Cognitive globalization through wrap-around cages

Interweaving Thematic Threads and Learning Pathways (Part #7)

The Annex on magic carpets explores cognitive access to high dimensionality through a 2-dimensional frame of reference -- and the traces thereafter imprinted in the 'carpet' as a guide to future travel. The symmetry of such higher dimensionality is best understood as 'global' in various respects. Curiously some myths relating to any such travel concern return with a golden cage, presumably reflecting that symmetry to some degree. This provided an early inspiration for consideration of the possible cognitive implications of 'cages' and their construction (The Future of Comprehension: conceptual birdcages and functional basket-weaving, 1980).

The concern here is with how any such globality can be woven into tangible and virtual structures -- presumably aided by future evolution of the Semantic Web. An early example, emphasizing mnemotechnics, is that of the memory theatre (or memory palace). Religious temples, notably mosques, may be constructed to serve a related purpose, as with a planetarium. The latter now offer many facilities variously to 'connect the dots' such as to form identifiable constellations. at different times in the history of the solar system. An impressive new variant is the AlloSphere -- a research facility in a theatre-like pavilion in a spherical shape, of opaque material, used to project computer-generated imagery and sounds.

Following R. Buckminster Fuller, there is the possibility of constructing spherical domes, associating cognitive significance associated with its elements. Such spherical construction can also be achieved virtually with far greater flexibility, enabling a new 'polyhedral' approach to the organization of values, strategies and institutions (Towards Polyhedral Global Governance: complexifying oversimplistic strategic metaphors, 2008; Polyhedral Pattern Language: software facilitation of emergence, representation and transformation of psycho-social organization, 2008; In Quest of a Strategic Pattern Language: a new architecture of values, 2008). Of special relevance is the robustness of networks achieved by ensuring higher degrees of symmetry -- worthy of consideration with regard to the interweaving of threaded discourses (Polyhedral Empowerment of Networks through Symmetry: psycho-social implications for organization and global governance, 2008).

An effort was made to apply this approach to the configuration of the strategic issues of the 1992 Earth Summit (Configuring Strategic Dilemmas in Intersectoral Dialogue, 1992) using tensegrity structures of the kind indicated below -- effectively a weave in three dimensions..

Indication of threaded discussions interwoven as a tensegrity
in a spherical configuration with tension ensured by polarizing elements

Threaded discussions interwoven as a spherical tensegrity

The configuration of such cognitive 'golden cages' of threaded discourse raises the question of how access to wisdom is to be facilitated and enhanced in a Semantic Web environment. Some possibilities were explored in Transforming Static Websites into Mobile 'Wizdomes': enabling change through intertwining dynamic and configurative metaphors (2007), organized into the following sections:

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Cognitive globalization through wrap-around cages