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11th November 2011 | Draft
Mapping Paralysis and Tokenism in the Face of Potential Global DisasterWhy nobody is about to do anything effective
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The method used here is an adaptation of that presented in greater detail in the previous exercise (Map of Systemic Interdependencies None Dares Name: 12-fold challenge of global life and death, 2011). Here the outcome of the process is presented above, It derived from the information presented in summary form in Figure 2, itself derived from Figure 3.
The stages of the iterative procedure have not been shown. Essentially these involved selecting and progressively refining a set of 12 clusters and grouping them in a 3x4 table -- to imply a degree of mnemonic relationship. The issue headings in Figure 2 (identical to those in Figure 3) were then distributed on the map (Figure 1). Illustrative sub-issues from Figure 3 were then added into the map.
| Figure 2: Summary of clustering of issues from Figure 3 (as presented in Figure 1) | |||
| 1. ineffectual injunction
(consensus delusion) |
4. unconsciously awaiting disaster
(non-decision making) |
7. complicit indifference |
10. blame game (fault of another) |
| 2. assumption of authority
by the ineffectual |
5. beyond human control (crisis victim mentality) |
8. inadequate attention time (too busy) |
11. palliative initiatives (tokenism) |
| 3. ineffectual asystemic dialogue (denial) |
6. cognitive benumbing (never saw it coming) |
9. indulgence in distraction displacement activity | 12. opportunistic exploitation of hubris (manipulative divide and rule) |
| Figure 3: Indication of clusters of issues and sub-issues | |
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As was the case with the previous mapping exercise, this very simple method opens the possibility for much further refinement -- potentially calling into question the clusters identified. This could mean:
Further thought could be given to:
Further consideration could be given to the "design criteria", as mentioned above:
Is-Ought problem: There is no lack of indication as to what "ought" to be done in relation to the conditions which give rise to psychic numbing. This is evident in the range of active political agendas in some degree of disagreement -- possibly of a radical nature. It has been a focus of philosophy, as summarized by Nicholas Rescher (The Strife of Systems: an essay on the grounds and implications of philosophical diversity, 1985) who concludes:
For centuries, most philosophers who have reflected on the matter have been intimidated by the strife of systems. But the time has come to put this behind us -- not the strife, that is, which is ineliminable, but the felt need to somehow end it rather than simply accept it and take it in stride.
It is similarly evident in the relation between the range of conflicting religions and their respective moral injunctions (Stephen Prothero, God Is Not One: the eight rival religions that run the world, and why their differences matter, 2010). Of particular interest is the classical articulation as the Is-Ought Problem. As originally noted by David Hume, many make claims about what ought to be on the basis of statements about what is. However, there seems to be a significant difference between descriptive statements (about what is) and prescriptive or normative statements (about what ought to be), and it is not obvious how to get from making descriptive statements to prescriptive. The is-ought problem is also known as Hume's Law and Hume's Guillotine. He expressed the concern as follows
In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary ways of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when all of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is however, of the last consequence. (A Treatise of Human Nature, 1739)
Any effort to articulate a "map" of what "is" -- such as that above -- then gives greater focus to the question of what enabling initiative "ought" to be undertaken in response to it. The issue is especially acute given that major crises tend to evoke "mega-oughts" in the form of strategic plans with which all "should" agree.
Mirror: A map of that kind might be fruitfully understood as an effort to construct a mirror -- perhaps a collective analogue to the crudest of mirrors in which the distant ancestors of humanity first peered at themselves in the mirrors offered by nature (pools of water, etc). Recognition in a mirror, as in the mirror test of self-awareness, offers a sense of "is". However the "sight" then raises the question of what to do about it -- of what "ought" to be done about it. Ironically, if only phonetically in English, the plethora of web "sites", suggests that each is both a form of portal on reality as well as performing the function of a mirror.
The mirror metaphor is widely used in relation to cognitive and epistemological paradoxes, notably by Eastern traditions. Its fundamental role in Western traditions, beyond "reflection" on personal identity, is in "speculation" on the basis of what "is" held to be the condition of reality -- as with respect to the global financial market. It is formally evident in the speculative dimension of futures research. Imaginative fiction offers a possibility of "stepping into" a mirror which suggests a way of responding to a mirror -- such as that articulated above as a map (Stepping into, or through, the Mirror: embodying alternative scenario patterns, 2008).
