Configuring Conceptual Polarities in Questing: metaphoric pointers to self-reflexive coherence

Discusses use of various sets of metaphors to in providing a sense of coherence.

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The following exercise in thinking about thinking is an effort to identify a higher degree of order in the set of papers produced by the author in the period from 1962-2004 (as discussed separately in Self-reflexive Learnings from Writing, 2004). As a preliminary, the papers have been separately ordered by a set of value polarities which they may implicitly address (see Distinguishing Emergent Conceptual Polarities: experimental ordering of a collection of research papers, 2004)

This is seen as suggesting a methodology that could be applied to other bodies of work. The set of polarities is explored here, as a challenge to comprehension, through a set of complementary metaphors that may usefully point to the nature of that higher order. The metaphors are then used to clarify the nature and intent of the writing process itself.

The set of polarities identified (see Distinguishing Emergent Conceptual Polarities: experimental ordering of a collection of research papers, 2004) raises the question of whether there is any useful way of understanding their significance as a set, notably through the use of metaphor. In the light of arguments elsewhere, it is assumed that no single metaphor is sufficient and that what is required is a set of complementary metaphors that can together point to various forms of coherence that may order the set of polarities. It is also assumed here that the set of metaphors should be of requisite variety.

• Exercise bars: Each polarity may be thought of as an exercise or trapeze bar (or perch). This holds the tendency to move from emphasizing one position to another position (between bars) or to shift in relation to the polarity (along the bar, from one end to another). Sets of bars are typical of bird and other cages (and are called monkey bars in children's playgrounds). In the wild, branches of trees offer analogous experience. The challenge in the design of any cage is to provide a sufficient variety of bars and perches to keep the animals occupied and to allow for territorial and other forms of behaviour. (??Atkin)
  
  
• Containers (cages and baskets): The polarities may also be understood as constituting the bars of a cage, or the fencing posts of a stockade, that prevent an animal from escaping. The cage may also be designed as a trap, notably as identified by Geoffrey Vickers ("A trap is a function of the nature of the trapped"). Designs tend to have a circular plan formation (stockades) or a spherical three-dimensional form (cages). This metaphor holds the sense of difficulty in escaping from the set of polarities that define behaviour and attitude. Certain forms of basket, made from weaving reeds, give a sense of the potential complexity of the interrelationship between the polarities -- to the point of obscuring completely any perspective beyond the container, in part through focusing attention on the aesthetic design of the container. (see also The Future of Comprehension: conceptual birdcages and functional basket-weaving, 1980)
  
  
• Containers (shelters): The simplest shelters (including huts, teepees and yurts) are combinations of interlinked or interwoven poles to which some covering is added to seal the shelter from the elements. Structured as a stockade, the shelter may be primarily designed for protection against external dangers (animals, enemies). Shelters may also take the form of boats (or arks) to provide a means of transport and the ability to survive flooding. This holds the need for a protected environment in which more delicate and vulnerable processes can occur.
  
  
• Containers (unstable contents): Some containers, such as "magnetic bottles", use features of polarization to retain substances that would be denatured by contact with conditions beyond the container walls. Magnetic bottles are used to contain plasma under high pressures and temperatures in order to achieve nuclear fusion. Magnetic polarization effects are used dynamically to prevent the plasma from coming into contact with the walls of the bottle by which it would be quenched. In effect they function like a kind of spherical stockade. This holds the sense that transcendental insights cannot be identified with polarized awareness.
  
  
• Dynamic protection: The disciplines of some forms of protective behaviour, exemplified by the quarterstaff, constantly reposition a single pole to ward off attack -- or as an instrument of attack. Operationally this dynamic is somewhat analogous to the function of a magnetic bottle in that the quarterstaff is then effectively redefined by the positions and angles at which it is successively placed, and how it is held, to constitute a protective shield or container for the wielder (see discussion in Evoking Authenticity: through polyhedral global configuration of local paradoxes, 2003). Here the multiplicity of poles in the previous metaphors is replaced by the dynamic redefinition of the function of the quarterstaff as a kind of archetypal polarity. This holds the understanding that polarization, in the abstract, may manifest perceptibly in a variety of settings in response to circumstances.
  
  
• Antenna array: The detection of very faint signals of significance, from afar, can be achieved by configuring wires over a -- possibly extensive -- array of poles. The array as a whole serves as a means of detecting and focusing the signal -- bringing it to a central point. This metaphor holds the sense in which it is not any specific polarity that is of greatest interest, or the configuration as such, but the manner in which they collectively capture elusive signals relating to another order of meaning. There is a degree of detachment from the tangible features and patterning of the array.
  
  
• Polyhedral tensegrity: Such structures, constituted by poles and strings interlinked to form a spherically symmetrical polyhedron (in which the poles do not touch), combines features of several of the above. It has the form of a container, similar to a cage. Suitably covered it may be used as a shelter (as with geodesic domes). The many differently angled poles could be seen as a static representation of the many defensive positions of a quarterstaff (as noted above with respect to dynamic protection, especially since the integrity of the tensegrity derives from its characteristic structural dynamics). As a metaphor it holds, at a high level of articulation, a configured dynamic relationship between polarities -- constituting a three-dimensional map.
  
  
• Geometric patterns: Such patterns are extensively used in the decoration of sacred buildings, notably in the case of mosques.
  
  
• Musical instruments: Many musical instruments depend on the interrelationship between pole-type features (gongs) and strings (guitars), notably including the wind harp. This metaphor holds the sense in which sets of polarities, in one form or another, may be "played", most simply as illustrated by plucked strings emitting different notes depending on their length and where they are plucked.
  
  
• Codification systems: A number of notation and coding systems are based on the configuration of rods, possibly of different type, notably as in the case of the I Ching.

As a set, or progression, the above metaphors might be considered as primitive equivalent to the renowned Zen ox-herding pictures -- as exemplifying the evolving relationship of containment and identity. Such metaphors point towards processes of insight capture (discussed below) as suggested by:

• grammatical forms as thought containers, in the light of the conceptual "storage" function performed by nouns and verbs
• constructs or complexes as providing "sites" (in the molecular sense) to hold particular insights and perspectives
• the definition or delineation of particular conceptual spaces as "fields" of study or concern, raising questions about the distinct processes that occur in different fields
• the manner in which fields are fenced off and separated from one another by "boundaries" to the point of constituting "territories" and evoking territorial behaviour
• the cross-disciplinary and associative connections between fields in terms of "pathways" and other, possibly more structured, routes -- including notions of an information "highway" and the potential of hyperlinks in a semantic web
• the manner in which conceptual territory may be "owned" and "possessed" as "property"
• the relative importance attached to particular fields due to their relative location (recalling the real estate adage of "location, location, location")
• the insights of self-reflexiveness in which internal and external realities mirror each other (see Mark Pendergrast. Mirror, Mirror: A History of the Human Love Affair with Reflection, 2004)
• the embodiment of complex conceptual structures (in the sense of Francisco Varela et al.

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