18 March 2009
| Draft
Metaphorical Geometry in Quest of Globality
in response to global governance challenges
- / -
Produced on the occasion of the G20 Summit (London, 2009)
Summary of Engaging
with Globality -- through cognitive lines, circlets, crowns or holes (2009)
and its detailed discussion of the cognitive implications of Dimension
1: Cognitive
Realignment: making points and aligning a target; Dimension
2: Cognitive
Circlets: learning/action cycles; Dimension 3: Cognitive
Crowns: all-encompassing, well-rounded experience; Dimension
4: Knowing
Thyself: embodying engagement with otherness
There is a curious embodiment in common metaphorical phrases of seemingly
fundamental intuitive understanding relating to globality -- expressed in
terms of abstract geometrical forms. The current international focus of efforts
to "fix" the global financial system is through an approach of
dimensionality inadequate to the complexity it represents -- if only in terms
of the metaphors used to communicate the challenge. The "initiatives",
that are "targeted"
on sectors, within a global "plan" are best described in terms
of Dimension 1 and Dimension 2 in the table below. The "global" challenge
is best understood in terms of Dimension 3. Unfortunately the kinds of initiatives
currently conceived (whether of Dimension 1, Dimension 2 or Dimension 3)
fail to take into account cumulative dynamic effects (typically vigorously
denied). These can only be recognized in terms of Dimension 4.
"Higher" dimensions to the right are:
- associated with greater, longer-term value/worth, but more amorphous/intangible,
- less precisely measureable or communicable
- more challenging to understanding and associated with greater metaporical
impoverishment
- only potentially implicit in
those to the left (as the "sparkle" or "glow" associated with the latter)
Indicative array
of geometrically-based metaphors
Presented as a tentative sketch, recognizing that distinctions made are
not absolute.
Content might overlap between cells of the array
Each row could be split in two, indicative of functional and dysfunctional
possibilities |
| . |
Dimension 1
point and line |
Dimension 2
area and circle |
Dimension 3
globe (and polyhedral approximations to a sphere) |
Dimension 4
torus, Klein bottle,
etc |
| geometry |
shooting a line, lining up support, bottom line, deadline, in line
with our thinking, stepping over the line, holding the line
bullet points (aligned)
wrong end of stick
polarization
pillarization, stakeholders
|
planning, in the plan, according to plan
orbiting around an axis,
innovation (R&D) cycle
business cycles
fashion cycles
left-right politics
circling the wagons
|
interlocking:
--
feedback loops
-- metabolic pathways
-- ecosystemic cycles |
complexity
chaos
dynamic systems
uncertainty
ambiance
paradox
|
| product |
making a point
scoring a goal, hitting the target
making a profit
lending/borrowing |
balancing the budget |
package/portfolio of spread risk
dividend, share value,
worth
|
? |
| strategy |
target/goal (development, or environment, or growth)
"you are with us or against us" |
reconciliation of strategic dilemmas (sustainable development) |
recognition of constraints (resource overshoot, climate change) |
mirroring, self-reflexivity, "them is us" |
governance
(leadership) |
ruler (ensuring the alignment of followers) |
encompasser
encircler |
englober
embodier
engager |
reflexor, reflector
rekleiner, enkleiner
recliner, incliner, encliner, enminder |
governance
(guidance) |
rules
directives
regulations |
harmonization
adjusting to cycles (serendipitous or
vicious)
feedback loops |
systemic configurations of interlocking
cycles
orchestration |
psychoactive engagement; identification,
immersion;
holomovement; entrainment, appreciation |
| bonding |
relationships, links, contacts, well-connected |
circle of contacts, peers, friends (trust, confidence)
hemicycle plenary debating chamber |
community of peers (friends, etc)
"our world",
dynamically gated communities |
self-community relationship
(school shootings, scapegoating, etc) |
| outcome |
globality as the light at the end of the tunnel (scoring,
killing) action/initiative |
globality encircled by the process work/exploitative cycles
laurel leaf "clasp" |
"self-regulation" |
unexpected consequences,
surprises |
| action |
initiative
career path |
work/family (im)balance
experiential cycles (daily, weekly, annual, life), work/recreation (im)balance |
health, maturity,
well-rounded,
gravitas |
wisdom, psychological health,
senility, "screwed-up", perverted
needs |
| conformity |
running around with sticks
(batons, rockets, skyscrapers) |
ensuring submission to the plan (singing from the same hymn "sheet")
budget (spreadsheet), input-output analysis
grid planning |
wrap into a concept "package"
image,
label |
? |
| communication |
text(ing) |
video(ing)
image
map, systems diagram |
blogosphere, cyberspace, Facebook, YouTube |
meaning? |
| discourse |
comment
aphorism, truism
question |
story/plot, narrative |
sets of folk tales (Nasrrudin, Aesop),
108 Upanishads |
? |
| technology |
message (LinkedIn, Plaxo)
individual feedback in response to general message (asymmetric communication)