A mirror-map is then a prerequisite for self-reflexive initiatives, as separately discussed (Consciously Self-reflexive Global Initiatives: Renaissance zones, complex adaptive systems, and third order organizations, 2007). This then raises the question of the meaning of cognitive embodiment in relation to what is considered "ought" to be (Embodiment of Change: Comprehension, Traction and Impact? Discovering enabling questions for the future, 2011). Self-reflective "embodiment" is itself suggestive of a hypothetical "mirror-test" that extraterrestrials might apply to humanity (Self-reflective Embodiment of Transdisciplinary Integration (SETI): the universal criteria of species maturity? 2008). Their question might be whether humanity was capable of recognizing its own nature in the environment of which it has made such a total mess. There is every indication that it cannot.
Transformative change: An Urgent Appeal to Change the Mindset (March 2011) appears to been a consequence of the International Forum for Climate Justice (Cancun, 2010) and its "alternative" Cancún Declaration with the slogan: Let's change the system, not the planet -- as discussed previously (From Changing the Strategic Game to Changing the Strategic Frame: missing cognitive possibility in changing the system not the planet, 2010).
Whether "ought" is focused on "changing the system" or on "changing the mindset", the challenge of the variety of perspectives on these matters remains. Both might be caricatured as highly ambitious "oughts" -- as "mega-oughts". One response, following from the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio de Janeiro, 1992), has been the less ambitious "think globally, act locally", used earlier in relation to the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm, 1972). In anticipation of the Rio+20 event (United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio de Janeiro, 1992), the question is whether that has proven to be sufficient. One effort to "mirror" those early reflections was unsuccessful (Configuring Globally and Contending Locally: shaping the global network of local bargains by decoding and mapping Earth Summit inter-sectoral issues, 1992).
The argument here is that a "micro-ought" with a higher probability of enabling new forms of change -- including "changing the mindset" -- requires a better "mirror" capable of reflecting the collective characteristics of human nature inhibiting any strategies to "change to the system". One approach has been offered by Joël de Rosnay (The Macroscope: a new world scientific system, 1979) as the detection of patterns of larger systems (by analogy with the microscope). Understanding at the micro-level may offer guidance to understanding of systems of a larger scale. This approach was a stimulus to the study of Luc de Brabandère (Le Latéroscope: systèmes et créativité, 1989; The Forgotten Half of Change: achieving greater creativity through changes in perception, 2005).
How best to reflect -- and "re-cognize" -- the factors inhibiting remedial action, as previously discussed (Recognizing the Psychosocial Boundaries of Remedial Action, 2009)? Especially challenging is the extent to which looking into such a mirror may be "psychically hazardous" -- as discussed with the respect to the implications of overpopulation (Overpopulation Debate as a Psychosocial Hazard: development of safety guidelines from handling other hazardous materials, 2009).
High-tech "mirrors": There is a high degree of irony associated with such a "micro-ought" in that humanity is investing considerable resources on a global scale in constructing multiple high-tech "mirrors" -- in the form of radio telescopes (see list of over one hundred). Given the level of crisis on the planet, this indulgence in mega-science can readily be interpreted as displacement activity on the most massive scale. As noted in commenting on a previous exercise (Mind Map of Global Civilizational Collapse: why nothing is happening in response to global challenges, 2011), these initiatives include:
Many are presented as global initiatives aimed to provide answers to fundamental questions about the origin and evolution of the Universe -- curiously justified as a "mega-ought". As with use of the Wide Field Camera 3 of the Hubble Space Telescope to inspect objects 11 million light years from Earth, it may be asked whether there are equivalent initiatives capable of gathering and resolving psychosocial conditions on Earth -- with a view to understanding the nature of future evolution of human society, given its present crisis of crises.
