Relevance to change, learning and creativity

Representation of Creative Processes through Dynamics in Three Dimensions (Part #4)

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Cognitive control of a vehicle: The animations and images above indicate the measure formulae of science which Young uses to distinguish knowledge processes associated with controlling a vehicle. These are discussed separately with respect to Functional Complementarity of Higher Order Questions: psycho-social sustainability modelled by coordinated movement (2004), notably in sections on:

• Semantic interrelationships between WH-questions
• Engaging with tendencies to twisting movement -- insights from helicopter control
• Measure formulae as the basis for a semantic template
• Qualitative operational relationships associated with learning cycle
• Cognitive instruction set for a semantic vehicle
• Set of measure formulae as a template for WH-questions
• Challenge of interpretation and comprehension
• Transformational questioning
• "Pathology" of Q&A: problematic answers to single-mode questions
• Existential dynamic in a "cognitive helicopter"
• Challenge of closure
• Reframing possibilities of closure

With respect to the measure formalae, Young notes that of the twelve, 10 (recognized by physics) are used to analyze the dynamics of a moving body, whilst 2 are "not presently recognized in physics textbooks, but used in engineering". These form a pattern as follows (Generation of Measure Formulae, according to Arthur Young)

Basis of Rosetta Stone of Meaning (according to Arthur Young)
Group I		Group II		Group III
Formula	Acts	Formula (xM)	States	Formula (xL)	Relationships
L  (position)	observation	ML  (moment)	significance	ML2 (moment of inertia)	faith
L /T (velocity)	change (reaction)	ML/T | (momentum)	transformation	ML2/T (action / rate of change of inertia)	impulse (purpose)
L/T2 (acceleration)	spontaneous act	ML/T2 (force)	being	ML2/T2 (work)	fact
L/T3 (control)	control	ML/T3 (mass control)	establishment	ML2/T3 (power)	knowledge (form)

Learning/Action cycles: This pattern is the basis for the labelling in the above images and animations. There is however a very significant difference which Young emphasizes in a footnote (1976, p. 102) to the effect that the last column is displaced by one position (vertically) within the pattern of formulae -- as he then represents the set (notably in the circular animation above).

Learning/Action cycle
	Group I: Acts (Cardinal)		Group II: States (Fixed)		Group III: Relationships (Mutable: indicating shift with learning)
					Before	After	Before	After
Air (Zeigeist, timelessness)	L	observation	ML	significance	ML2	ML2/T3	faith (inertia)	knowledge (power)
Water (flow, development)	L /T	change (reaction)	ML/T	transformation	ML2/T	ML2	impulse (purpose)	faith (inertia)
Fire (instigation of change)	L/T2	spontaneous act	ML/T2	being	ML2/T2	ML2/T	work (fact)	impulse (purpose)
Earth (implication, embodiment)	L/T3	control	ML/T3	establishment	ML2/T3	ML2/T2	knowledge (power)	work (fact)

Learning and "re-cognition": The shift from the logical pattern -- through the displacement within the relationship set -- merits careful consideration. Young is specifically concerned with learning/action cycles. This exploration developed from the major discovery of the rotation of a magnetic field by Nikola Tesla , as discussed separately with respect to its psychosocial implications (Reimagining Tesla's Creativity through Technomimicry: psychosocial empowerment by imagining charged conditions otherwise, 2014). The consequent focus on rotation and cycles in the animations above suggest that the process of learning involves a particular form of shift of perception -- effectively a rotation within the fourfold modality.

Young's use of "stone" as a metaphor, as in Rosetta Stone, could be usefully called into question as suggesting an excessive emphasis on the static when a dynamic merits recognition to a higher degree -- as may be the case with Philosopher's Stone (Transforming and Interweaving the Ways of Being Stoned: imagination, promise, rocks, memorials, petrification, 2012). Such stones should imply a process of learning about their own adequacy as vehicles of meaning -- rather than exemplifying unquestionable description and premature closure.

This shift can be usefully exemplified by the stanza from the poet T. S. Eliot (in Little Gidding, 1942):

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

It is the sense of "knowing the place for the first time" which implies that the meanings attributed to the relationships prior to learning get reframed by that process. The sense of "faith" (in the table above) is then transformed into a sense of "knowledge"; "impulse" into "faith"; "work" into "impulse"; and "knowledge" into "work". The depiction above of the cycles within which the fourfold modalities are embedded suggests that reinterpretation of conventional terms may be a two-way process through learning and feedback.

The role of time, as indicated in the measure formulae, is then of particular significance. The shift from recognition based on timelessness (1/T⁰), through 1/T and 1/T², to one characterized by 1/T³, suggests an increasing integration of past experience and implication in it. Consideration can be given to the learning consequent on associating 1/T³ symbolically with Earth (as in the sense of groundedness or embodiment), or with Air (as with knowledge and wisdom). The stages of "re-cognition" can then be framed in terms of forgetting and "re-membering": conventional remembering, remembering past remembering, and remembering the remembering of the past. Understood in terms of environmental processes, this could be: creative production cycle, selective recycling, and systematic recycling. The comprehensive nature of the latter could be recognized as the "encycling" separately explored (Encycling Problematic Wickedness for Potential Humanity, 2014).

