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Requisite aesthetic articulation of strategy?


Potential for Coherence through Engaging Strategic Poetry (Part #5)


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Aesthetic containers? As stressed above, there is an erosion of efficacy of the mnemonic devices by which complex patterns can be rendered memorable. Arguably the devices employed as "containers", whether lists, circular configurations, or polyhedra, can be said to be "unfit for purpose" -- given the complexity of the strategies deemed essential at this time. The situation is all the more complex in that there is an expectation that any presentation should be widely comprehensible and appealing to those who are variously expected to engage in it, to subscribe to it and to support it.

This is not to deny that such containers may have a continuing ability to imply such relevance -- elusively as symbols, or as instances of sacred geometry. A striking example is offered by the 12-fold circular pattern of stars of the European flag and logo (Coherent Representation of the European Union by Numbers and Geometry: mapping structural elements and principles onto icosahedron and dodecahedron, 2019).

Rather than endeavouring to reformulate the case for aesthetics, reference can be more succinctly made to the following general arguments:

Specific concerns discussed include:

Arts and sciences? Although at opposite extremes of a spectrum, curiously both science (exemplified by mathematics) and aesthetics (exemplified by poetry) attach particular importance to beauty and its conflation with truth. How the objectivity of the one and the subjectivity of the other are related is quite another matter

The importance of aesthetic dimensions to scientists, and as a guiding consideration in scientific research, is widely documented (Designing the 21st Century through integration of the arts and sciences, 1995). It has been said to be essential to adequate theory formulation. Various major initiatives have been undertaken to explore the relevance of aesthetics to science (MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies, AlloSphere, Bridges Organization: art and mathematics). This is necessarily fundamental to any integrative outcome of such research -- especially across boundaries. Many theories and models are readily described as "beautiful", even the essence of beauty as it is open to human cognition.

A remarkably insightful case, integrating an aesthetic perspective, has been made by mathematician Vasily V. Nalimov (Realms of the Unconscious: the enchanted frontier, 1982) with respect to a probabilistic theory of truth -- as previously summarized (Probabilistic vision of the world, 1995). Insightful overviews from such perspectives are notably summarized by Martha Senger (The Iconic Revolution, 2015).

Patterns of correspondences: Of notable interest in this respect are the tantalizing implications of "correspondences", emerging from both a scientific perspective and from the symbolist tradition (Theories of Correspondences -- and potential equivalences between them in correlative thinking, 2007).

The significance of this consideration for integrative understanding became dramatically evident in the exploration by mathematicians of symmetry groups, notably the most complex -- such as that nicknamed as a consequence of Moonshine theory" as the Monster Group (Marcus du Sautoy, Finding Moonshine: a mathematician's journey through symmetry, 2008; Mark Ronan, Symmetry and the Monster: one of the greatest quests of mathematics, 2006). That this should be far beyond conventional comprehension invites speculation as to its potential psychosocial relevance (Potential Psychosocial Significance of Monstrous Moonshine: an exceptional form of symmetry as a Rosetta stone for cognitive frameworks, 2007).

Is there a need at this time to adapt the mode of thinking on "moonshine mathematics" to "moonshine governance" -- potentially via "moonshine aesthetics"? How is collective meaning to be derived from treaties which require thousands of pages to elaborate? How complex a pattern of information needs to be rendered comprehensible and memorable and to whom? (Correspondences between Traditional Constellations and Pattern Languages: requisite simplexity for sustainable comprehension of complexity, 2014)


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