Exploiting an astrophysical metaphor, it is extraordinary that extensive research has been undertaken on the origin and lifecycle of stars, whereas little of significance has been achieved regarding the formation and lifecycle of global strategic initiatives. There is no "Herzsprung-Russell diagram" mapping such evolution in terms of any equivalent to "luminosity" and "temperature". How many current global strategic initiatives might have been been usefully described as "red giants" or "brown dwarfs". Might the "European project" be on track to becoming the latter (whether or not ITER enables sustainable fusion)?
How would the following widely-publicized, but "short-lived", strategic initiative appear on such a diagram:
When exhausted European leaders emerged from all-night negotiations in Brussels last month with a "comprehensive" plan to claw the euro back from the abyss, they could have had no inkling that, less than a fortnight later, it would have so comprehensively collapsed.... If the week began with a sense of limbo, it rapidly spun into chaos (The week that Europe stumbled to the brink of disaster… and stopped, The Guardian, 13 November 2011)
In an effort to construct what might be interpreted to be an Earth-pointing "mirror", a "Living Earth Simulator" (of the FuturIcT EU research initiative) is planned -- a 10 year 1 billion EUR program "to explore social life on earth and everything it relates to" (Social Supercomputing Is Now, Science News Online, 26 May 2010). Similarly the US government is undertaking an effort to enable social scientists to mine the vast resources of the Internet -- web searches and Twitter messages, Facebook and blog posts, the digital location trails generated by billions of cellphones -- combining mathematics and psychology to predict the future (John Markoff, Government Aims to Build a ‘Data Eye in the Sky', The New York Times, 10 October 2011).
The question is whether such initiatives will offer more comprehensible maps of relevance to governance than those of the Limits to Growth project in 1972. If they do not, will the simulations be able to show why not -- in the light of issues discussed separately (Considering All the Strategic Options: whilst ignoring alternatives and disclaiming cognitive protectionism? 2009)? Will they be able to generate more fruitful maps than that above?
Will such exercises be able "explain" the deprecation of the relevance of such mirroring initiatives to governance, as reviewed by Graham Turner (A Comparison of the Limits to Growth with Thirty Years of Reality, 2007)? Will they be able to take account of the sociopathological issues raised from a cybernetic perspective by Maurice Yolles, et al. (Toward a formal theory of socioculture: a yin-yang information-based theory of social change. Kybernetes, 2008)? What are the implications of despair for global governance (Implication of Personal Despair in Planetary Despair, 2010)?
Whilst the capacity to determine what "is" may increase, it necessarily fails to address the manner in which the methodology and biases of different detection systems offer different explanations of what "is" -- as indicated above by Nicholas Rescher. The processes of detection seemingly ignore the challenge of reconciling what is detected -- the unresolved challenge of transdisciplinarity (potentially to be identified as a "mega-ought" in its own right). More problematic is that, to the extent that the new psychosocial data mining initiatives detect different understandings of what "ought" to be, again the challenge of their reconciliation is ignored. This is exemplified by the above-mentioned arguments of Stephen Prothero (God Is Not One: the eight rival religions that run the world, and why their differences matter, 2010).
A fundamental theory of physics may be similarly exploited as a metaphor, namely quantum mechanics. It is extraordinary in a time of crisis regarding what "is" on a planet riven by faith-based conflict that a current account of this theory by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw (The Quantum Universe, 2011) includes a description of the world revealed by physics as being:
A reality that would be impossible to imagine, even for the possessor of the most tortured and surreal imagination.
The authors make it clear that science "is not mandated to produce a theory that bears any relation to the way we perceive the world at large". With respect to the worldview they reveal, the authors note that "it is the resistance to new ideas that leads to confusion, not the inherent difficulty of the ideas."
Physicists have deep faith in that worldview, despite its apparently complete lack of psychosocial relevance. Given the legitimacy accorded such a mindset, it becomes difficult to question the strange strategic preferences of other groups (Cultivating Global Strategic Fantasies of Choice, 2010).
Rosetta Stone? There is as yet no Rosetta Stone for the "oughts" any more than there is one for the various assertions of what "is". As noted above, this is the preoccupation of several previous explorations:
It remains incredible that the level of technical complexity recognized as absolutely necessary to study "the origins of the Universe" does not suggest that an equivalent degree of complexity might well be required to provide an integrative understanding of the strategic issues required for governance of the world.