Orders of cybernetics: The shift, through learning, from observing to "knowing one knows" suggests exploring the fourfold distinction in terms of different orders of cybernetics, as discussed separately (Cybernetics of cybernetics: complex adaptive systems? 2007):

• first order cybernetics: characterized by simple feedback loops
• second order cybernetics: understood as the cybernetics of cybernetics
• third order cybernetics: in which the observer is understood to be part of a coevolving system
• fourth order cybernetics: as may be variously understood, possibly with how multiple realities are shaped by, and impinge upon, power relationships within society. As proposed, for example, by M. Zangeneh and E. Haydon (The Psycho-Structural Cybernetic Model, Feedback, and Problem Gambling: a new theoretical approach, International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 1, 2, 2004):

  Central to this effort is the application of a unique, critical theory inspired by the works of Anthony Giddens (1971, 1990; see discussion on modernity and reflexivity) and John Francois Lyotard (1979; see discussion on postmodernity) to the cybernetic theoretical framework. The epistemological orientation of the theory proposed here is that of multiple realities shaped by social, cultural, economic, ethnic, gender and disability values, which centralize on the asymmetric power relations in society

The distinction between the "orders" of cybernetics is currently a matter of controversy, most recently addressed by Maurice Yolles and Gerhard Fink (Generic Agency Theory, Cybernetic Orders and New Paradigms, 2014) in the light of their earlier reflections. Russell Clemens (The Cybernetics of Foresight: futures thinking for the 21st Century, Asia-Pacific Foresight Conference, 2012) discusses the merits of relating the approach of cybernetics (including the implications of the icosahedron and enneagram) to the causal layered analysis methodology of Sohail Inayatullah (Causal Layered Analysis: poststructuralism as method, Futures, 30, 1998, pp. 815-829).

Higher orders of learning: Irrespective of the academic controversy, learning can be suggestively understood as associated with higher orders of questioning, increasing degrees of self-reflexivity, implication in what is observed, and forms of cognitive embodiment, as argued by various authors (Henryk Skolimowski, The Participatory Mind: a new theory of knowledge and of the universe, 1995) and discussed separately, notably with respect to constructivism and enaction (Existential Embodiment of Externalities: radical cognitive engagement with environmental categories and disciplines, 2009; David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous: perception and language in a more-than-human world, 1997; George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Philosophy In The Flesh: the embodied mind and its challenge to western thought, 1999).

There is a case for recognizing that the cybernetic "orders" above could be associated with distinct topological surfaces whether for representation, mapping or symbolic purposes:

• first order cybernetics with the circle (as suggested by the interlocking loops depicted on systems diagrams)
• second order with the sphere (as suggested by integrative global interlocking of great circles around a sphere)
• third order with paradoxical forms (as with the Klein bottle)
• fourth order with yet more complex forms.

The relevance of Klein bottle geometry is notably argued by Steven M. Rosen (Topologies of the Flesh: a multidimensional exploration of the lifeworld, 2006; Dreams, Death, Rebirth: a topological odyssey into alchemy's hidden dimensions, 2014).

Cognitive "glass ceilings": These threads could be framed as follows.

Identifying cognitive "glass ceilings"?
	Traditional symbol	Cognitive modality	Causal layered analysis	Time binding (general semantics)	Self-reflexivity (cognitive implication)	Form for adequate representation	Requisite complexity (of explanation)	Requisite simplexity (of comprehension)	Alternative binary encodings?
									pre- learning?	post- learning?
Objectivity Externality	Air	thoughts, opinions	"litany" (in the media)	T0	lowest	circle (loop)	lowest	lowest
	cognitive "glass ceiling" boundary
	Water	feelings, emotions	social causes (of concern)	T-1		sphere (interlocking great circles)
cognitive "glass ceiling" boundary
Subjectivity Internality	Fire	intentions, instigation, creativity	legitimizing structure of discourse	T-2		paradoxical (Klein bottle)
	cognitive "glass ceiling" boundary
	Earth	experience, engagement, embodiment, enaction, embedding	metaphor, myth	T-3	highest	higher order topologies	highest (multi-dimensional mathematics)	highest (integrative symbols)

The pattern serves to highlight the increasing degree of difficulty in representation of what can only be meaningfully comprehended in practice through the experiences by which it is embodied. At best this comprehension can be indicated by symbols with whose form the intuition may resonate.

The suggestion in the table of cognitive "glass ceiling" effects serves to highlight the current strategic challenge of achieving "buy in" to action on any strategic problem. The associated subjective engagement is beyond the scope of conventional articulation, whether by science or politics. It is partially addressed by "public relations" and "image management" techniques -- despite the lack of credibility of such modalities to "people of the earth", grounded in experience of the broken promises offered by the "people of the air".

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