propaganda, televised "fireside chats" |
message plus feedback (symmetric communication) |
resonance ("bell")
knowledge cybernetics
|
? |
| innovation |
idea, innovation |
property, copyright
territory |
body of knowledge |
? |
emotion
value |
consume, excrete, greed, want, grasp, ambition, desire |
give and take
checks and balances |
worth, respect, honour, dignity |
self-esteem, self-worth, self-respect, sense of (in)dignity |
| maths |
linear equation (providing for velocity and accelaration)
along a line |
curves approximating to a circle (and velocity and accdelration
around it) |
curves describing spherical volumes (and approximations
to them) |
complex equations such as those on which the development
of financial derivatives were based |
| references |
Getting
to Yes (1981) |
Hannah B. Higgins (The Grid Book,
2009), Thomas
L. Friedman's The
World Is Flat (2005)
disagreement? |
book? dymaxion
map
unity in diversity? |
wisdom literature? |
| brains |
"Brain 1" |
"Brain 2" |
"Brain 3" |
"Brain 4" |
This table is
itself an example of a Dimension 2 grid --
posing the challenge of how to comprehend it as a whole (globally),
to enfold it, and embody it |
***
Notes:
Laurel leaf "clasp": the
logos of the UN and its UN Specialized Agencies, for example, have a
partially encircling laurel wreath -- "clasping" a sphere (necessarily
in two dimensions, with one "side" hidden)
Plenary debating chamber: these frequently
take the form of hemicycles,
as in various parliaments. Geometrically, they lend themsleves to comparison
with a torc (and, perhaps
only as a mnemonic indicator, to "talk" as a homophone).
Brains: Antonio de Nicolas (Neurobiology,
Communities, Religion: A Bio-Cultural Study, 1998) focuses on
the biocultural implications of the five brains of humans: reptilian,
limbic, right and left hemispheres, and the "interpreter module". These
brains function either independently or in harmony, either as dictators
or as balanced multiplicity, either as a democracy or as victims, and
thus there is still room for further human development. They develop
progressively and successively through childhood, although the development
of any of them be inhibited and stunted. They also have their cultural
counter-parts:
Thus we know of ancient cultures as being maia types, since the
brain serving as the "pilot" was primarily the reptilian, as in the child
after birth; or mythos types, since they primarily developed the
limbic brain, as in children between the ages of one to eleven; or right
brain mimetic, since they acted on the language of images of the right
hemisphere of the neocortex, as in children between the age of four and
fifteen (magicians, leaders, the demiurge); or left brain mimetic (theoreticians,
ideologues, theologians, social scientists), since they acted primarily
from the left hemisphere of the neocortex, as in children from the age
of seven on; or logos types, those whose experiences are imageless,
experts in the creation of substitution systems, not able to deal with
any of the other forms of knowledge of the right brain hemisphere. These
biocultural types are invariant in the sense that they represent individual
and social possibilities of human realities and development, but unless
these brains are exercised they do not develop in full, or if one is socially
sanctioned over the others, then cultural imperialism and individual loss
may follow.
The challenge for individuals and communities -- and notably faith-based
communities interacting with one another -- is that they may find themselves
to be using only one of the brains, or faced with others in that condition.
In the case of the mimetic left-brain, this might give it the power of dictatorship
or the arbitrariness of an emperor-king. As noted by de Nicolas: "Imperialism
at its worst may be the result of arrested development in the culture of
the individual".
Metaphorical geometry: Relevant to the approach taken here
is the account of formal mathematics of Edmund
Husserl as summarized by Kenny
Easwaran (Husserl’s
Conceptions of Formal Mathematics, 2004) in relation to the thinking
of Kurt Gödel:
Edmund Husserl’s conception of mathematics was a unique blend of
Platonist and formalist ideas. He believed that mathematics had reached
a mixed state combining Platonic and formal elements and that both were
important for the pursuit of the sciences, as well as for each other. However,
he seemed to believe that only the Platonic aspects had significance for
his science of phenomenology
Citing Husserl, he notes
"If analogy can be any guide to method, it will act most powerfully if
we restrict ourselves to material mathematical disciplines like, for example,
geometry and accordingly ask more specifically whether a phenomenology
must be, or can be, constituted as a [material] “geometry” of
mental processes.” This
usage of the word “geometry” implies that it is still being
used to describe the science of physical space. The metaphorical ‘geometry
of mental processes’ would similarly be a science of existing objects
that we can access directly through intuition (Wesensschau), and not formally
through reasoning and axioms.
References
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