It is a valid concern that the proposed simulations and data mining exercises are designed primarily to serve security preoccupations, without developing means of eliciting more fruitful strategies, as previously argued (From ECHELON to NOLEHCE: enabling a strategic conversion to a faith-based global brain, 2007). A step in that direction has been previously described (Simulating a Global Brain: using networks of international organizations, world problems, strategies, and values, 2001).
Encompassing differences: It is useful to explore the investment in radio telescopes as a source of design inspiration according to the potential of technomimicry, as discussed separately (Technomimicry as analogous to biomimicry, 2011). It is for example significant that the preoccupation in telescope design is augmenting the capacity to resolve distant detail. Whereas governance is primarily focused on proximate, highly visible phenomena, astrophysics offers justification for designs capable of detecting the phenomena distant in both space and time -- presumably to provide a coherent understanding of the system in which the planet is embedded.
Of relevance as a powerful metaphor, this calls for imaginative designs in unusual locations. The designs may involve the coordinated use of an extensive array of focusing "mirrors" (Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI)) -- even dispersed across continents, as with the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA). Remote high altitude locations are typically sought -- even orbital locations, as with the Hubble Telescope. Sophisticated optical or electronic systems are developed to detect significant patterns in the data. Great attention is devoted to locating unusual objects.
Such criteria contrast significantly with those considered appropriate with respect to issues of governance -- security preoccupations excepted. Anomalies are immediately framed as irrelevant and unworthy of further consideration. The argument is curiously exemplified by the preoccupation with detection of distant "life" supporting planets. The fact that some on Earth are able to live under highly improbable conditions in "remote" locations is not worthy of comparable attention (Living as an Imaginal Bridge between Worlds: Global implications of "betwixt and between" and liminality, 2011). It is questionable whether the notion of a "long baseline" is considered meaningful since it implies integrating data "from another perspective" -- from one or more "alternative" perspectives. This is inherently challenging (Us and Them: Relating to Challenging Others, 2009).
A similar point could be made with respect to the number of objects in the universe to which astrophysics is sensitive -- including the remotest. These are variously estimated to number from 3 to 100 × 1022 organized in more than 80 billion galaxies. This sensitivity compares curiously with the current preoccupations of governance with the population of the planet -- 7 billion and growing -- with each body composed of from 50 to 75 trillion cells.
The following are presented as being understood as the "strategic safety net" by which the challenges of global governance are contained. The concern is the manner in which that safety net proves to be inadequate in practice, thereby enabling the emergence of a crisis of crises. It is in the nature of crises to "fall through the safety net". According to one of the principles of systemantics, a fail safe system -- like a "safety net" -- fails by failing to fail safe.
Very Important People: It is the VIPs who are to be understood as most responsible for articulating strategies of relevance to global governance. The significance as a source of inspiration to the world of governance -- of the celebrity MIPs ("most important people"?) -- can be recognized in the keynote speaker fees paid to those such as Bill Clinton and Tony Blair (Hiring Motivational and Keynote Speakers, Global Speaker Force, 15 July 2010; Why Speakers Earn $30,000 an Hour: confessions of a public speaker). It is they who bring the "magic" to inspire others -- in the light of their own past experience. Their challenge is that it is they who can now be seen to have demonstrated a high degree of incompetence and negligence in enabling the emergence of the current crisis of crises -- or failing to act in anticipation of its emergence. Their challenge now is what to provide as inspiration in response to the current crisis of crises in the light of their previous involvement and learnings
It is of course the case that each VIP would be able to claim any of the following, that:
Essentially VIPs would employ many of the issues clustered on the map (Figure 1) to dissociate themselves from responsibility. More interesting than these arguments is the fact that VIPs would seem to avoid seeking clearer recognition of the information to which they are exposed (or not) and from which they are expected to draw strategic conclusions. More specifically there is the question of why little effort was made:
It is within this context that a crisis of crises has effectively emerged -- "from nowhere" -- as a surprise to VIPs. This is currently most evident in the worldwide protests against the past patterns of governance with which VIPs have been complicit (Arab Spring, the Occupy movement, etc). With respect to the message of the latter (to the 1% from the 99%), this might be seen as a message to the 1% of VIPs from the 99% who are not.
