Tao comprehension in terms of "achieving orbit" -- and "orbital decay"

Exploring Representation of the Tao in 3D (Part #8)

Importance attached to metaphors associated with growth and development, extending into achieving the strategic capacity to "fly" with its obvious challenges (Counteracting Extremes Enabling Normal Flying: insights for global governance from birds on the wing and the dodo, 2016; Coordination of Wing Deployment and Folding in Politics: bird flight and landing as complementary metaphors of global strategic coherence, 2018).

In metaphorical terms, "orbit" is commonly used with respect to psychosocial dynamics and human aspirations. There is therefore a case for exploring the manner in which any geometrical construction of the Tao symbol is indicative of the process of "achieving orbit", sustaining it, and the potentially problematic process of "orbital decay". It merits enrichment in the light of the challenges it poses in practice for rocket science, as with its more general implications (Towards an Astrophysics of the Knowledge Universe: from astronautics to noonautics? 2006).

Exploration of the Tao symbol as a mnemonic device for achieving "sustainable orbit"
	"Valley spirit" ?
Images adapted from geometry above (Stages in imagining a 3D Tao symbol in virtual reality )

The transition form a local to a global worlldview could be seen as as a cognitive process of "getting into orbit" -- whether this is seen as appropriate detachment or an inability to engage with local reality. The reverse process could be understood in terms of "orbital decay" -- whether this is seen as some sort of failure of a global perspective or a necessary "landing" in local reality. The issue of the relative reality or unreality of such perspectives is the focus of a separate discussion (Local Reality of Overcrowding -- Global Unreality of Overpopulation: comprehensible reframing of engagement with global issues via metaphors of proximity, 2019). The complementary images below were used to illustrate the paradoxes of that relationship. It is appropriate to recall the degree to which effective governance can be recognized as a riddle whose solution is widely experienced as a elusive (Global Governance as a Riddle: but is a solution the answer to the question? 2018).

Use of the Tao symbol as a mnemonic device
	"Valley spirit" ?
Images adapted from Snoring of The Other: a politically relevant psycho-spiritual metaphor? (2006)

As emphasized above, the Tao symbol is best understood as psychoactive. This would imply that the nature of the engagement with it is intimately related to the paradox of what it implies. It eludes any effort to "grasp" its nature and constrain its dimensions by premature closure (Openness and Closure in Pattern Language: geometry versus resonance, 2012; Avoiding distortions of premature cognitive closure, 2013; Beyond Harassment of Reality and Grasping Future Possibilities: learnings from sexual harassment as a metaphor, 1996). Hence the emphasis on insights provided from the process of construction -- potentially consistent with the Chinese calligraphic 8 Principles of Yong (associated with the process of internal alchemy, known as Neidan).

The process of consruction then merits reflection in terms of the fundamental geometric elements required, as discussed separately (Engaging with Globality through Cognitive Lnes, Circlets, Crowns or Holes, 2009). This is consistent with the articulation by Francisco Varela (Laying Down a Path in Walking: essays on enactive cognition, 1997). In this sense the geometry of the Tao symbol, as constructed, can be understood as a set of pathways between modes of insight -- possibly to be understood as of greater or lesser "potential" as recognized with respect to molecular orbitals.

As mentioned above, it is in this sense that the discussion of Arielle Saiber and Aba Mbirika of the three three rings (tre giri) of the Holy Trinity in Paradiso 33 of the Divine Comedy is so appropriate (The Three Giri of Paradiso XXXIII, Dante Studies, 131, 2013, pp. 237-272). In cognitive terms their "interlocking" as Borromean rings also merits consideration (Borromean challenge to comprehension of any trinity?, 2018; Comprehension of Unity as a Paradoxical Dynamic: metaphors reframing problematic engagement with otherness, 2019; Imagining a mnemonic device of requisite higher dimensionality, 2019). With those rings to be considered as spheres in 3D, of some relevance are then the arguments of Peter Sloterdijk (Bubbles: Microspherology, 2011; Globes: Macrospherology, 2014; Foams: Plural Spherology, 2016) as indicated separately (Pricking the Bubble of Global Complacent Complicity, 2017; Fernando Garbini Cespedes, Peter Sloterdijk's spherical communication, 2018).