</a>Requisite variety of perspectives

Geometry of Thinking for Sustainable Global Governance (Part #9)

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There is a curious implicit assumption that if everyone agreed with what is presented by some as being "right", then all global strategic challenges could be resolved. There is relatively little recognition that differences of perspective are vital to the sustainability and survival of any system. In cybernetic terms this has been expressed as the requisite variety, or requisite complexity, to manage a complex system. In psychosocial systems, however, this variety may often be framed as anathema -- as a recognition of those who are not "on program" or "singing from the same hymn sheet", having failed to grasp the message. In some belief systems they may simply be framed as "unbelievers" against whom any sanction is appropriate. How is this perspective to be integrated?

Consistent with Fuller's focus on three and four in constituting a viable system as described geometrically, others have struggled with the articulation of psychosocial systems in the light of three and four categories, in various combinations. The work of Carl Jung has been especially significant, notably through his efforts to interpret a range of symbol systems from a variety of cultures in this light -- some with geometrical representations. This work was more specifically developed by Marie-Louise von Franz (Number and Time, 1974). Typically however any associated representations have been in two dimensions through polygons. This is also the case of the AQAL system of the Integral Movement with its focus on four quadrants of a circle.

Fuller has done much to extend the representation into three dimensions but in doing so has essentially focused on the geometry and its tangible significance and has rendered implicit the psychosocial implications. It is Stafford Beer and his collaborators who endeavoured to give functional significance to polyhedral representation of psychosocial systems -- with his focus on the icosahedron through syntegrity. Associated with this work has been the further development of his management cybernetics into the elaboration of a viable system model (VSM). However the psychosocial implications of this are much diluted, except in the extension into knowledge cybernetics by Maurice Yolles (Knowledge Cybernetics: a new metaphor for social collectives, Organisational Transformation and Social Change, 2006; Exploring Cultures Through Knowledge Cybernetics, Journal of Cross-Cultural Competence and Management, 2007).

Such ventures are a long way from any recognition of the psychosocial significance of more complex polyhedra in more than three dimensions (Potential Psychosocial Significance of Monstrous Moonshine: an exceptional form of symmetry as a Rosetta stone for cognitive frameworks, 2007). Given the level of disagreement which prevails in the global system, the question is how complex might a polyhedron need to be to be able to map such complexity and the many orientations it implies? And how then to comprehend it?

The consequence of such failure is well illustrated by the traditional Eastern tale and image of the seven blind men and the elephant. How many perspectives are required for a global understanding? How to determine how many may be lacking for such a perspective? The simpler example of the two perspectives necessary for stereoscopic vision makes clear the nature of the challenge described by as the need for "poly-ocular vision" by Magoroh Maruyama (Polyocular Vision or Subunderstanding, Organization Studies, 2004). However this focus on the vision metaphor obscures the more general challenge of the need for quite different modes of knowing as exemplified by the challenge of integrating a set of polysensorial understandings (Strategic Challenge of Polysensorial Knowledge: bringing the "elephant" into "focus", 2008). This is consistent with the argument of Chris Lucas that generally multiple objectives or parameters have to be met or optimised before any 'master' or 'holistic' solution is considered adequate (Practical Multiobjective Optimisation, 2006).

The cognitive challenge may be clarified through nuclear fusion as a metaphor -- where the technical challenge is to configure magnets so as to confine and contain plasma such that it does not touch the walls of its container when heated to extreme operational temperatures. The question is what is the configuration of perspectives necessary to contain collective attention globally without it becoming inappropriately attached to the forms by which it is contained -- if such containment is to be transformative (Enactivating a Cognitive Fusion Reactor Imaginal Transformation of Energy Resourcing (ITER-8), 2006)

This same challenge of cognitive fusion might also be described from an Eastern perspective in terms of a configuration of an appropriate variety of perspectives adequate to the containment of ch'i. The complete set of 64 conditions encoded by the hexagrams of the I Ching hexagram might be understood in this light. Both understandings offer insights into the challenge of global governance.

In each such case it is not simply the structural configuration -- as is clear from tensegrity. It is a question of the dynamics of the structure. It is the contrast between inadequate assumptions regarding the adequacy of "genetics" as a source of comprehensive explanation and the recent recognition of the importance of the dynamics of epigenetics. It is a question of how the different modes of understanding "dance" together. The question may be what is the epigenomic map (Ian Sample, Epigenome Decoded: 'A new frontier for genetics', The Guardian, 15 October 2009). Or perhaps the challenge is an "epimemetic map"?

Again this recognition is partly represented through Fuller's detailed articulation of the transformation between different configurations, notably in terms of the vector equilibrium (Vector Equilibrium and its Transformation Pathways, 1980). But again there is almost no trace of the psychosocial implications of this dynamic in the subsequent development of his work.

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