In a world whose preoccupations are primarily economic, this suggests the merit of reflecting on "importance" and of what is "imported" by VIPs. As a necessary systemic correspondence, there is then the question of the neglected "VEPs", namely the "Very Exportant Persons". What is it that VIPs "import" from VEPs: trust, attention, support, resources? Might the crisis of crises be usefully seen as an "imbalance of trade" -- an "export-import imbalance" in which the VIPs have imported excessively. This would invite comparison with the Western trade imbalance with developing countries -- and imbalance between those who have traditionally defined themselves as "important" in contrast with those framed as "unimportant", from whom resources could be extracted. Within that comparison, of interest is the extent to which the VIPs establish strong barriers to "exports" from VEPs (from the 99%) -- exemplified by the attempt of the 99% to send messages to the 1%. Are the VEPs then to be understood as engaging in "dumping" on VIPs?
As in tales of wartime subsequently told to grandchildren, it may appropriately be asked how a VIP will respond when asked: "Grandpa, what did you do as the crisis of crises was emerging?"
Very Important Principles: It is of course the VIPs who have enabled the articulation of such principles, supposedly in the interest of the VEPs and with their support. It is of course curious that principles such as those articulated in the Universal Declaration if Human Rights seem to be upheld so questionably by VIPs, as has been only too evident in relation to issues of economic justice, discrimination and torture. More curious is the manner in which some principles are presented as of greater importance than others, thereby justifying the questionable priority attention accorded to them. This has been evident in the case of "security".
A case can be made for the use of such principles as a means to reframe strategic priorities, as is evident in promoting the politics and culture of fear (Promoting a Singular Global Threat -- Terrorism: Strategy of choice for world governance, 2002). This might be understood as manipulative application of the Precautionary Principle.
In contrast, it is appropriate to note that no "principle" accords significance to the systemic connectivity on which the viability of a global knowledge-based civilization is now dependent. The point is most clearly articulated by Gregory Bateson (Mind and Nature: a necessary unity, 1979):
The pattern which connects is a meta-pattern. It is a pattern of patterns. It is that meta-pattern which defines the vast generalization that, indeed, it is patterns which connect.
With this he associated the cautionary comment: Break the pattern which connects the items of learning and you necessarily destroy all quality. Questions might also be fruitfully asked -- within the context of such a meta-pattern -- with regard to principles upheld as very important by some but ignored or deprecated by others.
Very Important Problems: The process whereby "problems", such as security, acquire the status of being "very important" is most curious. It is all the more curious that the status may be accorded by a dominant configuration of actors whilst being denied by some other group in favour of some other problem. The multiplicity of international groups may well be distinguished by the problems to which they give priority as being "most important". The mapping of these multiple worldviews was the purpose of the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential.
It has so far proved impossible to generate useful mappings of the thousands of problems so identified, and of the countervailing strategies proposed and adopted by those groups (Experimental Visualization of Networks -- world problems, international organizations, global strategies and human values, 2007)
Very Important Projects: It is naturally consistent with Very Important Principles that Very Important Projects should be developed and implemented with appropriate resources in response to Very Important Problems. It is in these terms that the 10-year intervention in Iraq-Afghanistan could be understood -- namely with respect to the Principle of (Homeland) Security. Similarly, the above-mentioned resources devoted to multiple telescopes follow from what might be framed as the Principle of Understanding the Origins of the Universe.
The major outcome of the above-mentioned United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio de Janeiro, 1992) was the action plan entitled Agenda 21 -- undertaken with respect to the Principle of Sustainability, thereby enshrined as a Very Important Principle, currently upheld as fundamental to global governance.
Again questions might be fruitfully asked with regard to the systemic function of the projects of the VEPs. This is especially relevant where these are necessarily "local" in contrast to "global" -- and possibly "local" in terms of their specialized focus rather than of a geographical focus.
Very Important Presentations: Vital in the promotion of the very important -- whether people, principles, projects or problems -- is the manner of their presentation and promotion. Very important presentations are typically those so defined by the scope and budget of the associated media campaign. Presentations may well be evaluated as "important" in the light of their impact.
