Test applications

Polyhedral Pattern Language: Software facilitation of emergence, representation and transformation of psycho-social organization (Part #8)

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It is appropriate to consider a wide variety of test cases, which may help to render the use of Stella credible as a pattern language tool in domains in which this might not otherwise be the case:

• Governance focus:
  • UN Specialized Agencies: The most prominent of these could be mapped onto a polyhedron (using their logos, for example, as illustrated below). Of interest would be to complexify the polyhedron to varying degrees to enable addition of secondary UN agencies. The challenge would be to find an instructive mapping of all such agencies onto a polyhedron of suitable complexity. One use would be to be able to increase or decrease the complexity for different purposes and audiences.
  • European Union agencies: A similar approach could be taken to the UN case (as was done in an earlier experiment, illustrated above)
  • UN Declaration of Human Rights: A mapping of each of the 30 Articles onto a polyhedron, if only as keywords could be very instructive (whether or not hotlinking to complete texts was feasible).
  • Groupings of countries: Significant groups proposed for purposes of governance (for example, the Group of 20 -- industrial or the G20 Group of 20 -- developing) could be fruitfully explored by mapping each country onto a face of an icosahedron. But the lines and challenges of communication and coordination could be better highlighted by using an icosidodecahedron that interrelates negotiating arenas between clusters of 5 countries -- although a key challenge would be how the countries are then positioned in relation to such arenas (a complexification into 3D of the conventional challenge of configuring placement at a negotiating table). (Note: this was done, using Stella, as an exploratory exercise in a separate paper).
• Symbolic and mythical focus:
  • Pantheons: A mapping of the Olympian Dodekatheon, as suggested earlier (Re-membering the Dodekatheon), could prove of great interest if appropriate relationships could be highlighted
  • Zodiac: A representation on a dodecahedral form, as suggested earlier (Engaging with popular astrology), could establish relevance in a wide variety of contexts, especially if colouring and symmetry could be used to exemplify integrative relationships through complementarities; more complex dodecahedral forms might also be used. Collapsing the form down to its 3-fold and 4-fold elements might also be instructive in valued ways. The mapping could be done through astrological signs. It is appropriate to note the extensive interest in non-cubic (including dodecahedral) dice in parts of the widespread (online) role playing community with mythical interests, as discussed earlier (Engaging with popular games). Many might be intrigued by the potentials of the polyhedral manipulation of such a mapping.
  • Sephiroth: The challenge of mapping the central symbolism of the Kabbalah of Judaism onto polyhedra has been variously explored by many including Anders Sandberg (Some Random Thoughts about the Occult Correspondences of the Platonic Solids and Their Symmetries). Such possibilities are a focus for a variety of studies, using polyhedra, which the capacities of Stella could further enable (for example: Sacred Geometry of One and the 13 Sephiroth Tree of Life, 2003; Stephen M. Phillips, The '120 Polyhedron' and the '144 Polyhedron' as the Exterior and Interior of the Inner Tree of Life).
  • Apostles: Mapping the 12 apostles of Christianity onto a dodecahedral form could be considered very significant to many, especially if their characteristics, and relationships between them, could be aesthetically highlighted by colour and symmetry.

Self-reflexivity might even be further enhanced by mapping Christopher Alexander's set of patterns onto a suitably complex polyhedron.

Of related interest, in practice, is the possibility of using Stella to enable people to construct and share polyhedral mappings in support of their worldview, much as photographs and video clips are now exchanged worldwide:

• celebrities and idols: Clearly it would be a relatively simple matter to apply images to the surfaces of an appropriately selected and coloured polyhedron, whether to be printed as an image, attached to an e-mail, applied to a website -- accessible as a manipulable virtual reality representation or not.
• bar coding access to sound files: The capacity of some portable phones to scan bar codes, suggests the possibility of variously bar coding the surfaces of a polyhedron to evoke distinct voice messages or songs from each surface.
• meeting conclusions: Associating the key conclusions of a meeting (strategic elements, principles, or values, etc) with the faces of a polyhedron (whether as keywords or phrases, or additionally capable of triggering display of other information), would allow them to be widely disseminated as image or virtual reality files. The technology is even available to encase such a polyhedron in a transparent ball of plastic (of tennis ball size) as a significant form of "executive gimmick" -- for which there is indeed a significant market. Such "balls" might even be of interest for the public relations of complex intergovernmental organizations.

Success with a number of these test cases would offer powerful symbols, in polyhedral form, of the integrative identity of topics that are otherwise considered to be regrettably quite fragmented in the understanding of many. Such a possibility was notably seen as relevant on the occasion of the establishment of the Mediterranean Union (Mediterranean Union: a symbolic challenge).

Figure 4: Application of 12 UN Specialized Agencies to faces of a dodecahedron in Stella progressive unfolding from 3D to 2D

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Figure 5: Complexification of the above UN Agency example (from dodecahedron to icosidodecahedron) using Stella with subsequent morphing to yet more complex forms (by various methods), suggesting increasing challenges (and possibilities) of communication and integration amongst the set of agencies so mapped; a facetting diagram for the icosidodecahedron is also included (as an indication of possible communication pathways)

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