitive challenge of heads of state inspired by poetry (Poetry-making and Policy-making: arranging a marriage between Beauty and the Beast, 1993).

More provocatively and self-reflexively, this is also the challenge of interrelating the various threads (architectural, cognitive, and otherwise) of the above argument -- whose proponents might be variously seen as living on different faces or planes of a polyhedron as yet to be identified.

It is these principles that need to be embodied in tensegrity psycho-social organization and strategy -- if viable coherent "global" governance of any "integrity" is to be achieved, whether at the global, regional or personal scale. In this context, the set of polyhedra offer a range of explicit articulations of "global" -- especially through the dynamics of their tensegrity variants.

It is important to recognize that the above focus is on enabling exploration of possibilities and interpretations. The concern is not with closure on any particular set of definitive interpretations or understandings. In the application of such a "pattern language" to governance in uncertain times, it is the capacity to be cognitively sustained in the exploration of possibility and potential that is most to be valued in the quest for "sustainable development" and "quality of life". The art of global governance may turn out to be well illustrated by the capacity to explore and promote more integrative metaphors -- possibly mapped onto the transformational potentials of the set of spherically symmetrical polyhedra.

The possibilities of a polyhedral pattern language therefore lie in its capacity to trigger alternative and complementary ways of thinking about intractable governance issues -- eliciti9ng creativity appropriate to the much sought "paradigm shift".

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