In the light of this argument, of concern is the relative lack of importance associated with presentations which achieve little impact -- even though their content may well prove to be of potentially vital relevance. Unfortunately this tends to be the case with problematic issues which subsequently emerge as "surprises", most notably if they are associated with catastrophes. Typical well-documented examples include the marginalized reports providing prior warning of vulnerability to tsunamis, flooding, earthquakes and nuclear accidents.
The map above can indeed be seen as disempowering and psychically numbing in its own right. It can be contrasted with the integrative inspiration provided by the archetypal "rose window", or other equivalents of sacred architecture and religious iconography. In their various forms, notably as the mandala or yantra, the latter have been extensively studied to provide indications as to how they "work".
Equivalents of a more problematic nature are to be found in the form of sigils and the like, traditionally used in symbolic magic (in grimoires, for example) -- notably in a process of cognitive enthralment. As noted above, a current issue of The Economist has compared the experience to one of Staring into the Abyss (12 November 2011).
Attention could therefore be usefully devoted to the manner in which "rose windows" work to "motivate", especially in an increasingly secular society for which they may indeed be "demotivating". Corresponding attention is required to the manner in which maps of the problematique effectively demotivate, or may motivate in unsuspected ways, notably for those who respond to such challenges. In the simplest of public relations terms, how is the problematique to be depicted and how are motivational possibilities to be catalyzed? The issue of eliciting energized initiatives is of obvious concern at a time of compassion fatigue.
The nature of these maps may be suggested through various metaphors:
There is a case for a systematic ordering of initiatives understood as a response to the despair engendered by the map above:
| Circular configuration of "Thinking/Doing" categories | |
| Figure 4: Superimposition of
indicative labels for Thinking and Doing [original enlarged version] |
Figure 5: Clarifying relationship to the dynamics of Resolutique, Imaginatique, Problematique and Irresolutique [original enlarged version] |
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| Figures 6: Tentative indication of interdependencies between thinking/doing initiatives (of Figures 4 and 5) [original enlarged version] |
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There is a case for experimenting with a "spun" version of Figure 1 as a suggestive indication of how the dynamics of the factors play against each other to engender a vortex -- exacerbated by information "spin". Understood in terms of "twist", such a representation is a reminder that the challenges of remedial initiatives, and the apathy which they may arouse, calls for a more complex perspective as previously argued (Engaging with Questions of Higher Order: cognitive vigilance required for higher degrees of twistedness, 2004).
This would be consistent with the argument and images presented separately (Monkeying with Global Governance, 2011), as a means of rendering explicit the nature of the "blame-game" (Reframing "monkeying" in terms of Knight's move patterns, 2011). The toroidal nature of this spin factor was considered separately with other images (Implication of Toroidal Transformation of the Crown of Thorns: design challenge to enable integrative comprehension of global dynamics, 2011).
The introduction cited the frustrated editorial of the New Scientist (22 October 2011), under the heading What are we waiting for?, and noted its conclusion:
Perhaps the greatest unknown, then, is how to persuade people to act today to help protect their long-term future, not to mention future generations. One more thing is certain: only science can reveal how our plant can provide a decent home for billions of people without toppling over the precipice.
The comment above on that statement argued that:
The challenge for science is to come to grips with the nature of the pressures with which it is seemingly complicit in failing to name and describe the systemic behavioural dynamics through which sensitive issues are avoided... If it is indeed "time to act", there is a case for factoring into "research" why action is currently so effectively inhibited.... A degree of reflexivity, consistent with third order cybernetics, would seem to be called for.
The "scientific" question is why "science" is seemingly unable to apply its methodology to such matters. Why is it unable to articulate modalities enabling it to engage meaningfully with what it considers "irrational"? In the following issue, containing a Special Report: Unscientific America -- a dangerous retreat from reason (New Scientist, 29 October 2011), the lead editorial complained that:
...the tone and content of some recent political debate in the US is so disquieting. When candidates for the highest office in the land appear to spurn reason, embrace anecdote overscientific evidence, and even portray scientists as the perpetrators of a massive hoax, there is reason to worry. Fortunately, there is no reason to panic... If you look through the lens of history or apply a scientific approach, however, logical explanations for these apparently perverse positions emerge.... So let's do all we can to ensure that the nation's leaders embrace science -- whatever their political persuasion.
The concluding sentence is indicative of the degree to which "science" is unable to place itself self-reflexively in context, and -- as is typical of cricitism of religion -- places itself "above" the psychosocial process from which it seeks funding and adherents. It is effectively constituting itself as a religion seeking to proselytize and draw others into its faith. There is no systemic understanding of the variety of faiths, each claiming a unique insight into "truth".
At the time of a fundamental crisis of confidence in the financial system, there is a degree of recognition that, rather than the classic statement "it's the economy, stupid", it is now a case of "it's confidence, stupid" -- as argued previously (In Quest of Sustainability as Holy Grail of Global Governance, 2011). Many aspects of the scientific method also accord particular attention to degrees of "confidence" in interpreting evidence.
There is a case for applying such thinking to the debates in which scientists engage with others -- or in rendering explicit why this is not done when confidence in "science" is not what scientists would wish. The arguments of statistician V. V. Nalimov regarding the probabilistic theory of truth merit consideration, for example (Realms of the Unconscious: the enchanted frontier, 1982). The increasingly plaintive and defensive arguments by scientists are unworthy of the methodology, potentially heralding its demise (End of Science: the death knell as sounded by the Royal Society, 2008).
Given the fundamental role of confidence and belief, the challenge would seem to be the application of disciplined self-reflexivity to understanding the paralysis and tokenism associated with strategic challenges. This is consistent with the need for new styles of cognitive organization appropriate to the emerging context (Consciously Self-reflexive Global Initiatives: Renaissance zones, complex adaptive systems, and third order organizations, 2007). Preoccupation with confidence perceived as mistaken can be fruitfully challenged by generalizing the "theology" of which science complains. It could then be understood as the study and organization of belief, as separately argued (Mathematical Theology: Future Science of Confidence in Belief -- self-reflexive global reframing to enable faith-based governance, 2011). The reframing is consistent with the expectation that people should have faith in science.
The problematic "unscientific" quality of dialogue between disciplines, schools of thought and belief systems is indicative of the need to apply subtler relational insights, which mathematics and physics so readily explore, to the relationships between "zones of confidence" and "frames of reference". Is there a case for recognizing a degree of leigtimacy to the perspective of non-scientists that quantum mechanics is "irrational"?
As an example, is there then a need for a "periodic table" to organize the array of cognitive modalities (Tuning a Periodic Table of Religions, Epistemologies and Spirituality: including the sciences and other belief systems, 2007; Periodic Pattern of Human Knowing: implication of the Periodic Table as metaphor of elementary order, 2009)? Given the challenge of the relationships between distinct (and evolving) frames of reference, and in the spirit of technomimicry (as mentioned above), are there no insights to be derived from the theory of relativity (Einstein's Implicit Theory of Relativity -- of Cognitive Property? Unexamined influence of patent office procedures, 2007)?
It is curious that it is so readily assumed that the simpler modes of knowing are all that is appropriate to the strategic challenges of the future. The inequalities and inconsistencies so evident in current global organization -- currently highlighted by the Occupy movement -- call for engagement in new and paradoxical cognitive modalities. An excellent example is provided by the preoccupations of Douglas Hofstadter (Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, 1979; Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: computer models of the fundamental mechanisms of thought, 1995; I Am a Strange Loop, 2007). These suggest new modes of psychosocial organization comnsistent with the need to engage the imagination in new ways (Sustaining a Community of Strange Loops: comprehension and engagement through aesthetic ring transformation, 2010).
With respect to the "poem" above, caricaturing the challenge of responsibility for "Everybody" in a global setting, the current annual question asked by The Edge World Question Center (What Scientific Concept Would Improve Everybody's Cognitive Toolkit?, 2011) then merits considerable attention -- in the light of the 159 responses.
World "dangerously unprepared" for future disasters The world is "dangerously unprepared" for future disasters because rich nations are not doing enough, warns the international development secretary. Andrew Mitchell blames the failure of several countries to pay into the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF).
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Charles Handy:
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